This is Dr. Mercola with another video update. I want to tell you about what happened to me as I was driving to the office one morning. I had been in the same office for over 22 years and recently switched to a new location because of the growth we've experienced in our business.
Previously, I would just drive to the office, practically on auto-pilot, hardly having to think to get there, but going to my new office, I was traveling a new route. One morning, as I exited my garage, I noticed there was a slight bit of dew on the road, just enough moisture to register in my brain; then I promptly forgot about it.
That morning, traveling on the Interstate, I was on the exit ramp, preparing to take a right turn. Normally, I'd take the ramp at about 35 or 40 m.p.h. But that morning, I didn't realize that the fine mist I noted when I left my garage had actually turned to black ice, causing me to lose most of my traction. My car did not respond to my turning the wheel, and went straight rather than right.
As a result, both wheels hit the curb at 35 m.p.h. I don't know if you've ever seen that happen, but as you can imagine, it literally destroyed the wheel, cutting it in half, causing both tires to explode. Though there was no injury or damage to the body of the car, the tires got demolished, literally wiped out.
Fortunately, I leave for work very early in the morning (this happened about 4:30, 5:00 a.m.) and there was no traffic on the road. The only thing damaged, aside from my car, was my ego, because I hadn't been in an accident for 30 years. So I was a bit disillusioned.
But as I was reflecting on the incident, I figured: Wow! This is a very powerful metaphor for life. How many of us are going so fast that we just fail to pay attention to our surroundings? I think that the practical application here is very similar to how we need to listen to our bodies. If we keep on doing the same things time and time again, believing, for whatever reason it's supposed to be good for us, but failing to appreciate some new circumstances that have developed, we're going to run into problems, maybe not as devastating as totaling your car, but will nonetheless causing health complications.
The primary principle that we teach on this site is to listen to your body because your body is designed to stay healthy. It really only moves toward disease when it's exposed to toxic influences or you're not giving it the nutrients that it needs. If you think that you're doing something healthy for your body, but your body tells you something different, then that's a clue, and you'll want to always listen to what your body's telling you.
If you're trying to apply information provided by me or any other health professional, keep in mind that it may not be right for your body. It's really vital to appreciate, understand and apply the feedback your body is sending you, because that is part of the process of how you can really succeed on your health journey.
There's a good moral of this story. I'm a huge fan of W. Clement Stone, who was one of the major students of Napoleon Hill. W. Clement Stone was actually a Chicago native and was a billionaire back when a billion dollars was a lot of money. He recently passed away at about the age of 100. One of the ideas he was very fond of, which I read about 10, 15 years ago and have sought to apply personally to my own life, is that of becoming an "inverse paranoid". In other words, he believed the world was conspiring to make him better, that there was not one single problem or complication in his life he didn't believe was improving him in some way.
I would seek to apply this principle to my own life, and with respect to the car, I thought: Great! It's a wonderful metaphor for me to understand how to slow down, to appreciate what's going on around me. But also, an interesting silver lining is, I get to get a new car out of this deal! So I'm excited about that.
But what I want to really emphasize is, this is an important principle, listening to your body. Remember, it's one of the most important principles available to help you take control of your health.