Our mission is simply to discover and share the best practices for living by design; for when we do, we experience individual fulfillment and collective prosperity. This process is facilitated by a focus on socialfitness using a tool known as the Citizen Report Card as a guide. Our ultimate target is a “City of A’s”, a SMARTcity.

If you need more information, read on.

You will only have to do this once to totally understand the why, the what, the how….

WE ARE BORN SOLUTIONS…

When you pay attention to the silent actions of your body, the things that take place without conscious thinking (breathing, the beating of your heart, the healing of a wound, the digestion of your food), you must conclude that there is a wisdom to your design. And if there is a design, it follows that there is a purpose to that design, and ultimately with purpose for individual parts, there must be purpose for the collective, a purpose for your being, a purpose for our being.

Notice also that the wisdom that drives these functions are contained inside of it. Various body parts show up as solutions to a problem, and they inherently know what that purpose is. The heart shows up to pump blood, the lungs show up to get oxygen into the blood, the kidneys show up to help clean the the blood, and we show up to make the world better.

There are four observations that are interesting about this…

1) The heart does not need to go to another body part to understand its purpose, it intuitively knows, it’s direction has been written into its DNA. (Take note of how different people have different interest, even people who have grown up in the same household, differing interest that become evident early in life).

2) All of the resources that the heart needs to do its job are brought to it. It does not need to go find the blood, or seek the nourishment to sustain itself. There is cooperation built into the body, so that the nourishment and any other resource that it needs to do its job, what the body has called it to do, is provided.

3) When all the parts, which are different and made up of similar cells, cooperated with one another there is synergy in accomplishment. The collective body functions well when all parts live and optimally function as designed. The better any part does, the better the collective body does. The better the heart does, the better the body does, the better the lung does, the better the body does, and so on. If one part of the body becomes sick, as in the development of an infection, resources are sent to help restore function, because there is a recognition that optimal functioning of the part is critical to the whole. Hmmm…

4) If the heart were to become selfish and say: “I am really liking this blood thing”, and decide to keep the blood for itself (or even take more than its fair share), that blood would not be oxygenated by the lungs, nor cleaned by the kidneys, and ultimately the heart would poison itself. The heart only thrives in it’s service to the body… Selflessness.

LIVING BY DESIGN

If you cut your arm, you don’t have to do much for the wound to heal. You don’t have to tell your body to clot the blood to stop the bleeding, to send in white cells to prevent infection, to send in fibroblast to repair the skin. As long as the resources are available (not committing an error of omission: not providing something like Vitamin C important in wound healing), and you don’t do anything to upset it (and error of commission: keep spreading the wound apart) the body will heal. I will go further to say that errors of omission are worse than errors of commission. As an example, your wound will still heal if you keep spreading the wound apart, it will just take longer, but if you don’t have vitamin C, you can’t repair yourself.

The goal then is learning how to Live By Design, so that we don’t commit errors of omission and errors of commission. This is also important in terms of our purpose, as there is a “body part” that is responsible for understanding and communicating our purpose which is a part of our DNA. However if there are errors of omission, we find ourselves struggling to be on our path, and when we are off of our path, we might find there is less cooperation with life.

WELLNESS DOMAINS

There are four domains to wellness: MentalFitness, NutritionalFitness, PhysicalFitness, and SocialFitness. The term fitness is preferred, as it conveys more than just the what, but that the when, and how are also important. Its not that you have to eat good food, but its preparation should not destroy the nutrients, and the timing of the meal is also important, as well as how you consume the meal. As an example, if you eat under stress, rushed, your sympathetic system is more activated than your parasympathetic system which is responsible for making sure that digestive enzymes are sexerted at the right time, in proper amounts, and there is appropriate motility in the gut. When you put food in the gut, but the gut systems have barriers to working properly, you will not digest your food properly, and then appropriate nutrition (resources) will not be available to the rest of the body. Just like, its not just that the pistons of a car fire, they have to fire at the right time, or  there will be less energy produced by the engine, and the car will have problems fulfilling its purpose in the moment.

A special word about SocialFitness.. I could spend a book on this (I’m actually actively writing a book on this), but realize that we can all have and do more, when we all operate at our potential, and walk with the amount of cooperation that is designed in us. Its is possicle that this has been the missing link to our ability to advance our health in a meaningful way. SocialFitness can be thought of as acting in a way that the potential of others (and the planet) is enhanced. This is in contrast to Social Toxicity, where we operate in a way that the the potential of others and the planet is hampered. The benefits of optimal performance can be explained by examining the principle of “comparative advantage”.

To address SocialFitness, we employ a tool known as the Citizen Report Card. This is a survey tool that has 15 subjects group in the categories of Personal, Family, and Community. Based on their behavior, people rate themselves from a D to an A. The ultimate goal is to create groups (even Cities) of A’s, with a process that encourages participants to share their insights and successes with others, as they seek to improve their individual report card “GPA”.

KNOWLEDGE TYPES

This knowledge of living by design, will come in three flavors: principles, practices, and products, each with its own lifespan. As an example, the importance of fruits and vegetables is a principle that is likely timeless. The specific fruits and vegetables that we eat is a practice that has changed over time, as the availability of the those fruits and vegetables has changed, as well as the processing of these foods. Most volatile has been the product that we used to prepare the food which may or may not have negative consequences. These products can change rapidly, much quicker than the pace that our research institutions have to process this information. So we must have a platform to learn form one another, especially as it pertains to practices and products.

This then is the goal of The BE Team; to seek innovative solutions to our collective learning around the most effective ways to live by design. So that we can be who we were meant to BE, and do what we were meant to DO, so we can all have, what were were meant to HAVE, meeting our collective needs for a fulfilled life.

NEXT STEPS (help?)…

Now that was a lot.  If you took the time to read, I suspect that you identify with the mission. If so, check out the rest of the site, and if you need us, call us.  Also considering registering at www.BetterMe.us and filling out the Citizen Report Card. You can also keep track by following the SMARTplace Facebook page. Finally, you can also send us a selfie with a signed copy of the Declaration of Inter-Dependence 🙂

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