Investing In Yourself and Your Family In Nature with Dr. Ryan Darby Part 2 (of 2)
“Part of returning to our roots is we have to get out in nature. We have to get out and discover and invest in ourselves. ”
YOUR KEY INSIGHTS FROM Dr. Ryan
Dr. Ryan Darby is on a personal mission to disrupt negativity, and he does it as a researcher, consultant, and father. Currently, Dr. Ryan serves as President of Incredible Family, and is the co-creator of the Incredible Parent and Incredible Kid strengths assessments. As a researcher, he has published original research in leading academic journals including Cognition & Emotion, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Psychosomatic Medicine, among others, and in leading industry journals like the Gallup Business Journal. Ryan is co-creator of two of the largest strengths coaching certifications programs in the world: Gallup’s Strengths Coach Certification Program and the Global Parent Strengths Certification. He received his doctorate and master’s degree from the University of California, San Diego and his bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University.
focus is the new iq
“The scientific revolution, they didn't have the technology that we have today. What they had is time, they had nature, they had the ability to be completely present in the moment, thinking about things deeply without interruptions. Cal Newport wrote a great book, called Deep Work. And in it, he says this quote, and it's really got me thinking for a long time, “focus is the new IQ.” So the ability to stay focused, and not to flip to this to this to this, but the state completely focused in the moment is going to be a stronger predictor of your success in school and work than even natural IQ is. And he's right, he's absolutely right.
There's a study a number of years ago that looked at where it where we spend our time thinking, and the Dalai Lama nailed it. We spend about 10% of our time thinking about this moment, we spend the rest of it thinking about past, or daydreaming about the future, we're just not here. And because we're not here, our minds are so busy with all these things that we're just not able to concentrate. And technology is a large part of that there.
Years ago, there's a study looking at children. And they found that there was a 50% drop in children being outdoors, within a six year span that actually coincided almost perfectly with the general use of the Internet. So it was in the late 90s when we started the internet in our homes. And before that point, kids were out and about, they were having fun. But then we brought the internet into our homes, and within six years, there was a 50% drop in outdoor experiences. And there's other stuff that came along with that. Essentially, what we did, is we replaced being outside and having simple experiences towards an indoor experiences, which is television and video games, electronic notifications, we are constantly constantly being notified.”
the power of nature
“The power of nature is very, very well studied. It's even well studied with children. So Peter Kahn and Stephen R. Kellert wrote a book called Children and Nature. And it does this huge, deep dive into the science behind children's relationship with nature. So we know when we were evolving, that we didn't have skyrise buildings or the internet. We know that our natural environment is not what you and I are in right now with our artificial lights and stuff. So if that's where the brain was created, that's where the brain actually prefers to go. In fact, there's some really cool studies that even in urban environments, when you ask a child, hey, what's your favorite place? 80 plus percent of kids will describe an outdoor place as their favorite place to go, even if they live in like these really dense urban environments. So there's a natural gravitation of biophilia towards towards nature, and then the effects of it are really cool.
So we mentioned that focus is the new IQ. There was a study done in Sweden that looked at kids in daycare systems, and they measured their temperament. They measured their ability to focus. And in one of the daycare systems, the kids were outside all the time. As I understand it, it was it was like this wooded farm area playing outside. Even in the rain, they were under heights, but they were basically outside. And then there was another one where they did our typical daycare system where the kids were inside. And then we let them out for 15 minutes, and then we bring them back in. Well, the kids that were outside all the time, they had better cognitive control, meaning they could control their thoughts better, they had a better attention span. They were they had better emotional control that so there were these huge benefits that came from just being outside. “
discord
“Did you take a walk today? Did your kids take a walk today? I will ask questions about this, because so much can be healed by just burning off and getting outside into nature. It's cool. So the research calls lack of exposure to nature as being discord. I like that term discord there. A few years ago, we were given a piano. And it was the first time we'd ever had a piano. And my wife plays and she plays beautifully. But this piano wasn't in great shape. And so she would sit down and she would try to play and it was out of tune. I could not stand the sound of that, it was discord. We got somebody to come in to tune up the piano. And then my wife started to play. And the first song she started playing was Les Mis, which was just beautiful. And I heard it and I was like, that's what it should sound like. That's when things are in tune.
Well, what's happening to me and you and kids today is we're experiencing discord in our lives. Because we're not in touch with nature. And if we want to get in tune, if I want to be able to see the best in my kids… it's there, that piano still has the potential to play beautiful music, my kids still have the potential to be awesome and not fight with me. But I've got to take away the discord. And I've got to put them into it again. And we can do that by simply exposing ourselves and our kids to to nature and all the beauty and all the simplicity that it has.”
Nature is strengths-based
“Nature is rejuvenating, it is cleansing, and it actually doesn't take a lot of time to provide this cleanse. It really only takes 15 minutes to get to a green space, to be outside, to move in this outdoor environment to get it for ourselves and for our kids. And so earlier, when I said we got to get away from the negativity bias, we have got to be aware of our strengths and start this. This is one of the keys, one of the best interventions you can do to start bringing out the best in yourself. Bring out the best in your kids, or bring out best in your relationship, by getting outside…get into nature by yourself and with your kids. That is a cleansing and a developmental perspective, but evolution is also strengths-based.
So evolution is saying only the strongest survive. If you have a trait that is strong, that's gonna lead to you doing better, that's gonna lead to you surviving and passing on. So evolution is simply selecting these strong traits, the ones that are good, the ones that are best, the ones that help. That's how you became the dominant species. It's how you're going to be happy - by becoming strengths-based.
The whole system is strengths-based. It's not just for us, but it's for the whole system. Nature itself is selecting for the strong, the good, the thing that that helps that organism, and to survive and procreate and keep going. So nature itself is saying, look for the good, look for the best, especially in adversity. So that strengths-based approach is built for adversity, for when things go wrong. But when something goes wrong, the strengths-based approach is the only approach that survives and procreates and goes further. And so this is a good message for all of us who've dealt with the 2020 blues, whose kids are suffering right now. And we know one out of six is experiencing mental illness of children right now. And so what I would say to that is strengths-based approach is the is the solution to helping your kids heal in this adversity.”
Noisy World
“I would just leave with this lasting thought that we live in a noisy world. We live in a world where we're constantly being bombarded, assaulted and chirped out. And what it does is it prevents us from being authentically ourselves, connecting with ourselves, the core of who we are. And in order to get back to be a human being and not just a human doing or even a cyborg, we've got to return to our roots. And part of returning to our roots is we have to get out in nature. We have to get out and discover and invest in ourselves.”
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