I’m justing getting back from Austin, TX where I recorded the entire first draft manuscript of my forthcoming book, Return to Real.
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And after an intense two-day experience locked away in an ultra-modern, half-underground bunker of an AirBnB you see here:
I’ve never been more confident that AI is not going to replace highly-skilled human writers anytime soon.
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For pedestrian, procedural writing, yes.
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But for anything world class?
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For anything that requires nuance?
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For anything the requires a level of linguistic precision or emotional depth…
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Or resonant storytelling from actual lived experience…
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Or for anything demanding a complex, multi-layer thesis…
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Or that offers a new and novel way of looking at the world…
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No chance.
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At least not with the technology we have today.
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Look, I’ve been working on this book for months…
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Literally living, eating, and breathing the topic.
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I’ve used AI tools considerably in the process of researching, writing, structuring and editing…
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And I still have a lot of work to do.
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I can’t imagine someone trying to use software to one-shot it with AI.
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At the same time…
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I know that when this book *is* finally finished…
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With what’s gone into it…
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It will be the best thing I’ve ever written…
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And something that – in a tiny little way…
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Might just change the world for those who read it.
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Now…
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While in Austin, as part of the process for road-testing some of the concepts in the book…
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I hosted a twelve-person Return to Real dinner with a table full of friends, peers, and colleagues – each of whom I appreciate and respect for different reasons…
One of the conversations at the table that struck a chord (and created a bit of controversy) was around a surprisingly contentious topic confronted head-on inside the book:
1 | How the Modern, Domesticated Digital Way of Life Has Left Us Dumbed-Down & De-fanged.
From the garden this week, left to right: Rainbow Swiss Chard, Sweet Italian Basil, Tulsi “Holy” Basil, & Boston Butterhead Lettuce.
Look, our bodies were designed to be feral and free.
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Engaged with the natural world.
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Hands in the dirt.
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Not trapped all day inside a box.
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After all, that’s how our Paleolithic hunter-gatherer hardware evolved over hundreds of thousands of years…
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That is what our bodies are optimized for.
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Yet, we increasingly spend the overwhelming majority of our days disconnected and detached from nature….
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We live in a box…
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Work in a box…
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Eat food from a box…
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Delivered in a box…
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But we weren’t ever built to be stuck inside a box.
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In fact, there is an increasing body of evidence that underscores the pernicious effects the modern way of life is having on our biology – and our brain.
This stack represents just some of the work referenced in Return to Real. I’m curious, which books on this list have you read so far?
And while I was in Austin, I experienced this myself:
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In an effort to maximize our time together in person…
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Charlie and I spent most of our two days together inside that ultra-modern box of an AirBnB…
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(After all, it was over 100 degrees outside…)
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We had Uber Eats deliver food to our doorstep – in you guessed it… a box.
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(After all, we had no time for anything else…)
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And for me…
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For years this modern way of life felt “normal.”
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But after living a very different way of life over the last few years on a farm immersed in nature…
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(All while still running a business, by the way…)
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It’s something you can’t un-see or un-feel…
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In fact…
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On this trip, I was reminded why I felt the calling and craving for the wild and free in the first place…
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Because it turns out, our biology desperately desires it.
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But most of us have suppressed that desire…
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We’ve buried it…
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We’ve put it in a box.
2 | Rewild Your Life, Rewire Your Brain.
Black-Eyed Susan wildflowers in bloom in one of our meadows on the farm from earlier this week.
The phrase: “Live Wild or Die Boring” is printed on the inside of a t-shirt that was gifted to me by Mike Brcic.
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For the last 20 years, Mike has taken small groups on outdoor adventures around the world, like the Rite of Passage trip to the Grand Canyon I wrote about in [Issue #053]: Between Death & Danger is the Path.
BTW – Mike and I are exploring a possible collaboration on one or more Return to Real outdoor adventures in 2026 for other entrepreneurs feeling the pull…
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(If you have potential interest in this sort of thing, SHOOT ME AN EMAIL. I’m taking an early temperature check on potential dates and timing…)
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Now, most of us have some vague notion that time immersed in nature is “good for us” – but most don’t realize how essential it actually is.
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For example…
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According to a Harvard study tracking over 100,000 individuals – people living in concrete-heavy, low-green environments were 12% more likely to die early than those surrounded by nature.
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And in a comprehensive Danish study, children raised with limited access to daily nature were 55% more likely to suffer from depression, substance abuse, and other psychiatric disorders later in life.
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In other words…
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Taking us out of nature is literally making us sick and depressed.
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At the same time, returning to nature has a remarkable healing effect:
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In fact, the Japanese practice of “Forest Bathing” (Shinrin-Yoku) walking slowly in a forest, unplugged mindfully engaging all five senses…
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Has been demonstrated to lower cortisol, reduce blood pressure, boost immune function and even elevate anti-cancer proteins after just a few days in the woods.
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But one of the most overlooked benefits of nature is the strategic advantage it gives us in terms of how much it improves our creativity & problem-solving capabilities.
3 | Why Your Next Big Breakthrough is More Likely to Come from a Walk in the Woods than a Scroll of the Screen.
This is a jostaberry from the farm. Have you ever tried one? It’s a complex-cross that combines the resiliency of blackcurrant and the taste of gooseberry, invented back in 1977 when it first made it’s debut.
Velcro…
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The Wetsuit…
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The Bullet Train…
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The Wind Turbine…
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Sonar…
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Radar…
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Self-cleaning Glass…
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What do they all have in common??
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Each of these world-changing inventions was born in the wild.
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Velcro was inspired by burdock burrs clinging to the fur of inventor George de Mestral’s dog back in 1940.
The bullet train design in Japan is based on the Kingfisher’s streamlined beak.
Wind Turbine Blades have bumpy tubercles – like those of humpback whale fins – because they’ve been found to counterintuitively increase lift and reduce drag by as much as 30%.
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Wetsuits – like Speedo’s Fatskin suits have dermal denticles (tiny ribbed scales) based on shark skin. They’re so effective, they’ve been banned from Olympic competition.
Sonar and Radar come from studying dolphins and bats…
And it’s the Lotus leaf microstructure and its ability to repel water and dirt that gives us “superhydrophobic” surfaces used on self-cleaning windows, fabrics, and solar panels.
And in my own life…
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It wasn’t until I stumbled upon the Yellow Goldenrod and Purple Aster on our farm that Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about in Braiding Sweetgrass – as an example of competitors in nature who actually collaborate…
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…That I was inspired to reach out to arguably my biggest competitor in business, Daniel Priestley (co-founder of ScoreApp) and propose a collaboration…
(It ended up leading to the acquisition of my software company – an insight that was ultimately worth millions.)
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Now, I don’t know that I would’ve reached out to Daniel were it not for that flash of inspiration.
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Because the idea literally came to me from being immersed in the natural world.
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In fact, new and novel insights might just be Nature’s Greatest Strategic Edge…
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And there is growing evidence that backs this up:
Hiking in Nature: 50% Boost in Creativity & Problem-Solving.
A PLOS ONE study researchers from the University of Utah and University of Kansas split 56 participants across a wilderness trip:
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Those who took a 4-day backpacking trip without digital devices scored ~6.08 out of 10 on a creativity problem-solving test vs. 4.14 before the trip.
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This represented a 50% improvement in creative output after unplugging and connecting with the natural world.1
1 Atchley et al., 2012: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0051474
Stanford Walking Study: Nature Walks Elevate Innovation by 60%.
A Stanford University study found that participants walking outdoors (especially through natural settings) experienced up to a 60% uptick in creative thinking, compared to those walking indoors.
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Benefits included better problem-solving and divergent thinking, with effects lingering for hours after the walk.2
2 Oppezzo & Schwartz, 2014: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036577
In the areas of innovation, inspiration, creativity and problem-solving…
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Biological Intelligence might be more powerful than the Artificial variety.
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But this naturally poses a challenge, because…
4 | The Pull of the Screen is Squeezing the Natural World Out of Our Lives.
Out of the garden and onto the table. Harvest from earlier this week consisting of kohlrabi, green and purple beans, freshly pulled garlic and onions, and the star of the show: sun-ripened red raspberries and wild blackberries. This is what real food looks like. (It doesn’t come in a box.)
If you don’t intentionally make space for the natural world in your life in a meaningful way…
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It will be the thing that gets squeezed out.
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Because the digital technology that dominates our daily life is a relentless machine with an insatiable appetite…
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And it won’t stop calling for your attention until every second of your existence is consumed and monetized.
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And yet, the Silicon Valley founders behind this technology often keep their children (and themselves) away from the very screens and their homes free from the very technology they’ve created.
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For example…
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Pavel Durov – the tech founder of the mobile phone messaging platform Telegram (1 billion monthly users) has confessed to not using a phone himself in his everyday life.
In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, he put it bluntly: “I find it extremely distracting and potentially harmful.”
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WTF??
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Mark Zuckerberg refuses to post photos of his kids on Facebook without hiding their faces.
He won’t even put his kids faces on the literal book of faces that he created.
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This is akin to the tobacco company executives of the 1950s – and their Mad Men enablers of the 1960s – knowingly peddling poison while refusing to touch the stuff themselves.
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(I guess “Never get high on your own supply” now applies to the technocratic elite as well.)
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We know in our heart that time in nature fuels the soul…
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Yet, instead of forest bathing, we return to the sanctuary of our screens to cope with the complexity of life.
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Nonstop streaming videos…
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Endless social newsfeeds…
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It’s an addiction of epic proportions.
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But as Johann Hari – NYT bestselling author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections in his famous TED talk, “Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong” viewed more than 62 million times, summarizes:
“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.”
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So if that’s the case…
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Perhaps what we’ve lost…
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Is our connection to the natural world.
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And perhaps that’s precisely what we need to regain…
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Because it may not just be our health that depends on it…
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It may be the future of humanity.
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Let me explain…
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Note: We’ll continue this conversation in Part 2 of this discussion.
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Stay tuned.
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In the meantime, I have an invitation for you today:
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A special event, hosted on a coastal island facing the ocean – the last remaining frontier of the natural world…
This event is a highly-curated group of seven and eight-figure founders, entrepreneurs, investors, and thought-leaders…
An exclusive opportunity that’s open by application only…
A unique experience that offers rare chance to break out of your shell, up-level your network…
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And return home recharged with outside-the-box, actionable takeaways from life-altering convos…
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Interested in learning more??
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Well…
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Because I happen to be one of the featured speakers at this event…
I have the opportunity to get you in.
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The event is coming up in October.
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But registration is closing much sooner than that.
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So if you’re interested (or even just curious…)
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This special link here has all the important details including who this is for and how to apply.
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Okay, I’ll leave you with that for now…
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We’ll pick up this conversation from where we left off…
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In the meantime…
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Have a great rest of your day.
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Remember to hug the ones you love.
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And until next week,
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Ryan :-)
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