My friend Peter Pure from the Raw Food Party recently started a conversation after mentioning that Steve Jobs’ death was a call for us all to take greater personal responsibility. I agree that we need a higher standard for ourselves yet I’m not convinced that that was the issue with Steve Jobs and I emailed Peter to say so. Here’s the conversation summarised again by Peter:

Where do you stand?

Another friend of mine too, has recently passed, via cancer…
Here’s where I suggest that we might all stand philosophically and with our actions…

There are no guarantees of anything, and anyone who says otherwise, I would say that’s an irresponsible message.
But it is a proven fact that YOU CAN MASSIVELY stack the odds in your favour for a long, healthy, happy life!
And it is also a proven fact that you can MASSIVELY stack your odds against disease.

Further, I personally take a very conservative approach towards my health and that is to MEASURE all of my most important health parameters once or twice a year, to make sure that I’m on track with my health goals, and not slowly being derailed in any measurable health parameter that would otherwise put me in a risk factor category.
I consider it an M.O.T. on my body, and I suggest you do the same.
Further, I continue to educate myself, (and educate others) about what we can personally do, that is PROVEN to make a difference.
(in that regard, check out my SuperHero training – the most in depth study of how to look after your body for the rest of your life).

So whilst there can never be any guarantees of anything, I would say it behooves each of us that are serious about living life to the full to:
1, Thoroughly educate yourself about what makes a difference in your health, longevity, physical and mental performance.
2, Consistently (at the greatest speed of change that you can manage) to incorporate those learnings into your life.

As a friend of mine recently said (the President of the London Anti-Aging Medical Conference)
“If you think prevention is expensive – try disease!”

To the living!
Shine On!

A couple of my subscribers have sent in a couple of notes on some of Steve Job’s lifestyle choices (I make no claim for their accuracy, but find it interesting enough)

Simon Tolhurst-Simms sent in this message:

“Steve Jobses Food Habits:

Ever since his teenage years, Steve had been a militant vegan. When he was 19 in Reed College, he started exploring diets which would allow him to eliminate all mucus and therefore the need to shower. He also started a habit he kept a very long time: that of fasting. He was convinced digestion was burning too much of his energy, the energy he needed at work when he stayed up several nights in a row.

Nevertheless, Steve was a strict vegan all of his life, like his wife Laurene. He was known for lecturing his guests about eating meat. One of his favorite meals was known to be raw carrot, without any dressing. A journalist invited at his home described the meal he was served: “We dine as the Jobses always do: both are strict vegans, eating no meat products, dairy products, eggs or honey. Dinner is pasta with raw tomatoes, fresh raw corn from the garden, steamed cauliflower and a salad of raw shredded carrots. While the adults eat, their six-year-old son picks lemon verbena and other herbs in the garden for the after-dinner tea.” He bought his organic vegetables from the Palo Alto Whole Foods Market, where he is often seen walking barefoot.”

Peter says: If this is true (and I understand that there is some truth to this), what can we learn?
First off, some people say things like “see, you can do good, and still bad things can happen to you!” – I say: do good anyway. It makes a difference.
Most importantly, here’s what I believe is the key, It is not sufficient to do “good”, we must do what is NECESSARY. There’s a huge difference between the two approaches, and one where having an annual full medical exam and assessing that with someone who actually knows what parameters are OPTIMAL (as opposed to what is average, which is what mainstream medicine sorts for) SEPARATES, those of us who are SERIOUS about getting great results for our health and our life, and those who only dabble.

- If you wish to find out about what to have measured in a full medical examination, and how to be optimal in every area that you could be tested in – contact us – we have a program for this.

Misae sent in this message:

Did you know he was a vegan and at times raw foodist? Frederic Patenaude seemed to connect with him and from the guys I’ve know who’ve worked at Apple they have a far higher standard in the canteen than Microsoft’s pizzas. This was all Job’s doing as was Pixar’s “leave on time policy because you can’t make family movies if you don’t see yours”.

I suspect it’s not just bad choices on an individual scale anymore. It’s systemic polution on a global scale.

Peter says: right on about pollution! The U.S. Centre of Disease Control (CDC) states that humans have now successfully polluted this planet with over 85,000 never before seen man-made chemicals, many of which have been proven to contribute to cancer, birth defects, hormonal problems, nervous system disorders. The CDC tested americans for only a few thousand of the 85,000, and found that the average american had around 700 of the chems tested. They’re in the air that we breathe, and the water that we drink. There is no turning back time now, the need for DAILY personal chemical detoxification is critical now, and for the rest of our lives. More on this coming your way soon, stay tuned!

My original message:

Can Steve Jobs assist us in re-evaluating our values?

Even if you have never heard of Steve Jobs, the co-founder and driving force behind Apple , his work has undoubtedly touched your life, and even the future lives of babies being born today, if nothing else, through his competitors and emulators.

With sadness comes reflection, 56 is way too early for anybody to die. And it was way too early for the legend of the magnitude of Steve Jobs. Steve, your contribution will be sorely missed.

Even with my extensive network of friends and associates who comprise the medical elite of the world, I haven’t heard of anyone I know of who was working with Steve. So who knows what factors were at play in his untimely demise.

But I feel there is a major lesson to be learned,

In the year 1900, 1 in 500 deaths were due to cancer. Today it is 1 in 3. That’s not genetic. We’ve got to wake up to what we are doing to ourselves. Cancer is not contagious. Cancer is a product of thousands of poor personal choices stacked on top of each other over decades. And we need to take personal responsibility for that because good people who are casual about their health are unwittingly becoming casualties.

Now is the time to re-assert the most fundamental value that we desperately need right now: placing our personal health and wellbeing at the top of our list of pursuits and values for our life. For if you don’t look after yourself to the best of your knowledge, your capacity to live your life to the full and contribute to others can be hugely disrupted, and even cut short.

Live life to the full.

Let it not be said that you died with your greatness still in you.

Care for your life to the full.

Let it not be said that you died way before your time due to factors which are to the largest extent under your personal control .

Steve Jobs, the planet has lost one of the greatest men in history, rest in peace

I can but echo Peter’s words about Steve Jobs; a truly great inventor and businessman. More importantly it does underline the need for greater control on pollution and toxicity and both an individual and international level. Steve Jobs was a smart guy. One of the smartest of our times. He had all the money he needed to access the very best equipment, facilities and thought leaders in any subject and by all accounts led a way better life style than most. Yet still he passed at 56.

Realistically, we should consider that his lifestyle was probably what kept him going. From surviving cancer in 2004 to last another 7 years is very rare. To be at the top of your game and revolutionizing technology and communication all around the globe at the same time is unheard of. Only Jobs has ever done it.

I know of another lady who had a similar life style and also passed of cancer. She was a Canadian with a hugely positive outlook, a largely raw vegan diet and who grew much of her own food on her farm. She didn’t drink or smoke, slept in circadian rhythm and still passed to cancer.

It would be easy to throw your hands up in the air and say “I give up; we just don’t know enough”. Don’t. We know enough about what supports health. It’s eating the right foods, exercising, cultivating the right lifestyle and emotions. It’s not that we don’t know enough about that. We know fully that these things help. Centres like The Hippocrates Institute turn lives around with this and Steve Jobs burned so brightly as a wonderful example of it.

What we don’t know enough about are the effects of all the chemicals being released into the world. Each year more are introduced and infect the water supply. More bombs are let off. More fossil fuels are dug up and released. Fukushima’s radiation spreads out over a wider area.

These are the things you need to throw your hands up in the air about! We don’t know enough to tell if that new non-stick pan coating is safe for 30 years of exposure. We don’t know if that new cook-in-the-plastic packaging is safe. And we don’t know what the thousands of industrial, medical and commercial chemicals created each year do, nor what they do in combination.

Steve Jobs lasting as long as he did under the amount of stress he was under was a miracle and a testament to the quality of the man’s spirit and lifestyle. We’d all enrich the world more by taking from his example. And yet I can’t help but feel just individual responsibility alone is enough. If only we could get Steve Jobs to redesign the way chemicals are created and let loose; maybe it’d finally start to accord with what our intuition has been telling so many of us for so long.