How are Sloths the Ultimate Mascot for Resilience?

If you think of sloths, the word “resilient” probably isn't the first thing to come to mind. You're probably more likely to think about how cute they are, or how slow they are, or maybe how they sleep for the vast majority of their days.If you're a real sloth nerd, you might even think about how they only need to eliminate waste once a week. That's pretty cool--but we digress.

But if you are also a subscriber to our regular newsletter, you might have noticed a little throwaway factoid in a recent edition. Sloths have been around for millions of years. As our friendly sloth mascot Daly can attest, that's not just because of happenstance. Sloths are remarkably resilient little critters, and we thought it would be fun to explore that a little bit more.

In an earlier post about resilience, we talked about how resilience is really the ability to overcome obstacles and learn from them. In humans, that process can take all sorts of shapes as we grieve and grow, but there’s usually a behavioral change at the end.

It might look a little different in animals, though. See, sloths are remarkably fine-tuned machines. Over millions of years of evolution, they have survived climate change, habitat loss, predators, natural disasters, human contact, and more. They just keep on trucking.

And while they do that, they are moving around in little bodies that are perfectly designed to do exactly what they need them to do and that have been shaped by past experiences. They have special muscles designed to help them climb through and hang from trees. They grow a unique algae in their fur that is rich in fatty compounds, which they can eat for additional nutrition. Their digestive system is perfectly designed to extract maximum nutrients out of leaves, which aren’t generally very nutrient-dense.

All of this is a result of millennia of adaptation, growth, and adjustment. Sloths have hung on through so much, and we could stand to learn a lesson or two from them.

If, like us, you're on a journey toward increasing your resilience, we hope you will also consider taking the sloth as your mascot. We can't guarantee several million years for you, but it's something to aspire to.

Are you working on your resilience? Have you learned lessons about it from unexpected places? Drop us a note!