We connected with SARDOGS Nepal on twitter and think the work they are doing is awesome.

Here is their mission statement and some work accomplished:

More than 70 % of our Nepalese people live from farming, fishing and day labor jobs. Many are spending their entire lives in remote area villages. When in these communities a person goes missing or a child is lost there is no search operation and no police coming to the poor peoples assistance. In times of natural disaster foreign aid concentrates in the mayor urban areas only and no one comes to the rescue of villagers. Average income of these people is often lesser than an US Dollar per day.  A policeman in Nepal earns just enough money to keep himself and his family afloat whit a salary that does not allow him to travel long distances or do volunteer search and rescue with local people. This is the grave difference with his colleague in a western country. Costs of living in Europe are far higher than in Nepal. In the eyes of a Nepali an European makes more than 100,000 Rupees a month which is about 900 EURO average at today’s exchange rate.

A Nepali Police Constable makes only 98 EURO per month! Who can expect a 24 hours search and rescue party from these poor men? When a child in Europe is lost an entire machinery starts moving and this is a very good organized thing. When a child in Nepal is lost, it is not even mentioned in the local press and considered bad karma.  When foreign mountaineers meet with an avalanche in Nepal, big equipment and big money moves into our country.  No one dead or alive is left behind, no matter the costs. This is a good thing of course.

Nepalese porter or day laborers get lost in the unforgiving nature of our mountains all the time!  It’s Karma again and people just show their resignation. We want to make a difference!  We can do this if we have many small supporters. Every small amount counts. We realize that this does not come forward in a big bulk from a large Donor Organization. These only deal with governments. Private Initiatives in Nepal are always ignored. It’s the simple people with small money that comes to the rescue of our locals so far. How nice would it be to have a Patron who takes care of the running costs of our Academy.  A private Donor Company who is social minded and gives back to the people! 

With the kind help of only a few sponsors so far we are accomplishing the following:

1. Training and keeping standby effective Nepalese Nation wide Disaster Response Units, Urban Search and Rescue Teams, Logistic standby mobile Medical Aid teams like a Medical First Response· Teams, Search & Rescue Dog Teams for missing people in Nepal·; · for individuals gone missing as well as for search & rescue of victims due to natural and man made disasters· inside Nepal and· in it’s neighboring friendly countries, if these request us officially for assistance.

2. Breeding and training of suitable search and rescue dogs of international known valuable pedigree and standards.

3. Establishing standby Mobile Disaster Response Units for times of need.

Much Respect. We hope to visit soon.

Andrew Sullivan posted this earlier this week. The war on drugs in America is an interesting topic to say the least.

DoYouYoga is killin’ it right now. If you do not read it, I highly suggest it. We continue to post and learn a lot from that site.

What is the purpose of Iyengar Yoga?

The purpose of Iyengar Yoga is to increase health. It is strictly alignment-based and instructors focus on getting the pose just right. Iyengar is famous for its use of props, including straps, blankets, bolsters, blocks, and chairs, sometimes several at a time. Because there is so much focus on the quirks and needs of each individual body, the practice is highly therapeutic.

Check out more — here. 

“It’s been almost two years since Patagonia began urging its outdoorsy customers to buy less—to sit out “Cyber Monday” and ask themselves: Do I really need a new fleece jacket or, for that matter, a state-of-the-art, 1,000-fill, dry-clean-only $700 parka and all the carbon burning that comes with it?”

In an interesting article Bloomberg Online writes about Patagonia and their minimalist approach to marketing that is paying back positively for the company.

Check it out — here.

A big theme of this LP week has been learning. We have pushed our minds to learn more and more about “material.” It’s interesting trying to balance an Eckhart Tolle approach of Presence, and disconnecting our minds from a “physical, material” world, with “turning on” our minds and pushing ourselves to learn more of what we interpret to be knowledge.

Personally, I like to take in flow from around the world and be present about it. Not judge it, but just think about it, and maybe “learn” from it.

One of my favorite platforms I have “learned” on is Khan Academy. I was able to watch lots and lots of videos in Sal Khan’s finance and capital markets section. I felt like I walked away with a lot of material on finance, accounting, and trading. It was a cool experience.

I loved when I saw that Sal is moving away from a model of giving lessons himself, to a model of bringing in “star” people to teach lessons and learn from. I hope this continues. EdX is also in the process of mastering this model. They are scouring college universities to find the “best of the best” lectures on specific topics.

Our world will benefit from this. I like that we are going to have an opportunity on KhanAcademy and other platforms to learn about how people approach their lives, businesses, etc. With business as an example, small insights into the mind of some of the world’s greatest entrepreneurial thinkers can be invaluable to others building businesses today and into the future.

Enjoy the feature. For the third time this week we get to listen to Elon Musk.