managing internal conflicts, what fish to eat, focusing on our Zone of Genius
Happy Friday!
Here are 3 things I learnt this week:
How to manage our inherent conflicts, by Tim Ferriss and Brené Brown. Listening to two of my heroes in conversation on TF’s podcast was inspiration squared. They discussed how we can square off the conflict between self-acceptance, or happiness, vs. goal-orientation, or hunger. Their conclusion: that rather than squaring them off we should make room for both. TF believes self-acceptance, defined by ownership of and lack of resistance to what our situation is, can sit perfectly well with striving to improve or develop ourselves on some fronts. Brown concluded that we need paradoxes because they’re the only concept with enough tension to capture the human experience.
I got clarity on the health and environmental issues around eating fish. Dr Mark Hyman interviewed author and marine expert Paul Greenberg on The Doctor’s Farmacy podcast. The bad news is that c.30% of commercial fisheries are over-fished. He likened our fish supply to a bank account—we should only be eating the interest on the principal. Also, the nutritional value of much farmed fish, especially salmon, has really shifted. These fish tend to have a high proportion of corn and soy in their diet which shifts their nutrients away from Omega 3 towards Omega 6, which drives inflammation (at the ratio that we tend to consume it, anyway). Takeaways: the healthiest fish are wild Alaskan sockeye or pink salmon, or anchovies. Look for the ASC (Aquaculture Stewardship Council) symbol where possible.
We should focus on our Zone of Genius, and we tend to self-sabotage when things are going well. These ideas came from The Big Leap by Gay Hendrick. His view is that we each have an internal thermostat that determines how much love, success and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy. When we reach our upper limit of that bounty, we (unknowingly) self-sabotage - we may wreck a relationship or screw up our job. He calls it our ULP - Upper Limit Problem. He also talks about the 4 zones: the Zones of Incompetence, Competence, Excellence and Genius. Anything we’re incompetent or competent at, we should outsource. We love staying in our Zone of Excellence because it’s familiar and feels great, but to really grow we should answer the increasingly stronger calls from our Zone of Genius as we go through life. This book caused me to wonder whether I’ve self-sabotaged by getting a month-long cough just as I was about to record my audiobook and publish all versions of my book. It also prompted me to outsource the editing side of my audiobook, which is most definitely in my Zone of Incompetence!
Have a great weekend
Sara