Rhana Pytell

Founder Institute!

Its official ~ I have graduated from the Founder Institute (FI) with an engaging vision and a validated business!

What I learned:

1. The kindest thing to say when someone’s idea description seems incoherent is simply: “that sounds esoteric”. A program mentor said that to me the first week. Remembering that things were happening “for me” rather than “to me” was a necessary perspective.

2. HSSS is a common condition. It can strike at any age. Symptoms include a blank mind, heart palpitations, and trembling. The only known cure for (HSSS) Hot Seat Stress Syndrome is a lot of pitch practice, Toast Masters…or, wine.

3. “Founder proofing” a home environment is an important safety step when the founder is obsessive-compulsive with assignments. To prevent further damage in my home during the “name your company” assignment I had to switch to electric appliances with automatic shut off features rather than cook on an open flame gas stove.

4. Intention and visualization work … posting this note to myself at the beginning of the program made a difference.

Forgetting to breathe through the “product sprint” assignment was bad for my health. Again visualization works… when it is important, make it a screen saver.

What I appreciate:

1. The opportunity to share ideas and engage with entrepreneurs and founders that aspire to change the world and our experience in some smart, sexy, do good, brilliant, big, cool or stunning way.

2. The brilliance of Adeo Ressi’s idea, the generous insight of the San Diego program mentors, and the attentive and innovative work of the San Diego FI program manager, Jeanine Jacobson.

What I accomplished:

1. Only two days after deciding to give myself six months to find out whether or not my “big idea” could become more than an idea an article about the Founder Institute appeared in my stream. I had to apply. The FI curriculum prepared me to answer my question with a resounding “YES”.

2. Far more work and at a faster pace than I could have imagined!

Sign up to be notified of our beta launch at
www.cayaviv.com

I encourage anyone interested in building an enduring technology company to apply here: Founder Institute

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02/02/2012

Integrating Self-Compassion

Prevention and recovery are both improved by an integrative lifestyle.

If making lifestyle changes to improve health and well-being seems like an impossible task take a look at Jean Fain’s video Thinspiration. Jean teaches at Harvard Medical School and is the author of The Self-Compassion Diet. The video blog is less than six minutes and guides you into a calm state of balance and the feeling of “can do”, “can change” and “can grow”. After watching it a couple of times I found myself in a “can do” state of mind with energy to complete a huge project and make time for an extra yoga class. Amazing.

To follow the advice of Appetite for Health dieticians and fitness eperts, Julie Upton and Katherine Brooking we have to slow down or learn to reallocate time. Their suggestions for improving health and reducing excess weight: sit at a table and put distractions aside while eating; enjoy time in Nature every day; set aside at least 15 minutes a day to quiet the mind; and, enjoy time for your favorite exercises daily. These essential practices are necessary for an integrative lifestyle.

Where do we find the time to live with self-compassion everyday?

Bernie Siegel MD recommends not listening to or reading the news and being fully engaged in self-care. Dr. Siegel’s enlightening definition of what it means to be a “patient” is shared by Tami Boehmer in her blog “Incurable to Incredible”. a powerful motivator towards making integrative health practices a way of life whether we are battling a disease or healthy.

In his book “Laughter is the Best Medicine”,circa 1970′s, Dr. Siegel awakened us to a pharmaceutical powerhouse – our own body. Understanding this is a powerful motivator towards making integrative health practices a way of life. Dr. Siegel answers questions on his blog!

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02/01/2012

How Happy Are You?

Author and researcher, Sonja Lyubomirsky, maps a path to happiness in her book “The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want”.
Her research shows that our circumstances account for only ten percent of our perceived happiness. Fifty percent is the “set point”, which according to Lyubomirsky is what we are born with – an inherited happiness closely connected to the happiness of our biological mother.

Forty percent of our happiness is a result of our intentionality. If living intentionally could increase our happiness by 10, 20, 30 or even 40% why don’t we?

It is actually rather difficult because living intentionally tests our priorities and challenges us to live them out.

Action for Happiness posts ten keys for happier living and resources for learning more. It is all about our priorities.

When we feel down, depressed or frustrated the best medicine is to take some time to reflect and realize which of our life priorities we have overlooked or forgotten. It is amazing how uplifting, energizing and healing it is to make the choice to define our priorities for well-being and live them out.

To receive your free template for priority planning and intention setting sign on at www.cayaviv.com

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01/10/2012

To Do: Contentment

Salvatore Zambito, rogue scholar, yoga teacher and author of The Unadorned Thread shared his wit and wisdom on the inner practice of yoga last Sunday at the La Jolla Yoga Center. He said: “Before you go through Bliss, you must go through Contentment.”

A simple directive. Listening to conversations…there is a shortage of contentment. Why?

Contentment requires practice. When the content of the moment is exactly attuned to my heart, I am there.

Contentment takes an effort. It comes from pouring body, mind and heart into something I love. Whether that is a “world-changing” project, working with a new recipe or a zillion other possibilities.

Contentment grows when we note the moments, breathe them in, and share them.

While driving home from this thought-provoking afternoon of yoga sutra insight I looked across a valley to the East and there on the horizon a splendid full moon was rising and over the Pacific to the West the grand gold and amber light of the setting sun answered. I felt instantly transported from my place on the freeway to my place in our solar system… contentment was mine.

What inspires your contentment?

The Art of Self-Care, journal and process for wellness is now available on Blurb.

Thanks to edits by calligrapher Judythe Sieck and art therapist Ellen Speert I am content and pleased to make this journal/workbook available for you!

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12/12/2011

Cheers to Our Health in 2012!

With over $2 Trillion dollars being spent annually in the U.S. to manage chronic disease it is safe to conclude that there are a lot of people feeling terrible. Yet, we know that chronic disease can be reversed and even eliminated by lifestyle changes.

The chart below illustrates blood serum concentration of Vitamin D relative to the percent of prevention available for specific chronic diseases.

Investing $65 dollars in a simple blood test for Vitamin D levels is intelligent self-care. ZRT Labs and the Vitamin D Council makes this process easy with a test kit available by mail. Mine will be arriving this week.

This test can also be ordered through Grassrootshealth.net where you can volunteer to particpate in a Vitamin D study. This non-profit is headed by Carol Baggerly, a breast cancer survivor passionate about Vitamin D and prevention.

The list of chronic diseases preventable with Vitamin D is astonishing.

The only way to reduce the crushing costs of health insurance is for us all to be healthier. Employers incentivizing smoking cessation, weight management, and healthy heart programs would do very well by adding the management of Vitamin D blood serum levels to this basket. Latest research verifies that managing vitamin D concentration is a stellar act of prevention. Take note Aetna, Blue Cross et. al. this is a huge opportunity to improve your bottom line without “rationing” health care!

Cheers to our health in 2012!

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11/27/2011

What’s Your Gift?

“Life is the one gift we are always unwrapping.”

Our season of gift giving, shopping and celebration is rich with surprises, memories, joys, gatherings and pressures. Some set a high bar to do and be “it all”. Now more than ever people are reaching out to share joy and hope creatively.

We have a game in our organization. Each person identifies their intrinsic “gifts” from a kaleidoscope of choices and plans to share them as much as possible throughout the month. Outrageous shares that harm no one are welcome and encouraged. Humor, generosity, creativity, inspiration, storytelling, music, entertainment, magic, etc. and plenty of spontaneous holiday cheer lifts spirits and generates amazing moments.

What are your intrinsic world-changing gifts?

Cheers to unwrapping all of them this season!

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11/22/2011

The New Lean

“We thought we knew how to predict the future and we were wrong.”

-Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup

Last night we enjoyed three hours of Eric Ries storming through the key ideas in his book The Lean Startup. The sustainability concept of Zero Waste (nothing to landfill) meets Lean Startup (anything that doesn’t deliver validated learning is waste). Wow.

Time flew. We all seemed to realize that the message, if applied, would revolutionize startup strategies, resource accountability, product development, and possibly our lives. Eric apologized for adding to the lexicon of buzzwords with: “pivot”. : -) Couples no longer breakup they pivot.

In Lean Methodology a pivot is a change in strategic hypothesis based on learning. Pivoting takes courage. Sometimes it contains the possibility of breakthrough success. According to Eric entrepreneurs are known to wait for the “death march” before pivoting. Who hasn’t?

The famous validated learning story of Drop Box was followed by the story of Food On The Table. Their big idea of creating menus, shopping lists, food preferences and linking this to what is available and featured at your local store started with the entrepreneurs interviewing people in one grocery and offering the service for $4.95 a week. Eventually someone signed up. The product didn’t exist so they met their first customer each week at the nearby Starbucks and personally delivered their “product” and collected the payment of $4.95. Their “concierge” MVP (mimimum viable product) approach validated the market: FoodOnTheTable

MVP design as a consulting niche must be on the horizon.

A rich dynamic presentation – with gems for every entrepreneur and startup – the standouts for my early stage product concept, a mobile application that improves self-image and wellness practices adherence, are these:
Systemized Validated Learning – more commonly we categorize by: what is done; what is in progress; what needs to be completed. Adding a column for “validated learning” connects it all.
Brainstorm and experiment with fast, creative ideas for MVP.
Make concrete predictions of customer behavior and test.
Calendar pivot or persevere meetings; know what information you want in the room for that meeting.

The event was filmed for publication.

Now back to MVP brainstorming…

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10/24/2011

Wonder Woman

Can we reduce stress hormones and increase our chances of connecting with others by changing our posture?

Amy Cuddy’s Power Pose presentation at PopTech 2011

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10/19/2011

Why Wait?

Little Lakes Valley Eastern Sierra October 2011
Elevation 10,200 ft. Three women arrive at the trailhead…the first sporting pink hiking attire embroidered with the peace sign, followed by another wearing a “Code Pink” emblem on her sweatshirt and the third styling a pink lily stitched to her hat. I turned to watch as they ascended the boulder path with outstretched arms and heard audible breaths of awe and gratitude.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and “Code Pink” is everywhere reminding us that we need change.

Changing the way we value of our finite time, the ways in which we care for our health, and our beliefs about what is possible … is our work.

Catastrophic disease, a near death experience, and other lasting losses hold the potential to bury us or somehow bring us to life by shearing away the conditioning dullness of unquestioned routines too often laid over lives and possibilities and revealing our true essence and impassioned spirits.

Why wait?

The women who have been to the edge know the value of life: we are born to love our precious lives, each other, and all Nature.

Living this is our cure.

Epidemiologists have confirmed that the sunshine Vitamin D3 is a preventative for Breast and Colon cancers, Diabetes Type II, and MS. Although the research is twenty-five years along we may have only determined a few of the astonishing and health affirming benefits of D3.

The science and data which verifies supplementation with D3 as a preventative measure is beyond question. The recommended daily dosage being considered for D3 is from 4,000 IU to 8,000 IU.

Be well, why wait?