Effective Communication

Life is unfair, succeed anyway!

If you can IMAGINE it, you can ACHIEVE it…… if you can DREAM it, you can BECOME it….!
You should fill your life with experiences not excuses. I am sure we have complained or heard someone complain on how unfair life is. However, one has to wonder how people succeed despite life being unfair. Life teaches you some painful lessons. But it is from adversity that strength is born. You may have lost the innings, but you’ll win the game. Everyone has to face challenges in his or her life, but it is the way the individual handles a challenging situation makes a person successful or not. There are many case studies before us of people who had to beat the odds to get success.

Some of the examples of women are Shanaaz Hussain, queen of herbal beauty products, created a beauty products empire by scratch all by herself, beating the odds that she was a Muslim woman in a male dominated world. She created a niche for herself being a smart entrepreneur full of enthusiasm and passion for work. Oprah, Michael Obama, Sonia Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Aishwarya Rai are other examples of powerful women who have become icons, a power house on their own. These individual’s contributions to the society has made them famous but imagine, if they had spent their time complaining on how unfair life has been for them.
We all know that the world is not perfect. There are many injustices in the world and make us feel that life is not being fair to us. Fighting injustice is a noble cause, but fighting against it may make the injustice stronger. The key is to know how to fight injustice and one way is to make injustice irrelevant by learning to work over it, around it, through it and make it irrelevant. The concept of eye to eye is one way of fighting injustice in the world, but the result is both parties involved lose and the world becomes a terrible place to live.
Alternatively, if we work on identifying the root cause that makes the many injustices in the world and come up with creative ways to make injustice irrelevant, we can say that we can succeed in spite of life bring unfair.

For example think of a person who has just lost his job in recession. He could spend his time complaining about how life has been unfair to her by taking away his job. Instead, he preps himself for the next job. Builds on his strengths, creates a network of people who can share and appreciate his work. He thinks of giving back to community when he has just lost his way of making a living.
Terry Fox created a legacy of opting to run across Canada in spite of having Cancer. Just as Helen Keller (American author, lecturer, political activist) showed the world that being deaf and blind didn’t deter a person from achieving unprecedented success in life. All these examples illustrate the point that problems are actually opportunities in disguise.
Success examples are not limited to only a few people but we can apply the principles to our lives/ situation.
In these tough economic times it is common for people to lose their jobs however, the ones who accept the environment changes without complaining can bounce back fast. Mr. A lost his job during recession. He was very upset and conclude that life is not fair to him because he was the chosen one! While it is normal to feel this way when you lose your job, the only problem was that Mr. A did not get over this feeling and got into a habit of complaining about everything. Over a period of time Mr. A became known as a complainer and even friends who wanted to help him did not feel like it. Mr. A remained unemployed even when the economy turned around. Instead of complaining we have to learn to deal with the challenges in a positive manner. Instead of complaining we should take a step back and examine the whole situation and take action to live life to the fullest by facing the challenges that come our way with courage and determination. We have to remember that despite the fact that life is full of unfairness and inequity there are many workable and creative ways to rise above the negative circumstances. Stop complaining and just move forward!

Just follow your nose – WINE tasting demystified

Few things in this world get better with age – wine is one of them. An older woman is often complimented for her looks when someone says she is like wine … gets better with age.

Let us take a deeper look at wine and study its various characteristics. One of our favorite outings is going for wine tasting and in such wine tasting sessioons I have observed people swirling their wine and sniffing it, looking very professional. There’s a reason behind this curious ritual. It involves all your senses – smell, taste, sight….

LOOK – Fill your glass about a third full with wine and hold it up to the light or against a white background. Check the color – is it bright red or deep purple? A wine’s color indicates its body and intensity, which changes from variety to variety. The deeper the color, the fuller the wine. Try it with the white wine too.

NOSE – The only way to fully appreciate a wine’s bouquet is to place your nose gently inside the rim of the glass, then close your eyes and inhale. Now, what are the first aromas you can identify? Do you smell fruit or flowers? Spice or smoke? How about chocolate? Don’t worry if all you can smell is wine – this step does take practice.

SWIRL AND NOSE AGAIN – Don’t overfill your glass – you must be able to swirl it without spilling it (this would not impress your host!).  Experts also hold teh glass by teh stem so their hand doesn’t affect the wine’s temperature. Gently swirl the wine around the glass tehn nose it again. Notice anything different? Swirling allows air to mingle with the wine, the motion releases more vibrant aromas.

SIP – At last, it’s time to taste teh wine. Tale a sip and swish it around in your mouth for a few seconds, taking in a bit of air at the same time. As teh wine lingers on your tongue, it will begin to taste as delicios as it smelled.

MATCHING FOOD + WINE
It is commonly known rule to pair red wine with red meat and white wine with white meat
BALANCING ACT
Finding a perfect match of food and wine enhances the flavour of both. Start with the strongest flavour in the dish you’re serving then choose a wine taht either contrasts or compliments teh food/ For example, contrast a spicy dish with a sweet wine, or complement a hearty dish with a full-bodied wine.
TAME HEAT WITH SWEET
For hot spicy dishes, select sweeter white wine such as an off-dry Riesling to contrast teh spice and cleanse the palate.
FLAVOUR WITH FLAVOUR – Pair strong, full-flavoured foods such as barbequed ribs with a ripe, fruit driven wine such as Shiraz.

BODY & WEIGHT – Match teh density of teh food with the weight of the wine. For example, serve a hearty beef stew with a big full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon.

INSPIRED BY COUNTRY – when in doubt, select a wine taht comes from teh same country as teh food you are serving, for example Italian red with a rich, meaty lasagna.

TRUST YOUR TASTEBUDS – At teh end of the day, trust your taste buds. While wine can enhance certain foods, there is no wrong way of matching food and wine. Always choose a wine you like.

RAISE A GLASS – THE PERFECT PAIR – There are two basic kinds of styles to get started: one for reds and one for whites.

THE RED WINE GLASS – BIGGER IS BETTER – Choose a clear 14 oz thin-walled glass with  a round bowl. a large bowl lets you swirl the wine without spilling – mixing air with wine, to bring out its rich, complex flavor.

THE WHITE WINE GLASS – COOL AND COLLECTED – White wine glasses should be more elongated in shape to concentrate the wine’s delicate aroma.

Read food labels for low sodium and high potassium

They say we are what we eat. If this is the case then shouldn’t we scruntinise every thing we ingest very closely. Yes, knoweldge of nutrients is cruicial for making right food choices which gives our lives a good balance and an energetic and vibrant start to our day. The topic for dicussion here is the importance of potassium in our diet versus reduction of sodium. Sodium is something we eat too much as it is in salt or sodium chloride. Sodium is associated with high blood pressure, a number one reasons for heart problems, stroke and other cardio vascular diseases. Not only this but sodium also minimises the effectivity of blood pressure medications
This knowledge was an eye opener for me being a lover of salt. So when ever possible I aviod thsi white poison called salt. Also most of our sodium comes from sources like fast foods, restaurant foods, take out, canned and packaged foods as also condiments like ketchup, soy sauce, beef sauce.  Sodium is also present in salty foods like pretzels, smoked seafood and meats, frozen dinners and chips. It is also hidden in bread and bakery products, as well as soups and sauces that may not taste salty! I noticed breads have sodium content written in bold in its packaging.

Apart from avioding salt and processed food, there are other ways to maximise potassioum and reduce sodium:
Eat fresh: Fruits like banana, apple, papaya are rich sources of potassium and are an easy way to reduce sodium.
Use condiments: Ginger, curry, cumin, pepper, dill, garlic, onions, rosemary and thyme are an easy way to add flavour to food without adding salt.
Make your own sauces and dressings: Store bouight sauces and dressings are high in sodium so we can benefit highly by making home made tomato sauce, salsa, etc. For example half cup of canned tomato sauce can have about 470mg of sodium but making your own reduces our intake to only 25 mg. One table spoon of balsamic vinegar has about 250 mg but your own homemade oil and balsamic vinegar can have none.
Rinse: Wash canned vegetables or fish thoroughly with cold water. This can considerably reduce sodium intake.
Read food labels: Seemingly healthy food like tomato soup or cottage cheese can contain as much as 430 mg to 700 mg of sodium. So it makes sense to read food labels and make conscious decisions about the sodium intake and compare and choose low sodium products.
Adequate intakes of sodium per day:
1,500 mg for people aged 9-50
1,300 mg for people aged 50-70
1,200 mg for seniors over 70 years of age

Another interesting fact is

• 1 level teaspoon of salt contains just over 6 grams of salt.
• 6 grams of salt contains about 2,300 mg of sodium approximately double of our recommened intake.

Some of the facts presented here have been borrowed from sodium101.ca website.