How can I best serve you? (+ My podcast interview on raising your spirits)

Greetings from sunny Los Angeles! Hope you’re doing exceptionally well wherever you are.

So I had a little bit of a motivational slump myself these past few weeks, and now feel like I’m on an upward trend. Of course, of all the challenges one could have, this is a pretty high-quality one — vs say “can’t get a ventilator in the ICU.” To paraphrase the old Buddhist story: Thanks for everything. I have no complaints whatsoever.

One of the ways I raise my own energies is by making myself useful to the world. So my very important question to you is this:

How can I best serve you?

Here are some potential options:

  • More articles on dating and relationships. Have been putting these on the backburner because the topic seems to have dropped in priority, but valid topic nonetheless. And I do have some new stuff for you, e.g. The Pipeline System.
  • More seminars and workshops on happiness and well-being. Did 10 of those and happy to do more.
  • Brain Yoga sessions. Exactly what it sounds like: a yoga class for your brain to make it stronger and more flexible.
  • Drop-in video office hours on Facebook or Zoom. These can be fun and interactive.
  • One-on-one coaching sessions, or long-term coaching programs. If you feel like this is what you need to get you to the next level, I’m all for it.
  • Tune Up Your Life Happiness Engineering group course. 3 months with a bunch of your peers to slowly, radically redesign your life.
  • Write the update to The Tao of Dating. Not sure if that’s what the world needs right now, but if you tell me otherwise, I could be convinced. Working title: Grown-Ass Dating: The Modern Woman’s Guide to Love & Romance

So please drop me a line, and let your presence and thoughts be known! There are a lot of directions I could go in, so it’s crucial that I find out what YOU find the most beneficial.

In the meantime, I just did an interview with my old friend & colleague Rebecca Whitman on her Balanced, Beautiful and Abundant show for smart accomplished women like yourself. And you know what? It came out purty good! For once, I listened to it myself (at 2x speed, of course), and I’m happy to report it did not bore me silly. It’s about the 5 Pillars of Human Thriving (Robust Relationships, Meaningful Work, Sound Sleep, Mental Fitness, Physical Fitness), how to apply them now and in the future, and what’s love got to do with it all. 22min at 2x speed, 44min if you’re the more patient type. Listen to it and let me know what you think!

And if you’re wondering what I have been doing: reading even more than before. All nonfiction as usual. Some terrific ones of the 87 books of 2020 so far:

Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs, by Michael T Osterholm PhD MPH (and Mark Olshaker). Osterholm is one of the world’s foremost public health professionals, having served for 40 years on the frontlines of such diseases as Ebola, SARS, MERS, Zika and everything else. This book will rapidly bring you up to speed on epidemiology and pandemic management. He also devotes a whole chapter to a “tabletop scenario” that’s basically a play-by-play description of the unfolding of the coronavirus epidemic. Insanely prescient, exceptionally timely.

The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California, by Mark Arax. Just came out. A deeply reported look from a native son into the history of water, irrigation, and farming in California, that desert turned into the world’s breadbasket and the US’s most populous state. How? And how sustainable is it? This elegiac, poetic, and unflinching book will tell you. Longish and totally worth it.

Talk to me,

Dr Ali