lifestyle Tag

Posts tagged 'lifestyle'

The Magic Ratio of Give and Take in Relationships

Hugging is an equal act of giving and taking in relationship

In any relationship, there is a give and take. If we want a relationship to work, the balance between giving and taking needs to suit both parties. If one party is giving all the time and feel they take nothing or take less, this is when trouble begins.

Most people think that give and take needs to be equal. I think it can’t because the definition of equal is different to different people. Do we speak the same words? Do we complement exactly the same amount? Do we take turns causing heartache and pain? Or giving gifts?

Let’s explore this idea of “give and take” in relationships and figure out the magic ratio.

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How Silence Improves Mental Health and Clarity

Quiet reflection showing how silence improves mental health

We live in a world that rarely pauses. Notifications, conversations, responsibilities, and expectations follow us everywhere. In this constant noise, our mental health is often the first thing to suffer.

What many people don’t realize is that one of the most powerful and accessible tools for emotional wellbeing is silence. Research, psychology, and lived experience all point to the same conclusion: silence improves mental health.

Silence is not emptiness. It is a state where the nervous system can settle, emotions can be processed, and clarity can emerge. When external noise fades, the internal world becomes more visible. This is why silence improves mental health not only by reducing stress, but by increasing self-awareness, emotional regulation, and inner stability.

As the final chapter in The Power of Silence series, this article brings everything together. We explore how silence improves mental health, strengthens emotional intelligence, supports decision-making, and helps us reconnect with ourselves in a sustainable, realistic way.

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I Didn’t Know I Was Already an Artist!

A very common question I ask all my clients is, “What would you do if you had no money constraints and didn’t have to work?” It is a good question because it allows the mind to free itself from the constraints of life and allows itself to want, simply want.

In life, instead of learning to want and go for our dreams, we learn to comply, to suppress our wants and do what is expected of us. We are born dreamers. Research says that this is at its peak when we are about 5 years old, starts to decline around 8 and reaches total devastation around 16 years old. By that stage, what seems hard is a “sign” we are not capable of achieving our dreams.

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Cruising for Perspective: What I Learned on a Cruise Ship

Some time ago, Gal and I went on a cruise together. It was the first time we had been on that type of cruise. What a wonderful lesson in perspective it was. Sometimes, we need a change of scenery to appreciate what we have.

Many years ago, we cruised from Miami to the Bahamas, but that was very short and the only thing I remember is that everyone gambled, and we didn’t like that at all.

The second time we cruised was when we lived in Singapore. Our daughter was 9 years old and our son was just under 3 years old. We took a cruise for three days with another family. They had an 8-year-old, a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old baby. We were at sea and things didn’t get as glamorous as we’d expected, because we had no babysitting arrangement and it was not very friendly to kids.

We ended up agreeing with our friends that one night, they would stay with all the kids and we would see the show and the next night, we would swap. It was two nights and apart from the excitement of being at sea and having “free” meals, it was hard work.

This time, we went on a cruise because our daughter had gone on a cruise with her husband and it had been a great experience for them. We booked a 7-day cruise and started asking friends and family about their experiences, which were mostly positive.

So, we went on the cruise and this is what we learned.

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Open Home: Guests Welcome

Good families don’t just happen. They are made with awareness and action. As a parent, I encourage you to write family goals, so you can lead your family to a happy, healthy and wealthy lifestyle. I didn’t grow up in an open home, and I decided to change that, so I set some goal.

In this post, I want to share one of my family goals, which I wrote to replace a behavior form my parents’ home I didn’t like at all – closed doors.

My mom was always preoccupied with what other people thought about her. I never blamed her for it. Well, that’s not true. When I was very young, I even hated her for it. It was exhausting.

Anyway, when I was 16 years old, I realized that this was how she had grown up. What other people think about her was her reason for living. She dedicated much of her life to please people whose opinion mattered to her. This took over her life and, as her children, also ruled our lives.

One thing that bothered her greatly was having a clean house. The problem was not that she wanted the house to be clean, but that she panicked whenever we had guests.

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Family Wealth Fitness

Stacks of money of increasing height sprouting plants

Everybody wants their family to be happy, healthy and wealthy. Of course, if you are not born into wealth, you need to grow it with understanding, planning and lots of practice. In other words, increase your “family wealth fitness”.

Looking at how we build physical fitness is a great way to understand wealth creation. To be healthy, we need to be physically fit, and to be wealthy, we need to be financially fit.

Just like physical fitness sits on a scale, wealth fitness sits on a scale. The first stage in physical fitness is to have enough energy and strength to do your regular day-to-day activities and to enjoy your body. The second stage is to build enough stamina to handle sickness and unusual physical challenges well.

Financial fitness is the same. First, you build financial stability, so you can have what you want, manage the day-to-day financial needs easily and enjoy your life. Then, you can build a money buffer large enough to cover large purchases and unplanned expresses.

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Make a List: 100 Reasons to Be Wealthy

Home, stacks of coins and a clock - that's how wealth is built

Everyone wants to be wealthy. We want it for our children and for ourselves. The problem with being wealthy is that if you are not born to wealth and know exactly what it means, you don’t know how to get there.

The Internet contains millions of websites, blogs, podcasts and videos of people who promise you that if you do what they’ve done, you will become wealthy. If they were so successful, everyone who visited their site would be wealthy by now. Sadly, the transition from not being wealthy to being wealthy is filled with obstacles.

To me, wealth is a sense of security. Real richness is mostly about things that you have and no one can take away from you. We can be rich in memories, rich in experiences, rich in love and rich in friendships, not just possessions.

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Save Your Marriage with Better Time Management

Relationships are a sacred thing. Some say it is the only thing that matters. At the beginning of every relationship, we dedicate a lot of time to each other and over time, it gets harder.

Every married couple with children will tell you how their life changed as soon as their first child was born. Suddenly, quiet time to hold hands or cuddle becomes a rare event that must be carefully planned. Therefore, good time management can often make or break a relationship.

I have been working with many couples who come for coaching with the hope to save their marriage. Most of my clients think that to save their marriage, we need to focus on the big things, but for many of them, the problem is time management. I know it sounds funny, but it is one of the simplest one to fix.

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Experiences, not Possessions: How to Best Spend Money on Your Kids

If you wonder how to give your kids the best life possible, do not buy them things. Instead, give them great, exciting experiences. Research shows they will remember special events and adventures longer and relive the joy and excitement again and again.

We live in a world of abundance. If you want to understand how much you have today, all you need to do is think of how your life would have been 50 years ago. I like asking myself, “What did my parents not have 50 years ago that I (or my kids) have today?” It is a good lesson in perspective.

Unfortunately, not every person who asks this question reaches the same conclusion. Some people feel grateful and other feel fear. Grateful people, who feel that they are fortunate, tend to appreciate what they have and care for it. Fearful people panic and start to accumulate things. No matter how much they accumulate, they are never happy. Fear takes away the joy of what they already have.

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What to Do if Your Child is Overweight and You Worry about Diabetes

When there are so many overweight people in the world and diabetes is a common problem, many parents are concerned about their kids’ weight and developing diabetes. Statistics from around the world is not very encouraging. It is estimated that 600 million people will be living with diabetes by 2035. Whether you like or not, you and your children are part of this statistics.

In 2015, the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) published their Diabetes Atlas, which estimates that:

– One in 11 adults has diabetes (422 million)
– One in two (46.5%) adults with diabetes is undiagnosed
– 12% of global health expenditure is spent on diabetes (USD673 billion)
– One in seven births is affected by gestational diabetes
– Three-quarters (75%) of people with diabetes live in low- and middle-income countries
– 542,000 children have type 1 diabetes
– Every six seconds, a person dies from diabetes (5 million deaths a year)
– China with over 100 million people with diabetes (ranked highest number of people with diabetes)
– Cambodia is the lowest in the world

Being overweight is just one possible cause of diabetes and it can be prevented. When children grow up with no health awareness, they become adults with no health awareness and their life can be harder, more expensive and shorter than average.

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