Speaker 1: The question is not whether you're the type of person
Speaker 1: who can change the world. The question is whether you're
Speaker 1: the type of person who wants to know they tried.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Colin Bevan.
Speaker 1: Colin's writings, speaking, consulting, and activism have changed and encouraged
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people to examine their lives to
Speaker 1: discover what's really important to them. Colin is among the
Speaker 1: world's best known spokespeople on environmental issues, consumerism and human
Speaker 1: quality of life. He was labeled one of the ten
Speaker 1: most influential men on MSN and Eco Illuminator by All
Speaker 1: magazine and a Best Green Ambassador by tree Hugger dot com.
Speaker 1: His blog was selected as one of the top fifteen
Speaker 1: environmental blogs by Time Magazine. Colin has appeared on The
Speaker 1: Coal Bear, Raport, Good Morning America Nightline, and countless other
Speaker 1: TV and radio shows. Here's the interview. Hi Colin, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Hi Eric, thanks for having me. I'm
Speaker 1: excited to get you on. Your new book is called
Speaker 1: How to Be Alive, a Guide to the kind of
Speaker 1: happiness that helps the world. And really the whole book
Speaker 1: is pretty much a focus on what it means to
Speaker 1: live a good life, and and our our subtitle for
Speaker 1: the show is Conversations about creating a life worth living.
Speaker 1: So this should be a great discussion. I was first
Speaker 1: introduced to you, like many many people were, when you
Speaker 1: were doing the No Impact Man project. And I started
Speaker 1: a solar energy company a very similar time too when
Speaker 1: you started the No Impact Man project. So we certainly, uh,
Speaker 1: we're walking in some parallel directions back then. So I'm
Speaker 1: interested to get more into what you're doing now, Yeah, great,
Speaker 1: and thanks for doing some work in solar energy. That's
Speaker 1: definitely the good life right there. Yes, it was, although
Speaker 1: doing solar energy in Ohio and the political structure in
Speaker 1: Ohio slowly made it not quite as much of a
Speaker 1: good life, But I understand. So let's start, like we
Speaker 1: always do, with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking
Speaker 1: with his grandson and he says, in life, there are
Speaker 1: two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. You know, it's it's thinking.
Speaker 1: It's a lovely parable, um because it tells us that
Speaker 1: we have choices and how we live and and and
Speaker 1: it's also kind of a gentle parable. It doesn't say
Speaker 1: you know, you have to kill the parts of you that,
Speaker 1: UM feel unwholesome. It just it just tells you to
Speaker 1: focus on the parts of you that feel wholesome. And
Speaker 1: I like that too, um. And what interested me was
Speaker 1: that there's a part in my book where I say
Speaker 1: the entire are underlying principle of this book is to
Speaker 1: have the life that you want, and to have a
Speaker 1: life that's not just good for you, but good for
Speaker 1: your community and good for the world. All you have
Speaker 1: to do is, day by day, give more energy to
Speaker 1: that which is true for you, and give less energy
Speaker 1: to that which is not true for you. And that
Speaker 1: presupposes that what's actually and deeply and most profoundly true
Speaker 1: for you is what makes you happier and what helps
Speaker 1: other people too. So the idea is that you don't
Speaker 1: have to change your whole life radically, just at this moment,
Speaker 1: just day by day, take energy away from what's not true,
Speaker 1: give more energy to what is true, and and in
Speaker 1: many ways that's feeding one wolf and not the other exactly,
Speaker 1: it's very similar. That was one of the things I
Speaker 1: was going to get to in the book is that
Speaker 1: I love that quote, which I think you've said kind
Speaker 1: of sums up. If you take a something page book
Speaker 1: and put it down into two lines, that was kind
Speaker 1: of what you said would be the the biggest summary
Speaker 1: of the book. That's right, I mean, I mean, then
Speaker 1: what happens in the book is it talks about the
Speaker 1: different relationships that we have with the world. I say
Speaker 1: that our life, ourself in fact, resides in our relationship
Speaker 1: with the world. It's a delusion actually that we're separate
Speaker 1: from the world, where one thing, both the world and ourselves,
Speaker 1: reside in our relationship between the two. And we have
Speaker 1: lots of these relationships. We relate to the world through
Speaker 1: the food we through the way we transport ourselves, through
Speaker 1: our civic engagement, through are friends, through our jobs. That's
Speaker 1: just for There's hundreds of ways we relate to the world.
Speaker 1: And so the book largely is about saying, how do
Speaker 1: I give energy to what is true in the various
Speaker 1: types of relationships we have, Because sometimes, even though it
Speaker 1: sounds so simple to give more energy to what's true
Speaker 1: for you, give less energy to what's not true for you. Um,
Speaker 1: it takes a little sorting out to kind of figure
Speaker 1: out how to do that in the different ways that
Speaker 1: we relate Early on in the book, you reference no
Speaker 1: Impact Man and No Impact Man for people who aren't aware,
Speaker 1: was your attempt over the course of a year to
Speaker 1: have as little negative impact on the earth from environmental
Speaker 1: perspective as possible. And you say that the surprising result
Speaker 1: of No Impact Man is that I learned that we
Speaker 1: don't have to deprive ourselves for the sake of the world.
Speaker 1: It is not about not wanting things. Instead, we simply
Speaker 1: have to learn to want the things that actually make
Speaker 1: us happy. What are those things? Can I just say
Speaker 1: that for me, this is so inspiring, this idea that
Speaker 1: what's truly good for me is also good for everybody else,
Speaker 1: That it's not as zero sum gain. What truly makes
Speaker 1: me happy also happens to be good for other people,
Speaker 1: and that that's a wonderful thing. We don't have to
Speaker 1: reside in this place where we're either a martyr who's
Speaker 1: giving up everything for the world and everybody else, or
Speaker 1: a scoundrel where we are actually only caring about ourselves
Speaker 1: and doing things for ourselves. But I actually have a
Speaker 1: schema where you can be a victim, which is somebody
Speaker 1: who doesn't do anything for themselves or the world because
Speaker 1: they feel, you know, they can't. A scoundrel who does
Speaker 1: everything for themselves and not the world, a martyr who
Speaker 1: does everything for the world and not themselves for the
Speaker 1: hero who actually takes care of both at the same time.
Speaker 1: And all of us have that hero within us. So
Speaker 1: the research is very strong. My own lay person's way
Speaker 1: of saying, it is becoming yourself to help the world
Speaker 1: and helping the world to become yourself. You know, that
Speaker 1: could sound fastile, like it's some sort of a New
Speaker 1: Age saying or something, but the psychological research shows that
Speaker 1: it's true. We have more or less for psychological needs
Speaker 1: relating to our happiness, and when we fulfill these needs,
Speaker 1: we feel satisfied. One is obviously just the need for
Speaker 1: security and to have our physical needs met shelter, food, sex, water, sleep.
Speaker 1: Then these other needs are The first need is autonomy.
Speaker 1: We need to feel as though we're the authors of
Speaker 1: our own actions that were not compelled to behave by
Speaker 1: either reward or punishment. But we're happiest when we're actually
Speaker 1: behaving from the root of our being. That's called autonomy.
Speaker 1: The second thing is competence. We need to feel as
Speaker 1: though we're effective in the world. That what we do
Speaker 1: matters that we have agency. And the third thing is
Speaker 1: related nous. We need to feel that that sense of
Speaker 1: agency that we have actually has an effect and a
Speaker 1: positive effect on our community. So if you take that together,
Speaker 1: that they need to be authentic, they need to be competent,
Speaker 1: and they need to be related. What that means is
Speaker 1: that we need to become ourselves and use our gifts
Speaker 1: and so find the gifts and talents and the ways
Speaker 1: of being that we most enjoy and that we're actually
Speaker 1: good at, and use them in service of our fellow being.
Speaker 1: That is actually what makes us happy. And I would argue,
Speaker 1: what's the good life? And if you think about it,
Speaker 1: that's self actualization. It's the pinnacle of personal development, when
Speaker 1: you get to the place where you are yourself in
Speaker 1: service to the rest of the world. You make a
Speaker 1: distinction in the book, based on some research that's out there,
Speaker 1: between intrinsic and extrinsic goals. Could you share a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that. Sure, most human behavior is motivated
Speaker 1: towards a set of between eleven and fifteen goals, depending
Speaker 1: on the researcher, But all the research basically breaks down
Speaker 1: human behavior as directed between this number of goals. I
Speaker 1: happen to work with a body of research that says eleven.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't matter, because whether it's eleven or fifteen,
Speaker 1: they're pretty much the same set of goals. And it
Speaker 1: turns out that these sets of goals are the same
Speaker 1: across culture, across economic background, across race, across religion. That
Speaker 1: isn't to say that everybody is chasing the same goals. Um,
Speaker 1: It's just to say that all of our behavior breaks
Speaker 1: down to this same set of goals, but we prioritize
Speaker 1: each goal separately. On the one hand, we have what
Speaker 1: are called intrinsic goals. Intrinsic goals are goals that actually
Speaker 1: make us happy just by pursuing them. And the reason
Speaker 1: why they make us happy by pursuing them, by the way,
Speaker 1: is because the pursuit of them fulfills the needs for autonomy, competence,
Speaker 1: and relatedness. So the goals that are intrinsic goals that
Speaker 1: satisfy them just by their pursuance of them are things
Speaker 1: like doing good for your community, doing things that make
Speaker 1: you healthier, spending time with friends and family, pursuing your
Speaker 1: spiritual path. These are all intrinsic goals. On the other side,
Speaker 1: we have what are called the extrinsic goals extrinsic goals.
Speaker 1: When we pursue extrinsic goals, they only make us happier
Speaker 1: if we actually achieve them. The pursuit of them itself
Speaker 1: does not make us happier. And these are extrinsic goals
Speaker 1: are what we normally associate with as materialistic goals fame, popularity,
Speaker 1: financial success. Turns out, what's really interesting is that, first
Speaker 1: of all, if we emphasize extrinsic goals too much, the
Speaker 1: materialistic goals are less likely to be happy and to
Speaker 1: be satisfied with our lives. Then if we emphasize the intrinsicals,
Speaker 1: we kind of know that if you're a materialist, you're
Speaker 1: less likely to be happy. And the reason for that,
Speaker 1: by the way, is partly because when you're pursuing extrinsic goals,
Speaker 1: it takes time away from pursuing intrinsic goals. Um Also,
Speaker 1: all sorts of things happen if you're if you're materially inclined,
Speaker 1: and your friends are likely to be materially inclined to
Speaker 1: your birds of a feather flock together, and if your
Speaker 1: friends are materially inclined, they will invest less in their
Speaker 1: friendship with you because they care more about their material goals.
Speaker 1: So there's all sorts of reasons why the extrinsic or
Speaker 1: material goals don't make us as happy. The intrinsic goals
Speaker 1: make us happier. One thing that's also interesting that it
Speaker 1: turns out at when we pursue intrinsic boals, we also
Speaker 1: feel more generous and benevolent towards the world. That is
Speaker 1: to say that if we're living in a life where
Speaker 1: we're pursuing these intrinsic goals, which makes us happier anyway,
Speaker 1: we're also more likely to want to help other people
Speaker 1: and the planet that we live on. So we started
Speaker 1: a while back where where I said that the inspiring
Speaker 1: thing to me is that the path forward is a
Speaker 1: place where we do what's both good for us and
Speaker 1: good for the world, not being a victim, a scoundrel,
Speaker 1: or a martyr, but being a hero, being somebody who
Speaker 1: becomes themselves for the sake of their community in the world.
Speaker 1: And that's what this research shows about our needs and
Speaker 1: also about intrinsic and extrinsic goals. One of the things
Speaker 1: that you talked about in the book, and it's a
Speaker 1: topic that we talked about on this show. An awful
Speaker 1: lot is that the stories that we tell ourselves about
Speaker 1: our lives have a real big impact on our lives.
Speaker 1: And you tell a story about friendly versus unfriendly dogs,
Speaker 1: or how we perceive dogs, and I think it's a
Speaker 1: really good metaphor for how the stories in our lives
Speaker 1: impact our view of the world. Could you share that
Speaker 1: one with us? I wrote a book called No Impact Man.
Speaker 1: It made a film called New Impact Man, and they
Speaker 1: were both about a year I spent living as environmentally
Speaker 1: as possible, but in some ways that it was environmental
Speaker 1: was besides the point. What really happened was that I
Speaker 1: found myself taking apart my entire life and putting it
Speaker 1: back together again. And so yes, I learned about environmental living,
Speaker 1: but in many ways, what I really learned about was
Speaker 1: from scratch put together a life that was actually good
Speaker 1: for me and good for the world. And so I
Speaker 1: got invited many many places around the world to talk
Speaker 1: about this project. And what I found was that there
Speaker 1: was a real feeling of defeatism and the people that
Speaker 1: I was talking to that lots of people felt they
Speaker 1: were powerless to change their own lives and also powerless
Speaker 1: to have influence and agency over the world we live in,
Speaker 1: which is a really sad thing. Kind of means that
Speaker 1: those needs for autonomy, confidence and related this that I
Speaker 1: just talked about aren't getting met if we feel that
Speaker 1: we're powerless and have no agency. So I asked, well,
Speaker 1: why is it that people feel they have no agency?
Speaker 1: And I realized that a lot of it had to
Speaker 1: do with the stories that they were telling themselves about
Speaker 1: the world and about their lives. What you're referring to
Speaker 1: when the book is how I explained that actually, the
Speaker 1: stories we tell ourselves build the universe that we live in.
Speaker 1: And I explained that and and kind of prove it
Speaker 1: more or less um by this story about a dog.
Speaker 1: And so what I say is, so imagine that your mother, say,
Speaker 1: got bit by a dog when she was young, and she,
Speaker 1: as you're growing up, is scared of dogs and always
Speaker 1: tells you dogs are dangerous, stay away from dogs. And
Speaker 1: so you have dogs are dangerous story in your head. Right,
Speaker 1: Other people might have a dogs are wonderful story in
Speaker 1: their head, but you happen to have a dog's are
Speaker 1: dangerous story, so um whenever um. And And by the way,
Speaker 1: we have thousands of stories in our head, and when
Speaker 1: situations occur in life, our brain kind of goes through
Speaker 1: our story file and picks a story that we think
Speaker 1: tells us about the situation, and then we react according
Speaker 1: to the story. It's called analogical thinking. So your mom
Speaker 1: raised you telling you that dogs were dangerous, and so
Speaker 1: when you encounter when a dog comes running up to you,
Speaker 1: your brain goes through its story file. It remembers the
Speaker 1: story of how your mom got bitten by a dog,
Speaker 1: and it says, oh, my god, that dog that's running
Speaker 1: up to me is dangerous, and so you start shooting
Speaker 1: it away. Now, the truth is that dogs run up
Speaker 1: to us both because they're friendly and want to play
Speaker 1: with us and because they're dangerous. Um. But you are
Speaker 1: reacting to all dogs as they're dangerous, right, So you're
Speaker 1: trying to shooting all the dogs away. The thing is,
Speaker 1: the only dogs that will go away when you shoo
Speaker 1: them away are the dogs that actually want to come
Speaker 1: and play with you. The dogs that are mean and
Speaker 1: want to bite you will not be deterred by you're
Speaker 1: asking them to go away. So what happens is that
Speaker 1: because you're shooing away all their friendly dogs, you've now
Speaker 1: created a universe where all dogs are dangerous. The story
Speaker 1: they you told yourself about dogs being dangerous actually turns
Speaker 1: into a world where all dogs are dangerous. And I
Speaker 1: give this explanation because it tells us that when we
Speaker 1: say that we have no power over our own lives
Speaker 1: and over the world that we live in, we actually
Speaker 1: don't have any power over our own lives and over
Speaker 1: the world we live in. Because that story tells us
Speaker 1: not to bout making an effort, and obviously we don't
Speaker 1: make an effort, then we have no agency. Actually, that
Speaker 1: story is very relevant to me because I grew up
Speaker 1: as a person who was scared of dogs, and I
Speaker 1: did not like any dogs until Chris, who's in the
Speaker 1: room here, got a dog named Bertie, who was the
Speaker 1: sweetest thing that probably ever lived, and I finally started
Speaker 1: to say, well, this is a nice dog. And um,
Speaker 1: soon after Chris found me a dog a lot like Bertie,
Speaker 1: and now I am nearly obsessed with how much I
Speaker 1: love dogs. That's wonderful. Yeah, I have three of them,
Speaker 1: which is a bit much, but they are wonderful, So
Speaker 1: you have three dogs. I absolutely do. Yeah. Well, so
Speaker 1: so that's really interesting because what you're saying is that
Speaker 1: you had a small interaction with a dog that went well,
Speaker 1: and that small interaction started to change your story. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you never would have gone out and
Speaker 1: bought a dog or lived with someone with a dog,
Speaker 1: but that small interact and change your story. And one
Speaker 1: of the big strategies that I talk about in the
Speaker 1: book How to Be Alive is, you know, normally, when
Speaker 1: we talk about changing our lives, we tell ourselves we
Speaker 1: need to change our career or romantic partnership or our home.
Speaker 1: And what I say is, hey, let's slow down a little.
Speaker 1: Let's actually change something small here. And so what I
Speaker 1: suggest is that people, for example, change work on changing
Speaker 1: the way that they eat in line with their values,
Speaker 1: or the way they transport themselves in line with their values,
Speaker 1: or their relationship to the owner of things in line
Speaker 1: with our values, to try experimenting in small ways. And
Speaker 1: the reason for that is, just like you with Chris's dog,
Speaker 1: is that it gives them a small, relatively unthreatening experience
Speaker 1: which allows them to begin to change their stories about
Speaker 1: how they relate to the world. In other words, in
Speaker 1: a in a small relationship with the world, you get
Speaker 1: to feel as though you have agency and are capable
Speaker 1: of making it bringing in mind with their values. And
Speaker 1: once you can do that in a small relationships, then
Speaker 1: eventually you can move on to career relationship in home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was one of the things I loved about the
Speaker 1: book a lot, because we talk on this show all
Speaker 1: the time, and in the coaching work that I do
Speaker 1: is so much about start with really small steps, you know,
Speaker 1: start small and then build from there. And so I
Speaker 1: like a lot of what you talked about in the book.
Speaker 1: It really resonates with what we do here. And you've
Speaker 1: got an example in the book that you then turn
Speaker 1: into sort of an overall approach for starting small. You
Speaker 1: call it the Ukulele approach. Can you explain that? Sure?
Speaker 1: The ukule the approach is about a guy named Jonathan.
Speaker 1: It starts with a story about a guy named Jonathan,
Speaker 1: and he's a New Yorker and he works his rear
Speaker 1: end off and he's very, very busy, but all his
Speaker 1: life he wishes that he was a musician. Um and
Speaker 1: he has a guitar, but he kind of keeps looking
Speaker 1: at his guitar and thanks to himself. What's the point.
Speaker 1: I don't have any time to get into learning this properly,
Speaker 1: and there's so many amazing guitar players in the world,
Speaker 1: and the last thing I want to do is be
Speaker 1: a bad guitar player. So what's the point. I'm not
Speaker 1: even going to start. It was it was too big
Speaker 1: for him. It was too big, and for years he
Speaker 1: just never had music in his life, which is sad.
Speaker 1: Think about it, right, that your your life can pass
Speaker 1: by and something that you feel passionate about is missing. Anyway,
Speaker 1: one time he was on business travel and he was
Speaker 1: changing flights in Atlanta, Georgia. He had a long way over,
Speaker 1: and his friend came and picked him up the airport
Speaker 1: and they went to There was a sunny day, and
Speaker 1: they went to the park together and his friend happened
Speaker 1: to have a ukulele with her, and so she sit
Speaker 1: down and she started playing some songs on the ukulele,
Speaker 1: and then she handed it to this guy, Jonathan, and
Speaker 1: taught him four courts and suddenly he was playing music. Um.
Speaker 1: And on the way back to the airport, they actually
Speaker 1: stopped at a music store and he bought himself the
Speaker 1: ukulele and he took it home, and he found that
Speaker 1: as busy as he was, he had the time to
Speaker 1: look at the YouTube video every so often with a
Speaker 1: lesson for the ukuleleen it and he would play, and
Speaker 1: before long he just happened to meet somebody else who
Speaker 1: played the ukuleleen. Before long, he actually literally was a musician,
Speaker 1: what he always wanted. And the reason why he finally
Speaker 1: got there was he lowered his ambition and obstacle and
Speaker 1: started small. He had always thought about playing the guitar,
Speaker 1: and it was too big a goal for him, and
Speaker 1: instead he took what I called the ukulele approach, which
Speaker 1: really means start where you are, start with the small thing.
Speaker 1: And obviously this can be applied in all sorts of areas.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you a story of how it applied
Speaker 1: to a woman who ended up actually working on and
Speaker 1: helping the world. So there's this woman named Um. And
Speaker 1: also in the book, you know, all of us have
Speaker 1: something that niggles us about the world, that we don't
Speaker 1: feel quite right about. And and in her case, Um,
Speaker 1: she always just kind of felt a little bummed out
Speaker 1: about the coffee trade. She knew that coffee has a
Speaker 1: big impact both on the environment and also the well
Speaker 1: being of many people because of low wages and and
Speaker 1: everything that happened in the coffee trade. And she always
Speaker 1: kind of knew she she should be more careful about
Speaker 1: the coffee she bought, but she never she just didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do. But one day she went to
Speaker 1: the grocery store and she just said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to choose a coffee that has a
Speaker 1: label that seems like it's ethical, and I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna do that little thing. I know it won't
Speaker 1: count for much. And so she went in and she
Speaker 1: she looked at all the coffees and each one had
Speaker 1: you know, some of them had no labels at all
Speaker 1: of ethical um production on them. But but she found
Speaker 1: one copy that was kosher, UH Forest, UH Forest Service certified,
Speaker 1: UM Green Forest Alliance certified, all these certifications. She decided,
Speaker 1: that's the one I'm going to buy. That's the ukulele
Speaker 1: approach right there. She just she kind of started with
Speaker 1: the small thing. Now, starting with the small thing does
Speaker 1: not change the world if you just stay there. The
Speaker 1: next day, you have to do something else too. And
Speaker 1: and so what Anne did was when she got home,
Speaker 1: she started researching a coffee and she found out that
Speaker 1: actually some of these certifications are problematic because small coffee
Speaker 1: browers cannot afford the certification. And she found out about
Speaker 1: this thing called direct trade coffee, which is where the
Speaker 1: owner of a coffee house actually goes to say South America,
Speaker 1: and meets a small coffee brower and looks at the
Speaker 1: way they do things and whether they pay their employees properly,
Speaker 1: and whether they steward the land properly, and then just
Speaker 1: decides to forego the certification process and buy straight from them.
Speaker 1: So Anne went to a coffee house like that and
Speaker 1: started buying her coffee there. So and would go to
Speaker 1: this coffee place in the mornings as well to get
Speaker 1: her coffee. And she became friend with the baristas, and
Speaker 1: the baristas happened to be part of a community garden,
Speaker 1: and they invite did her to go to the community garden,
Speaker 1: and then she became part of the community garden. And
Speaker 1: then the people in the community garden were climate activists
Speaker 1: and went out on the Climate March, and they invited
Speaker 1: her to go out on the Climate March, and so
Speaker 1: before you know it, and actually she started just by
Speaker 1: taking the ukulele approach just by doing something small, just
Speaker 1: by buying her coffee with the right labels on it.
Speaker 1: But because she kept taking more and more small Ukulele
Speaker 1: steps every day, the next thing, you know, she was
Speaker 1: really living a life in line with her values. And
Speaker 1: she developed a whole community of friends of people who
Speaker 1: supported those values, ensured those values too. And again, what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here is every day she just gave
Speaker 1: a little bit more energy to what was true for
Speaker 1: her and a little less energy to what was not
Speaker 1: true to her. There's some other stories in the book
Speaker 1: where you talk about this idea of limiting your concern
Speaker 1: to grow your influence. I'm a big fan of Stephen
Speaker 1: Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and and that's
Speaker 1: a pretty core concept in there, this idea that we
Speaker 1: we all have a circle of concern and the things
Speaker 1: that we care about, and then there's a smaller circle
Speaker 1: within there, which is what we can actually do something about.
Speaker 1: And you really talk about, you know, focusing kind of
Speaker 1: what Dr Covey talked about, which is focusing on that
Speaker 1: circle of influence about what you can actually do. And
Speaker 1: you share two stories in relation to that, and uh,
Speaker 1: I'll let you pick which of the two you want
Speaker 1: to tell, But one is the Starfish story and the
Speaker 1: other is about a woman and named Julia Butterfly Hill story.
Speaker 1: But I think they're both great stories about how this
Speaker 1: idea of starting with what we can actually do, and
Speaker 1: the more we do that, you know, focusing on what
Speaker 1: we can do, our influence grows. Let me say before
Speaker 1: I tell the stories about just something about Stephen COBE's
Speaker 1: you know, this business about shrinking your sphere of concern
Speaker 1: to your sphere of influence. Sometimes it's misinterpreted. Sometimes people say, well,
Speaker 1: I can only influence what happens in my whole life,
Speaker 1: so I'm not concerned about the whole rest of the world. Right.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it can, it can cause us to be really
Speaker 1: self centered. But I don't think that that's what he
Speaker 1: meant at all. I think what he meant to say
Speaker 1: was you can care about the whole world and everything
Speaker 1: that goes on in the whole world, but concern yourself
Speaker 1: with the areas of influence that you have over what
Speaker 1: goes on in the whole world. It's not about shrinking
Speaker 1: what you care about, but it's about picking and focusing
Speaker 1: on areas that you can start to have some influence
Speaker 1: instead of being overwhelmed and feel and helpless. That's right.
Speaker 1: So so in other words, that's for the sake of arguments.
Speaker 1: Say that you're really concerned about the arms trade and
Speaker 1: that you really wish that weapons weren't treated so easily
Speaker 1: in the whole world. Now, you could just pull your
Speaker 1: hair out out of concern about weapons straight through the
Speaker 1: whole world, or you could choose to get involved with
Speaker 1: an organization that works on the anti arms trades issue
Speaker 1: and actually concern yourself with the workings of that organization. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly what you're saying. In terms of stories, I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you the starfish story. I just I just
Speaker 1: really like it, and some people may have heard it before.
Speaker 1: It's apocryphal, But one day a man goes down to
Speaker 1: the beach and discovers that across the beach there's thousands
Speaker 1: of starfish that have been left behind by the slack tide,
Speaker 1: by the really low tide, and they're on the sand
Speaker 1: and the sun is baking and they're slowly dying. And
Speaker 1: the man looks over and he sees a little girl
Speaker 1: and he watches her and she picks up at starfish,
Speaker 1: and she he takes it down to the water and
Speaker 1: she drops it in, and then she walks back up
Speaker 1: and she picks up another starfish and she drops it
Speaker 1: back in. He goes up to her, and he says,
Speaker 1: to where he said, a little girl, don't you realize
Speaker 1: you're not going to make any difference at all. There's
Speaker 1: thousands of starfish on this beach. There's that you know,
Speaker 1: you just can't possibly make a difference. And she says,
Speaker 1: tell that to the starfish I just dropped in the water, right,
Speaker 1: which I think is for one thing, really cool. But um,
Speaker 1: that's that's where the story is. I was told it ends,
Speaker 1: but I extend the story because then I say, well so,
Speaker 1: so she says, tell that to the starfish you dropped
Speaker 1: in the water. And then he says, you know, the
Speaker 1: little girl has a point, and so suddenly he decides
Speaker 1: he's gonna he may not be able to save a
Speaker 1: thousand starfish himself, but he's going to walk a few
Speaker 1: starfish down to the water. And then you know, within
Speaker 1: the within the half an hour, a few other people
Speaker 1: have walked down and seen this little girl and this
Speaker 1: little man moving starfish um down to the water. And
Speaker 1: they decide to participate to um. And so what happens,
Speaker 1: you see, is that if you restrict your sphere of
Speaker 1: concern to your sphere of influence. That is like the
Speaker 1: little girl she said, I'm just gonna save this one
Speaker 1: starfish because I knew I can't, your sphere of influence
Speaker 1: then actually grows. She says, I'm just going to save
Speaker 1: this one starfish. But by saying thing that one starfish,
Speaker 1: she inspired the man to save some starfish, and then
Speaker 1: he in turn inspired some other people to save some starfish.
Speaker 1: So if we actually, if we actually take in our
Speaker 1: take our energy and put it into the relationships that
Speaker 1: we have with the world, it actually increases our influence
Speaker 1: over our own lives and over the world. I love
Speaker 1: that story too. And the other story that you tell
Speaker 1: in relation to that, and I'll tell it very quickly,
Speaker 1: is about a woman who is concerned about deforestation, so
Speaker 1: she goes up in a tree and lives up there,
Speaker 1: and ultimately she only manages to save one tree as
Speaker 1: part of that. But the fact that she did that
Speaker 1: and got so much attention means that she is speaking
Speaker 1: all around the world to thousands of people year after
Speaker 1: year influencing a great number of trees to be saved
Speaker 1: throughout the world. And I just thought that was another
Speaker 1: great example of limiting your concern to your influence, but
Speaker 1: also taking a longer term view two and recognizing that
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what impact what we do will have.
Speaker 1: We just keep doing it and and things can take
Speaker 1: on a life of their own. And I think it's
Speaker 1: also as important as it is for us to feel
Speaker 1: that we're effective. Sometimes people say, how do I know
Speaker 1: whether I'm the type of person that can change the world,
Speaker 1: And I say to them, well, the question is not
Speaker 1: whether you're the type of person who can change the world.
Speaker 1: The question is whether you're the type of person who
Speaker 1: wants to know they tried. Because regardless of results, um,
Speaker 1: just the act of doing things in line with your
Speaker 1: values is satisfying. Remember when I said about intrinsic goals,
Speaker 1: and we actually get satisfaction just from pursuing those goals.
Speaker 1: And it's the same if you live in line with
Speaker 1: your values, it actually makes you feel better. Another thing
Speaker 1: people sometimes say to me is is their hope for
Speaker 1: this world? And I often say that that too, is
Speaker 1: kind of a distract because both of those questions, Am
Speaker 1: I the type of person who's able to change the world?
Speaker 1: Or is there hope for the world? In both cases,
Speaker 1: those questions are questions designed to kind of let us
Speaker 1: off the hook, Like, am I the type of person
Speaker 1: that can change the world? Well, if you're not, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do? Um? Well, I'm going to go
Speaker 1: watch TV? Right So, and the same thing, is there
Speaker 1: hope for the world? Well, if I tell you know
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do, I'm you know, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: eat ice cream? So So, in either case are the
Speaker 1: questions that helpful? So the real question is not does
Speaker 1: the world have hope? The real question is are you
Speaker 1: willing to give the world hope? Um? And and and
Speaker 1: and and again. I'm not saying that means we should
Speaker 1: murder ourselves. What I'm saying is that that is that
Speaker 1: if we work in that way, we're actually achieving the
Speaker 1: highest level of actualization for ourselves and we'll have the
Speaker 1: highest quality of life exactly. There was just one last
Speaker 1: topic that I wanted to touch on because I thought
Speaker 1: it was very interesting. There's a lot of talk about community.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of talk about friendships, about being connected, um,
Speaker 1: which is all great stuff, and it's it's something that
Speaker 1: I'm actually learning a lot more about as as we
Speaker 1: do the show, and I'm I'm beginning to learn more
Speaker 1: about the value of that and the health benefits of
Speaker 1: all that. But you take it one step further and
Speaker 1: you talk about something called social interconnectedness, which is a
Speaker 1: little bit beyond Could you explain what that means? Sure?
Speaker 1: So it turns out that what I'm calling social interconnection
Speaker 1: is what people used to call community. But I'm careful
Speaker 1: of the word community because many of us grew up
Speaker 1: in communities that we couldn't wait to escape, and so
Speaker 1: you have. But we have a bad association with the
Speaker 1: world word community. But but what community really is a
Speaker 1: personal community, which is a community that you choose for yourself.
Speaker 1: So not the kind of community you want to escape,
Speaker 1: but your own personal community. Um is socially interconnected. And
Speaker 1: what that means is that not just that I have
Speaker 1: ten friends, but that those ten friends all are friends
Speaker 1: with each other too. I'm not just connected to those
Speaker 1: ten people, but those ten people are connected to each other.
Speaker 1: So that's socially interconnected. And there's a lot of research
Speaker 1: that shows that that kind of interconnection contributes at least
Speaker 1: as much, if not more, to our quality of life
Speaker 1: and happiness then for example, um owning a house, even
Speaker 1: having a romantic partner, And if you think about it,
Speaker 1: there's some really interesting reasons why. So let's say that
Speaker 1: I'm friends with Joe and Sally, and Joe and Sally
Speaker 1: are also friends with each other. Now, if I do
Speaker 1: a good turned by Joe because Joe knows Sally, Joe
Speaker 1: will tell Sally that I did a good turn by him.
Speaker 1: And then sometime in the future, when I'm in need,
Speaker 1: Sally will in turn do a good turn by me
Speaker 1: because she knows from Joe that I'm a good player.
Speaker 1: This is this is actually a phenomenon called generalized reciprocity.
Speaker 1: So we're used to the idea that when we're friends
Speaker 1: with just one other person, one hand watches the other.
Speaker 1: You do good by me, I'll do good bye you.
Speaker 1: But when we're part of an interconnected group, that reciprocity
Speaker 1: generalizes through the group. And there's all sorts of research
Speaker 1: that shows that people that are interconnected live longer, they're healthier,
Speaker 1: they're happier, and guess what, they also helped the world more. Ye, well, Colin,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for taking the time to be on
Speaker 1: the show. I really enjoyed the book. We will have
Speaker 1: links to all your things on the website. We also
Speaker 1: have a free download on the site of some of
Speaker 1: my favorite ideas from the book, which listeners can get
Speaker 1: at one you Feed dot Net slash Colin O great
Speaker 1: and can I mean, do you mind if I say
Speaker 1: my website please go right ahead? And so also, people
Speaker 1: are welcome to take a free sample chapter to the
Speaker 1: book How to Be Alive from my website. Um, it's
Speaker 1: at www dot Colin Bevan dot com and I'll spell
Speaker 1: that it's c O L I N B E A
Speaker 1: V A n dot com. And then there's a tab
Speaker 1: where it says offerings. Just click that and you can
Speaker 1: get a free chapter of the book. That excellent, And
Speaker 1: I'll make sure we link to that off our website too,
Speaker 1: so if people don't remember that they can easily get
Speaker 1: to it. I'll I'll link up to all your various
Speaker 1: places online. Thanks Eric, it was really great talking to you.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Take care bite. You can learn more
Speaker 1: about Colin Bevan and this podcast at one you Feed
Speaker 1: dot Net slash Colin