Podcasts

In Episode 29, we continue our conversation with Phil Preston on the topic of aligning business with purpose. This episode explores the connection between purpose and performance, as well as the relationship between purpose and well-being. We also delve into the significance of purpose for society as a whole. Finally, as always, our guest delivers a hopeful message to conclude the episode.

About Phil Preston

Phil left a corporate career in 2007 where he was overseeing billions of dollars of investments to help businesses go beyond token and symbolic acts of charity to really making a difference – and purpose is central to that task.
Read more at: https://philpreston.com.au/keynotes/biography/

This episode is part of a series on purpose. In the next few weeks we’ll be exploring purpose through different lenses. 
In episode 28 we will be exploring a specific angle, the question of purpose through the business lens.
 My guest for this episode is Phil Preston. Phil used to work in the finance world, more specifically he was in the investment realm, overseeing 50 Billion dollars of global investments. But in 2007, he starting asking himself “Why am I doing this?”. This question lead him to build his current business two years later, in 2009, where he now a speaker a facilitator and a consultant, whose mission is to bring more purpose to the business world. We exchange on how businesses can embed purpose into their values, whether it is through their mission statement, their KPIs, or their culture, and generally what it takes to have a whole company following a purpose that is not simply “making money” but also having a cause, how to get the business to commit to that decision, and what are the challenges and rewards that such a business faces along the way.

About Phil Preston

Phil left a corporate career in 2007 where he was overseeing billions of dollars of investments to help businesses go beyond token and symbolic acts of charity to really making a difference – and purpose is central to that task.
Read more at: https://philpreston.com.au/keynotes/biography/

The Great Unravelling has started and will be part of our story for the rest of our life. It is an ineluctable dismantling of the fabric of life as we know it, leading to rapid and at times violent, changes to human societies. It is the result of humans pushing the boundaries of our planet beyond sustainable levels, leading among others to climate change, but also rapid loss of biodiversity, pressure on freshwater, and more. We are currently going through an acceleration of the Great Unravelling due to the confluence of the environmental crises with other crises. While the 2020-2030 decade will be affected by disasters of unprecedented scale, it will also be the decade of unprecedented societal transformation as a way to adapt to these. In Australia, there has been an enormous wave of community activities that have sprung since the Black Summer bushfire season and Covid-19. The confluence of crises have led to a realisation that we can’t continue living the way we do. Mindfulness, resilience and regeneration are emerging as key ways to navigate the Great Unravelling. There is a thirst for social and environmental connection and as a result an innumerable amount of grassroots community initiatives are springing.

About Dr Jean S. Renouf

Jean is an academic at Southern Cross University, a firefighter and a dad. Prior to this, Jean spent years implementing emergency relief projects in disaster zones and countries at war, including Afghanistan, Congo, Haiti, Iraq, North Korea, etc. All of this informs his passion for climate change, community regeneration & resilience and non-traditional security, and led him to found Resilient Byron.

The Great Unravelling has started and will be part of our story for the rest of our life. It is an ineluctable dismantling of the fabric of life as we know it, leading to rapid and at times violent, changes to human societies. It is the result of humans pushing the boundaries of our planet beyond sustainable levels, leading among others to climate change, but also rapid loss of biodiversity, pressure on freshwater, and more. We are currently going through an acceleration of the Great Unravelling due to the confluence of the environmental crises with other crises. While the 2020-2030 decade will be affected by disasters of unprecedented scale, it will also be the decade of unprecedented societal transformation as a way to adapt to these. In Australia, there has been an enormous wave of community activities that have sprung since the Black Summer bushfire season and Covid-19. The confluence of crises have led to a realisation that we can’t continue living the way we do. Mindfulness, resilience and regeneration are emerging as key ways to navigate the Great Unravelling. There is a thirst for social and environmental connection and as a result an innumerable amount of grassroots community initiatives are springing.

About Dr Jean S. Renouf

Jean is an academic at Southern Cross University, a firefighter and a dad. Prior to this, Jean spent years implementing emergency relief projects in disaster zones and countries at war, including Afghanistan, Congo, Haiti, Iraq, North Korea, etc. All of this informs his passion for climate change, community regeneration & resilience and non-traditional security, and led him to found Resilient Byron.

Mara has been a non-executive director of Australian Ethical for the past five years

Mara was the founding CEO of Green Cross Australia, an organisation set up in 1993 by Mikhail Gorbachev to create a new approach to solving the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. In early 2018 it was also announced that she will become the first female President of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Previously, Mara has worked for The Wilderness Society, Greenpeace Australia, CHOICE, the CSIRO and a number of financial organisations, including Macquarie Bank, Morgan Stanley, and as a director of Allen Consulting Group.

Mara has also worked for The World Bank on an earthquake reconstruction project in Nepal.

She was a Director on the Board of Bush Heritage Australia for ten years and a member of the NSW Sustainable Energy Development Authority Advisory Council for six years. Mara studied economics and political studies at Williams College, Massachusetts.

Video version available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGK7m3RBQeE&t=4s

Episode 24 is the second part of my interview with Donnie Maclurcan. In episode 23, we explored the roots of capitalism, its pros and cons, how money is created, what’s missing in economic models, and the problem that arises with too much privatization of wealth. Episode 24 focuses on the shift from a world ran by private individual for-profit businesses, to a world lead by non-for-profits organizations, and how this movement is already taking place worldwide. We also describe the believes and fear that make people hold on to misleading capitalist values, and how to discuss the benefits of shifting our economic system with a defender of modern liberal capitalism.

Donnie is an Affiliate Professor of Economics at Southern Oregon University and an Executive Director of the Post Growth Institute – an international organization exploring how people, companies and nature can thrive together, within ecological limits. He’s taught at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, in Sydney, and at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, in Bristish Columbia

In this episode, I interview Donnie Maclurcan. Donnie is an Affiliate Professor of Economics at Southern Oregon University and an Executive Director of the Post Growth Institute – an international organization exploring how people, companies and nature can thrive together, within ecological limits. He’s taught at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, in Sydney, and at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, in Bristish Columbia

In this episode, we explore the roots of capitalism, its pros and cons, how money is created, what’s missing in economic models, the problem that arises with too much privatization of wealth, and the clever paradigm shift that Donnie proposes with the Post Growth Institute.

In this episode, I interview Shadé Zahrai. Shadé is a coach, entrepreneur, keynote speaker and mindset expert. She has the most impressive portfolio: Telstra Women’s Business Award, New York Times, Yahoo Finance, Forbes, Adriana Huffington’s Thrive Global, Westpac, and TED and TEDx presenter. In the previous episode, we explored the PERMA Model, a model for happiness designed by Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, and we also spoke about the five inner critics that hold us back and keep us from thriving. In this episode, Shadé gives her antidote to our inner critics, how to consciously break vicious mental cycles and change our thoughts. We also discuss many other topics such as compassion, fear, purpose and meaning, money and work-life balance.

About the speaker

Shadé Zahrai is recognised for her superhuman ability to translate neuroscience and psychology research into practical, actionable strategies to accelerate success. As Principal and Director of her positive-leadership company, Influenceo Global Inc., she consults, trains and coaches leaders and teams from startups to Fortune-500s, breathing life into organisational culture to enhance change-readiness for transformation, increase engagement, support the development of people-centric strategies and boost commercial performance.

Forbes | TEDx Speaker | Mentor of the Year 2019
MBA, LLB (Hons 1), BA-Psych, Dip Pos. Psych, IECL Certified Coach

In this episode, I interview Shadé Zahrai. Shadé is a coach, entrepreneur, keynote speaker and mindset expert. She has the most impressive portfolio: Telstra Women’s Business Award, New York Times, Yahoo Finance, Forbes, Adriana Huffington’s Thrive Global, Westpac, and TED and TEDx presenter. In this conversation we explore a model for happiness through the lens of positive psychology, namely the PERMA Model. We then go on exploring the 5 types of inner critics that keep us from fully thriving and living a life free from judgement. This 21st century knowledge is crucial when handling our complex modern minds, and finding long-lasting happiness.

About the speaker

Shadé Zahrai is recognised for her superhuman ability to translate neuroscience and psychology research into practical, actionable strategies to accelerate success. As Principal and Director of her positive-leadership company, Influenceo Global Inc., she consults, trains and coaches leaders and teams from startups to Fortune-500s, breathing life into organisational culture to enhance change-readiness for transformation, increase engagement, support the development of people-centric strategies and boost commercial performance.

Forbes | TEDx Speaker | Mentor of the Year 2019
MBA, LLB (Hons 1), BA-Psych, Dip Pos. Psych, IECL Certified Coach

In this episode, I interview Dorset Campbell-Ross. Dorset is a counsellor, certified in non-violent communication. He is also an NLP Master Practitioner and Hypnotherapist, codependency lecturer, seminar leader, and mediator. He has conducted business and personal relationship trainings all around the world, and has mediated between groups of people in conflict in Ireland, Indonesia and Australia.

In episode 19 we explored the four steps of NVC, namely observation, feelings, needs and requests. Episode 20 is more of a role-play in which Dorset shows us with examples the way he would approach difficult conversations in different contexts: in a workplace, in a relationship and with a friend. He also gives valuable tips on written communication (emails and text messages), and sends a beautiful message to the world at the end of this interview, embedded with a deep desire for peace.

In this episode, I interview Dorset Campbell-Ross. Dorset is a counsellor, certified in non-violent communication. He is also an NLP Master Practitioner and Hypnotherapist, codependency lecturer, seminar leader, and mediator. He has conducted business and personal relationship trainings all around the world, and has mediated between groups of people in conflict in Ireland, Indonesia and Australia.
In this conversation we explore the deep meaning of non-violence and the four steps of NVC, namely observation, feelings, needs and requests. We also explain how one expresses himself honestly, the importance of our choice of words, and the purpose of healthy communication.

My speaker for this episode is Susan Barnes. Susan has an amazing story. In the first part of her life, she was the controller of a hedge fund, before becoming a meditation teacher, personal growth facilitator and artist. In episode 17, we discussed meditation in relation to work and purpose. And in this episode, we discuss the impact meditation can have on our mental health, communication, relationships, and even its potential in healing our civilization. We discuss deep listening versus needing to be right, the imbalance of feminine and masculine in decision-making roles, and the link between love and meditation. I invite you to listen to this conversation until the end as I always find my speakers’ message to the world to be the most beautiful part of my interviews.

In this episode, I interview Susan Barnes. Susan has an amazing story. In the first part of her life she was the controller of a hedge fund, before becoming a meditation teacher, personal growth facilitator, and artist. In our conversation she develops what it was like to have a high-level job in finance, and to feel misaligned with her purpose. We explore the delicate balance between our outer life – the work we do and our existence within society – and our inner world or spiritual reality. We even dwell on questions such as “how to stay in a state of stillness even while being an active, goal-oriented person”.

In this episode, I interview Maximo Bottaro. Maximo is the co-founder of ReForest Now, an NGO whose purpose is to grow and plant trees, and educate people about biodiversity and forests. His knowledge of ecology is impressive. After studying science degrees and genetic research in rainforests, working for Greenpeace, Rainforest Rescue and Rainforest Trust, he’s decided to start his own enterprise, uninhibited.

Reforest Now employs 16 staff members, has donors in over 40 countries, a one-hectare nursery, a partnership with the search engine Ecosia, and managed to streamline a tree growing and planting process that enables them to plant trees for ONLY $5 PER TREE (most other structures require a minimum of $15 per tree).
Donate here to plant more trees: https://www.reforestnow.org.au

In PART 2, you will learn why the great Australian bushfires that took off at the end of 2019 were so devastating, how bush regeneration can help mitigate bushfires, and how patchy forests make the environment more vulnerable to fires and loss of biodiversity. You’ll also hear Maximo explain how the forests all around the world are interconnected, what bioprecipitation is, the impact of forest logging, and how we need political action on an international level to protect what remains of our forests.
Finally, in the last few minutes of the interview, Maximo delivers his message to the world, and it is nothing short of beautiful.

In this episode, I interview Maximo Bottaro. Maximo is the co-founder of ReForest Now, an NGO whose purpose is to grow and plant trees, and educate people about biodiversity and forests. His knowledge of ecology is impressive. After studying science degrees and genetic research in rainforests, working for Greenpeace, Rainforest Rescue and Rainforest Trust, he’s decided to start his own enterprise, uninhibited.

Reforest Now employs 16 staff members, has donors in over 40 countries, a one-hectare nursery, a partnership with the search engine Ecosia, and managed to streamline a tree growing and planting process that enables them to plant trees for ONLY $5 PER TREE (most structures require a minimum of $15 per tree).
Donate here to plant more trees: https://www.reforestnow.org.au

In PART 1, you will learn how the decrease in rainfall, the loss of biodiversity, the bushfires and climate change are all related, how planting trees can greatly help with all of these problems; why it is so important to protect biodiversity, the distinction between weeds and native species; and how to plant a forest the right way.

Kamea is the founder and host of GreenDreamer, a bi-weekly podcast presenting interviews with thought leaders and pioneers in sustainability & regeneration. She’s also an eco-creative and the author of “Thrive”, a book on environmentally conscious lifestyles, better health and true wealth.

In this episode, I interview Kamea who’s released no less than 260 episodes since May 2018. Greendreamer is the closest thing I have found to FutureSeeds. The topics she explores range from climate balance, circular economy, and social justice, all the way to conscious lifestyle, holistic wellness and self-growth. Through her interviews, Kamea has accumulated tons of knowledge. In this conversation, she and I discuss the roots of our systemic issues and the waves of change taking place in the world at the moment.

In this episode, I interview Tessa MacKenzie. Tessa is the person whom communities call when they are broken. During our conversation, she exposes the concepts, skills and tools she uses to support her work, the difficulties in healing communities, and what she believes to be the forces that unite us and the forces that separate us.

Tessa has facilitated over 700 collaborative planning meetings, forums, events, workshops, programs, and social change projects over the last 17 years. She has worked across NGOs and social and corporate sectors in New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, USA and England. She developed a specialist interest in Corporate Social Responsibility whilst participating in social impact research and coordinating social development for communities impacted by gold mining.

Her company Natural Assets offers solution-focused, emotionally intelligent training workshops to create positive change and development. She provides individual and peer group supervision, career coaching, and presentations to governance groups, training, and conferences.

Michael Shuman is an American economist, attorney, and a leading visionary on community economics. He’s worked on several laws overhauling securities regulation of crowdfunding. His book “How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition” received a bronze prize for best business book of 2006.
In this episode, we explore what “local economy” actually means, why it is important, how the system is skewed to profit big corporations and how we can make better choices for ourselves and for the world.

In this episode, I interview Santiago Siri. Santiago is an impressive man. He is primarily a programmer and has great skills in the blockchain technology. However, he is also an activist. In his country, Argentina, he founded a political party and got local leaders to promise to follow the people’s will if he created an internet-based platform for people to vote, which he did. As exciting as it was, he was presented with terrible surprises, including a request for him to bribe a judge $100.000 in order to be able to present himself as a candidate. His experience in Buenos Aires led him to the conclusion that nation-states are too corrupt to be fixed.

When institutions are too corrupt, what can we do?

Santiago didn’t give up. He co-founded Democracy Earth, an NGO whose purpose is the research of creating censorship-resistant digital democracies. I’ll let you listen to the incredible political and technological genius he and his team are showing. If you are not skilled in IT yourself, don’t panic, I tried to keep this conversation as comprehensible as possible for the non-technical ear.

I believe it is important for people to listen to this, as there is a technological revolution taking place that many are unaware of.

About the speaker

Co-founder of Partido de la Red, a political party that ran for elections in Buenos Aires Argentina, with candidates committed to people’s will online in 2013. You are the founder of the Democracy Earth Foundation, a non-profit organization building open source censorship-resistant digital democracies, which is backed by the Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic organization who aims to support progress and is one of the only NGOs backed by Y Combinator, the famous business accelerator based in California.
Partner of Bitex.la, leading bitcoin exchange in South America operating from Buenos Aires since 2014. Author of a book called “Hacktivismo”,​ published in 2015 by Random House. Argentine.

This is the first episode of a new series on Purpose and Meaning. I’ve been digging deep into this topic for many months now, reading and watching everything I can find.

There are many interesting aspects to this question but very early in this exploration, I became obsessed with the question: “How is it that some feel a compulsion to do something grand – to “have an impact” as the modern vocabulary puts it – while some others do not?

I get to ask Caroline one question, and her answer is at least thought-provoking if not brilliant. It got me captivated and brought together many pieces of the puzzle that I found originally were incompatible. I invite you to listen to this short interaction I had with Caroline and her very personal way of perceiving personal growth.

About the speaker

Caroline is an American mystic and 5-times best-selling author in the esoteric literature. Her book Anatomy of the Spirit, a New-Work Times bestseller, has been published in 28 languages and has sold over 1.5 million copies. Her third book, “Why people don’t heal and how they can”, became another New York Times bestseller. Her book “Sacred Contracts” – a book on symbols, myths and archetypes – became her third New York Times bestseller. It is published in 18 languages and has sold over 1.6 million copies. Oprah Winfrey gave Caroline her own television program with the OXYGEN network in New York City, which ran successfully for one year. Finally, in 2004 and again in 2007, Caroline followed with two more New York Times bestsellers, “Invisible Acts of Power” and “Entering the Castle”.

We try to be someone, we try to do great things, we strive, we battle, we win and lose. But often we forget why. Why do we do what we do? What is at the core of everything we live for? Nicole Gibson, through her enthusiasm, her faith and her determination, reminds us that Love is the source of Life, the healer, and the message.

About the speaker

After overcoming mental health challenges as a young person, in particular anorexia, at the age of 18 Nicole established The Rogue & Rouge Foundation to reverse the stigmatization of mental health, body image and self-esteem issues in Australia’s young people.

She was the youngest ever Commissioner for the National Mental Health Commission in Australia and has taken on many challenges, notably a national tour involving 1,000 workshops in 300 communities.

Her work has earned her The Pride of Australia Inspiration Medal, a finalist nomination for Young Australian of the Year and recognition as one of Australia’s Top 100 Most Influential Women.

Nicole is a multi-award winning social entrepreneur, however, prefers to be seen as a messenger of love. She is a fierce believer in love and human potential; and recently released her first book ‘Love Out Loud’, a personal account and 10 years of content coming together to teach people self-love and self-awareness.

How can we keep a healthy mind in times of crisis? In this interview, Eli and Gangaji offer an invitation into a lesser-known path, one that teaches that surrendering to the raw reality, to the pain, can actually bring us great love and compassion.

In this episode, I allow you to witness and listen to the questions I ask along my way, and the answers I admit to being true. I share a vulnerable moment of my life in which I get up on stage in the role of the student, and speak to Eli and Gangaji, standing as the teachers.

I ask a naive question, although it’s one that comes up for a lot of people: “How can I regularly be faced with the B.S. and the pain happening in the world, and still come from a place of ‘The world is perfect’ ?”. I invite you to listen to their answer. It involves total surrender to the naked, raw reality of our experience of life, and how deeper wisdom and compassion can result from it.

About the speakers

Eli Jaxon-Bear and Gangaji are spiritual teachers and founders of the Leela Foundation. Eli Jaxon-Bear has been trained in many spiritual traditions, from a Zen monastery in Japan to a Sufi circle in Marrakesh, he also ran a clinical hypnosis and neurolinguistics certification program at the Esalen Institute in California in the 80s. His search ended when he was drawn to India in 1990 where he met his final teacher, known as Papaji, a direct disciple of the renowned Indian Sage Ramana Maharshi. Eventually, he was sent back into the world by Papaji to share his unique psychological insights into the nature of egoic suffering in support of self-realization. Gangaji, his partner, traveled to India to meet Papaji in 1990. In her autobiography “Just Like You” she wrote, “The extraordinary event in this life was that I met Papaji. Until then I looked everywhere for the transcendental or the extraordinary, but after meeting Papaji I began to find the extraordinary in every moment.” Papaji gave her the name Gangaji, and asked her to share what she had directly realized with others.

Many talk about climate change, but rare are those who dare to speak about its systemic, deeply-ingrained root cause. Depression, unemployment, racism and climate change indeed seem to be all interconnected through the invisible web of the power of multinational corporations. In this interview, Helena Norberg-Hodge explains to me the history behind it all. She describes with great precision the economical culture that has been destroying our planet and communities for decades, and today threatens our very own survival. Not only that, but she offers an alternative supported by decades of collecting evidence and ground studies, a path which she now calls localization (or decentralization).

Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of Local Futures, a non-profit organization dedicated to the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.
In 1986, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for “preserving the traditional culture and values of Ladakh against the onslaught of tourism and development.”

In 2011, she produced and co-directed the award-winning documentary film The Economics of Happiness which lays out her arguments against economic globalization and for localization.
And in 2012, she received the Goi Peace Award for “her pioneering work in the localization movement”.
The book “Wisdom for a livable planet” profiled her as one of the eight visionaries changing the world, and The Earth Journal counted her among the world’s ten most interesting environmentalists.

Mona green is a certified life-coach and neurolinguistic programming practitioner. She had the opportunity to speak for audiences like the US House of Representatives, Harvard, and the US Department of State, and has been featured in publications like The Washington Post and Teen Vogue. She was also selected by the Obama Administration as a leading change maker in the fight towards gender equality in 2016. Her clients are very diverse; she’s worked with former Olympic athletes, Hollywood entertainers, European royalty and Navajo Youth and environmental activists in Latin America.

Scott is a facilitator and stakeholder engagement strategist. What that means is that it is his job to get very diverse groups of people to discuss, debate and come up with solutions while avoiding conflict. His journey through public relations, communications, recruiting, marketing and consultancy has given him a wide range of tools that he now uses to lead groups through well-designed processes. He has worked for State government, local government, non-for-profit organizations and corporations, and across all sectors – education, health, legal, transport, etc.

In this interview, Scott tells us about the philosophy that underlies the work of a facilitator and discloses some of his tools and strategies, as well as the new technologies that are being studied to facilitate the activity of discussing and debating. He also shares with us his successes and failures as a group leader, the worldwide need for facilitators to help with transitions, and why political and financial interests are a bottleneck to positive change happening faster in our world.

In February 2019, I was selected in the random stratified selection that was operated for “The Byron Model of Democracy”. The Byron Model is an initiative of the Byron Council. It hired an organization called NewDemocracy to try and find a way for the council to be more democratic and the exact question that was asked to the panel was “How do we want to make democratic decisions in Byron Shire that can be widely supported?”. A group of 24 people was formed and the elephant in the room became clear very quickly: it is NOT easy to create a truly democratic process that satisfies both the wants of the population and the administrative and financial obligations of the local government.

We learnt about direct democracy and deliberative democracy. The process through which we were lead (by an independent facilitator – Scott Newton – whose interview I will publish soon) was itself a process of deliberative democracy. We met seven times over 6 months, and had access to resources, speakers, debates, etc. We ended up writing a process that the council now needs to test for the consequent two years. This document is available here:

https://www.yoursaybyronshire.com.au/42801/documents/97583

The solution consists in a assessment of the council’s project based on 9 critieria. Each project has to go through an evaluation of its impact on each criteria, and a total score is produced. That score defines how deeply the council has to involve the residents. A high score obligates the council to form a citizen panel to discuss the issue (funnily enough, I met a man who knew about Buthan’s internal politics and told me that they have a similar process at a national level in that country).

It is in this context that I where I met Lyn Carson. Carson is a professor in applied politics, specialized in deliberative democracy, and the lead researcher at NewDemocracy. NewDemocracy’s mission is stated as follows: “NewDemocracy is an independent, non-partisan research and development organization; we aim to discover, develop, demonstrate, and promote complementary alternatives which will restore trust in public decision making”

In this interview, we talk about a number of different topics related to democracy. Please see the show notes below. This interview was impassioned because Carson delivers insight into the structural changes and the processes that are necessary to harness public intelligence and decide altogether of our future.

What if businesses measured their success not in dollars but in “giving impacts” – meaning the positive impact they have in the world? Discover the change of culture happening in the business world right by listening to four-time TEDx speaker and award-winning entrepreneur Paul Dunn.

Over a period of 3 years, Damon Gameau and a researcher interviewed a hundred different academics, researchers and scientists, to collect hundreds of different solutions to the world’s problems, and then traveled to 15 different countries to film these solutions to fight lack of food, demography problems, energy production and more. 2040 is a movie created by Damon to broadcast a different story, a different narrative about the Future.

Aren’t movies about the future always gloomy and dark? 2040 isn’t one of them.

2040 is a movie created by Damon Gameau to broadcast a different story, a different narrative about the Future. He and a researcher interviewed a hundred different academics, researchers and scientists, to collect hundreds of different solutions that already exist, and then traveled to 15 different countries to film these solutions that would enable us to solve or mitigate demography, food production and energy production challenges.

The movie is a narration of “what the world could by 2040” by Damon to his five years old daughter. This adventure takes him all the way to Bangladesh where a young engineer has undertaken the simple but truly life changing work of connecting houses together to create independent, decentralized solar grids.

Damon isn’t only a film actor and director; he is an optimistic, grounded, pragmatic dreamer. “2040” is now a community named “Join the Regeneration”. As I am writing this (December 13th 2019), its Facebook Page is being followed by over 40.000 people and its Facebook Group counts almost 10.000 members. Not only that, they also have their own public Webinar broadcasting on Sundays.

As the 2040 journey takes off, it attracts a lot of attention. Footage from 2040 was shown to world leaders at the official opening of the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York on September 23, 2019.

Award-winning filmmaker Damon Gameau said of the announcement, “The intention of 2040 was to plant a seed of what a cleaner, more sustainable future could look like. To have aspects of that vision now shown to world leaders at the United Nations is obviously the best possible outcome. I am thrilled for everyone who put so much care and effort into making the film.”

As I said, Damon is a pragmatic dreamer. In August 2019, I was put in contact with him as he was intending to put together another project. The idea to let the people imagine their future remains a core aspiration. Together, him and I built www.byron2040.com.au, a platform that enables the locals from the Byron Shire (NSW, Australia) to publish their ideas regarding the future, to imagine what the Byron Shire could look like in 2040.

At the end of our interview, I asked Damon what he’d like to tell the world, and I invite you to listen to the interview to hear his words but I’ll just give you the quote he cited from Robert Swan:

“The greatest threat to the planet is the belief that someone else will save it”

“We work for a global system change, from war to peace, from exploitation to cooperation, from fear to trust.”