The Know Show – survival in the age of division

The US Election is happening on November 5th and it’s not just Americans who will be happy to see the back of it, the whole world will hopefully sigh with relief. No question it’s been intense, but regardless of the results, the divisions in the US will remain, and more broadly, we all know it’s not just the US suffering this blight, as many Western democracies face division too. The bigger risk is - will it continue to ripple out and infect the whole world? Time to start addressing it. 

So, that’s our theme this week, and we’re going to reference an article in Australia’s The Saturday Paper, titled ‘Twelve keys to good leadership’ by Barry Jones. We’ll start with the five general properties (there are 14 in total) required for fascism to rise, and then we’ll speak to the opposite, where Barry Jones defines the 12 essential factors in leadership necessary for stable, liberal democracy. It will be worth understanding this, so we can all embrace it and change the direction we are heading in, right?

To help us understand this very important challenge, we are delighted to welcome Adeline Tiah 謝善嫻, who is a leadership and reinvent coach. Adeline is the author of REINVENT 4.0, and her focus is all about r𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐞 f𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐨𝐟 w𝐨𝐫𝐤, where she works with CEOs, CHROs and leaders to build adaptive cultures that thrive alongside AI. A start-up advisor, coach, mentor and more, we’re excited to hear what she has to say on this very important topic, and hope you join us. 

The Livestream kicks off at 3pm SG time, Friday 1st November. Hope to see you there. 

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. 

#TheKnowShow #UncommonCourage

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

0:03

Welcome to the No Show. My name is Andrea Edwards. And my name is Joe Augustine. And, this is a show that's designed to help you, well, know about stuff better, the stuff that you perhaps didn't have your eye on. It's been happening, but you just didn't know it was happening. Also, this is what I used to do at the end of the show. You should do it now. If you turn out that you like the show or you hear something you like or you think there's something you should follow, please like and subscribe. Support us on social media. Spread the word, because I think what we're doing is worth knowing about. Now the show is also a show where we bring in guests so we can have a diverse point of view about the things we talk about. And our guest this week describes herself as a serial reinventor, and she's, of course, the author of Reinvent 4 point o. Would you please welcome Adeline Thier to the show? Adeline, welcome. Hi, everybody. Thanks, Joe and Andre, for having me on the show. That's great to have you here. So give give everyone a bit of a a sense of who you are and what you care about. Well, I well, I I have been the corporate executive for the last 25 years. I left a corporate job 2 years ago when a coach asked me this question. How would an 8 year old actually thank me for what I do today? People are living longer. Right? If I do not disrupt myself and do something different, I I might be disrupted along the way. So I I did that, left my

corporate job, published a book called re: 1:24

Invent. 4.0 actually stands for Industrial Revolution 4.0. So I care a lot about, especially these days about how AI is disrupting jobs, how organizations need to reinvent themselves, to be sustainable, because a big part of what I write about is future work. Yeah. And the interesting thing for me is that when when you when you first talk about, you know, like, industrial revolution 4.0, AI was not even really on that realistic horizon. It was just about other kinds of job. The future of work was work. Now the future of work is not working. Yes. In fact, when I published a book, there was no AI. It was just a week when I hit the the market. 3 weeks later, Gen AI came into the picture. Right? And I said, okay. Now maybe I should time for me to write another book. Well, we talk about AI a lot on the show, but in in lots of different ways, we talk about it. Right? Not just the benefits, but at the environmental impacts and yeah. So it's a interesting big fat topic. We actually don't have any AI content to talk about today, but I thought we'd kick it off like we did on the last no show where we're talking about the US election, which is gonna be over next week. Thank God. I'm planning to go to, an election viewing. Joe, are you gonna go and check check out anything? AmCham I don't American Chamber of Commerce is host I don't know if you'll get, enough out immediately. I know the the the polls are selling, are showing what they are right now in terms of early voting. But, that again, you know, recall, it all reminds me of what happened during the time when when we had, when when when Hillary was was running the polls. We're pretty much in her favor. So I don't know. Let me let me explain to you how it works in Asia. Right? So choose by Tuesday lunchtime, we will know who won the election. Last year, the last election because of COVID, it took a little bit longer, so we didn't really get a sense until sort of 10 o'clock that night. But a traditional election outside of COVID times, we will know and I remember the 2016 election I was meeting. DBS Bank, wanted to talk to me about working with them for for something. I can't remember what. And I was sitting in the lobby looking at the results, and I was like, oh my god. Trump's gonna win. Because because I understood the patterns. Right? So, yeah, it's about lunchtime Tuesday. We will we will know. Okay. Well, I I I hope we do. I yeah. Sure. I I'm I'm in if you're doing it, and I'm invited to come and join you. Yeah. Alright. I'll send I'll send you the link, and we'll get down there. But yeah. So but how are you feeling now? Like, after all the shenanigans, you know, the hate rally, which is what I call it, at Madison Square Gardens? Well, it it should be a done deal. It should be a done deal, but I don't have enough to to say absolutely. And and the problem is because of everything that's happened in the US before this as well. So this is about, you know, like, it's always been the October shock. And we were running out of October, and I thought, well, you know, we've seen everything and then that thing happened. And it's quite interesting that, you know, rally and comments made by other people, not directly himself, has is is is gonna be likely to be the thing that, trips them up ultimately right at the finish line. But, yeah, it's, it's one of those things. It's it's I I I I dare not say it is in the bag even though it should be. Well, there were just before we came on, I saw the daily beast have dropped a bombshell, as they're calling it. I think it's something like, a 100 hours of conversations between, Jeffrey Epstein that certainly implicates Trump. But, yeah, it's been, this week's been really, really interesting. I still think that it's gonna be a landslide for Kamala and, seeing some of the swing states early stats, considering Republicans are actually voting early as well this time. I think, yeah, I think I think we're definitely it's gonna be good news next week. It's really hard it's hard to sorry. It's so hard to tell because I was reading a news article. They say that, according to the I think the bankers, right, according to technical analysis, Trump would win. But according to the fundamentalist view, Kamala will win. Yep. So I I don't track just the news. I also track, the conversations, the thought leaders, the conversations that go on social media. So I'm I'm I'm looking at so many different aspects of the conversation, have been for a while. But I wanted to share something with you. This guy called Tommy Santos on on Twitter, posted this. If you're not paying attention during the 2020 election, it is a template for how 2024 will go. Here's how the MAGA strategy plays out. Flood social media with bias polls paid for by the GOP. So we talked about that a couple of weeks ago and it's really, really prevalent. Use those polls to claim Trump is winning. If you watch any right wing media, it's it's a completely different conversation to left wing media. Completely different. And if I was watching Fox News religiously every day for the last couple of months and Trump lost the election, I would believe that it was rigged based on the coverage. So it's a very effective strategy. Label Trump's opponent as incompetent and downright stupid. Seen that. Just declare victory weeks before the actual election, asserting that a Trump win is inevitable. I don't think they've achieved that this time around because there's been too many things that have gone wrong. Begin lying about voter fraud and cheating a couple of weeks before the election during early voting, and as we've seen, the only cheating that's going on is on the, GOP side. Ramp up voter fraud allegations on election morning without any proof. Lose the election, then claim it was rigged. Launch empty legal challenges and maybe even attack America if all else fails to stop certification. Spend the next 4 years crying about losing. It's happening again. And, you know, so I think that's the thing that, a a lot of people are missing watching the bigger game that's at play. And, it's really it really does mess with your mind. You know, there's been so many times when I'm like, maybe I'm wrong. Then I'll go back in and I'll I'll look I'll look at what's going on. But it's it's it's, it's quite spectacular. Well, I'll I'll tell you how the, the trader mindset looks at it. I mean, I'm I as you know, I I spend too much of my time trading. Trading is about putting your I guess, you you place your bets based on everything you see and what you know. Right? And, you hope for the best. Everything looks right, and you everybody does things, in trading to win. You assume that your thesis is right. So I support your thesis. I'm completely open to the idea that something might go wrong as well. Because the big difference for me between 2020 and now is how the ground feels for the Americans. A lot of Americans are hurting. A lot of men are hurting, and they've come together to sort of feel the pain and they're having to make some choices. And the one thing that I don't have as much faith in, as I think you have is the sense of that people will do things for the benefit of other people. There is still a very strong propensity in America to vote for yourself, for what will be good for you. And there are a lot of things on, you know, I I think in in what Trump is promising that is appealing in that sense. So there is a very, very obviously different way in which both sides are appealing. The population is 50% men, 50% women. Trump's message in the context of how difficult life is in America for men, has some resonance there as well. So I do hope that everyone does this. They vote for the betterment of everyone else. But if people vote for themselves, this is why for me, I feel I feel Trump still has as a chance. The the the the it's actually, for me, it's about how people don't shift from their position because they're that much into it already. They've already said that they're up to that and now they are challenged to commit to it. Right? You you put a lawn sign up, you put a a a bumper sticker on. Now in terms of psychology, the whole thing is about following through on your on what you've put down, what you've said. It's why people go ahead with weddings that they don't think they should. You know, it's that kind of thing. So this is why. I think some of things that people said they would do some months ago may not may not shift despite this, partly because it's part of the it's still part of the Trump personality. If you if you if you think about what someone might be able to say in the last few weeks is that Trump hasn't done anything new or worse than he usually would have. Oh, I don't know about that. Sense. I don't know about that. Today, he's talking about 9 barrel shotgun barrels pointed at least Chinese head. It's, yeah, it's gotten pretty extreme. But you're not right about the 5050 split between men and women. It's, it's 5149, but it more than that, women vote. Women vote, and every US election, it's a it's the women who decide who wins. And Yep. We're we're hearing about a lot of women whose husbands are forcing them to get, mail in ballots so that they can check that they're voting for Trump. But in in the voting booths, women have got the freedom to vote, and that's the big thing. And I I talked about a couple of weeks ago, women over 50 are not being considered as a force, and women are Yeah. Women are angry. And Yep. That they they will decide the outcome of this election. So let's wait. Well Tuesday, Tuesday, lunchtime or no? Yeah. Yep. Yep. I hope I'm right. I'm I'm confident. Yeah. I I'm confident I'm correct. Very confident. And by the way, traders yeah. So the, there's a betting, a whole betting thing around it. They're also going Trump wise, Trump's way. So I think if you're gonna make some money, go for go for Kamala. Well, my my my thing is if you're if you're trading, you don't you don't trade until the news is out. Then you then you go at what has what is happening or what has been shown to be happening. Shall we get into the news and then head down to the discussion that's supposed to happen at the end? Yeah. Okay. So, some news stories. On The New Republic, there's an article that screams Elon Musk making makes a shock confession on his plans after Trump victory. Apparently, Elon Musk admitted that he knows that Trump's policies would crash the economy and if he's elected president, but thinks that the price is worth it. Now this, this breaking news might not be all that it was made out to be. He was actually replying in a tweet from right wing influencer, fisherking 64, who posted about how Trump's plan for mass deportations of immigrants combined with Musk's plans as a White House adviser to cut federal spending would initially crash the economy before creating a sounder footing. And Musk had just replied that sounds about right. So, again, no doubt as planned, but probably not what qualifies as news. But in news news, Musk has been ordered to show up in court in Philadelphia. He was ordered to show up in Philadelphia on Thursday, but he did not. He was sued for basically running an illegal or at least an illegal lottery as you may have heard. He's offering a $1,000,000 a day or he's giving he's been giving away a$1,000,000 a day and will continue until election day, for everyone who registers to vote. Of course, the offer is implicitly for the Republicans. But someone also noticed that if you're a Democrat or Democratic, if you're if you're a Democrat, you can also qualify for the lucky draw. So there's something in there for that. Whether or not the federal court decides to take up the case, which he did not show up for, we'll have to find out. So stay tuned. Yeah. Yeah. Though yeah. I mean, they were talking about him being arrested in for contempt of court if he didn't show up. So he didn't show up, and then they moved it to the federal court. So, anyway, I'm sure he's got some very expensive lawyers on the case. So extreme weather events, which, I'm sure we've all noticed, hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, and flooding. A lot of flooding, and it's everywhere. So we've seen France, Italy, Vietnam, the Philippines, the Middle East, and DRC pummeled in recent weeks, but obviously it was the flood flooding in Spain that really got everyone's attention. I'm sure you've seen all the photos that are coming out and the videos that are coming out. Yeah. An enormous amount of water fell in a very, very short period of time. It was a year's worth of rain in 8 hours. Right? And because this region has been sad suffering from such a catastrophic drought, this obviously made the floods much worse because they can't absorb the water. So the implications of this disaster are huge, and it's not just the damage to infrastructure, which we've seen. It's roads, bridges, railway, or things like the cars that we've seen piled up in top of each other. But, of course, it's a mass mortality event, and I've just saw just recently a 158 have died so far. It sounds like a lot of elderly people got trapped in their homes. So but for things like this, it's about looking at longer term implications, and one of them is food. So Spanish farmers are facing a catastrophic loss after these floods, because the other side of it, of course, was these massive hailstones fell, and acres and acres of greenhouse greenhouses were destroyed as well, so it wasn't just the floods. And they believe that thousands of hectares of crops will be lost, and the death of livestock has obviously not been counted yet. So this means long term implications for both in fluid food inflation and food security, not just in Spain, but it's gonna have wider implications too because it obviously provides food for the world. And all all of these extreme weather events are impacting our food supply. So the more the more that happens, the higher the higher the risk it becomes for all of us. Natalie? Well, until I just talk about food, I have another piece of not so good news, about food from Europe. Do you enjoy tuna? A non profit organization NGO called Bloom has found that tinned tuna sold there is showing dangerously high levels of mercury. This tested a bunch of samples and discovered that over half of them had 3 legs at the limit of 0.3 milligrams per kilogram, which is the standard for other fish. Bloom points out that the current acceptable level of 1 milligram per kilo was set mainly to ensure that about 95% of the tuna caught can actually be sold. This is pretty alarming because it means that tuna, one of the most contaminated fish, is allowed to have mercury levels 3 times higher than the other fish that are less contaminated. And here's the kicker. Just because it's coming from tuna doesn't make the mercury any less toxic. What really matters is how concentrated the mercury is in the fish. So this is definitely a serious health issue to keep in mind when considering what we eat. Yeah. Do do you guys eat a lot of tuna? Well, I I'm I'm quite pleased to see. I'm not not a big fan. Yeah? I eat a lot of salmon. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, tuna's at the top of the food chain. So, you know, the my husband was going through a period of eating lots of tuna. I'm like, you probably shouldn't be doing that. And this was before this, and and and this is just research from Europe where they're a lot more on top of what's going on in the food supplies. So you think about regions like Asia, you think about Africa, you know, what's going on in in the tuna supplies there. So but, yeah, I avoid it. Well, I I I don't need anything because I I'm not a fan of tuna. Well, we can get into some of the, the the the bigger news right now, global big and heavy news. There's an article in Bloomberg about, how in the new cold war, Mexico, India India and others are winning by not choosing sides. Basically, the article discusses how over a 100 nations that are being referred to as the new neutrals adopting a strategy of geopolitical neutrality amidst rising global tensions reminiscent of the Cold War. Now these countries seem to aim to capitalize on the benefits of not aligning with either the US led west or the China Russia block positioning themselves to attract foreign investment from both sides. Now the key thing is that in terms of economic dynamics, the new neutrals are experiencing an increase in foreign direct investment, primarily in new manufacturing facilities as companies seek to avoid tariffs and protectionist measures in the US and the EU. And the trend is fueled by China relocating production to these countries as well. There's also a shift in trade flows. Now, the new neutrals are trading more with China and Russia. They're enjoying things like discounted Russian oil and Chinese goods. They also at the same time trade with Western nations. But that's of course despite the fact that some of that trade is declining. Now the shift indicates a changing global economic landscape rather than a retreat from globalization. So the world is still global, they just favor the West not as much. So the big success stories by the way, first of all, this whole article is based on a study of basically voting patterns regarding the Ukraine and others in the UK general, the UN General Assembly since 2022. So the votes basically qualified these countries to be considered as neutrals. They did not take a stand on either side. Overall, this article highlights that, by maintaining neutrality, these nations hope to optimize their economic prospects. I can't remember where I put the the note on this, but the the the big winners we had, besides besides, India, China, I think, South Africa, and a few other notables as well, are doing rather well by being on the sidelines. I was gonna ask you. So recently, we obviously had the BRICS summit. And I I I shared a video and then the video disappeared, so I don't know if it's because one of the governments didn't appreciate it. Singapore is, in an interesting position because they were the only country in Asia to come out against Russia invading Ukraine. So they're suffering a little bit of the, implications of that from a BRICS perspective. But obviously there's a very strong relationship with the US and the west, but Singapore does tend to sit in that neutral territory. But what are what are what are your takeaways from what's sort of happened in the last few weeks as far as the BRICS go? Well, I'll I'll be honest. I haven't been tracking exactly what's been going on there, but I do think in terms of relationships and where, you know, because the world is the world is about status. Right? We we we look at each other, we regard each other, with status in mind. And how you feel about me, and it kinda makes me feel about you as well. And it makes me, you know, the reciprocity thing happens. Right? So the the the thing about bricks for me is it's, it tends to be a group of countries that weren't invited to the big table. Right? They were it's the it's the it's the kids' table of economics, and they kinda became teenagers and became more powerful and and what have you. They got together. They formed their own clique. So that that's always been for me, the the the problem when you have an in group. When you have an in group, you inadvertently create the out group. And the out group can get together, and that's what, to me, is what bricks is about. Bricks is about those kids who were basically not part of the clubs that, formed their own thing and, and grew up and got powerful. So the geeks grew up, if you like. But, it's happening a lot faster. I I I kinda get a sense that, you know, it's like watching what China's done from a sustainability perspective and how quickly they've moved forward. And now, the rest of the world's going, you know, trying to, you know, the whole tariffs on China for their cars, for their solar panels. Rather than saying, well, we missed the boat and, you know, let's work out how do we work together because it makes sense. Because the most important thing is that we apply the solutions as quickly as possible and they've got them rather than, you know, the the the way Europe and the US is going about it. So I don't know. I kinda feel like Yeah. And because I think what's happening in the west now with the Ukraine war and, you know, the pressure to to for for Ukraine to get into part of NATO has accelerated these breaks because they've been talking about it for a while. And, you know, Singapore has to keep to a neutral position, right, because we are small. So we need to ensure that, we we kind of sit in the middle and not try to offend anybody on on your side. Yeah. But but I think you did. And so coming back from that. Right? Well, I I I think so. It's this time it's it's, again, I think it's about, you know, there's there's an idea that's been that I've been thinking about. It's about this thing about graciously losing or graciously winning. Right? I think, what what the west has been bad at is graciously losing. It it does not like the idea that China is good at anything. Right? And and, similarly as well, the I I guess it's it's a it's a bit of culture. It's I I I won't I won't use the word racism, but it's a kind of thing where there's a collective thing. There's the idea of the West and the East, right? There's a kind of chauvinism, if you like, intellectually or otherwise, right? Something that is traditional. It's just not the way the Harvard Boys and all that kind of stuff, right? It's it's the West has been happy to feel that it is superior. Right? And for China, Russia, and India, which together arguably, are superior in many other ways. I mean, if you talk about programming, if you think about subverting computers and stuff, I believe they're much better at it than the West. There's lots of stuff that China, India and everybody else can do much better. I mean, they have the numbers and they have the brains that go along with that. So, you know, China would be ahead in certain in certain areas. Yeah. What what I think is the problem is, the west has been happy to put its hand on the scale. Right? Because if if you if you if you talk about the idea of absolutely fair open competition, then walk the talk. Right? Allow China to be really good at these other things that you weren't quite as good as, and then where they move very quickly. Allow China to be the new leader in EVs because they make more EVs than anybody else and in greater variance than anybody else, and they have the highest efficiency in terms of batteries and stuff like that. Let the superior technologies help everybody. But Yeah. You know, I don't think the west is good with being being a gracious loser. Yeah. I agree. And it's just the arrogance. Right? Yeah. Perhaps. Well, you know, they've been running the show for a long time, and things that things are shifting. Alright. So moving on to the environment. So Grist is a publication that's running a new series and it's called climate justice and solutions. So if you have an opportunity, I recommend signing up for the email, to get it in your inbox. And the first one is the link between climate disasters and authoritarian regimes. Now if you've been tracking the whole story of the climate crisis, and it's not just climate, it's biodiversity loss, it's food crisis, and there's so many aspects to it. Right? The risk of rising authoritarianism has been an obvious outcome that I've just been wanting to happen. And, Joe, we had some interaction on LinkedIn today where you you shared a graph about how democracy's basically fallen off a cliff since the eighties. And, it's, you know, it's it's it's a real risk. Right? It's a real problem. And the issue is that strong men or women, are offering very, very simple solutions to incredibly complex problems and the voters are believing them. So because the challenges aren't simple, they're very, very complex. And, you know, I'll, I'll just give you one example with those floods in Valencia. Or I should say Valencia, if I'm gonna try and do my Spanish accent. The leader of that region agreed to turn off or disable the regional weather system. This isn't widespread knowledge. It's just something I picked up as I've been tracking it to basically appease, the right wing overlords. Right? And this is the sort of risk that we're talking about here. You know, things things that we need to, you know, Trump's sort of talking about, leaving NATO, leaving the Paris Climate Agreement, making, NOAA the, you know, the the only way that you know that the hurricane's coming towards the US is is is is Noah. So about getting rid of stuff like that. And so that's the real risk of people like this, especially if they're climate deniers. So if we vote for these authoritarian regimes, who are our climate deniers, it's really voting against our own interests. They're not going to come and save us. They're incapable of saving us because they they they are incapable of addressing the complexity, and that's the problem. So the the article talks about, a strong man that came to power in the Philippines that we all know very well, and that was Duterte. And he basically killed 30,000 people, who were drug users and drug dealers. But his actual rise came off the back of a typhoon, Typhoon Yolanda, which officially killed 6,300 people, so that was just before he got elected. Right? And basically what they're saying is a grim parade of Duterte like candidates around the world have emerged on the global stage. Politicians who have obliterated the bounds of acceptable political discourse, scapegoated religious and ethnic minorities, dismissed journalism as fake news, sought to imprison their rivals, and undermined democratic checks and balances. Does it sound familiar? Obviously, yeah, Modi, Bolsonaro, and Trump were three examples discussed in the in the article. And while they didn't come to power off the back of climate events, extreme climate events, what's happening is obviously very much worse, you know, droughts, floods, storms, wildfires. So people are being affected more and more. Their bank accounts are being affected, insurance premiums, all that sort of stuff. So, the tendency seems to be voting for people who will promise to put their national interests and their economic interests above everything else in the world and who will promise to try to secure a future that looks a lot like the past. And that's a real problem because nobody can promise that because it's actually not possible. So political scientists have theorized that in the face of physical, economic, and social vulnerability, voters seek voters seek safety in the form of leaders who promise to take decisive action to deliver relief. One study of elections in India found that voters punish incumbents when it floods unless those incumbents respond vigorously to the disaster. So it's a it's a really pass fascinating piece of research. I really recommend that you have a look at it. There's no they can't they can't there there there's no words not going through through climate change, so they don't have a comparison. So that's obvious obviously, the challenge of research like this. But it finishes with the future is not written. It's what we make it. And I think this is the really key point when I was looking through the article. So rather than sitting in fear of this future as the only one that we have that's possible, I think it's time for us all to come together, form a consensus of what we're facing, and then work together as hard as we can to try and overcome. If we don't, authoritarianism is gonna be in all of our futures, and that's the path to towards a dystopic future, which a lot of people are talking about now. We don't want that. So I think we've gotta get involved. We've gotta get active. We've gotta vote for leaders who are not promising simple fixes to complex problems, and we have to address this and look it in the eye. It's the only way I can see it. But anyway, I recommend that piece in Greece. Thank you. Well, Beck, I've got some good news, on the other side of the world, in Singapore. Great news for Singapore. I I picked up this article in The Straits Times dated 28th October, which was just last week. Right? Most of us would know that food waste is a massive contributor to global emissions. So now, diners who are keen to buy unsold food from eateries can get up to 80% off the retail price before closing time, instead of letting it go to waste. And there is this app called Indi, where you can buy this unsold food from. This was launched in Singapore in August, just a couple of months ago, and aims to beef up efforts to reduce food waste by eateries. Customers who use the app can order a surprise bag in advance. So in other words, you wouldn't know what's in the surprise in the bag, right, it's a surprise. They can get any type of unsold food from their menus at day's end for between 50% 80% of their usual rate retail price. Apparently, this has taken off in China. I I just did a Google search. Right? There's also an app there called CNG, in China that has taken off doing exactly the same thing by matching, unsold food to users, to customers. And according to the National Environment Agency, food waste accounted for about 11% of the total waste generated in Singapore in 20 13 2023. So this is, quite a big amount. This works out to be about 755,000 tonnes, of which 623,000 tonnes were dumped and the rest recycled. Food waste is a growing problem worldwide. But with rising inflation, this could be an opportunity for people really struggling to get access to high quality food and stop it from going into the rubbish bin, where it emits greenhouse gases. Indeed is one of the several platforms available in Singapore. The others include Tapao and Twitchure. So please do let your friends know of this app. And one of the challenges with food waste, of course, is the safety. To overcome this obstacle, in July, the Singapore government introduced a good Samaritan food donation bill, which protects certain donors from liability for any deaths or health issues resulting from eating donated cooked food with certain conditions. So in other words, you buy at at own risk. Yeah. I thought that was a really interesting perspective to add on. I know I've I've done a lot of work with scholars of sustenance. So they're I I don't know if they're in Singapore, they're in Indonesia, Thailand, and they rescue food and they educate on food waste. They're an amazing organization. So it's good to see this taking off. And, you know, so many people are suffering from inflationary pressures, so it's good news. Right? Yes. Well, I I I try to do what I can by leaving no leftovers myself. So Yeah. And and although what's enough for me? Oh, well, if you if you got too much in your plate, pass it to me. The, the COVID kid is back, I'm afraid. There's a there's a new variant you should know about. The latest variant, is now COVID XEC, and, the symptoms include severely the, symptoms severely impact daily functioning, once doctor, this is an article coming off of Wales online. So, I'm I'm I'm gonna apologize. I I I would love to give credit to the doctor, but I would mispronounce the name completely. So I will say a Welsh doctor, has issued a warning about the most common symptom of COVID XEC, which is causing severe disruption to patients' daily lives. As this new variant continues to spread across the US, medical experts, either UK, by your pardon, medical experts are increasingly concerned about its impact. The doctors from the It's Me and You Clinic, nice happy name for a clinic, revealed that insistent and persistent fatigue is the most frequently observed symptoms. And she said, from her clinical perspective, the most common symptoms that she's observing is an intense and persistent fatigue that seems to linger longer than with previous variants. Now, on the subject of the most serious symptom, however, she explained that the most serious one is the potential for sudden acute respiratory failure in individuals who may have previously only experienced mild to moderate symptoms. Now this is quite different from how COVID has been evolving, over time. It usually has come to the place where it gets less and less serious, so this is something to to keep a lookout for. Now she has described it as particularly dangerous because patients can deteriorate very quickly. But on the other side of the coin as well, other medical experts were saying that they're keeping an eye on this to to to also see what actually is going on. But, yeah, it's, you know, if ever there was a reason to update your vaccination, it's about now. And just as a general guide, if you've not had an infection in the last 3 months, it's just about time for you to go and get a booster. If you've had an infection and a booster before that, you actually have, pretty good, immunity at least for the next 3 months or so. So this is something from the from the, the, I wanna say, vaccine well, I won't say vaccine experts. Vaccine experts that I've been doing webinars for, they've been saying that the the best efficacy has been the combination of having, you know, a, a booster as well as an infection event, that gives you the maximum kind of protection. But in the absence of that, go and get your booster if it's been at least 3 months since the last time you've had anything COVID. Yeah. I I'm definitely, due one. So this XEC, I saw in the UK because my husband was over there because his mom, Hi Therese, has been in hospital, and, death rate's 25% higher. So it's it's it's it's a serious one. But at the same time, the mis and disinformation around COVID and vaccines is seems to be surging again. And I know when you when you do your webinars with the doctors, what what what are they just ringing their hair? Like, like, what what what how how can we how can we get consensus on this? Like, it's just, you know, this with what, 4, 5 years later, we're still having this stupid conversation. I don't know. That's Well, it's not just about whether people believe in vaccines. They also don't understand, how vaccines are supposed to work. So a successful vaccination does not mean you're you're not gonna get the disease. A successful vaccination means if you get the disease, you get a less serious version of it. And that even that basic idea isn't quite understood because it's a long held belief. The belief that when you were young, when you got yourself the polio vaccine or the chickenpox vaccine or whatever it was, it was immunity against it. And while the term that the medical circles use is immunity, it does not mean that you will not catch the disease or you will not be infected. And we've never spent the time to make the audience understand that. So what what what's happened is people have taken this vaccine with the intention or with the idea that you're gonna get this immunity. And then in a few months or a few weeks later, they get COVID and they go like, well, this doesn't work. So it's a problem of communication as well. So, why it continues to happen? Well, it also is because there's a kind of calculation that happens in the audience. As in like, if I do this, this happens. If I don't do this, this happens. It doesn't seem like that big a deal. If we talk about, for instance, 25% higher death rates, that sounds scary. But 25% higher death rates based on a very small number then becomes less scary. So we've also got to shield ourselves from what is a truly significant change in numbers. We seldom think about what the real problem with COVID is. And the real, real problem with COVID is not about the infection. We get infections all the time. We get sick of doing with all kinds of things all the time. The real problem with COVID in the beginning was actually how much load it would put on the public health system. And it would overwhelm the public health system. And so people would die inadvertently from other things that weren't even COVID related, as in like the things that the public health is supposed to be able to handle day to day like heart attacks, strokes, and what have you. COVID had the capability that has the potential of basically strangling all of that so that the rest of public health doesn't work. And again, the bigger thinking on that wasn't really shared. So what people began to look at is how COVID affects me. And as far as it it goes, COVID really doesn't affect me very often, but it does affect everybody. Yeah. And and it's a it's a kind of thinking again, which I said is it's it's it's it's hard to wrap your head around. I don't know. It doesn't doesn't feel that hard to me, Joe. I mean, you you you you're you're a PR rep for mother Earth. You you you see things from that perspective. Right? So I'm just sticking it down to the individual and really for the for the individual for the question of what's in it for me. It's COVID education has failed. It has not got through so that people understand why they do something, why as they do this one thing or this activity or this policy is actually for the greater benefit of everyone else. Have you just given me a new tagline for Twitter? PR PR rep for mother earth. I like it. There you go. Adeline, are you getting your booster? What what what's your stance on it? Well, I have got my last booster I took was, like, 2 years ago, I think. Forgotten about it, but I my my I always believe just just stay healthy, eat healthily, go for my exercise, and do what I can. I I'm not going for another booster. Not yet. Alright. Just, have a look at the have a look at the long term implications. There's a lot of research that's been coming out. All I'd say to people, like, I I I'm not gonna encourage anyone to go and get their booster. It's it's I there's just no point going down that path right, Joe. But when when you when you start actually understanding the long term implications that are being shared about long COVID, massive aging, dementia, organ damage, organ failure, like it's, it's, it's so huge. And I, like, I, I, I'm keeping up to date with what's going on, not nowhere near as in-depth as you, Joe. And I just don't think people are, and the media is not covering it because no one wants to hear about it anymore. But I don't actually think people know what, what's really on the line here. You know? Maybe maybe it's what Earth needs is we just need to lose a whole bunch of people anyway. You know? So maybe COVID's the gift that will give us a healthier Earth. I don't know. Well, you know, I I don't believe very much that there was a conspiracy to do this, but I think the, that the approach that China had with COVID, was maybe with a view to try to keep China COVID free as in to create a population that large that was free of infection, free of the symptoms of the unexpected outcomes or unexpected result of having COVID because there was some knowledge about that in terms of longer term impacts. And I think what this is just my theory on this. It has no basis at all except my own suspicions that why China spent as much time as it did being as draconian as it did trying to keep basically COVID, China COVID free was so that it would have a workforce. And that's a very Chinese thing to think about, a workforce that had not been compromised by COVID infections in general. And if you if you if you multiply all the things that you've been hearing about in terms of long COVID and the and the impacts on on aging and healthy longevity and all those different things, that would have been it would have been a utopian situation had they been able to keep it out. But, I think it was the World Cup that happened, and then, you know, it it it basically they they lost the ability to socially engineer it. And it only matters if then the rest of the world got COVID under control so that when China did open up, there was no more COVID. But, you know, there was COVID, and so therefore, you know, they they were unsuccessful because the world was unsuccessful. But as a strategy, you know, if it if if it went that way, it could have potentially worked. Alright. So, go going back to the environment. So last week, the UN accounted that the world was on track for 3.1 degrees Celsius of global warming, and that the international goal to limit warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius will soon be dead without a massive mobilization to cut climate emissions. Now the fact that they're not saying it is already dead is beyond to me, but anyway, there we go. So scientists obviously say that there's no safe global warming, but 1.5 degrees Celsius has been seen as the threshold beyond which the worst is gonna happen, and that's, you know, heat waves, droughts, floods, collapse of natural systems, and rising sea levels. But I really wanna clarify what's 3.1 Celsius means. So I put a post up on LinkedIn and no one responded to it because then they don't like talking about this stuff in professional circles, I've noticed. What do you think 3.1 degrees Celsius, what global warming means? And I don't actually think people really realize that. Right? So let's look at what's happening now. We're supposed to be at 1.3. So we're not officially at 1.5, although for the last 12 months, we've been above 1.6 degrees warming, but we need 10 years of that before we're officially beyond 1.5. Right? So the difference of impacts between warming at 3 degrees Celsius would be more than twice of those at 1.5. So if you think of Spain and what they've just been been through or hurricanes impacting the US or the Caribbean or typhoons in Vietnam and the Philippines, so now you double that. So think of what that looks like. Right? Yep. But of course the important thing is impacts are not linear and linear is a word that you'll hear a lot in the climate sort of conversation. So if we increase the temperatures and we see an acceleration of that, the impacts at 3 degrees Celsius may be more than 4 times greater than at 1.5 degrees Celsius. So and the other thing, of course, we is we might hit the big tipping points. Now you can't see the visuals that I shared with you, but I wanna I wanna take you through 4 areas of 1.5, 2, 3, and 4 degrees Celsius. So for me, personally, 3 degrees, we're we're we're well and truly we've we've lost our and there'll be there'll be pockets of humans around the world. Okay. Sea level rise. So at 1.5 degrees Celsius, rising sea levels will displace 46,000,000 people. Sea level will rise 48 centimeters. At 2 degrees Celsius, there's gonna be fewer opportunities for infrastructure adaptation. So think of places like, Jakarta, Bangkok, New York. They're not gonna be able to sort their cities out. So that's 56 degrees 56 centimeters sea level rise. At 3 degrees Celsius, so 3.1 is what the UN is saying, it's gonna result in the near complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which will result in 7 meters sea level rise. And, of course, if the whole Greenland ice sheet melts, it's gonna destabilize the AMOC, which is Atlantic Maroon Meridianal Occidental Current, and that will turn the northern hemisphere into an ice age. Four degrees, they've got and this, I got this from Climate Nexus, 470 to 760,000,000 people at risk, and that's 9 meters sea level rise. When I say numbers like this, 470 to 760,000,000 people at risk at 4 degrees, it's it to me, it's it's kind of a bit laughable, I've gotta say. Right. Impacts on water at 1.5 degrees. Water shortages in the Mediterranean, Australia, Brazil, and Asia, this is already happening. At 2 degrees, 86% of the global population faces water shortages. At 3rd at 3 degrees, nearly 50% of the Himalayan grace glaciers will be melted. Now when you think of the Himalayan glaciers, you've got to understand that at the bottom of those mountains are China, India, so that's, 2,800,000,000 people there, Nepal, Pakistan, like, there's so many countries that rely on that, so that's big. At 4 degrees, we're already we're already done. Impacts on food, 1.5. Wheat, rice, maize, and soybean production suffers. We're already seeing that, and these are staples. Agriculture at 2, basically the yields fall rapidly. We're already seeing this. At 3, fish species go extinct locally. And this kind of makes me laugh because if you look at the next one, which is impacts on flora and fauna, at 1.5 degrees, 9 out of 10 coral reefs are at risk of sea de severe degradation. This is already happening. At 2 degrees, all coral reefs will disappear. Now if the once the coral reefs disappear, we're all gonna see the fish species going extinct. So it's not 3 degrees when that happens, it's 2. And and on the way to 2, not even at 2, at 3, they're saying marine ecosystems may collapse. Well, once the once the coral reefs collapse, the the the sea collapses, and and you think of all the people that rely on the sea for their food and their nutrition, at 4 degrees, half of all plant and animal species will face extinction. So my my from everything I've been reading, 3 degrees is the end of civilization. It's not extinction of humanity, but the large a large swathe of humanity will be gone by that point. So we don't wanna get to 3.1 degrees Celsius, and I don't think that message is coming through. I you know, if you see a map of future climate impacts, it's very rare to see one that shows sea level rise, extinction, food shortages, economic collapse, heat extremes. So I said a couple of weeks ago, Singapore is predicted to bet to be at unlivable temperatures for 365 days a year by the end of this century. So we're gradually going to be moving towards that. In the last week, we've just had a massive storm that's cooled things down. Right? In the last week, it's felt like 39 degrees every day. It's unbelievably hot. Right? Have you guys been feeling the heat? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So so what's what's being asked of us is we need to face up to this and do everything we possibly can to turn it around, and it's not business as usual that's gonna help us achieve that. So we keep talking about it. We keep arguing about it. We've got the deniers. We've got the believers. We've got everyone in between. It's time we've got to get to get really serious, we do not wanna hit 13.1 degrees of global warming, and it accelerates from here. You know, when people say, oh, it's not till 21100. It accelerates from here. We're gonna hit 2 before the end of this decade. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, just just a just a bit of advice here to the, VR, representative of Mother Earth. I I wouldn't say in the middle of all that that I feel like laughing. And and I know where you're coming from. I know I know where you're coming from. It's basically the way my mom, you know, stepped into the room, and I had messed up the entire place and put holes in the floor and all that. And all she could do was laugh, but she was not happy about it. So, you know, it's it's a it's like like, you know, I I think I think that, you know, we we go back to Duarte. You know, it takes some time something really massive and terrible to happen. I've always said that for important things to happen, it's almost as though someone needs to die. That really is unfortunately the way it works. Have have enough people died in Spain right now for that to say this is this is what that was about? And you have to think about what denial is about as well. So it's not just denying. There is the thing about denial. Is this the thing? Is this what it is? Right? I mean, in times of great calamity, people often rush to instead of the science behind it, they rush into a religious enclave. They go into things about, this is a test, this is all, it's, I don't know, there are many ways we can interpret things and it's all about interpretation, right? So I think you saw the piece that I did in LinkedIn and it was about that. Basically, context is everything. In the middle of context, everything then can change and it can have different meanings. And I think it's important for evidence to be recognized as the right kind of evidence. Because if you think about this, all the calamities right now that you see, right, if you're in the right frame of mind, you go like, Yeah, this is proof. This is what this is exactly what is what we said would happen because we're going down the path of this global warming. At the same time, I can see exactly why someone who is inclined to say that these are the signs of end times, these are the proof, these are the things that are basically about the plagues that will come before the end and we're all being tested. So the same scenario is a different set of situations or different kinds of evidence for different kinds of beliefs. So I can see why on either side, there is this thing about, well, we're gonna do something Or on the other side, still, we may pray harder about this and not do something because we have we must have faith. Yeah. Okay. It takes a whole of it takes a whole of system approach to get things moving. At the macro level, the government agency needs to the global leadership, right, needs to impact, the change. And then the society level and an organizational level where leaders, need to be ethical, right, in in their business practices and in in ensuring that the employees also, you know, play their part in, you know, protecting the climate. And, you know, thank you for this educational piece. You've just given me some thoughts about, potentially, the new book that I'm gonna write on. Cool. Well, so, you know, Jeff Goodall wrote the book, The Heat Will Kill You First, and I recommend it. And, we're sitting on the we're sitting 70 kilometers from the equator. The you know, we're we're right in the firing line. Right? And he talked about why in the US, the climate really hasn't been an election issue. And it's a very interesting piece. It's in Rolling Stone, so it'll be in my weekend reads. But, it can't it can't be an election issue yet because it's so divisive that people won't vote for it, which so I I tell I get the end of times, so we shouldn't be invite we shouldn't be voting for politicians who believe in the end of times. I've been saying that for a number of years. I don't think they're I don't think they're gonna take us in the right direction. But the other thing is, anyone who has really, really been paying attention to this, we're sitting in a world where what we knew was going to come is here, and we've had to come to terms with the fact that we knew this was coming. It's come a lot sooner than everyone was telling us it was gonna come, Even though I always knew it was gonna come sooner, it shocked me when it did. I spent about 18 months sort of really sort of trying to come to terms with what we were really facing. I'm totally moved into acceptance. I whatever whatever happens, I've accepted it. But the fact that we're still talking about whether or not we need to do something about it when I know that what's happening now is just just the it's just the taster. It's and even if we did everything right, it's still gonna get worse because of what we've already got in the atmosphere. Right? So, it's a hard thing to talk about. No one wants to really hear it. People get really depressed by it. They don't wanna face up to it. They don't you're just like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, alright. I get it. But it's time for us to do things that are gonna make a real difference, like a real difference, and it and it's a radical transformation. And it's an opportunity to build a better world, a kinder world, a fairer world, but it's not gonna come without pain. It it has to because we left it too late. We should have believed the scientists and, you know, like, we were talking earlier with the scientists on COVID. Science has to be at the forefront of the conversation, and politics need to be step back and listen to them. You know? And we're gonna talk about that in the thing, but, yeah, it's, moving to a place of acceptance is a really good place to be because you can still have a laugh. Yeah. Even though Yeah. It's as grim it's as grim as all hell. Right? Well, moving right along to happier topics, Adeline. Yeah. Happier topics. Okay. I don't know. I'm just kidding because I can see what's coming up. Well, you talk about climate. I'm I'm gonna disappoint you. I just read this article recently. It's really very disturbing for me. You know, a couple of weeks ago, women in Afghanistan cannot speak in public. The news is even grimmer now. Apparently, the Taliban has banned women from even hearing each other anywhere in public or private settings, alongside broader sponsor censorship of media and literature, and it's exemplifies an extreme level of control and absurdity. In The Voice message, Hanif, Hanafib declared to the even during prayers, a woman's voice should not be audible to other women. What this means is women isolate woman even further. It is preventing them from engaging in conversations or forming support networks. This is as if women do not they do not want women to exist at all. And and these restrictions have reportedly led to an increase in suicides among women under the unbearable strain of enforced isolation. The mounting restrictions have led to divisions within the Taliban itself, with some officials expressing concern over the impact of extreme policies of public tolerance. A senior Taliban official warned of potential repercussions, fearing that should a viable alternative, to the Taliban emerge, public dissent could turn violent, a civil war. Right? A current approach has spread an atmosphere of fear and isolation if human rights advocates warning that Afghan women are effectively cut off from the outside world and each at each other. So this is a really disturbing piece when I read this, and I'm just so thankful that I am, you know, born in in in this part of the world. Yeah. It it really isn't. You know, I see a lot of people saying, what are we doing about it? How are we helping? And, you know, it's it's it's such a difficult thing. Right? So the west was involved there for far too long. Donald Trump signed a deal to put the Taliban back in power. The US left as well as all the allies. Right? So here we are with this situation. People are saying, oh, we should go back in. We should do this. We should do that. And then, of course, foreign western nations don't wanna go back in and get involved because no no one's ever succeeded in being involved in Afghanistan as an external force. Russians didn't. The Americans did it. Right? I'd love to see us get all the women out of the country and spread them around the world and give them give them homes in, and homes and support in countries around the world. Or maybe we could put, medicine into their water system so that nobody can get pregnant so that the men actually understand that, you know, there's no future without without giving the women some power. It would do something. Do something creative, but, you know, like, the only thing women can do is be doctors for other women. There's no other opportunities for them. This is not straightforward. It's not straightforward at all, but it's barbaric. But, you know, women dying in in park in their cars in Texas because because the doctors weren't giving them abortion as they're losing their baby, to me is is is an equivalent. You know? This this I this this pushback on women's rights, like, you know, everyone talks about they want better economic growth and they want they want all of these things to happen. Well, if you want if you want better economic growth, you you have equality. GDP is higher with equality. Businesses are more successful with equality. So this pushback on equality is actually a pushback on economic flourishing. And Absolutely. I don't know I don't know why we don't seem to be able to get that message. You know? I really don't. Conjoy gives the mild point. I feel I feel there's an intention in there that I'm supposed to cut with my, inadvertently bad comments. You know, again, the the whole thing about the lens where the lens is from where we are, where you are, if you think of Afghanistan and you think about that environment, the whole thing that that that that that they're in, it's easy to be in that environment and and and and and come up with draconian things because it's not a flourishing economy. Things are not great. You know, when you think about you know, when when when when you always have to think about higher and mightier things when everything is in place and everything is done. I guess one of the ways that we could try and do is I don't and again, it's impossible to try to interfere or to influence, but I mean, it's about how good life can be on the ground. If you are not spending your time struggling to survive, you begin to think about how to make life better. And and I and I think that's where this kind of flourishing happens. Mhmm. There is very little room for flourishing when everything is dry and barren. Yeah. They're suffering terribly from climate change, droughts, floods, like, you name it. Yeah. I I don't know when Pete Burge joined us, so I didn't see when his comments came in and what we were talking about at the time. But, what what we ought to do are competing moral choices. I think he was talking about from an environment perspective. I think this is why environment debates break down and yeah. We need to come up with a consensus of our choices. And, you know, so going back to Afghanistan, like, I've got friends who work in, you know, the global sort of charities who aren't allowed to be there. Governments aren't sending money in. They're not sending funding in. May maybe China's the answer to Afghanistan. They seem to be good at brokering situations when everybody else fails because they I don't think they've invaded Afghanistan in recent times, have they? Well, I I don't know if there's that much money left in the opium trade, but, you know Yeah. Right. Yeah. Alright. So our theme, survival in the age of division. So last weekend, there was an article in Australia's the Saturday paper, which again will be in my weekend reads, and it's called 12 keys to good leadership by Barry Jones. The the article is actually very much a sort of an Australian political sort of conversation about what's going on with Albanese and others. But I think it also sort of more broadly linked to the authoritarian authoritarian sort of discussion we were having earlier. So it starts by discussing Umberto Eco's fascism. Is that is that how you guys say it? Do you know fascism? The eternal or prime primal fascism. And in in this, he listed 4 general, properties of fascist ideology. He argued they could not be organized into a coherent system because some are contradictory and typical of other types of fanaticism and authoritarianism, but he argued it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it. I love that way of describing it, coagulate around it. So at least 5 of these general properties are current, not only in the US, but also in Australia. So, Joe, do you wanna take us through the 5? Yeah. Okay. I just wanna go back as well because you said you said there were 4, then 14, different ones. The 5 that are at the front of everything is, number 1 is appeal to social frustration. One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation and were frightened by the pressure of lower social groups or pressure from lower social groups. And number 2 is the obsession with a plot. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve a plot is therefore, perhaps or not not therefore, but it could be xenophobia. It's one of the big things. 3 is an enemy that is both strong and weak. And this is in terms of your rhetoric. By continuous shifting of rhetoric focus, the enemies are, at the same time, too strong and too weak, much the same way that Donald Trump is describing Kamala Harris right now. Yep. Selective populism. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism with which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the voice of the people. This is the, the the amplification, that can lead to the rise of popular ideas without the need of well, without the intervention of of editors along the way. The other the other idea in, that's being spoken about is ur fascism speaking news speak. What what he means by this is like, as as an illustration. All the Nazi fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary and an elementary syntax in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. Quite the opposite of what the sentence was about. Basically Yeah. It's it's about how they they they they they it's it's it's always about being the victim, always about being the victim and making it as simple as possible as an idea. And I think you saw Trump try and do that. I don't think he reads the books, but he has a tendency to try and use the playbook. When he was talking about conscription the other day, which is a ridiculous way he used it. It was just saying like, he's trying to make this whole sad story happen where you go like, and you're just sitting home and your kid comes back and says, What's this green paper? It's a conscription. It's going off to war. It was the worst acting you've seen in a long time. But yeah. So those are the big five that are in place currently that are giving, giving rise to the fascists in the world. Yeah. So I'm I'm sure we can all see this stuff at play because because I also looked at that last one, 5, impoverished vocabulary, like, the low low lowest common denominator. Right? And also, you know, if you're using so science is incredibly complex, and one of its challenges simplifying its communication. So, you know, when there's a, there's a, a way of communicating that's in simple, easy to understand communication, and then there's a complicated story, People are going for the simple rather than the complicated and the complicated, you know, and then there's lots of other things that go with it. But anyway, so, this guy, what was his author's name? Barry Jones. So he he put this piece together, and then he's come up with 12 year 12 essential factors in leadership necessary for stable liberal democracy. And I thought it'd be really worth us going through the 12 and just having a quick discussion around each point because this is a good focus for us all as leaders, as influencers, as people working in businesses, as people who are influencing our families and our communities, we, we can, we can be driving home the message that this is what we should be expecting from ourselves and from our leaders. So, Adeline, do you wanna kick us off with the first one? Yep. I I will just put the con the leadership context, the commercial context. The first point, that he mentioned is curiosity and vision. I think this is so important. Right? Because if I could take a step back and ask, do you know that in the 19 sixties, what's the average, life expect expectancy of companies in S and P 500? Is 61 years. Right? And the average lifespan of people, expectancy of people at that time was 51 years. And fast forward today in the 20 twenties, the average life expectancy of companies in the S and P 500 is actually 20 years. And the life expectancy no. It's gone down. It was 61 years in the 1960s. No. No. No. I was I was remembering at the beginning of this century. I thought it was shorter. So okay. So it's around sitting around the 20 mark. So so now it's 20. So 2020 is right? The average life and life expectancy of people is 71 globally, 83 in most part of Asia. So if you look at just just the position, right, what it means is that pace of change is no longer constant. It is exponential. So as a leader, they need to actually be able to, you know, look at, what's ahead of them by keeping abreast of what's ahead, have the vision to be able to inspire the the people in the organisation and and being curious, this Mark, Banyo from sales CEO of Salesforce said this and I would quote him. He said that, we need to be aware of our we need to predict the future for us to be able to, be flexible, to adapt, right, in the changes in the business world. Yeah. That's an interesting, take on it. I wasn't I wasn't expecting you to say that. So that was a really interesting take. And one of the definitions he's got here is understanding how global systems work and how humanity adapts, and I thought that was a really key thing. So, you know, working in big corporations, you got you got a 3 months you got a 3 month vision, then you got a 12 month vision, except if you're a Japanese company where it's 20, 30, 40 year vision. So curiosity and vision, I thought, was a really interesting place to start, to I I value curiosity above pretty much anything in in the people that I meet, being curious, being asking questions. You know, that to me is, you know, they're the people you should have a chat with. And in these days, even if you have a 3 year plan, it gets disrupted. It it evolves. Right? Yep. In fact, I I remember reading an I think an article from PwC, CEO survey, an annual survey. 50% of the CEOs actually, shared that they do not believe their business will survive in the next 10 years unless they reinvent. So so that that's, of course, aligned with our own research that I do for my book. Right? And, you know, the the the idea of curiosity is so important because if you are so fixated about what your business plan is and not being able to adapt and not being able to see what's in the future, you know, you wouldn't be able to survive. And if you look at the business world, you know, what happens to Kodak, you know, Blockbuster. Alright? Yep. Yep. From what I'm saying that, I think the failure rate will be at least 80%. Alright, Joe. Number 2. Alright. So number 2, in terms of the traits of leadership. By the way, I hope you're taking notes. These work for being a parent as well. Knowledge knowledge and judgment, seeking expert advice, encouraging feedback, being open to alternative explanations, managing ambiguities, mastering the evidence. It's about being a little bit more scientific in the way you approach things, right? Because the way scientists or academics look at things is they tend to look at authorities who has the authority to speak on these topics. They're also open to getting feedback. So the really, really, really happy academics are the ones who are thrilled when they're told that they were wrong because they're also curious about how they were wrong, and they wanna go on to to to learn about how things actually work. Being open to alternative explanations, that's that's huge. Because if you are able to see a different perspective, you can figure out how this makes sense in a different way. And many times things happen in the world where if things are not happening your way, it makes sense to somebody else. And if you can figure out how it makes sense to them, it can also make sense to you and that gives you a way to move from there emotionally as well. It kind of it kind of releases you. Managing ambiguities, You know, life isn't about just black and whites. You you are gonna end up with things where both things may be right and may be wrong. And at the same time and you gotta figure a way to go like and that's okay. So it's the idea, I guess, of agreeing to disagree, but at least find out what it is all about before you disagree. And the last part is about mastering the evidence. So I see that. This is my interpretation of what I see in this, mastering the evidence, is to be to to to to look deeper into it. Don't just take something and accept it as evidence. You really have to go like, is this does this qualify as evidence of what I'm what I think it is? Is this if if if I if I say everyone's talking about it, am I talking about everyone for real, or am I talking about everyone who happens to be in the same WhatsApp group anyway? Yeah. I I I think that I I think it's this one, to me, is one of the best ones. I I I would add to it. Don't be scared of, listening to someone's opinion who who which does scare you. Right? So I I I've had many conversations where people are like, they're scared of what I'm saying. And and and that then that and that closes them off. So if if if you know someone who spent a lot of time understanding something complicated, at least try not to censor them when that when you ask them to speak about it just because it makes you uncomfortable. So I think that's a really important thing as well. But, yeah, that's a good one. So the next one, number 3, basing decisions on principles and beliefs, not on reading the tea leaves or news poll and not on panic. So I always say try and step back, try and be objective, try not to get emotions involved. I think, Joe, your post on, LinkedIn was really about, this essentially, we're we're willing to compromise on our principles when things get a little bit uncomfortable. I think that was one of the comments that you were saying. Right? So principles and beliefs being really anchoring yourself. I always say anchor yourselves deeply in your values, and don't let anyone sway sway you off it. Alright. Adeline, number 4. Well, it's about taking comp tackling complexity. Right? As what we have discussed today, we talk about climate change, we talk about geopolitical tension, the aging population, and of course, with AI thrown in the picture, we are seeing the con convergence or the confluence of such, global mega trends that is shaping businesses. And and therefore, leaders need to be able to be able tech tackle this complexity that comes with it because it has got ramifications. Right? Supply chains is impacted. You know, how will geopolitical tensions impact trade? And and, of course, not to mention this black swan events, like COVID 19. Who would have guessed that it would have got so many impact? Right? And, rejecting oversimplification because now we are moving into a a a very complex world with all the con especially made worse by this, confluence of this global maker trends and the Black Swan events. Yeah. Yeah. I like I I really like rejecting oversimplification, so that's something we've spent a lot of time talking about, nuance. It's so complicated. But the other the other comment there is, of course, fundamentalism, and that's a huge risk. And fundamentalism comes in many, many forms, and that's an absolute belief, in in the in the tribe and the clan, and, you know, there's no compromise there. Joe? So point number 5, is about testing hypotheses for falsifiability. Okay? So what is this? Falsifiability is, it is a philosophical idea, thanks to Karl Popper, a British philosopher, an Austrian British philosopher. Now, the idea behind falsi viability is this, can you test your hypothesis with an experiment where you can be proven wrong? So it is basically that when you have a when you when you have a when you have some kind of idea, in in science, they call that the hypothesis. They say, like, if if I do this, then that happens. So that's likely to happen. What this is is actually saying to you that you should be able to test your ideas in such a way that the right evidence will prove you wrong. Right? So that you you you're not gonna say something that, that cannot be proven otherwise. Like, for instance, I say, like, tomorrow tomorrow will always come. It it it seems like the thing that is immovable and can't be stopped, but it is also something you can't really test. You can't really disprove it. There's no way of of of really trying to to to put an experiment around that. And so That's a good example. Yeah. So some of these some of these ideas work like that. So, you know, when someone has a policy for instance, there's this idea, like, like, what an economic policy might be. I won't mention either side of it, but it's like, if your economic policy is such and such, it should hold up to this particular, rule as well or this this this trait as well. Can you prove that it's wrong if the results aren't quite what you expect or whatever? Right? So it's it's about being open. I so so far, what I've been seeing actually, a lot of these so far have been tied up to the idea that, you know what? You could be wrong. That's that's really one of the big, takeaways for me so far. Yeah. And and and being open to that. Because the next one is flexibility. Number 6, when the facts change, I change my opinion. So, you know, I I look at what I've been doing almost exclusively for 7 years, which is tracking what's going on in in in our world, in our environment, and all of the impacts. And I've been constantly challenging my opinion. So when I come up against someone who's absolute in their belief and they've never spent any time challenging it, I I just I I I I don't understand how anyone could be happy with that because I don't wanna be right and I don't wanna be wrong. Right? I just but I just but I but I wanna follow the path of the knowledge. So he says, contrary to this rejection of expertise as elitist, and this is a huge problem that we've got in the world. You know, when you saw the the fall of Persia, the first thing they did was get rid of the, the academics, you know, because they're they're a threat. And the promotion of alternative facts. And so we live in this world and those alternative facts, of course, things like climate change, fossil fuels, COVID 19 treatment. I mean, we've got it I I think one of the biggest challenges we've got on our hands right now is working out how do how do we move past this? Because there can't be alternative facts. There can't be. Like, if if it's not true, it's not a fact. Right? So I don't know. That to me, that's one of the big big issues that we've got. I know what do you guys think about that one? There there is a challenge with what is considered to be true and evidence. That that that's something which, again, is a problem because, you know, like, even in science, right, you you you you have some things where people have fully decided that this is the case. Right? But there are also other situations where there are 3 competing, hypotheses or theories that are the leading hypothesis or theories. And by nature but the nature of logic is that, well, 2 of them are gonna be wrong for sure. And even the one that's remaining may not be right. Right? So that that's the thing about facts. You you you what you what you need to have, I think, is a kind of a sense where you go like, I'm going to have a, a process by which, or or or a kind of of a ranking system or a standard that you have to cross before I go like, okay. This is this is fact. This is enough for me to say this is this is factual enough. Because if we go we go purely with whether or not something is a fact, there are lots of things that that that really were facts. And it's a strange thing to say those things, but, you know, that that's that's the nature of life. We are gonna discover new things, new perspectives, and we'll figure out one day that maybe all this is a simulation that changes all the facts. Right? So that's that's, that's that's basically the idea here. So, the feasibility Is it truth or facts? I suppose maybe it's facts is the wrong word. Well, I think I think there are always two sides to deploy. Right? And also relating, but the first point about curiosity, knowing, being able to adapt as well knowing what are the things are changing so fast. Right? And how do you balance that? What is the fact and how things are evolving? What could be a fact in the past may not be fact factual now, right, because of the rate of things are moving. But when you're looking in real time, right, so drinking bleach will help you with deal with COVID. That's not a fact. That's not a good idea. The the government calls the hurricanes, Milton and Helene. It's not a fact. The earth is not flat. It's not a fact. And I don't mind the fact that we have people in the world that believe that stuff. I don't. I I I actually don't. But I think our leaders shouldn't believe that stuff, maybe. Just maybe. That's Well What what's our limit? Here's So so this is the the difference between an intelligent person and a well informed one. Right? So I believe that there are a lot of people who are intelligent and are horribly informed. And so what they what they they do pick up as real is that first contact they've had with the information. So there's a reason why, for instance, now, today, we have more people who believe the earth is flat than they used to, because, you know, it it it never used to be a thing. As in, like, you know, we we we think that in modern times, you know, we we how can we think this and we think that? In the old days, they thought that. Actually, in the old days, less people thought about whether the earth was flat. There were only a few people who were so insistent about the earth being flat and those are people who were involved in traveling. They were they were on the seas. And for them, that was of concern whether the Earth was flat. Yeah. And it wasn't it wasn't a widely held view. Most people didn't think about the Earth. They didn't know about the Earth. They just lived in a place. But you know what? When you are when when when the idea is expressed to you and brought to you in certain ways, and you don't have the intellectual, depth as well as information or education, you can't really say, oh, no. That's not the case. I don't think it's right. You know? You you you do need to have a really firm understanding of spherical objects, for instance, to understand why some of the ideas that support a flat earth theory just aren't true. And, you know, so the challenge right now is this. Right? So if I were to try to tell you ask you right now to prove to me that the Earth was not flat, it'd be difficult. And the reason is because we also don't have that education ourselves. We haven't really thought about it. We have also just accepted the idea, and it just happens to be that we got it from a good source. Yeah. So I suppose, talking about Copernicus Copernicus, I I in Singapore, I wonder if the stick in the ground showing the moving shadow would actually work because the sun's so directly overhead. You know, that it might not actually work in the same way as what what he did. But but I think what Peter's saying here is everyone thought the world was flat. You know, the ships were worried about going off the edge. But, actually, the majority of people didn't think about the fact that the earth was flat because they didn't think about anything at all regarding Mhmm. The shape of the earth. Right? And then we didn't think about it. And, of course, the church has obviously had an influence. But yeah. But I don't know. If we're just from a leadership perspective, maybe maybe we can come up with a consensus on what's true. As far as, you know, around the world, what's true? And we can still have people believing lots of different win wonderful things, But what's true as a global society that's gonna move us forward? Maybe we can have a standard. I don't know. So the the the I think the the the real big revelation of revel what was what was huge about, this is in I can't remember the name of the author right now, but he was the one who basically, wrote Sapiens. He's written the new book called Nexus. Yevar, the new book. Right. Okay. So, he's talking about information and how information has changed everything. They've been information revolutions all along the way. And saying that, you know, when newspapers came along, radio and television, that kind of stuff, there was the ability for the the the larger groups to to be exposed to the same information and therefore begin to agree largely on the same thing. Now what's happened now is we moved on to the next phase where we can have this customized personal, mass media. So is that you you get access to a lot of different feeds, but it's not the same as the person next to you who has access to another combination of a lot of different feeds. And so the problem now is there is this very real situation where for a certain audience, their facts, as we have just defined them, actually are different. So, you know, what what are facts in the end? So the the the very interesting idea that that I that I heard was that there's a difference between what is false and what sorry. There there is there's a difference between what anyway, I I didn't have this full full full thought, birthed out yet. But, the idea basically is you can have something that is truth that is made of fiction. Right? So, like, for instance, money. The example that he gave himself was money. Money is a fiction, but it's true. Right? So that's the kind of thing that that that comes into existence because it is called into existence and it's agreed upon by consensus. And when there's enough of a consensus, this becomes a fact. So it's a it's a like for instance, like the the discussion that we're having right now about democracy and and and and and and fascism. Right? What works? What's the best thing for all of us? It depends on the moment. It depends who you are. It depends where you are. It depends about the world around you at that particular time because something is right about that. Something is wrong about that. You know, when when when Duarte first came to power and what he was doing at the at the at the start of it, to some, made a lot of sense. To some that were in the midst of all that, in the gang violence and all that, it made a lot of sense because suddenly, there was a bigger shark in the water. It was just later on when they felt like, okay. Looking back, they weren't proud of it. No. I'll just sort of push back at the time and, of course, it was these repression of journalists and what was the Nobel Laureate's name? That's the lady, who won. Yep. Yeah. So, that's an interesting one. So flexibility. When the facts change, I change my opinion. So, yeah. Okay. So number 7 is ambition, Adeline. I can talk about that. It's Barry Jones talked about taking the long term view, having an eye to history. How would I be remembered? And and this reminds me of, Steve Jobs. Right? He said that, he connects the dots backwards to move forward looking at history and what's the leverage. At the same time, when I look at, how he drives his business and how he created new products, he on top of this, future back thinking. Because who would have, you know, thought about a touchscreen phone? In those days, Nokia was the the king. Right? The monopol was the market leader. And we were happily, you know, seeing Motorola using Motorola phones. I was in the telco industry at that time. And then, we had the smartphones, and he doesn't believe in research. Right? He took a very customer centric approach. And who would know that a phone is now a, alarm clock, a currency converter, and and and and and everything else. Right? And and a calculator as well. So it's just not just connecting the dots backward to move forward, but having a future, focused thinking to help, drive the business forward. So I I would explain this as that. Yeah. One of the things I liked about this was having an eye to history. So history is one of my big passions, and, I find most people who are curious are very passionate about history as well because you can see things happening today that are reflected in history. And for other people, it's like the first time these things have ever happened. So when you when you can look so one thing by looking back at history is you know the risks of what's happening now. Mhmm. So, you know, that's why you speak up and you get concerned. But, also, how will I be remembered? So he now he was really in in this article, he was really sending a message out to Anthony Albanese, who's the Australian prime minister, and he thinks he he he thinks he needs to stand up and do something really bold, and he does have an opportunity to do that. He really does have an opportunity. And I I I I hope he does it because, to go back to the Liberal Party where they were before and, Australia was, not a country that I was proud of for a very long time because of that, I think he's got an opportunity. But for but for all of us, how will I be remembered? How will I be be remembered as the parent at this time? Am I fighting for my kid's future? How will I be remembered as a, as, as a leader in business? You know? Am I am I a champion within and without my business for the future of humanity? You know, there's so there's so many ways you could ask answer that question. I thought that was really cool. Yep. What do you reckon, Joe? I was I was gonna say that ambition, if if if it's just by itself without the other 12, is very dangerous because I think we we can see that there are a lot of people trying to make sure that they will forever be remembered, and it's without the rest of it. That's the that's the thing. So it's important to think that it's all altogether in context. Yeah. Or ambition without ego, maybe. It should be. I I think I think I think a certain amount of ego is actually absolutely necessary because if you if you I I won't even I'm sorry, I ended up tempering it. I think you need a tremendous ego to be a good leader but you need to have enough self awareness to understand that all of it comes together. You have to have an ego big enough to make yourself, to allow yourself to enter the world to be curious to be wrong and to be hated by people to the same time go like it. And it's also the conviction, right? Whether do you believe that it is a like, what Simon said in his book, the infinite game? Is it going and it'd be competition. Is it going to be a zero sum game, or can it be a win win? I don't know about the ego thing. I think, I think being ambitious and being self assured, confident, and self aware are the critical things. Yep. Yep. All all good traits to be to be, I think, looked out for in in in someone that is gonna be able to lead other people. But I think your inner core has to be strong enough. You have to be kind of I I feel like as as a person, at the at the core, you have to be nuclear powered. Right? You have to be Yeah. Just capable of creating your own energy. And that's how you can, in the worst of times, still have energy. Should I move on to number 8? Yep. Okay. Well, number 8 is urgency. The capacity to organize time, set goals, and prioritize. Basically means why I am not a great leader. I I I think it's about the the the the the sense that you're running out of time. I think, one of the again, since we we spoke about Steve Jobs, one of the great quotes from him, I I won't say quote because I kinda remember how to say it, but he he described it basically this, that that the best gift is knowing that you're running out of time. Best gift live live your life like you were dying because you are. Right? And the the idea of urgency is what makes things happen. Because if you haven't if you have time, if you don't you know, so so the the problems that we're facing right now globally in terms of, about the the climate and stuff now, I would say it's a time that the urgency will be recognized by others as well. So it's it's been urgent by as far as a number of other, individuals are concerned, it's a growing number of individuals, but that urgency is something that is that is growing with everybody. But that that that trait as a leadership is to go, okay. Now with all these things that I have to do and given the time that I have to do them, which are the ones that I'm gonna do first? That is, the the the real big challenge. And, you know, with with big complex global problems that we have right now, it is very challenging. Do I and this is what America has to do, I think. Do I fix the economy now, or do I save the world by fixing the by by by fixing the climate? Yeah. Interesting. Right. So I'm happy with the next one for me. Courage and advocacy is number 9. So preparedness and so remember, this was written I think it was written for politicians. So but I I think it's more broadly. But and and then when you think about the urgency factor, you know, so a typical political campaign in in a a lot of western democracies is 3 to 4 years. Right? So it's not a long time to sort of make your mark. But courage and advocacy, preparedness to take unpopular decisions, take risks and explain and convince. This is something that I don't think many are very good at. Being prepared to make enemies on a matter of high principle is essential. Often the best thing a leader can say is you won't like what I'm about to tell you. I say that a lot, by the way. Wicked problems arise when good decisions have a negative impact elsewhere. Shutting down coal mines is an example. So courage and advocacy, preparedness to take unpopular decisions and to take risks. And you could argue that Elon Musk's fantastic at that. Right? Risk taker. He sort of burns things down to get things moving. But it for me, in his case, the expense of you know, I I I do do do you know that I think it's called above the stratosphere is some other sphere that starts with t. I can't remember what it is. Do you know? Stratosphere? It can't be Stratosphere, but, anyway, alright, we'll do some research. One of his rockets blew up in that area and blew a massive hole in it. We still don't know what that impact is gonna be on us, and it doesn't obviously get a lot of, coverage or or discussion, but it it's there. So this massive hole, we don't know the impact of the atmosphere. No. It's definitely started with t, but it could be. I I could be wrong. So, you know, taking risks. Thermosphere. Thermosphere. There you go. Consider considered risks, I think, is important. Deep sea mining is an example. To me, it's not a considered risk. There's, like, gonna be a lot of geoengineering, things that are gonna be happening, that are gonna happen. They're gonna happen, in from leadership of our own countries. They're gonna happen from leadership from other countries. You know, if you read Ministry of the Future, you know, the whole story, India decides to go up there and and dump sulfates in the atmosphere to cool the earth. You know, so these sort of things are now are are in our future. So courage and advocacy, but working in collaboration with other leaders, obviously, I think would make a big difference. Yeah. What what I what I think I'm picking up really along the way is that all these, traits you're talking about are great leadership. Right? I think if overexpressed without the influence of the others is where you find the real problems in the world because you get these very, very high impact individuals who are great in 3 or 4 of these things and just 0 or less in some of the others. And you get what seems, you know, like great leadership because people are attracted to that. You were you were going to like, for instance, if if you just, you know, I just I was just thinking about this, like like courage and advocacy. Right? If you just had someone who was all courage and advocacy, they would be attractive. People would be drawn to them. I know. Yeah. Look for the 12. Yeah. Okay. Here we go. Number 10. Concern for the welfare of others. What Barry Jones talk about is including people never seen by our leaders, empathy, avoiding suffering and recognizing the value of individual lives globally, and rejecting the promotion of the vision as a political strategy. I mean, we are seeing this in the US politics. Right? Do you put the party above the country or the country above the parties. Right? And at at the leadership level as well. How can you be more inclusive so that as a leader, you can get galvanize the people towards a common shared vision, right, and looking after the welfare of others. In fact, burnout rate, across the world, it's getting higher because of the pressure for businesses, the concern anxiety about AI being destructive to their work. And I think these are the things that leaders need to be aware of and and be cognizant, especially, to to be able to motivate and inspire the people. You know, when you talk about business leaders, like, understanding, you you know, when you get down to your scope 3, so the peep the businesses that operate at that level for you, it's not just the emissions that's created. Is there human suffering? Is there human slavery? You know, having compassion for that and and and driving your business to change so you take that out out of play. Right? As a leader, you know, othering the the people who are, you know, in in in Latin America, they're they're they're starving. The the there's war, the climate impacts, which, you know, 77% of emissions come from the g 20 nations. 77%. Right? And the people who are coming into your country from the from those nations outside of that are not causing the problem. You're causing the problem. They're escaping the problem that you caused. So how can we have empathy? How can we get prepared? How can we stop the political, narrative, you know. And a bit I I was reading an article the other week, which was the early sort of foundation of where these, the what what's it called? The race theory, you you know, this American sort of antagonism. That one. Yeah. And it's actually really quite interesting because it started in environmental roots, and, it grew from that basis because, basically, people could see that eventually the people that were down there are gonna come up here because because down there has gotten so bad, they'll need to come up here, which which I I hadn't kind of put those pieces together. So what the the mentality build the wall, keep them out, make them suffer, separate the families, all that sort of stuff. Right? There doesn't seem to be any effort in into into understanding, well, how can we make sure that that doesn't happen? How can how can we make life possible for them to stay where they are because they wanna stay where they are? And if they can't stay where they are, we're responsible for that. So what can we do to help them? You know, just why can't we have that conversation instead of the, we gotta protect our own, we gotta put up the walls because that's gonna be crap too. Like, there's no there's no win out of this. Right? So, yeah, I think compassion and empathy is sort of it's gotta be at the center. And if you're following a leader with none, then that should be a sign. So maybe number 10 for me is probably the most important of them all. Mhmm. Well, number 11, I have I I will admit to to having some challenges with honesty and accountability, answering questions directly, being truthful, taking responsibility for mistakes, rejecting spin, and encouraging followers to be honest with themselves. The reason why I have challenges with this is because I I also think about this in terms of what I do for a living. I'm, I'm a presentation coach. I'm a storyteller. I help people create spin. Right? I'm actually helping people put a better a better a better shine on things. But I I don't think they're mutually exclusive because I I do believe in this thing where there is a there is this thing about being truthful. There's an idea where if you tell me something, it can be truthful. It can seem like it makes sense. It is not obviously something that is false that you're trying to drag me across. But I also think that this this list is a list that seems to me a list of maybe not innate traits as much as what should be expressed. And just go with me about, on this. It's it's about the person who behaves in this way consistently. You know, you you you don't necessarily want someone to be a 100% honest with you. You don't want to go into the president's office and say, we need you right now. And you go, I don't feel like it. I'm hungry. You know, because that may be that may be honest, but it's not it's not the moment you want from them. So there is that as well. So I always feel it's about tempering it. I think it's about putting on the role of honesty and accountability as best as you can and living up to that. Combine that with how history will remember you, and I think, and I think this this belongs very much in this list. I don't think you teach spin. I think you you teach authentic leadership in in as a core message. Spin spins to me is a different thing, but look, but we're we're I'm looking at the time. So the final one is making clear what you stand for. So this involves I think, you know, if you know me, you know what I stand for. Right? I don't think it I don't think I hide it at all. But this involves the capacity to gain loyalty and trust to inspire confidence and sacrifice. You're not gonna make a sacrifice if you don't trust the person. It obviously can have a downside because Trump rejects his core beliefs much better than Kamala Harris, for example. So, yeah, we we know that the, the great orators in in our leadership positions in history are not necessarily always the greatest leaders, but sometimes a great orator orator can be a great leader. But so that's what I liked about this was the combination of all of these things, you know, and just that awareness that we should just look look out. Right? And and they he finished with, if he could recommend 3, it's curiosity, advocacy, and vision. So I thought that was was a good Yep. But, a good sort of conclusion to it. But, yeah, let's sort of wrap it up. Adeline, so we have a tradition when we finish the show that you have to share what is distracting you at the moment, and it could be anything, what you're reading, listening to. What is distracting me at the moment, I'm keeping an eye on how AI is evolving and impacting jobs. In fact, I just I just went to the library to borrow this book. The okay. You can't see it. The Algorithmic leader. How to be smart when machines are smarter than you. You should you should have you been listening to Yuval Nahari's, recent speeches on AI and algorithms and everything he's been saying? I I should I should pick it up. Is is it on Ted talk TED Talk? No. He's just you'll find him. Just go on to YouTube. You'll find him. Yeah. Okay. He's also he's also been, he's also been been on a book tour because of Texas, the Dubai. So you don't know. Okay. What what's the other thing? Yvonne? Oh, Yvonne. Y u v I l. Okay. Okay. Just search for just search for, author of Sapiens. You'll Oh, okay. The author of Sapiens. Okay. Got it. Yeah. I'll I'll try it now. Alright. Joe, what do you what's what's keeping you distracted? Well, I've been trying to automate my business. I've been actually, playing around with a lot of AI, and, I I know this hurts you, when you hear that. But I I'm I'm I'm working on I I've I've I've put my first chatbot together. I'm trying to teach it, a bit more about myself so we can answer questions, in a in a coherent way. But, yeah, I'm I've been I've been really working on on this. It's it's AI is taking away a lot of excuses for me because one of the things that I really, really don't do well with is actually teams. I'm I'm I'm I'm a solopreneur, and I have not been able to to to hire any additional help for the various things that I need mostly because I think I can do it. And now, actually, with AI, a lot of that is true. I can I can, I can not only do it myself, I can actually set up, you know, an agent to do what I need to do when I'm not looking at it? You know, results can sometimes be, you know, unexpected, but, that's what keeps it interesting, I guess. Right. Well, there's if I if I had AI doing anything for me, it would be outsourcing some of the other things that I have to do that I don't wanna do, some of the parenting things I have to do or, you know, house cleaning. I see some of the jokes. If AI was really gonna be great, it'd be washing our clothes, doing our dishes, and really giving us time to relax. Right? So I wanna recommend a show on Netflix, and it's called Nobody Wants This. Has anyone seen it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun. Yeah. Did you see it? Yep. I I had it lined up for the last show, but, of course, I had to drop out. Yeah. So it's, it's about a a young, Jewish rabbi, who falls in love with a a female American, podcast host who talks about men and sex, basically. So they get they get they get together, and, it's it's very, very funny. It's very, very clever, and, it's a good yarn if you wanna have a bit of a distraction for what's going on in the world. Steve's just been away for a couple of weeks, so I've been watching soppy Christmas movies and the sort of things that, I can't watch with him because he could chick flick type stuff. Well, I think I think, nobody wants this as awkward enough for a guy to follow you on the journey. What's that? It's awkward. It's just it's just it's just, it's sufficiently awkward for it to be an interesting rump. It's a, you know, like a it it manages to drag out, one simple problem. Right? How how does this guy end up with this girl into a series? So it it it's done it's done well. And it's not, it is not a chick flick. It's, it's very clever. Yeah. And it's sort of Yeah. Social commentary on on on today and a lot of the stuff and the nonsense that goes on in the world. Alright. Adeline, I hope you enjoyed being here with us. Alright. You're on mute, doll. Oh, let me get you off. Alright. Thanks for having me on this call, on the show. Yeah. I hope you enjoyed it. Have you learned something today? Oh, yes. I was just taking notes. Bye. Excellent. Anyway, good to see you, Joe. So Tim's away because it's Diwali. So happy Diwali to or Deepa Valley depending on where you are. To all of our friends who are celebrating, I'm enjoying seeing all the beautiful photos of everybody dressed up for, for Diwali on Facebook. Are you guys seeing all your friends posting the lovely family photos? It's like Christmas, food and doos. Right? Yeah. It's definitely it's definitely a very festive time. I'm I'll I mean, as we look out the windows, we just see all the the bright flashing lights in the in the in the units across from us. So that's, that's something to look at. Alright. And Christmas trees are being set up as well. So, it's too early for that. You shouldn't do that till the beginning of December because bad luck. Right? I do know that the moss are putting up Christmas trees already. Wow. That's crazy. This year has gone so fast. Alright. So thanks for joining us, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Alright? Thank you. Bye. Yep. Bye.