You can be incredible.

I mean that. You can be incredible. You can be the kind of person where people say, “Wow, I have no idea how he/she does it. I wish I could do that.” You can close your eyes at the end of each day reassured that you’re just a little better than you were the day before.

The best part? It’s easy to do and it only takes a few minutes a day.

This may come across a bit as a personal rant, so I apologize in advance, but I’m sick to death of people who whine about their situation or talk about improving it but never actually do anything.

I call them Underpants Collectors – inspired both by Steve Kamb of Nerd Fitness’s excellent article and the hilarious South Park episode that inspired it. Underpants Collectors are people who want to accomplish something, lose weight, learn a new language or maybe start a business and quit their 9 to 5 but never actually do anything to get there. These people feel like they’re working hard, but they never actually reach their goal.

If this sounds like you, keep reading – we can fix it.

You’re stupid.

Don’t take that the wrong way though, I’m stupid too. We’re all stupid. It’s not insulting, it’s not even something to be upset about, and best of all it’s something we can all work on fixing.

No one knows everything. Regardless of who you are there is some area of life in which you’re completely stupid. You don’t know the first thing about it. I know there are tons of things I’m completely stupid about, from complex things like astrophysics to relatively mundane things like the rules of cricket. In general I’m ok with that. Being stupid in certain areas doesn’t bother me.

Just about everyone wants to live a long, happy life (if you don’t, it may be time to sit down with someone and talk about that).

Thankfully, on the side of things we can control, there are a lot of small, easy changes we can make immediately that will have a huge effect on not only improving our lives in the present, but also ensuring that we have lots of fulfilled years ahead of us. Whether you’re 7 years old or 70 here are six things that you can start doing today that will have a lasting effect on your life.

With Thanksgiving day right around the corner a lot of people’s thoughts are inevitably turning to food, feasting and fat. Whether you’ve been struggling with weight loss for a while or are already fit and dreading the extra fat you expect to be saddled with, Thanksgiving Day generally marks the start of a holiday season characterized by complete dietary hedonism followed by shame fueled resolution making on January 1st.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Here are some things you can do before, on and after Thanksgiving day to mitigate the damage.