A very recent article by CNN, based on a study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine says that physical activity in the top 25% if the US population can increase your life by over five years.

At the same time, physical inactivity can decrease your life span by a similar amount. Little or no physical activity can lead to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some forms of cancer

The good news all this is doable. It is within you power to do this. Walking works. So does movement in your day in living your life.

You can be happier in your longer life. The Surgeon General of the US writes that building new relationships and friendships are the key to increased happiness and the absence of loneliness.

It is yours and mine for the taking. It is right there.

I think this is one of the most important podcasts I have done, and I hope you might listen to it.

What do pancakes, early in the morning, snickers, a caramel macchiato from Starbucks, a hot dog with fries, a bag of chips and a box of cheezit have to do with the election last week?

Do you remember what Jeb Barlett said to his wife Abbey on the plane after leaving Washington, D.C. and the Presidential Inauguration?

She had asked him what he was thinking as he looked out the window at the sky above and the clouds below.

His reply to her - "Tomorrow".

It all comes together in my new podcast, starting Monday, November 11.

For thirty-five years to the day, Molly Byrd worked first as a secretary, before becoming a long-time legal assistant and mentor to many in the Winston-Salem office of the law firm of Womble Carlyle, now known as the international firm of Womble Bond & Dickinson.

That is just a part of her story. For the last eighteen years, she has taught hundreds of people to ride motorcycles all over the country. She herself has ridden to Key West and New York City, mainly to see the Statue of Liberty.

For the last month, she has traveled west to the mountains of North Carolina where she took clothes and her chainsaw to help stranded and now homeless people who are trying to survive the hopefully once in a life-time hurricane that devastated the western part of the state.

Meanwhile, she loves nothing better than to work and rest on her 35-acre farm, a place where she grew up and later inherited from her Dad.

Molly is a person for all seasons. Her philosophy for a long and happy life is simple. She wants to help people, wherever they may be.

Hello Everyone, I am pausing new podcasts for two weeks (October 21 and October 28). I will have a new one on Monday, November 4 and hope to see you then.

I am preparing new and, I hope, entertaining podcasts that I think you will enjoy. The short comments today give you a brief preview of some of them, starting in November.

Thanks

Jim

"The Illness Hidden with a Smile" - the headline in a New York Times opinion piece about the death by suicide of the always outwardly upbeat Kate Spade.

With the understanding that no one really knows how another is doing in life, I tuned in this past week to a podcast on The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos, a professor at Yale University.

She and her panel of experts on Mental Health issues believe the main driver of depression and anxiety is loneliness and the lack of strong relationships.

Over the time of their podcast, they give lots of ideas and thoughts about overcoming loneliness and developing good personal relationships.

Listen this week to my new podcast and lots of creative ideas on Happiness. It is never too late.

For more than fifteen years, I have traveled to Asheville, North Carolina, sometimes twice a year, holding Continuing Legal Education programs for lawyers and paralegals from that part of the state in the downtown law offices of Van Winkle.

Two women who were long time paralegals there, came to almost every program I ever held and became my good friends.

Now, with Asheville suffering deeply from the ravages ot he recent storm, I called them recently to see how they were doing.

Both they and their families are safe, but they each have stories about their city, how they are coping in a place that is likely to be without water and infrastructure for some time.

They tell the story of resilience that will take a long time and will be hard. It is a story of the grit that will help get everyone there.

Whoever tells the best story usually wins! Whoever ends his or her trial with the most pictures still hanging on the wall usually wins!

A trial is a tale of two stories, yours and the other one.

Everything you do in a trial, even a negotiation, should help you tell your story.

I loved trying cases, before a judge or a jury. I loved to compete. Most trial lawyers do.

Everyone has at least one talent that is perhaps God given. Regardless of what you do in life, it does not go away.

This is the story of how I found, if not my talent, what I like best.

I love telling stories!

What do you do for adventure and excitement after climbing many of the mountain ranges in the world and walking the entire Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine in the eastern United States?

Clark Wright, who has done all those things, took his wife and two daughters with him in June to the Grand Canyon for a week's trip on white water rafting on the Colorado River.

Whether it was hanging on for dear life, so as not to fall out of the raft into the water or gliding along peacefully taking in the scenery or cooking out steaks for dinner on the side of the river before calling it a night, it was a time of excitement, grit and resilience in just making the trip safely and in one piece.

It was also a time of intense bonding with their fellow travelers and making new friendships. They traveled and slept in the outdoors a few feet from the river each night, mostly with people they had never before met.

It was the trip of a lifetime. Listen to Clark as he takes you with him on this incredibly beautiful journey.

Where else can you go for a week, be on the water all day, with no cell phone service, take upwards of almost 4,000 pictures and after it is over, want to go again?

On Friday, April 19, 2024, Elon University, a private school of approximately 6,000 students, nationally known for being perhaps the premier teaching university in the country, awarded their highest honor, the Elon Medallion, to a man who helped make it possible, Noel Allen, a 1969 graduate of the school, and for more than four decades, one of its leading trustees.

When not working on behalf of the school he has loved all his life, Noel became one of the nation's most outstanding lawyers in the fields of administrative law and anti-trust, writing a number of highly regarded books on the subjects.

Noel knows politics, when as a young man, he became the Campaign Coordinator, in eastern North Carolina, for President Jimmy Carter in the 1976 campaign, helping to achieve one of the most successful congressional district campaigns that year for the President.

He talks about getting to know Ms. Lillian, Jimmy Carter's mother, meeting Margaret Thatcher, having dinner with Desmond Tutu, the world renown Bishop and Theologian from South Africa, Walter Cronkite, John Glenn and Madeline Albright among others.

But it is Elon that he holds most dear. Upon receiving the Medallion last spring, he remarked "This place was founded on hope and vision, but its built-on courage, generosity, leadership and love."

You will consider it a treat to hear Noel talk about it all, starting Monday, September 16.

The Surgeon General of the United States calls Loneliness a major public health crisis on a par with smoking and obesity. It one of the most serious mental health issues we have in this country.

In a recent opinion in the New York Times, the writer David French, a lifelong conservative, writes somewhat provocatively about what he calls the loneliness epidemic. While much of his article is full of cold realities, he ends his piece with a sense of optimism. He is positive there is a cure. "Make a New Friend"!

It is that simple, he says. But there is a catch. It is also difficult. It requires us to do something, be proactive, get out of our comfort zone.

So, in this podcast, I talk about the ways in which each of us can combat feeling of loneliness, how we can make new friends, and how we can become more interactive with people.

There are lots of ways available. Within a half hour, I came up with close to twenty-five ideas.

You can listen and agree with me. Or you can come up with your own thoughts. But what a great thing to do - come up with ways to meet a new friend! There is a cure for loneliness! It is right here for the taking!