Happy Friday! Here are 4 Things I Learnt This Week:

Perception: On my @healthywealthyandwiseuk Instagram Stories I do a book quote of the day. This week the quotes centred around perception. Essentially, everything we see in the world is entirely skewed by our conditioning. Nothing is objective. It’s worth bearing in mind that even when we think we’re being objective, we can’t be. As Stephen Covey said in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. we see the world, not as it is, but as we are – or, as we are conditioned to see it.”

Getting curious: I’m still reading Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach. She explores inquiry or curiosity as a tool to cut through our ‘numbing trance’ – that is, our difficulty in knowing what exactly is bothering us. When we feel uneasy or angry or any type of negative reaction we usually get physical cues. Brach suggests scanning our bodies and asking “What wants my attention right now?” or “What is asking for acceptance?” Then we can listen kindly to our body and mind.

Innovation: This week I attended a brilliant ‘one year on’ event with the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme.  One of the lectures on innovation. The professor focused much of the session on how to uncover blind spots. He proposed the acronym AOI: Assumption, Opposite, Implement. We can benefit from taking our beliefs, temporarily assuming that the complete opposite is true, and implementing new practices based on this premise. This reminds me of Tim Ferriss’ question to get unstuck: “What if I did the opposite for 48 hours?”

The true cost of our food: I love the missives that Riverford founder Guy Singh-Watson pens to go in our weekly organic veg boxes. I take the time to read them so that I’m aware of the heroic efforts that go into bringing this bounty right to our doorsteps. He and his team are very worried by the recent heavy rainfalls (since 1 Sept we’ve had 1/2 our annual average and 2x last year). The worries are: that the food will spoil in the fields, that the pickers won’t be able to brave out the winter in these conditions and that the wet, unstable soil will be damaged by equipment and livestock, despite the innovative means they use to protect it. They’re troopers and we owe them a huge debt.

Have a great weekend

Sara