Does Nature Improve Human Health? How Rural Property Investment Can Improve Your Mental Health

Nature has a powerful healing ability, and it can make you feel better, help your mental health, and even improve the quality of your life. In this video, we go over the importance of nature for healing and how rural property investment improves mental health. Find out more in the episode.

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Does Nature Improve Human Health? How Rural Property Investment Can Improve Your Mental Health

A lot of research has been published historically. The research has focused more on does nature improve human health. Research is now shifting to trying to understand. It's now a given. It clearly does. More exposure to nature in any way has been associated with improvements in patients who have cancer and cardiovascular disease, healing from surgeries and mental wellbeing. There's a whole host of studies.

Now, the focus is on trying to stand on what is it about nature? How does it do it? Is it sunlight? Is it some of the chemicals produced by the plant? Is it the visual cues that make you calm and relax? To experience this, do you think people need to spend more time vacationing in rural areas, or do you think they need to live in a rural area and make that their primary residence and return to nature?

The more you can get, the better. I'm always an advocate for people to get more time in nature. It's hard to define a threshold for how many days you need to reap the benefits. I will tell a little bit about my experience on the farm in Saskatchewan. I was there for a week. I was there to buy a property. I felt different the moment I stepped out of the car and saw this boundless farm in Saskatchewan. The landscape was flat there. You can pretty much see everything miles away.

There’s a saying there that if your dog runs away, don't harp because you can still see him because the land is so flat. The time I spend there is truly healing. It is something different. I wish I know the answer to it as well, but there's something different about standing up on a dirt road and standing on the farm versus standing on the concrete sidewalk. Being able to hear the wind and feel the air is different.

It's an essential recharge for many people. Many successful executives get away by being on a boat in the middle of the sea or going away in a cabin. There's a funny episode in Silicon Valley. I forget what season it is. There's a major deal happening. The founder of the company doesn't want to be disturbed because he's in the middle of a nature detox.

A funny anecdote, my old cofounder, he's my best friend too. His name is Jack Smith. It's impossible to search because it's such a common name. He would book a flight all the way to Indonesia and go to Bali. He would fly all the way to Bali. There's no direct flight from San Francisco to Bali. He would have to stop somewhere else, maybe Singapore, and then from Singapore to Bali. When you get to Bali, it's like that. You've got to find transport and get to the most rural areas.

It's like a pilgrimage for him. He used to do this at least once a year, sometimes twice a year. I went with him once, and I was surprised. I kept going and you end up in the middle of nowhere, and you can't hear a sound. You're in this silent nature retreat. I thought to myself, “People have to go to this level.” For many people, it's a ritual. It's like a pilgrimage. It’s a religious term I use, but it's a ritual they have because this is their way of detoxing. Every year, executives like to go on a retreat, let their hair down and unwind in nature to recharge. The word recharge is always associated with things like this.

Jack would go and he would recharge. He would read books. Now he's trying to buy a plot of land somewhere. He lives in Hawaii now, and he's trying to buy a plot of land. He wants to make land more accessible to others and have retreats. Many tech executives I know who have gone through burnout want to go back to nature. There was a funny anecdote I had when I was a student. Goldman Sachs bankers quit and set up a flower shop. They go from what you think is the definition of success to something you would laugh at. This is what people want. It's like they discover the truth.

I worked in the city. I also know bankers who quit and started a coffee shop. I'm familiar with that. It's very much a trend. A lot of people are recharging in nature. What's interesting about rural properties is it is not exclusive to people with a lot of means. In comparison to urban properties, they're much more affordable.

You can be a middle-class family, and you can still own a large house on land in Montana. We have lots of properties like that. You can still live your dream. The lessons that I'm taking from all the successful people around me who would eventually quit their job and do something as simple is that maybe we don't know the conventional definition of success. Maybe we needed to burn out starting now.

I'm going to butcher the story, but I'm sure the story has already changed numerous times. There's this all mythology type of story, but I'm going to make it up and try to get to the core of what the story is trying to say. There's a guy who's out fishing, and he's going out for fun. He's a successful rich tech executive. He's talking to this other fisherman and he's like, “Let's go out together.” This fisherman guy, this is all he does. He fishes all day. The rich tech exec is here to do a little bit of fun fishing before he goes back to work.

He's talking to this other fisherman, and the fisherman catches a lot of fish and teaches him some techniques. He says, “You've discovered a good way to catch more fish. Why don't you scale this? Why don't you go and sell these fishes?” He goes, “Why?” He said, “You can sell this. You can make a lot of money. There's a shortage of fish in this area. You've discovered this proprietary way. Maybe you should hire more people and all of this.” He goes, “Why?” He said, “You can have a business. You can make a lot of money. Why wouldn't you?”

There's something different about standing up on a dirt road versus standing on a concrete sidewalk and being able to hear the wind and feel the air.

He goes, “What would I do next?” He said, “You can scale that up even more. You can start acquiring fish farms, and you can become one of the biggest leaders in the fish industry. You can scale this thing internationally.” He goes, “Why?” He said, “One day, you can make a lot of money and you can relax.” He goes, “I’m relaxed and fishing as well. That's what we’re doing now. I don't need to go through the rat race. I don't have to go through that to find happiness.”

This is a powerful story because back when I was a teenager, I was in search of mentors. I always believe it's important to find mentors at every stage of your journey. I was talking to someone and I was telling him, “It must be great to be successful and have that Ferrari in your driveway.” He goes, “Often, you have the Ferrari, but you have no time to drive it. You have a house, but you don't have a home. You have people, but you don't have friends and family. You have women, guys or whatever, but you don't have love.”

This is something that stuck with me and made me realize. As human beings, we like to defer happiness for the future. Differing competence sometimes correlates with making a lot of money long-term because you're willing to sacrifice. You're willing to cut your expenditure. I'm a big advocate for that, but there's a point where you defer your happiness so one day, you can live success.

I hated to break it that one day may never come. I don't mean that one day may never come because you'll be a failure. I'm 100% confident that if someone believes they'll achieve something, they will believe that. What if you die in the process? What if something happens to you? What if you end up with all the money in the world, but you can't enjoy it because your health is no longer there.

There is something about being able to enjoy the present moment. That is something that is happening in our society. There is more of an awakening, and perhaps that's why people are going to rural areas. They're going all the way 2 to 3 hours sometimes from a major urban area to spend their weekend there, to work from there, or eventually to buy a farm and live there. We’re burnout in Western society. I don't think this applies to the Eastern as much because it's ingrained in the culture, but perhaps the Western. What were your thoughts on that?

I think our society has shifted. COVID awakened a part of our humanity that's more primal than chasing commission and money. We suddenly realize that even if you are rich and you can have a Ferrari, but during the lockdown, you still cannot do anything. You will be vulnerable in the face of a crisis. It forces us to confront a lot of things like health issues and loss of families, but it comes from some of the fundamental issues about being a human and asking the hard question about, what do I want? What am I chasing? How can I be contented? It’s what's fueling the Great Resignation. People are like, “That’s not what I'm chasing after. I don't need a $200,000 bonus anymore.”

I'm from China. I'm familiar with Eastern culture. Eventually, I think China and Japan are probably already there. Korea faces the same thing. You are already seeing this dissatisfaction seeding in the Chinese workers. What people are doing after work is they scrolling through social media mindlessly because that's their only way out. We all do that when we're stressed. I think it will catch up with Eastern society probably ten years later.

What's fortunate about this is the scenery is great. There are plenty of lands and amazing scenery that got amazing soil and water that you can enjoy. Why are these billionaires buying more land? They're not making more of these. They are realizing it. They’re gradually not making more of these and with climate change, it is going to catch on very quickly.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YklTRJiz0OA

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The Secrets to a Good Tenant Experience with Lydia Winkler:

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About Zain Jaffer

Zain Jaffer is an accomplished executive, investor, and entrepreneur. He started his first company at the age of 14 and later moved to the US as an immigrant to found Vungle, after securing $25M from tech giants including Google & AOL in 2011. Vungle recently sold for $780M.

His achievements have garnered international recognition and acclaim; he is the recipient of prestigious awards such as “Forbes 30 Under 30,” “Inc. Magazine’s 35 Under 35,” and the “SF Business Times Tech & Innovation Award.” He is regularly featured in major business & tech publications such as The Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch.