In This Episode: The title — Don’t Die in the Next Five Years — is an unofficial motto of an organization my wife and I joined, and we went to our first conference with them as members last week. They say this because of coming advances in medicine in the next several years, and we got a glimpse into some of those advances, including some things that aren’t even published yet in medical journals, that were mind-blowing. This episode is my first report on what I learned.
Heroes
090: Rescuing Uncommon Sense
In This Episode: A story in This is True struck me as an astonishing example of Uncommon Sense, so I thought I’d tell you about it to see some really out-of-the-box thinking, and provide some practical advice that could save your life. Here’s a hint: no one thinks they’re going to get lost and need rescue. Yet there are tens of thousands of rescues every year in the U.S. alone. What will increase your odds of being safe? Uncommon Sense.
089: The Deserved Death of “Doctor Knows Best”
In This Episode: “Doctor knows best,” the saying went. While delivered as reassurance, its real meaning was much more sinister, as I’ll explain. This is the story of the final nail in that idiom’s coffin because really, it was a lie all along. The crazy thing is, that didn’t happen all that long ago.
088: The Fruits of Her Labor
In This Episode: It’s said women and minorities have to work a lot harder to compete in business, and I believe it. But how might they actually do that? Well, they apply Uncommon Sense — and we can all learn from a good example.
Peak Stress
The lead story this week is mind-blowing …especially to me as a current first responder medic and former deputy sheriff. Here, I go through the incident step by step to show just how fast the deputy had to react — and make a life-altering decision along the way.
064: The Line in the Sand
In This Episode: Colorado, having seen constant partisan manipulations of redistricting in the past — Gerrymandering — actually did something about it, and did something radical in the process: they exercised Uncommon Sense.
061: The Domino Effect
In This Episode: When you follow your gut and push to be the best, amazing things can happen. James Flanagan did that, and the domino effect that followed is so amazing, you’ll find it hard to believe that one guy’s efforts are probably a part of your life every day — even though he’s been dead for several years.
059: Rescuing History
In This Episode: A wild story of several civilians who rescued a piece of history — a little-known account from the sidelines in the race to the moon.
052: Uncommon Sense the Easy Way
In This Episode: Can you quit a bad habit with willpower? Allen Carr thought that was the hard way, but he had insight into what he called the “Easy Way” that would work better, and saved perhaps millions of lives by quitting his day job to help teach others how. It’s a great story of Uncommon Sense at work.
050: The Mother of All Demos
In This Episode: One person with Uncommon Sense can have a profound effect on the world. Wait until you hear the story of Doug Engelbart: he’s the visionary behind many of the technologies you use most every day.
043: The $100 Education
In This Episode: Warren Buffett says the biggest impact on his massive success was one particular class he took. But it wasn’t part of his college or graduate school education. I’ll tell you what it is, for free.
042: Pushing the Uncommon Sense Envelope
In This Episode: Uncommon Sense facilitates some pretty out-of-the-box thinking that not only improves the thinker’s life, but sometimes improves or even saves countless other lives. Doug Lindsay’s story pushed the envelope pretty far — there really is no limit to Uncommon Sense, as you’re about to hear for yourself.
038: The Giant Leap for Mankind
In This Episode: I’m recording this episode the evening of July 20th: the 50th anniversary of the first humans landing on the moon. If you think it maybe took Uncommon Sense to get there, you’re right: it took an extraordinary amount, and this episode talks about some of the details that you may not have heard about before.
One Small Step for [a] Man
It was 50 years ago Saturday that Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong piloted the Eagle — the first manned lunar-landing spacecraft — to the surface of the moon.
032: “Give Me a Shot at It. I’m an Engineer”
In This Episode: The story of a man who wasn’t satisfied with mere success. He took Uncommon Sense to a new level in order to help others, yet refused to get rich from it.
014: Expect the Unexpected
In This Episode: Just how much impact one person can have by refusing to be stymied by those who don’t have it. Because he did that, you might owe this guy your life.
011: We Need Better Heroes
In This Episode: Some people — usually people with Uncommon Sense — aspire to something greater than the whims of the masses and can make a huge impact on the world. This episode looks at what we as a society pay a lot of attention to, at the detriment to the much more important things we pretty much ignore. The difference: mind-blowing.
010: “I Just Don’t Have Time”
In This Episode: “I just don’t have time” is the modern mantra. And I’m here to tell you why that’s total B.S. Because if you apply Uncommon Sense to the time problem, that turns out to not be the problem you think it is.
008: The Man with the Golden Arm
In This Episode: I had heard about the man I’m going to tell you about several times over the past several years, but I didn’t know the whole story of “The Man with the Golden Arm”. It’s a bit of a medical mystery and, as I researched all of this to understand what the heck it was that he did, I discovered he started displaying Uncommon Sense even as a child.
007: A Second Opinion
In This Episode: A very different kind of episode: a story that’s not from the newsletter, but rather one that’s too long and complex to be shortened to 100ish words plus a pithy tagline. It’s an amazing story of despair, hope, and renewal, with a wild twist at the end.