Thou Shalt Know Happiness

or Craft Your Deepest Joy. I noticed that Amazon dot Com had specific divisions dedicated to books on obtaining happiness, and these titles are even better than the workshops. You Are your Happiest Itself or Take Your Path Back to Happiness. I don't know where I was, but apparently I needed

to go back. Remember that episode of Sex in the City where Charlotte was in the self help section in the Barns and Noble store in Manhattan and she pretends she was looking for travel, only to order starting over yet again. So apparently happiness used to also be shameful, but at a different time. Now, and as someone who loves Los Angeles can tell, you here, you are hunting for happiness every minute from your uber, from your raiky appointment to your juice bar and some healing at the

ranch in Malibuu. They're all these apps specifically engineered to help you find happiness, usually through some meditation for the subway or more ex tests of exercising right at home in your lounge for a mere six minutes. Or of course, you can actually travel to one of these millions of wellness retreats where goats can stand on top of you for yoga, or you could howl into the sunrise. The more you yodel, the happier you'll be. Of course, it makes sense to me, But luckily Bhutan has bigger and

better plans. In two the country's fourth Dragon king coined the phrase gross National Happiness, the g n H. The idea was to build a country based on Buddhist spiritual values opposed to all this Western materialism usually defined by GDP. And decades later, the citizens, from my very limited visitors perspective walking around seem happy as you can be. But long before Baton decided to give importance to something other

than I don't know, money and greed. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle said, happiness is in the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. And who are we to argue with that? The tricky part is, isn't happiness totally subjective? Bhutan reveals these factors in the smallest and biggest ways, like the fact that they cap the amount of people who are proved for visas every year because they don't just want the country

trampled by tourists. And secondly, there's a minimum spend of two hundred and fifty dollars per person per day, which means you have to save up a little to go to the country. Basically, it's not a cheap holiday where you can just backpack and leave your mark. They want tourists to choose it actively and consciously, and therefore they hope you'd respect it and value it so much more. And it's true I did, and I do so. Before arriving at the country's only airport in Paro, Mount Everest

comes into immaculate view within moments. The plane then descends onto one of the most challenging landing strips in the whole world, with peaks rising up to sixteen thousand feet surrounding us, and then this crazy, notorious turn where rooftops are almost clipped by the wings of the plane as it touches down. The flight attendant, who was in the jump seat right in front of me, proudly told me that only eight pilots in the world are skilled enough

to do this specific landing. It's a great honor for them that the pilot is the best in the world. When last did anybody say that about a flight? Anyway, The country is squeezed between a global giant, China, who they are mightily wary of, and India, who they pretty friendly with, but they remain autonomous in all their dealings. The first evidence of this somewhat insular world is they have national dress. From the moment you set foot on

this holy land, almost everyone you see is robed. Men wear this knee length robe called it go that's tied at the waist and has a pouch for food or a dagger or maybe an iPhone, and women wear a kira which is ankle length plus a little light outer jacket. The Amound Resorts has created a way to see it almost the entire country where they've built these five equally beautiful Zong inspired Resorts. Zong is a traditional beautiful building

styled in this specific Butanese way. So they've placed them in a sort of circuit formation, the five or dubbed Aman Cora, which combines Aman, which is sanscrit for peace and cora meaning a circular pilgrimage in Zonka, the Butanese language. So Nam who was my guide, and I chatted about happiness, and he revealed that for him and his family, they live a life where dreams aren't crazy big, they're just

the right size for finding them. And as John Reid, who's the Aman Resorts regional director but also a bit of a prophet, said to me, you come to Bhutan to understand respect for others. The country itself feels like a perfectly sized dream opposed to a dictatorship style monarchy. Jing Ma Kesar Namja buang Chuk married a commoner and runs his country according to kid which is a tradition based on the rule of Dharma king whose sacred duty

is just to care for his people. Then there's this modern school system with free and universal education and even free healthcare. It's also the only country in the world where smoking is completely banned from the outside. There seems to be no suffering. It's also just so iconically beautiful and marvelously peaceful. The statistic so, of course hard to verify, but at like thirty miles an hour speed limit, it would seem logical that fewer car accidents happen. So Nam

didn't even understand. When I asked him whether people drink and drive, he just said, why would anyone do that? Again, it's in the small things, but then there's also in these breath taking the big things, like hiking to Tiger's Nest, the most sacred monastery in the country. It's literally perched on this cliff in the fluffy clouds. Its name is

fundamental to understanding the country's reverence for Buddhism. So the legend says that in the eighth century, Guru Imposh flew hair from Tibet on the back of a tigress, a manifestation of his divine consort. His reason for visiting was to subdue a demon, and then he eventually decided to live in a cave for three years, three months and three days while atating and in this is where they built this iconic monastery. Day to day life here is simple.

Some people work in the small cities, and it's mainly agriculture, forestry, and then of course tourism plus the sale of hydro electric power to India that keeps the country's economy going. But most people embrace this kind of gentler life, one where Buddhist values are adhere to in families, to almost all activities together. I had lunch at this local family's home and the entire family piped in to eat broth, served with their national dish, which is this sewee, cheese

and peppers mix, all served with rice. Everyone sat on the floor and before the herbal tea was served, everyone shared their favorite story of the day. How's that for a hopeful Monday moment. Fresh produce markets are quietly filled with local people buying their goods, chatting about the broths

they're going to be preparing at home. And so here we have people at their finest, belonging to I don't know, world order of togetherness, acceptance and tolerance, something that a tiny country in Bhutan with mostly I guess a homogenized population is able to take great pride in. I just so wish the rest of the world could do with some of these lessons. Baton, with all its harmony and quiet beliefs, functions within the world as its own world.

The Buddhist prayer flags and iconic red, blue, yellow and green colors they littered throughout the country. Every bridge, tree and street has them, breathing in the mountain air and flapping out pure joy. Some of that's the metaphor I have for the country. People might be somewhat different, but yet attached to some great ambition for the world. Some may even call that happy nous, But what do I know.

I found my very personal, very Daniel moment of ordinary happiness in Western Australia, flying to a little town called Parabado, northeast of Perth, where I landed in mining country. I looked down from my plane window and I saw this rubicund earth and truly not much else. I stepped onto the melting tarmac at this tiny bush airport and I could smell something dusty and ancient, a life before life kind of beauty scent. It is here at this tiny building with no gates, where I met Mark Olive, an

Aboriginal chef from Australia. We had a moment to sit down on a little bench right in the Airport almost building to talk about nate of ingredients and eating kangaroo. Hi. My name is mircoel If. I'm known as the Black Boles around Australia and through my TV series, but not only that as a judge on the Chef Line as well. So what I'm known for in Australia is about Indigenous food.

And when you're talking indigenous food, you're talking about proteins like kangaroo in, crocodile, possums, wallaby, so our indigenous native animals. And look, people freak out a little bit that we're the only country that eats our coat of arms. But let's face it, high protein, extremely tasty. And what we've got to remember is in Australia, but not only data around the world that for indigenous people it was never

their coat of arms. It was their actual dreamtime stories, it was their totems, it was a life source and it was their clothing source as well. So we've got to remember that, and I think once we do that, it's the inn where we start understanding about the food of Australia as well. We have an amazing sort of proteins, herbs, spices, fruits in Australia and it hasn't been tapped into anywhere

else in the world. And we're very, very fortunate, because we're feel isolated that we're lucky enough to have this head. But you know, it's been documented all around Australia through paintings and through storytelling oral story generally right around the country. In the day, there was over three hundred sixty eight communities the indigenous communities that were active in this country. Travelers often come to places one thing to be parted

and wanting to understand culture and place and history. Were you doing a good job champion the food part of that, which I think is to me, I feel food is such an amazing way into a culture because food becomes personal and food is something that brings back memories and essential. So for me, travelers come to Australia, seek out Indigenous food, Indigenous chefs, indigenous tasting dinners and stories and that's your

way in. I'll totally travel as what we have in this country's exciting when you say these paperboys, so he's really embracing what we've got here. I waved Mark Olive goodbye, and now please imagine my face when I arrived at the car raintall place, and they give me this badass mining car. Now to imagine this vehicle, think Mad Max, but a few less skulls. But they were gargantuan headlights, tires as tall as I am, and a flag sticking out at the back. The flag had an EMU on it.

The lady at the reception said she could change it for a kangaroo if I'd prefer. Apparently those are the only choices on offer here. The machine came complete with a radio for communication, which I had no clue how to use, and many many extra tires, a host of surplus supplies, and what looked like a towing facility that I hoped I wasn't going to have to employ. I think I was wearing my black birken stocks throughout this whole adventure, because I was ready for the deepest, greatest

sandy desert. I was free and untethered, and I was let loose into this prehistoric land. Of course, within the hour, I had missed the tiny sign I was supposed to look out for. With no phone service and just a hand drawn map that may have needed just one more stemp, I was now cruising with some local radio station playing what sounded to me like did you redo country music? Ozzie girls, Kath and Kim would have been so proud of me at this very moment. Look at Marie, Look Marie.

Right then I slammed on the brakes and they locked. As I skidded sideways, just about rick rolling this monster truck. I came to dead standstill, right out of any action movie, my face touching a handsome kangaroo. Oh hello. He lunged his pocket lips at me and bam. Right there, in the deepest remote desert, I had my first kangaroo kiss. I had my windows open so that the dry air could blow through my hair. For hours now, I had not seen a single car. I was the out back

at its finest. The sun was coming down a little and the shadows were starting to form. When I arrived in a little town, well, what seemed like a little town. Giants signs saying turn back now down her, of course intrigued me. I skulked a hand and saw a very tanned person hanging up their laundry. Oh hello, I was sure she was going to offer me a bevy as the Aussies say, so, I pulled over, I hop out, and I introduced myself with some cheer. She seemed shocked.

Nobody comes. Yes, She tells me it's condemned and the government is trying to buy our home and send us away as bestos. If I had service at this point, I would have googled the words as bestos and the little town's name, Wittenoom, and I would probably have returned to my car and run off. But she was fascinating, and she didn't care about asbestos. She cared more about her home, and so she was one of the last three remaining residents in this mining town. I oddly admired her.

She eventually sent me on my way with some directions that made sense, and I found my around to the pop up dinner that my friend Paul Is Scoff was hosting with his further team. Paul and I stand around under a tree and talked about the importance of native ingredients. How do you feel about eating kangaroo? So we are kangaroo when we're in America, and some of the guys were a bit wary of eating it, but we got everyone in the room to try it, and they thought

it was delicious. Kangaroo has lesson to sent that's really high and high. It's not farm so all the kangaroo here is wild harvested. We don't want to fade it or give it water. It doesn't have any hormones or anything, so it's I guess you could say free range or open range. It is really healthy, really delicious, and there is an abundance of tangaroos in Australia. When they're holding across the country, they actually spread maybe see. They don't

compact their rounds, whereas cattle kill. Something that I find so amazing is that there's this sort of respectful the indigenous people of especially Western Australia, where you come into contact with people that are native in much bigger numbers than when you were in Melbourne, Sydney with the kind of touristic parts of Australia. Here, it feels like it's so respected and thought about. How did you decide that

this is how you want to cook? I think a really important thing for us was to do it in a really respectful way, and us provision and learn from the traditional end. These Abiginal people have thousands and thousands of years knowledge and they've looked after country and kept those grants and animals growing in a really sustainable way. So for us it was about our permission and then sitting and listening and learning about these plants and animals. And I think the more we do that we feel

connected to where we are. But I think people come into visit it's a great way to be introducing the cultures through food. Each region visiting in wasting in Australia is totally different to the others. So some of these ingredients are blowing these so called super food exam the water so healthy. But I think it's really important for especially the chefs using them, to do it in a

respectful way. And when these foods are purchased, if it's Aboriginal people wildhuvest, they get paid failure in that they're including the conversation. And I think that in the years to come, the world is going to see just how incredible Australian foods are. Paul's dinner is a long table of twenty overlooking an enormous gorge as Lucy and the

night sky filled our eyes with diamonds. Paul sends up these bush dinners all over Western and Northern Australia, using Aboriginal ingredients foraged from the land, and he only works with locals, real people. He brings a truck or two and sets up a truly pop up kitchen with his medley chummy crew. It brings your attention to the beauty of the place, sure, but the significance of what local and truly from the land means is what you're thinking,

Whose land is this really? Who foraged here before the tattooed hipsters came? And Paul, who grew up with the Aboriginals in Western Australia, talks about all of this over dinner. Why is it so important to eat kangaroo as a sustainable meat? How can we respect the land and its original people? As I sit watching these courses of unique and marvelous ingredients come out from marinated emud to green tree antslop, wild flowers, lemon, myrtle, wattle seeds, quandong, sandalwood nuts,

I could go on. Suddenly I was reminded that no, I'm not at some cool dinner. I'm actually tapping into a deeper consciousness of place and people and all that actually matters. And yeah, fuck yeah, this is happiness not for dummies. Now for a slight respite and I'll be right back with everywhere after a word from our sponsors, thanks for sticking around. Here's more of everywhere. H Holly, thanks for being here with me today. We're in New

York and rainy New York talking about happiness. So. I spent some time in Bhutan, and one of the things that stayed with me after being there is that I don't want to measure my life in any other way than in a gross happiness index. There's such merit to that, and I wish that so many other countries could think about this and not only see capitalism and commercialism and GDP. I think Bhutan has put this beautiful thing in the world, and if you spend time there, you realize that every

citizen believes this thing. They buy into it, and they feel that and they measure their life in a totally different way they do. The problem, I think is like trying to integrate that ideology in the lives that we have built is going to be tricky, because, like if you look at the history of happiness and how it has been viewed, you start to see that particularly like Western culture, European and North American culture, we kind of tried to get the message and we messed it up.

Um So for example, in the Christian tradition, happiness was originally the state in which Adam and Eve existed before they had knowledge. It's just this, you know, state of being without all of the detritus in our brains that we develop as soon as we start thinking about things and in ways that define them and and identify them,

and then there's an interesting thing that happened. Right. So, in Indo European language, without exception, going all the way back to ancient Greek, the word for happiness is a cognate with the word for luck. They're very deeply intertwined. So the idea is sort of that happiness is not something that you could work toward or achieve. It either came to you or it didn't. It was just a matter of how the coin fails, so to speak. And then the writings of Confucius, happiness and luck are very

deeply intertwined. So per his ideology, a happy life was just one that was smooth and free of obstacles. But of course that doesn't involve having a lot of stuff. It's not about like I have achieved X, just I feel like my life is pretty smooth happy. Well, it's not how we think about happiness now, like the world sells you happiness in a way that feels so far from anything that I personally believe, Like I watch happiness being sold to me by advertising, sold to me by television,

sold to me by radio, everything everywhere. You cannot get in a cab without an ad for something that is going to make you happy. Finally, and then Greek and Roman philosophy kind of twisted that I don't want to say twisted, but they evolved it to a point where happiness started to be a thing that you earned, but it was very closely related to the good deeds that

you did and living in a simple way. And again, the other thing that we have to think about is that to them, this happiness did not mean like I feel blissful. It just was more of like a stability situation, right, like my needs are met, you live well and morally, so your soul's needs are met, and consequently, like the

world is going to be pretty smooth for you. So it's not an emotion so much as it becomes a way of life, not something that was due or expected, but something that you kind of created by being a good person and doing good things. Sister, A later defined it as happiness would lose all joy if nobody rejoiced with us, which is sort of beautiful, right. It's that sense of happiness within a community. And he also equated

happiness with a tranquil mind. So up to this point we aren't messing around with the ideas of having things, getting things checklist, which I know, how you know checklock, I do. The Age of Enlightenment is where things start to turn a little bit, and I think the intent, as so often as the case may have been good, but it got very distorted along the way, right Like at that point the Age of Enlightenment involved this idea that happiness was a right, not so much the result

of your behavior, but you were entitled to happiness. Of course you're a human, which is not a bad idea. The Declaration of Independence kind of bakes it right. In right, we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life liberty in the pursuit of happiness. Of course, you should go chase your happiness. That's just part of being human.

I love that. I love that idea that we should all be pursuing that, whatever that means to Like, I think about my happiness, like I think we've been told that happiness is this thing, and then travel teaches you that happiness comes from within. So I spent so much of my life looking externally for happiness and whether it was in people or places or things, and then I

realized I have to turn that inside. And when I got together with Michael, one of the first conversations we had within hours of meeting each other was that we would never believe that somebody else was going to make you happy. That we both felt independently that happiness came from your responsibility towards it. You're very much in line with the ancient Greek approach to it, right that it is look at me, ancient Greek, the journey of a life lived well, and it's not a destination that you

get to and then happiness chacha. Well, happiness to me is like yoga. I think about it like that. It's forever more like you can't get good at yoga. It's not the point of yoga. You can be good at some postures, or you can maybe better your breathing or perhaps your meditation, but you never master any part of it, because they will always be more of it. And happiness is like that, you just have to bumble along for the rest of your life, seeking it, finding it, losing it,

picking it up along the road into me. I find like the simplest things give me the greatest happiness. Now, of course, I'll talk about Ellen now. And this morning I was playing with her on the beach and I was throwing this ball for her and I was like watching her tooth gets stuck in the soccer ball, and I was like, I looked at this moment and I was like, so happy man, so happy me and the dog. It's a moment like that that I'm able to reflect inwards and ask myself, why am I happy in this moment?

What is that I'm happy within? And she's my reflection. She's showing me that joy and I can access it because it goes in and I'm able to turn it inwards and travel is that teacher. It's the lifelong teacher of happiness that it shows you the destruction and the decay and the beauty and the raggedy ann as well as the princess. Right. It shows you about these things and when you're able to see it, you see yourself. Yes, well, I'm gonna just call Marge Simpson Holly and ask her

what she has to say about happiness. Okay, hello, Marge, is that you? What do you think? Well, you could be like Madge's twin. No, I have twin sisters, but I have no twine. Tell us about happiness. Happiness is when Homie is asleep and the children are in bed and the house is peaceful. Well, thanks for that. My apologies to Julie Kavner for what has just taken place. Thanks Holly, thank you, my love. You make me happy.

Talking about happiness with Holly is of course fun. I also have Samara Henderson who has her own podcast Life Stuff. Samara and I bonded over what happiness is and even after tragedy, how she could still choose happiness. Samara, thank you for coming in to be in studio with me. It's so nice to see your smiley face. Thank you so much for having me. This is such an honor. Really, well, I found your own podcast Life Stuff, and I found

you and you and I started chatting about happiness. And I believe for myself that I wake up every day and I am able to choose happiness. I have a career, I have friends, and most portantly, I have someone who loves me and lives with me and has made a life with me. And then of course I have my husband. I meant my dog, but you know, I have Michael, who's such an amazing part of sharing happiness. But I am able to choose that happiness because I live in

the Western world. I have everything I need. I'm healthy, I have money, I have privilege, I have unconscious privileged. I have all these things. But is it possible for the person who's living in a favela in Brazil and poor? Or is it possible for the person who's disabled or tortured, like is it so easy for them to just choose happiness. Yeah,

that's a complicated question. I feel as though people who don't have as much as we do over here in the Western world, who are going through struggles that we couldn't even touch or ponder. I I believe that that you can have moments, you can choose to have moments of happiness enjoy for yourself. Um, it's really a mindset thing that you can take with you. So I like to look at kids. Kids don't know the value of money.

Kids don't really know how much they have or don't have until they grow up and learn these things and learn about social status is and learn about different things that could hold them back potentially. And kids always find a way to play and be happy and just enjoy wherever they are, and I I feel like you could really learn something from them. I mean, even when they're bored out of their minds at banks or grocery stores, they always find a way to enjoy what they're doing

in their life in that moment. And I think if we just take that child like essence with us and the world around us could be totally how but that's what it is. You know, you can or cannot change it, but you just have to look at it and say, I'm just going to choose to smile about something. I mean, I'm going to choose to look at the sky and say, hey, that color blue is really awesome and I'm enjoying it.

Or simple things things, simple small things. It doesn't have to be Oh, I hit the lottery, I'm so happy. It could just be I had a really good conversation with someone today, or um, yes, just like right now, I'm very grateful for this. But I look at my you look at kids, I look at my dog. She's such a beautiful reminder to me to just be in the moment. Yes, definitely, it doesn't matter what's going on externally, because if you stay present and you stay within yourself,

happiness is within you. Then So yes, maybe it's hard for someone who's a lot own and living in poverty to choose happiness external happiness. But the wish that I have for the world is to tap into the happiness that they do have access to, which is internal. And we're all worthy on that. We're we're entitled to be Definitely. I mean, I know that it's such a tricky thing to talk about because because I don't want to be disrespectful and people be like, you know, imagine you were

impoverished and you how do you be happiness? But I think it's just about an internal happiness, and I think we should talk about your sexual assault and how like you've been able to find joy and continuation of life after that. Yes, it it was definitely a journey and I definitely had to choose to want to be happy and to get out of that slump. It actually happens

multiple times throughout the course of my life. So when I guess starting from about fourth and fifth right to my last year of high school, so you know, spaced out trauma being a child not knowing what's going on. It's I don't want to say that it's harder or degrade anybody else's experience, but being a child of not knowing what's going on and trying to figure that out, not knowing what you can say or how to express it, and then growing up and doing certain things and being

like is that connected to my past? Or is this you know, trying to just navigate it and figure out what's going on. And so it took a long time for me to realize that I was even depressed, or that I was that I had anxiety. It took at first acknowledgement that I wasn't happy. That was the first step, and then after acknowledging that I was just like, Okay, I don't want to be this anymore. I don't want to be sad. I'm tired of the you know, I'm tired of these excuses of being stuck. I'm just tired

of this mental space. I don't feel like this is how my life is supposed to go, like, if there is a way to be different, I want in on that way. So I didn't know how at all. I didn't know how I was going to get there. But just having that attitude that I was going to get there, I really believe propelled me to be where I am today. So of course I looked into counselors. I didn't like it at first. I hated it. I started googling things about like meditation and anxiety, learning more about it. I

read a whole bunch of self help books. Yeah, I just took a lot of everything that seemed to work for me, and I just decided, you know, I'm not gonna let somebody else control the nature of my life and control my mental space innocence, you know, Like this is my life. I only get one, So why am I letting somebody running around in my head? You know, and they could be off doing god knows what, not thinking about me at all. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to take my mind back. And

I did that, and it was very hard. It took some years, it really did. It's still a journey, but I am very grateful for where I am now. I am so much more happy or so much more content with my life, so much more open to people and receiving love and giving love and you know, really being healthy. And in that I learned how to really monitor my

thoughts and catch myself. And I don't know, it's just a whole bunch of things that I've learned, and it's been an amazing experience in journey, and so in a weird sense, I am grateful that I had to go through all that to get to where I am. I feel like I appreciate peace and joy and sleeping at nights, just all of those things a little bit more. Wow. I mean, you look very happy to me, thank you. You walked in here with such a beautiful smile and optimism that to me, it seems you've done so much

of the work. But the thing about it is, I guess it's forever, right, Like the work is, there's no ato. Yeah, there's no end game, there's no I made it, there's no here's your golden ticket. It's just a continuous journey of growth, innocence, of just self growth and improvement and becoming a better human or becoming the best human that you can. And I just feel as though if everyone tries to do that the world would just be amazing. But when I optimists, clearly, Yeah, obviously, Now everyone for

a time out except for responses. We'll be right back with more everywhere. Well, and once again to everywhere, let's holp back to it. For my next interview, I'm with Tim Phillips, the founder and CEO of Beyond Conflict. We chat about hope and how that interacts with happiness around the globe as well as in America at a very complicated time. Thank you for spending time with me flying in. You speak to my heart when you speak, and I'm so glad we can do this on Mike. Well, thank you, Daniel.

It's a real honor of being here. And I love hearing your voice because I spent a lot of time in South Africa, so it sort of warms my heart. Well, you know, I have the hybrid South African accent, which only if you've spent time there will you realize it's not as South African as it could be, but not not South African at all. I would love to talk

about South Africa. So South Africa is for me a very complicated place as a white boy born in South Africa, as someone who's both the colonizer and the believer in change and hope and the Rainbow Nation. It has been both to me the shield and the sword. It has protected me and saved me, but it is also deeply hurt me. I have been a victim of incredible crime, hijackings, being held up, I've been shot, aunt and attacked in

my home in the street with guns and knives. And yet I've somehow returned to South Africa again and again because the almost blood that I spilt them is part of its healing on me and part of its healing for itself. So let's talk about South Africa and your involvement beyond conflicts involvement. Talk to me a little bit about that process that you've gone through personally and obviously

with your organization. Yeah, thank you, And I mean everything you just said just sort of resonated with me, not only in my work but in my own life experience. You know, I grew up pretty modestly in New England and it wasn't until I was in my teenage years that I actually got to travel outside the United States,

and I had this curiosity about the world. But it wasn't until I left these shores and went to other countries in Europe or Central America, that I really started to have a sense that there is truly a world out there that's bigger, but in a lot of ways much closer to my existence than I ever imagined in

reading in books or hearing about it in school. And so was that opening for me that years later, when we had the collapse of the Cold War in and I decided to travel to Eastern Europe and Central Europe to see what was going on, that I had this notion that, wait a minute, you have all these former dissidents and people who were imprisoned and suffered for trying

to create change who are now running these governments. And I had this instinct, wouldn't be interesting to bring together these new leaders with people who themselves have been through difficult transitions from in those days dictatorship to democracy. And how do you do that by bringing people together by traveling, by getting people to go from those countries of Latin America and elsewhere to Eastern Europe, and get people from Eastern and Central Europe to go to those nations in

places to see firsthand. And this was before the transition started unfolding in South Africa. And then when people started seeing, wow, we can learn from others. There's something about engaging with the other outside that begins to slowly open up our aperture, begin to open up our notion of wow, maybe change is possible. If they can do it, why can't we.

And so I had the pleasure of first meeting Nelson Manila when he came to New York and there was an event at the Rainbow Room and I went up to him through somebody introducing me, and I told him what I was doing. He said, we need that in our country. And so I went to South Africa, had a chance to meet some of the folks who are emerging leadership, from Desmond Tutu to Albi Sachs and others.

And then I realized that there's such profound knowledge, this profound dignity and power and what is evolving in South Africa that needs to be shared with the world. But how do you share that by bringing people together? And how do you do that by literally stepping outside your comfort zone. There was something about just that connection, that physical connection that you can only get by traveling and getting out of your comfort zone, that you can imagine

that change is possible. When I tell people the reason I travel, it's this very notion I can go and touched into this humanity and it's available to everyone, not just people that are meeting Nelson Mandela or f W two clerk. It's available to anyone everywhere. So that brings us to a crucial part of this conversation. And when

we talk travel, we don't necessarily mean abroad. There's American travel, and I think at a time a complicated political time in this country like now, it is absolutely crucial to go and travel America, to spend time with people that are not like you, to spend time with people that don't vote like you, or think like you, or look like you. And as you know about Hopeful Mondays, a tradition started by Little's parents. As I refer to them on the podcast, it is one of the most meaningful

and beautiful things that I've ever attended in my life. Basically, the story is that two thousand and sixteen s election happened and we started. They started a Monday night dinner and it's called Hopeful Monday because that's where there will be some hope. There's always a cake with the word hope. On it, and we go around the room and everybody

shares what they're hopeful for. And next year we want to take it on the road and share this hope with other people, with people that you wouldn't necessarily have in your realm. So to me, it is such a difficult time in America for many people. We need to go and understand that. So I think what we should talk about is what do you envision as something you

could do, something that ordinary people could do here. Yeah, it's really interesting that, you know, I'm almost in American, but at the same time spent the last thirty years mostly working around the world, working in about seventy five countries, very much with this notion of shared human experience, you know, bringing in people, often former enemies, who couldn't imagine the

change was possible in their country. And I remember friends from South Africa and Northern Ireland, Central America, the Middle East have been saying to me as an American for more than ten years, you know, you need to focus on our country. You need to really look inward and see the things that make us deeply concerned. And I

would say, well, I can imagine. I mean, we do have some profound problems, and they're like, I don't think you realize that a lot of the same things that we've experienced, those mindsets, those fears we see developing in your country, sort of like canaries in a coal mine. And yet here we are in two thousand and nineteen in a place that I think a lot of Americans

never imagined they would be in. And so what we're starting to do as an organization is normally look within the country to say, what do we need to do as a country, But what can we learn from the experience of all these other countries that have struggled to change to bring those insights to this country. So it's

a combination. And the way I see it, we see it is we need to listen to each other and not purely in these sort of intuitive ways of people saying, okay, you need to state either your privilege or your position, or how you're victimized to what is sacred to you, what is important to you, what do you fear? Because we live in a big, diverse country, and those divides are going from a you and I mindset to an

US versus them. And the more we go to an US versus them mindset, the more difficult it would be for us to really not just reconcile, but to find what we have in common ast Americans. We see that happening, and one of the things that we have been doing is working with brain and behavioral scientists, and one of the things they know from just the research is that when you go to an US versus the mindset, a whole range of unconscious psychological processes come online to really

push us further apart. Those sort of creup identities, sort of features of our brain to look for difference, really kick in and unconsciously we make choices, we make decisions that further pull us apart. And so how do we approach this deepening divide in America? And one way is to bring those people from outside who have been through change to our country. The way, in a sense, we set the table in other countries as Americans over the last twenty five thirty years to help people learn from

each other. And now there's a certain beauty and certain um serendipity elegance that they want to come here and share their experience with Americans, not in a lecturing way, not in a hectoring way, but to say, don't make

the mistakes we made. What we had to do in South Africa, what we tried to do in Northern Ireland but we struggled with still in the Middle East, is that we dehumanized, demonized each other, We delegitimatized each other so much that will take generations to build a sense of a common humanity as people in the same nation. Different interests, maybe different ideologies, but we're still you and I.

We're not us first as them. And so the notion is how do we bring that shared human powerful experience home. And it's really powerful because it says you've got to treat people with dignity, no matter who they are, right as Mandela would say, don't be tough on people, be tough on structures, be tough in institutions. So that was sort of our m O was we, you know, sort of curate and convene leaders to go into countries who

are struggling with different types of change. And then about ten years ago I met a neuroscientist who said to me one day, you know, we're not rational beings with emotions. He said, speaking as a scientist, it's just the opposite. We are emotionally based beings who can only think rationally when we feel that our identities are understood and valued by others. And I was like, holy shit, I said, you just collapsed everything I've experienced in the previous twenty

five years, everything I've experienced in my own lifetime. And I sat back and I thought, the Enlightenment got it wrong. We are not these rational beings with emotions. It's just the opposite. The Enlightenment was based on the emergence of science and that we are not only these rational beings, but we're better than all other species, which we also

know as bs. Right, But now it's science who's saying to us, no, no, no, no, focus on how we think as humans, not what we think, because how we think is so deeply unconscious, and our unconscious and mostly based brain literally shapes our capacity to be rational. That's how we navigate the world. I mean literally every moment, every day, our brains are predicting our social environment on my slow it down the totem Polese scale. I say this all the time. It's never the one, it's always

the how. And I say that about travel. No, I'm not telling you when to go, way to eat, way to stay, what to see. I'm telling you how to be there right, how to be yourself there. People ask me for the travel recommendations and I say, nope, you can figure out where to go get coffee by yourself. But what you can figure out is an attitude, and I'll help you with that. You know what's really cool about travel? Have you ever noticed when you go to a completely new city or place, you see more alert.

That's your brain coming online because it's a new place. That predictive brain I just mentioned, all of a sudden comes online and says I'm in a new environment. I don't know this, I need to understand it. Travel does more to increase neural activity, create new neural connections just because you're rain without you explicitly sitting here saying okay,

time to kick ahad does it automatically? Notice everywhere you go somewhere new and different, your brain becomes more active, more aware, and more alert and expands literally more energy because it needs to understand this environment. That's the great thing about travel as well. So thank you for spending time with me. This is the beginning of many conversations. I know. Well, I thank you, Daniel, It's been extraordinary. Well, I had a good time. I hope you did too.

If you'd like to reach us, go to Everywhere Podcast on Instagram, everywhere pot on Twitter, all the website, everywhere podcast dot com. I'm Daniel Scheffler signing off. I'll be seeing you everywhere