The Fisherman’s Net | Ep #115

Using a story about his fisherman brother-in-law, Zoran explores the phrase "Thoughts can get tangled like a fisherman’s net.” Learn why you can't pull your way out of a mental tangle and how high-performing individuals use patience and discipline to untangle their thoughts piece by piece.

 🎙️ Built for Pressure is a short-form podcast for high performers, leaders, and decision-makers who thrive under pressure. Hosted and produced by Zoran Stojković.

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Built for Pressure podcast, episode 115. I'm Zoran Sojkovic. Today, I want to share a story about my brother-in-law and the wisdom of water. My brother-in-law is a fisherman. He spends his days on the water, working with heavy nets and the unpredictable rhythms of the sea. There's a specific phrase that is, I often think of when I see people overwhelmed by their thoughts, right? And this comes from a conversation I had with him. And I was talking to him about the nets and how they work and the different kinds of nets they have. And he made this profound realization. He said, thoughts have become tangled like a fisherman's net. Thoughts have become tangled like a fisherman's net. And I love that. So when a fisherman's net gets tangled, it's a mess of nylon weights and debris. If you lose your temper... And try to pull the net apart with brute force, you only make the knots tighter. You might even tear the mesh, ruining the very tool you need to do your work. A skilled fisherman like my brother-in-law doesn't panic when the net is in a mess. He sits down, he finds a single loose end, and he begins the slow, deliberate work of untangling. He deals with one knot at a time. He knows that the net is still there. It's just currently non-functional because of the tangles. This is exactly how our minds work under pressure. When the mental net gets tangled with fear, doubt, and too many simultaneous tasks, so it gets task saturated, we feel paralyzed. We try to force our way through the overwhelm, but that just creates more mental static. We become frustrated that we can't see clearly. And that frustration adds a new layer of knots. The maxim for this episode is you cannot pull your way out of a tangle. You cannot pull your way out of a tangle. To untangle your thoughts, you have to stop the boat. You have to stop trying to fish for a moment and focus entirely on the maintenance of the net. This means identifying the single most immediate knot that one thought or task that is causing the most friction and resolving it before moving on to the next. When your thoughts are tangled, it's a sign that your system is overloaded. It's not a failure of the net. It's just the reality of the environment. High-performing individuals don't avoid the tangles. They just become masters at the untangling process. They have the patience to sit with the mess and the discipline to work through it piece by piece. So skip pulling at the knots of your life. Stop it. Stop pulling at the knots of your life and sit down, find the loose end, work on the problem until the net is clear and ready to be cast again. So if your head feels like a tangled net today, don't try to solve everything at once. Identify one single knot, one small decision or task and resolve it completely. Then move on to the next then the next one knot at a time I'll see you next time.