Good Life Project - Living a Life of Adventure and Impact: Scotty Johnson

Episode Date: July 17, 2018

When Scotty Johnson answered an ad in the paper to spend 4-months in the Arctic Circle, he never imagined it would forever change his life and lay the foundation for a stunning living filled with adventure and impact.In the two decades since, he's taken everyone from elite leadership teams and executives, to international sports teams, students and kids into some of the most rugged environments in the world, from the Oman desert to the open sea, and from Arctic expeditions and the rainforests of Australia to deep solitude of slow-moving rivers. He's been on a quest to tap the power of these natural laboratories to reconnect people to the things that matter, the things that give meaning, the things that align to personal values, and the things that make a difference to self, family, organizations and the world we live in.Along the way, he's found himself not only making a profound difference in people's lives but also building a career that lets him perpetually follow his fascinations, make meaning and fill his own life with exciting adventure, transformation and impact.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.Photo Credit Jon Riley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So imagine leaving school at 16, thinking that you were going to have kind of a mainstream traditional path in life, finding yourself traveling around the world on giant merchant ships, and then being delivered back into reality to rediscover who you are. And then building a life, a career, a living, a livelihood, taking youths and some of the smartest, most accomplished teams out into the middle of nowhere, out into the desert, out into the roughest ocean patches in the world, into the wilds and the wilderness, and leveraging the power, the raw energy, the just complete immersive nature of these environments to transform people's relationships with themselves, with other people, and with the planet and their

lives and their livings. Well, that is exactly what my guest today does. Scotty Johnson is somebody who's been a friend of mine for a while. In this conversation, I also learned for the first time on tape that my friend Scotty Johnson is somebody who's been a friend of mine for a while. In this conversation, I also learned for the first time on tape that my friend, Scotty, who I've known for years, his name is naturally Scotty. You will hear that story and how that sort of like unfolded along with his really beautiful, compelling personal journey and how he has sort of meandered his way into this stunning living and life.

Really excited to share this journey with you and this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. I'm from the UK. I currently live in the northwest of England in a beautiful part of the world called the Lake District. So I'm surrounded by the natural environment, hills and mountains and lakes and lots of woodland. So that's where I currently live. But I was born in Scotland, just outside Edinburgh. I went to school there until I was about eight years old and then moved down to England

and I had a very strong Scottish accent. The school I went to, I don't think they'd met any Scottish people. So my real name is actually Andrew. They called me Scotty because I had a Scottish accent and it just stuck. So I'm Scotty. Wait a minute.

So all these years I've been calling you Scotty, it's not actually your real name. It's not my name. But that's what everybody calls you've been calling you Scotty. It's not actually your real name. It's not my name. But that's what everybody calls you. That's right. Yeah. It's not on my passport. It says Andrew on my passport.

That's too funny. Yeah. It takes this for me to learn something like that. Who I actually am. Right, right, right. That's right. I'm going to learn a lot more shadowy stuff. Yeah.

That's too funny. So you end up in sort of like a new place. What led to the move, actually? Through my dad's work. Yeah. Through my too funny. So you end up in sort of like a new place when you're, what led to the move actually? Through my dad's work. Yeah, through my dad's work and where my parents were living in Scotland. It was in a, I think in the US you would call it project-based housing. And it was a pretty rough part of Scotland and being English wasn't great. I don't think for my, particularly for my mum.

So she was pretty happy to leave leave scotland and move down to england my dad my dad's work he got an opportunity to move down to to a place called lancashire in the northwest of england yeah that's where they moved and i was i was eight years old what kind of kid were you i was well what's interesting that what kind of kid was i is i asked my my, if you like my, our listeners, if you could see like the smile that just swept across Scotty's face, as he kind of looked up and inside into history. Cause I asked my parents recently about this, like, what kind of kid was I? Like, how would you describe me? And again, you know, it's

interesting how this conversation is relevant to my work and what shaped this. My mum describes me as being the leader of the gang, is how she always says it. All I ever wanted to do as a kid was go outside and hang out with the other kids and create things and play and have adventures. And that's what I did. My mum was sharing a story with me of my first and second day at school as a five-year-old. And I got the uniform on and got ready to go out and the little shorts and the grey socks and all that stuff in Scotland, in shorts. And it's probably snowing, likely. Pretty much didn't want to go, did not want to go to school, age five. And so my mum recalls the story of me basically getting dragged along the pavement for about a mile and a half to get to

the school, kicking and screaming, and deposited me into the school, picked me up at the end of the day. And she said, I definitely wasn't smiling at the end of the day. The amusing part of the story is the next day, she said, okay, we're going to school. And apparently my reply was, but we did that yesterday, which pretty much sums up my life, which is doing new things and, you know, which has its challenges in many respects of life. And so apparently the second day involved a lot more kicking and screaming, which gradually progressed. progressed until I managed to suppress the kicking and screaming externally. And I think it was just an internal process. I could leave when I was 15, but I think that's what I was like as a kid, was nonconformist from a very early age,

I think. Yeah. But what's interesting is it wasn't that you didn't love, like you were an explorer, you loved to be out and learning and being adventurous it wasn't that you weren't interested in learning it was the structure that seemed like it just really grated against you yeah it's being confined being confined within a system and not feeling free i think it's i think it's a nature thing about who i am that I've just never responded well to control and being confined and and the you know the classic education system is geared towards academia and exams and conforming and you know I was one of the kids that didn't conform so I had a pretty I had a pretty rough time going all the way through school till I could leave. Were you aware, like when were you aware of the fact

that this was really not the way that you needed to learn? It was probably when I was about 12, I think, about 12. And we went on a school trip, you know, you get in the coach and you head off somewhere. And I think it was to a coal coal mining museum which was about two hours away from where i was living in england and and we we get on the bus and we go to the museum and of course you get back to school and the next day you have to write a little assignment about your experience and i write my assignment and i get an a star and i get a merit you know the piece of paper with the gold star on. And I just remember there's a moment and there's a teacher looked at me and said, why can't you be like this the rest of the time? And I think there was in that moment where I think I realized that I was at my best when I was out exploring, discovering, being curious, meeting new people, seeing things, seeing the external world. And I remember after that, just, just you know i was the kid who

would always dive for the seat next to the window in the classroom and would spend most of the time looking out the window not listening to what was going on in the room and um so yeah so i you know the education system didn't allow for that different kind of learning really so i spent probably most of my high school being fairly unhappy in school and in detention a lot and getting into trouble and rebelling, rebelling against the confinements of the system. Yeah. I mean,

what's so interesting too is that it feels like it hasn't actually changed all that much since then. You know, there are certainly, there are examples of great schools and progressive education and homeschooling or unschooling. And certainly they're both really interesting movements that are kind of slowly growing, but as much as they're gaining a bit more mainstream acceptance, they're still considered

pretty fringe and traditional school is still like generation or two later. It's still so similar structurally and so built around order and conformity. Yeah, I was chatting to a friend of mine who he's running a business which is specializing in outdoor learning in schools and helping schools to create outdoor classrooms to accommodate children who have a different learning style and preferences. And he was saying, he said, you've got to remember that the education system, in the uk is geared towards fitting a victorian order of educating people to be able to work in a production line from nine to five and to give them the the knowledge and skills to be able to do it and there's very little change fundamentally about the background to education

in order to create that level of ability to conform to a very fairly old system which is crazy when you think about the world we live in the digital age in terms of technology and and remote working and entrepreneurship and and and and especially now how many more young people are interested in purpose and values that the people i know who work in education say that they're still, as teachers, they're still confined to conform to the old system. And it's really difficult to change that. And certainly I was in that place where I very quickly realized that it just wasn't working for me. Yeah. So that actually led you out. I mean, it's different in the UK than it is here, which I've actually learned through you over the years, which is that you opted out of school, like I said, 15, which you can do.

Whereas in the US, I guess the expectation is you can opt out after your 12th grade or your senior year. Most kids are late 17, 18 years old. Yeah. So in the UK at the time, which has actually changed now, but at the time you could leave at the end of your high school years. And we used to call it the fifth year of high school so most kids would be 16 but I was the second youngest kid in the year so you know term finishes early July my birthday's in August so I was 15 but interestingly I think they've changed it now where I think you pretty much have to stay till you're 18 so I'm certainly

glad I'm not there I think two more years i think i would have ended up in a different kind of institution i think if if i'd had to stay to 18 i think the police would have been knocking so yeah and your first move out of high school was not exactly sort of traditional office job either not no not. The thing I was really interested in at school was geography and travel and maps. And I'm still, still love, I still get excited looking at, looking at maps. And well, and just the bit before I left school, what was interesting is I took chemistry as a, as a subject when I was 14, I decided to, and I've no idea why I took chemistry. I just, you know, I had to tick some boxes on a piece of paper. And I remember there was a moment sitting in the chemistry class and I thought, I just do not fundamentally do not understand what this is about or more importantly, why it's relevant.

I kept questioning, how am I going to use this? And I know that's quite a bold question to ask as a 14 year old. And I went up to the teacher one day and I said, I really don't understand chemistry and I don't like it. And this chemistry teacher was the most passionate chemistry teacher ever. And he looked at me crestfallen that one of his students had said, I just don't like this. And I made him a proposal, which was, can I still come to class, but can I just sit at the back and do geography stuff and read about travel and volcanology and all the things to do with the earth and nature? And he looked at me and he just smiled. He said, yeah, okay.

So I used to go to chemistry, but sit at the back and look at atlases and read about travel. And so I wasn't causing any trouble like some of the other kids were causing trouble who didn't like it. So when I got to 15 and it was time to decide what to do

and most of my friends would be going on to do higher education. So 17, 18, doing two years of further education in order to get the qualifications to go to university and i just thought there's no way i can there's no way i can carry on doing two years of further education and and we had the careers advisors and i had a meeting and the careers advisor said oh have you heard of them the merchant navy and i was like i know what the role navy is but i don't know what the merchant navy is and but I don't know what the Merchant Navy is. And this guy said, well, it's the transportation of goods and services on container ships, oil tankers, and they're currently recruiting after a fairly long spell of not recruiting.

So I read a bit about this and the prospect of travel, that's what lit me up. And I'd never been on an aeroplane. I'd never been abroad. I'd only ever looked at maps and atlases and read about it. And I said, well well that sounds great and and I was 15 and I applied and I left school and they accepted me and yeah so that that's what I did I joined the joined the merchant navy I got the job at 15 I turned 16 a month after leaving school and two weeks after that I was on an airplane to Peru. And, I mean, that's a whole other adventure. Yeah.

You spent two years, three years? Two years. Right. Share generally what that experience was like. As an experience, it was pretty, what's the word I would use? Fascinating. I mean, it was fascinating personally in terms of what I learned about myself but also in terms of what I experienced to you know there's this

seeing other countries and other people and other cultures and everything about that age 16 and 17 and seeing all and being exposed to all of that at such a young age was really interesting because I'd never like I said I've never traveled with family. We'd never been abroad. And I think the other really interesting part for me was how I really surprised myself in terms of excelling in the academic side of the job, because I did an officer cadetship and a big part of the job was due to correspondence course in nautical science. So we were doing really complicated astro navigation and physics and interestingly chemistry to do with oil because we were carrying oil and you've got to think about the densities of things and how much do you put in the boat and is it going to sink depending on the density of the

water and the temperatures and and i passed amazingly i passed all the exams i came top of the class in a couple of exams and i was like but i've never passed any exams and all of a sudden I'm in this practical application environment and it all makes sense like really complicated equations to do with navigating by the stars and the movement of the sun and the earth in the solar system and I just it all just made sense because I was in it I was absorbed in it so that was really interesting to for me to realize I could actually study. I could actually pass an exam. And then the other part of it was the people, which was probably the most fascinating part of spending months at ayear-old going into an environment where there's very clear expectations of behavior and conformity, I didn't conform, which created a lot of problems. And most of the people on the ship also were substantially older than you, if I remember. yeah that's right yeah so as a as a 16 year old there may have been a few other guys who were

in their early 20s but pretty much everyone else was 40s 50s 60s and some of them had spent 40 years on boats so pretty end grain behaviors and and expectations you know a lot of a lot around power and control and manipulation and bullying and yeah there was there was a lot a lot going on yeah i mean which is i mean it's hard enough when you're somewhere where you can get away from it but when you're literally confined on a vessel often at sea for months at a time where there's nowhere to go no yeah i mean you just you're in it and you you learn a lot about yourself i mean when you're in a remote environment and there is no escape and you're you're confronted with and you, you, you learn a lot about yourself. I mean, when you're in a remote environment and there is no escape and you're, you're confronted with yourself and who you are and what's important to you and your values and, and you know, the, the opportunities that,

that are presented to you at many levels in that environment is you have choices to make and you're constantly battling that, that scale between not wanting to get into trouble and conform and sticking by your guns and when you stick by your guns you often you have to deal with challenge and difficulty and yeah that's yeah it was tough it was really tough i mean i remember we joined the first ship in peru and we sailed from peru to vancouver which is about a two-week journey and as we went past the galapagos island you cross the equator and it is tradition in the in any seafaring setting whether it's sailing or in the navy that the first time you cross the equator on a boat you have to go through neptune ceremony and somebody gets just dressed up as neptune with their big trident fork and they put some silly hat on.

And in the Merchant Navy, Neptune ceremony basically involves being stripped and having your head shaved and having the kitchen slops poured over you. And in the worst case scenario is to be tied up on the deck naked. And I was quite lucky because one of the officers on the boat had his wife on the boat which was a infrequent occurrence and it was her first time so i actually escaped the nude the nude bit i still had to go through this pretty unpleasant ceremony and it was fairly light-hearted but certainly other people i know who'd been through it had a fairly horrific experience yeah it's like a hazing.

Yeah, yeah. I've still got the certificate in a frame on my wall. Just to remind me. Survived Neptune. Survived Neptune ceremony at age 16. So from there, I mean, when this comes to an end, you're still a kid, effectively. But at the same time, you have just spent two years traveling around the world,

visiting parts of the world that are profoundly different than what you'd ever seen. And also learning how to survive in this kind of altered reality, contained, floating village with people who saw the world radically differently than you. So where do you go from there so yeah i i left a week before my 18th birthday and left the boat in singapore came back to the northwest of england and it's like well what do i what do i do i've like i've been to 38 countries and seen and learned all this stuff and like what do i do with my life and and it was really difficult. Like, you know, the, you know, subsequent to that, you know, reading about reverse culture shock and re-entry and all that. I mean, I definitely went through quite a lot that summer when I got back.

So I just hung out with my friends for a while. They were finishing their education and, and I was like, well, what do I do? And my, you know, my parents were like, well, it'd be good if you could at least get a job doing something. Don't just sit at home, get a job. So I went and worked in McDonald's. And I thought I'll go for six weeks for the summer. And I was really interested in the natural world. And I got into photography whilst I was in the Navy.

And I thought, maybe I should go and train and do a photography course because I love that interaction with nature and people and capturing it and and you know it sparked my imagination and curiosity and and I thought about it and procrastinated and then went to work in McDonald's I thought I'll do it for six weeks and 20 months later I was still there so I basically ended up in McDonald's for nearly the same amount of time that I'd been in the Navy. Man. Yeah. Talk about two profoundly different experiences. Yeah. I mean, completely different at an objective level, but subjectively, what really stood out for me, what I was really interested in was the people and behavior and and being I was junior in both jobs and I was just really interested about

leadership and management and how people talk to people and how people use power or abuse power and how they manipulate and how they engage and teams and and McDonald's was I didn't realize at the time but looking back on it now I learned so much about behavior and people and leadership just it was but I had no idea at the time but the lessons that were there were just so obvious no it's so cool how you can reflect on stuff like that and realize that this thing where you know like maybe on any given day when you were there you're like why am i doing this like this this is a waste of my time i need to move on you reflect back and you realize no that was actually pivotal in either triggering something or learning something and nothing is wasted.

You know, like nothing, like this was, this was another drop in the bucket of, of data and experience that moved me to where I need to go. Yeah. I mean, it was, and interestingly, I was, I ended up being fairly nonconformist at McDonald's. I mean, some people might describe it as being a troublemaker. But I think, you know, there's some people who just let things go and lie down and ignore things, but I'm not like that. I'm like, if I genuinely believe that something needs to be said, I'll say it. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose,

we can get you there. The University of Victoria's MBA in Sustainable Innovation is not like other MBA programs. It's for true changemakers who want to think differently and solve the world's most pressing challenges. From healthcare and the environment to energy, government, and technology, it's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors. For details, visit uvic.ca slash future MBA. That's uvic.ca slash future MBA. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Do you remember any moments sort of when you were there where you're like standing up? Yeah, absolutely. There was a case in McDonald's where I think I'm pretty sure at the time you weren't allowed to be a member of a union. And having come from the Navy where unions were, you know, huge and influenced a great deal the way that, you know, working practices and things went. And so I was I'd been exposed to a unionized industry. And I came to McDonald's where you know the concept of you know employees being part of a union was ridiculous and and and I used to sort of champion the case for for the rest of the employee so I became the unofficial

union rep which annoyed all the managers immensely because I would champion their cases for fairness and for equality and all the things that unions stand for. And one case in particular, I noticed that I'm pretty sure I wasn't getting paid as much as I should have been. So I kept this really detailed record of when I clocked in and clocked out and my hourly rate. And sure enough, I pinned it down to one particular manager who, when I was on his shifts, I was pretty sure I wasn't getting paid as much. So I asked the other crew to keep a record of their hours and then looked at their pay slips. And sure enough, we weren't getting paid. And so I did the right thing. And I went to the store manager and I said to her, I think something's

going on with the pay system. And I show this evidence and classic, classic thing about responsibility and, and leadership is she looked at it and said i don't think there's anything going on she just you know she didn't want to she didn't want to take the take the challenge of looking at it so i thought okay so i rang up head office and presented the information and they said okay and the next thing they were keeping some remote record of was clocking in and out and in the system. And sure enough, this manager, because the managers were rated on their ability to run shifts efficiently with the lowest staff cost, when we'd all clocked out and finished our shift, he'd been going into the system and taking an hour and a half off everybody's shift.

So we were all losing an hour and a half's pay on every shift we worked for him. And it made his figures look better. The senior operations manager came into the store one day and presented the evidence and sacked him on the spot. So that was probably, you know, I'd certainly challenged authority and the misuse of power in the Navy. And then I felt myself, that was the sort of next notable moment of this isn't right. And I'm going to do something about it. Yeah. So there's like a thread of social justice. It's not just rebellion. It's,

it's adventure and justice. I mean, it's, it's like you, you have a very clear sense of right and wrong and we'll advocate for right advocate for right. Yeah. I really remember it.

I remember it then in, in McDonald's people saying to me, you're going to get into trouble you're going to lose your job oh yeah but it's not right it's like this needs to be said absolutely this needs to be addressed and yeah we're when you went to the other employees and you're like okay so i'm running a covert op here and i have this evidence and i need you guys to all start tracking your stuff too. This is fascinating to me. It's like so funny that like we can get so much information out of this case study from when you're working at a fast food restaurant, but when you go,

because it shows so much about human condition, like I'm guessing that a bunch of them were like, no, I don't, I don't want to track my hours. I don't want to be part of this. I'd rather just get stiffed. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because they saw it as trouble, troublemaker. Yeah, and yeah, they absolutely did not want to go there. And I was just, you know, at a principle level, this is wrong, like absolutely wrong. And, you know, I can't remember where I read it, but somebody said, you can fight a battle on your own, but to win a war, you need allies. And, you know, that phrase has really stuck with me when I've worked with organisations since.

And, you know, when things haven't been right, it's so important to get people on board and get people to see your position and to, you know, and I think it's one of the reasons a lot of people don't go there and will just put up with the status quo is because it's too hard for a lot of people to try and get people on board and to get people to see their case. And there also, I think a lot of people are afraid of the repercussions of that. And especially if I do it alone and then I don't have backup and then

lose my job, I'm going to get like bad recommendation, whatever it may be. And we would much rather endure some form of unfairness or injustice on a moderate level than actually risk respect because we're afraid that it may end up harming us in some way. And I actually, I get that. I mean, especially if you're working at a fast food restaurant and you've got a family to support and you're working, this is one of three jobs for you. You've got to weigh this. Okay, so do I accept 10% less on my paycheck, but know that I have the other 90% consistently? Or do I demand fairness and risk losing like the entire paycheck. It's not, I mean, it's really, it's a lot more complicated. You know, it's not just right or wrong or white or black or, you know, like yes or no. It's, yeah, I mean, it's interesting how this, like a microcosm like that can really just deconstruct all the layers of humanity.

And I think it's really interesting because you think about why don't people challenge? There's a lot of the time I think what I've learned is people don't know where it's coming from within and i guess a lot of the work i've ended up doing is around values and helping people understand what their values are and how their experiences have shaped the values and whether it's nature or nurture experience education and you know where their personal wisdoms come from and i think that's one of the reasons i think often people will not act on a feeling is because they don't know why they've got the feeling. I don't know where it's coming from. And I think that's certainly been a real exploration for me is to help myself understand that, but also to help other people, give them the confidence to understand where it's coming from, that what's

that feeling or emotion or that, that drive to want to do something. And if you don't know where it's coming from, it's like, I think it's much harder than do something so like how would you walk somebody through trying to understand where trying to understand that trying to identify what actually is going on in my head where is this coming from you know i think one of the first questions to ask somebody to help them understand is is to get them to ask them the question what is it about society or other people that really annoys you and when you ask somebody that if you think about what are the society or other people that really annoys you? And when you ask somebody that, if you think about what are the things that other people do that annoy you, that's basically self-informing about what matters to you and what's important, you know, and that's because that's ultimately your value. So, you know, if you're standing in a line and someone's, well, we call it queue jumping in the UK.

I don't think you call it queue. You call it line jumping, maybe? Yeah, cunning. jumping in the UK. I don't think you call it queue. You call it line jumping, maybe? Yeah, cunning. Cunning the line. Yeah, you know, if you've been very disciplined and you're standing in a line and someone walked to the front, it's what do you do? And if that really annoys you,

then you've probably got a value around fairness. You know, so it's a really interesting question to think about. It's like, what are the things that other people do that annoy you and wind you up? Because that will really be self-informing yeah so interesting so you're you're priming someone to identify their values by sort of like asking them to think about situations where those values are being violated yeah being compromised and then reversing what the actual value is out of yeah yeah so somebody somebody cool yeah somebody jumping somebody, yeah, somebody jumping the line, it's probably around fairness.

And then you think about, so why, why is fairness important to me? What is it? You know, the, the, the deeper than conversation is. So if fairness is something that's important to me, where's that come from? Is it because of my friendships, my parents, my experiences, what I've seen? Was it something in a movie? Like it's come from somewhere and you know the the interconnectedness between beliefs experience and values is a I think that that that is an

exploration is where I spend a lot a lot of my work really helping people go through that in order for them to better understand themselves and and have more confidence in their own decision making and career choice and relationships I mean it, it just informs everything we do. How do you distinguish beliefs and values? I would say that the way I think about it is I think that our experiences shape what we believe to be right and wrong. So I think beliefs for me and the conversations I've had with people is often as a result of experience. Whereas I think values, I think there's a combination of beliefs from experiences, but also something within there from nature. I think somehow values are inherent, like there's somewhere within. So I think there's a combination of the two things.

There's something I've thought about a whole bunch also. And because I think those two words are used interchangeably a lot, beliefs and values. And like you, I think it's nuanced, but I don't think they're the same. I think to me, beliefs are what is true and not true in your lens. You know, whether it's verifiable through some proof or experience or something like that, or whether it's based purely on faith or hope or just belief or intuition it's it's it is what what do i believe to be true and not true whereas values is more this is who i am yeah yeah and who you are is a result of both experience and nature yeah and it's so i think yeah for me they're they

are often used interchangeably, but they're nuanced and definitely different. Yeah. And both important, I think in the way we live our lives and make decisions. So you no longer work at McDonald's. No, you know,

it's funny, you know, it's, it's this thing about working in McDonald's and, and, and people like you worked in McDonald's and I'll say, yeah, and it was brilliant.

Like I learned so much, but I didn't know what I was learning at the time you know that's I have no regrets about story of life I have no regrets about working at McDonald's but I know I was definitely ready to leave after about 20 months of being there yeah what was the next move so the next move was probably the most fascinating, reflective hour of my life. When I think back is I remember I used to cycle to work. It was about six miles to get to the store to go to McDonald's. And I was cycling in and there was a junction opposite the store. And I pulled up on my bicycle and I was on a breakfast shift. So it's like 5.30 a.m.

I think it was in the autumn. It would have been in like September, October, I think. And I'm at the traffic lights and I'm overwhelmed with this sense of turn around and go somewhere else. Like, don't go to work. There was just this amazing moment of realization that, okay, you have to do something different today. And I was like, wow, this is quite an interesting experience. I'm like, you you know some slight flashbacks to being in the navy and knowing that I had to leave that and I ended up going into the store

and it was a pretty quiet shift and breakfast shift and there's not much going on and and I'm like okay well you know I need to what am I going to do with my life you know there's these the question started what am I going to do with my life what's it was you know now what we we get these free newspapers in the uk i don't know if you get them in the us where they're just full of adverts and full of kind of odd articles and there's lots of adverts for cars and slippers and coats and all these other things and most people don't you know they use it to uh you know to to line the cat litter tray or something like that. You know, they're often not read. And then when I went on my break, I had an hour. And it's really interesting this in terms of the whole concept of sliding doors and opportunities

is normally you went on your break and, you know, you put the TV on or the radio or you chat to somebody. And on this particular day, the TV was broken, the radio was broken, and there was nobody else on their break. So I'm sat in a room having some sort of burger, I suspect, and there's a free newspaper on the table. And I thought, I've got an hour. And I was, curiosity has always been something I've, you know,

there's been part of who I am. And I set myself the challenge of reading every word in the free newspaper. And I get about two-thirds of the way through it, and there was like a postage stamp sized advert and all it said was would you like to go to the arctic for four months question mark and it had a phone number and i thought arctic i know where that is that's north that's interesting so i finished my shift and I called the number and the telephone number was a youth development charity in London, which is now called British Exploring. And I called them up and they said, yeah, we run youth development expeditions and we take people to remote

adventurous environments to conduct scientific field work and learn about yourself. And I thought, wow, that's interesting. So I went to have an interview with a guy. He said, you know, what have you done? Where have you been and everything? And I was absolutely at the upper age limit of who they accepted in terms of youth development. So I would have been 20, I think. I had these interviews and they were in the December of that year. And the expedition was going the following april and everyone else had had about a year and a half to prepare for the expedition and because you had to fundraise and at the time this was 1993 and it was the best part of three thousand pounds which was

you know it's like real money real money yeah and but you had to fundraise and the whole part of the expedition was to raise the money to go on a adventurous personal development experience and had a little bit of a little bit of help from my parents and and i did all sorts of crazy fundraising things like asking the local supermarket if i could sit in the freezer for half an hour you know all those kind of things you do and you get creative how can you get money out of people by doing something a bit odd which pretty much sums up the world of adventurous travel now perhaps sure enough so yeah the april uh april the 10th 1993 i got on an airplane with 27 other young people and i went to the norwegian arctic island of svalbard for 16 weeks and lived in tents and igloos and traveled on ice caps and learned to survive in minus 30 temperatures

whilst doing scientific field work and learning about life self leadership yeah the most amazing experience incredible experience was it anything like what you thought it would be going into it when you actually got there i had i really had no idea what to like what to expect i mean i'd been up to scotland to do some training with the expedition team and we'd been in the snow and the cold and and i loved it you know absolutely i loved it but i i really i mean how you know as a young person i'm not sure it's possible to prepare yourself mentally for being in the Arctic wilderness for 16 weeks. The first, the first day we were in a camp and it's 24 hour daylight. It's mine. I think it was like minus 27 Celsius. It's pretty cold. And I remember

standing there thinking, what on earth have I chosen to do? And I'm just standing there looking out at the Arcticctic wilderness the sea ice and it's like two o'clock in the morning the sun's low in the sky it's daylight and you know not a breath of wind just you know when you're breathing in and the the moisture in your nose is freezing and you squeeze your nose and it crunches and and just just this the pristine silence of being there. And then I looked over and saw a polar bear walking along the sea ice, probably about a mile away. And just like, you know, eyes as big as they could possibly be, just thinking, this is unbelievable. This is day one. And yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm not sure it's possible to prepare yourself mentally at that age to go and do something like that yeah i mean it sounds like it sounds like everything was leading up to

sort of uh what would become eventually your certainly bigger body of work but something this experience was the thing that really locked in this idea of using wilderness as a tool for development yeah yeah i mean i think it would be non-impossible to spend that amount of time in the world and to not learn about yourself and other people and reflect on life and purpose and what matters. So that really was the first, yeah, the grounding experience, I guess, the formative experience of what really shaped my interest and fascination for using time outside to help people yeah so how do you build on that then and start to plot a course for you know the work you'll do in the world as somebody who effectively organizes experiences like that but in very different ways in very different places and

takes people into these extreme environments and through experiences while they're there that leave them profoundly changed. I mean, what's, how does that all get set in motion from there? Well, following that expedition, I came back from that and it was a, it was like revisiting the same experience of leaving the Navy, which was, I've had this incredible experience. Now what, like, what do I do with my life now? And not going back to McDonald's. I'm not going, I made that. Yeah. I'm not going back to McDonald's as much as, you know, in hindsight, I did learn a lot from it. So I go back to the north of England and overwhelmed, overwhelmed by green and trees and noise and pollution and everything else that you get in normal life that you don't get in an Arctic wilderness. And

I thought, what am I going to do? then i heard about a an organization where a lot of young people would go and work there as adventure instructors and you would take basically children through adventure holidays doing archery and and you know canoeing and kayaking and all that stuff and i thought okay well that that could be a pretty cool job uh you know i've had this experience and so I I wrote to the chief leader of my expedition to ask her for a reference and we'd got on pretty well on the expedition and she was up in Scotland working for the charity Outward Band and I wrote to her to ask her for a reference as I'm really interested in this whole idea of outdoor learning and development and character development and people and and she wrote back to me and said i'm sorry i can't give you a reference but i'd like to give you a job so that was pretty pretty lucky because most people had

to go through some level of training or apprenticeship with these other organizations in order to get to work for outward bound and and they were creating a new role which was a trainee instructor so she basically said yeah I'd like to I'd like to offer you a job in this new role that we're creating and so yeah I think it must have been three weeks later I got on a train and one-way ticket to the Highlands of Scotland I spent the next three years working for Outward Bound in Scotland. And at the time, Outward Bound were really, you know, were really at the forefront of working both with young people in the outdoors in terms of personal character development, but also working with corporates.

And the center I was at did both. So they had a corporate development arm and a personal development arm and so I had this instant exposure to using the outdoors to help people in organizations develop their own character and leadership and and team development whilst also working with young people teaching them climbing and sailing and and I had this fantastic three years working there which really was the I would say was the real grounding of my understanding in experiential learning. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

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Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to sort of hear that your path to experiential learning was experiential learning. You know, where experiential learning has kind of become a bit of a catchphrase or a buzzword these days, you know, as this alternative. And I think it's awesome. It's fantastic that we are focusing a lot on that. I've known people that have started foundations around this as alternatives for kids who are just not doing well in traditional settings. But very often it's sort of like, well, how do you learn to teach experiential learning? How do you develop that program? Like, well, let me find it, a degree program that will teach me how to do that. So it's kind of fascinating to me that your path there was simply through just this like

this series of experiences that took you deeper and deeper and deeper it was all through doing and through it resonating on a very personal level and then bundled with your fierce curiosity to keep witnessing and deconstructing how it was actually affecting the people within the experience including you just on a personal level. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I remember, you know, although I was in my early twenties, I remember taking people through these experiences, but also being in the experience myself. And it's certainly one of the things I still carry now is when I set up

projects and I work with people, I say to my, my co-facilitators and, you know, practitioners is that this isn't, this isn't, this isn't something you're doing to other people. This is an experience that we put together that you're in like this isn't, this isn't teaching. You can't possibly run this work authentically and not be in it because it just doesn't work like that. And so I think I certainly went through that when I was at Outward Bound is

that every day you're working with people, you know, you're asking people questions. You've got to ask yourself the same questions. And it still carries true now, I think. I mean, it's also such a great lens because I think we often we get to a point where we kind of feel like, OK, so we've checked that box and now we'll turn around and teach people how to do what we've done. But we're at another point now. So we don't have to continue with these reflections, which is unfortunate because I think we lose when we do that. Oh, completely. I mean, we lose perspective. We lose the insight.

And, and, and our relatedness is people just don't respond well to it because it's perceived as, you know, superiority or it's perceived as arrogance or it's perceived as lack of care. Yeah. Lack of care or compassion because you're not, you know superiority or it's perceived as arrogance or it's perceived as yeah lack of care yeah lack of care or compassion because you're not you know you're not asking you're not thinking you're not asking yourself the questions yeah and and also i think how can you you know one of the first conversations we ever did way back when we were filming this david marquette who found himself commanding nuclear sub but it wasn't the sub that he had studied and prepared his entire life to command.

And he was in it one day and he's barking these orders to all ahead, whatever it was. And everyone's kind of resisting, resisting, resisting, but they're following his orders until finally he realized that if they had gone a little bit further, he would have grounded the sub.

And nobody would tell him because he was the authority and their job was just to follow orders. And he was like, from that moment on, he completely changed the culture on the ship and said, okay, this is no longer about following orders. It's all about intention. Like you tell me now, you know, like, sir, I intend to dot, dot, dot, because I need to learn from you. I need like we need to create a culture where I, as a leader, am completely open to learning from and responding to you and your intention and your intelligence. Yeah. I guess, you know, it's one of the problems with the concept of expertise is when we perceive someone to be an expert or to be really experienced, we're probably a lot less likely to either question them or to point out something we've seen, which isn't right or which could go wrong. And I guess, you know, in that case, a nuclear sub that might ground could go catastrophically

wrong. But if there isn't the culture or the expectation or the permission to be able to question or challenge, then that's when a lot of things go wrong in society and organizations. Yeah. And you as a leader, if you don't allow that, you know, that's when a lot of things go wrong in society and organizations. Yeah. And you as a leader, if you don't allow that, I mean, you stop going, like you've now flatlined. And, you know, at which point, at some point, everybody's going to pass you by if, you know, if you're motivated by being able to sort of like continue to grow, but also just on a personal level, why would you want to do that?

I guess what's really interesting is the work i've you know i've been doing in the last few years with executives and senior leaders is is taking through taking them through experiences which is just to slow down and ask themselves some of those questions so tell me about some of the like this but what types of things are you doing now so i mean to sort of rapidly fill in the gap you took that like this experience and essentially start to build your own enterprise doing this on your own and over the years continuing to work with both kids and executives and teams at the highest levels and kids going through all sorts of different stuff yeah so i think so you know i guess from that from the from

those experiences give me the grounding and then it's constantly been developing and nurturing this idea of how to help people ask themselves questions and give them experiences, which give them the environment to be able to have the time to reflect on those questions that are going to help them in their lives in terms of their own sense of well-being, their own purpose and direction, but also in terms of their relationships with families and at work. And then at a bigger level is by having those experiences is how can that help you better influence society at a, at a bigger level? So like what would be an example of an environment or an experience and how that would affect, like how, how this would become a really powerful experience? So spending time in the outdoors on a journey, I think, is one of the things that I've seen work really well.

So I've been running a program for, well, a series of programs, I guess, for the last seven or eight years. And one of them has been a journey in canoes down slow-moving rivers where you have the time to have really good quality conversation and reflection and asking people to think about their values and what informs them and what experiences have informed them and and really getting people to think about well what do you want to do and what matters what's important to you so in that particular program is is called leadership for good which is around how do we help people at all levels of society develop the courage and confidence to actually make a difference. So I've been running that program for a number of years. And that's, I think, probably the main thing that I've been focusing on in terms of scaling is because I think it's such a clear need in society is to have people who have the ability

and the courage and the confidence to say you know what i don't think this is the right way to do things i think we need to do something different here and if you look at recent history there is a very long list of you know situations and organizations where there has been a moment where an individual or a group of people could have said, look, I think we need to do something different here. You know, the classic thing is that the Volkswagen's emission scandal, you know, how can an organization create in a situation where that, that, that's occurring, you know, there must've been meetings and conversations where there's opportunities for people to say, I actually don't think this is a great idea long term. I think we need to do something different here because this isn't going to go so well.

You know, and then you, you know, you bring it back to the whole Weinstein scandal and all of that cultural stuff around power and control. And, you know, and it's taken a number of people to to start to speak out and of course once people start to speak out you find that actually you weren't alone and lots of people have either experienced the same thing or think the same thing so the aim of that program the aim of leadership for good program is to take people on a on a journey that gives them that real solid foundation that they really know what matters to them and what's important and to give them the confidence and courage to both follow a life of passion and purpose, but also be able to have that ability to look at the world around them and to be able to speak up when people need to speak up. Can you recall a moment where you were with somebody or a group of people deep into some natural environment intersecting with

these questions these prompts where the blend of those two things and the conversation and the community just sparked some sort of major shift or awakening in somebody or the entire group yeah i think that there was there was one one of the leadership for Good programs I was running where a girl was in that fairly not uncommon situation of pursuing a career in accordance with the wishes of her parents. They wanted her to be a lawyer. They were both lawyers. And this is, you know, this is what you're going to do. And she just she had a moment sitting in a canoe there was quite a lot of emotion where she had this sudden realization that the the journey she was on just did not conform with who she was and what mattered to her and she'd only got there because of having the time and the space and the support to have the

conversations to develop the awareness to think well actually what do i really want to do and you know the rest of the the trip for her was around how am i going to have this conversation with my parents you know what am I going to base this on I'm going to have this courageous conversation with my parents and you know you think about all the things that that involves as an only child and they've paid for her to go through law school and 100% she knows that she does not want to be a lawyer. Those kind of experiences and conversations, especially for people who are in their early 20s, it's, you know, where do you get that level of support and that level of insight to be able to help you to do that?

And, you know, so that is, you know, one of a number of situations or conversations that I remember where someone just had a moment of realization that I need to have a courageous conversation. And the rest of the program, like I say, the rest of the program for her was about helping her have that. And after the program supporting her through that, and she did, she did go and have the courageous conversation and it was pretty tough. She's now not far off completing her final exams to be an airline pilot.

Her passion, her passion was, was an interest was flying. So that's what she's pursuing. That's so cool. What is it about natural environments is so transformational because I've experienced this my entire life. I grew up down the block from the water and when I'm, when I'm stressed out, when I, when I need a reset, when I need to think when I'm stressed out, when I need a reset, when I need to think, when I need clarity, when I just need to breathe, I always will either go to the water or walk into the woods. Nobody told me to do that.

And it doesn't always make everything okay. But it gives me what I need in that moment in time. And if I keep doing it and returning to it, eventually I end up in a better place. And I know you've used natural environments both to create extreme circumstances that really challenge people. And then on the other hand, you've used it here where it's like the nature of the environment commands that you must slow down and just be still, which is, I would imagine, just as hard, if not harder for people who are not used to taking some time out to slow down in nature going to sit in central park for half an hour on your own under a tree could feel quite extreme you know like you don't have to go on an arctic expedition you know a couple of years ago i ran a an arctic reflective journey i'm doing one in a couple of months time

for some execs and that's a you know that's an extreme version of going somewhere to have a real deep reflective go through a deep reflective process but at the same token like you say you can you can walk into central park from where we're sitting now and take half an hour without your telephone and and just be you know just be a human being as opposed to a human doing it as you know as it's often said and and i think this there's you know i think there is all sorts of research around what happens to your brain you know your brain on nature it's being surrounded by the colors the shapes the sounds the sights the smells and just being still outside well i guess the thing i think the thing about it is it can be confronting because all you have is yourself and I often describe it as spending time in nature and slowing down is like going outside with a big mirror and not all of us

actually want to look in the mirror because you know often it's much easier just to get on and do stuff and be busy but I think having a little bit of time and having that balance of having some sort of practice where you do go outside and have some reflective space. I think that's, you know, from my experience is what people find incredibly useful and, you know, have profound insight about either our values, our relationships, our work, what we want to do, our purpose. So I think on a spectrum of extreme, extreme environments, it's a very big spectrum. And, you know, I think it depends on the on the individual. You know, I know in Japan for years they've prescribed forest bathing. it's a very big spectrum and it you know i think it depends on the on the individual you know i know in japan for years they've prescribed forest bathing shinrin yaku shinrin yaku yeah a friend of

mine i stayed last weekend in edinburgh with a doctor friend and she said she's just been given permission to issue green prescriptions in the uk which basically means go outside go for a walk in the woods so i mean it's you know it's starting to to pick up from a health perspective that you know it's undoubtedly you know undoubtedly true i think that just spending time outside has a positive effect on our well-being but i think the work i do with that is also to give it some structure and some questions and support and set up learning experiences where there is a a gentle level of facilitation coupled with the experience of being there that takes people through a reflective journey to give them more

perspective and insight and awareness and to think about their relationships and their own you know their own lives yeah i mean it sounds like it's that blend which really really is the powerful unlock key. And at the same time, I wonder also what role awe plays in the entire experience. Because I know there's actually awe or wonder. I'm fascinated by actually awe. There's a growing body of research on how it actually affects us and how it literally kind of changes your brain. Everything from it rewires you to all of a sudden reconnect with a sense of expansiveness. And at the same time, on even a micro level, can have the experience of reducing inflammation in your body and changing your

immunity, which is really powerful. And I wonder when you bring people into nature, to me, that's the easiest place where I reconnect with both wonder and awe, which I think are a little bit different. I'm curious whether it is, when you're sitting in the Arctic Circle somewhere and what you described the first night, standing there with utter silence, with, with utter silence, you know, just the seascape of whiteness and then out of the corner of your eye, you know, like with nothing around and bitter cold, seeing a polar bear just kind of wandering by. I mean, that is awe. Yeah.

You know, and how can that, I'm so, so curious what role that effect plays in the entire experience of sort of like having this opening expansive effect just because of the natural environment. And then you plant these seeds, these prompts. Like, how do you think about them and experience them differently when you're in that state? Yeah, it's, I know it's a big question. It's a big, it's a really big question, isn't it and i think it's i i think i think the the the art of running these experience is to is to just let them go and for people to experience them as they experience them and i think you know

how we experience or could be could be from a from what you're seeing externally in terms of that environment but also what we think about ourselves and certainly i know i've had personal experiences where i've just had some time outside and just had a moment and just come up with an idea and being overwhelmed with a feeling through my body of that just feels fantastic so i think it can the awe i think can be an internal sense as well as what you're actually seeing where we you know that's something i think other people have said to me is where they you know you call it actually seeing where we you know that's something i think other people have said to me is where they you know you call it light bulb moments or you know deep clarity whatever but i think that i think it can work both ways both you know the environment can give you an

internal feeling of wow that is just that feels fantastic that thought or that idea or if you're reflecting on a relationship or you know it's it's just, I think there's certainly the experiences of being outside. It can be, yeah, certainly can be a visual, certainly can be a visual thing, like you said, like the Arctic. But I think how it, I think the question was, how does it translate? I think for me, it's about perspective. Is there something about feeling insignificant and vulnerable is a real key part of spending time outside. And that the bit i think we lose when we're busy in work in life in organizations is i think as we progress through our careers and life i think we often have a sense of being more important as as you go through your life and you know this goes back to the conversation about

expertise and not listening and it's about losing our ability to be vulnerable and spending time outside feels vulnerable whether that's sitting in central park on your own for half an hour or being in the arctic looking out of the arctic wilderness seeing a polar bear it's pretty hard to be be in a place like that and not feel a little bit vulnerable and i think that's the vulnerability part of spending time outside i think is the key ingredient for helping people to develop perspective and insight and an ability to be better at self-managing and making decisions i think that for me is the key part of the whole thing and you know the the i worked with a senior exec team just before christmas in london and they wanted to run the event in a in a hotel in the middle of London and I said well let's just go on the side of Richmond Park and Richmond Park is a beautiful park on the outside of London and there's wild deer and

there's trees and so we ran the event on the side of the park in a hotel and we spent half a day just going for a walk in the park and we did walk in dialogue have impaired conversations and then we just had like 20 minutes of sitting still and when we had the conversation about it all the all they wanted to talk about was what it felt like to be vulnerable and then they had this huge disclosure about their insecurities as senior leaders in an organization and the acceleration of that group of people being connected developing trust and openness was was as a result of going for a walk in the woods and just having a feeling of being vulnerable yeah that never would have happened if you were just sitting in a conference no it just would never you know i remember one one of the one of the women she um she talked about insecurity and that that thing i've heard a lot was you know the question is as a senior person in an organization

people often say when are they going to find me out? You know, and, and she shared this whole thing around her insecurity. And, um, you know, if you were going to, if you're going to attach a hashtag to this, it would be you as well, exclamation mark, because everyone else said, I feel like that as well. I'm, I feel really insecure and I can't believe that I'm a senior leader in this organization. And they had this fantastic conversation all around vulnerability. And I'm still working with them. I'm going to do another event with them near where I live in the Lake District in May, where we're going to take them outside for a little bit more time. But that catalyst of being outside and feeling vulnerable, I think is the bit that really helps people to develop relationships, perspective, honesty, trust.

Yeah, no, I love that. It's kind of fun because you can really trace this thread back to when you were five. Yeah. Back to the youngest years of you having this really strong sense of experiential, like a deep quest for learning, actually, but absolutely not in a constrained normative way. Like it's got to be experiential. It's got to be outdoors and coupled with a, you know, a deep fascination with human beings and a sense of justice. It's kind of a fascinating through line that carries you all the way here. One of the things that you've sort of evolved to with all this work and groups of all different ages is sort of the idea of something bigger on the level of a movement.

Yeah. So about a year ago, I rebranded my business and I created what essentially is a movement called Explore What Matters, which is a global community of people who I've worked with and met who are really interested in making a positive difference to people and society. And the aim of this movement is to bring really passionate educators together to work with both organizations and on open programs to ask those difficult questions about what matters and how do we influence organizational policy how do we influence even society or even you know even maybe a country's foreign policy

perhaps if we're going to get really ambitious and i have done a little bit of work with a country in the middle east working with some of their young people to look at how they integrate across different religions and across communities so so my my real my real dream for the future is to develop this idea of explore what matters to to make a difference to make a real tangible difference to organizations and society which has that knock-on effect on on people and i think as i said in a different part of the conversation the you know the world we live in right now we're surrounded by just so much stuff and uncertainty and you know and it just feels like this bubbling bubbling thing going on and i think that the thing that i think can really help is to help

people connect at a values level and bring people together to actually make a difference and whether it's about plastics in the oceans whether it's about plastics in the oceans, whether it's about abuses of power and equality, whether it's about gender equality, whether it's about helping organizations create structures where it's okay for people to speak up, that they have a good intention. Then I think this idea of explore what matters is this community of people who can come together to work on those sorts of projects. And, you of the phrases, I think one of the worst labels that's used for

people who have courage is whistleblower. This whole idea of a whistleblower, one way of looking at this is a whistleblower is a loud noise which should be silenced as quickly as possible. And certainly that's something that happens in organizations is so often somebody speaks up. And the first thing that happens is that there's an attempt to silence them because the leadership of that organization sees it as a challenge and sees it as something that's going to undermine who they are. And, you know, that comes back to the vulnerability bit, is that surely if the whistleblower has good intentions, if the senior leadership of an organization is willing to do something that's right, if they have a level of comfort with vulnerability, then they're going to be more happy to explore what that person is saying.

So I think we should redefine the word whistleblower and anyone who speaks up, we should just call them a truth seeker rather than a whistleblower. Because I think whistleblower has such a negative connotation. No, I'm just thinking, I was trying to remember the origin of the word whistleblower. Because I think the original intention is if there's physical danger in an environment, like you blow the whistle. So it's like the all clear. So everyone can run for safety. That could be completely made up, but there's something in my mind that says,

that says that's where it came from. And it has been sort of like the, it's taken on a different meaning over time. And yeah, we are in a moment, right? Where I feel like a lot of this is happening now and to create any sort of structure or ideas or experiences that some way accelerate that or give intelligent process around it. And I think it can only help.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's just what organizations and societies need. I think it's, yeah. And I guess, you know, who knows where it goes? We've run some pretty interesting projects so far, but I think the bigger dream is to essentially create an international movement around helping people to explore what matters, to have a positive effect on organizations and society. So as we sit here, this is Good Life Project, so Alfred, this phrase up to you, to live a good life, what comes up? I think it's to take the time. To live a good life is to take the time to question what matters to you and to have the courage to follow the convictions of the answer of that question. I think that that's the thing that stands out for me is, you know, if you get to 70 or 80 and you look back on your life and think, what have I done? I think thinking about what's been a good

life is to have lived a life as closely aligned as possible to the things that do actually matter to you. Love it. So if you're still listening, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just completely love that you enjoyed this episode so much that you've listened until now. You're an awesome human being. And while we're wrapping things up, might as well share a quick shout out to our super cool brand partners. If you love the show, and I'm guessing you do because you're still here, please support them. They help make the podcast possible. Check out the links in today's show notes. And don't forget also your spot at this year's Camp GLP.

As we recently announced, this year's Camp GLP. As we recently announced, this will be our final year. We're expecting about 400 amazing humans from all around the world. It's going to be more epic than ever. And if you've been waiting, be sure to register soon. You can find that link at goodlifeproject.com slash camp today, or just click the link in the show notes. See you next week. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

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