The Know Show – black, white and grey, the importance of nuance

When times get complicated, simple answers and solutions aren’t what’s going to cut it, even though we are bombarded with messages telling us otherwise. The growing threat of all-out-war, the calamities in our environment, and the divisions in our societies are all deeply complicated issues that require our attention and a deep appreciation for nuance. 

In our fast-paced, information-dense world, you don’t have to look far to see people quickly leaping to conclusions, shouting opinions from whichever side gained their loyalty, but are they right? Equally, are we all looking at these complicated issues from every angle? Is there something being said in the grey zone that is important for us to know and understand? Considering the dark times we are in, isn’t it worth us going the extra mile to appreciate the nuance of the biggest issue we face today? We think so and are looking forward to digging into this theme. 

To help us discuss this and the news going on around the world, we are delighted to welcome Cheryl Benadie onto the show. Cheryl is author of The Wholeness Guide, and she is a career development consultant, employability specialist, a student wellness facilitator, financial literacy educator, and an inspirational keynote speaker.  Bringing the heart and mind together in her teachings, Cheryl will be a great addition to the conversation. 

The Know Show is a Livestream held every fortnight on Friday, where Andrea T Edwards, Tim Wade and Joe Augustin, and at least one special guest, review the news that’s getting everyone’s attention, as well as perhaps what requires our attention. We’ll talk about what it means to us, the world and we hope to inspire great conversations on the news that matters in the world today. 

The Know Show is based on Andrea T Edwards Weekend Reads, which are published every Saturday on andreatedwards.com, and covers the planetary crisis, topical moments in the world, global politics and war, business and technology, social issues, and passion/humour/history. Join us. 

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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

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Welcome to the No Show. My name's Andrea Edwards. My name's Tim Wade, and my name is Joe Augustine. Welcome to a show that likes to have a look at all sides of everything whenever possible. Possibly also making your conversations and your life maybe a bit more complicated. We also like to get a diverse point of view. So besides the 3 of us, we bring in a a 4th person where possible. And today, that 4th person is someone who's made it her mission to inspire hope, foster wholeness, and unlock true potential with a career spanning some 22 years, 14 job titles, 8 industries, and 3 careers. She has a deep understanding of the need for constant reinvention. An an inspirational TEDx speaker who's also the founder of Wholeness at Work, and she's someone who has more than once said it is an act of rebellion to live as a whole person in a broken world. Joining the no show today is Cheryl Bernardi. Hi Cheryl. Hi, Tom. Thank you so much for bringing up that quote of mine and thank you so much guys for having me as part of your conversation today. It's great to have you. Have you on. Yeah. So, just give everyone a a rundown of who you are and what you do and what you care about. Well, I've recently moved my home base from South Africa to New Zealand. When I say recently, that's been the past 5 months. So Nuance is, very acute in my life right now as I'm learning things for the first time again in a new country. And, I have a 4 year old daughter, so I take my motherhood seriously. I've written 2 books and my primary mission in life is to help people to, like, Tim shared, to help them to experience wholeness in a broken world. Mhmm. No. It's very, very I'm also lying to you because of the time difference. This is dinner time. Right? Yes. Dinner time. The time zones here are also taking a while to get used to. Yeah. Is this your first time moving countries? It is my first time moving countries. It's not my first time moving home. So we've actually moved 8 times since we've been married. So I think, like, that prepared us for the change. Yeah. So, yeah, my first time moving countries. And you don't actually know what that's like. I mean, Andrea, you have done that. You're doing it again. So I don't think I've got the guts as you do to move to do it again. Yeah. But I think as you get older, it's more difficult to uproot your life, and actually maybe that's a good thing. You know? So one of my main reasons for moving was to to disrupt myself to grow as a global professional. And so there's a lot of discomfort with that and, yeah, that's part of a learning journey. Yeah. I was gonna say another chapter in your reinvention journey. Exactly. I think I've moved countries 8 times, and I we're gonna be doing a 9th country move. And, it's yeah. It's intense moving countries. But the one thing I've learned is you've gotta get through the 1st year cause there's a lot of misery in the 1st year. Yeah. You've got to get through the 1st year. You've got to get through all the cycles of the weather and the patterns, you know, and the way life goes. But what if you can get through that 1st year, I think you've got a really good chance of being able to establish yourself successfully. But it can be hard. Right? And so, expat communities like we're we've all been part of, they're easier. Everyone wants to be your friend, but when you move to a country which doesn't have a big expat community, it can be very, very challenging to find people to make friends and to build communities. But when you've got a daughter, I think that a 4 year old's a good door opener for new friendships. Right? And I think also it's it's about not just belonging to your own group. So, yes, it's very comfortable comfortable to be in your expat community. There's lots of Africans here in New Zealand, but also there's so many new groups to interact with that we would maybe know in our own countries. And so I've just found by volunteering by asking people if I could shout them a coffee as they say in New Zealand. They've been very open and embracing and, yeah, it's it's learning the nuance of not just assuming that I think I know this group because of what people have said, but actually meeting more people in that group and figuring out for myself, what are you really like and giving them a chance to know you as well. Well, today's, theme is Nuance. We're gonna get down to it, in a little while. But as usual, we're gonna start off with a a a quick look at what's been happening. So the quick takes, from around the world. Andrea, are you kicking it off? Yeah. I am. I was just gonna say I was gonna put this up. Where is it? There it is. If you've got a question, you wanna say something, you wanna contribute, jump in. We'll we'll we'll put you we'll put your post up up on the screen. We often have a lot of silent viewers. So participate, but put your name just in case we can't see it. Alright. So the big, big news this week that was getting the media attention all over the world is, of course, the floods in Dubai, the wider air, UAE, and, of course, in Oman. And, there's been a really interesting argument that I've been tracking. So Bloomberg released, an article saying that it was because of cloud seeding, and that was sort of fairly fairly much accepted right across the world in the media. And then the scientists have basically said, no. That's absolutely not the case. So, it had been predicted days before. There's been no seeding in the environment. So there's a big, conversation going on, but, of course, it suits the denialist to say that because it's human caused, not climate change caused. Right? So, but it's not just the UAE that's been suffering. Pakistan and Afghanistan have both suffered horrendous flooding, with more than a 100 dead. And, of course, before this, we saw the dramatic footage of flooding in both Russia and Kazakhstan. There was a a dam burst. And also in South Africa, Cape Town experienced some extreme flooding. And I know that because I was talking to someone and they had to jump offline because they're they're they had to escape their house. So I hope everyone's okay. Just a reminder, for every degree of warming, we get 7% more moisture in the in the atmosphere. So what we're seeing now is only going to get worst. So See, I think we should have led with I think we should have led with that from a change the perspective. Every degree of warming, we keep talking about extinction and everything else. And people are like, yeah. But if you go every degree of warming, there's 7% more humidity. I think people will go, maybe we should do something. Yeah. Because they can feel I don't know. I don't know what it's gonna take. Yeah. I mean I mean, another report came out this week that we basically lost the entire coral reefs around the world to bleaching this year. You know? And just think of the ramifications of that. Okay? Yeah. Let's see if the sea of news like this helps. Millions of children are at risk, and of death, by the way, says the UN, as we're feeling the heat here in East Asia and the Pacific. According to an article in Bloomberg about the extreme heat in the region, children are more vulnerable to heart and respiratory conditions and Asian authorities are warning citizens of fatal heat strokes. So good advice to be careful. Yeah. Over in Morocco, they're running out of water and it's facing severe drought as the Almasira reservoir dries up. They've had 6 consecutive years of severe drought, and this has led to record temperatures and increased evaporation across Morocco. So you can check that one out on BBC as well. Well, it seems to be that we might get to a time where we order microplastics as a as a side serving to our meal. They seem to be everywhere now. The results of new research published in the Science News this week show that microplastics are now linked to heart attacks and strokes. So with the research, they are finding that more, microplastics or nano plastics are being found in the arteries. But scientists are saying, let's not panic yet. They're still doing research, but it is a good idea to reduce plastic use. Yeah. And this this is where I say, Andrea, you are right again. Yeah. No. The the research is interesting because it's very recent that they've started to publish this research. And, for the longest time, everyone's like, plastics are fine. It's even in our bodies it's fine, but it's not. You know, there's so many Mhmm. So many aspects to it. Alright. So in Australia, we saw 2 stabbing events in the last week, which is very shocking for a country like Australia. So the first one was in a shopping mall in Bondi Junction in Sydney. And the second was in a church, and it was carried out by a 16 year old, and it's been confirmed as terrorism. But the first stabbing in Bondi, to me, it looked it from everything I've been reading, and it's obviously not the conclusive final reports yet, but it looks like the actions of a man with mental health challenges are sorry, his parents being interviewed and they're obviously, shocked and horrified. But he's been in the care of doctors for decades, but he's an incel. So I was talking to it to my boys about it, and they're like, what's an incel? So it's involuntary celibate. Celibate. Involuntary celibate. Yeah. That's it. Sorry. And, basically, he's a man who's been desperate for a girlfriend. He hates women. And 14 of the victims were women and, all apart from one man who died, and he's a former refugee, who was there on his first day of work. And he just he got intervened, and that's why he died. But otherwise, it was all women, including a 9 month old baby girl. So we've got to address this. We've really got to address this. Yeah. There's some big news coming out of, Ecuador and Mexico. Well, actually out of Mexico. Mexico's released, security camera video of the moments when Ecuadorian authorities forced their way into Mexico's embassy, pushing a Mexican diplomat to the ground and then carrying out Ecuador and then carrying out Ecuador's former vice president who had been taking refuge there. The action Friday night has, of course, escalated tensions, between the two countries. Yeah. There's another good video I'll put in the weekend reads, which is the Ecuadorian president, who's speaking. He's like he's very young. Have you guys seen him? He's really young. He's very aggressive and he's determined to, get the country under control. So it's a really interesting one to watch. There's a well, I mean, if you've been in the news that's come out, from, Nike and well, it came out because, Nike released images of the US Olympic team's uniforms. Woo hoo. Everybody wants to see that. But I got a lot of pushback, from current and former female Olympians for its sexism with one athlete claiming my hoo could she said, wait. My hoo is gonna be out. That was from the long jumper. Basically, the women's uniform is a 1 piece swimsuit with a very high, crotch line and basic it it it's they're competing in a swimsuit. So the good news is it's all come down as the female athletes have have actually got many options. But there was one comment that I particularly, liked from Lauren Fleischman, the the name notwithstanding. But Lauren Fleischman, 2 time US champion of the 5000 meters, wrote, this is not an elite athletic kit for track and field. This is a costume born of patriarchal forces that are no longer welcome or needed to get eyes on women in sport. She she said, I don't expect or enjoy seeing female athletes or male athletes put in a position to battle self consciousness at their place of work. That's not part of the job description. I live that life and know that excellence is born of unselfconsciousness, of freedom and embodiment of action and instinct. Stop making it harder for half the population. And she sort of called them out. And I and I I like that because yeah. I mean, that's in in movies, I remember watching Jumanji recently where where the female character is like, why am I wearing, in a forest, shorts and a and basically a crop top bra outfit? Everybody else is in, like, sort of muscle man protective stuff. It's like, do I not get mosquito bites? Do I not do everything? So it it's, there is a I I find this a very welcome slap so that they can take into account, they they can just stop. Yeah. One person also said, this was, Wuestenfield said, did anyone consult a woman on this race kit? And somebody else said, if it was that aerodynamically effective, men would be wearing it as well. Yeah. And It's a it's a it's it's a really important issue because a lot of girls, you know, sort of as you go into puberty, a lot of potential champions would step away from sport at that point because because of self consciousness and, you know, so it's it's an important one. My my wife used to play volleyball at university, and they gave her a kit to wear for one of the competitions. And she just refused because it was it was like spray on pants. And she's I'm not wearing that. And eventually they relented and said fair enough. But it it was yeah. So it's been a long time thing. If my wife was talking about it when she was at uni, it's been going on for a while, but it's good that this has got such prominent a prominent slap. Anyway, I've taken a bit too much time on this one, but Yeah. I think it's a important one. Yeah. Thank you. Hi. Showing that, Tim. Sorry. Well, well, Dan and Huff was picking up and Ashley saying I will not just be subject to the male gaze. Something you mentioned, Andrea, about the coral bleaching events. This is what's happened this week. Ocean heat is driving a global coral bleaching event. I had to really figure out what this was all about. It's actually the worst on record. More than 54% of the world's coral leaf areas have experienced bleaching in the past year affecting at least 53 countries and territories including large swaths of the Atlantic Pacific and Indian Ocean. So for those of for those of those for the people watching like me, you didn't know what that is. It means that when corals are exposed to stress from marine heat waves, they spit out the algae living within the tissue, which provides them with both the coral, with both the color and most of the energy. So why this is important is because if the ocean temperatures don't return to normal, bleaching can lead to mass coral death and that can threaten species and food chains that rely on them with collapse. So I thought I'd add that for people like me who didn't know what that was. Yeah. Cool. It's, it's, the the consequences are so devastating, and I'm expecting to hear that the coral in this area of the world. You know, the original corals came from the Philippines. I'm expecting they're they're going through extreme heat. So, I'm I'm I'm expecting it to become much bigger because it's you know, ecosystems collapse, billions of people rely on the fish. Then, of course, you've got the ecosystem collapse in the ocean, which means that we're going to lose massive amounts of species in our oceans as, you know, because it's a top down impact and bottom up impact. But then everywhere that lives behind the coral reefs, so every city, town, so you think of the of the, Queensland coast behind the Great Barrier Reef, they're no longer protect protected from storm surges. So of this are so huge and the Great Barrier Reef is going through its 5th bleaching in 8 years or something. And, you know, every bleaching, it needs time to recover, but it never gets the time. And that's that's that's a huge issue. So I I personally think we've already lost the reefs, even though we haven't lost the reefs yet. I think that's the inevitable outcome, and it's gonna have a major, major impact. It makes one kind of look at the ocean differently when you're walking down the beach again. Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's not cool what's going on there. Alright. So just a final funny one. Hannah Whiningham, who was in Game of Thrones, She was, what was she? What was her character? She was the stern nurse that was punishing Queen Cersei. Do you do you remember when she was locked up in the tower? Anyway, but also mom? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. It's not none. Yeah. But she was also more recently in Ted Lasso. She's the very tall, lovely, blonde lady with a great voice. Yeah. You know, when she clubs. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. If you haven't watched Ted Lasso, everyone should watch Ted Lasso. It's amazing. But anyway, she was, on the red carpet recently. I can't remember what for and, she was, recorded saying to a photographer, don't be a dick after he asked her to show her leg. And she said you would never say that to a man. So she's, she's a very interesting lady, and she's doing some really cool stuff. But she's also speaking out more, so keep an eye out for that. Okay. So let's get into some of the the meatier stuff. There's an article in Business Insider, which basically covers the, the the life and times of the man who threatens to rule us all at some point. It depends on your perspective on things. Sam Altman, the name Sam Altman, for for most is just linked directly to chat gbt, you know, AI. So we talk about, the things that are happening there. AI in all its, its glory, if you like. OpenAI has done so many things. Sam Altman, of course, very much linked to that. But there's a lot more to Sam Altman in terms of what he has invested in as well and where his vision of the future is. I mean, there's a lot, there are a lot of people who have visions of the future. Not as many people are as invested literally, in terms of finances and influence as well as as Sam is. So I think we we all understand the idea of AI. Sam Altman does have an idea that it will change the world for the better. He is hyper optimistic as some people might might describe him, which makes him, for some, hyper risky, as in prepared to to take because of the large steps forward, he feels that there's some gaps that he's willing to to encounter on that journey to to to where he ultimately wants to get to. So besides AI, his, his investments also include, nuclear fish nuclear fusion. That's part of a counterbalance, thing where where he he sees he understands the idea that AI takes a lot of power. It's gonna it's gonna require a lot of energy. And he's also trying to do something about that. He's putting his money where his mouth is. He doesn't represent a large enough investment to completely offset it. But, if he is successful with fusion, nuclear fusion as he has been with AI, he will make a huge difference because, the world currently is going through this tremendous, energy crisis. Like, as much as we know it's bad for us, we're we're still addicted to the usual forms of fuel. And if we can get ourselves out of it with enough of a push, like the kind of push that happened when AI showed itself to be successful through Chart GBT, if nuclear fusion had a similar sort of test case that that that became as successful as that, we could see a very, very interesting situation come out of that. But here's the thing. With what he's doing as well and what he's invested in as well, he could make 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars from this. That's where where where he sits on this. So forget Elon Musk in terms of in terms of a a man with impact. This this is where the action's at, and we just talked about the first thing that he's involved with. The other thing is about, silicon, and the idea that he is he wants to make computing power, it's it's it's it is what many people feel should be a, human right, but he wants to make it as free as air and water. So ubiquitous, it's everywhere. So every everything around you lives and breathes in the action. It is actually a source of computing and augmentation, which is quite an interesting idea because if you think about, you know, like you've had moments where you just can't remember something or you you want to you struggle to think about something, whatever it is. And all that, imagine it as a as a as a thing of the past, you'll you'll you'll never not have access to the information you need. That could be interesting. The other thing that that I think, he's very much working on is also, of course, delayed death. I am I'm talking about, you know, healthy longevity as well. There is a push around the world by a growing number of scientists and clinicians who are coming together now on the idea of curing death, defeating, old age, and treating old age like a disease. It's a different mindset. It's not the same kind of idea that someone 10 years ago had when you said I'm gonna live to a ripe old age. Now it's living into a ripe old age where I will feel like I'm not at that particular age. And of course, I think there's so much more that's happening, because he simply is Sam Altman, and he is so future leaning, that the small idea that that that that that that there there probably big leaps and bounds coming in on this table to be considered. So, we talk about the unknown future of of quantum computing, for instance, and, you know, in the realm of quantum science, quantum physics. If if we are able to make some real huge leaps, I mean, the future could include things like teleportation, mind reading, you know, and and and and if quantum physics pays off on some of the ideas that it has, we could alongside with, of course, Elon Musk, terraforming Mars, we could have a means of communicating with our relatives who have left the planet, in real time. But all this again, still very science fiction y. But Sam Altman, definitely someone who is poised very well for that. And, if it all pans out, or let's say even even if even you know what? Even if none of it pans out and he just keeps on this trajectory with OpenAI, he could be the next overlord. Yeah. Oh, a new one. So so, Joe, I I was really interested to hear what you want what you were gonna say on this piece because, I recently did some pretty deep dive into the impact of artificial intelligence from an energy perspective. Right? So a couple of weeks ago, the wall I'm just gonna I'm just gonna mute you for a minute, Cheryl. It looks sounds like there's yeah. That's it. There's a lot of background noise, so just unmute when you need to speak. Yeah. There's this Wall Street article, Wall Street Journal article, and it was basically about one of the biggest, fossil fuel conferences in in Texas. Right? And for the first time in its history, it was flooded with technology execs, all looking for energy solutions for artificial intelligence. And it and the conclusion is they're gonna have to like, there'll be tech companies that would be building gas, gas what do you call those things? Turbines. Yep. Yep. Nuclear, of course, and Bill Gates is obviously big behind that, but also coal, which is the dirtiest fossil fuel. And then, just about a week after that, there was an article that, basically, the the Pacific Northwest Coast in the US, so that's Washington, Montana, Oregon, and then one other. They're having a real energy crunch now, and it's because of the need to run the data centers. So when I got to the end of it, I was just like, so, basically, where we are right now, not Sam Altman's dream of the future, where we are right now with the acceleration in the environment, we can either embrace it and have no future, or we have to pull back and give ourselves a chance at a future because the energy demands are so high. And then, of course, you know, the data centers across the world, you know, in in parts of Africa, they're not they're they're using local water supplies to call dating data centers, but then but the farmers and the local people don't have access to water so they can't grow food. So they're suffering from famine. And there's all these other ramifications that are going on. So I actually think we're at a really dangerous inflection point, and we're not paying attention to it. And I know there's a lot of excitement in our community around AI AI, but every time you, you know, put a little thing into your chat g p t, it costs a lot of energy, and we've got billions of people doing that. We you know, this this could be the end of us, but not for the reasons that people think with AI. Yeah. So it it calls for, like, like like, you know, in in what Sam Altman does in his portfolio, a kind of compensation for what you're doing as well. So I I I recognize that there's a lot I mean, I'll I'll put it this way. If other investors did things the way Sam Altman did in terms of investing in in in in the counterbalances to the technology, in terms of the needs for technology and all that, we'd be far better off. It's it's not ideal. It's not fantastic. But, you know, if if if you I hope you're getting what I mean by that. But he is not, agnostic to the fact that it's it's it's it's causing, a challenge as far as energy concerns are. But he's trying to fix the problem as well simultaneously while he's exploiting the other the other, technology. I I think it also highlights what you're talking about, the the need for integration of design. I think integration of design is is it's happening in in smaller countries like Singapore, for instance, where we get to integrate, you know, the the the rules of of building design and energy requirements, it's actually more likely that we can come up with something that kinda works. Like, we we haven't perhaps kind of factored in, energy needs or AI, but, a lot of the the buildings that come up in Singapore right now, anything that's new, tends to be especially the commercial tends to be, net zero. They they they they they work, very much, making sure that the energy produced by the building is equal to the energy it's gonna use, at least for the for the, everyday running of the building. We can we can't we can't control for everybody inside, but at least the building itself is not going to to to to to add so much to the to the to the problem. So I I I think there is there is potential. I I I I would imagine if technologists got together with the people who are who are in charge of agriculture. And I think technology is gonna actually be the be the be the the way we can, like like, sort of ramp up, agricultural needs. That there there is a natural way that, technology that needs to use a lot of water can still have that water show up for for agriculture. You know, it it that there is no there's no reason why the water that's used for cooling cannot be used for agriculture as well, for instance. Yeah. But I'll give you I'll give you a number. In the snow. I'll give you a number there. So that's something else I research. So adtech, advertising technology, is a $800,000,000,000 industry. Agtech, agricultural technology, is an $18,000,000,000 industry. So we're not you know, so it's sort of sign of the times. Right? You know, that that there's so much on advertising, but the the actual food security of is not where we're investing our money. So, yeah, no. I I know I I've noted I I I understand how Sam is out there trying to solve the problem. It's just I I that there's a it feels like there's a mishmash between where we are right now and what we need to do. Yeah. And in taking advantage of this all of the great things this technology can do, but, actually, it could take us past the tipping point. You know? So Yeah. That's what I'm not seeing that conversation widely enough. All I'm seeing is excitement, and, that that concerns me. Well, if you're not careful, we're gonna start that conversation about Nuance a bit early. Yeah. I'm just happy that we made a decision to get an EV. So I'm doing my best. Nice. Yeah. Alright. So I wanna so I there's so much that's going on in the environment at the moment that, it's very difficult to choose a story and reject others. So I'm gonna quickly go through 3 main stories that I've been picking up in the last week. So the first one is, a a piece in the Guardian. It's called world faces deathly silence of nature as wildlife disappears. So, basically, as technology develops, sounds, have become increasingly an increasingly important way of measuring the health and biodiversity of our ecosystems. And so they're looking at forests, soils, and oceans, all of which produce their own sort of acoustic signatures. And sciences are using eco acoustics to measure habitats and species that, and they're saying that basically quiet is falling across thousands of habitats as the planet witnesses extraordinary losses in the density and variety of species. So that's that's a big one that got a lot of attention in the last week as it should. I'm I'm always happy to hear the geckos and the birds singing where I am because I know that that's not necessarily gonna be something I'll enjoy in the long term. Then in the daily costs, massive Iceland ice slicing oh, god. I'm not having fun today, am I? Massive ice loss in Greenland is weakening its gravity, which will have ramifications for the southern hemisphere. So, basically, there was this study on the ice loss in Greenland, and it was saying it was losing 20% more than they've previously thought. But it didn't take into account, that there's a also an inland, melt water that is draining into the ocean. And, of course, this this this water will impact the AMOC Atlantic meridional accidental current, which has massive ramifications worldwide. And this additional, loss isn't in any of the reports like the IPCC reports, which governments are basing their decisions on. So we are losing 30,000,000 tonnes of ice on average an hour from Greenland. So it's so much ice that it's, weakening the gravity of Greenland, and it basically has an impact on how the ocean is shaped. So I definitely recommend that. And then the final one is, the climate crisis is a food crisis. And this is a really common phrase in the circles that I operate in on social media. And, it needs to become a more common sort of understanding everywhere so we can get prepared. So there's been a lot of focus on the UK and Ireland, which is facing food shortages due to the excessive amount of rain. I mean, they've total crop failures, no potatoes, wheat, nothing. Summer crops haven't even been put in the ground because the ground's too wet. So this is obviously devastating for the farmers, but it's also devastating for the people and the poorest because there's gonna be more food inflation as they're gonna have to import more food. Because this isn't just happening in the UK, these sort of conditions have happened across Europe as well as drought, which we saw especially last summer. Italy, Spain, Greece all got hammered. And Morocco, as Tim just said, is getting hammered by drought as well. But if we head to the global south, and in Australia, heat and flooding have decimated crops. I've just I've just before I was reading, there's an emergency meeting of the Western Australian farmers south of Perth. They've just because of the extreme heat they've experienced, they're that's decimated. In Africa, in the middle they're in the middle of a really extreme drought event across multiple countries. Millions of people are at risk of famine. And where we are in, global south, so across Southeast Asia, we've been experiencing temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius for the last couple of months. And this is the rice growing region of the world, and there's gonna be more heat to come. So we're hoping by the end of April, the rains will start, but India is gonna be facing this until the end of June. But once temperatures get above 35 degrees Celsius, that's when the rice crops start to fail. And rice is an incredibly important staple. More than 50% of the world's population depends on rice for about 80% of its food requirement, so it's a massive thing. So the climate crisis is a food crisis and food security is something we will be experiencing in the months years ahead. Every country needs to really focus on making sure that they can take they can feed their own people. And this governments aren't doing this yet, but, prepare as well as you can. You know? Stock up on things like tins of tomatoes and beans. If you can store carbohydrates like rice in you know, but it obviously needs to be in sealed airtight containers. I've got olive oil that we bought, a couple of years ago that we've been gradually using, but we're stocking up and keeping it stocked up. So just think about look at what fruits and vegetables and even cows and and and and lambs, right, in in bad bad environments. The the lambs in the UK, the the mothers are aborting their babies. So meat is also, you know, gonna be impacted. So, yeah, that's a big thing. So there's 3 big stories in the climate, which is why energy use for AI seems like a a silly focus right now. Unless AI can solve the problem. But I'm not sure it can solve the problem over in Arizona where the headline is water is more valuable than oil. I did notice this a number of years ago when water started to be sold in shops and 711s and service stations and things like that and you'd fill up your car with petrol and then you go and buy a bottle of water and the water was more expensive than the petrol, but this has got to the water out of the tap proportion. So this is a crazy article in The Guardian. I guess it's to be expected, but water is more valuable than oil. The corporation cashing in on America's drought. In an unprecedented deal there we go. We hear the word again unprecedented, but, unprecedented deal. A private company purchased land in a tiny Arizona town and sold its water rights to a suburb 200 miles away. Nearly a decade ago, Greenstone Resources Partners, a private company backed by global investors bought almost 500 acres of agricultural land in Cibola, Arizona. The company recently sold the water rights tied to the land to the town of Queen Creek, a suburb of Phoenix for a $14,000,000 gross profit. More than 2,000 acre feet of water from the Colorado River that was once used to irrigate farmland is now flowing through a canal system to the taps of homes more than 200 miles away. Experts expect that such transfers will become more common as thirsty towns across the west seek increasingly scarce water. The climate crisis and chronic overuse have sapped the Colorado River watershed, leaving cities and farmers alike to contend with shortages. Amid a deepening drought and declines in the river's reservoirs, Greenstone and firms like it have been discreetly acquiring thousands of acres of farmland. Officials fear it will open the floodgates to many more private water sales, allowing investors profit from scarcity and leaving the towns impacted dust bowls. That leaving those towns that are impacted as effectively dust bowls. The Colorado River, which stretches from the Rocky Mountains into Mexico, has declined about 20% since the turn of the century. Amid the most severe drought the west part of the United States has seen in 1200 years. In a painfully negotiated deal, Arizona, Nevada, and California agreed to reduce the amount of water they draw from the river by 13% through to 2026. With ongoing shortages on the river driven by climate change, Colorado river water is gonna become very valuable, said Rhett Larsen, a professor of water law at Arizona State University. Anyone who understands this dynamic thinks, well, if I could buy Colorado River water rights, that's more valuable than earning oil in this country at this stage. You were talking about food scarcity earlier, but, the short term thinking here will also certainly guarantee wider food insecurity if the limited water is being used to serve sprawling new housing estates versus making sure the farmers have enough water to grow their crops. But what can the farmers do, when they're suffering so much in this intense drought? Selling off their land and water rights is one of the only things they can do to survive. Yeah. It's really scary to to hear that. I mean, I recently have left South Africa, but they also are struggling with their water provision, especially in Johannesburg. And for the next 6 months, they have to try and fix that. So it means 6 months with no water. Johannesburg. Yeah. I mean, you you guys were Johannesburg was getting down to to 0, quite a few times. But I think the recent flooding has sort of helped fill some but then you just go up north east to the far away. Yeah. Exactly. It's the mismanagement of the resources. There's multiple reasons why this happens, but yeah. Oh, there's a lot of an important resource. A lot. But, you know, one of the other things that really, really concerns me, especially in the Asia Pacific region, is farms, especially up in the mountains. So, up in the Philippines, up in the mountains where the where it's cooler. Governments of generations ago gave families land and they could keep the land as long as they farmed the land. As soon as they stopped farming the land, they lost the land. Right? And, what's happening now is these villas and rich people are buying up this land, building these massive villas, but no food's been grown. And the Philippines exports all a lot of its food from China, and China's going through its own own extremes. So, you know, and this is happening where I am. You know, farms are being dug up and villas are being built. And food security, it's like it's not it's not on the it's not on the agenda yet. And, like, I'm I'm so concerned about what's coming next, you know. Because when everyone wants food, when everyone needs to import food, where is it all gonna come from? And, of course, the cost of it's gonna be extremely high. So it's a it's a big one. Yep. But Can we talk to you about the actual food with AI? Maybe that can help. Mhmm. Well, I was gonna say one one of the problems really is that, first of all, the reality and and and and prepared to take blow back on this is that currently the what is currently stops us from having enough food security is actually logistics. Right? I mean, getting getting the food from where it is overgrown and and and wasted to where it is needed. That's the gap that we've got currently. I mean, there there's enough there's enough, but it's just not in the right place. But there is that that whole thing as well. It's gonna be about cost. Right? Who who is going to take up the cost of that? You know, is there something in in in in perhaps, using the you know, I was watching your video about about about, about, textiles. Right? And then and the and the big problem it has in terms of a trade gap. Right? Maybe that trade gap could be filled in some way by food coming back Yep. In the opposite direction. Yep. Or batteries of energy. But that but that's about so there's 3 there's 3 current big things impacting the supply chain. One is the Panama Canal, which is caused by climate change. The water's gotten so low, which to me is mind boggling that we got to that point, you know. Number 2 is the, Suez Canal, which is of course a war geopolitical situation with the Houthis. And the third is the excessive, supply chain committed to fast fashion. So these jumbo jets full of fast fashion are flying out of China to North America and Europe to deliver their goods, and they're coming back empty. But it's also taking up supply chain space for other things that potentially could be more important for humanity. So it's a it's a it's a big one, and and we, yeah, we we're just seem incapable of looking at anything holistically, and it feels like I'm more and more convinced that we just don't have any long term thinkers in leadership positions. Everyone's so short term thinking. We've built a short term society. Our business is a short term by quarter, you know, that sort of thing. And we need some big picture thinkers and some long term thinkers, and they're not being listened to as much as they should be. And I think that's that's a big issue that we've got right now. I also think, Andrea, it's about helping individuals to start to look beyond just the story that they're being told which obviously shows like this help with that story. But it's also about, you know, not waiting for other people to do something. But it for example, fast fashion, you know, I used to be a shopaholic. I've written about this in my first book. But when you start to see the impact of that, you think well no that cannot happen. And so one thing I'm noticing in New Zealand, as I'm learning about the nuances of my new country is that there is a definite shift towards, you know recycling clothing. There's tons of what they call op shops or charity shops here, Recycling, in terms of people selling their old clothes and recycled shops is a massive thing here. So I think, you know, there are pockets that are seeing that and, you know, we need to maybe highlight those a bit more to say, hey. There's an alternative here. Yeah. I think 10% of the global fashion industry is now in sitting in the recycling space. So that's a massive surge. But one of the stats I recently learned is that we have enough clothes on the planet right now to clothe the next 6 generations of humans. So we've got an industry that's pumping out more and more and more, and we've already got enough to clothe the next 6 generations. 6 generations. You know, it's in the Atacama Desert in Chile, which can be seen by space from space, and it gets burnt, but it also infiltrates microplastics into the environment. And, you know, just because it's over there doesn't mean it stays there as we're seeing now with the waste crisis. You know, once it's once it's in the water, it's it's going everywhere. So but we've got these massive issues, and we need to solve them. And the only way we can solve them is globally. And, we're all being distracted by all these wars and conflicts and territorial disputes, and we're just we're just not we need some grown ups in the room, I think. You said it, Andrea, grown ups. Well, you spoke about burning. We can talk about the heat in India. India is facing extreme heat with predictions of well above normal temperatures until June. So in an article on CNN titled extreme heat is pushing India to the brink of survivability. So maybe don't plan your trip there yet. One obvious solution is also a big part of the problem. It starts with the story of Ramesh, a brick a bricklayer in Delhi. Last summer, he said he often felt faint in the heat, but has no choice but to work so he can provide for his family. By 2050, India is expected to be among the first places where temperatures will cross survivability limits according to climate experts. Out in that time frame, the demand for air conditions in the country is also expected to rise ninefold. So that just means that the hotter it gets, the more they will use the air conditioners, and the more they use air conditioners, the hotter the country will become. So it's an impossible so it's an impossible problem. India emits nearly 2,400,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year based on data collected by the European Union, contributing about 7% of global emissions. The US, by comparison, causes 13% of c o two emissions despite having a quarter of India's population. This raises a question of fairness that climate scientists have often asked. Should people in the developing world shoulder the cost of reducing emissions despite being amongst those least responsible for rising greenhouse gases. India which is going through its national elections at in the at the at the moment need to answer the question how can it balance its development while ensuring environmental protection? And I think there is a growing sense that this is important, even at the polls. So well worth a read, and keep an eye on India over the coming months. Okay. Hope you're ready for your Tesla updates. 2 big 2 big stories. First of all, as a as a as a company, Tesla has laid off or will be laying off more than 10% of its workforce. And, as Elon Musk puts it, it's it's something that must be done. Now that, by itself, maybe could sit comfortably with everybody else, if not for the other Tesla story that is currently in the news as well, where Tesla's board is trying to award Elon Musk, with a pay package that is worth $65,000,000,000. That's with a b. So on one hand, you know, workforce reduction because it's necessary. And at the same time, the board is doing this, thing which the judge, basically, that is involved in the case is blocking because it is just an unfathomable sum, that, is being described. I I'm I'm not necessarily on the side of any kind of judgment which is based on unfathomable things because that that basically says we can't do things based on your imagination. But I think in terms of, ethical balance, there there are probably some some better cases to be made. So, yep. That's what's happening, as far as Tesla is concerned. Workforce reduction because it's necessary, and a huge payday still on hold. They're trying to get it through, but, it's being blocked for Elon Musk. You know, it's a it's a tough one because those pay packages usually are negotiated years earlier for hitting a particular target. It's just. Yeah. And it it is unfathomable, but it was unfathomable when it was negotiated. And legally Yeah. Theoretically, he's got the right to it based on what was promised with targets hit. And now that those targets have been hit, which usually can be hit if you throw more people at it to quickly hit the target, then he's gonna lay off all those people because he's got his target. So I'm not I'm not defending it. I'm just trying to offer the counter the other side to it that is Yeah. The legal justice side, which means Yeah. Usually, we gotta stop these we we gotta it's not that we can stop it, but we need to think about how these, pay executive pay packages are are negotiated, and how they can impact, you know we we don't really think about it. As shareholders, it's just like, I don't really care what he does so long as he gets the share price up, and I make my money. And the whole thing is there's an element of individualism that I think has been a theme throughout this entire show so far, and that is when we just care about ourselves. And we're looking for the mechanisms in the world that will provide what we need, but those mechanisms are fundamentally broken, or they're built on a on a ideology or a philosophy that is self serving to a minority at the at the damage or pain to lots of other invisible people. You know, if I I was just thinking before when we're talking about, the longevity sort of idea of, you know, hey, I can take this pill or this this thing that's gonna increase my age by another 100 years, and I'll still feel like I'm 50, then oh, maybe 35. Then, then, you know, at what at what cost of of population cost or whatever. So I was just wondering, you know, wouldn't it be interesting to go you can have this you can have this, but your family and the next 3 generations of that family will be shipped to Mars, which has just been terraformed, and they'll be living in a bubble over there, helping work on that. So it's up to you, you know, and to wonder whether people if it impacts their family, would they do it? And I my guess is if it impacts their kids, they may not. If it impacts some generation 3 or 4 or 5 down the track, they might go, well, I don't really know them. So, you know, who knows what might happen? Well, that's how everyone's behaving now. Right? Right. So it's it's like yeah. It it just feels like there's a there's a machine here with lots of different cogs and those cogs, we're not really looking at the big picture. As a job in that, I think, you know, just bringing into perspective the fact that these big stories can kind of overshadow what other entrepreneurs and business owners are doing around the world. So, you know, before I left South Africa as part of this group, of social entrepreneurs. And I think those kind of stories are not told and maybe we should be telling them more because they are really driven by a sense of purpose and meaning and looking at how to build businesses where you do take care of people. And obviously, African leadership models are not, you know, perfect entirely or, you know, leadership models in general. But I just think, you know, as you say that, I'm noticing a gap in the narrative, in the conversations around. Is it only, Elon musk as the he puts me off entrepreneurship. As I started my own journey of entrepreneurship, I have to realize, hey, wait a second. There's this thing of, like, I have to be, you know, build up this big billionaire business and start a spaceship kind of company because that's that's what entrepreneurs do. No. I'm a mom. So what do mothers who are entrepreneurs do? What do people who are seeing actual needs? What entrepreneurs do they solve problems, right, in their world? So you are just giving me inspiration, Tim, to help those stories that are not seen and not heard to really kind of get more airplay because it's not just the lines of the world that are out there. Totally. Yeah. Totally. Totally. A 100% agree with you. It's just we're we're we're idolizing gods, you know, and it's it's I think it's because it it's such a it's such a unique story, and people can't really imagine what they would do with that amount of money. But also, this is what I always tell students, there's also always the end. There's other stories. It's not that's not the only you know, the whole danger of a single story and and what we kind of perpetuates and and how we actually deal with things. So the fact that you're inviting other people into this conversation, I think, is amazing because it does give people that opportunity to say, oh, other parts of the world, this is what's going on. And be and maybe yeah. You know, it's it's not even to to, like, challenge that or try and change that, but it's about saying, let's look at some of the things that are happening that is actually incredible and how can we amplify that? How can we celebrate that? How can we try and emulate that? You know? So here was another thought I had. I'll I'll come back to Elon in just a second. I mean, I agree with you. I I also think that what what an entrepreneur does is an, it it's an undertaking. Right? And it's a Mhmm. It's an underwriting. They underwrite themselves and they back themselves and they try and get other people to invest as well, but they're backing themselves to be able to create something that solves a problem. If he's getting a$56,000,000,000 pay package, there's a there's a he's shown in the past though, and I I know I'm back on Elon again, that he will go and put that in something else. I mean, he's also a post African, so we can talk about Elon. Yeah. Yeah. So so he tends to put it in something else. Now if one of the challenges we have from, we talked about the electricity and the cooling and everything else as well and the electricity requirements, one of the big challenges we have is moving electricity around the world in a in a you know, from a place that can produce it. And the the one that can be moved around is is solid form or liquid form or gas form, I suppose, which is everything now. But, but it's it's, it's the thing that we need to burn somewhere else. So, well, I'll move all of that over to you. You burn it and create electricity. But if we could somehow harness solar, for example, and send it somewhere else or big battery ships, which is what's talking about. But if Elon if Elon is investing in technology that can somehow move, or create that energy grid that can solve an end energy problem. It you know, and you give enough to somebody who's got the experience to be able to pull off a giant global level infrastructural change, it might it it it so I don't wanna bash him too much. It's more like, I wanna see what he does with it. Yeah. And the how trying to say the word. Machiavellianism to actually do it. So, you know, we need those some somehow, you know, in a way. So I think Yep. It's it's about finding ways to connect more as you were saying, Andrea. How how do we get more people who are big picture thinkers? I think they are out there. It's how do we give them platforms? How do we help them to realize that they actually have a voice, that they actually can solve the problem, not just in their country, but globally. And I can tell you that living in a country where you are basically in survival mode, it's difficult to think outside of that. It's difficult to even realize that, hey, wait a second, I have a voice. You know, now that I'm in New Zealand, I'm seeing a whole different world that I wouldn't have seen if I was only in South Africa. So I think that's something to encourage is people to spread their wings to I mean, Andrea, maybe you should write a book, do a TED talk about this, how to move countries, how to become a global citizen. I think that's needed. I think we need to visit each other. We need to we live in our spaces that I mean, maybe we're getting too quick into the nuance conversation here, but we just have to alert people to realize that they also have a part to play in the bigger story. Yep. That's a question. Absolutely. And cultural cultural intelligence, I think, is a really important part of the nuanced conversation, and you only get that when you move around. Alright. So I wanna share a story that is horrifying, at the same time, hopeful. So, basically some new research has come out, and I love research like this. And it's basically saying that the European colonisers killed so many Native Americans that it changed the global climate. So European settlers killed 56,000,000 indigenous people over about a 100 years in South, Central, and North America. And what this did was it caused large swaths of farmland to be abandoned and reforested. And so this is a study by the University College of London. So the increase in trees and vegetation across an area the size of France that resulted because of what happened, massively decreased the amount of carbon in the air. And, basically, in the year 16 10, it the earth cooled. So it's, called the mini or the little ice age. So Columbus arrived in this part of the world in 1492, in case you forget your history. So basically before this, the scientists had argued that it was just a natural weather event, but, by combining the archaeological evidence, the historical data and analysis of carbon found in the in the Antarctic ice, they've been able to show how the reforestation, which was directly caused by the European's arrival, was a key component of the global chills. So I, so this is obviously terrible terrible story of genocide. Right? But there's to me, there's another side of the story that's not in this article. And I follow a lot of doomers, and they're they're very realistic. They're very practical. Like, they're not depressing. They're just they're just saying it as it is. And one of the things is that they don't think there's anything that we can do. That it they they think we've gone too far, you know. What's happening now, even if we stop what we're doing right now, there's a cumulative build up of things that are gonna come at us for the next 100, 200000 years. So no matter what, we can't we can't change the trajectory we're on. So when I read this, like, since I'm convinced that the best thing that we can do is really focus on a massive regeneration of of the natural world all in all of its forms right across the planet. And we should be able to draw down emissions and maybe, maybe we'll we will be able to cool the planet, and we need to cool it because it's going crazy. So the difference is back then in the 1600, we didn't have the fossil fuel industry, so it's a lot different now to what it was then. We've got a lot more of us, spread around the world. But I think we've got a everything everywhere are all at once. You know? We've got to get out there and basically regenerate the natural world. Stop fish stop the overfishing. Stop the bottom trolling. Stop stop the deep deep sea mining. Just stop all the stuff that's contributing and focus all of our energy on on this global regeneration effort. And I think this is an example where it actually worked and we've gotta try. Rather than just accepting that it's just gonna get worse and we're all gonna die. You know, which is where a lot of people are sitting do this. But we all need to do it. It's not, you know, that that's the thing. It's like, you know, there's an article recently, 56 companies are responsible. I'm like, those 56 companies pull out oil, which then makes lots and lots of different things that we buy in massive quantities. So we're all part of the problem. So let's turn it around. The 50 the top 50% of the 50% of the population need to change. The bottom 50%, we need to lift them up and and give them dignity and life, you know, where they've got access to the basics like clean air, food, and water. Right? So I don't know. It just gave me to me, it's one of these there's no hope in that conversation. We've gone too far. But if we could turn it all around, if we could regenerate this earth, we could do it. I believe we can do it. I'm still fighting for that. It's good to have a fight to believe in, Andrea. Oh, yeah. Trust me. Sometimes I haven't had any any hope left, and I've been struggling. I I'm always looking for hope. Well, this is not overly hopeful, but I do wanna share it. This is, a powerful article in Open Mind Magazine called Polluted Minds, and it's part of a series supported by the Pulitzer Center. It starts back in 1992 due to a growing population choking traffic and explosive industrial growth that Mexico City was labeled the most polluted urban area in the world by the United Nations. And the problem was intensified because the high altitude metropolis sat in a valley, that that trapped the atmospheric filth in a perpetual sort of toxic haze. Over the next few years, the impact could be seen not just in the blanket of smog overhead, but in the city's dogs, who had become so disoriented that some of them could no longer recognize their human families. At this time, neuropathologist Lillian Calderon Gassin sorry. Gassinduenas Not Not done. Compared the brains of canines and children from what was dubbed Mexico make sick o, Mexico City, capital being dubbed, to those from less polluted areas. What she found was terrifying. Exposure to air pollution in childhood diseases, sorry. Exposure to air pollution in childhood decreases the brain volume and heightens risks of several, several dreaded brain diseases, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's as an adult. So today, she says the damaged brain she studied in young dogs and humans aren't just significant in later years. They play out in impaired memory and lower intelligence scores throughout life. Other studies have found that air pollution exposure later in childhood alters neural neural circuitry throughout the brain, potentially affecting executive function including abilities like decision making and focus, and raising the risk of psychiatric disorders. In places like China, India, and the rest of the global south, air pollution, both indoors and outdoors, has steadily soared over the course of decades. Nearly half the world's population breathes toxic air each day, including more than 90% of children. Some 2,300,000,000 people worldwide rely on solid fuels and open fires for cooking, making the problem far worse. The World Health Organization calculates about 3,000,000 premature deaths, mostly in women and children result from air pollution created by such cooking each year. In the US, which has cleaner air due to the Clean Air Act, still has millions of Americans breathing outdoor air loaded with inflammation triggering ozone and fine particulate matter. These particles know as known as PM 2.5 can affect the lungs and the heart and are strongly associated with brain damage. Wildfires, like the ones that raged across Canada the past summer, a major indicators a major contributors rather of PM 2.5, these particulates. A recent study showed that pesticides, paints, cleaners, and other personal care products are another major and unrecognized source of p m 2.5 and can raise the risk for numerous health problems including brain damaging strokes. The effort to figure out and intervene has sparked a new field of study, get this, this is called Exposomics. The science of environmental exposures and their effects on health disease and development. Exposomics. Remember, you heard it here. Exposomics draws on enormous datasets about the distribution of environmental toxins, genetic and cellular responses, and human behavioral patterns as well. It's kinda it's a big deal. It's a very powerful read. Great to see the science moving forward quickly and, I highly recommend to check out the article, Open Mind Magazine, an article called Polluted Minds. Now, and if we regenerate the earth and clean it all up, we can solve some of these things, right? But the but the other thing is that understanding of what what's the impact, right, so we can build societies around the impact. Like, with long COVID, we need to build societies people who are suffering from the long term impacts of long COVID. We also need to be building societies that can deal with the impacts of this sort of stuff, you know, and we're not. We're putting those sort of people in jail when they basically been born in into pollution and it's had it's impacted them. So I think it's a it's a it's a it's a shocking numbers though. I mean, we've we've all we've all been sorry. I'm Cheryl. I'm just gonna mute you again. You're a bit noisy there. We've all been through, PM the the haze Yeah. Indonesia. And, you know, I was pregnant with Lex. I was very worried about giving birth to him right in the middle of a big haze event. You know, what would be the impact? It just cleared just before he was born, but I was still pregnant when it came. You know? So so yeah. No. It's, it's a big deal. And if we're burning more fossil fuels, whether that's to to power AI or computers or cars or whatever, that's that burning is going somewhere. Yeah. Or you could just move to New Zealand where the air is great. For now, I'm getting warmer. Yeah. For now. You and Long White Cloud Bay, by the way. Yes. I know. That's one of the things when I when I got you, I was like, why is the air so fresh? Why is the air so clear? I definitely felt the difference. So my thing I wanted to highlight, my story I wanted to highlight, is just, you know, we listen to the news. We kind of get involved. We hear stories that kind of horrify us, and we'd wanna do something. So I'm not sure if you remember that campaign, bring back our girls. That was 10 years ago when there was a mass kidnapping in Nigeria by by Bakr Haram, and they are an Islamist jihadist organization based in northeastern Nigeria. Well there was recent news that, a Nigerian woman was rescued 10 years after the kidnapping. So that was quite shocking because you would think that they were all actually rescued by this time. It's been a decade. But actually the woman that was rescued, Lydia Simon, was about 95 miles east of Chupac, hope I'm saying that right, and that's where 276 70 6 schoolgirls were seized in April 2014. So that is a decade ago. As many as 82 are still missing. She is currently 5 months pregnant, and she has 3 children. And, you know, thus I wanted to highlight because in one of the, activists there was saying that some of the recently freed women were either raped by the insurgents or forced into marriages. And, you know, when they come back into even if they do get home, because of the trauma and violence they face, they are not returning as the same person. So it's easy for us sometimes to maybe, like, you know, share the post, and we need to have some part of social media activism. But in those situations, like, you know, I think this is why people kind of shut down sometimes with the news because it's overwhelming. You know, they feel like, what can I do? What impact can I make? And so, you know, even with the story, with with the mom and the baby, as a mom of a 4 year old, you know, that devastates us. And I think sometimes we just don't know what to do with that trauma. That's why I think it's easier for other people to have the conversations because we don't wanna get involved, But that's where the nuance is necessary. Right? Yeah. There was a recent, another kidnapping of of a bunch of young girls in Nigeria as well. But I yeah. But I remember that. And and they're also rejected by their communities when they come back as well. That's the other issue cultural issue that comes with those sort of situations when they've been raped and, married off. Yeah. It's just terrible. So see with with those kind of things, Andrea, I think when we hear about those kind of stories, what can we do? We can find the NGOs that are actually supporting those women and contribute support, do something. You know? There are things that we can do. And so obviously, you know, we all have our own lives. We all have things that we are facing. We have our own wars that we are fighting. But if we just keep waiting for someone else to do something, nothing's gonna change. Yep. If you're comfortable, donate to charities around the world that are doing good work, you know, at the local level, at the global level. But also raising awareness and keeping keeping those women in the news, keeping keeping them their attention, you know, because, you know, we've already moved on. You know, got something else now, something new and shiny, or we're spending too much time pay focusing on people like Elon Musk versus, the peep the people like like those ladies, you know, who, can't you can't even imagine the suffering. You can't even imagine what those women have been through. Right? And I think it takes courage to want to listen to those stories. You know? I mean, I'm from South Africa, so you can already understand the traumas that, I would have maybe faced as a South African woman and that's why I wrote my book because you were saying how you're searching for hope. I think helping people to own their story and realize that they're not just subject to a story where, well, this is the way the world is. So this is all that I have. We actually have access to personal agency and personal power, but that's where I I think I feel so passionate about my wholeness message because growing up in a country where you feel like this is it. This is a story, you know. We had the whole rainbow nation thing happen. I was years old when Nelson Mandela was was released and, you know, to see a country kind of decline from that place of hope, that that's heartbreaking, you know? But I think for me, being married to someone who's not of my of my race, I imagine Afrikaans, South African. I think that really helped with my new ones, you know, because I couldn't just say, oh, he's the white oppressor, because this was someone that we connected with, and so you're building those bridges of meaning. So I think it takes intention to build those bridges of meaning and to try and get to know what actually that feels like. And like you said, to to raise the volume on those voices as well. Yeah. Well, we've already begun the Nuance conversation. Sorry. No. No. It's good. No. No. It's good because it it's a it's actually a really beautiful way of studying the conversation. So we haven't talked about some of the other things that are going on, you know, the escalation in the Middle East, which, of course, everyone's on on the edge of their seat. We've just got to hope that the powers that be get this under control as quickly as possible, and it doesn't escalate because just like AI escalating its energy use or is also the other thing that could send us over the cliff. So, you know, we've got these big things going on. We're not in control. We can't do much about it. People are very emotionally in involved in these situations, which, could and fear. It's the fear thing. I remember a friend of mine said when he was young, he was brought brought up in the UK. There was a threat of nuclear war. And from that point on, he spent his entire childhood with this fear that nuclear war was going to happen in his lifetime. Right? And I think we're going through an equivalent time now in young people in particular. They've got multiple global crises coming at them. And so that feeling of fear and helplessness and hopelessness and youth suicides are up and self harm is up and all that sort of stuff that's going on. And we need to we need to be doing the right thing by the kids. We need to happy helping the kids. And, so I think it's on us adults to be adults. And, you know, that's why Joe and I agreed that this concept of just talking about nuance. And, Joe, do you wanna do you wanna kick off with talking about how you sort of look at it? What you think? Well, I I am someone who likes to approach things based on hearing all sides and hearing not just all sides, but also to explore sometimes ideas that haven't even been brought up. Right? To to to to try and figure out, what should we do sometimes with the situation. It's it's really for me, I I I I have some disdain for the idea that you can just come into a situation and just make a decision about things. And many times, I think what we do is we preload our decisions. We preload our ethical, you know, what what what we would do in whatever situation. We we we preload it, we rehearse it, and we kind of know what we're gonna do with it. Right? I mean, I'll I'll just I'll just give you a the thought that crossed my mind, actually, was was earlier when we when you were talking about, name? The star the star of, Ted Lasso. Right? I mean, you know, that that that response that she had, that immediate response that she had. Some of it is because we just thought about it before. We have all these ideas at the at the really at the at the tips of our tongues, and so we're ready to go with those things. And I think sometimes we need to get past that and go like, okay. Is there something else to this? Is it really is it really fair? I I I I find myself thinking about things like that, where even when there is a propensity to want to think a certain way, I go like, well, but is is there some validity to all this? Right? Like, we talked about Elon Musk, talking about, you know, how we have to have people who are bigger thinkers, big world thinkers, big picture big thinkers. And and I and I and I began to ask myself, well, is it because he's not a a big picture thinker, or is he a bigger than us picture thinker? Because, you know, I was I was thinking about where that money would go, and I think he would bet on another planet. I mean, he would he would try to think that that's the big that's the big, that's the big thinking about that, for instance. Right? I mean so and and the thing is, do we automatically say, okay. That's wrong. Is it wrong? Is it right? I was, I was I was looking at, well, for instance, we talk about war, we talk about Israel, we talk about what's happening in the Middle East. And I and I was pretty sure I had my mind made up about where and how things were gonna run, and I and I and I also heard, you know, the ideas of war and said, oh, you know what? I I I I I think I've heard it all, and I and I still think they shouldn't do it, the way they're doing it right now. And then what I did was I I went I went further back, and I went back to World War 2 and, was actually finding out more about what was happening, in in Japan during the as as the end of the war was coming up. And, what had what the Americans had done in terms of their their war campaign. Now most of us do not know, what happened in terms of bombing in Japan. Most people think of the bombing of Japan as 2 nuclear weapons, and and and that's how the war ended. Right? We don't know the part where 67 Japanese cities were fire bombed, with napalm, in in in a in a devastating, way, the brutality was complete. And yet, the Japanese were not ready to surrender. They were it wasn't gonna happen. The the the emperor was resolute about that, and he was prepared to put his people at risk. And what happened with the nuclear bomb in the end, the nuclear bombs, was it was it was as as I think about it and I as as I think most of you contemplate about it, we think, how could the Japanese think of it in any other way except a terrible thing? And yet, when when American philosophers visited Japan, the Japanese philosophers thanked America, not through the philosophers, but thanked America for the action that they took with the nuclear weapons because it saved Japanese lives. It's it's it's a complex calculation or complex idea, but, they felt and they and and their belief was that more than a 1000000 Japanese lives were saved by the brutality that was demonstrated. And the question is, what would have happened if not for that brutality? Would would the war have come to an end? Would it would it would it just stretched, and would we have had just more people die because, the sign was up more and we're open for business. Right? So it's it's that kind of thinking which makes me go, you know, it's not gonna be just as as simple as that. So, you know, we we talk about the environment, and we say it's it's let's just stop. And I go, if we stop every single thing that we do that is bad, we also stop every single thing that that we do that might be good. We we we talk about, GMOs, for instance, and people talk people don't wanna get into genetics and and and and modification, and that's we don't know what the what what it could be, what could happen out of it. But we also, have to say at the same time that it's responsible for making the world capable of supporting itself when I think it was in the seventies or eighties, we thought we were going to run out of food. Right? It just wasn't gonna be enough food because it couldn't be done with what we had and how we did things. And then genetic modification came along, and crops became much more productive. And with all the things that were bad that came along with that, in terms of the food being less diverse and what have you, we also have the advantage on the other side, which happens, you know, from from from that perspective. So it's it's it's never really as easy as this. The law of unexpected consequences, it looms great on the many things that we that we face. That there are certain you know, like, the the I'll I'll just just use a personal example, of of, my family this past week. My my daughter has been trying to make some arrangements with the airline, Turkish Airlines. And and she's been running up against one challenge after another. And it's been it it seems like it was a terrible thing. It should read as a bad chapter. But everything that we went through together as a family because we were trying to solve this problem and we got together and did all those things also produce something else that was great. So, you know, that's that's that's kind of my thinking about things. It's it's, the the the in a world where we look at black and white as the answer, where you've got, you know, I mean, you've you've seen the post, that that I that I put up. And and I have to admit, thanks to AI as well. Right? Well, in in a world that is usually gonna resort to black or white, the answer is usually in the gray somewhere in there. Yeah. A couple of points you sort of said. I I'm like you, Joe. I I I pay attention to information that I don't like, and it's actually uncomfortable for me to listen to, but, I, I'll listen to or read. But I do it because I think it's really important to understand all of the different perspectives because I I I I'm challenging I'm not I'm just challenging myself with my own knowledge. Right? And I do that all the time. But the thing about Elon Musk, because I I think, I think sometimes you think we're all after him. I'm not. I I find him an intriguing character. But one of the things that I've learned in my life that you can be very, very intelligent but still be very, very stupid because it's all about how you imply your intelligence. Right? So, you wanna go down you, mom? Yeah. Exactly. You wanna go down any rabbit hole and learn everything about it, and you might be the most important you must be you could be the most intelligent person down that rabbit hole, but you're actually wrong. You know? But but you're intelligent. So you you do not you know what I mean? And I've seen that in many ways. But the other thing with, people so, you know, I worked in the technology industry for most of my career, and I've said been in the rooms with the big people, not Alan. The what is is he doing the right things? Is he I mean, the whole miles spacing is just beyond like, for right now, for the world, it's just not what we need. But, you know, but the one thing is ego, and I think he's definitely got a massive ego, and that's become very prevalent in, you know, since since, basically, since he bought X. But the other thing that I noticed with people like him and other people like him is they're very, very disconnected from reality. They're they're not on the ground seeing it. They don't understand the pain of people. You know? And, you see it in the technology industry all the time. Technology is a wonderful thing. You were talking about GMOs. Right? So I'm not a 100% against the concept of GMOs either. I I do appreciate the harm. Also the, you know, we're you know, they reckon we're gonna lose all the bananas bananas because some there's some virus that's gonna take them all out. And we've gotten rid of all the other banana varieties, so we're gonna be out of bananas. Right? That sort of stuff. So, yes. It's, food technology, GMOs. They've enabled us to get to 8,100,000,000 people, which is also the problem. You know? So, okay. We've got too many bloody people to to feed in a world that's starting to degrade environmentally, and so feeding feeding people is gonna be a challenge in the future and technology is not gonna be the answer or the only answer, you know? And so the tech bro sort of focus is it it's just 2 technology. We've gotta we've gotta prioritize nature, restoration, And we could do the tech stuff, but it can't be the only thing we do, and that's one of the big problems that I'm seeing. Andrea, I I hear you on the, you know, a lot of people, too many people. I think with the work I do, my kind of approach to that is that every single person is valuable. I'm not saying that you don't think that, but, you know, it's about helping each individual to really kind of connect to their true self. So I really love the work by Donald, Donald Winnicott, talks about the true self, the false self. So, okay, there's 8,000,000 people, but do they are they awakened to who they really are? Because they could help solve the problems. If they only see themselves as a cog in the machine or if they only see themselves as consumers and not producers, not creatives. I think that's that's a part I think myself and other people like me or in this space try to do is to help people to awaken to who they really are. Because we can't just keep waiting for the governments or Elon's of the world to do the right things, or the things that we think are right. We need to, like you said, from the other 50%, help them to see what they could be or who they really are. And the solutions will come from there, you know, because a lot of work I do is really helping people to find kind of their their their meaning and purpose in their lives. And it's incredible what comes out of somebody that was believing the story they were told by their culture, society, you know, all of those things. But when they kinda connect to who they really are, they come alive and they most of them, all of them that I've worked with have this passion and purpose that's beyond themselves. And research has shown that people who find deepest fulfillment in their lives are those who give their lives in the service of others. So that's, I think, what we can do. That's what we can focus on as individuals is to ask the question, what story am I believing? What stories are out there? What stories am I not seeing? And, you know, I love that you said, Andrea, that you seek out the stories that kind of is not makes you uncomfortable because you're willing to be discomforted to really understand. And and that's what we can do. We could be bridge builders in building that nuance and that's been why I could maybe raise, you know, raise funds for universities or put my own business or connect to people. It's because I'm interested in their story. You know? And if we can become more interested in in in each other's stories and find places of connection, that's where we can start to all see, hey. Wait a second. There's bigger issues going on here. What are we gonna do about it? You know? Yeah. I agree. And then the the individual sort of self self development that leads into the collective, you know, coming together as communities again. Because, of course, that's another big issue in the world is the loneliness epidemic. Right? Mhmm. We need. Yeah, you wanna say? No? Alright. Tim, what do you think? I thought he was paused, so then his eyes moved. Yeah. No. No. No. I continue. Let me dwell. Okay. Alright. So I I'll I'll I'll I'll jump in if you don't mind. Just a a little thought about it. I I think what what happens is, again, where the temptation is to to to kind of come up with, to come up with a kind of homogenous answer to things. You know, we need to all come together. We need to do all these things together. Right? We want equal pain. We want equal effort. That that that that's the kind of desire we would like to have. That's why we have all these conflicts in in in our and I think in in in our lives, domestic situations as well. You know, like, you know, couples that fight the most are the ones who think that we have to divide everything equally. Right? So because you you you figure out how you're not equal and why you're not doing this or not doing that. I and and this is again a pitch about nuance. Nuance is is not gonna be about everybody I was thinking about this today and I thought, what what if we just got comfortable with the idea that we're all heading towards the right door? You know? We're not all gonna be doing it at the same speed. We can't all do that. You know? We're not we we it will it it takes some time to get around to it. We need the different different things are gonna make you get up and do something. You know, you're gonna be maybe like me who who spends a few years around Andrea and bit by bit, I'm I'm I'm I'm more aligned with what she's she's talking about? You know? Or are you like somebody else who just wakes up one day and you read something and you go like, wow. I didn't know that. I'm so I'm that's that's bizarre. And then you don't even realize that, well, it wasn't even true. But you know what? Now I'm moving in that direction. I'm doing something about that. So everybody is not everybody. We we we we we have this, impatience with people, to to to come along as we are doing right now. You know? I'm, you're not environmental enough. You're not this enough. You're not that enough, whatever it is. Yeah. How do we do how do we work it out? How do we influence? And how do we get okay with, you know, what what what people think? I mean, like, right now, I'll be comfortable with a whole bunch of people who really think the opposite of what we are thinking about right now? Right? Like like, the the the the the environment. Are we are we able to sit down across from a technologist who is absolutely sure that we're gonna get out of this through the innovation of of the the the the the ingenuity of the human spirit and the mind. Right? Are we also okay that it might be a handful of people who do this? If 2% of the world creates the solution that takes us out of it And in the process I mean, let let let let let's let's lay it out. Right? And in the process, we lose the corals, but we come back to such a place where, for instance, the the solar I the the the ice caps get restored. Just one thing at a time. If something happens that way, are we gonna be okay with that? Or are we still gonna be going like, yeah, but the corals. You know? We we we want it all. We do want it all. We want everything to be as good as it was, but we don't want to also be the one that says, you know, the problem with the world is we have too many people in the world right now. I volunteered to leave. Mhmm. Yeah. The population just give a for those of you not not following, Marvel, you would have missed, Tim doing the Thanos, finger snap Right. For the second time in the show. But I mean, you know, the population argument's a big one in in in in in the circles that are just having these conversations. And it's been it's been well proven. If everyone lives within the boundaries of what the planet can provide, and that obviously means we need to all go plant based. We need to consume less stuff, like, you know, buy 5 new articles of clothing a year sort of thing. We need to get out of our cars if we can, and we need to, you know, get on public transport. We need to stop buying plastic, anything in plastic, not just single use plastic, but all plastic, but all single use products. Right? If we can all do it, we can reduce our impact on the planet. So it's been proven. And, and so to me, the biggest shift is it's a gentle push. Like everyone's aware of it. I think right now there, and there's people fighting back against it. But I think everyone's aware. It's just like, we just all need to slow down, calm down, you know. And, you know, everyone's in a rush. It the travel that's going on in the world at the moment. Everyone's in a rush. Gotta go and see the world before it before it's all over. That's what it feels like to me. Just gotta calm down. Gotta go more local. Grow our garden. Get our hands in the dirt. Make sure the worms get come back into the dirt because they're really important. You know, we're just gotta get really kinda simple again. And it's not a bad thing. It's a beautiful thing because, you know, if you ask the majority of people, are you happy? Is what life is throwing at you, you know? And there's a desperation in it. The majority of people that you speak to, especially today, now, you know, you get on the streets in the UK, people you know, the amount of children who are malnun malnunarished in the UK. You know? Not not not in Africa where, you know, where they've got extreme famines. In the UK. You know? So we're, you know, we're in a cast. But I I thought there was this, I read found this research. And so, one of the concepts is called the truth binary. So I believe or I don't believe. So I I believe the government's good, Government's bad. I believe that where the climate crisis is is rubbish or I believe it's true. That's how the, and so, basically, what this what this guy is suggesting is probabilistic thinking. So the idea of this is I'm almost I'm 90% certain that I'm correct, you know, as a as a response. So you you never you never go into anything with certainty, 100% certainty, which means that you can stay open minded. So I thought that was good. And then the goodness binary, which we all know good and bad, Donald Trump is bad or good, you know, depending on who you speak to. And I love talking to people who who support Trump. So I will happily talk to them, and and I am capable of telling them some of the good things he's done. So I'm not I'm not just going in it at it from a I despise the man. But, yeah, the good bad thinking. And so, of course, the the recommendation is gray thinking, which, is in the title here. And that's, so let me this is really tiny fonts. So the questions you ask yourself, what are the pros and cons of this? So if you if you whatever side you're on, always look for the other side. Who benefits from this and who is harmed? And that to me is one of the biggest things. So a lot of the thinkers out there that get a lot of traction and, who I don't agree with, I always look into how they're being funded. And there's a lot of fossil fuel funding behind these voices. And so and most people don't even ask that question. Or, you know, they're selling vitamins off the back of whatever they whatever rubbish they're sprouting. Right? So they're they're making money to do what they're doing. And there's a lot of that going on at the moment. And, the other one is, what value does this thing I dislike create even if this sort of value is not the kind of value I care about? So really appreciating that. I think that's a that's a that's a little nuance. So it's put yourself in the other person's shoes. Cultural intelligence. You know? So, my husband's just been with a bunch of Americans, and he's been a whole bunch of customers all across Asia. So when the Thai customers come to the exhibition stand, you know, he's like, so what do you call? Very respectful. He knows how how to how to bow. When he's working with his Indian customers, it's a different way of approaching them. When he's with his Japanese customers, When he's with his Australian customers, it's usually more rowdy. But Steve's been in his in Asia for so long, he's really understood all of the different nuances between the different cultures and how to behave in a way that shows his customer respect, and then they, are very loyal to him because of that respect. And, the Americans are just like like they're blown away by it. You know? They're like, wow. You know? And he's like, well, I've been working here for 20 years. I should if I don't know this, then I I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be respectful. So I think cultural intelligence, I interview some people sometimes and the way they go about things. So, the guys that I've been interviewing from Africa recently, they're so sweet and but they're very formal. Or, a couple of ladies that I interviewed from Pakistan, they did a presentation first rather than just have a conversation. And I was just like, okay. That's what that's how you need to do it. And, no. A lot of people are incapable of of trying to put themselves in another person's shoes. You know? So, Cheryl, you're you're from South Africa. You're living in New Zealand, and you're gonna be going through a bit of culture shock there. Right? What what are what are you noticing? What's the big differences? Because you know? Yeah. So, like I said, a lot of people, there are a lot of South Africans here already, but one thing I have noticed is that well, the first things I noticed was that the diversity here is now the diversity from South Africa, so that's a different type of diversity. So if you're hearing noises because I'm living in in a city, so that's probably what's so much you're hearing. Kiwis are generally, you know, very polite. They don't really like to ask for things directly, and South Africans are very direct. We say things as it is. You know? So I'm learning the nuance of kind of just, like you said, taking a step back, kind of letting them lead, and, you know, then finding how we can connect. And I found some amazing connections, and really been volunteering to speak at different places because the more I try to serve and connect, the more the trust is built. You know? So, something as well that I think a lot of migrants, well, I didn't know this, is when you go into a new work environment, your experience in your home country is great, but you don't have experience in your new country. So until you get that experience, they kind of don't really, you know, know what to do with you, especially if you've had a c like mine where you've got 3 careers and different pathways. And it's like, who is this girl? What is she doing? Like, Kiwi's a very show me the bottom line, people. So I've changed my CV 3 or 4 times. And, you know, I think it's just even though it's it's difficult because you almost expect, them to meet you halfway and and and they do, you still have to make that extra effort to understand, to to to show that you are willing to, you know, connect and learn and adapt. And I think once they once you build their trust, then, you know, they get that. But also you have to understand it from their perspective. There's so many people coming into the country. So, you know, that's also something that you have to bear in mind is if I was a local here, what would that be like for me? You know? And to also understand that and to be aware of that. So those are the things I'm finding that's been interesting. Yeah. Because there's a big there's a big population of migrants from India into into New Zealand as well, bro. And so with your with your race, just with your race, you would have presumptions made about who you are before you even open your mouth. So Exactly. You know, just those sort of things. It's but, you know, when I went back to Australia after years years working in across Europe and across the US, it took me 6 months to get a decent job in Australia because I didn't know Australia. Because I've been working on and I was like, but but I succeeded in these other bigger markets, like, instantly. And you don't think I can do the same in this much, much smaller market? But the the so it's a it's a two way thing sometimes. Right? Yeah. You have to get over your fence and you have to then say, well, I'm going to show you what I can do, you know, and the best way. And I've, so I've been volunteering at the university, learning about students there. So the way things are done here is that you kind of volunteer. They have to first figure figure you out, test you out, see how you are, and then they can kinda give you the next opportunity. So, yeah, you have to figure out how things are and then adapt to that. Yep. Yep. It's an exciting challenge. It's massive personal growth. Tim, come on. Alright. Lay it on us. I've been tracking look. I just I I'd like to, I'd like to do a shout out to myself for, taking the time to respond and to not just say the first thing that I was thinking at the time, but to go, I need some time to process what we're talking about, and before I then respond. And I I the reason the reason why I'm I'm saying that is, I think that's something we're lacking today. I think it's something we lack on social media. We just we we pull out our gun and we shoot. It's like social media is like, there's a wild wild west there where somebody says something we trigger. And something that came to mind recently, I I get sucked into religious conversations when people are, you know, bashing online, I'll go in and sort of I'll I'll end up saying something at some point. And and I've learned over over over time to pick your arguments to the degree where, you know, it it was very validating recently where a lecturer was presenting on conversations about a particular very sensitive topic, and about which pockets of the population or which pockets of a particular ideological presentation that's presented to him, whether he would engage with that particular person, or not. And the the idea was, if they have already adopted this perspective and like, Andrew, you were talking about that truth binary, whether they had selected a team and were just not they're they're already almost by by selecting that team, they weren't gonna budge in their thinking or at least accept any new information coming in. As a result, there's a he just he just he sort of says, I'm I'm going to engage where I can make the most difference, and and I'm not gonna go up against the bashes in a particular field because you know it's like on this show, sometimes we get people commenting on YouTube or whatever that have a very clear paid agenda, and they are trying to silence conversation in a particular area that is not profitable to their employers. And and we might ask a sentence or 2 to gauge where they're at. But once they reveal their hand a little bit, we we tend to go, alright, mate. Yeah. Good on you. And then just move on to having the conversation with the people that we really wanna have the conversation with. Now there's a risk in that. The risk is there may be some people that have been in an environment where that's the way to respond or that's what they've been conditioned to to do. And we kind of leave them in their own echo chamber or or paid narrative. But there's but I do think it's a sensible approach to a degree, because we're trying to communicate a thinking, an idea, a message, a perspective that we may be saying, I'm 90% certain this is correct, but we're willing to engage in the conversation about it. So recently, a friend of mine posted a picture of a map of Palestine, from 1947, and it was covering the whole area post World War 2, 1947. I think it was 1947. And it was like, this is Palestine. And his comment was just saying and the conversation that's come out of that has been really interesting in that there's people that have just taken their side and gone, you know, another map just saying as a response, or or whatever. But then there's been this really interesting conversations about perspectives and from different faiths coming in, different political sides coming in. And I sort of sat on the sideline a little bit restraining well, actually, not really restraining myself. I was more observing the conversation before, and I was actually deciding whether or not to come in or not. Because it it's basically, I'm I'm coming in with a can of petrol on a on a blazing bonfire going, you know what? Here's my pecan of petrol. And but the the conversation we had, particularly me and the my friend who posted the thing who is actually and the way he was engaging with everyone was very mature and respectful, and he would be saying, I don't quite understand your particular position. Can you elaborate to people who would come in with a sort of a big king hit swipe, to to to get them to sort of express themselves a little bit more clearly and with more detail. Almost inviting them to say, here are the points of my argument, so that an argument so a debate about those points could happen. You know? And, and that's kind of what I did. I went into sort of address a particular point. It's a somebody had come in with a particular position that I thought, that's not really I don't believe that that the the the assertions and the assumptions that they're making are accurate. So, look, I I I think to summarize a little bit about my position on this one ask you. Did you know did you know that person that you were responding to, or are they a stranger? Right. Stranger. Stranger. And were they participating It was a good discussion, though. Yeah. Good. Good. Yeah. And you can tell by the way people talk if you can have a conversation with them Yeah. Or if they're just gonna be a fanatic. Right? You can always tell. Exactly. I mean, I and you know what I one one of the things I sort of reflected on and I think, by the way, this is a skill that is much needed in the world. I think we need the skill of reflection. Mhmm. I think if we did that, instead of pulling out our gun and reloading it all the time, I think though the quality of the conversations and the thinking that we would have with people, the quality of our dinner conversations would be better, the dinner party conversations. The quality of our, just our relationships would improve, and the diversity of thinking, even if we don't agree, would would make us culturally smarter Yeah. And have a greater ability to respond and influence in an intelligent way that can actually solve problems rather than pour more petrol on it. But what one of the things I did notice was that I with that time because that time even when he responded to my first response, I sat back again and I let it percolate. You know, one of the I think percolation is another thing we need to be able to do. We need to perk when I'm given I I tell you, when I'm given a a sermon title, a sermon verse, what I've been advised to do and what I found very effective to do, it's the same same thing, is to read it and then just have a week or 2 of doing nothing. Almost letting it percure read some stuff, but then just do nothing and just let it percolate. Let it work, and it was the same thing with this guy's response about the political situation in the Middle East, and it was about me. I found what was effective was the fact that I didn't respond immediately. That I took a couple of days, and and really and I and even when I sat down to respond, I was considering what I was how I was gonna respond. And in the end, it was a gigantic response. And his response to that response was, what a fantastic response. And I I don't agree with all of it, but I would love to talk about it more with you over a croissant and, and coffee and stuff like that, which is actually the outcome that we need. We need that Yeah. Let's talk about this more over a cup of coffee and a piece of bread and break bread together in a in a in a in a way of community even though we don't agree, necessarily agree, and just have the conversation that just goes, I got more I got I got a greater balance, which is what the no show really is all about, is to give us that greater balance of what's actually going on rather than the the headlines that are that are clickbait. It's to say, here's what's really happening and here's some different opinions about it. Yeah. Sure. There's a bias that's coming out of the show. I mean, there has to be because we're we're people. Yeah. Yeah. But but they're but, hopefully, it's an intelligent conversation. I I guess my contribution then is, don't be reluctant to pull the trigger until you've had that percolation time, and then maybe it's not a trigger we're pulling, maybe it's, extending a hand, of, conversate of a hand of conversation doesn't make any sense, but extending a hand of friendship and a and, invitation to conversation, perhaps. Yeah. I like that. Oh, it's funny. There was another conversation. I don't know if it's the same one. I don't think so. Where it it devolved into 2 people talking about spirituality and one person is a science person. So it's kinda like Joe with me and somebody else having a having a go at it. Right? And, but Joe would be the science guy. I'd be the spiritual sort of woo hoo. But one can be one conversation can be quantified, the science side. Right? There's there's there's lots of facts you can throw at it. The other side can't be quantified. And I I I was watching this going back and forth, and I wanted to finish jumping in and say, great conversation, guys. But I didn't, because I didn't know 2 of them. I only knew one of them. But but the point that I sort of took away from it is if people are doing no harm, who cares what they believe in? Right? If you wanna believe in spirituality, if you wanna believe in science, like, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. Like, no one is doing any harm by their by their beliefs, and I think that'd be good. And, I see lots of people post stuff that I'm just like, really? That's what you think? I'm like, alright. But I don't comment. Yeah. I don't even argue. I said, what's the point? I mean, it's pretty obvious what I think. I'm putting it out there in the world all the time. Right? So I'm I'm like, that's your right to talk about that. But if they start jumping on me and attacking me, then it might be I might feel differently. But I don't I don't wanna fight with anyone. But if I don't know you and you just turn into a lunatic and start attacking me, I I don't care. I do you're gone. If I know you, look, there's some pretty extreme people in my life across the course of my life who, have some interesting ideas. I don't I don't care who you are. I'll I'll go to town because we know each other. We know where we're coming from. But complete strangers, it's it's, sometimes it's just not worth it. And are you making any difference by getting involved and having your own fight? No. You're gonna feel better about it? No. You know? There is one positive to it, though. The one positive is when you articulate your position in those pointless fights, in in a sense, you get a little bit more clarity on what your position actually is. So that that you know what? It's like the it's like you're in the boxing ring in the, you know, in the training gym. You go, okay. I get it now. Now you're going in for the big fight. You're a bit more prepared. But but Yeah. It's true. You know? So I I think from that perspective, there's there is some value in it, but, you know, social media is a dangerous dangerous place to put it because The the danger about getting there for me is getting in engaging in conversations where, you know, sometimes there is no greater point or reason for it. Is that every now and then you'll say something that makes it something you can't go back on. And and then then you and then you place yourself in a situation where you start to justify a position which really maybe isn't maybe it's untenable, maybe it's, you know, you you go like, I I I I I I like blue. And now you're stuck with that. Right? So it's very few of us can actually be fluid. So, you know, again, I I I was thinking I was thinking about this conversation saying, okay. There's one thing that I think we should have, be able to walk away. Like like, look at things a bit differently with is, like, instead of looking at things in terms of, like, what harm is there, is there any are they doing any harm? Maybe quantify things in terms of are they doing any good? Is this is this good? What what's the good in this? Why why is this a good thing? And the other thing is, as we look at the world and we and we make ourselves wary of bias, recognize that bias doesn't mean wrong. You know, that's that's, we we can we can we'll we'll meet someone who's gonna be very biased to the fact that the world is round. It doesn't mean that they're wrong. You know? It's just it's just we just have to be prepared sometimes for for biased people who are a different view from us for ending up right. So some people are finding that out, in in in the realm of the discussions about COVID after, you know, all the various things that have happened. Not everything that we took on as the as the the science of its day was correct. And and they were certainly biased in the other direction, and they see they they turned out to be right. Yep. Yeah. And also giving you well, giving information time. Right? It's like the virus was a great example. It's like it needed time. We needed time to know what it was gonna do and what impact it was gonna make, and all these people are arguing. And I'm like, how can you how can you have a point of view like that when we're we're at this point and it's a virus and they're constantly evolving and we have no idea where it's going, and we don't even know how many people are gonna die and or what the impact is gonna be. And you're already so set in your ways with your opinion. How? And that that that that was part of the journey. Right? I think that would be coffee to him? I'm, you've left a loop there. I wanted to know, did you have coffee with that person? Not yet, but we regularly have coffee. Oh, okay. So we have croissant. We so our our thing is we have a croissant. So when he said Okay. Love Okay. So there was already that conversation happening. A month to month or something like that. Yeah. He's a very dear friend. Yeah. But but, anyway very, very different. He's a he's he's a you know, I'm studying in a theological college, and he's a champion of French secularity. So, Those are fun conversations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, at least you test out your faith level, right, of, like, what do I really believe? Because you're having it tested. So there you go. I mean, actually, I'm testing out my apologetics, which is my ability to argue it and defend it in a in a way that's sort of cohesive in some degree, and I don't think I'm terribly good at that. But I think I think any sort of defensive argument, regardless of what the thinking is, I I think we need to my encouragement would be just step back and and think for a little while. Look. Today, this morning, I drove my daughter to school, and there's there's these two lanes of traffic that approach the school. And one lane goes into the secondary school. And the second lane is usually populated by cars that are going to primary school, which go further and then go into the first lane and turn in, if that makes any sense at all. Anyway, there was a long line waiting for the primary school. I'm taking my daughter to primary school, but there was nobody in the secondary school lane, which is actually the lane that we're all gonna turn into. So I went into that lane and went all the way up to the front. The guy's waving cars on, and then he moves out of the way, and we both take off. And the so the so we both take off, and the the fellow next to me who's in the lane that wants to get now into my lane just cut me off and came into my lane. So I I did a very polite toot. Now there's lots of there's a whole language of tooting the horn. Right? And there's a nuance in horn tooting. Definitely. And and so my my horn toot was a friendly oy. It was Yeah. That was my toot. It was a double toot, but it was a short toot. Alright? And I think we could do a whole show on horn tooting. I tooted my own horn earlier, But, but in this particular one, I I did a beep beep. You know, it was it was like a beep and then a little bit of a and beep. You know? It was a short short little ones. And then after that, I pretty much forgot about it, but we both went in and I followed him in. We both dropped our daughters off, and he pulled up and came out of the car to confront. Now I was a bit actually, after my double toot, all I wondered was a bit of a wave, and I would have been happy. But he came again, why did you honk at me? I I went down my window, and he, you know, what I don't think just to drop my daughter off, so I'm also aware that there are girls just there. And he's like, why did you honk at me? I said, well, could you cut me off and nearly hit my car? And he goes, yeah, but you I was in the, I'm in the lane that's coming into here, and there's there's a rule. And that, actually, there is no rule. It's more it's more a courtesy It's a norm. Social dynamic. It's what it's what Cheryl's experiencing now in new New Zealand. Yes. Their norms. Nuances and their rules and their norms. Right? Yeah. And I know that norm, and I I would be and, you know, I came back and I sort of thought about it later. And but but my, actually, my first reaction, which I'm not terribly proud of, was you nearly hit my car blah blah blah. It it was like I raised my voice, you know, I'm standing by my thing. And then after and then and he was he was going on with the rule, and at that point, I went and I just drove off. I left him standing in the driveway thing. I I was just like, and I just drove away. And because I just felt like this is a dumb conversation in front of our girls, and it's gonna make them scared actually. And I drove off, and I processed it. And I can sometimes if I feel a great injustice, I can dwell in that injustice for far too long, and feel like, you know, I need to to rip off my shirt and have my superhero outfit and go and sort of seek justice. But, actually, this one, I wasn't like that at all. Actually, it was quite, I I was I I I didn't like the fact that I raised my voice, but I but what I did as I left was I was processing what just happened. And what happened was when he said there's a rule, the truth is there is no rule. That legally, I was right, and in the eyes of the law, I was right. In the in the eyes of cultural nuance and appropriateness, he was right. And Mhmm. And then I put myself in his shoes, I would have been extremely pissed off with me, that driver that did what I did. In fact, earlier, I was I was looking at other drivers to see if they're going in the outside lane to come back and push in, and I was gonna judge them. Mhmm. But but I did it on the inside lane, which was legally okay. So I guess what I'm trying to say is even something as stupid as that can end up with a confrontation that doesn't necessarily need to happen. It could have been avoided had I not tooted my horn and just let him go, and we did the, like, the zipper of everybody comes in, and and it just works its way out. For me for for me, I think my, I get a lot of social learning when I'm driving a car. I know I'm taking too long on this particular example, but the the point is, sometimes we are shooting from the hip. He didn't need to confront. He gotta let it go. Good on him for having that sort of justice neuron fire. But but, you know, I I know he's listening to the show, so I apologize to him. But, because everybody is As far as far as microcosm for the world where it's something small. We we go to conflict. Yep. And in a way that we're both right depending on whose perspective we're looking at. So the dilemma is what perspective are we gonna hold on to? I prefer blue. So I I I think he's more right because you broke the social norms and the rules, and we all know the, you know, school school drop off procedures. So, Tim, you're actually definitely in the wrong. But I figured we probably should close-up. And now that we know that, Joe is fluid, did you did you guys pick up on that when what's keeping you distracted? Unless anyone wants to say anything final conclusions or anything, Gosh, you're welcome to. Final conclusion would be, in a world that is chaotic, what are you hoping that you could live for? I think that's the question that I always try to bring into every audience I speak to is you can't change the world, you can't impact the world, but what are you living for? You know? Because there's something inside of us that is looking for that meaning. And when you find that, life becomes more purposeful. Even though there's a lot of things that are out of control and chaotic and overwhelming, In your world, are you actually owning your story and becoming the hero of your own life? That's a question I wanted to leave with everybody. What's keeping me distracted is my 4 year old daughter. She's a wonderful delight and gives me copy for books to write for for many years. And I also read a book called Hero on a Mission. Andrea, I think you'd like this book. I would recommend it to you. The author is Donald Miller, and he talks about how to become the hero of your own story. I liked his work because it's also something I use for my work. But in there, he speaks about how to not be a victim in your life. He talks about the victim energy, the villain energy, and then the hero energy, which is taking accountability for what you can do, living on a mission, and then becoming guides to others to actually own their power and live the life that you can create. So you can't change things, but you can create your own world. So yeah. Sounds good. I'm just waiting for Rohed's book to arrive. He's, I can't I haven't got it written in front of me, but, we should get him on so we can talk about it. So he's he's very much talking about sort of the inner peace and contentment. Alright, Joe. What's keeping you distracted, buddy? I am, well, trying to work on my mentalism. I'm trying to get, another aspect of myself on stage where I, I do great feats of mystery based on the mind and the way we we we think. And I'm reading a book by Aaron Alexander right now called Reality as an Art. It's the most expensive paperback book I've ever bought. But the the the essence of it essentially is how we are all connected as human beings, and we have a tendency to behave in such ways because of that connection. And if we actually emphasize and draw out those connections, we can actually have legitimately magical experiences. So I am, I'm I'm exploring that very esoteric bit of text, and and for someone who's actually dyslexic, I think it's it's, it's it's it's it's proving to be quite a mean task, but, you know, I I try. That sounds interesting. You're gonna have to, share more about that. Tim? Confronting will to power. Yes. I know. I love your your surrendering sigh. I have a surrendering sigh too because I don't particularly wanna read all of this thing, but this particular guy is Reinhold Niebuhr, and he's he's, his whole philosophy of of, just war. Kind of what we talked about a little bit earlier when Joe was talking about Japan and everything else about where does an act of evil, where's an act of evil, dropping bombs, etcetera, justified to Yeah. To stop a greater act of evil, for example. And then how you reconcile that theologically with the whole idea of love and that it's tension with justice. And I just thought it was it was fascinating because I've I've got a exam on this book, which is like a huge, and, I've got only a little bit to go, on Monday, so I'm a bit consumed with that as well. But I have to write assignment of this guy. Oh, I've chosen to write an assignment of this fella, and I'm, yeah, I'm quite excited because as I read his ideas, I was, like, something sort of a woken went, yes. That makes practical sense, and I want the practical implementation part. I mean, I've just been reading about women theology and black theology, and, South American theology, which is liberation theology, and the interconnectedness between all three. And that article on the Nike element really resonated with those theologies of, this is ridiculous. You know, why are we still stuck in these models? So I'm quite enjoying it. It's it's overloading. There's lots of coffee and not enough time for croissant, but, but it is I got I got about 3 weeks left, and then I'm a I've got a bit of a brain holiday Nice. Before doing it all again. So yeah. No. It must it must be fun just challenging your brain. It totally is. I'm I'm loving it. It's stressful. There's an academic tsunami coming, and I'm in a little boat in an ocean, but I'm enjoying it. It's a good place to be when this when a tsunami comes, actually. Nice. Please don't joke about tsunamis, guys. Well, I'll try to not if you're on the peak of the wave. I Joe, I've almost finished 3 Body Problem, and I think well, have you guys seen it yet? 3 Buddy Problem. For Yeah. 33 Body Problem. Just to be be sure it doesn't sound like 3 Buddy Problem. Yeah. Yeah. I got one and a half episodes to go, which I'm saving to watch with Steve. But I watched A Star is Born. So, what's his name? Bradley Cooper and the Lady Gaga version with my 17 year old son. Of course, both of my boys are on the path to become, metal or rock heroes in their lives. And, that was a very, very, very interesting experience to watch it because, of course, Bradley Cooper side where he's self the self abuse and all that sort of stuff and, just opened up a really powerful and deep conversation with my son. And he sort of said, you know, is that what's gonna happen to me? And I'm like, well, so the difference between you and the character that it's based on is that you've been brought up in a house where you are you know every single day you're loved and you also feel safe. And, you know, so the character that it's based on, we'd probably never had that because his mum died in childbirth and his dad was an alcoholic. And that just, yeah, just opened up. I love I love having those conversations with my boys when they're they're getting old enough to have them, and it's, yeah. I enjoy motherhood now. Not 4 year olds, Cheryl. That that was just chaos and Oh, no. I love 4 year olds. I love every chapter, and I wanna keep her in each chapter, but she's growing. Yeah. No. The teenage years, because I got 2 boys, but it's 1617 now. I'm just, yeah, just hearing what they think, you know, and, where they're getting their opinions from, challenging their opinions. Sometimes, you know, Jack's expressed an opinion, and it's an opinion I've heard other people expressing. And I said, did you watch the original piece of information that that was based on? And he said, no. You've been listening to somebody else's opinion. So I said, go and watch it, and then let's talk about what you think about it, not what somebody else thinks about it. So I like that. Yeah. I like I like the way that you I like that parenting style because it's moved from authoritarian into more coach. Yeah. And I think they got this. Otherwise otherwise, it's just gonna rebel and leave. Exactly. Right? You know? The leaving part is inevitable, but the rebelling if that could be put off as much as possible. I mean, or at least subdued somewhat. So I I I I'm gonna take that. Yeah. Zoe's 8, so I've got I got a few years yet. I also have you also have a Zoe? Oh, yeah. Really? I have a Zoe. Yeah. She's Nice. Cool. I had a Zoe first. You did? Yeah. Did you, have you guys read, Hold on to Your Kids? Thought about that before I said anything. Have you read Hold on to Your Kids by Gabor Mate? No. No. No. I've got I've got I listen to a lot of what he says. Yeah. The audiobook is also really helpful because it's quite a thick book. But there he talks about the danger of the current generation, and I do a lot of work with young people. One of the reasons why I do the work I do is because there was a suicide of a student, when I was working on that campus, and, you know, I went to the funeral and thinking this should not have happened. You know, we need to help young people, like you said, Andrea, to to navigate all of these challenges because they're living in a digital world. They don't know how to live in the real world, so we need to help them with that. But what he was saying was so insightful around children are connecting to the peer group too early, and we need to keep them connected to us as as long as possible. Because the minute they get connected to the peer group, they kind of lose a sense of being able to reason and to, you know, challenge thinking. So, yeah, that's a book I definitely recommend to read. Is it? Does it? Cheryl, does it look at screen time as well in that? I can't remember. I need to go back to that. I struggle with that too, screen time. Yeah. There's another another book I've got on order, which is, a guy that's, talking about, social media and digital, technology for kids And, about this whole revolution that needs to happen, around he's saying they shouldn't get, like, phones or social smartphones until they're, like, at least 16. And so there's some there's some, yeah, there's some I can't remember the author. I listened to him on a podcast. Our TV just broke. Well, our big lounge TV we got another TV here, but our big lounge TV just broke, and so we're not replacing it. Well, we're trialing not replacing it. And Zoe seems quite happy with that, and the so so for me, the the the thing here is is getting a reading and reading together. So she's reading her thing, and I'm reading these things, and and she's seeing me reading, and she's reading. And so that sort of stuff, I'm it's it's a bit of a battle sometimes to get her to read because she wants to watch her stuff, but, but we're getting a reading, and I think that's half the battle won. If she if she can be reading, I think it's that's why I wanna actually, I wanna having said that, I wanna show her the matrix, where where you just plug in and you learn everything. And I said, we don't have that at the moment. Joe's bid on AI and, Sam Altman, you know, we may get that at some point. But but this is that's this is the this is it. Just takes a little bit longer for the upload. Yeah. We've never had a TV my entire marriage, so my daughter's never grown up with a TV. So she goes to visit people, and she's like, wow. I wanna go to visit them because of the TV. But there's some great libraries in Auckland, so we've been on regular book binges, and she loves books. So yeah. Yeah. So at least that's right. I feel I feel a bit better about when she has screen time because I know she has a lot more book time. Oh, good. Can I can I just put this out there to everybody here? You know, don't keep your kids away from AI. You know, the the future is gonna be very much there, and, AI isn't coming for your job. Someone who's good at AI is coming for your job. No. I I agree. It's everything in balance. Right? Alright. We've gone over. So we're going to say Peru for, another week, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks. And, if you wanna come and join the show, just reach out to one of us and we'll we'll we'll get you in. I think we we don't have a guest for 2 weeks, so we need to secure that. Yep. But, Cheryl, thanks for joining us. Really appreciate it. I know it's late now there. It's been really lovely to have you. This conversation was worth staying up for. So thank you, and I'll be following the show as well. Cool. Cool. I think we should have Cheryl back. I think you're as quality of guests go, you're you're a high quality guest. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. And then will I be able to talk about my book, Managing Money in the Real World? How we connect money with purpose? Because I know we have a money. In the, I know you talk money on this show and I think it's important for people to start to realize that they can control their money story. So I'll be happy to talk about that. Yeah. Nice. All right. So we'll see you soon. All over the money show. Thanks for being with us guys.