2010 Small Event: UCSB Engineers. Los Ingenieros Bi-monthly meeting.

Title of Presentation: The Science of Wellness. Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at the UCSB's SRB (Student Resource Building) at 7PM. The goal of the evening will be to provide engineers, the best and the brightest, with actionable steps they can and must take for their own survival for life in the sedentary new Millennium.
Click here to watch the Speaking Reel at UCSB.

2009 Large Event:

Sifu Slim spoke at a 4,000-attendees conference in Washington D.C. where he had the honor of being the first wellness speaker to make an address since the organization was founded in 1974. http://neptune.shpe.org/shpe2009/

2009 Medium-Sized Event:

Sifu Slim led Fitness Morning programs at a Corporate Conference for Translators in Quebec City.

Do you want to liven up your next meeting?

Is your company or trade group conference in need of an engaging and entertaining Corporate Wellness speaker?

Is your team building retreat in need of a supercharged speaker with the sense of levity to drive home the key points while keeping attendees laughing?

Are workers' comp claims and lethargic staff members eating away at your company's success?

Is your golf tournament awards banquet in need of a pick-me-up that will keep the crowd laughing and learning?

Are some of your staff members stuck in a rut? Hanging out at the coffee and candy machines, supersizing themselves, and missing out on work schedules and the good life?

The Speaker

Sifu Slim is a 9 on a (1-10 scale) in public speaking and is a natural teacher and philosopher whose passion happens to be health and wellness, including financial wellness.

Sifu Slim has been in front of people since his first book report he gave at age 7, on Michelangelo, a tough, resilient artist who Pope Julius II chose to repaint the ceiling (12,000 square feet in 4 years) of the Sistine Chapel.

Why was Michelangelo the right man for the job?

Have you ever heard of the Can-Do Attitude?

Michelangelo was a trained sculptor-considered the toughest of the artist trades-and only a hard-core sculptor might be able to climb scaffolding, lay on his back, hold his bloodless arms over his face, and breathe paint and solvent fumes for the better part of 4 years. Michelangelo's work shows his can-do attitude. Sifu Slim, artfully creates wellness possibilities for the overburdened business person and retiree: Wellness and happiness minus the paint fumes!

"Some people dislike stepping up in front of groups," says Sifu Slim. "I have always felt comfortable in front of people and have always appreciated the opportunity to share information with audiences. Not only might my observations be good for the audience, but it's good for me to test my knowledge and delivery in that way. I learn a lot in the process and keep on my game."

Sifu Slim provides options:

     --Keynote Address
     --Presentation format

    --Workshop

    --Small meeting

    --Break out session
    --Webinar 

Sifu Slim's program is about results. If you simply want an engaging speaker who will leave a positive impression, he can deliver that.

Transformation, better productivity, and increased wellness come from a process. Consider lighting the spark with a moving presentation.

Then consider following up with some more affordable programs like a periodic webinars which eliminate travel costs and outside conference room costs. Staff members can log in from their workstations or from your own conference room's big screen. "At the end of the program I want to learn that my intervention has measurably improved the lives of your staff and the functionality and bottom line of your business."

Sifu Slim wants to be your go-to consultant for mind and body functionality.

Your Options

Sifu Slim has presentations ready to go to meet whatever time requirement you have.

"My program will inform and entertain the attendees--I use humor and physical demonstrations to keep the audience engaged."

Please describe the duration of the programs Sifu Slim should present.

Sifu Slim can do Keynote Speaking with motivational and entertainment emphasis.

He can also do Education and Intervention including goal setting, breakout sessions, stress-relief. Key parts of these types of presentation:

A) The learning side in which Sifu Slim elucidates people with facts, statistics, anecdotes, and possibly photos on PowerPoint slides.

B) The actual interaction side. Completing questionnaires, goal setting, audience interaction, exercising demonstrations or movement portions.

This format can be set to any length from 20 minutes to a long-duration workshop (2 hours--several days).

Also consider these other options:

--A Fitness Morning Program which has Sifu Slim leading interested participants in his Jack LaLanne-style program of low-impact stretching & calisthenics.

--Stretch Breaks. Sifu Slim shares a brief motivational message and then leads people through standing stretches before or during breaks at longer sessions.

Speaking Format Options

Option 1: Professional Talks & Addresses

Option 2: Presentations using PowerPoint slides.

Brief Abstracts

1. a. Desk Potatoes Anonymous

Our ancestors didn't have to worry much about exercise; most were getting plenty just doing their daily living. We of the couch and desk age have to deliberately move our bodies for wellness. We can even do what's all the rage in senior centers: Chair Chi. "Why call it the workout?" asks Sifu Slim. "Given the right frame of mind it can actually be our recreation."

"Honey, what time do you want to recreate tomorrow?" …"How about seven o'clock?"

Fitness helps every aspect of our wellness and even stimulates and provides oxygen to our brains. People who spend most of their time watching the car in front of them and working their computer mouse need as much brain invigoration as possible. "Hello, my name is Rolo from marketing and I'm a desk potato."

1. b. Translating your Best Intentions into Better Physical and Financial Wellness

MAINTAIN your physical and financial wellness for the 30-Plus Year Career and beyond. Asian corporations & companies like Google provide wellness options and good food right at the worksite. What can people do if their company does not? Corporate Wellness has come of age and companies and individuals seek solutions. How can we stay fit, functional, and well while working and commuting in seated, sedentary positions?

Are you S.B.S.? (Sedentary Besides Strolling.)

Sifu Slim's interactive program will also ask and answer financial questions, i.e., why didn't the idea of retiring and moving away from home town and family widely exist in Western society until the 1960s? Is our society on the verge of reverting back to the old days of long-term communities and families sticking together?

1. c. Fitness, Finance, and Fasting

Examines the history of the "3 F's" and how this knowledge works within the paradigm: Health = Wealth. What is more long-lasting, maintenance or transformation?

If everyone is selling you the latest and greatest pill, exercise plan, self improvement book, or money making scheme, does that mean that you are already a mess that needs serious transformation?

This program examines how to live a healthy life. It also looks back at the history of retirement and investing, which, for most of the working world, didn't begin until after WWII.

2. All Grown Up and No Time for You

Examines how many of us are over trained, over programmed, over scheduled (cell phone, on the move, in the SUV, late for an appointment) and destined for never getting to know ourselves. This common reality often breads discontent and “unwellness”. “The only way to truly get in touch with yourself, and learn how your body and mind work, is to spend time, peaceful time, with the one person who needs you more than anyone else—YOU!” Sifu Slim will present a way you can do this within your limited time schedule.

3. Fitness and Work-related Injuries

"Inactivity is costing the world its youthful energy and creating dysfunction from sea to shining sea."

It's not normal to be mainly motionless, sitting or standing as much as we do. Though they're basically retired from having to work for a living, the monkeys in the zoo are normally not sedentary, they're constantly moving.

Should we just stretch and call it a day? Is stretching enough? Is lying down on the job a bad thing? Depression and stress are exacerbated by both too little and too much sleep. How do you get it right?

Discusses siestas, power naps, knockout days, staycations and the neighborhood walk of peace. Also addresses ergonomics and budgeting for wellness.

Is it better to buy your staff a gym membership they may not regularly use or to give them empowerment and knowledge? Because work fills a significant portion of our active hours and because wellness directly impacts our productivity and stress levels, wellness becomes a job-related issue.

4. The Best Pill Your Doctor Ever Prescribed--Exercise

Includes the latest craze: Chair Chi, Exercising Right At Your Workstation. So many are quick to jump into surgery for back and hip problems. What about first trying to get functional and then getting fit?

"If I could bottle exercise, I would have 100% of the world's population as clients. If I could bottle what you get from exercise, the world might run out of bottles. Exercise does take time, but, once you get fit, it's certainly more fun to jog on a tree-lined path than it is to be cooped up on the couch or at the computer screen. Immobile, low brain wave, sedentary activities are not recreational."

Find out how to derive joy from physical activities, like a kid at summer camp, no matter how old you are.

5. Movement = Productivity & Lower Medical Costs

Includes an examination of why Scandinavian farmers outperform American farmers in strength and functionality tests.

Shows how mental capacity and drive and determination are directly linked to physical activity.

Here are some startling figures from the Journal of Physical Activity and Health.

These numbers include the cost of medical care, worker's compensation and productivity losses. An estimated $31 billion could be saved per year with a 5% reduction of physically inactive and overweight adults."

Have Western companies begun to adapt their benefits package to address this? What is going on at the Googleplex in Mountainview, California?

6. How to get to Retirement

Did you know that in many Western cultures, the Depression-era kids were the first that needed nest eggs because they were the first generation who weren't planning on moving in with their kids during old age?

An Awareness Plan will be presented, including a Brief History of modern-era Financial Health and Physical Health. An Action Plan will be examined. (Financially speaking, after paying bills, nothing is more prominent in the minds of many adults than being able to afford their retirement.)

Sifu Slim asks the audience, "How many of you care more about money, your 401(k), and getting the new client to sign up, than you do about being alive and well? (Pause) Yeah, some of you had to think about that..."

7. The Mind-Body Connection

Examines what we can learn from Asian cultures.

Shows what things from old-school models are still valid and what you may want to roundfile. We sometimes have income coming in but eat food that gives us indigestion. Other times we can't find any new business but our happily doing our yoga and Pilates classes on schedule. Sometimes we have finances and health working for us but our self esteem is riding low.

How do we prepare ourselves for this? How do we ride through the bumpy-road days so we can spend more time in the zone?

8. Pick Anything from My Book

Sifu Slim's book has 275 pages of observations and facts about the psychology of fitness, diet, wellness, motivation, and inspiration. You may ask him to prepare a program on any topic in his book, on this website, or in any article he has written.

9. Economic Resurgence with a look back to previous centuries

Urban Homesteading & The End of The Post-WWII Economic Growth Spurt

Includes thoughts on rebuilding the world's infrastructure, eco building, locally-grown food, responsible wellness, and rolling up our garage doors and having block parties like the 1970s.

Sifu Slim asks the audience: "Do you even know your neighbors? What would you do if the food store ran out and the water pipe went dry?

Do you know how your ancestors made it through the Great Depression? Does the "Power of Positive Thinking" mean that you shouldn't plan for something that may not be so positive?"

10. Have you had your "Rocky Balboa" moment today?

Supermotivation from a standpoint of creating the habit. When you get good at something, it becomes a blast! How do you work your habit into your busy day? Have you considered "living on senior time"? When is the last time your tried it? How "fixed" is your mindset? Have you heard of the "growth mindset"?

We've all heard about Aha! Moments, the Wow Factor, and Overcoming Obstacles. At the outset of his challenge, Rocky believes there is no way he can beat the champ, Apollo Creed. Rocky's trainer, Mickey, teaches Rocky how to create a new habit and adopt the growth mindset. Rocky stops smoking and, at an age at which he was already set in his ways, Rocky learns new skills and techniques which allow him to first "Go the distance" and then, in the rematch, climb off the ground and make it to his feet to win the battle.

How many of you have had your entire family or organization pulling for you like the City of Philadelphia demonstrated in rooting on their local fighter Rocky Balboa? When you think about it, almost everyone wants you to be happy and well. Why not use that energy?

How many of you feel so good that at times, you become Rocky as you strive to do your best?

How many feel the high and power surge on your run up the hill?

11. China in the New Millennium

The Chinese culture has been around for thousands of years. Will its culture and economy do more than thrive in the 21st century? Will it dominate?

Not very long ago, the British used an underhanded tactic to cause a dynasty to collapse. Here is an excerpt from Hoai Do, MPH, Harborview Medical Center/University of Washington

"During the Qing Dynasty, Britain introduced opium to China as a means to reverse the trade deficit. Many Chinese became addicted to opium subsequently. The Qing government attempted to ban the sale but corrupted officials and merchants did nothing to stop it. As tensions mounted, wars led by the Chinese against the British, known as the Opium Wars, broke out. Plagued with opium addiction and internal corruption, China was defeated badly by Britain and forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking. The Qing government had to make many concessions to Britain. This included giving away land to the British and allowing them to open several ports for trade. Hong Kong became a British colony. Seeing that China was at its most vulnerable state, other Europeans seized the opportunity and forced China to sign similar treaties. The Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911."

While many have been watching the USA and the West turn into a service sector dominated, low-productivity, outsourcing country, the Chinese have steadily outperformed the rest of the world and are much healthier and better educated than most. Not only do they produce many of the world's products, but they have gained the edge in the technological revolution as well. The revolution doesn't mean inventing, getting products to market (and selling a bunch of peripherals, chargers, and service contracts) is where the big money is made.

What does this mean for you? Have you asked your Sifu (teacher in Cantonese) or Asian or Asian-influenced confidants about their outlook?

12. Time to Think

A famous public speaker regularly tells his audience to work hard and study hard. He prescribes reading books "...on your field of interest and books on motivation and positive thinking".

Sifu Slim accepts this advice but also promotes thinking time.

"Why," he asks, "are many farmers so wise? It's because they have time to think when they're driving their tractors or working the land. They also tend to be less inundated with endless information than those in the corporate world. They tend not to be information junkies."

The significance of setting time aside for thinking, meditating, and visualizing should not be overlooked. Thinking time has enabled many people to achieve their goals. Time has solved most of our challenges. Keeping a journal for personal and one for business has helped many in the past to chronicle and contemplate their journey. This practice has also enabled many to write their books and memoirs. "Not only do your grandkids have the chance to enjoy the college fund you set up, but they get to read about you and get to know you."

It's okay to be a quick thinker. It's commendable to be someone who can make a tough decision in the moment. What about the big plan and the big questions? Does "It pay to listen"? (as the Sperry Corporation claims).

Do you set time aside to listen to yourself?

Do you ever reread some of your old notes? Today's situation may need the same response you used two years ago.

12.a. Fitness Morning Program

This is a small message that has been featured in the programs of international conferences and regional meetings Sifu Slim has enhanced.

As a special bonus, the Internet Marketing Conference is glad to welcome Sifu Slim, for two pre-breakfast toning warm-ups in the park outside, weather permitting. All sizes, shapes, and fitness levels are welcome, even those who can only practice Chair Chi—the rage in senior centers. Come join us for a brief motivational message, a low-impact stretch and warm-up session, and a lot of laughs.

Sifu Slim will lead interested participants in his Jack LaLanne-style program of low-impact stretching & calisthenics either at a space in the hotel or outside at a nearby park or protected area.

All talks can be tailored to the allotted time.