Over millions of years of human evolution, our ancestors had to do challenging tasks to survive. These challenges could be from hunts, getting resources for the tribe, moving from summering to wintering grounds, and so on. Each time we faced one of these challenges we’d not only learn what our potential is, but also expand it. We’d become more capable, confident, calm under pressure, and even undergo profound positive shifts in our perspective and gratitude.
In modern society, however, it’s possible to survive without being truly challenged. We’ll still have food, a comfortable home, a decent job, a family. But we often have no idea of the true power and ability that lies within us.
Easter reveals what he learned about expanding human potential from spending 33-days in the Arctic and traveling the globe to interview the world’s top researchers, athletes, business leaders, doctors, and more. His expedition was at the extreme end of a prescription that scientists and thinkers across disciplines say we should make a part of our lives. It was part rewilding, part rewiring. And its benefits were all-encompassing. Through colorful storytelling, Easter presents a practical action plan that allows us to discover our own challenges, expand our potential, and rediscover what it means to be human.

Michael Easter, author of The Comfort Crisis and one of the world’s leading experts on behavior change, shows that the problem isn’t you. The problem is your scarcity mindset, left over from our ancient ancestors. They had to constantly seek and consume to survive because vital survival tools like food, material goods, information, and power were scarce and hard to find. But with our modern ability to easily fulfill our ancient desire for more, our hardwired “scarcity brain” is now backfiring. And new technology and institutions—from dating and entertainment apps to our food and economic systems—are exploiting our scarcitybrain. They’re bombarding us with subversive “scarcitycues,” subtle triggers that lead us into low-reward cravings that hurt us in the long run. Scarcity cues can be direct and all-encompassing, like a sagging economy. Or they can be subtle and slight, like our neighbor buying a shiny new car.

In many ways, we’re more comfortable than ever before. But could our sheltered, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged lives actually be the leading cause of many our most urgent physical and mental health issues? In this gripping investigation, award-winning journalist Michael Easter seeks out off-the-grid visionaries, disruptive genius researchers, and mind-body conditioning trailblazers who are unlocking the life-enhancing secrets of a counterintuitive solution: discomfort.
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