Nature's Design Book with Shane Metcalf Part 1 (of 2)
“Part of the beauty and the power of spending time in nature is that it connects us to our more essential nature. It connects us to a deeper origin of where our consciousness and where these bodies actually come from...”
YOUR KEY INSIGHTS FROM shane
nature deficit disorder (NDD)
“I think that part of the struggle of the modern human is that we've disconnected ourselves from ourselves. And what I mean by that is that we are nature…I am made up of the same elements that the rest of the Earth is made up of...
We literally were born out of the Earth. So I think that part of the reconnecting to the deeper healing potential of the natural world is realizing that we aren't any different. We actually belong to this Earth, we actually are an extension of the planet. One of the things is really cool is thinking about how as humans get better at, say, preventing an asteroid from impacting the Earth. Say we see an asteroid heading towards the Earth, and we get hip to it and in time, and then we're gonna develop a plan to actually, hopefully prevent that from striking the Earth. That is actually just the Earth itself becoming symptom and developing a defense mechanism to prevent itself from getting hit by an asteroid.
We are not, not the earth. People have a big problem in our heads where we see ourselves as separate from that. I think that at a fundamental level path, part of the beauty and the power of spending time in nature is that it connects us to our more essential nature. It connects us to a deeper origin of where our consciousness and where these bodies actually come from.”
BIOMIMCRY
“I am a big fan of drawing inspiration from nature. When I was a teenager, I got exposed to the idea of biomimicry. Biomimicry is taking notes from the design book of nature. This planet that life has had 34 billion years of R and D. And one of the premises of biomimicry is that nature has already solved every single technological problem that we're facing as a species. It already knows how to handle energy, it already knows waste management, it already knows clean water. We need to begin learning and apprenticing ourselves to nature to understand: how has life done this? We don't need to reinvent the wheel. I really believe that Biomimicry is a big piece of the salvation of the industrial world and of the modern human.”
creativity and inspiration in nature
“Yeah, to me, it just seems like the most obvious thing to do is when you get your team together for a retreat, do it somewhere incredible, do it in one of the most epic spots that you can imagine, and that is of course, going to translate to more inspiration..
We used to do our leadership retreats in Sedona, Arizona. One time, me and my two co-founders, we went to Hawaii because we hit an outrageous revenue target. We were out snorkeling a quarter mile from the coast, in this incredible cove, and we're all bobbing up and discussing the future of our company and sharing our visions. That session actually is what steered us on the path of becoming an education company as well as a software company. As we were bobbing up in the water we realized ‘we cant unlock human potential if we don't actually provide the education and the mindset of how to use the tool properly.’
For all of our 15Five company retreats, we try to incorporate a ton of nature.. I once took 70 of us glamping. So to me, it's just obvious. You want inspiration. Get outside. Get into the elements. Get under the stars.”
the unexpected shift
“We took a road trip out to visit my family in Colorado where our daughter gets to meet her grandparents for the first time. Being out here was just, ‘Oh, this is so good.’ And it's almost strange, watching my daughter with her grandparents, my parents, and seeing the love that was flowing between them and seeing her response to them, it was just this, ‘Whoa, what is going on here? What's happening to my DNA? Why does this feel so valuable?’
And we kept on our road tripping. I think 2020, was the year of the great American road trip. Everybody realized that we can’t fly and so we're hopping in cars and exploring the epic wilderness of this country. We're on the road trip and it just... The seed got planted of, ‘What are we doing in the bay?’ If ever there was a moment to make a shift, it's right now. We got back to the bay and I did the math and I saw what we could buy if we sold our house in the Bay, and that it would not only allow us to get a really nice house in Colorado, and it would also allow us to buy land in Costa Rica. We've always dreamed of living in Costa Rica. It's a huge leap. And we decided to do it, and so that was about it.
The beginning of August that we made the decision and we just put it into a high gear and my basically booked movers, and here we are about six weeks later, and it's interesting because being out here back in more rural country and looking up at the stars and having incredible Hot Springs, 30 minutes away, and all the apices of all of Utah, Wyoming and Colorado and New Mexico, Arizona, right at my doorstep is really incredible, and I'm really mourning the loss of the city. I'm realizing how much I love cities, I love nature, but I also really love the city. And so it's this interesting, I feel like I'm in with just layer is peeling off, and I hope that in a couple of months I get to report that I'm fully on board with the decision. But it's been harder than I was anticipating.”
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