“There is nothing wiser than nature.”

~ Socrates

 

It comes from the Greek for ‘brought forth from the healer‘ and basically refers to secondary damage, side-effects or complications brought about during or following healthcare.

For example, a surgery which has complications.

The time I really gave this concept the most thought was when reading Matthew Syed’s brilliant 2nd book, ‘Black Box Thinking‘* (a worthy follow-up to his superb best-selling debut, ‘Bounce‘*) which starts with an example of a woman who lost her life due to a very simple medical procedure going wrong.

The point of the example in Syed’s book was to highlight the difference between the medical sector, where mistakes are often covered up, with the aviation sector which has more of a track record of recording and learning from mistakes, hence the title of the book (referring to the black boxes used in the aviation industry). This is a tragic example of iatrogenics – the lady in question who tragically died just had a blocked windpipe.

Not to cause too much alarm, the leading cause of death in the US is not cancer, not heart disease, but medical negligence, i.e. caused by the medical system itself – i.e. iatrogenics.

So Should We Avoid Hospitals?

In his book ‘Antifragile‘*, Nassim Nicholas Taleb promotes the idea that we should go to hospital only when we really need to because our bodies are actually really good at healing themselves and small damages are good for us – but also, by going to a hospital we are exposing ourselves to the possibility of iatrogenics.

Strange to think that you could come out of a hospital with more problems than you had when you went in, but this is a lot more common than you think.

Imagine you go to the Accident & Emergency wing of your local hospital with a suspected broken finger. But it turns out there is nothing wrong with your finger. It’s swollen but that’s just your body inflaming the joint to cushion and protect a damaged area of your body from further damage – so that it can heal.

As you’re there, the doctor offers you a course of anti-inflammatories which you accept, but perhaps another course of action which would be just as good, perhaps even better would have been to let nature take its course and for your body to heal itself naturally.

It definitely would have been a better course of action if due to this concept of iatrogenics, your trip to the hospital caused you to pick up some other ailment from another of the patients you shared the waiting room with.

Taleb argues that nature makes us ‘antifragile’ and that small damages are good for us.

Small Damages

Think of how nature, our nature, deals with small damages.

How do we build muscle? We cause small damages to our existing muscles in the form of small tears so that when they repair themselves they come back stronger and grow.

How do we build immunity to diseases? We take vaccines – which are basically like tiny disease-causing microorganisms, often made from weakened forms of microbes, toxins, or surface proteins in order to cause a reaction in our bodies to a perceived threat (tiny damage) and hence build a defence in the form of a strengthened immunity system.

In many cases our natural reaction and our bodies natural reaction are the best course of action. Not only because we grow, learn and adapt but also because we then avoid exposing ourselves to further risk – i.e. iatrogenics.

Diet Choices

The 2 overall concepts of this article (1 being that man’s intervention can be unhealthy or even damaging (iatrogenics in the case of healers causing harm) and 2 being that we should trust nature) apply in the case of our diet choices too.

Man’s intervention in this case means processing of food and addition of artificial ingredients and trust nature in this case means trust the foods that nature provides us, in the form provided – i.e. whole foods.

Consider this: When you pick an apple from a tree, it is full of nutrients and good for you. Even if it’s unwashed, your body is generally made to cope with any impurities at that level (excepting pesticides, we’re talking about nature here, remember?). If, however you take the apple from the tree, process it and put it into a plastic box or a metal tin to be consumed weeks or months later, then it is certain that the apple will have lost most of its nutrients and be only a fraction as good for you as if you’d consumed it as a whole food. Depending upon how it has been processed and what ingredients have been added, it may even be bad for you.

I’m no saint and can’t say I restrict myself to a really healthy and purely natural diet. I’m not asking you to either. However, I do have a rough idea of what I am choosing when I pick products from the shelf in the supermarket, it’s pretty easy to differentiate the more from the less processed foods. – and I generally try to limit the unhealthy stuff as much as possible. I also know that of all of the various food scares that have happened through history, very few have been from natural, organic, whole produce.

If you want to know how to identify whole foods in your supermarket – they are the ones with only 1 ingredient – themselves.

Business Choices

Applying the same concepts to business basically means allowing your business to react to its natural environment.

Small damages are good for businesses just like they are good for us humans. They are good for any system or organisation. The problems come when we artificially protect such organisations from local shocks, as a result they do not benefit from the lessons and growth they need which would otherwise have been caused by these shocks. They do not evolve until such time as a shock comes which is too big to protect them from which could ultimately be too big to protect them from and wipe them out.

Instead of hiding or shielding your business from any damaging market forces, confront these and adapt to make your business more resilient to any threats. There have been some high profile cases in recent years of governments stepping in and ‘bailing out’ major businesses, rather than allowing the businesses to react to their natural environment & market forces with disastrous consequences not only for the bailed out business but for all others in that industry.

Note: Sometimes in trying to survive in it’s natural environment, a business will fail – but, just like in nature, if the business is unsustainable, then that is precisely what should happen. Survival of the fittest.

Conclusion

We are stronger than we think and there are 3 key points I’d like you to take away from this article:

1. Trust nature as far as you can and beware of exposing yourself to unnecessary risks
2. Small damages are nearly always good for us – think ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. This concept applies every bit as much in business and investment as it does to our health and well-being.
3. Embrace failure and mistakes and learn from them – think of a winner not as someone who never falls down but as someone who keeps getting up.

When it comes to your health, nobody knows your body better than you do – invest in your own well-being and listen to your body.

When it comes to your business & finances, don’t be afraid to make mistakes but make them and move on. You can only grow by pushing your boundaries and that is bound to come with some failures. It’s OK to fail. Fail fast. That’s what the best entrepreneurs in the world do. Then learn from your mistakes and move on. Pivot if you have to. Listen to what your business is telling you just like you listen to what your body is telling you.

* – Note: I’ve read and would highly recommend all 3 books mentioned in this article. If you want to know more about these and other books I’ve read and would recommend, I have a list of them here: Books: 32 Recommended Books for Better Results In Your Life & Your Business