A Strategy For Success

The truth is, we are often so occupied by the act of living our lives that we don’t pay attention to the forces that make life work. No matter how disaffected or autonomous we believe we are, we are always drawn, steered, or directed toward specific impulses and laws. Not those set down by a country or moral compass instilled in us by a church or our parents. We may obey those, but we operate, as any living organism does, by the basic framework of nature—biology, chemistry, and physics—the forces that make our world what it is and always has been since the beginning.

Billions of years ago, physics made a huge show of itself when it unfolded spectacularly and explosively to create our universe. About 300,000 years after its birth, a stunning change occurred: matter and energy brought particles together to create the atom, a potentially useful entity. These atoms combined to form molecules, which interacted with one another according to a set of laws known as chemistry. Eventually, after another 9 billion years or more, physics and chemistry came together to create living things. These new forms, which later developed into Homo sapiens and other animals, likewise adhered to a set of biological principles that permitted them to endure and procreate.

So, there you have it. Physics, chemistry, biology. The fundamental drivers of every living thing. They fall into the background, an unquestioned, unchangeable stage for how we live and why we do what we do. But there’s something else to how we operate, too. What was it that allowed the change from a cooling, expanding universe of chaos into something more structured, more friendly for life that would eventually bloom in this environment? It was the universe’s most advantageous strategy. It was two or more particles teaming up. Stronger together. More capable together. More viable together.

The laws of nature reward connection. That’s the fundamental truth of our universe.  

What do these rules really look like? What instructions would you write down if you were the creator of a universe like ours or designing a board game or a video game with similar principles?

The first rule would be to exist, to stay alive. The second rule would be to become more efficient. You win extra points for expending less effort or making fewer moves and conserving your energy. The third rule is to grow, develop, and multiply as many times as possible.

In other words: 

Survive. Optimize. Flourish.

Those are the definitions of success in our world and our game. Our game board (imagine it as a chessboard) would be physics, limiting where and how you can move. Chemistry would construct the pieces and guide how they move. Biology urges you not to make any moves that threaten your safety or survival. How would you win? You’d have to think about each move, what you can and can’t do, and, most importantly, what gives you the best advantage. You’d have to create a strategy and how you can move.

Our universe’s best strategy has proven successful over and over again. You’re stronger if you can form permanent bonds. That’s the real root of our connections. At its most elemental, the bonds we form are simply the human iteration of a fundamental advantage adapted by nature. It is a wildly successful strategy ingrained into how we operate, think, and live.

When two or more elements merge and form lasting, cooperative connections, they compete more effectively than those that don’t. Humans took this strategy to a new level by living in communities and eventually building complex social structures. This ensured our survival (and our species’ survival by creating safe spaces for future generations) and allowed us to share our burdens and enrich our lives. Our advanced sociality was a masterful ploy that tipped the scales in our favor and made our species more dominant than any that has ever existed on the planet.

Surviving. Optimizing. Flourishing. These are the underlying drivers of every organism, including humans. All life forms adapted means—from chemical signaling to photosynthesis to aerodynamic fins and feathers—to accomplish those three specific goals. Humans evolved something less flashy but far more powerful, a sophisticated brain. In social environments, our mechanisms for surviving, optimizing, and flourishing were constructed by our mind: we satisfy those innate impulses of life by looking for people who make our lives safer, easier, and better. It’s the same goal achieved through a uniquely human ability. Our special adaptation.

Nature has always selected the traits that make a species best suited to achieve not one but all three of these objectives within a specific environment. For humans, our environment is not only the natural world but also our social and cultural worlds. And, while we do it in a complex way, we are equally drawn to nature’s most potent and lasting strategy. We connect to meet those three inherent needs of life­­—to survive, optimize, and flourish.

Our adaptation, the capability to create mental constructs, guides us to those bonds that have always proved most advantageous in our evolutionary past. To survive, optimize, and flourish, we look for people who make our lives safer, easier, and better.

What I want to share with you is an old story and an old strategy for success. The oldest. This story is about nature’s first strategy and its most effective. More than a means of diagnosis, I see it as an antidote for a world that seems more and more overwhelming. The world we live in today can easily make us feel small and helpless to build a lasting, viable business, affect meaningful social change, or create a fulfilling life and career.

Google. Facebook. Amazon. We can’t seem to get away from bigness. We see it in global politics, the uprising of authoritarian-leaning leadership, and heightening polarization. It’s true that the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a few has been the norm for most of human history, but the global impact has never been so visible or far-reaching as it is today. Institutions that once held communities together, like local enterprises or even community newspapers, are being diminished. Mom and pops struggle to keep customers hooked on speed and convenience. Smaller law firms get absorbed into mega firms. It even happens with our churches. How can any smaller company or organization compete? How can activists stand up to influences with seemingly endless reach and resources? How do any of us keep from getting lost?

There is an answer—to all of these questions. It’s in our roots. Our universe became habitable when life forms realized the benefits of mutual aid over mutual destruction. The evidence is found in the diversity of our planet. It’s not always the biggest and strongest who wins. Through strategic cooperation, organisms can fight back against the dominance of a few. These are principles we are ignoring to our own detriment.

The story of connection is not about the mythical, feel-good tale of how David beats Goliath. It’s the pragmatic story of how a thousand Davids can defeat Goliath. It is about building loyal armies and utilizing a strategy that allows smaller, weaker, slower, and socially cooperative to overcome the bigger, stronger, faster, and brutishly competitive. Yes, it’s good business, but it’s more than that. If more leaders and organizations decided to invest the time and energy to create meaningful, lasting relationships, we would be offering people a better way to do business and to exist as we were meant to. By giving people reason to turn back to our connected nature, we can create a world that feels more whole, more like where we belong, more like home.