Climate Courage: step up, speak up, show up

We are facing multiple planetary crises’ from climate change, to biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, rising pollution, mass migration, rising emissions, new pandemics, governments unwilling or incapable of calling an emergency, business as usual everywhere we look, and so much more. Is it any wonder people are feeling hopeless and desperate in the face of these serious threats? I mean, it doesn’t look like we’re doing anything about it at all!

The idea that we have no voice in this fight, no ability to overcome the challenges we face, is a big issue we want to tackle. Because at this stage in the game, it is us - ALL of us - that really can get governments and businesses acting like our world is on fire, because it is. 

Of course, it takes courage to speak up and we are going to address the challenges, as well as many other issues that stop people from speaking out in defence of our future, and the future of our planet. 

To help me dig into this incredibly important topic, I am delighted to welcome three amazing individuals. 

Anjali Sharma is about to publish her new book “Strategic Storytelling” and she is a master in this field. Anjali’s professional focus has been all about helping people steer their success with storytelling. She’s a consultant, Fortune 500 speaker, Hachette author, TEDx Coach and an official LinkedIn Creator.

Julian Mather, author of “Press the Red Button: How to show up on video and win more trust, more authority, more clients.” Julian is a storyteller, a master of video, a professional speaker, trainer and in a former life, he worked behind the camera for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). He is always magical. 

Joanne Flinn, author of “Green Site, the sustainability handbook for company directors.” Joanne works on critical challenges facing the C Suite, integrating environment and sustainability into organisations and results. She facilitates strategy alignment to profit, and sustainability goals, advises boards on green governance and enables necessary mindset shifts required for a sustainable future.

Climate Courage is a fortnightly Livestream and podcast published on Uncommon Courage, where we will go big picture on the climate crisis and focus on the actions you and I can take to be part of the solution. Whether individual action, community action, or national/global action - every single one of us can be part of ensuring a live-able future for our children and grandchildren. We owe them that!

#ClimateCourage #UncommonCourage


You can find Anjali here Narrative Business Storytelling Singapore Presentation Training Workshop Change Management
Julian here Julian Mather | Keynote Speaker | Author | Video Mentor
Joanne here Sustainability Consulting & Speaking by Joanne Flinn (jflinn.com)
And my two Websites are: Andrea T Edwards | The Digital Conversationalist and Welcome - Uncommon Courage - An Invitation (uncommon-courage.com) 

To get in touch with me, all of my contact details are here https://linktr.ee/andreatedwards

My book Uncommon Courage, an invitation, is here https://mybook.to/UncommonCourage

My book 18 Steps to an All-Star LinkedIn Profile, is here https://mybook.to/18stepstoanallstar

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Lovely to see you, Anna.

Joanne Flinn: 0:01

Lovely, absolutely gorgeous. And we're in the same island next year, we're actually see each other live.

Unknown: 0:07

All right. We are live Welcome to climate courage, everyone. My name is Andrea Edwards, and I'm so excited today to be here with this stellar cast. Our topic is step up, speak up, show up. And I want to introduce you to everyone very briefly. And then I'm going to hand it over to you guys to introduce yourself. So based on where you're sitting, we've got Julian Mather, who's calling in from Brisbane. And he is the author of press the red button how to show up on video with and win more trust, more authority and more clients. I've read his book. It's brilliant, step by step. And are you a review on Amazon? Yep, there it is. It's a great book, really great book. So welcome, Julian. Hey, I'm really appreciative to be asked to be here. I'm very grateful. We also have Anjali Sharma. And in the show notes, I said that he had already published your book, and I'm sorry about that. I found it somewhere that you'd publish it somewhere in Europe. But she's about to publish her book in May 2023, which is called strategic storytelling. And when it comes to storytelling, this lady is a master. Welcome. Anjali. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you. Appreciate it. And finally, Joanne Flynn, a friend of many, many years, and we've done a lot of work together. And she's just published her latest book. And I think that's your sixth book. Is that right? Yeah. So it's, it's called Green site, the sustainability handbook for company. Oh, it's way up. But so she's she, she's Joanne and Anna, she works with the C suite, integrating environment and sustainability into how businesses run run themselves. So absolutely thrilled you're all here. I know, we're gonna have a great conversation deep and meaningful. But I want you all to introduce yourself. So maybe Anjali, would you like to start? Just sort of give everyone a bit of background around you and what you do? Yeah, so you know, I run a practice, which is a story practice, put simply, what do we do? Every time an organisation needs to make a change happens. So climate courage is a kind of a change in itself, a very big one, a very important one. We help the organisations and individuals as well. make that change happen with the power of stories. So that's what we do on a daily basis. Yeah, I really recommend follow Anjali on social media. She's I see you on LinkedIn, I see you on Instagram, you do fantastic work, and everything you do is inspiring. So yeah, definitely make sure you're following this amazing lady. Alright, Julian. So you know how we're moving into a digital age. And there's a lot of people with really important things to say, but they struggle to show up in video and say it. Well, that used to be me, I was terrified of being on video, but now I'm not and my life has become so much better for it. So what I do now is I help speakers, thinkers, authors, leaders, and a whole lot of other people sharpen video and become confident video presenters in just seven days. That's what I do. And you're about to launch a new video course based on your book, right? Well, yeah, it's soft launch it. I just launched it the other day, he called the confident video presenter Academy. I've got people in it and the feedback is so heartwarmingly sensational best work I've ever done. I'm so so proud of it. I'm good on Yeah. All right. I'll be promoting that too. All right.

Joanne Flinn: 3:37

Haha, okay. So as your friend, Joanne when I have to be super formal and things like that. So I have to admit with the C suite starts off Joanne occasionally gets to and I work with boards and the C suite on how they lift their leadership and lift those the sustainability of their business, primarily by being with them through the browser and tribulations. And you do it without burning out at the business level. How do you do it without burning it at the personal level. Having done the ladder more than once in my life and my corporate career. I know we're on a times where the demands on us as leaders only increasing and more reason for us to be able to really look after our own life and sustainability because we can keep showing up and doing this kind of work like the good work here. And if I'm gonna get on a hobbyhorse, because I know every now and again, that will happen. So just pre warn people. Anybody business that wants to be functioning and alive in the next few years needs to have a solid sense of story. It needs to have exquisite video skills, and it's got to be leading in sustainability. Otherwise, the business is just going to be left behind and be a dinosaur.

Unknown: 4:45

Yeah, yeah. All right. And you might want to check your Wi Fi, it was just sort of breaking out. We could hear what you said. But the video was pausing a little bit. So just to have a check. All right, well, all right. So let me set the scene about what we're going to talk about today. And and then I'm going I'll hand it over to you guys to hopefully be the dominant voice rather than mine. So for those who don't know, for a couple of decades now, I've been attempting to understand all of the variables of the multiple planetary crisises that we face, which will obviously, impact not just humanity, but all life on Earth. On the other side, I've also been looking to make sense of how we can come together and solve it. So future generations have a chance. All right, we've got a bit of noise there. Let me let me test I'm going to it's not Anna. All right. Just trying to unmute her. Just let me Yeah, Anjali, that's for some reason. It's it. There's noise in your background? I don't know why. Let's try again. All right, I'm gonna remove Anna. And then get it back. Let's see if we can do this. Sorry. Just sort this out. All right. Yeah. All right. So you know, I've been going very big picture for a very long time trying to sort of make sense of everything and how we can do it. And my conclusion at this point in the game, especially 2022, when we've had so many significant events, from an environment perspective happening around the world. So what am I do Anjali? is I'll just mute you, and then we'll unmute you when you need to speak. Yeah. And my conclusion is that basically, governments and businesses are just not ready to do what we need to do to make sure that we don't suffer the worst of the climate emergency or the planetary crises, because it's not just climate change that we're dealing with. There's multiple crises we're dealing with. So there's definitely momentum, there's no question about that some of the governments some of the regional governments like the EU, they're stepping up no question. Just yesterday, I read that the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, will be delaying their decision by 18 months of where the next Winter Olympics will be. And this is because of climate change. Basically, they need to find a place with snow, and guaranteed snow so that they can host the Olympics. And this is this is the sort of the turning point where organisation organisations, governments and businesses are starting to look ahead into the longer term looking at the climate science and what's actually being predicted and getting ready for it. But overall, the urgency is not in alignment with the action that's being taken. So adaptation is one of the biggest areas that really concerns me, I've just recently gone through a severe flooding, and the infrastructure was definitely not in place to to deal with that. I've had for extreme events, this weather events this year. And most countries, just not even doing the minimum, the basics. So that means that all of us are going to be sitting in the eye of the storm and having to deal with what come. So we need to get those sort of plans in place and moving. So what can we do? Well, we can step up, show up and speak up. So at this stage, I think that we the people, actually, are the best chance that we've got. But we need to come together. And we need to unify. And we need to raise our voices and demand the change that is required. Because otherwise, we're just going to keep getting business, as usual. So we have more power than we know. And it's time that we learned how to use it. And that's really what I want to get to the bottom of here. So let's move into the question. So the first question is, all, all three of you are standing up and speaking up, not necessarily on any of the planetary crises. But we all know that it takes a lot of courage to be a voice out there in the world. To many people that I'm speaking to so far, they feel us useless, hopeless, and they don't think that their individual contribution or voice matters. So how can we help our audiences believe that their voice matters? Julian, do you want to kick us off? Yeah, sure. Happy to you know, that was me. It just was I. So my background was numerous things. But I was a documentary cameraman for a couple of decades. And even though I was out there telling stories in the world, I had a story in my own head. And that story was I was embarrassed. Because all these people in front of the camera were effecting change in the world. And I had something in me and I thought I could do it. But I had no confidence to do it. And I was mystified to how did they know how to do this? What did they know? What did I have? It was a it was very perplexing. And then I felt excluded. Because something I've learned is that those people who are in the light and move out of the shadows, get more opportunity. And I also felt small, because I knew I could be playing a bigger game, but I just felt you know, I was held in and then over the years I mean, you know, through The longest story, I came out of that and I realised that most of the stories, I was telling myself in my head that I wasn't good enough to do this with just that. They were stories and they had no foundation to them. And once I started unpicking these and taking some action upon them, and then finding out these stories actually didn't play out, they didn't hurt me, like I feared they would just bit by bit, I got that confidence to come out of the shadows myself, and do what I do now. So you know, it has been a journey for sure. But I spent years and years if not decades, with the wrongs stories and the wrong soundtracks, and you can shortcut that you can honestly shortcut it just by having someone guide you through the process, and to unpick a lot of these false stories that you actually have. Hmm. I love that you started off with that, that's, it's just so perfect, the confidence to speak up, you know, for me, talking about climate over a long period of time, and obviously, the climate scientists and the experts out there, people listened to them. But, you know, I'm hearing people saying things today that I was saying 10 years ago. And the more I the more that happens, the more confident I get that, that my conclusions are on the right track. So sometimes just listening to what other people are saying that isn't alignment to what you've been believing for a long time, that that can also give you confidence as well. But I like the sorting out the voice in your head. Definitely. Yeah, I mean, to do that, though, you're talking about experts out there, that we all look to gurus and experts out there for this information. But here's the reality about gurus and experts is quite often they have moved so far in their field that they have distanced themselves at what it's like to be a beginner level and entry level. So they've lost empathy with the beginner in their field. And so I found that as much as we do need the experts, and wonderful as they are, we also need people what I call two steps ahead. So people who are just into the game, but they're two steps ahead of people who are either, you know, rank beginners or the whole way up the process to being expert, you need someone who's just two steps of view ahead of you, because they're empathetic to exactly what you're feeling at the moment. And they also have their hands on the tools and access to the resources that quite often the experts forgotten. So there's this, there's this ability for you to be both teacher and student at the same time. So if you feel like you want to say something, and you've got something to say, you can come in, and almost at base level, and you can frame what you're saying is, you know, look, I'm not an expert on this. But I've been doing this, and this is what I found. So if you're just starting, let me help you. Let me be both teacher and student would you like to join me on this journey together? And that way, the experts and the the beginners and people, they can all work together? So if you've got this idea that, Oh, no, I don't want to, you know, show up and say something because I'm gonna get criticised, who made you the expert, the imposter syndrome kicks in. And there are many, many ways to get around this and are thinking that around us. Yeah. Love it. Joanne. I'm sure when you mentioned impostor syndrome, some light bulbs went off for you as well. All right, you're on mute darling.

Joanne Flinn: 13:55

And we got about the background noise side of things of the the joys of living in a high rise city is sometimes construction always happens and just over the way. So fingers crossed, it doesn't do anything to us today. Hence, this kind of headset to really limit down noise. The imposter syndrome is so pernicious, but to what Julian was just saying, you know, there are always people who have deeper expertise in a particular topic, than you talk to people who have multiple PhDs, and they can still find somebody that has more PhDs. So, so it's the expertise is useful. And it definitely has a place. So like, for example, there's a group on the climate side, there's a group in Stockholm who produced what they call the planetary boundaries report. And that came out that the updated version of that the 2022 data came out mid this year, and they're identifying that of the planetary boundaries that they're looking at. And the idea of the planetary boundaries is that it's sort of a bit like when you're getting to an edge, you know, is it gonna get dangerous if you do another step will we be tipping over, you know, you know, a cliff face, will that create other consequences. So they've been putting all these millions of PhDs into good use to distil it down to a whole series. And there's a couple of them that the way that we're operating on the planet are already breached. So one is what they call biosphere integrity. And that for the rest of us is, you know, what are we actually doing in terms of damage to the atmosphere. So I come from Australia originally, I know my accent doesn't say it. But the chemicals that we're putting in the atmosphere can be damaging that kind of thing. The way that that affects the number of species that we're using creates other sorts of issues that shows up in what's called land use, how we farm creates flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, which is considered hugely damaging to other parts of the ecosystem. And then there's climate change, which is the the area that gets the biggest headlines, but the ones I've just told you about are actually even more over the limits than even even the climate change carbon levels. So and then there's one that doesn't get mentioned at all, it has the most witty haha name. It's called novel entities. I have to admit, when I saw the phrase novel entities, it's like, you know, what are they? Are they talking about strange companies, but actually, a lot of it gets down to it's really a technical term for the various products that man has made. So plastic, you know, plastic micro pollution will fall and novel entities or chemical, other chemical pollutions. So you know, you've got all that kind of, like sciency, sciency stuff. Now, I sound like I'm really informed. I'm not an expert, but I found an expert and read out. Which gives me more ease in speaking about it like, Okay, I've got to Andrew, like you were saying earlier, I've got a big picture. Okay. I don't understand the syntax of the details on it. But I can look into that, and I can develop a process for understanding it. And that helps me deal with the apparent impostor syndrome. Of going, if I'm not misrepresenting where my knowledge that is, I'm not being an impostor.

Unknown: 17:04

Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's an interesting one, right? Because we need to value the people that can bring the pieces together. But the other side is the top three communities that we trust for climate information. Number one, NASA scientists, number two, people like us, number three, climate scientists. So we are more trusted than climate scientists, within our families in our communities. And that's why our voice matters, because it's a trusted voice. And if you know, I put out my weekend reads every week, if you want to have an argument with me, fine. But I want you to know how well read I am. So please don't don't come screaming and raging at me. If you don't have the basis of the knowledge that I spend a lot of time acquiring, right. And that's why I do the weekend reads mainly for that, but also to make it easier for people to manage the information overload. And Anjali, what about you your thoughts? Yeah, of course, I mean, you know, and I'll start off by sharing with everyone that a lot of good decisions in our home started because of the stuff you put out, I clearly remember the, you know, the fast fashion post you'd put out, and I showed it to my daughter, and how she changed her behaviour, and then went and advocated some of the other teenagers who were really, you know, after the fast fashion, because it was cheap, and they could change it fast and all that sort of stuff. So I mean, so many big decisions that we have made, you know, buying products, cosmetic products that are not animal tested, you know, not buying leather, or all because of a post that I read somewhere. Now, I just want to kind of dig deeper on this a little bit. I think when we talk about showing up, the definition of showing up has changed a lot these days. So what that means is mostly it's social showing up, right? And a lot of us can social show up. Now, the way you remain motivated to socially show up is when you get feedback in the forms of comments and likes and things like that. And I think that's where the uselessness. And I feel hopeless because nobody's reading what I'm putting out, maybe I'm not an expert. And all those types of stories start to breathe in your head. But I think it's really important for us to understand, if you are showing up, you're not showing up for a feedback, you're showing up for a purpose and a cause. And if you are not getting that kind of regular feedback, like likes and comments and things like that, that doesn't mean that you are useless. You have no idea how hard it is to build a meaningful tribe on socially. It's very easy to build a crowd. So that you know, that's the most important thing for me is to that. You can't feel useless just because somebody decided not to give you a feedback on the thing you showed up with. That's one. The second thing I would say that things changed a lot for me and gave Give me the courage to show up when I really started to understand what courage means. So if you go and Google the word courage, you'll almost see like a lion sitting in a jungle. And sometimes he's also with a hoodie and stuff like that you don't have to be a lion. What courage really means is that in that moment, you are able to, you know, deal with uncertainty, have emotional exposure, and take a little bit of risk. If you have those components, you're showing courage. So yeah, I put out stuff, nobody likes it, I'm taking I'm taking, taking certain level of risk, I'm dealing with a certain level of uncertainty, I am having a little bit of an emotional exposure, and I'm showing courage. And I think if we start to understand courage, really at the deep level, and not worry about the response from social and stay focused on the purpose, you will stop feeling useless. Keep doing it. Yeah, yeah. All right. Can I jump in and follow up with a couple of those, that so just want to go back, okay. And I'll work backwards with that audience response that you're not getting likes. What I was a professional magician for five years. And when I started doing that, I was terrified of audiences. Because you'd go out in, you know, and stand in front of an audience, you'd do a show, and it would be okay. But you're gonna do the same show in front of me. And what's going on? What's wrong, and I just feel so bad about it, and then somebody would come up afterwards, and pat you on the shoulder and go, that was the best thing I've ever seen. And I'll go with you. And I learned that audiences don't all express themselves the same. And it's the same thing online. When you're putting out there and you're getting no reaction to your content you're putting out there, there are so many lurkers, who come on, who've never, you know, like, well put stuff out. And then, like 18 months, two years later, someone comes out says, I've been following you since day one. I've just never said anything. This is brilliant. So don't assume because you don't get that feedback that you aren't making an impact. It doesn't work that way. And then to go back a little bit further, we were talking about science and about science communication. I used to work in a lot of science documentaries. And typically when we were shooting a documentary, we would work in a crew of three people, a producer, camera and sound. But when we worked on science documentaries, worked on four people with four people. And that extra person was simply when we went back to finish the day, we went back to the hotel would get in a room, and we'd all talk to each other and go, How are we going to take what this person has spent 30 years their life focusing on this narrow speciality? How are we going to explain that to the common person. So this idea that because we don't think we're the expert, we need people who can communicate ideas, simply and effectively. And you don't, you don't have to have any qualifications to do that. You just might have this ability that you listen to things, and you can filter it and be a conduit to a whole lot of people out there who need to hear this information, the way that you can present it. And remember, there's 52 flavours of ice cream out there, because we all don't like vanilla. We all don't like the middle. So because you know, you you might deliver it in an idiosyncratic way. But you might just connect with a very, very small group of people out there, but they want to hear it from you. Yeah. And that that is I shared something the other day and, and I know that there's people in my community that wouldn't like the way this information was shared. And I said, if you don't like it, don't worry about it. Just move on. Right. But for the people who will like this, this is a really powerful piece of content. And we've got to you see it everywhere people carrying on and getting up in arms. Oh, I don't like this. I don't like that. It's like what don't watch it. Don't listen to it. Don't read it. They're not like they're not talking to you. I feel I feel like I'm being a hog, but it's just gonna follow on with that. I used to have this thing I used to have YouTube channel that did quite well. And I used to get these haters that came in and it was almost consistently 5% So I was doing pretty well but it hurt me i for years. I internalise this, and every time I got a negative comment, like I mean seriously, I carried this around, and then somebody wiser and smarter than me did this. Wake up to yourself. If you walked in to a room of 20 people in the real world and 19 people sit on like you and one when are that like the cut of your jib. You'd be brilliant. How would that Make you feel that 19 People thought you were great. And that's exactly what's happening when those 5% 19% of people out there like me, and once I got over myself, and when, why should everyone think I'm fantastic? And things got a lot easier? Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna talk about that topic, because I think it's a really, it's a really important one, because it's the fear of participation. But before we do, so, first of all, I've been reading this book, don't even think about it. And basically, the subheading is why our brains are wired to ignore climate change. So it's the psychology of us. And we're a bit strange, but that's why I really wanted to sort of focus in on storytelling as part of this topic. And I'm going to ask anjali to start but, you know, there's so many crises that we're facing. And I've been trying to tell the story for a really, really long time. And I'm constantly keynote my backgrounds, 30 years and professional communications, right. So I know how to communicate. And I'm constantly changing how I'm communicating to try and get the message across. But it's a message that is hard to share. But it's a message that's even harder to hear. And that's hard, right? But we can't, we can't ignore it anymore. You know, we're getting to such a critical point for humanity that we've got to start acting. So starting with Anjali because I know you're all storytellers, what's your guidance on? How can we share stories about something that's really hard to hear? And I suppose the best way to do it is give us some storytelling tips for success. Join us. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I really love this question, because it's starting to become my everyday life, because change management is such a huge part of the entire sustainability agenda. And, you know, every conversation that I'm now having is around that with my clients. So, you know, it's, I think there's a couple of things. Firstly, I would sort of say that, you know, you said that it's hard to hear, truly, Andrea, I wish it was hard, that means people would care. The fact is that they're ignoring, it's not hard for them, because they just simply ignore there is absolutely no emotion associated to it. And I feel that there's there is a responsibility for the communicator, to create that care factor. Now, I'm going to lead with a couple of examples for you, right. So not that long ago, just about in the last couple of weeks, I worked with a business where they have this model called the carbon pricing model, and they are building a narrative on the carbon pricing model, because they want to tell their clients, should you not really look into this, you're gonna get taxed heavily, or you'll find yourself in a situation where you would have used more than more carbon than allocated to you. And you'll actually actually have to go and borrow it from someone, and, you know, and then you'd have to pay a lot more. Now, the problem with that entire narrative that I was called to fix was this, people got so caught up in telling about what an amazing carbon pricing mechanism they had, that they forgot to tell the story of what it would be to not have that, right. So the obsession is so much with what we can offer to fix for those who have something, you know, something to offer to fix, then to actually really build the resonance in connection with what it would be not to have it right. So I was like, why why would this person connect with this message? Can you take this person from now, two years down from now into a boardroom? Show them get them to visualise them, you know, really showing downward trajectory in terms of the revenue because they've had to pay this huge amount of tax? Because there was nothing done, done to really, you know, in an informed way, control the consumption and manage the use of the carbon, how did they even can you get them to be in that boardroom two years from now and make them go, Oh, my God, there's only two reasons people would listen to anything. It's either Thrive message or survive message, I'm not going to survive with it, or I'm going to thrive with it. I think the problem we have is that the communication about climate change the communication about sustainability, the communication about ESG is just so academically driven, that it lacks real connection and resonance with people. My 15 year old daughter said to me, one day we will all drown, and then only we'll do something about it. And I said, My God, even a 15 year old can see that that not unless we actually really feel the repercussions, the consequences of it, we're going to do something about it. But we can't wait for that to happen. Otherwise, it'd be too late to make the change happen. Therefore, the best storytellers have to take you into scenarios of what it means to you. If you don't do something like that, again, very quickly. Pulling back into an example. Let's talk about green skills. Right? Everybody's like, green skills are becoming important greens, because green skills are going to be in demand. Nobody's listening. But if you actually told a story about okay, let's pull a story out and a story about what happened in. In Sweden, I think this was I could be wrong about the country, I think in Sweden. We talked about urban planning, there's a story about urban planning and wet there were these people who were kind of doing the snow clearing. You know, it's looking at snow clearing and saying, Can snow clearing be sexist? And everybody laughed in the planning council? So how can something like snorkelling be sexist? And that exact comment really got the planning people to poke their nose in it and said, let's just see. And when they actually tried to look at it, they figured that oh my god, snow clearing is sexist. Why? Because the way we clear the snow in any place is where the high traffic areas are there. Mostly men drive the car to work, women do what is called trip chaining, they use public transport, they get up they buy groceries, they get back on a public transport. And public transport goes from places which are not really in that, you know, high traffic area with cars and all go from in this particular country. And then pedestrian clearing is done after the high traffic. Most women in the buggies actually with the prams they're pushing the the pram through four inch snow. And the process is really designed to make it easy for men to get to work of snow clearing. So then, when that whole conclusion was done, it was it. The conclusion was that, firstly, if there was a woman plan involved in urban planning, then we would have never gotten here, because nobody's because all the men were there. Nobody saw it. Now, if you give that example, and you say, we're going to have green economy, if we don't have more women learning about green skills, one more time, all the rules, the regulations, the policies, the strategies would be designed to suit the men not because they sit on the table and say, I want to make it nice for men and bad for women, they just don't have that insight from a woman on the table. Therefore women get up get green skills or else not only snow clearing, but green economy will be sexist, too. So what people are not taking the help of stories to bring that thing to life, right. And I think the climate change conversation is so much in big numbers. And truth be told, the bigger the number, the less I'm going to connect with it because it means nothing to me. There is a wonderful book called Making numbers count, which actually says in many languages after the number five, you don't have like a language for it. Because we only really connect with numbers as long as they are till five. After that it becomes lots and lots numbers. So a lot of the climate change conversation is lots of lots of numbers. I'm not connecting with it. So therefore I'm ignoring it's not hard for me to hear because I'm just ignoring. I wish it was hard. I wish I cared. So that's what I would say. Yeah, like that. I always say if we had more female urban planners, we'd have a lot more female public toilets. The curbs would be designed for prams, you know, just basic stuff, our doors open, you know, they would be more user friendly to someone who's juggling multiple things, you know, so yeah, it's a it's a really good example but up to five people after five it's just it's another I mean, yeah. And we always know if you were if you want to talk about disaster or tragedy, tell one story, you know, yeah, because why one story why? Because you know, the famous quote from selling the death of a single person is a tragedy, a death of 400 people as a statistic I just don't connect with it. You know, we perceive things very differently. The bridge in Gujarat that that you know, recently there was a bridge in Gujarat, India that actually collapsed. Most newspapers reported bridge in Gujarat India 135 people died rah rah rah rah rah only Financial Times started the article of that particular news like this. I forget the name of the couple and the family they had but so I'll just kind of make up the name. Mr. And Mrs. Patel along with the two kids after many weeks are going on this Sunday to watch this newly opened bridge what they did not know was that along with 135 other people that family is not going to return back home today. Now you get goosebumps when you hear that and you go I care people care for Mr. And Mrs. Patel, people care for people, people don't care for large numbers. And for as long as we are going to just rely on numbers we may be able to bring credibility to the communication will never bring a connection to the communication and for a change connection will always beat credibility. Yeah, yeah, nice one up the Pakistan story when the glacial lake outburst you know the the scale the numbers you know, and media coverage on that was very pathetic in the media. Uh, oh my boy, they have such a big role to play in this. But Julian Oh, Joanne, did you want to jump in on the storytelling?

Joanne Flinn: 35:08

I'd love to on this one to extend on from what Angela has just said, I found when I'm speaking with executive groups about this one that if it's an opening keynote, they kind of want the punch and like the data does, you know, it's just like, you know, the call to your executive greatness kind of thing. You know, the, here's the challenge to take on. But the thing that actually gets them into motion, as opposed to here's this great, big, very hairy, audacious be heavy gold to play with, is when I actually make it personal. And I make a personal, very, very simple question like, I go, do you intend to be alive in? In this case, I'd say seven years? And I'll put my hand up. I do. How about you? And then people go, Oh, what's that about as well, right now, between now and 2030, is seven years. So the decisions we make now will be the decisions, the consequences that we live with. It's personal, it's our seven years that we're speaking about, it's your seven years, it's the time that and then it's kind of moves off this intellectualised spot into that personal one of yeah, this is my this is mine. And then we can start connecting into corporate responsibilities and things. But I found that that was one of those moments where people were to go, oh, it's me, me has a role, not just that out outside world that makes a big, big difference.

Unknown: 36:37

Yeah, oh, no. Not just the people in the global south who are living in poverty, right, as well.

Joanne Flinn: 36:42

Yeah. But I mean, a part of living in Singapore and having lived in Africa growing up and being in various other parts of the world. You know, it's always been really clear to me that the decisions we make in one part of the world have consequences elsewhere. And if I'm going to speak very, very directly and seriously is the trend direction is there's transparency on the decisions we make elsewhere, and you will bear the consequences. So you, let's make this really direct as an individual company. So Rio Tinto is a very well respected mining company. 30 years ago, it had a set of practices that pretty much ignored local communities where they were putting in mining, now the world has changed, the standards have shifted, but they are now being investigated for the impact they had on that community and vote in Bougainville and png. So there's a very, very clear direction of the decisions we make now we will be held accountable to and this is not theory or fiction, its current civil and criminal liability as a director on edge. So it's like, okay, you know, it's personal, is deeply, deeply personal. So how do we go on a robust journey to get our heads around that understand and help the rest of our organisation make the very rapid shifts, you know, the change management piece, so that we're addressing these things before they come and bite us badly.

Unknown: 38:07

I can give a spin on the individual level, because we just had more of a, like a corporate organisational response to that. But what the individual can do, and particularly using video is, number one, you got to understand when you show up on video to do this is stand firm, you do not need anyone's permission to show up and help people. So understand that belief system within yourself. And then you have to be clear, because confused, people don't buy, and then you've got to stay true, you've just got to turn up authentically and do it. And the great news about that is you don't have to change who you are to do that. So once you build on that foundation, you might be doing something locally, you might have an idea that you're you're into saving, you know, recycling plastic bags, or you know, doing something with the supermarket just at a very local level. But you want to go and tell people that, oh, I can't turn up on video and do this. So don't talk about the numbers. Don't talk about the problems. Talk about what the other person you're talking to will be feeling. And you know what they're feeling because you have been through this journey yourself. So there are these nine questions like the universal questions that people ask themselves when they're buying something. I mean, this has been around for ages. But if you use these, these are great starting points. So people are worried about you. So if you're trying to convince them to get on board, they're worried about time so concerned I don't have enough time to do this with everything else I've got on already. You know, how am I going to make this work? You know, if I've got to take this on, make a video that just says oh, look, I get you're probably worried about you're not gonna have enough time. But this is how I did it. ability. I won't be scared. I'll be scared. I won't be able to do this. Even if I try my best confused This is new to me, where do I start? You know, can I do this in my unique situation, fear that you're gonna look silly in front of others, or if you're going to fail. And so there's timing, there's confidence, there's trust, and then there's their local environment, you know, they don't know if they're going to get the right support around them. So just using a simple framework like this, and talking to people at that right at that base level, that's how you use the power of video to do this, because this is know like and trust, and the more that you can turn up, and people can understand you and what you're trying the impact you're trying to get across to them. If you break it down into little bite sized pieces, because one of the problems we do is we've all got this big passion to want to go and do something. But I was looking at like a big potato, like you're trying to give a potato to someone and say that eat that you can't get it down. What we've got to do is video fire message. And to do that, we turn that potato into fries. And it's the same amount of potato. But you know, like if you get a thing of fries, they're very, very easy to eat. So we got to work out a way to be able to do that. And just using those simple emotive feeling questions is a really simple way to start. Yeah, I like it. I had an experience. I don't know if you had the chance to see it, Julian, where I did a couple of videos where we were removing the root monster of the beach and it was a whole family down there with tools chopping this thing up. And the right monster as a brand has is well and truly established. Now everywhere I go people talk to me about the rope monster and and it was just this huge, huge pile of fishing that literally took us three weeks to go down. Cut, remove it was it was really hard work. But yeah, just like the showing, with with with positivity. Like even though it's hard work. It was like, let's be positive, you know, and my husband was been a bit grumpy. I'm like, I'm trying to convey that this is a positive experience. It's something great for the family to do. Please try and be positive with me. Because you don't want it to be a negative experience, because he's going to buy into that right. So yeah, no, that's cool. All right. So another side. Oh, fantastic. The other side, of course, is people are scared of being attacked online and for women even more so. And you know, we have a lot of trolls. Twitter's flush with them. At the moment, there's some statistics out that showing the rise of hate on Twitter has just really gone off the charts, since Musk has sort of taken over. Alright, we've lost Julian. But you know, it's angry people, it's confused people, it's deniers, it's people who believe in whatever institution is telling them one form of media, whatever it is that they're believing, and they're on. They're online, they're there, they're in life. And I've obviously had my fair share of the experiences today. I literally don't care. I I know what I know. And I know how much work I do. So if you're a complete change in strangers showing up and trying to take the mickey out of me, I'm like, Well, I don't know, you, I don't know what you know, I don't know what you've got to offer. So I can't give you all my time. So Joanne, you know, both of us have sort of been in the climate sort of game for a while. Any tips or ideas or suggestions on people who are just scared to step up and be a voice in the world? Because of that? Meet, you're on mute.

Joanne Flinn: 43:27

There we go. For me the question in this one of there's, like taking apart some of the different reasons why the fear sets in me. So there there was a part of the fear just going like, you know, do I know anything? In you know, that when I realised if I go and start learning, then I will actually know something? So, you know, hence for that I discovered planetary boundaries and witches and all sorts of good stuff. Then there's the one about do

Unknown: 43:56

I call it knowledge?

Joanne Flinn: 44:00

Yeah, and the knowledge and the interest in it. And do you know to Julian's earlier comment, it's not like one has to be deeply expert. I mean, I grew up with scientists in the Green Revolution. So at one level, I hadn't had a PhD, multiple PhDs in this just from the family dinner table. By the time I was 20, but then, you know, a whole stack of years later on, I'm a little bit over 20 now. I wasn't sure where my knowledge was. And so I went back to school and started to swatted away to kind of go like, Okay, and what I realised in that was a I did actually know something which was kind of cool to realise all those conversations. So hashtag you never know what you can get from the dinner table. It could be decades later is you know, that was one part but you don't have to be so there's people that are way deeper in some of these topics. And I am you know, like Anjali, I want to connect with you afterwards on the carbon pricing ones because that's an area I know I don't know a lot about and it's about rapidly moving one so is he got places like that continuous freezes. But I do know lots about some other pieces. And if I integrate what I do know things about, and that's true every one of us, and then add some of the things I'm getting insight to, I've got something useful that I can bring to other people. So that was the second one to me is, you know, the the knowledge one, do I have something that would be useful, and I realised I didn't, it didn't have to have the ultimate message in the world. But if I could help make it a bit more sensible, or I could connect this piece of information to that thing there, I was being useful. So it wasn't showing up to add to the noise I was showing up in service. And I think that's the third one to realise is, you know, why are we choosing to show up, which, you know, for me, if I'm showing up, and it's all about me, it feels intrinsically uncomfortable. And we were talking, you know, in the greenroom, I'm a high introvert. So I'm quite happy on my own. I don't, you know, getting out in public takes energy. But if I'm doing it to help and serve other people, then the attention is not on me, it's on Who am I trying to connect with and I was telling a story, that would be the kind of story style that I would tell if I was speaking to a board. Because those were things in signals that would be important to them. And Julian gave a great example of speaking to every person and Anjali gave a wonderful one on ad use speak with a story that was designed for a different style of audience. So then there's another one going like, who am I actually trying to connect to and speak to? And then And then everybody else, frankly, and this was a bit of a learning curve. For me, everybody else is like, great. But if I'm trying to provide really great, salted caramel ice cream, and wanting to work with the people who want salted caramel ice cream, and somebody comes up and goes, I don't like him, you don't do vanilla, it's like, well, it's okay. I don't do. And so I realised like some of the things that come across as tolling is people who have a different interest in lens. So that's cool. But that's not the that's not the lens that I'm attempting to support and serve. There's other people out there in the world that are doing that.

Unknown: 47:00

Yeah. So it's been really clear on your purpose while you're showing up, which I absolutely agree with. And Julia said it earlier, but the other one is, you know, being clear on who your audience is, you know, and when these people turn up to criticise you, if they're not your audience, like, you know, go and have a good day, you know, you've had some experiences being trolled, right? Oh, yes. Rather, do you remember that lipstick comment? I couldn't believe that one. It was so stupid. And this is important one share it because

Joanne Flinn: 47:34

because Julian would get a beard comment instead.

Unknown: 47:38

And maybe Julian would take you know, lipstick is a great thing often. Okay, well, you know, this, this was very, very early on, when I first started doing videos. It's not I mean, I've been doing videos for very, very long time now. But this was early. And I remember I'd done a video and I liked wearing bright lipsticks and wearing one right now. It's something I like to do. And this this video, so I did that video. And there was lots of commentary, you know, very fortunate to get a lot of engagement, meaningful engagement, mostly. And then I get this one comment. Excellent message, but that lipstick is horrible, wipe it off, or something like that. And but you know, to be very honest with you, I have to really be, you know, be so, so honest, it just didn't bother me. I don't know why I could never answer as to why it didn't bother me. Why I didn't feel like I need to delete it or whatever, you know, water off the duck's back, like, just keep moving. I personally, you know, I mean, I've also had lots of direct messages. You know, I get a lot of commentary on my earrings. Why are you wearing such big earrings? I see how you're trying to get attention from people by wearing big earrings. Oh, why it's such a bright dress. Oh, your heels are very colourful. And up, I I have never been able to figure out why it just doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me, you know, because I know a lot of people say that really, you know, you hold on to that negative comments and stuff like that. But I think it's all the reason for that is having a great mentor. You know, I have a very, very good mentor and I if every time something like this happens I'll just connect with him. And he gives me very senior advisors and he'll biller they're just trying to leverage off something that is working well on social and trying to you know, the videos working well. So they're just adding their own voice in. Don't worry, you've got bigger fish to fry like just just don't worry about it. So you know, truly to be very honest with you. Those that comment doesn't matter to me. But here's what I want everyone to remember. When we're talking about show up and speak up. Don't feel like you need to be an invited speaker. invited speakers need to be subject matter experts right then you need to have have something more and better and really, you know, strong knowledge about the space that you're in. And you know, people should really be, you should be surprising everyone every second line or third line, or you should be able to communicate it in such a way that nobody else can. But I think when we talk about showing up through social showing up with a message and the purpose, you're trying to make a change happen, you're not an invited speaker, you've chosen to be there to with the purpose to make a change happen the day I shifted my view that way. And if there was a comment, other than there was a comment on my content. Then I take notice. Others I just go, Okay, you will like the lipstick. Move on. You know, I just put one more last point. Malcolm Gladwell is someone I really, really admire. And there's one of his book, you know, he's an author, journalist, you know, podcast host, and it is one of his book, what did the dog what did the dog see? I think that's the title of the book. The very first page actually has this these few lines, which I don't remember exactly how it is. But the meaning of the line is this. If you don't like it, what someone else has written? Why are you wasting your time really investing your energy in being negative about it exactly what you said, Andrea, just don't read it, just move on. And if somebody does do that to you, then you need to move on, just let it be and just move on. So I think one of the things, one of the things that I think is a real problem for women and for men, but more for more so for women is commenting on physical appearance, and in a positive or a negative way. So like Anna had a great book launch the other week, and I said, You look fabulous. And that's unusual for me to do that. But she really did look fabulous. She had this amazing red dress, and you just sparkled in the photo. But I really was. And it was. It was brilliant, fabulous. And wonderful to see. And, but I rarely comment on appearance. Because I think for a lot of women on video, in particular, getting having the courage to get online is also opening themselves up to criticism. And I'm so happy to hear that you don't care about it. But I know a lot of women wouldn't show up because of that fear. So we've got to be very conscious of that. And you know, if someone wants to wear big earrings and red lipstick, and that's their style, leave them alone. Right? Precisely and, and you know, I've got this really wonderful code that I've given my daughter to keep it as a screensaver on her phone, which is by Greta tunberg, which actually she says that when they've got nowhere else to go, they'll go after your appearance. You know, and I think it is such an important message for every girl. And I tell my 50 and a half year old, keep the fight cerebral, darling, don't don't talk about physical stuff at all. You know, that's where we're talking about equality, where it's all cerebral, who wears what lipstick, and shoes and earrings doesn't matter, do what suits you. Yeah, if you go online, you really do have to take on the mindset of eat the fish spit out the bones, like you're going to have his great experience, but we're all going to get a bone. And it's gonna be that you just spit it out, and you keep on going. And the other thing about worrying about turning up the my pivot point was when I worked out that it wasn't about me. And as soon as you stop turning up and thinking that this is about you, and we and we all do that unconsciously without knowing it, we spent our I'm not going to put the video out until I find the right music. I'm not going to you know all this, you know, you're making the video for the wrong person. Like you're not the client, you're not the customer. So the simple saying is fixed nervous with service. So if you're worried about doing this taking on a service mindset, where you're turning up to help somebody solve a problem that they've got, and when that can become your focus, it honestly liberates you. You just I mean, like we do you pretty much press a button and you go and say it means you're going this is my intention to do this. And a lot of these other concerns melt away. And the third thing is want to say there is a you women are vicious to each other. Yeah, just got a little bit. Boy. Yeah, yeah. That the comments were from women to other women. I can't stand seeing that. From a trolling perspective. Greta tunberg, again, was recently asked, How does she deal with trolls? And she said, I don't. And I just thought, yep, that's exactly right. Like, seriously, I just had someone on LinkedIn, they were completely nonsensical. I had no idea what they were talking about. And I asked him for clarification of the of what they were saying to me because I didn't even know that they were trolling me at that point, because it just didn't make any sense and, and he came back with something that even made less sense. And I just reported him as a bully and just moved on. So you just, just don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. And if you're there with purpose and intention, and you're there to serve your community, and that's your drive for being there. You're showing up for a reason. It just sort of it takes it all away. Alright, just to find a one because I know Anna was going to have to probably jump off in a minute and maybe you should start but let's just as many as you want some final tips and tricks, what you know getting started, or have started failed, hiding away whatever it was, however people are feeling. And are you still on mute? So I'll get you on mute. But what's your advice? How to how to people overcome anything we haven't discussed yet?

Joanne Flinn: 55:27

Actually, the easiest was to actually just aside there's nothing you have to overcome. Because then it stops being this great big struggle and it's, it's sort of like, you know, well, you know, if your favourite thing is dark chocolate, I love dark chocolate. I'm not so fond of white chocolate. It's like, okay, well, how can I make that dark chocolate? It's a when I'm dramatising and making then I get stuck when I just say okay, maybe Yeah, can I just make it like dark chocolate and do it easily? The noise disappears. It's much easier just to do the next piece ie show up or make a statement or press to lay or tell a good story.

Unknown: 56:02

Yeah. All right. I'm not sure I understood the dark chocolate analogy but and Joe I

Joanne Flinn: 56:08

adore I adore dark chocolate. If it's dark chocolate is involved. It's an easy thing for me to do. I mind you the temptation to not eat too much dark chocolate? Definitely, definitely a battle there. With the pieces. Sometimes we tell us the stuff ourselves the story that it's complicated and difficult. And that's what creates the difficulty. It's like doing the housework most of the time, actually, you just pick up the dish cloth and wipe. It's done. But we can make it take forever because we don't want to pick the dish cloths up. So you know, I think dark chocolates more exciting than dish cloths myself. So

Unknown: 56:41

all right. Got Yeah. All right. Anjali. So I'll go back to Andrew, where you started today. So if people feel like, you know, hopeless, useless, I can't do anything. Very quick story. You know, many years ago, I said to someone like as if me not using plastic bag is going to change the world, right? It's just me. And it this was whilst I was actually on a walk with my mentor. And he turned around and said to me, if every individual thought like that, we would have no roads, we'll have no new technology, no advancement in the world, because it all started with an individual. If every individual thought like that, we will have no progress. So even if you make a decision to switch off the light, if you made a decision to throw not use plastic, you are contributing, just keep that in mind. You can't change the world, you can change your own world. And that's good enough. I would say that. Yeah, I like that. I think in Australia, when they there was a real big campaign in the 80s to get people to, to actually vote legitimately, because it's compulsory to vote in Australia. And so a lot of people were doing dummy votes, and there was this huge campaign where the every Australian, I know, feels that their vote counts, you know. And so whatever that campaign was incredibly successful, so maybe we need to go back and pull that campaign apart and turn it into a campaign for us all to care about the environment and waste. Right. But yeah, that, that belief that what you do matters, and, you know, and it ripples out. And we've all got to be ripple makers, right? Absolutely. Julian. Yeah, I understand there's a paradox out there, that there's input, there's inside your four walls, there's imperfect you with something important to say that you want to say. And on the other side of the world, there's all these people looking for imperfect videos, because that's the sort of content we watch. If you've got 10 minutes to spare. I'm gonna go find a good corporate video said nobody, like, you know, we want this imperfect content yet. It's crazy. They're all saying give it to us. And we're gonna going on now, or it's not ready yet. It's not perfect. So just get over this. This crippling need for perfection. Done is better than Yeah, exactly. All right, I've just got a few. The first is being focused. So you can go big picture, which is what I try and do and try and bring all the pieces together. Or you can go very specific and in an area that you're passionate about, but the most important thing is that your audience knows why you're showing up. And so they can follow you and support you, hopefully. But don't Don't. Don't bank on that. When it comes to anything to do with the planetary crisis, it's really important to be current. So I'll give you an example. I saw someone on Twitter yesterday saying that we've experienced a 40% decline in insect numbers, and that information is more than two years old. The latest officially is 65%. But they actually think it's closer to 8080 85% because there's so much information not known in the world. So you've got to be current, if it's more than a year or two old, it's, you know, really see if there's something newer, and know your field and do the work, spend the time really, really spend the time researching it. So that when you do show up, you can back yourself. There's a lot of people out there, who, especially for the people who are showing up for the first time because they recognise that there's a problem, and they're very anxious about the problem. They want to start participating in the conversation. But they don't have the depth behind them yet. And there's a group of people out there who are patronising them, condescending them, and basically trying to put them back in their box, right. So first of all, never let them shut you up. Because they don't have a right to, but just really do the work and know your field. And that will really help. I think there were the, the my three points, any, any one any final ones before we wrap up? Because I know No, you need to jump off. Right?

Joanne Flinn: 1:00:57

I do. I just wanted to touch back on. And as we pick up that those new stats, then that moment to be able to like what's a human story that people can connect to? So I remember someone telling me the 65 things on insects. And then they said to me, did you remember as a kid, you know how you'd go for a drive and at the end of the drive, your windscreen would just covered an insect so the wipers couldn't move. It was like, Yeah, I'd forgotten all about that. That's true. We had a lot of insects, when I was a kid, when you just drove around splat, splat, splat. And now you go for a long drive. And it's super rare to have anything squished on it. I mean, that's, that's the insect disappearing.

Unknown: 1:01:34

And that's how they're measuring it. But there's, but the other side of the insects is like, you know, sort of tropical regions of the world. In the rainforests, there could be an insect Apocalypse happening, but no one's actually watching. So nobody actually knows. But in Denmark, in Australia, it's the it's the cars and, and the windows, which is interesting. So, but it's an important story, you know, and then personalising it to the windscreen, I think is a is a good one, right? Because we all grew up with that. Alright, so the final message here is we really need you, we need you out there. There is there is a narrative in the global conversation online and offline and in the media. That is not representative of the majority of us. And that's what I that's a message that I really want to get over. So people are stepping back from social media, they're stepping back from the media, because, you know, if you just go on to the media today, it's absolutely depressing what you read, right? But we need to, we need to step into this. And we need to become the dominant narrative in the conversation because we that's that we're the majority. And we get to we get to determine what's coming next. Rather than, you know, the dystopia that's been sort of regularly placed in front of us, we don't want to hit that direction. And the only way we can make sure that we don't is to participate, and be part of the conversation, so please, overcome your fears. Some really great tips here, confidence, purpose, focus, you know, all those sorts of tips. Just don't be perfect. Just get in there and be part of the conversation because people want to speak up, but they're scared to speak up because nobody else is speaking up. So the only way we can change that is to speak up. What do you guys think? Yes, yeah. All right. I'm gonna I'm gonna say goodbye. Thank you so much, both of you for coming and joining us. I really, really appreciate it. And I love the work both of you do. And Anna, who's had to jump off. Thank you. It's been a blast the work you do. Andrea, thank you so much. You've been talking about the topic that needs to be spoken about for so so long. And I think there's a lot of respect I have for you for that. Oh, thanks, man. Appreciate it. It's, um, this year is this year, it's kind of burnt me out a bit. And but I can't not keep talking about it. Because we need to act and speaking up and being part of it to me, you know, that's, I'm just trying to recruit people to help. Because we've got to do this. We're gonna do it for our kids. You know, and we've all we've all got kids, right. They deserve something better. In fact, Julian or your granddad? Not yet. Not yet. Not not too far. I remember seeing your kids are getting married, right? No, no, no, no for any other reason. Anyway, this is the last climate coach for the year. I'm gonna be back next year. We're going to be doing lots more I really appreciate all the all the people who've agreed to be part of it so far, as well as Julian. Anjali and join today. And yeah, I just hope everyone has a safe and sustainable, festive season. And see you all in 2023. And thanks for listening in. Thank you so much. Alright, see you guys.