Darwin Day And Your Business Evolution

Why should business owners celebrate Darwin Day, which commemorates the birth of Charles Darwin?

Well, why not? 

But seriously, Darwin popularized the theory of evolution to show how the earth became home to so many different varieties of flora and fauna. I’m using theory in the scientific sense of an explanation that accounts for empirical observations about reality, not in the “popular” sense of a WAG (wild-ass guess).

But what does the evolution of life have to do with business? And is there anything else about Darwin or scientific thought that can be useful for business owners?

Evolution and productivity improvement

As a business owner, your biggest asset is your brain. No matter what kind of business you own, you have to make a lot of decisions.

Yet you’re also a human person (I assume our reptilian overlords aren’t reading this post.) That means you have other things going on outside your business, like family and friends. Hopefully, you have some other activities you enjoy as well – because if you don’t, retirement is going to be hell, fair warning. 

It’s definitely possible to spend your entire waking life doing things related to your business. Get up, work, go home, work, sleep, repeat. Does that sound like fun? 

And have you ever read one of those articles about the things people say when they know they’re at the end of life? None of them ever wish they’d worked more.

Want to make money and still enjoy your life? You still want to keep your business moving forward, so you need to make the most out of the time you spend in your business. Because you’re the owner, that means using your brain to its best potential.

And that’s where evolution comes in. The human brain is far more powerful than a computer, even though tech companies may try to convince you otherwise. 

When you want to maximize computing power, you can add more chips and reprogram it to try to find logic efficiencies. You can leave it charged so it powers through all the computations you want it to do.

However, the human brain was not designed in the sense that there was a sentient designer, and certainly not by another human as computers are. The human brain is the result of pressures and processes that occurred while humans were developing thousands and thousands of years ago. 

As our genus Homo was adapting to life on the ground instead of in the treetops, as we learned to hunt and scavenge and forage, the primitive brain changed and grew.

We still have the same fight-flight-or-freeze mechanisms (among other responses) as other animals, and some of them also have a prefrontal cortex (PFC) area in their brains. But as far as we know, no other animal has such a developed PFC compared to us. 

We’re the only ones with such a developed executive function that allows us to plan, strategize, and make decisions based on pros/cons, advantages and disadvantages, and so on.

It is still an animal brain subject to animal brain limitations. It needs rest, oxygenated blood flow, and nutrients, none of which are necessary for your computer.

The human brain is incredibly adaptable (which your computer is not), and this partially explains why we ended up all across the globe. Most other animals stay within their neighborhoods (broadly speaking) for their entire lives. 

The human brain seeks novelty, which can propel you to new heights in your business when you find a new solution for something. And the hunt for novelty also causes you to waste your finite time doomscrolling through social media waiting for that variable reward hit of dopamine.

Given that our brains are not computers, it’s not helpful to assume that we need to be more like computers or operate in spaces designed for computers. Yes, we can do it, thank you adaptability, but that doesn’t make anyone productive.

In order to function properly, you have to account for the way that the human brain evolved so you can work with yours instead of against it, which is how modern workspaces seem to be designed.

Right now, as I type this, I’m in my nice cozy house listening to the rain from an atmospheric river that’s stalled out on top of me here in Long Beach CA. We’ve got half our annual rainfall in about two days, and there’s a lot of flooding.

Have you ever tried to wade or swim through water that’s pushing against you? In the city,  rainwater wants to swirl down the storm drain. When you’re moving upstream away from the drain, it’s hard work. 

But what if you were upstream from the drain and moving toward it instead? Picture yourself in an inner tube or raft. You might spin around a bit, but you’re carried by the current. Not so hard when the current’s on your side.

When you’re trying to make your brain work like a computer, you’re pushing upstream. It’s hard work, which makes it very easy for your brain to get tired. Fatigued brains lead to bad decisions.

But when you work in a way that acknowledges the way the brain developed over time, it’s easier. You’re heading downstream.

That’s how you get productive. Not by trying to force things to work like computers do, but by allowing the brain to work in its preferred way. That includes a lot of rest as well as physical movement and nourishment.

Science myths that could impact productivity in the workplace

Contrary to popular belief, evolution is not an explanation for how life or the universe came into being. It’s only about how life flourished once it had begun here on earth, and makes predictions about how life could continue into the future. 

Some people conflate the Big Bang (which describes the beginning of the universe) and evolution together, but they’re actually separate explanations for different phenomena. The theory of evolution has also been twisted, with some eugenicists claiming that evolution is the survival of the fittest.

That’s not exactly right, because they usually define fit to mean strong, as in only the strong survive. That’s not necessarily true, and it’s not how we humans survived either. (We survived as a species through cooperation with each other.) It’s the ones who best adapt to their conditions who survive, as Darwin told us.

Seeing how evolution has been twisted to fit certain ideologies, it shouldn’t be too surprising to recognize that there are myths about the brain and productivity as well. Some of them stem from ignorance, and others are a bit more malicious. 

Suffice to say that a lot of popular beliefs about the brain are wrong.

• You are not “left-brained” or “right-brained”: it’s true that different hemispheres control different functions, but that just means you have a preference for different types of activities (there’s a lot of communication between hemispheres)
• There’s no real cognitive difference between men’s and women’s brains: women are slightly smaller than men so the brain volume is slightly smaller, but that doesn’t make a difference cognitively; after all, our brains are much smaller in volume than elephant or whale brains
• You don’t learn best in one way alone (“learning style”): though you may have a preference for visual versus auditory learning, for example, you learn best by suiting the method to the subject
• There are no real cognitive differences based on race or ethnicity: the amount of melanin in your skin has zero effect on brain power and I will not engage further with BS racist beliefs
• Just because it has “neuro” in the name doesn’t make it scientific (looking at you, neurolinguistic programming or NLP)

Reality and productivity

There are some things about the way Darwin and other scientists in the 19th century worked that offer clues to productivity even in the modern era.

Like many other scientists and writers, Darwin seems to have worked on his ideas and papers in the morning and used the afternoons for correspondence, visiting, walks, etc. About half the population is thought to be bear sleep chronotype like me, so late morning is the best time for our “thinky work”. 

Lions prefer to work a bit earlier in the morning, so that’s a significant chunk of the population who does their best cognitively demanding work in the morning.

But maybe you’re a wolf or dolphin chronotype and your thinky time is shifted later. Note that even though Darwin was a major scientist, he did most of his work during one four to four and half hour period of the day. He left the rest for less cognitively demanding tasks, which gave him a break from all the thinky work.

He also sailed to the Galapagos Islands, which had a significant impact on his theory. He observed what was going on first, rather than trying to fit the facts to his theory. His exploration was based on evidence, not on wishful thinking.

That’s something that all of us business owners can benefit from. Observe what is happening, rather than trying to make everything conform to what you think is best. Investigate reality instead of letting someone else, like a tech company, mediate it. 

Darwin had the advantage compared to us that he didn’t have cellphones or email or social media to interrupt him in his work. If he’d had to answer emails when they came in or spent his time scrolling through a social media feed, we’d probably have no idea who he was because he wouldn’t have contributed as much to the field of science as he did.

Recap (tl;dr)

Evolutionary pressures shaped the brain, not computer labs. It’s much easier to get the work you need to do accomplished when you’re working with your brain, like you’re floating downstream. Don’t let old modes of thinking hold you back, but let reality and evidence help you make good decisions.

Need help implementing a smart plan to be more productive? I can help. Message me to see if we’re a good fit to work together.