3 X 5's: Index Card Wisdom from Best of Books

PIE SARK (2002). Prosperity Pie:                                How to Relax About Money and Everything Else SARK is a pen name for Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy. SARK is a self-made artist and writer (i could not find information about her education)...she's authored 16 books as of 2024...she is the CEO of a successful organization called "Planet SARK." in this book, "prosperity pie" refers to our experience of living in the abundance of life's gifts/blessings/resources and sharing them with others...there is enough...we are enough. of the many ideas, some of which can be practices/experiments: go through all your STUFF, and recycle everything you don't use or love give yourself the CARE you need everyday for physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health gather your inner children, find out what they need, and meet their needs as best you can call someone out to PLAY engage in joyful mastur...

JUMP START Doug Hall (1995). Jump Start Your Brain . Hall has a BS in chemical engineering and worked a decade for Procter and Gamble before retiring at age 32 and starting his own organization that consulted with many Fortune 500 companies. This book shares some of his secrets about creativity. Throughout the book, Hall uses quotes, especially quips from Benjamin Franklin and quotes from himself and his employees. Some of the ideas that resonated with me: to brainstorm creative ideas, instead of pulling ideas out of our brain, stimulate the brain with new ideas and link them back to the problem, decision, issue, topic, or idea at hand--the stimuli can be ANYTHING--pictures in a  magazine, newspaper headlines, tv shows, words in the dictionary, titles of books, famous people...in one section, Hall lists 1,090 items in categories for an activity he calls, "Dr. Disecto." part of creativity is learning to PLAY like a kid again, creating a comfortable environment to play is esse...

JUMP TIME Jean Houston (2004). Jump Time:                                             Shaping Your Future                                             in a World of Radical Change. Houston has doctorates in both psychology and religion, and is an international author, consultant, and speaker. In this book, she defines "jump time" as an evolutionary shift from the old to the new, a time of potential radical transformation/evolution on every system level. Her use of metaphor and vocabulary makes engaging reading, and her references to other researchers and people of indigenous wisdom fills the pages. Another book is needed that takes her ideas and turns them into specific, concrete practices. To her credit, she does include ...

HONOR & LOVE Mary Balogh (2003). Slightly Married. Even though it is a novel, there are many truths within this book, and a spell-binding plot with heroes and heroines. Set in the time of the Nepolianic wars of Europe, most of the story takes place in England, near London, with Colonel Aidan Bedwy and Eve of Rigwood Manor being the principle characters in the story. Through odd circumstances, they enter into a marriage of convenience out of honor, and over time, they begin to fall in love, eventually, in the last chapter, finding their home with each other. It is a delightful tale with the themes of honor and love throughout the book. For the practice, when you need to make a decision, consider how much of the decision is honor-bound and how much is motivated by love...ideally, you can maximize both, but sometimes, honor and love appear to be in opposition, and one must lean more in one direction than the other with honor as the "right" thing to do, and love as the ...

LUCKY Dr. Seuss (1973). Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? Dr. Seuss is a pen name for Theodor Seuss Geisel who graduated from Darmouth college with a BA in English...he was planning to get a PhD from Oxford but he met his wife who encouraged him to write. This book is one of over 60 children's books written by Dr. Seuss. The book begins with an old man sitting on a prickly cacti in the desert, giving advice to Duckie, a young lad also sitting on a prickly cacti (see cover of book below). The theme on every page is BE GLAD you don't have it as bad as "so and so" who has to do "such and such" every day...the usual Dr. Seuss imaginative drawings accompany every page.  Disappointed with the negativity, presenting problems and reframing them as "aren't you glad this isn't you"! Why not FLIP IT? Tell about all the WONDERS of life, the MIRACLES of existence, the GIFT of being alive...now that's the kind of book i'd like to read (and h...

GUT-MIND CONNECTION Emeran Mayer (2016). Mind-Gut Connection:                                                How the Hidden Conversation Within Our                                                   Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and                                             Our Overall Health. Mayer is a medical doctor who has researched brain-body connections for 40 years...he specializes in  brain-gut microbiome interactions. While i appreciate the scientific descriptions and explanations of the brain-gut interactions and the neuroscientific mechanisms by whi...

NAPPING SARK (1999). Change Your Life Without Getting Out of Bed:                               T he ULtimate Nap Book SARK is a pen name for Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy. SARK is a self-made artist and writer (i could not find information about her education)...she became famous for a poster called, "How to be an Artist" (i have the poster hanging near my computer as i write)...she's authored 16 books as of 2024, many of which are best sellers...she is the CEO of a successful organization called "Planet SARK," a remake of a previous organization that didn't do as well in the early 1990's. In this book about naps (she never defines what a nap is, but after reading the book, i would say a nap is "resting"--not necessarily sleeping but could be--outside of the regular longer period of sleep that accompanies most people's nocturnal rhythm). SARK makes the following claims:  Naps are good for us Na...