[TT 005] Marshmallows, concrete, play, healthcare, sculpting inner light
Happy Thursday Thrivers,
This has been a notable week so far.
First and most important, my brother gave his COVID vaccine talk yesterday and it was fantastic. The video and other resources are here. That includes a pretty awesome FAQ page that touches on almost everything we discussed on the call.
Also, Write of Passage kicked off yesterday. It's pretty time intensive and I’m curious to hear y’alls feedback on how my writing changes (if at all).
Lastly, I didn’t publish any new writing this week and most of the reason has to do with some gastrointestinal (GI) issues that flared up. I’ve always had an unusually strong gut, so my recent episode of GI dysbiosis is helping me cultivate empathy for the experience of so many. Plus, I'm gaining a healthy (obsessive?) curiosity around foundational nutrition science. Nutrition was a key pillar of Year 1 anyways so I guess this is a less than subtle way of prioritizing experiential learning. Funny how that works …
I’ll be doing a comprehensive set of tests to explore general GI health plus root cause analysis. In the coming weeks I’ll be writing about what I’m learning there so stay tuned.
And now, for some Thriving Thursday fun.
On questioning self-control (and marshmallows)
🍪 🧒🏻 Have you ever heard of the famed “Marshallow Study”? If not, you’ll get a giggle out of watching kids tortured with candy.
The original study happened in the 1970s at Stanford and the premise was simple: sit 32 kids down and offer them 1 marshmallow now or, if they wait a while, 2 marshmallows later. The researchers then tracked the kids for 40 years and found that the kids who waited (read: had better self-control) were more successful on a variety of metrics throughout their life.
This study has been cited so often in both academia and popular culture that it’s accepted as canon. The only problem: the study can’t be trusted. Broadening and diversifying the population, plus accounting for confounding variables, almost entirely negates the impact of “waiting for the second marshmallow” on “success” later in life. Itamar Shatz has a very even-handed review of the pros, cons, and related research to The Marshmallow Study (and self-control) if you want a solid deep dive on the nuances.
In a related thread, Kelly McGonigal, a Stanford professor, wrote The Willpower Instinct - an awesome popular science book on willpower. Kelly’s style has a great balance of offering rigorous academic literature and findings, and then wrapping that into practical tools and techniques to improve our own willpower.
More recently, BJ Fogg, another Stanford professor, wrote Tiny Habits which turns the “classical” willpower literature on its head. BJ talks about B=MAP where
Behavior (B) happens when Motivation (M), Ability (A), and a Prompt (P) come together at the same moment.
Personally, I prefer to step sideways from “self-control” or “willpower” - both terms feel domineering and aggressive to me. Instead, I prefer the concept of “self-alignment” - what can I do to reorient myself to that which most serves me? The former feels top down, and prone to the trap of societally-imposed “shoulds” whereas the latter feels emergent from within.
As some authors point out, if we have to constantly “control” or “power” through ourselves, we ultimately get tired fighting our own predispositions and give up. Instead, if we are aligning with our most thriving expression of self, there is a sense of abundance and exuberance that offers a virtuous self-reinforcing cycle of success. That’s the honey pot I’ll keep coming back to.
From my own limited awareness, I’m not sure I buy in to the marshmallow torture or it’s conclusions. I do agree (and have lived first hand 🤦🏻♂️) that being impulsive can have negative consequences. But being spontaneous and open to the moment (impulsive’s attractive cousins) can bring wondrous value for serendipity and joy. I think the reframed lens of self-alignment can focus a brighter light on underlying core values and self-awareness. This, in turn, can yield more meaningful clarity and peace. That, or some better posture.
And anyways, what is it about the water at Stanford that so many work so hard to control their self, power their will, and change their behaviors? Hmm …
On the concrete nature of greenhouse gases
⚒️ 🏠 Construction is in my family blood and I saw a lot of job sites growing up. As I think ahead to home ownership, I was simply aghast at the environmental cost of construction.
Between the energy they consume and their construction, buildings are responsible for nearly 40% of the world’s emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.
Turns out a lot of that has to do specifically with cement production.
Take a moment to let that sink in - cement production emits more greenhouses gases globally than oil & gas production. Just wow.
I was curious to learn about Yale’s Center for Ecosystems in Architecture that focuses on innovative ways to use modern technology to rethink build materials and designs to be more adaptive to local environments.
Of course, Michael Reynolds, founder of Earthships, has been at this for many many moons. He’s got an … esoteric … approach, but it makes a lot of sense and some of the Earthship structures are stunningly beautiful.
Have you seen good examples of biomimicry or architectural adaptation to localized environments? And just like that, biomimicry was added to my Table of Interests.
On the importance of play
🎲 🕺🏼 I love it when Thrivers send me new insights or awareness aligned with my interests, and Steve sent me a brilliant list I’ll be parsing for a long time.
The resource that beckoned me from the get go is Stuart Brown’s work on play. Dr. Brown in his (I think mediocre) TED talk said something I love:
Play is an altered state … where we can be curious and explore in a safe environment … to develop cognitively, emotionally, and physically.
He also described a series of patterns of play:
- Attunement (what you see happening with a baby)
- Body / movement (i.e. dancing)
- Object (i.e. snowman or snow angels)
- Social (i.e. playing together)
- Rough & tumble (i.e. cats tumbling with each other)
- Ritual (i.e. celebration after a big win)
- Imaginative / pretend (i.e. playing house / with imaginary friends as a kid)
- Storytelling / narrative (i.e. ghost stories)
- Creative play (i.e. making art or creative problem solving)
There is a growing library of academic literature around the importance of play and Dr. Brown even has a patent on discerning play profiles & play personalities.
I resonate with so much of the messaging around the importance and value of play at every age, and agree with Dr. Brown’s quote that
The opposite of play isn’t work, its depression.
One of the things that came out of my and my wife’s Best Year Yet dreamscaping retreat was that we want to instill more playfulness into our dynamic. So all this categorization and context was especially helpful to structure my thought on what dimensions of play we can explore.
So, is Dr. Brown just playing when he gets deadly serious about play?
On 1% healthcare reform
🩺 🤧 Professors Zack Cooper (Public Health) and Fiona Scott Morton (Economics) have started a cool project around healthcare reform called 1% Steps.
The basic premise is that healthcare is complicated, thorny, and overwhelming - so we just need to consistently move the needle 1% with discrete, evidence-based projects to make a huge difference over time. From their website:
The 1% Steps for Health Care Reform Project is bringing together leading academics to identify discrete problems in the US health system and offer evidence-based steps to address them. The goal of the 1% Steps Project is to offer a menu of tangible steps that policy makers can take to lower health care costs in the US.
The policy briefs range from hospital waste to physician ownership structures to kidney exchanges and much more. Pretty cool stuff and I appreciate that each brief is grounded in very specific academic literature.
You know what I didn’t see? Anything related to patients. D’oh! How can we talk about reforming a “health care” system when we downplay the care of health in light of the care of systems or financial models?
Or, gasp preventative medicine! My oh my, wouldn’t we spend A LOT less money on healthcare if our population was, well, healthy?
Surprise! Preventing diseases reduces overall costs. Granted, not all prevention protocols are cost-efficient, but it’s certainly possible to quantify the ROI of a preventative health program.
Most importantly, and outside the scope of all these models, is that our population is actually healthier. We know physical health is correlated with happiness and wellbeing. We also know from network theory studies that healthy (and unhealthy) life choices have viral kinetics in populations. That’s a fancy way of saying if your neighbor / family member is healthy, you are much more likely to be so (also, if they are obese or smoke, you are much more likely to do so as well).
This all points to a virtuous upward spiral of health. If our healthcare system prioritized *shocker* health then we could lift up our nation with a series of targeted, cost-effective, humanizing, and empowering preventative measures. It would save a ton of money, improve quality of life and, for all the capitalists out there, increase productive output in the workforce too (via sharper cognition, more work-able people, and fewer sick days). But I have to admit, hospitals, pharma, and insurances would definitely make less money. Ahh, shucks.
It’s my personal hypothesis that a viable moonshot for our generation is “to make the US the healthiest nation on the planet”. We have all the information and technology we need to start doing this TODAY (although there is plenty more still to learn). And, with all due respect to a pragmatic program, I don’t think we’ll get there with 1% Steps of promoting preferred pharmacy networks.
I will focus on doing my small part with the Global Institute for Thriving.
On sculpting our inner light
⛏ 💡 I relish art in many forms, though large scale metal sculptures hold a special place in my heart. I love both the sentiment and artistry behind the work of Filipino artist Joshua Limon Palisoc.
He had a great write up in Modern Met and I appreciate how he weaves rich cultural themes into his work. Plus, I can only imagine the impact of walking into a dark room filled with a few of his full scale pieces.
I’d absolutely love to have the table lamp version of his sculptures :)
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That’s a wrap for this week folks. I hope you have a restful and regenerative week.
Playfully yours,
~Henry