#fruitmovement

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Learning to Play the Game

The best way to learn is through games. I credit Monopoly for leading me down the road of finance & analytics. Risk & chess instilled strategy from an early age.

Games offer a relaxed setting to learn valuable lessons. I picked up chess again and started from scratch. My skills are limited to beating my friends with no formal chess experience, but I noticed a few stages of progression.

Stage 1 - Thinking Ahead

In the initial stages, I learned how to think a few steps ahead. This was time-consuming as I tried to think of every possible move. Often, I was caught off-guard from an attack that took multiple moves to setup.

Stage 2 – Building Intuition

After playing a few hundred games, I became more conscious about my opponent’s movements. I reacted to their moves and developed counter strategies. One of my favorite tactics was to look at the shape of how my opponent’s pieces were laid out and identify the weak points.   

Stage 3 – Executing a Strategy

Currently, I shape the board according to my strategy. I discovered this level by thinking about how my opponent perceives the board. The challenge lies in understanding how your opponent thinks and creating a plan around their mental fallacies. Do not forget the golden rule of poker: you play the opponent, not the cards.

Connection to Life

Beyond a few sessions of sipping bourbon and playing chess with friends, how could this relate to life? Swap out chess for a technical skill, let’s say analyzing data. From the start, it’s a battle learning the technical details. Gradually you build familiarity, knowing what each data set provides and how to unlock its secrets. In later periods, you start to learn how to shape the analysis to your advantage. After learning how to execute strategies, it becomes a quest to learn better strategies or in the professional world, find better ways to utilize your skill.  

Moral of the story, what may start as a technical skill becomes intuition through repetition, eventually leading toward mastery. But the progress toward mastery is only achieved if you’re paying attention and getting the reps.

Bonus

[fruitmovement-blog]

Day 9: The Art of Storytelling

Everyone Has A Story

Podcast: The James Altucher Show

Author: James Altucher

Episode 249: Chris Anderson: TED  - Tricks to Mastering Public Speaking and Storytelling

I grew up listening to bedtime stories, read by my father. Sometimes it was a hero on a mission, or a protagonist that befalls misfortune. Sometimes it ended happily ever after or left unresolved. These stories fascinated me. I wanted to be a great storyteller. 

In this podcast, James Altucher and Chris Anderson discuss the elements of a story and why storytelling is a relevant skill. One of the first points they make is that everyone has a story. 

Stories are meant to be entertaining and amusing, but the true gift of a story is to share an idea. In early days, human beings communicated dangerous plants, places to avoid, or lessons learned. A story without lesson or idea behind it, is simply recounting events. Those events may be entertaining, but they do no justice to the audience. The first step then is to think about what idea you wish to share. 

When we learn new information, it changes our brains creating new neural pathways. One of the best ways to ensure someone interprets our information, instead of ignoring it, is to ask a question. Questions are interactive and engage our brain the same way playing a video game holds our attention more than a newspaper. Catching and holding someone's attention is a requirement before you can share your story. Aim to capture attention early.

Lastly, build on your audience's current state of knowledge. Meeting technicians, I find that too often they either over-generalize their jobs or nerd out. I don't know anything about systems architecture, but if you say you design virtual worlds using coding, then I can wrap my head around that concept. It's difficult for us to imagine what it was like to not know, what we know (the "curse of knowledge"). Being able to gauge your audience's current knowledge base is important so you can tailor the message to their current state. Once you know where they're starting from, you can built up to where they can accept your idea. 

To recap:

1) Stories need to share an idea

2) Captivate the audience's attention early and hold it. 

3) Tailor the story to the audience's knowledge base so you can guide them toward your idea. 

Stories are not just for campfires. Writing a memo, giving a sales pitch, or snapchatting your day are all forms of storytelling. Next time you post, think for a moment, what idea are you sharing?

[fruitmovement-blog]

Day 2 - Imperfection

Day 2: Humans are the most imperfect machines we know. 

Podcast: Revisionist History

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Episode: Blame Game

Thoughts: Human error. It's so common, that simply saying "we're only human" explains why something went wrong. Humans are imperfect, yet in tough situations we believe we're anything but. What if for a moment we look at the events that go wrong as human errors. 

It's all too easy to overreact when things do not operate as intended, whether they are machines or people. My surface pro was returned to Microsoft last week, the screen flickered. It's easy to say the machine was the problem. The machine was only trying to operate as intended. If you step back and look at error, you realize that symptoms are merely the effect, not the cause. What if the screen was not properly installed or handled. Those are possible causes that lie in human error, not machine error.

In this podcast, Gladwell provides an example of runaway cars, where the brakes failed to work. We assume the cause originates from the entity where the effect is seen. A driver tries to apply the brakes but the brakes do not work, thus the problem is in the car . We turn a blind eye to how human error could play a role, where the driver may not be applying the correct peddle. 

This concept of the cause of an error being different than where the effect shows up also applies to organizations. Employee burnout is seen as a problem with the functioning capability of the employee. What if the organization had flaws in its leadership? What if the employee was not communicating effectively that he/she needed support? It may be another case where the brakes are mechanically sound, but human error continues to halt the line between intention and execution. 

[fruitmovement-blog]

Day 1 - Chaos

Today marks the 1st day of a new challenge for the Fruit Movement Team. 

About the Challenge

Learning does not start nor stop in the classroom. With the plethora of ways to digest information, we are going to explore podcasts. 

Ground rules:

1) Length of Challenge: 21 days

2) Podcast Length: Something that you could digest in an average morning commute

3) Podcast Variety: A new podcast, preferably a new podcaster, each day

Pretty simple. We'll listen to 21 different podcasts and summarize what we learn each week. The first line of each post will be the lesson learned.

 Chaos brings change, embrace the chaos. 

Podcast: Hidden Brain

Author: Shankar Vedantam

Episode: You 2.0: Embrace the Chaos

Link: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=542093039

Thoughts: If you set out to plan your progress, you will ultimately hold yourself back. When we think about a new goal, we tend to build order into how to reach the goal. Want to do 100 pullups? Okay, start with 1 and add a rep each day. Without assessing the validity of this plan, is this the most effective way to reach your goal of doing 100 pullups?

Athletes embrace the idea of performance to failure. So instead of adding 1 per day, what if you did as many as you could for 3-5 sets? Could you knock off a few days from the 100 days? What if you continued to confuse your muscles, working the muscles in different ways, could that shave a few more days off? Progress is not a line graph where you use [y = mx + b]  to solve for linear equation. There are days of rapid progress and days of no observable progress. Those days of no observable progress give rise to rapid change. 

This podcast shed light onto how order can help us learn the rules behind a skill or ability, but to achieve a higher understanding, chaos is required. Introducing a bit of chaos into your life could do wonders. For the next 21 days, we'll be introducing chaos into our schedules with a new podcast each and every day. 

[fruitmovement-blog]

Kombucha Fever

We tried this mystical solution for the first time two weeks ago at the Palmercare Orthopedics Charity Golf Tournament. Today we figure out what it is and what are the real health benefits?

Taste & Prep

Kombucha is a slap in the face. Your mouth feels fizzy from the carbonation, sour from the vinegar, and then the flavors creep in. At first, you want to throw your cup away, but then it starts to grow on you. You're almost daring yourself to take another sip, seeing if you can handle the overwhelming experience. 

Kombucha will be sure to put some hair on your chest. Kombucha's base consists of tea, sugar, water, vinegar, and the magical ingredient active SCOBY. 

No not that Scooby. SCOBY means Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast

The process does not seem too difficult to brew yourself. Most of the ingredients you'll find your home except the active SCOBY. Seems like you throw it in a jar and let the yeast ferment. Flavors and other additives can be added to enhance the taste. The fermentation process also produces alcohol (approx. 0.5% ABV). Not enough to get a buzz yet it's purported as a cure for hangovers as well as many other conditions.

 Health

Kombucha is marketed as a healthy elixir curing all your ailments, including:

Probiotics – healthy bacteria

Alkalize the body – balances internal pH

Detoxify the liver – happy liver = happy mood

Increase metabolism – rev your internal engine

Improve digestion – keep your system moving

Rebuild connective tissue – helps with arthritis, gout, asthma, rheumatism

Cancer prevention

Alleviate constipation

Boost energy – helps with chronic fatigue

Reduce blood pressure

Relieve headaches & migraines

Reduce kidney stones

High in antioxidants – destroy free-radicals that cause cancer

High in polyphenols

Improve eyesight

Heal eczema – can be applied topically to soften the skin

Prevent artheriosclerosis

Speed healing of ulcers – kills h.pylori on contact

Help clear up candida & yeast infections

Aid healthy cell regeneration

Reduce gray hair

Lower glucose levels – prevents spiking from eating

 Our b/s detectors are going off; this seems too good to be true. A bit more digging and most of the kombucha claims have only been performed on rodents. People have reported adverse reactions to the solution from upset stomachs to allergic reactions. There are pasteurized and non-pasteurized versions of kombucha making attempts to limit the bacteria growth, but the bacteria is one of the components that is supposed to make you feel better, so drinking a pasteurized version may not have the same impact. 

 Verdict

It's worth a try. I suggest trying a retail version of kombucha before trying to brew it yourself. Most grocery stores stock up a few bottles and it's typically $3-4. Personally, I will not be an avid consumer, perhaps saving it for those hangovers where you'll drink anything to make the pain go away.

 Continued Reading

http://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/kombucha/how-to-make-kombucha/

https://wholelifestylenutrition.com/health/what-is-kombucha-why-is-it-so-healthy-for-you/

http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/healthy-drinks/what-kombucha

[fruitmovement-blog]

Speed of Turtle

Progress toward goals are not input / output equations. At times, it’s breakneck speeds and at other times, it’s a dead stop. Think about moving at the Speed of Turtle next time you feel things are moving too quickly or not quickly enough.

Background

On a morning run, I came across a turtle. As I circled around for another lap, I saw it had moved farther along the path than I had anticipated. It moved with purpose and steady dedication. In a day and age where instant gratification reigns supreme, patience can be hard to develop.

Prime Form

Socrates emphasized looking at things in their ideal form. What qualities would make a solution perfect. What form would make the best team members? What form makes the best career? What form makes the best client? Turtles are the ideal form of persistence. 

A box turtle is approximately 4 - 8 inches long, 11.5x smaller than humans. They cover up to 100 yards each day. The humans equivalent is crawling 0.65 miles per day. Less than a mile does not sound like a lot, but box turtles on average live 50+ years. That means if you walked 0.65 miles per day, every single day, in a year you would have traveled close to 240 miles (the distance from DC to NYC). Over 50 years you will have traveled nearly 12,000 miles (almost the distance from the North Pole to the South Pole. 

This long winded example is meant to emphasize how persistence reigns supreme. Walking a mile is easy, walking the Earth seems impossible. Turtles are creatures that persist over time, living longer than humans and understanding that progress is made with every step. Every step may not always translate into immediate results, but it does count.

So as you come close to finishing off the week, think about moving at the Speed of Turtle, persistent, focused, and unwavering. If thinking about the Speed of Turtle is not enough, here are some cute photos of turtles.

[fruitmovement-blog]

Elixir of Life: Coffee

On a day such as today you may find yourself enjoying a large mug of coffee. In this post we look at the 21st century elixir of life: Coffee.

Origins & Current Production

The exact origin of coffee is unknown but one of the oldest stories is the legend of Kaldi. Kaldi, a goat herder, found his goats eating berries from a bush. Later that night the goats overflowing with energy, had trouble sleeping. Kaldi tried the beans himself and was overcome with energy. Those magical beans were eventually roasted and brewed into what we consider coffee today.

Those original beans that Kaldi found came in the form of the cherries seen above. Coffee cherries are dried and roasted to create aromatic ready-to-brew beans. Coffee beans are produced on nearly every continent; the top coffee exporters are Brazil, Vietnam, and Columbia (in order by volume).

Gift of Health

The consensus views toward coffee seem to change with every new study, some days coffee is the elixir of life, on others it's burnt water. Coffee has been linked with many health benefits. Coffee contains chlorogenic acids and caffeic acid, both of which help detoxify the body. While chlorogenic and caffeic acid are linked to reduced blood pressure, resiliency toward cancer, and helping some respiratory allergies, the main benefit of coffee lies in the liver.

For those of you who skipped out of anatomy class, the liver is one our major organs. Most of us know that the liver synthesizes drugs and processes alcohol, but it does much more. The liver plays 3 crucial roles: cleans our blood, aids in digestions, and processes nutrients.

Coffee keeps out liver flushed out and operating in good form. This liquid gold reduces scarring in the liver from alcohol consumption and obesity. The caffeine boosts our metabolisms and regulate our blood especially helping those with type 2 diabetes manage their insulin. Caffeine from other sources do not purport the same results. 

Studies look at the effects of black coffee, not your 2/3 caff triple ristretto affogato venti, 2 pump mango 1 pump classic, 2%, mango to the second line, 3 scoops protein, 3 scoops berries, 2 scoop matcha, add banana, double blended, with whip, caramel drizzle, salted caramel topping, vanilla bean frappuccino. Adding milk and sugar to your coffee changes the profile of your elixir of life to a solution of liquid calories. Black coffee has 1-2 calories per cup as you start to get fancy with your Starbucks order you will see the calories increase quickly. That treat yourself moment where you order a caramel frappuccino, you could have had two bananas and an apple (shameless fruit advertisement).   

Final Thoughts

As with anything, discretion and mindfulness reigns supreme when it comes to your coffee consumption. Juan Ponce De Leon may not have found the Fountain of Youth in Florida, but he might fight a new elixir of life today. So to recap:

- Coffee helps your liver 

- Your liver helps you

- The closer to black coffee the better

- Be kind to your local barista

  Continued Reading

https://www.thespruce.com/the-origin-of-coffee-765180

http://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/10-Steps-from-Seed-to-Cup

http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/top-coffee-producing-countries.html

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coffee-reveals-itself-unlikely-elixir

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorogenic_acid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeic_acid

[fruitmovement-blog]

Water Works Pt. 2: Eating to Hydrate

Last week we discussed basic water facts and the stages of dehydration. Scientists indicated people should consume 2.2 to 2.9 liters of water per day.  We retain water from many foods and this week we look at great ways to eat water.

These 8 foods are shown with their water content, health benefits, and a new way to enjoy!