In most ways, people today are more comfortable than ever. For example, we spend 93 percent of our time indoors in temperature control, we get our food from a drive-through window or microwave instead of by hunting and gathering, and our biggest stresses are presentations and artificial deadlines rather than ferocious tigers. 

This lifestyle clearly has benefits, but it also has pernicious drawbacks. Michael Easter’s investigative reporting shows that our overly comfortable and convenient lifestyles explain everything from why we feel burnout and get so stressed by events as harmless as traffic jams and work presentations, to why we’re suffering from a creativity crisis and face the highest rates of chronic mental and physical diseases in human history.  

Easter spent 33 days in the Arctic and traveled the globe researching his book, The Comfort Crisis. Through vivid storytelling, he reveals the life-changing power of leaving our comfort zones. Along the way he lays out a handful of simple tactics we can use to expand our comfort zone. The result: We’re left healthier, happier, more creative and productive, with calm and grace in the face of even the biggest stressors.

Humans evolved to have a scarcity mindset, a mindset that worries about what we don’t have instead of appreciating and leveraging what we do. This is because our ancestors evolved in environments of scarcity. Everything from food, to stuff, to information, to the number of people we could influence and more was hard to come by. Obsessing about what we don't have gave us a survival advantage. But today, we have an abundance of all the things we’re built to crave. So our scarcity mindset now backfires. It leads to striking inefficiencies in business. But it’s also at the root of our most pressing physical and mental health issues, like anxiety and burnout.

Michael’s talk covers the lessons he learned while traveling the world to understand how we can conquer the scarcity mindset. He embedded himself in country’s leading neuroscience labs, with Army forces in Iraq and lost tribes deep in the Amazon, and more. Weaving colorful storytelling with breaking new science, Michael sets out to give the audience simple tips and tricks to shift to an abundance mindset. The result for businesses: Happier, healthier employees who accomplish more with less.

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.