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Jill Leslie, Ayurveda Alchemy

COLUMN = HEALTHY LIVING

Jill Leslie is a certified Ayurvedic practitioner, herbalist, wellness chef, and yoga teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area who, for more than two decades, has been immersed in the study and practice of natural healing.

The entrepreneur, who has owned her own businesses since graduating from the University of Maryland in 1986, founded the award-winning retail shop Milk & Honey in Sebastapol, CA, in 1999. She sold it in 2006 so that she could dive deeper into her study of yoga and Ayurveda.

As she discovered the life-changing wisdom of these ancient practices, she began sharing her knowledge at wellness retreats, yoga studios, and through cooking classes. Her passion for herbal medicine and nutrition, and her love of sweets, inspired her to found Ayurvedic Alchemy, in 2008.

In addition to hosting classes and events, and providing consultations and dietary advice about Ayurveda, she has created a line of healthy and delicious confections, which are available online at Kitchen Alchemy Treats. “When I learned the adage of Ayurveda, ‘Let your food be your medicine,’ I put on my apron and said, ‘Let your medicine be delicious,’” she says.

Learn more about her services at www.AyurvedaAlchemy.com.

I always maintained that the greatest obstacle in life isn’t danger, it’s boredom. The battle against it is responsible for most of the events in the world — good or ill.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

Never cut what you can untie.”

– Joseph Joubert

The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go or run you right out of business.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

– Dalai Lama

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

– William Shakespeare

We are perfectionists. We are hungry to work all the time. We are entertained by every aspect of business and we never want to stop working.”

– Suzy Welch

Entrepreneurs are willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise.”

– Victor Kiam

You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

– Mae West

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

– Carlos Castaneda

You must have chaos within you, to create a dancing star.”

– Frederic Nietzsche

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. 
Now put foundations under them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.”

– Joseph Addison

Do one thing every day that scares you.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”

– Abraham Lincoln

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

I was taught at a very young age that you can do whatever you want to, but you have to make it happen — not just talk about it.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what nurtures creative thinking.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

– Madam C.J. Walker

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.”

– Voltaire

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.
 Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

– Ella Fitzgerald

No longer talk at all about the kind of man a good man ought to be, but be such.”

– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

– Albert Einstein

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

A diamond is a lump of coal that stuck with it.”

– Norwegian proverb

It is to no purpose to turn away from the real nature of the affair because the honor of its elements excites repugnance.

– Carl von Clausewitz, On War

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

A truly forgiving person is someone who experiences all the anger merited by injustice and still acts with fairness and compassion.”

– Martha Beck

You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.”

– Steve Jobs

Education is an admirable thing to have, but it is well to remember that nothing worth knowing can be taught.”

– Oscar Wilde

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”

– Steve Jobs

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

– Basil King

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

– Henry David Thoreau

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

– Buddha

Do you have the desire to create something new; the strength of conviction to believe your creation will be successful, and the reservoir of energy necessary to thrust it into the marketplace?”

– Steven Schussler

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

Remove those ‘I want you to like me’ stickers from your forehead
and, instead, place them where they truly will do the most good—on your mirror.”

– Susan Jeffers

The gem cannot be polished without friction; nor man perfected without trials.”

– Chinese proverb

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which obstacles vanish.”

– John Quincy Adams

But all the while I was alone, the past was close behind, I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew, tangled up in blue.”

– Bob Dylan

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”

– Thomas Carlyle

Almost anyone can start a community, but it takes real talent and commitment to get people to show up and keep coming back.”

– Andy Sernovitz

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

– Henry Miller