The Brave Monkeys Speak | Adventure and the Science of Stoked

Life's a lot like a wintertime night trail run. The dangers out there are real - very real. But if we act like a Boy Scout, plan ahead and prepare (and act accordingly), most things just aren't as serious as our minds can make them out to be.
That's my hope for the current environmental crisis. If we can plan ahead, prepare, and change our actions to reflect greater human health and environmental sustainability, we can turn this ship around, and make these issues less serious than they are looking right now.
Today, I present to you three stories of businesses that are trying to create business solutions to human and environmental health. Many of you know that I have a natural aversion to business - I just feel that so often the objective of businesses is to sell people stuff that they don’t need. So at the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market, I really focused on finding the companies that are doing something more, something bigger. Companies that are genuinely helping people lead better, healthier, happier, more productive lives and who, in doing so, are working to help solve the environmental crisis. These are them.
First up was Scott Baker from Icebox Knitting speaking about Xob. By using scraps and bits from old wool items that would have otherwise ended up in the landfill, Xob is able to make beautiful, sustainable clothing. Seriously consider getting some of their stuff for your next winter hat rather than a new item from a company that isn't B-Corporation certified.
Second was Kevin Brodwick from ThinkBaby and ThinkSport. It's so important that we are using clean products - products that don't have chemicals in them that can disrupt our hormonal balance - which I consider to be one of the most important factors in who we are. Kevin's companies are providing that.
And lastly, we had Beth and Sherry from Trust Your Journey. I've often said that everybody needs a community - you will never outperform your inner circle! Trust Your Journey is providing that community for people who need it the most. Positive energy has some amazing, sometimes unexplainable healing powers, and Sherry gives one description of those powers.
Join us! Episode 022:

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Depression has been described as like being trapped in a deep dungeon to which you have the key, but never think you can look for it - or from which you can climb out, but you don't believe you can do it. This is Garrett's story of using adventure to begin to climb out of those depths - both metaphorically and literally.
Episode 018:
Music today by Zach Schmidt who recently has a new album out! Check it out here.

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I would be remiss if I discussed the topic of adventure without bringing personal psychology into the equation. I know it seems strange. Allow me to explain in Episode 030.
One of the most important, foundational principles in understanding yourself for the purposes of personal development and growth is to understand your biological reactivity - are you inclined to seek out novelty or does doing things outside of your comfort zone make you nervous. Your reactivity can also relate to how and where you get your energy - does a shady spot in a park with a book or jumping out of a plane with a parachute give you more vigor for life? It turns out that introversion and extroversion, similarly, are mostly about this precious resource rather than just ‘do you like people or not?’.
Whereas extroverts tend to actively get energy from interacting with people, introverts tend to use energy to interact with others and must rest and rejuvenate afterwards. But the intricacies of the topic go much deeper - it turns out that your reactivity and introversion or extraversion can be related, and the reasons behind these phenomena come down to our unique psychological wiring.
The work of psychologist Jerome Kagan illustrates this quite eloquently. In Kagan’s famous line of longitudinal studies (perhaps made famous by Susan Cain’s fabulous work: Quiet - a highly recommended read for all human beings), children were followed from birth well into their teenage years, exposed to various novel stimuli along the way. As infants, some 20% of the test subjects had dramatic, noisy reactions to the new stimuli (which could include balloons popping or hearing the recorded voices of strangers), 40% had mild, quiet reactions, and the rest were somewhere in between.
Kagan’s prediction - that the babies with dramatic, noisy reactions would turn into the quiet teenagers of the bunch - came true. Why?
It’s all about the individuals threshold for stimulation. The babies that had dramatic and noisy reactions to the stimuli had very low thresholds for stimulation - they could be called highly reactive - most everything would put them on edge. On the other hand, the babies that had quiet, mellow reactions to the same stimuli had a very high threshold for stimulation - they could handle much more sensory input without going on overload. They could be called low-reactive.
Among those in the field of psychology, the Hebbian version of the Yerkes Dodson Law is well known. Basically, it states that under very low stimulation or arousal levels, an individual will be bored and their performance in whatever task they are completing will be poor. As stimulation and arousal levels go up (whether by an increase in sensory stimuli like popping balloons or an increase in expectation from a boss), performance will begin to go up... to a certain point. After that point is reached, arousal level is too high (the individual is overstimulated or scared) and performance declines.
None of us want to be bored or frightened, so each of us seeks out the perfect level of stimulation to create a flow state of optimal performance and arousal.
Now, if you were one of the babies that was kicking and screaming when you heard the balloon pop because your stimulation threshold is low (meaning you are high reactive), then you can bet that going to a party with tons of new people and loud noises is going to put you in an anxious, overstimulated state. Does that happen to you? It happens to me. We are the high-reactive folks - the introverts - we choose to get into flow by avoiding louder parties and instead by having meaningful conversations with a close friend or going on a quiet run in the forest.
Conversely, if you were one of the babies that was totally fine with new stimuli because you have a high threshold, you are going to choose to find that sweet spot by doing things that increase arousal. That may be attending a big party, or that may be leading a rock climb or skydiving.
See what I’m getting at here?
Now before we go any further, it’s important to note that your unique awesomeness cares nothing as to whether you are low or high reactive, an introvert or an extrovert. As Cain eloquently highlights, each have their powerful strengths, and the world needs both. Take research completed by Professor David Sloan Wilson where he dropped metal cages into a pond filled with pumkinseed fish, whom also have a propensity for finding their appropriate level of stimulation. The bold, low-reactive fish immediately investigated the traps... and caught themselves! On the other hand, other highly reactive fish would go nowhere near the traps. Wilson had to catch them using a complicated netting system from which they could not escape.
Stupid low-reactive extravert fish, right? No. Once Wilson had the fish back in his lab’s tanks, the low-reactive fish responded by immediately adapting to the novelty of the situation, eating the foo...

Whether or not you believe in climate change, the world is undoubtedly changing rapidly, and disasters that come in and shake our world up (sometimes literally) seem to be happening more often. Earthquakes aside, though, in 2011 insurance companies were disappointed when after just 6 months, the year proved to be the costliest year on record - a statistic that their research tied unambiguously to climate change. I’ve seen it first hand this year in California, where a record drought has brought along with it fires, mudslides, and other disruptions.
Yet, despite these clear warning signs, we as a culture do not seem to be willing or even capable of changing our rampant, often needless consumer-based way of life. Even myself, someone who constantly asks my peers to examine the amount of waste they produce from purchasing packaged foods, well I still burn gas, buy packaged foods (occasionally), and waste water in the shower (when I have access to one). So does quote “sustainability” stand a chance? Probably not. Am I wasting my time and energy promoting sustainable living? Probably. I’m just being real here - I still think people should live sustainably because it makes us happier, but we’re probably not going to get everyone in the world on board and thus save the world by doing it.
Which brings me now to why I wanted to talk about environmentalism in the context of resilience. There is a parable amongst progressives in the environmental fields which describes two types of thinking with respect to environmental disaster. Here’s the parable.
A whole bunch of people are traveling on a train running along an ocean cliff (let’s say the North Pacific coast). The train was only designed to hold a couple hundred people, but because the company wants to make as much money as possible, there are now multiple thousands of people roaming the boxcars. Even if the train stopped allowing passengers to board, other people want their friends on the train and sneak them on without the engineer’s knowledge. The rails below the wheels are beginning to screech.
“Stop the train!” some of us start to say. “Don’t let anyone else on! Tell the engineer!” Some boxcars listen and put a moratorium on gaining passengers, but the train rolls on collecting more people and fares in other crowded boxcars nonetheless. More people rather than less are inviting friends on the train and trying to get monetary kickbacks as well.
As the situation becomes more dire, the rails are irrevocably damaged and minutes from collapsing. A select group of people who until now have remained fairly quiet about the number of passengers are clearly up to something now. They know changing the course of the train is a lost cause, and they have been rummaging through emergency storage containers, first aid kits, and luggage. They have created makeshift parachutes, insulating devices, and lights. As the rails split and the train careens toward the dark oceans below, they jump. They wasted no time trying to stop the inevitable, they simply adapted to the changing situation and innovated to survive.
The environmental movement, just like a lot of our mom’s telling us to be careful and avoid risks out there - or better yet don’t go out there - has adopted a risk-management system. Eliminate risks, and we have nothing to worry about. But what about when the risks are inevitable or unexpected?
The theory of resilience says that risk mitigation is important - very important - BUT that the ability to adapt and thrive when faced with unforeseen, changed circumstances is just as important. Whether we like it or not, risk is a constant in life. So is change. How we respond to them - now that’s what is variable and fortunately, malleable.
So what is resilience? Andrew Zolli gives a definition in his book on the subject which I quite like because it combines components of both natural and human-created systems: resilience is the capacity of a system, enterprise, or person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances.
Zolli notes that resilience is not just incredible-hulkifying our systems. We could create a one-inch thick bike tire that no thorn could puncture, but that wouldn’t speak to how fast you could be back on the road after one of the spokes on the wheel broke.
Nor is resilience all about redundancy. It’s cool to carry extra tubes because it allows your ride to persist even in the face of a changed circumstance like a flat tire, but they are also heavy and limited. And, they only account for one problem: how many people also carry a spare chain on rides?
Finally, resilience might not even refer to the return of a system to its initial state. When I broke my rear derailleur in 100 mile trail race, I repositioned my cleverly adjustable dropouts and created a singlespeed rig. After that, I never looked back - I ride a singlespeed mountain bike to this day. “In their p...