Our Mind-Body Meatsuit Is A Scorecard

But it is much more than just a reflection of self-care…

Among many other scorecards, this scorecard reflects the health of our mental reasoning, emotions & mindset; sometimes reflecting how well we treat ourselves; sometimes reflecting things we can’t control.

WE ONLY GET THIS ONE MIND-BODY MEATSUIT

Sometimes we treat our body like an amusement park — as if we’re immortal. Sometimes we treat our body like an innovation project — as if we’re experimental.

We chase the consistency of high-quality reps…often settling for (at least) the consistency. We count the reps & we count the breaths because we can; sometimes we count for those who no longer can.

The scorecard data available to us, is much more than just a reflection of our self-care… it provides high-quality feedback (if we’re open to it) and important forecasts (if we are indeed learning from it). Our mind-body meatsuit is a scorecard of appreciation, curiosity, humility, durability, strength, speed, performance, flexibility, focus, intelligence and learning agility (adaptability); it is not just feedback for us individually but also feedback on our relationships and on our environment/culture.

SELF-CARE IS UNAVOIDABLY RELATIONAL, SOCIAL & CULTURAL

Yes, we have control of how we choose to take care of ourselves and how we choose to respond to the world. Yes, our thinking drives our actions but our thinking is also driven by the hyper sociality of our species and our culture. We shape our culture and our culture shapes us. What if we could expand the way we think about influencing that exchange to help make it healthier for all parties?

Our cumulative cultural competency/CQ (collective brain) and our social learning capabilities are the drivers of human evolution and technical dominance according to famous anthropologist, Joseph Henrich. He believes that while we are the most ecologically dominant species on the planet, it is not our intelligence that accounts for our success — “individually, we are simply not smart enough.”

“individually, we are simply not smart enough”

Innovation, technology and adaptation to diverse conditions, all over the world, depend on how we use our collective brain.

“Henrich demonstrates that cumulative cultural evolution– the accumulating body of information and its cultural products (covering all domains of life, such as social norms, food processing and hunting, tool manufacture to mate choice), is the driver of our success. The effectiveness of this cumulative cultural evolutionary process depends crucially on the size and interconnectedness of our populations and social networks. It is our ability to freely exchange information (cooperation) that sparks and accelerates adaptive cultural evolution, and creates innovation. At the population level, it is much better to be social than it is to be smart.” Social learning is our species’ greatest strength according to Esther Herrmann.

“Surprisingly, primates actually eclipse humans in many forms of fluid intelligence, including working memory and information processing speed. Primates also perform better in various behavioural game theory experiments (strategic economic games).”

Achieving the healthy improvements that we desire in our lifetime, depends on our capability to adapt — which depends on our capability to focus on our ability to learn/unlearn/relearn more quickly. We learn faster and more deeply together — socially — culturally. We build unhealthy (unsafe) and healthy (psychologically safe) cultures in mutual learning experiences.

Therefore, it is our culture competency (CQ), the understanding of how cultural norms help us 100X amplify and undermine the interplay of all kinds of intelligence (learning domains) available to us, that drives the potential for success and suffering with adapting to change, at scale.

Expanding and sustaining complex tech platforms like the ones we rely on today, “depends on maintaining a large and well-interconnected population of minds.” Unhealthy, “isolated populations gradually lose their most complex technologies.” Culture is how we accidentally or deliberately reduce friction to learn faster — and live more optimally — sooner rather than later.

WE ONLY GET THIS ONE VESSEL OF GRACE

To live a more optimal life and be our best selves, we have to continually adapt by experimenting in the context of many complex, ever-changing internal and external dynamics. If we can operationalize a lifestyle of expert experimentation it will be easier for us to accelerate our potential.

If we can strengthen our adaptability intelligence and learning agility beyond just ourselves, and work together, it will be even easier yet. The best way to pay attention to how we take care of ourselves is to also pay attention to how we take care of each other, in communities large and small. How can we be more optimal, more ready to pursue our next new “normal”…better yet our next new master plan? individually? collectively? Maybe we can experiment more effectively with something like this illustrative equation…

AQ = adaptability quotient; the capability to adjust course, across multiple dimensions, at multiple depths and scale, simultaneously

IQ = intelligence quotient (self)

EQ = emotional/mental health factor (self)

PhysQ = physical (mind-body meatsuit) health factor (self)

SocQ = social/relational health factor (self + others)

CQ = cultural health factor (psychological safety/belonging, collective social learning and achievement)

• an aggregate multidimensional construct in line with Sternberg’s multiple-loci of intelligence theory
• the capability to understand and nurture desired/positive correlations between constructive norms (expectations) and desired business performance (e.g., learning agility, collaboration, innovation, empowerment, achievement) while tempering aggressive defensive and passive defensive norms which correlate negatively to constructive attributes
• the capability to increase standards of shared purpose, relationship and performance, effectively across cultures of diverse human beings at scale…. rather than assimilating others into a dominant culture, the capability to build a courageous culture that can hold UNASSIMILATED diversity (derived from a great quote from Roosevelt Thomas jr.)
• thank you to Mike B — Chief Futurist at one of the Big 4, for help with pressure testing the illustrative + metaphorical “math”