Long before the pandemic, I loved riding my bike in the park. I needed that exercise to feel good.

Then the pandemic hit, and its lockdowns meant I could’t ride my bike in the park for weeks. What could I do?

I’m lucky that I live in an enclosed neighborhood with an uphill road. It’s not too long, but it was enough for me to do some bike laps, up and down. At least I could move, but it was incredibly boring. What could I do?

I started to listen to audiobooks during my boring bike laps. I called this "AudioCardio Learning”.

This changed my life, very literally.

I had not been much of a book worm until then; I’d always read a lot on my computer for work and didn’t feel inclined to read with my eyes during my free time. When I did grab a book, I found myself getting distracted rather easily, going down rabbit holes of related thoughts.

But “reading” through my ears while my body was busy did something magical to me. Getting my body busy seemed to free my mind to focus on the words. Since my mind was entertained, I exercised more.

AudioCardio Learning was pure positive magic for me.

I started consuming truckloads of books. I looked forward to my next bike lap session. I got in the best shape of my life. And my brain just exploded. I had a revelation.

WHY DIDN’T I KNOW I COULD LEARN LIKE THIS UNTIL NOW.

I’ve spent 23 years of my life in school and I’ve been working in learning for 15 years. In learning! And I never knew how magical this combination was for me. I just stumbled on it by chance!

For me, this was like discovering water after being thirsty my whole life. And the water was right in front of me. I just didn’t know what water looked like.

I started to ask myself, why is combining exercise with sound such an effective learning strategy for me? Is it just me? What’s behind this?

These questions then led me to this even bigger question:

What else could I have understood sooner about my own nature and my environment that would have helped me live better, happier & easier?

The more I read, the more I began to see that the gap between our deep human nature and our systems, behavior and daily lives is wide, and is growing wider. We are still essentially cavemen at a biological level, but this seems to have been forgotten somewhere between the industrial revolution, fast food and smartphones.

I started to realize that there is so much yet to be understood about human nature.

That deeply understanding ourselves means observing what shapes and interacts with our mindset, relationships, bodily rhythms, beliefs, unconscious programs, instincts, nutrition, microbiome, emotions, exercise, sleep, history, narrative, anthropology, ethology, ecosystems, and even AI. And with all that, I’m only just scratching the surface.

I realized that exploring my big question would be quite the quest.

The quest to crack natural intelligence: the fascinating natural powers that shape our experience of being alive. A quest into an IncreMental World.

So I’d better get cracking.

I started by producing AudioCardio Learning content. And just generally sharing everything I learn that shines a light on natural intelligence.

My name is Catalina Romero, aka Cat, by the way.

My mission is to help as many people as I can, including myself, to understand and develop our natural intelligence. Because Natural Intelligence Rules! (Sorry AI, I still love you though).

I don’t know where my quest to crack natural intelligence will take me. But I do know that I’ll get somewhere. Probably somewhere I never could have imagined. One IncreMental step at a time. And I love that.

You know that proverb:

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

I want to go far. So come along for the ride!

I'm so grateful that you're here.

Cat.