What Doesn't Kill Me, Makes Me Appreciative

Breakfast: gala apple.

Kale and avocado salad with red peppers and clover sprouts.

Another gala apple.

Strawberry-banana smoothie.

150 grams of cashews....

Unrelated to Food:

So, my learnings: listened to Marcus Buckingham's "Go Put Your Strengths to Work"; yesterday was "Now, Discover Your Strengths".

Strengths: what you're doing when you feel strong.

Weaknesses: what you're doing that drains you to think about.

No way.

Capitalize on strengths and life is peachy. The book, quite engaging with real-life examples and supported by research, is better than this summary. It also features cute acronyms to help you S.T.O.P doing remedial work and instead focus your energies in ways that make you feel strong and effective and F.R.E.E. When you focus on how to best contribute your talents which you've developed into skills through practice, everyone benefits. La la la la.

The book suggests that when it comes to doing activities that weaken you:
1. Stop doing the activity and see if anyone even notices.
2. Team Up with someone who is strengthened by the very activity that weakens/bores/depletes you.
3. Offer up a strength and steer your job toward it.
4. Perceive your weakness from a different perspective. How can you look at this activity through the lens of your strengths? -- what connection, if any, can you make between doing this thing you dislike and doing something that strengthens you?

For activities that make you feel strong:
1. Focus: Identify how and where this specific strength helps you in your current role. What feedback do you get about this strength?
2. Release: Find opportunities to use this strength more. Put yourself in situations where you can be strong.
3. Educate: Learn new skills and techniques to build this strength. Find a mentor, job-shadow someone who is better than you at effectively applying this strength, find out ways to leverage and capitalize on your strength.
4. Expand. Build your job around this strength.

(Common sense. I knew that stuff when I was 5, but then I forgot it all over the years of schooling.)

Dinner: A mixed greens salad with clover sprouts, some broccoli, red bell pepper, walnuts, garlic, olive oil and salt.

Bike ride to North Van and back: ~45 minutes, woohoo. 5 minutes faster with inflated tires; much easier ride. Still swore coming up the hill. And I think my body's hormones are out of whack, not because of raw food, but because my days have turned into nights since the equinox.