Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPClassic: Yancey Strickler on Using Bentoism For A Better World

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Are you ready to build a better world?  How do we dig ourselves out of this hyper-individualistic hole? When it comes to cultivating a mindset that focuses on serving the collective alongside the individual, there is no one better to talk to than Yancey Stricker. Yancey is the co-founder of Kickstarter and the creator of the strategic decision-making method, Bentoism, which offers an alternative approach to making decisions that mindfully consider our current self, the people around us, our future selves, and the people we will be surrounded by in the future.  In this episode of #YAPClassic, Yancey and Hala talked about the components of Bentoism and how to use to make more informed decisions in any scenario. They discuss Kickstarter’s come-up story and why they initially had trouble getting investors on board. He described what it was like to co-found Kickstarter with no business experience and how that led to imposter syndrome.  They also talk about the dangers of embracing financial maximization, The Bento Society, and Yancey’s predictions for the next several years of our society. Topics Include: - Yancey’s experience getting bullied  -Yancey’s early career as a writer  -Where the idea for Kickstarter began  -Co-founding Kickstarter with no business experience  -Imposter syndrome  -What is a PBC?  -Financial maximization  -Other ways to measure business success  -Roles models and their effects on society  -The characteristics of Bentoism  -The Bento Society  -How Telsa embodies the “future us” mindset  Yancey Strickler is an author, entrepreneur, and creator of Bentoism. He co-founded Kickstarter in 2009 with Perry Chen and Charles Adler. He also co-founded Metalabel and the artist resource The Creative Independent.  Yancey began his career as a music critic writing for Pitchfork, Spin, and The Village Voice, and he later created the record label eMusic Selects.  Yancey has a lot of ideas on improving the world by realigning our motives to better serve the world around us and how we can measure value and success with metrics other than profit.  He’s also the author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, which outlines how we built this hyper-individualistic society and how we can change course.  Sponsored By: Resources Mentioned: YAP Episode #81: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/81-bentoism-for-a-better-world-with-yancey-strickler/id1368888880?i=1000492019933  Yancey Stricker’s Website: https://www.ystrickler.com/  Bentoism’s Website: https://bentoism.org/  Weekly Bento Talks: https://bentoism.org/blog/the-weekly-bento  Yancey’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yancey-strickler-486b4557/?originalSubdomain=ca  Yancey’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ystrickler/?hl=en  Yancey’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ystrickler?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor  More About Young and Profiting Download Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com   Get Sponsorship Deals - youngandprofiting.com/sponsorships Leave a Review - ratethispodcast.com/yap Watch Videos - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Follow Hala Taha LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ TikTok - tiktok.com/@yapwithhala Twitter - twitter.com/yapwithhala Learn more about YAP Media Agency Services - yapmedia.io/ Join Hala's LinkedIn Masterclass - yapmedia.io/course  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash profiting. You're listening to YAP, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. Welcome to the show.

I'm your host, Halla Taha, and on Young and Profiting podcast, we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession, or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast, and that's on purpose. I'm here to uncover value from my guests

by doing the proper research and asking the right questions. If you're new to the show, we've chatted with the likes of X FBI agents, real estate moguls, self-made billionaires, CEOs, and bestselling authors. Our subject matter ranges from enhancing productivity, had to gain influence, the art of entrepreneurship, and more. If you're smart and

like to continually improve yourself, hit the subscribe button because you'll love it here at Young & Profiting Podcast. Today on Yapp, we're throwing it back to my interview with the co-founder of the Uber Popular Crowdsourcing Platform Kick Starter and the creator of Bentowism, Yancy Strickler. Yancy is also the author of This Could Be Our Future, a manifesto for more generous world, which outlines Bentowism, his framework that helps people make more informed decisions by gauging the impact of their decisions on both an individual and a societal level. We often get stuck in the routine of their decisions on both an individual and a societal level.

We often get stuck in the routine of making decisions that only benefit our present selves. What do I want right now? And we sometimes forget to think about how these decisions will affect our lives and the lives of others moving forward. Bantuism offers an alternative approach to making decisions that mindfully consider our current self, the people around us, our future selves, and the people we will be surrounded by in the future. Yancey was originally featured on YAPP for episode number 81 in September of 2020, and he

was one of the first guests who brought the concept of Purpose Overprofits or Conscious Business to YAPP. Soon after my episode with Yancey, many people brought up similar concepts like conscious business and generosity purpose, but none of these guests provided such an actionable way to actually make decisions that promote this type of business philosophy in practice. So in this episode, Yancey and I break down the components of Ventuism, and he tells me about some companies that are embodying these qualities. We also discussed the problem with financial maximization. Yancey gives his predictions for how society

will evolve over the next 30 years. If you want to peek into the future from one of the most innovative and influential business minds of our time. Then YAPBAM, I highly recommend that you keep on listening. Hey, Yancy, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. What's up? Thanks for having me. Of course, I'm super, super stoked about this interview. So, Yancy, just to introduce you to my listeners, you are the co-founder and former CEO of Kickstarter.

You are the founder of the philosophy of Ben Toism, and you're the author of this could be our future, a manifesto for a more generous world. And before we dig into Kickstarter and Ben Toism, which is such an interesting topic, I really want to talk about your career journey and your childhood. So based on my research, you actually didn't really fit in. You got bullied. You were called homophobic slurs in your own words. So much that you thought that you may be gay.

And you just didn't even know it. So how did this experience of being an outcast as a child really impact who you are today and some of the moves that you've made in your life? Yeah, let's just start right at the deepest, the deepest, most vulnerable spot. Why not? Yeah, I think those kind of experiences shape your self-perception. Whether they're true or not, they help create a narrative about yourself. So for me, that's created a narrative of like not belonging, you know, and even

if I'm like being invited to belong, I just trust it, right? Because I just don't see that value. These things just echo, you know, they form your anxieties and your drive. You know, for me growing up in the country, on a farm, no neighbors, you know, I just read books all the time. And that's what I love to do. And that's still what I love to do. And so one way of thinking about it is just during the times where other people were, yeah, socializing, which of course I still had, but I would be reading. So I just had a curiosity for the world that always drove me. And even when I would have these really tough moments in life, I just sort of was always called by just an interest

in the world, a curiosity in the world. It really didn't beat me down in a way that it stopped me from moving. It's more that I was just like, I gotta get outta here. I've gotta, I have to succeed and so it played out that way. Well, that's really cool. And I bring it up not to like put you on the spot or make you feel uncomfortable.

It's more because I have a lot of listeners that are young and probably are getting bullied. And I want them to understand that you can come out of that. And you can be super successful just like you, Yancy. Kickstarter is one of the most impressive companies of the last decade. And for you to have been a part of that, and to have had a childhood where you weren't the most impressive companies of the last decade, you know, and for you to have been a part of that and to have had a childhood where you weren't like the most popular, you know, football player in school, you know, you don't need to be that to be successful. And actually most people who are the most popular in school are not the most successful after school, you know. And so I just think that's important for people to have.

No, it's so important to recognize. So let's talk about your career journey before Kickstarter. From my understanding, you had a dream of being a writer. So what were some of the things that you did before you actually started Kickstarter? Yeah, I was a, in college, I studied English and cultural studies and I just said a lot of writing and reading. And while I was in college, I started just randomly writing record reviews.

And I managed to get a couple album reviews and pitch fork. And the pitch work was just starting then, but like, it was a made, you know, as one of the first, whenever, 30 people to write for pitch fork. And that, that was exciting. And then I moved to New York and and got basically like entry-level editorial slash production jobs

First it like a radio station then at like a website and at the start all these jobs were Basically some sort of data entry or like using a CMS, you know take our stuff and put it in here So it goes on the website, but what I what I found was stuff and put it in here so it goes on the website. But what I found was there's a lot of opportunity in those places, especially coming in as someone who was comfortable with the internet and technology, and this is when the world is still shifting, beginning to shift in that way. And I discovered something interesting for me, which is, you know, I'd always want to be a writer, I thought of myself as a writer. but like the organizational questions, thinking strategically, getting people to come to consensus around ideas, I discovered that those things came very naturally to me.

And I didn't expect it. I didn't even want it. I actually felt like almost like a sell out or like a clash trader for being good at those things because I thought of myself as a creative person, but just being inside young organizations that were changing gave me enough opportunity, and enough challenges to chew on that it let me discover these other capabilities that I add. And in all cases, it came in from taking the,

I mean, my first job was $18,000 a year, taking that job, and then just like every day or just showing up, just thinking, my first job was $18,000 a year, taking that job and then just like every day or just showing up just thinking, how can I be useful other than doing the 10 things that I have to do? And yeah, and that was really it. That's really cool. And so like I mentioned previously, you co-founded Kickstarter, which basically created a whole new economy based on the generosity of people. Kickstarter has placed billions of dollars in the hands of creative people since it launched in 2009. More than a hundred thousand new ideas have generated because of it. And it was actually a Perry Chen who is one of your co-founders who originally

had the idea. So take us back to that moment back in 2009 when Perry first brought up the idea to you. What did you think about that idea? Did you understand it? And were you on board right away? Yeah. Perry first had the idea in 2001 or 2001-2002. So he had been sitting on it for a while. And he had wanted to throw a concert and realize that he was going to have to front something like $20,000 to make the show happen. And I thought, what if instead I could propose the concert to the public, people could put up their credit cards to buy tickets, but no one would be charged unless the show's sold

out. And so there was this notion of a conditional transaction. It would only happen if people wanted to. And so that was the idea for Kickstarter. He shared it with me four years later. So 2005, we met in a restaurant where in Brooklyn where he worked and I was a regular and My first reaction to the idea was actually not liking it. I thought it reminded me of American Idol and It's I'm just like why do we need people voting on stuff? Like, is that, is that how we want culture to happen?

Really? And we just end up talking about how, think about the niche artist or the person who has the online community that's so dispersed in the real world. But if they could only gather the people on the web, something would be possible. And so we started working on it and found

our third co-founder, Charles Adler, about a year later. And what was interesting was crowdfunding didn't exist yet. And there had been some experiments, but there wasn't any kind of platform. It wasn't a normal thing. And we were focused on the very beginning on just helping creative projects and artists and creative people. That was just like that's who we were, that's where we came from, that's what we cared about. And to that men from the beginning, you know, just like closing ourselves off to a lot of potential opportunity,

just like taking a stronger focus than you might think. But in that way, just authentically representing a need of creative ideas not being appreciated. And especially creative people not being appreciated. And I even think the way that creators are lauded now on the web and Patreon, even YouTube framing itself around creators, like that is not a language that existed before Kickstarter. Even before Kickstarter, it's like there are musicians and filmmakers,

and these are all discrete things. And instead, now we think of them as they're all kind of a similar creative practice, it remains a great tool. And something that just allows self-determination and creative ideas and things that wouldn't otherwise to happen to happen. Yeah, so like you said, it wasn't a phrase that people knew about. People didn't know what crowdfunding was

when you first launched Kickstarter, that phrase didn't exist. You guys kind of were one of the first pioneers in the space. So when you were bringing on investors or even content creators on the platform, what kind of pushback did you receive in terms of the idea? Yeah, it was so painful to explain. You know, you get like lost in the mechanics of and then there's a pledge and they don't get charged. There's so many things that we take for granted are really hard to explain at first.

The first two years, every Kickstarter video is someone trying to explain to their friends. Here is this new thing. Honestly, business people would say no one is going to use this because I want to get a cut. I should get a piece of the action. But we would say, but listen, the whole idea is that projects aren't meant to be good businesses. They're just like interesting or cool or funny or you know, it's all the other things. And so for a more traditionally minded business person, they're just like this, what need does this possibly serve? For creative people, they immediately would see it. They would immediately saw it and said, yeah, you know, I have so many projects and I have to go knock

on doors and beg to get them made. Like I would, if I could just present my idea and I don't have to get permission from anyone, that's amazing. But there was a question of, will people actually support me? Because there's still a definite where we're used to an artist's fan relationship of I buy a ticket when your movie comes out. It's after the fact. In here, we're saying, just support this person for being them. Support an just that it's after the fact. In here, we're saying, you know,

just support this person for being them, support an idea because it's a good idea. And that's requiring a different level of trust. And so, you know, I think everyone had the attitude of like, well, sure, this sounds great, but having that, you know, healthy, grizzled, veterans, you know, skepticism of, but we'll see, you know, we'll see if people actually do this kind of thing. But if you look at, youzzled veterans, skepticism of, but we'll see.

We'll see if people actually do this kind of thing. But if you look at Kickstarter, GoFundMe, Patreon, it's even now only fans, right? I mean, the degree to which we are willing and excited to directly support one another is just, it seems so obvious now that connection was not there before about 10 years ago. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.

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you wanted artists and creators to have a way to fund their brilliant ideas, right? So did you have like imposter syndrome, considering that you took the CEO role at the company? What were some of the challenges that you had in terms of being a leader and not really having too much business experience? Yeah, I'm still waiting to see if imposter syndrome ends, you know, just seeing it somehow even as you change, you think, oh, but am I really this? Yeah, there's a lot of that because it wasn't an aspiration. I mean, Perry was the CEO for the first five years and I stepped in after that. And it's not something that I wanted or had,

you know, spent my life preparing for. And that's a good and a bad thing. It's a good thing because, especially if you're company like Kickstarter where you're trying to, you know, we're trying to set a different kind of example, where we're really trying to uphold a lot of values that are personal to us. You don't wanna do things the way everybody else does them

because that laziness can just trap you. We saw it happen to many of our friends. But also, it just means that as everyone else is chasing hyper growth and large valuations, and you're not chasing those things, that other folks get their trophy moment and you don't. Yours is more subtle. And there are days where you can feel good about it and you could think, you know, it doesn't matter. And then there are days where you think, what if everyone else is right? And I'm like the one sucker who didn't, you know, who didn't, like realize. So, you know, for me it was hard

that I just didn't see many role models. Like I, you know, people in my board I loved. But certainly as I looked around the startup universe, I didn't see anyone reflecting this idea of like trying to build a long-term institution, trying to align our self-interest with our users and employees. Like, you know, just the things that to me felt like the hardest things to get right, honestly, just seemed like no one else even cared about. So that's hard. That's hard.

And it's even something that, like, even inside the company, there is, you know, because we all live in the same world. And so employees say, my what, hey, can we raise a lot of money to go chase growth, to match what a competitor is doing? And so it's not just that like, there are these Scrooge McDuck, like sitting somewhere. We're all a part of this.

I'm a part of it, too. And so there's a lot that you've been up having to balance there. In the end, in the end, what I found is that I was ultimately able to just act in a way that is deeply true to who I am. I don't really look at anything I did and see any moment where I think that I was out of alignment with what I believe is important, what I care about. Did I always make the right decision? No, the things always work out, no.

But on that deeper level, I think it was always on point to some degree. And again, I have friends who were founder CEOs, more successful, funny, funny, fratis, using this context, more successful, became very wealthy, followed the same traditional path. And I think you find there's still a lot of regret. There's guilt, do I deserve this? There's, did I do things the right way or not? Maybe I took some shortcuts that are possibly creating some challenges now. How do I feel about that?

So there's a lot of you end up carrying. But yeah, so having just having the confidence to be yourself in a job like that. I definitely don't feel like I mastered that, but I think I held the line well enough. Yeah, for sure. I definitely think that you did. Just to give my listeners some context,

Kickstarter is a public benefit corporation, correct? And that's a PBC is what people call it. And I personally never heard of this company structure before researching you. It turns out there are a few other large corporations like Patagonia and Method products that are also PBCs. But explain to our listeners what that is and how that makes you different from other companies and startups or how that makes Kickstarter different because I think it will help them understand what you were just talking about a little bit more. Yeah, a PBC is a for profit company that has taken upon itself and has a legal classification

where it is required to balance the financial interests of shareholders, which is what every company in America is held by over the last 50 years. But you're meant to balance the financial interests of shareholders with producing a positive benefit to society. And so most companies have the attitude that you make as much, you just maximize for profit. You create a corporate giving program to apologize later for all the rivers you polluted.

And so, you know, we hope that works out in the long run. I think we can look around us to see how well that strategy plays out. As a PBC, you're saying that these things must be one-to-one, like you're directly incorporating these things into how you act, how you behave in all aspects. And when you become a P BBC, you write a charter that says what you're going to be legally held liable to.

And so Kickstarter is lays out a dozen or so provisions that include things like donating 5% of our aftertax profits to organizations giving arts education in schools and organizations fighting systemic inequality or pledging to not use legal but esoteric tax avoidance strategies to avoid paying the company's fair share. But what's important about a PBC structure is that there are a lot of good companies, but those that are operating as a traditional

for-profit company, they are just relying on having good people in their leadership positions. You know, they ultimately are still being held to this goal of maximizing a financial gain, and they just happen to have nice people doing it that aren't willing to do all the things that you can do. As a PBC, the company's legally held to this, and it can't change.

Like, the company, you know, I'm no longer the CEO of Kickstarter. The CEO now is, Isisani has to follow the same ideals. So the same will be for the next Kickstarter CEO and on and on. So we ultimately felt like this was a structural way to keep us honest, a structural way to keep the company

aligned with its community of creative people. And we as founders said from beginning, we didn't want to sell the company, we weren't trying to IPO, just like can we create a thing that does what it's supposed to do that doesn't screw it up, that fulfills that purpose. And so I think the PPC is a structure way to do that.

It's not perfect, it doesn't solve it, but I think it is a model and definitely more people are using it. Yeah, so you just brought up financial maximization. So I think that's a great transition into our next topic, which is what you really focus on now, like speaking about and bentoism. So this idea of financial maximization, it boils down to meaning that the right choice is whatever option makes the most money. And this concept was first introduced by the famous economist Milton Friedman in 1970. And so we're so used to this this way of the world where money drives everything, profit drives

everything, even like GDP is how our country is measured on our success as a country. So tell us about this economist who put out this op-ed in New York Times and how that really changed the world. What was the world like before that and what happened after that? Yeah, Milton Friedman is a brilliant economist with many, many great additions to our knowledge of the world. And it was 50 years ago, actually, to this week that he wrote this New York Times essay that said that the social responsibility of a business

is to increase profits. And that, at a moment, when companies were really held to this notion of the public good, and companies were celebrated for being things like GM saying, what's good for America is good for GM. That was an argument that all that was wrong. And that actually they were over complicating things and businesses should just focus on maximizing profits.

Now, I think there's some wisdom to what he says, but that became a license to basically just absolve, for business to absolve themselves of any responsibility other than their own returns. And so you see this dramatic shift in how America functioned that happened in 1973, where basically worker wages just stopped growing. From 1973 to today, the average Americans wages grown by about 10%. That's 10% since 1973, the same year, Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon came out. It's like 50 years, 10% raised.

Meanwhile, the cost of everything are crazy higher. Education, housing, healthcare, everything else. So people are like getting pinched in this crazy way. There's a study that just came out today from the Rand Corporation, which is I write about in the book, a very reputable government organization that did a study to say, you know, what if wages kept growing after 1973 that the way they had for the previous 30 years,

which you think of as the golden age of capitalism, the average American salary today would be jumping from something like $70,000 to like $110,000. And what they found is that every single income group, like the lowest paid person would be getting $68,000 to like $110,000. And what they found is that every single income group, like the lowest paid person would be getting $68,000 a year. And the only group that loses out on income is the 1%. Even the 99th percentile person sees their incomes gain. The way the system works changed, fundamentally changed,

and it changed to optimizing for shareholders, and that produced private equity, that produced companies offshoreing jobs, that produced the fragility of the American industrial sector today, and that produced all these things. They're all justified by this notion of, well, if it maximizes our financial interests, then it's good.

But we have reached the end of that story. We've reached the end of that story. It has not worked. It has not worked. America is falling apart. Our environment is incredibly unstable. We're going to find it very hard to just be, and we already are thinking about the normal, let's all grow our businesses,

whatever, 10% when there's so much instability and where the weather can wipe out billions of dollars of capital investment in a day, you know, overnight. And so we're in a moment where that mindset is shifting, but it really took such a stronghold in the world. Maybe maybe my favorite place is in a study of college students. Maybe my favorite place is in a study of college students that's happened every year since the 1960s that is about their goals in life. In a 1970, the most important life goal for a college freshman was to, quote, develop a meaningful philosophy on life. 84% of college students said that was essential. That year, the number of people who said being rich

was essential was about 28%, 28% of college students in 1970. The most recent year, the study came out in 2017. 82% of college students said being rich was essential. And only 40% said having a meaningful philosophy on life was. And this is a rational response to how our world has changed. And so, you know, this is something that I think is at the moment of a breakdown,

kind of an empire is breaking down at this moment. But I really have come to feel that this invisible assumption that the right outcome is the financially maximizing one. It has just been this sort of invisible litmus test that has been applied to the world continually over the recent decades. Yeah. So let's talk about values a bit, because I think values are really important in this whole conversation. Right now, the world in America and with capitalism, we value money and maximizing money.

What are some of the other values that we could have in play that could mean success? Like what other measures of success are there? Yeah, well, I think that, you know, mastery is a great one. You know, mastery is the act of just getting better at something. You know, if you, if you follow like the James Clear Atomic Habits world, you know, that, that is like

the true art of gross is actually you yourself getting better. You're not demanding anything more of anyone else. You're just personally improving. There are values like fairness. There are values like community ship. There are values like purpose that we see are incredibly important. But, you know, we see it like we assume that all those things must take a back seat to providing for your own financial needs, right? I mean, does it pursue a job or a career with purpose? And to some degree, it's seen as indulgent. It's privileged.

And in a sense, it is because for half the population that really is a hard ask to make, just because the degree to which opportunity is not being evenly distributed. But so I think that those values are very alive. I mean, in that survey of college freshmen, I mean, the same percentage of college freshmen want to have a family every year. Like that has not really changed. We still values these same things.

But the issue is that they're getting more and more squeezed by our need to make financial ends meet, by our need to have healthcare. And then we tie our notion of self-worth and self-esteem to getting those things. And then you get into that dangerous loop where you are making enough. You're making more than enough, but you go the lifestyle to match it. Nothing feels like enough. And then you become the heavy polluting Uber consumer that is making themselves unhappy and is destroying

the earth at the same time. And you look at anyone that has like a VPSVP level job at like a big company, there's a high chance that their life is something like that. And this is like these notions of success, they box us into these corners where we're really causing a lot of damage even though we don't recognize it. And now a quick break from our sponsors. You hear that sound, young and profitors? You should know that sound by now, but in case you don't, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify.

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So let's get into a bentoism membership masterclass.com slash profiting. So let's get into a bentoism. And for my understanding, it's a tool or a values processor that can help people decide which four different choices they should pick in every different scenario. The choices include now me, now us, future me, and future us. Can you talk to us about this decision-making methodology that you've came up with? Maybe give us a real example of how you can use it? Sure, yeah. Yeah, so one day while I was working on the book, I was sketching in my notebook and I drew what's called a hockey

stick graph, you know, just a simple x, y, axis chart and then a line slipping up into the right. And I drew this as a graph of self-interest, what I thought we thought of as self-interest today. And after I drew that graph, I realized that the x-axis, which represents time, it could extend. It can go from all the way from now to the future. And the y-axis, which I thought reflected your self-interest, how popular you were, how powerful you were becoming, that that also had a dimensionality

because as our self-interest grows, so do our responsibilities. So, I thought that actually goes from me to us. So, I had to extend these lines and instead of this simple hockey stick graph, I had these four quadrants and I labeled each one, now me and the bottom left, what I want to need right now, future me and the bottom right, what the older, wiser version of me wants me to do. Like that person becomes real or not every day based on my choices. There's in the top left, now us, my friends, my family, the people I care most about, they're

impacted by everything I do. And then in the top right, future us, my kids, or if I have them, or everybody else's kids, if I don't. And I realized that even though when I'm making decisions, I'm really only thinking about now me, for the most part, actually, every choice I make leaves a footprint in all these spaces. I'm constantly shaping them.

So I wrote down next to this a simple description of what I drawn and I wrote, Beyond Near-Term Orientation. This was like a simple graph that helped me see beyond my near-term orientation. And I just suddenly realized that was an acronym for bento. And I thought about the Japanese bento box that has four or five compartments in a lid that lets you carry a variety of dishes. So not too much of any one thing, it's all about balance. And the bento also honors a Japanese dieting philosophy

called ha-daha-chi-bu, which says the goal of a meal is to be 80% full, that way you're still hungry for tomorrow. So I thought bento, the bentoism, bentoism is the same thing, but for my values and my choices, way for me to not just listen to what now me wants, but to see this bigger picture. So just a simple example is you can imagine a smoker asking their bento, because it's actually a tool, a UI, a smoker asking their bento whether they should quit smoking. So what you would do is you would ask each of these boxes individually and just see what it has to say. So a smoker asks their NALAS, which thinks of their family, should I quit smoking?

And that bento says, yeah, you should quit, like we hate that you smoke. The smoker asks their future us, which thinks of their children, should I quit smoking? And it says, yeah, what if I smoke because of you? Quit. The smoke asks their future me. Should I quit smoking? Future me says, I want there to be a future me. Let's quit.

And then the smoke asks their noun me. And the noun me says, hell no. I'm addicted to nicotine. Quitting's gonna suck. No, we definitely shouldn't quit. And this is where we often get stuck, right? We listen to this now. Me voice, we have a harder time seeing these other spaces.

They're irrational. They're deferred. The outcomes are deferred. They're harder to make those kinds of decisions. This is where we individually get stuck. This is where, as a world of gotten stuck, is just optimizing for now me and not doing a good enough job of thinking about the people in our lives and thinking about the long-term impact of our decisions.

And so the bentos as simple as you could get, four boxes, and you can build your own values inside of them. And I lead a community called the bento society, several hundred people, and we come together every week to build our bentos to go through creative exercises, to better understand what we want, to better think about the future, what we're working towards, to feel connected with others. And the goal of all this work is to redefine what the world sees as valuable and in our self-interest in 30 years. By 2050, this can happen can happen by 2050 the same way that we view short-term

individualism that every decision is about now me that we just take that as a given. In 30 years this noish, this bentoist view that now in the future me as an individual and me as a and us as a group those are all things that I must balance that that way of thinking can become just as assumed, just as deeply ingrained as society. And that that's what begins to unlock what are the next evolutions. That is what allows us to deal with climate change. That is what allows us to better create social value with one another to increase the trust with each other. It's this kind of thinking that I think unlocks all of our best outcomes. Yeah. So, 30 years from now is really actually not a lot of time at all. So, why do you think that we have a chance to do this within 30 years? Like, oh.

There's a lot of, in my research for the book, I found a lot of history, meaningful ideas, going from really nothing to just so deeply ingrained in 30 years. And I think that those generational shifts that happen, some 30-year changes are things like exercise. Believe it or not, before the 1950s, like exercise wasn't a thing that people did. Like exercise had to be invented. Hip-hop, those from from not existing to dominating the charts

in 30 years. Game marriage goes from unthinkable to normal within 30 years. There are these incremental changes, this exponential growth that happens in that kind of timeline. And I think that why this happens with us is that really for anyone under the age of 40, you are growing up already with a network notion of the world. Like the internet is built into our mind. The way that we're connected to each other is like deeply part of us.

Yes, we feel lonely, yes, but we're so much more connected than other generations too. And ultimately, the challenges that we face are forcing us to think about the future. Right? COVID is forcing us to think about the future, right? COVID is forcing us to think about the future, but that we can do those things blindly, we can do those things feeling lost, we can do those things feeling defensive, or we can do those things in a way

that we have a structured way of thinking, where we have a shared map that we're using, and maybe we can start to create almost like genres of value, like what does it mean to create future us value? What kinds of actions do that? What kinds of actions harm that? And so as I look at the 30 year process of this change, I think it starts with individuals just seeing their own lives differently.

And this has now happened for thousands of people at this point, and the bento society is like a weekly practice at that. The second step is people sharing this perspective in their workplaces and their homes, like the other places where we're leaders, just like, hey, have we thought about kind of the future us consequences of this? And just beginning to share this perspective,

it's not hard to get a hold of. And it instantly clicks for people I find. And finally, the third and kind of the slowest moving flywheel but the biggest is how our norms get redefined by these kinds of changes. And this is where I think you're getting to that 30 year perspective of, can we define new sorts of values and metrics that businesses use to guide behavior? Can we say normalize long-term, short-term thinking through our digital products somehow?

How, what are ways that these things can be just practically a part of our life? And that takes longer time. And so the bento society, we're thinking about all three levels of that. And those longer-term projects, the goal is to be funding things, to be just supporting, whether it's businesses, one-off projects,

art that are fulfilling this notion of growing non-financial values and balancing our self-interest. And I think just stepping up to where we are in the world, like just stepping up as humans, like doing our ancestors a solid and not blowing this. You know, this is like, where we are, this is like the biggest choke job, as humans, like doing our ancestors a solid and not blowing this. This is like, where we are, this is like the biggest choke job, the biggest choke job, the fact that we are struggling so much

from where we are, I mean, we're just giving this away. And so I think that we have to get real and to me, it's at this level of structural change that isn't huge, but it's just how we see ourselves and our responsibility. And that is more powerful than any technology or anything else. And I have a lot of faith in that. Yeah, when I was reading your book, I was like mind blown.

I really helped open up my perspective to all of this, especially when you were writing about how, you know, the population is exploding right now. And think about how much garbage we have and carbon pollution and all of that. And just thinking about how many more people are going to be around and even with COVID and who knows what that's going to be like with an increased population. And it's just scary. And we do need to kind of change what we value and how we work as a society for sure. Yeah, we're I think we're we're going over a precipice right now. And I think that a certain regime is ending. And I think the the falls of regimes are messy and scary and painful and are often violent and deadly.

And there is much to be fearful of. But my feeling is that 15 years from now, 10 years from now, I think we're going to find ourselves in just a dramatically better position, asterisk, climate change, asterisk, climate change in a major way, like who knows what that is. But I'm an optimist about human beings. I think we always do the best we can with what we know. And part of my drive and thinking about bentoism, and this model was just, you know, what new

knowledge could we possess that would really allow us to step into our responsibility, to see it, because no one wants to leave a worse world. Like no one intentionally desires these things, but we've become so careless and we've become so trapped in our narratives. But the world is going to take them away from us whether people are ready or not. Yeah. So my last question before we close out is really on Tesla. So I think they're a great example of how you can prioritize future us instead of me now.

Can you give us that example? Yeah, well, just Tesla. I mean, not only that it's an electric car company, but even Tesla's patents that they developed several years ago, I think in 2014, Tesla and Elon Musk decided to make all their patents available to anyone and said our goal is not to be the biggest electric car

company in the world. It's our goal is for electric cars to be whatever drives in the world. And we think that this is what makes this happen. That's the perfect kind of decision that we need. Because we tell ourselves a story that we are competing, but there is one planet here. And all of our competitions are so puny and so small

compared to what's really at stake. And so I think gestures like that show the truth of our situation. And I think they're more of those coming. Very cool. And the last question I ask all my guests is, what is your secret to profiting in life? I think it's really knowing yourself and acting in a way that's in integrity and coherent with who you most deeply are. When you're doing that. It's hard to go wrong

And where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do? Yeah, you can find me online at whystrickler.com You can find out more about bentoism at bentoism.org And if you want to join the weekly practice we do that's just bitly slash weekly bento. We'd love to have you there. Awesome. Cool. Thank you so much, Yancy. I loved this conversation. Thank you so much. Thanks you too. Yeah, Pam, I have to say I do admire Yancy's outlook on the future because I think it's both realistic and optimistic. Clearly, there are aspects of our society that are not working for everyone. We live in a profit-driven economy that prioritizes financial maximization,

and it endages the livelihood of those who work to support it. Our cost of living is becoming way too high to sustain, and that's only continued to worsen since this interview aired back in 2020. The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that energy prices are up 41.6% and gasoline alone is up nearly 59.9% over the last year. Yet I do believe there is hope for our future young and profitors. When a system becomes unsustainable, it eventually crumbles and it will be rebuilt

into something much, much stronger. Fingers crossed, at least. Part of the problem is that our current economic system uses profits to measure success primarily. But there are so many other variables that can give a better assessment of a business's potential for growth. For example, evaluating customer loyalty.

This is something we just talked about earlier this week in episode number 186. Love your customers with Fred Reichelt, who is the creator of the NPS survey. Things like customer loyalty can give you a hint of how a business will perform in the future, not necessarily just their profits. Unless face it, in today's day and age, short-term individualism and financial thinking are hidden defaults that are so powerful that we hardly even notice them. It's just a way of life right now. But Yancey and the Bento Society is on a mission to make a multi-dimensional lens for self-interest and values the default point of view by 2050, just one generation from

now, they hope to make this big societal shift. And I believe it. I've been seeing this theme of conscious business bubbling up on the podcast for almost two years now. So many powerful and successful people from Ryan Blair to Derek Kinney to John Mackie, the CEO of Whole Foods, they're arguing for conscious business, which is along the same lines of bentoism. And the answer really gives us a strong framework

to put it all into practice. I actually just put out a YAP snacks on conscious business just a week or two ago. And this really rounds out that conversation with an actionable way to actually make decisions that will contribute to a more conscious way of doing business. And so bentuism, it's the theory that self-interest is multi-dimensional. That's the key right there. It's that self-interest goes beyond just you in the now.

Today we see self-interest in terms of short-term individualism. It's what I want right now. While this perspective is in our self-interest, it really doesn't capture the whole picture. Bentoism, a way to remember bentoism and what it means. It's an acronym for BeyondBE, near-term orientation, bento,

beyond near-term orientation. Ito, beyond near-term orientation. It's a wider lens for what's valuable and in our own self-interest. This includes what I want as an individual right now, now me, it also makes space for the considerations of our future selves, future me, the people we rely on and who rely on us, now us, and the next generation, future us. All of these spaces impact us and are impacted by us and the decisions

and actions that we make and take. They are all in our self-interest. Bento is a simple and useful tool for making decisions and setting strategies that look beyond a short-term individualistic view. And like Yancy said, the next 10 to 15 years are going to be pivotal to how we function as a society, and it's up to us, young and profitors out there, the innovative community of learners who want to make a difference to intentionally make decisions that will serve us now and in the future. Bentoism for a better world, YAP fam. Thanks so much, YAP fam, for tuning into this episode of YAP Classic featuring Yancy

Strickler. Be sure to listen to the full episode number 81, Bentoism for a better world. And check out Yancy's website and the online bentoism hub, both of which we've linked in the show notes. And let me know what you thought about this episode. My favorite thing is to get your reviews. Apple Podcast has been on fire lately. We've been getting tons of reviews.

Apple Podcast reviews mean the most. I love them so much. In fact, why don't I go read a couple off right now? I mean, I check it out all the time. I literally have a bookmark here. I can just pull it up on the fly, was it not planned or in my notes, but I'll just pull it up because I love your reviews.

I read them all the time. It makes me feel really good. It boosts my confidence all the time. And it makes me feel like I'm providing meaningful, valuable work because for me, it's not just about making for me it's not just about making money, it's not just about having a platform, it's about serving all of my listeners. All right, so let's give a couple of shout outs here from some recent Apple podcast reviewers.

Let's start with Jerry P-1200 and he or she says valuable insights, Hala and her guests always deliver more value than promised. The guests, Hala hosts on her show, are experts in their fields and provide insights and suggestions that make listening worth your time. If you're looking for actionable advice and information than Hala's podcast is the podcast to which you need to subscribe.

Thank you so much, Jerry, for that awesome review. Now, let's see. This one is from CZGlass72 from Apple Podcast. By the way, some of these user names are really silly. So it's always good to put your name if you're gonna drop me a review. So I can shout you out properly. So CZGlass72 says Morning Walks with Hala. Hala's gifted an interviewing and her

authenticity and curiosity are exciting. I'm not young, but I'm most definitely profiting from her guess. Thank you so much CZ Glass. We actually have listeners of all ages. I think some of my biggest fans of this podcast are between the ages of 40 and 60. And so young and profiting just means young and profiting at heart. I think one day will probably rebrand the podcast to YAP podcast and no longer be young and profiting because I think a lot of people feel alienated from the name. If you do let me know on Instagram or LinkedIn or wherever you want to reach me, you can even drop it in a five star review in terms of your feedback. If you want us to change the name to YAP and you no longer want it to be young and profiting because

you feel like it's alienating, let me know. Okay, one more. This one is from NUSHINE and I think that's a woman. She says, love, love, hola's energy and confidence. For a little while, it was hard for me to figure out if I was part of the target audience because I don't consider myself to be super young anymore. But once I started listening, I realized the show was really for all ages. Love the show on Hollis Energy, insightful questions, and of course, the value-packed nature of the episodes. Thank you so much, NUSHINE, and again, another young and profitor who might not actually be so young. You don't need to be young biologically to listen to this podcast.

You just need to be young at heart. So there you have it, yeah, bam. I hope you enjoyed the show. I hope you enjoyed the shout outs at the end here. Again, if you want to thank me and the app team, drop us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform. You can find me on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, at Gap with Hala. You can also find us on YouTube if you like to watch these sort of things.

Go look at our YouTube. We're popping right now. Our YouTube is on fire. We're really putting a lot into our videos and my studio looks great. If you haven't seen it, my studio is awesome. My dream studio. And I'd love to hear from you guys. Big thanks to my

YAP team. Love you all so much. Couldn't do this without you. Thank you for all your support. You guys are amazing. This is your host, Halitaha, signing off. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week we share ideas and practical solutions on the happier with Gretchen Rubin, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project, and every week we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences

about cultivating happiness and good habits. Every week we offer a try this at home tip, sites from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences about cultivating happiness and good habits. Every week we offer a try this at home tip you can use to boost your happiness without spending a lot of time, energy, or money. Suggestions such as follow the one-minute rule. Choose a one-word theme for the year or design your summer. We also feature segments like know yourself better where we discuss questions like are you an over buyer or an under buyer?

Morning person or night person, abundance lever or simplicity lever? And every episode includes a happiness hack, a quick, easy shortcut to more happy. Listen and follow the podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin. Everyone has their own idea of wealth. Our Bank of Texas Wealth Management team is here to help make yours a reality. Bank of Texas is a trademark of the OKF and a number FDIC, Equal Housing Lender.