Issue #001: Lab Rats in Modern Society?
I’m writing to you from a small farm in Vermont, tucked into the rolling hills of the Green Mountains.
I had a feeling I’d get a major mindshift coming here.
There are multiple times in my life when I invest in an event, and I meet a new person or learn a new concept that shifts my path.
This two-day event with Ryan Levesque, my new business mentor, and my partner in crime, marketing guru Laura Ball, has been all that and more.
I’m having deep thoughts about my own life and the uniquely bright population I serve.
I’ve been in transition to a new life chapter for the last two years with both of my uniquely bright boys going off to college and beyond.
Being an empty nester has its tradeoffs – endless options on where to focus, but also paralysis of analysis because there are so many choices (and boy do I miss my boys!).
But Ryan asked us to focus on which confluence of trends is most impacting our thinking right now – what causes us concern, outrage, or makes us cringe.
It’s these trends that stir strong feelings for me.
Trend #1 Convenience Culture aka Isolation Culture, Leading to Loneliness
I love my creature comforts and conveniences –
… binge-watching a great show like The Crown on Netflix.
Getting my precious Kerastase shampoo delivered to my door that my kids say makes me “smell like mom.”
Doing at least two live events weekly on Zoom for my LifeLab community.
Even though these things are wonderful, they make it so I don’t have to interact much with others in real life.
So many of us are getting our entertainment at home instead of at theatres.
We’re getting food delivered instead of eating out.
We work remotely and don’t have the opportunity to form deep relationships at work.
As covered in The Atlantic article, The Anti-Social Century, this leaves us isolated and not out in community.
Social connection is absolutely essential to our thriving, and many of us are socially under-nourished.
Trends #2 and #3: Dopamine Culture and Comparison Culture Impact Mental Health
Thousands of engineers are working to make sure we keep scrolling on social media, keep playing video games, and keep watching at-home entertainment.
These online hooks make our brains happily squirt dopamine, making it hard to stop.
Related to this is the comparison culture we see on social media that leaves us thinking how much more fabulous our friends and acquaintances are, with more stylish clothes, better parties, vacations, and weekend plans.
This leaves us feeling less than we would, had we not seen those images. Impacts like these are fueling the mental health crisis.
Trend #4: Algorithm Culture and Living in a Bubble that Confirms Our Own Biases
One of the supposed benefits of technology is that it curates the content it shows you through algorithms.
Unfortunately, this creates an echo chamber, confirming our closely held biases and stirring righteous indignation.
We’re getting different news that makes sense of current events in different ways.
Suicides Are On The Rise
It’s a stressful time to be alive, and in my line of work, I hear things from adults like, “I’m not sure I want to be alive”, and things from kids like, “I want to throw myself in the garbage.”
If you need help, call or text 988 immediately, tell someone you trust, or go to your nearest emergency department.
Pills and/or Skills?
Many people experiencing mental health challenges take antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication.
It’s a lifesaver to many.
But the reality is that meds alter your mood; they don’t alter your life.
Altering your life is the deeper, potentially richer work.
The deeper work that resolves these side effects is intentionally designing your life for thriving.
Just like different people experience different side effects from medication, different people thrive in different ways.
And there is a menu of options to nurture different kinds of minds to thrive.
This got me thinking about Whole Foods.
Love it or hate it, Whole Foods focused on a problem: how eating ultra-processed and chemical-laden foods causes many preventable Western diseases.
Then they created a store, supplying the whole foods that restore and maintain health.
I believe we can create something similar, that I call Thrive Culture, as an antidote to Isolation culture, dopamine culture, comparison culture, and algorithm culture.
Creating your own Thrive Culture means that you stop being a lab rat on the receiving end of others’ experiments.
Experiments like isolation or social media causing or correlating to mental health issues.
Being a Self Scientist: You Get to Design Your Own Thriving
There is no Amazon Prime van with a happy slogan on the side coming to deliver your most flourishing life. Only you can deliver that to yourself.
It means tapping into Self Determination Theory and putting yourself in the driver’s seat of your own life.
I call this being a Self Scientist. My boys were raised as Self Scientists and they find it useful.
Being a Self Scientist means you get to run your own experiments to find out what helps you thrive.
No matter how your brain is wired – neurotypical, neurodivergent, you get to design your own thriving on your own terms.
That means leading a uniquely bright life.
But it won’t happen by default, because there’s no safeguard or watchdog protecting your mind from the forces of modern living that can undermine your wellbeing.
We can explore that together.
I’m thinking about curating a small group of empty nesters and hosting some kind of getaway to intentionally design our next chapters of thriving together.
“Empty nest” is a terrible term because it names what’s missing.
What if we reframe it as your Next Bloom? You get to thrive by your own design, perhaps more than ever before.
If I run this group, it will be small – like 8 midlifers in cozy sweaters, somewhere beautiful like Whidbey Island, overlooking Puget Sound, not far from Seattle.
If you’re craving a spark, a new direction, some fertilizer for your Next Bloom, this weekend might be the metaphorical greenhouse you’ve been seeking.
If this is something you might be interested in, do me a favor and SHOOT ME AN EMAIL to let me know – I’m taking a quick temperature check to see if this is something that might be a possibility. I’ll leave you with that for now. Have a great rest of your day.
All my best,
Debbie