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New savings plan holds promise Article By: Gordon Pape
The new Tax-Free Savings Accounts announced in the budget will offer a range of investment opportunities, from income splitting to education savings.
One of the centrepieces of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's recent budget was the announcement of legislation to create Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs), starting in 2009.
These plans will allow every Canadian over 18 to contribute up to $5,000 a year to an account that will tax-shelter all investment earnings. Unlike RRSPs, contributions will not be tax deductable, nor will withdrawals be taxed.
There is no doubt that this is an important program, one that will provide savers with a new range of strategies.
personal growth Jack Canfield's Seven Principles of Success and Happiness
jack Canfield has made the study of success in one's personal and professional lives his own life's work. He has interviewed hundreds of successful people, read more than 3,000 books on success and given thousands of lectures on the topic. Now Canfield has boiled down everything that he has learned about success into his new book, The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be (Harper). Some of those principles, such as the importance of goal setting, are well-known. Others are just as crucial but not commonly understood.
Here, Canfield reveals the principles of success that are most often overlooked.
Develop four new good habits each year. Most of everything we do is based on ritual. We eat at certain restaurants... wear certain clothes... brush our teeth in a certain way... and watch certain TV shows simply because that is what we have always done. These are our habits, and we perform them without really thinking.
The trouble with habits is that they preserve the status quo, making dramatic improvement unlikely. If we want more out of life, we must be willing to evaluate and replace some of our rituals with more productive ones.
Example: Instead of spending the hour after dinner watching TV, go for a brisk walk... study a second language... read a book... or make the extra sales calls that you need to advance your career.
It takes a minimum of 25 days for the brain to build the neural links required to make a new behavior a habit. I suggest practicing a new habit for three months to ensure that it sinks in. Once it becomes second nature, add another new habit. At three months per habit, there's time to add four each year. In five years, you will have 20 new habits that will help fuel your success.
Practice appreciation. Studies of employee motivation inevitably find that feeling appreciated is the single greatest motivator in the workplace, even ahead of higher wages. Yet many people fail to put the power of appreciation to full use in their business and personal lives.
When you show people that you appreciate them, you not only make them feel better, you make yourself more successful. People are more likely to help you achieve your goals if they believe that you appreciate their efforts. There's no downside -- appreciation costs nothing, and no one has ever complained about being over-appreciated.
Helpful: I used to carry in my pocket an index card with 10 circles on it. Every time I let someone know that I appreciated him/her, I filled in one of the circles. If at the end of the day I hadn't filled in all 10, I sent out appreciative E-mails. After a few months, showing appreciation became second nature for me, and I no longer had to carry the cards. I haven't had anyone leave my nine-employee company in more than five years. I attribute a big part of that loyalty to everyone feeling appreciated.
Solicit and respect feedback. Rather than guess how you're doing, ask. Periodically ask employees, employers, customers and loved ones to rate your performance on a scale of one to 10. If the answer is anything less than 10, ask, "What would it take to make it a 10?"
If you follow this strategy, you're encouraging people to help you become great. The main reason that people don't solicit feedback is because they're afraid of what they might hear -- but the information we can obtain is worth facing such fears.
Not all feedback is accurate, but watch for patterns and never get angry at the source, even if you disagree.
Keep all of your agreements. When you break an agreement, the person you let down loses faith in you and is less likely to want to work with you in the future. Even more important, you lose some faith in yourself. It's all but impossible to become a success if you don't have faith in yourself.
To avoid breaking agreements, teach yourself to say no to things that you would rather not do. Then you won't have to back out later. Write down everything you agree to do on your calendar as soon as a commitment is made -- you would be surprised by how many people don't do this.
If you must break an agreement, let the other parties involved know as soon as possible, and do everything in your power to fix any problems that the broken agreement creates for them.
Exceed expectations. Don't ask yourself, How can I get a little more out of this situation? Instead, ask, How can I give a little more to those around me? Sacrificing usually isn't a sacrifice -- it's a path to success. If you consistently go the extra mile for clients, colleagues, employers, family and friends, you'll earn their loyalty for life.
Example: When UPS went on strike, David Morris, the owner of Dillanos, a small, Seattle-based coffee roasting company, rented a truck and drove 2,320 miles to deliver an order to a small client in Southern California. That client, It's a Grind Coffee House, is now a large franchise with 50 stores and an additional 100 planned. It is Dillanos's largest customer and has remained loyal to Dillanos because of the extra effort Morris put in years ago.
Reject rejection. Rejection does not prevent success -- fear of rejection does. What stops a man from asking an attractive woman out on a date? What stops an inexperienced salesman from asking the most successful salesman at his firm for advice? They're afraid of rejection -- afraid that if they ask, the answer might be no. But there's absolutely no rational reason to fear rejection.
Example: You ask a successful person to give you career advice, and he says no. You didn't have his advice before you asked, and you don't have his advice after. You're no worse off than when you began, so why be afraid of asking?
If you want to be a success, you must treat rejection as an illusion -- a negative response conjured up by your mind that really doesn't exist.
Eliminate small obstacles. Make a list of the problems that you would like to remove from your life -- include even minor things, such as a lamp that doesn't work right. Schedule a day or two to fix as many of these problems as you can, starting with the easiest to solve.
In this way, you'll get into the habit of thinking, I know what I want, I know how to get it. Once you're in this mindset, you'll stop resigning yourself to your current situation and start making larger positive changes as well.
Fitness Challenges Can Keep Seniors Young
I know lots of people in their 50s, 60s and even beyond who have set out to accomplish ambitious, even extreme athletic goals for themselves... and I can understand why. Training for a cycling trip, triathlon and the like can add motivation and excitement to your fitness regimen... serve as a distraction from a painful reality, such as loss of a loved one... or be a way to prove to yourself that you are strong and capable in the face of illness, like cancer. But summiting a mountain peak or running a marathon is daunting even for folks who are young and fit -- so I wondered what precautions older athletes should take to reduce the likelihood of serious problems, including injury, while also boosting the odds they'll meet the challenge they've set.
I discussed this topic with Walter M. Bortz II, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine at Stanford University, co-chair of the American Medical Association's Task Force on Aging and the author of five books including Living Longer for Dummies (For Dummies) and Dare to Be 100 (Fireside). Dr. Bortz, 77, now runs one marathon a year.
He says senior fitness has become a way of life for many people and there's no reason not to embrace it. "Most of what people think of as frailty is not actually aging, but disuse," he said. For instance, he noted that a fit 70-year-old would be sure to score higher than an out-of-shape 40-something on the V02max test, a test of the ability of the body to use oxygen, which is considered a standard measure of cardiorespiratory fitness. And, there are people in their 80s running marathons today in times that would have approached record-breaking for any age group back in the 1920s.
YES, YOU CAN!
A lifelong athlete, Dr. Bortz says he is a believer in a theory called "self-efficacy," advanced by his good friend and Stanford colleague psychology professor Albert Bandura. It's about "your belief in your own capability to produce a certain level of performance," Dr. Bortz told me, listing four fundamental steps to succeeding:
AGE GRATEFULLY
I asked another expert on senior fitness, Karl Knopf, PhD, executive director of the Fitness Empowerment of Active Adults Association, for information on whether, and how, older athletes should alter training or expectations, given their age. One concern he voiced is that baby boomers coming into their aging years may continue to throw themselves into exercise with the same passion they've had in the past. "Fifty may be the new 30 -- but that doesn't mean untrained people should jump in with both feet," he said, noting that our bodies change internally and externally, visibly and invisibly. "While some of us may have the same physique as we did back in the day, we don't have as much power. People aren't mindful of the fact they face a high incidence of injury if they try to train with the methods and passions of bygone days." Start slowly. Treat your body like a vintage car. While it can go as far as a newer model, it needs a little extra TLC, a longer warm-up and some sensitivity to quirks that have developed over time.
That said, Dr. Knopf believes athletes can set new and challenging goals for themselves well into their 10th decade, if they do so with awareness of how their abilities change with age. Here are some of his suggestions:
There are numerous organizations -- national and local -- for the older athlete who wants to ramp things up, or just be inspired by what's possible. One mentioned by Dr. Bortz is Lifelong Fitness Alliance (www.50plus.org). There you can find terrific resources on getting started and staying motivated, as well as events like the Lifelong Fitness Challenge Camp, annual fitness Dare to Be Fit Weekend and many other events. Their Fitness Ambassador Corps provides information and opportunities for older adults to get and stay fit.
"It's never too late to start," says Dr. Bortz, "and it's always too soon to stop."
Source(s):
Holiday to-do list expanding too fast? Work pressures got you tearing your hair out? No date for the season’s festivities? Regardless of the cause, when we’re stressed we often counterintuitively turn to diet-busting goodies for comfort. Instead of soothing our frayed nerves, many of them ultimately make us feel worse.
Take the classic, curling up with a pint of ice cream. It's a total backfire. Why? Sweets are insidious: After the initial rush, the body's insulin response kicks in, causing a sudden blood-sugar drop that triggers the release of stress hormones. Soon you're feeling more jangled than you were before you inhaled that whole container of Chunky Monkey. And alcohol, of course, is a wolfish stimulant in calm sheep's clothing.
But true comfort foods do exist:
• Berries, any berries. Eat them one by one instead of M&Ms when the pressure's on. For those tough times when tension tightens your jaw, try rolling a frozen berry around in your mouth. And then another, and another. Since the carbs in berries turn to sugar very slowly, you won't have a blood-sugar crash. The bonus: They're a good source of vitamin C, which helps fight a jump in cortisol, a stress hormone.
• Guacamole. If you're craving something creamy, look no further. Avocados are loaded with B vitamins, which stress quickly depletes and which your body needs in order to maintain nerves and brain cells. Plus, their creaminess comes from healthy fat. Scoop up the stuff with whole-grain baked chips -- crunching keeps you from gritting your teeth.
• Mixed nuts. Just an ounce will do. Walnuts help replace those stress-depleted B vitamins, Brazil nuts give you a whopping amount of zinc (which is also drained by high anxiety), and almonds boost your E, which helps fight cellular damage linked to chronic stress. Buy nuts in the shell and think of it as multitasking: With every squeeze of the nutcracker, you're releasing a little tension.
• Oranges. People who take 1,000 milligrams of C before giving a speech have lower levels of cortisol and lower blood pressures than those who don't. So lean back, take a deep breath, and concentrate on peeling a large orange. The 5-minute mindfulness break will ease your mind, and you'll get a bunch of C as well.
• Asparagus. Each tender stalk is a source of folic acid, a natural mood lightener. Dip the spears in fat-free yogurt or sour cream for a hit of calcium with each bite.
• Chai tea. A warm drink is a supersoother, and curling up with a cup of aromatic decaf chai tea (Tazo makes ready-to-brew bags) can make the whole evil day go away.
• Dark chocolate. Okay, there's nothing in it that relieves stress, but when only chocolate will do, reach for the dark, sultry kind that's at least 70% cocoa. You figure if the antioxidant flavonoids in it are potent enough to fight cancer and heart disease, they've got to be able to temper tension's effects.
Simmer down! Get personalized stress-relief strategies from RealAge.
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Scientific Basis for Lifestyle Improvement
"Duh" my daughters might say to the news report that a healthful lifestyle is important in the prevention and treatment of disease -- but actually I think it is both interesting and promising that mainstream medical professionals are organizing themselves to press Congress and insurers to pay for preventive medicine, including lifestyle counseling. It's yet more evidence that the tides are beginning to turn toward natural medicine and healthy living and away from costly, risky, symptom-suppressing procedures.
Of course, some insurance plans already reimburse some forms of complementary medical care, and naturopathic physicians have always emphasized natural treatments. But what's news is that in 2004 a group of doctors led by John H. Kelly, Jr., MD, MPH, of Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California, formed the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) to inform medical professionals about the importance of a healthful lifestyle in the prevention and treatment of disease.
Now president of the ACLM, Dr. Kelly believes that modern medicine currently focuses too much on acute care and too little on prevention, and we need to turn that around. Once considered fringe notions divorced from mainstream medicine, lifestyle interventions like diet and exercise to promote health and wellness are now getting official attention. There's even research demonstrating that adherence to lifestyle changes improves with more intensive intervention from a patient's medical team.
WHY THIS MATTERS SO MUCH
Unhealthy lifestyle choices have long been acknowledged as primary risk factors for chronic disease -- and health-promoting lifestyle changes are widely viewed as one of the best ways to prevent disease from developing or progressing, which is why I so frequently cover them in articles. But, says Dr. Kelly, lifestyle interventions in which the doctor focuses on how your health habits contribute to your medical issues and "strongly encourages" you to improve them -- perhaps even writing a prescription for exercise, diet or attendance at support groups -- should also be required in acute, episodic care for conditions such as heart attack or stroke... and that's far from the case today. He explained that even though they play a key role in medical treatment of both chronic and acute conditions, interventions such as diet, exercise and emotional counseling tend not to be covered by insurance companies. If they are reimbursed, it's typically only after a serious medical event, such as a heart attack or heart surgery -- not beforehand, when such crises might be prevented altogether.
IS IT ABOUT DOLLARS... OR SENSE?
The problem is that preventive measures don't make money -- for doctors or hospitals. While everyone acknowledges that early intervention is the best and most cost-effective medicine, it's clear that late-stage, acute care services make much more money. For example, some of the most profitable procedures by far for hospitals are heart surgeries, such as coronary bypass surgery. It doesn't make sense to pay tens of thousands of dollars for costly, risky and even controversial cardiovascular surgeries or procedures such as bypass and angioplasty with stents, rather than fund far less expensive treatment and support for patients using proven early interventions, notes Dr. Kelly. Often a healthier diet, regular exercise and stress management can arrest and even reverse cardiovascular disease or diabetes before it reaches a critical point where surgery is being considered -- but this is the way the system works right now. If we were talking about almost any other condition, Dr. Kelly points out, such as Alzheimer's or polio, it would be considered socially unacceptable to delay early treatment until the disease ravaged a person's health and brought him/her near death's door. Besides being wrong, he says, it's also fiscally unwise.
LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE
Getting insurance companies to reimburse lifestyle medicine services is a main goal. To that end, Dr. Kelly and the ACLM are trying to raise both awareness and funds to lobby Congress to mandate insurance coverage for lifestyle interventions such as smoking cessation, and require that doctors inform patients about healthy lifestyle changes before prescribing medicines or recommending surgical procedures. As time goes on, a key priority of the organization is to develop and implement evidence-based lifestyle treatment plans for specific diseases, spelling out the details of recommended diet plans, exercise regimens, etc. Eventually, Dr. Kelly expects that lifestyle medicine will become a credentialed medical specialty like obstetrics or surgery or neurology.
In the meantime, we can all benefit from paying more attention to the lifestyle choices we make every day. You've heard it from me before and I'm sure I'll say it again: Health doesn't come from pills or procedures. Don't wait around for your doctor to tell you what you need to do to get healthy -- set your own short-term, manageable goals for lifestyle change. You don't have to forego your favorite treats altogether -- just enjoy them occasionally, rather than regularly. Substitute whole grain cereal for the donuts you've been eating for breakfast. Lace on your sneakers and start walking -- once, twice, aiming for at least five times a week, working your way up to 30 minutes at a clip. And consider including a naturopathic physician, specially trained in preventive medicine and natural treatments, to your medical team.
Each small step in the direction of a healthy lifestyle brings you closer to your goal -- well-being. In a system that has been too long focused on treating sickness rather than promoting health, it's nice to see that some mainstream physicians, like Dr. Kelly, want to put the "health" back in "health care."
If visions of sugarplums aren't dancing through your head this holiday season, it may be because you're not getting enough sleep. In the midst of all the hustle and bustle, many of us will try to do more by sleeping less.
Sacrificing an hour or two of sleep every now and then may help you survive the holidays, but regularly short-changing yourself of sleep can have a number of negative consequences.
Sleep deprivation first affects your mood, leaving you cranky, irritable and completely devoid of glad tidings and good cheer. As your sleep debt mounts, you may find that you have trouble concentrating and staying alert.
Because sleep-deprived individuals have impaired decision-making abilities and slower reaction times, they often have trouble performing simple, routine tasks, including driving their cars. Driving under the influence of sleep deprivation is responsible for nearly 100,000 automobile accidents annually in the United States.
Making you more accident-prone isn't the only way that losing sleep can be harmful to your health. Studies show that missing out on just a few hours of slumber each night can alter your body's ability to regulate blood sugar, increasing your risk for diabetes.
Sleep deprivation also has been shown to trigger hormonal changes that can lead to overeating and weight gain. The results of a 15-year study, conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Stanford University, revealed that loss of sleep resulted in lower levels of leptin, a hormone that plays a key role in controlling appetite.
The researchers also found an association between sleep duration and body weight. Volunteers who skimped on sleep were more likely to gain weight.
In a similar study, University of Chicago researchers found that sleep restriction resulted in a 24 percent increase in hunger. In a sleep-deprived state, subjects showed a greater preference for high-calorie, carbohydrate-rich foods than for more nutritious fare, including fruits, vegetables or dairy products.
Missing out on much-needed rest can weaken your immune system. Even moderate sleep deprivation dampens the body's production of disease-fighting cells. The result is a greater susceptibility to minor infections and major illnesses, ranging from colds and flu to cancer.
How do you know if you're sleep deprived? If you experience excessive daytime sleepiness on a regular basis, you're probably not getting enough high-quality shut-eye. It's not uncommon to doze off after eating a big holiday dinner, but if you find yourself using your plate for a pillow, it's possible that you're suffering from sleep deprivation.
The good news is that there's a simple solution. No matter how long you've been cheating your body of the sleep it needs, it doesn't take long to repay your sleep debt.
In most cases, you can catch up just by getting two or three full nights' worth of sound sleep. If you've fallen behind, you'll definitely want to start hitting the sack a little earlier each evening.
Although individual needs vary, the average adult requires between seven and nine hours of sleep each night. You'll know you're getting enough if you feel rested and refreshed in the morning and you're able to remain alert and wide awake throughout the day.
"Heart's too weak to operate," the surgeon told us over the weekend.
It was crushing to hear. My dad was rushed to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Florida Hospital in Orlando last week. He's been there since. So have I.
The news has gotten better. "You're no longer urgent," the surgeon now says. "We'll send you home soon. Do what we tell you to do, and we'll reconsider surgery after the holidays."
The best part, if there has been one, is that my dad has been himself throughout this. He's had surprisingly little pain. He's surprised by all the hubbub.
It's hard to talk about hopes and dreams in the intensive care ward. The next family trip, improving your golf score... these are not in the program now. The goals are simpler... coming home, seeing family over the holidays, and hoping the heart is well enough in the new year for the surgeon to change his mind.
But we do need to take care of something important when he comes home. It's uncomfortable. But it has to be done...
I've learned on this trip that my dad has stored the family's affairs on some computers. I've also learned that my mom is not so computer savvy. It got me concerned... worried that my parents need to get their affairs in order.
This was not a conversation I wanted to start... It's like talking to your life insurance agent, I assume. You don't want to ponder the possibility of when you'll die. But it is inevitable.
If you're in retirement, have you talked to your kids about your family affairs yet?
If the two of you were no longer here tomorrow, what would happen?
Would you leave your kids with a mess to sort out? Would you run the risk of family assets simply being lost?
I'll admit it... If both my wife and I were no longer here tomorrow, another family member would have a big mess to sort out. Getting our affairs together never seems to be the top priority. But after this week, my priorities have changed.
I finally did start the big conversation with my mom. It couldn't have gone better...
"Since your dad was a career test pilot, and he flew in Vietnam and such, we always had all that stuff together," my mom told me.
I was impressed and relieved at how organized they were, and my mom didn't have to share any details. Before we talked, I thought I'd have to roll up my sleeves and help out – I thought I'd be spending a few weekends shuffling papers at their house.
I'm glad I brought it up. My mom wouldn't have known my mind wasn't at ease if I had not talked to her.
I think we did it in the right way... I know enough to know where all the important papers are. But I don't know what any of them say.
I strongly urge you to have this conversation with a family member you trust. And the right way to do it, I would say, is like my parents did...
| 1) | Get as organized as you can. |
| 2) | Have the conversation. Ease your family's mind that you have things in good order. |
| 3) | Show them where you keep all the papers. Again, this about giving everyone peace of mind. You don't have to spell out your net worth. |
I'm thankful to be leaving Orlando with good news... knowing that my dad should be going home soon... and knowing that their affairs are in order.
Letting your family know you've got your act together will give your family peace of mind, and it's extremely important. Don't wait for an emergency before you have the conversation...
Best regards,
Steve
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