In the Play Bold book read about how Scandinavia and how they coded collaboration into their DNA. Winters are brutally cold, dark, and it can be a long way to the next farm or doctor. Even if you hated your neighbor or must compete with your neighbor for resources, you still needed them. In Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, there’s an insightful comparison of the actions of the Greenland Norse settlers in the Middle Ages, which led to ecological disaster, and the innovative actions of Icelandic settlers, whose decedents are still thriving today. The difference between life and death came down to the question of how they treated their neighbors. While the Greenlanders competed their way into oblivion, Icelanders took a serious look at the state of their environment, assessed their capabilities, reduced their dependence on livestock, and worked together to prevent soil erosion. When the future looked grim on their tiny, frozen, isolated home, the Icelanders built a new future built on fishing and cooperative trade. The error of the Greenlanders was that they remained committed to doing what they knew and what had worked in the past.
