Things that are just a little bit complicated are Sheep, Cabbage, Wolf.

A brain teaser.I’ll put this at the top and then give the answer and talk about it at the end. A guy [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( A brain teaser. I’ll put this at the top and then give the answer and talk about it at the end. A guy with a canoe is trying to get a sheep, a wolf, and a cabbage across a river. But his canoe is only big enough to fit himself and one other thing. How can he get all three across the river without the wolf eating the sheep or the sheep eating the cabbage? (The guy can’t leave the wolf alone with the sheep or the sheep alone with the cabbage.) What is your best holiday meal tip? The demographics of this newsletter are that more than half of you are celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday this week. Me too. I’m hosting family, smoking a turkey, in charge of stuffing. The trick with stuffing from inside the turkey is getting the right temperature. The meat of the bird reaches the correct temperature before the stuffing. So either you overcook the meat or undercook the stuffing and risk salmonella. For this reason, a lot of families stopped cooking stuffing inside their turkeys and just bake it separately. (Technically, this is then called dressing) Here is my one good Thanksgiving tip. Who said you can’t keep cooking the stuffing? It’s such a simple realization. Once your turkey is done, take the stuffing out, put it in a casserole dish and put that dish in the oven until it reaches the correct temperature (165F/74C). Now you get perfect meat and perfectly safe stuffing. What’s your best tip? Answer to the brain teaser. The answer to the Sheep-Cabbage-Wolf is that you can bring things backwards. All of you would have gotten this if you spent enough time and cared enough. Here’s a solution, thinking in terms of the starting side of the river and the other side of the river. Take the sheep to the other side. Paddle back to the start and take the cabbage to the other side. Now bring the sheep back to the starting side so that it’s not alone with the cabbage. Then bring the wolf to the other side. Then go get the sheep again. The sheep ends up in the canoe three times. In my household, we say something is Sheep-Cabbage-Wolf any time the logistics are a little bit complicated. This is a category of complication that falls well short of rocket science. For example, the way I make stuffing for Thanksgiving is Sheep-Cabbage-Wolf. It’s not an obvious solution because we are biased to want solutions that proceed in a simple linear sequence. Make the food, cook the food, eat the food. The approach is not blatantly obvious because cooking the stuffing two ways breaks out of our linear model. Why talk about this in a self-improvement newsletter? Well, a lot of improvement is learning to spot and overcome biases. One of mine on this one is that I want things to be rocket science because I like feeling smart. And so I’m always looking for either trivial solutions or rocket science solutions. But there’s an entire universe of useful medium-smart Sheep-Cabbage-Wolf solutions. _ A lot of people give this brain teaser with a goat instead of a sheep. It changes nothing. Here’s [more on the history of this brain teaser](. _ Take your goals to the next level by finding a coach for yourself in our [coaching directory](. Don’t miss out on the other issues by Coach Tony [Become a member for $5 per month]( Did you enjoy this issue? [Yes]( [No]( [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Tips, inspirations, and knowledge on productivity, happiness, health, and making an impact on our world. Official email of the Better Humans publication on Medium. (@bttrhumans) You can manage your subscription [here](. In order to unsubscribe, click [here](. If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe [here](. Created with [Revue by Twitter](.