Designing Positive Impact Work W/ Brendan Kiernan

Are you engaging in meaningful work that not only benefits you, but also has a positive impact on the world around you? Brendan Kiernan of Helo.tv is a visionary in the media industry transitioning towards purposeful, positive-impact projects. Exploring the intersections of psychology, AI, and climate change, this episode delves into Kiernan's journey from a conventional CEO to a climate change innovator with the Museum of Tomorrow. Through their insightful dialogue, Dr. Hill and Kiernan explore the essence of meaningful work, the challenges of aligning personal values with professional endeavors, and the transformative potential of envisioning a hopeful future for our planet.

Transcript

Are you engaging in meaningful work that not only benefits you,

But also has a positive impact on the world around you?

That's what we're going to explore today in this episode of The Wise Effort Show with Brendon Kiernan.

Welcome back.

I'm Dr.

Diana Hill.

This show is about wise effort,

Helping you identify what matters to you,

How you want to show up in the world,

What kind of impact you want to have on our planet,

And how to savor the good of your life along the way.

Our guest on the show today,

Brendon Kiernan,

Is doing all of that.

He's a living example of wise effort.

I'm super excited to share his work with you.

But before that,

I want to ask you three questions about your work in the world.

And by your work,

I don't necessarily mean what you get paid to do,

Because there's lots of things that we do,

Like parenting,

Or pet owning,

Or activism,

Or volunteering,

Or just being a good citizen of our planet that we don't get paid for,

But that we could look a little bit more deeply at in terms of how are we showing up.

These are three questions that Brendon Kiernan asks himself before he takes on any new project.

And I want you to ask them of yourself as well.

Question number one,

What is it that you are making?

What are you producing?

And is what you are making,

What you are producing aligned with your values?

Question number two,

How are you producing it?

Is the process of your production harming you or helpful to you?

Harming others or helpful to others?

And then question number three,

What is the outcome and who benefits from the work that you create?

Thinking about sponsors,

Organizations,

People that are funding your work,

And also how your work is being used into the future.

So these three questions,

What are you producing,

How are you producing it,

And who is benefiting are three things to consider as you're listening to this episode with Brendon today.

I met Brendon on an airplane.

We were flying back from Nosara,

Costa Rica,

He was across the aisle from me,

He was reading something interesting.

And I am all about engaging with people these days.

I'm just fascinated by human beings,

What makes them tick.

And here's a hint,

If you want to create a connection with somebody,

Notice something that they are doing,

And comment on it,

Ask a question on it.

It's a way to develop a deeper relationship.

What is it that you are reading and tell me about it.

And then maybe you can make some connection for yourself based on what you are interested in building those bridges.

And as I learned more about Brendon,

I was so glad that I asked him about what he is reading.

So Brendon is the CEO of Hilo TV,

He's a visionary in the media industry.

And he's really transitioning his life and his work towards more purposeful,

Positive impact projects.

He explores the intersections of psychology,

AI,

Climate change.

And this episode is going to delve into his journey from the conventional CEO to a climate change innovator to his newest project,

Which is called the Museum of Tomorrow.

We're going to talk about the importance of aligning professional projects with our personal values and the planet's well-being.

We're going to talk about how he's using AI to help individuals imagine and strive for a post-climate crisis world.

We're going to talk about strategies to overcome obstacles and pivot towards more values aligned work.

And we're going to talk about the role of envisioning a positive future and motivating positive change.

And how our collective vision,

The consilience of all of our ideas coming together can lead us towards a more connected and sustainable world.

So Brendon Kiernan is a media technology and advertising entrepreneur.

And he started his first company in 1999.

He then went on to co-found Hilo TV,

Which is a creative studio that brings content experiential and digital elements together to produce extraordinary stories and moving experiences.

In their first three years,

They won 13 Cane's Lions Awards and Hilo TV has been recognized as the most next in the AICP Next Awards and are considered the most innovative forward-thinking work in the industry.

In 2021,

Brendon co-founded Alternate Futures.

And the vision for Alternate Futures is to help empower humanity towards an intentional positive tomorrow through AI-enabled emergence consilience processes for envisioning and experiencing our potential collective futures.

So I think you'll find his story fascinating and motivating and inspirational.

And it is a snapshot into some of the work that I do with CEOs and organizations as part of my practice.

All right,

Enjoy this conversation with Brendon Kiernan on The Wise Effort Show.

The Museum of Tomorrow is the primary project that I'm working on,

Although not the only one at the moment.

But I definitely spent a lot of time doing a lot of projects that I learned a lot on,

But I didn't feel were really delivering for me personally or for the planet or any kind of real positive outcome.

And so it's been an interesting transition over the last few years to not only to recognize that,

But then to take the recognition,

Turn that into a path,

And then take that path and turn it into actual output of projects,

Which isn't,

You know,

Maybe for some people that's a very quick process and you turn on a dime.

But for me,

It definitely took quite a few cycles of getting it from being,

I don't want to do these kinds of things anymore in this way because they aren't fulfilling and they aren't delivering on my values or they aren't aligned with what I want to be putting out into the world.

I knew that fairly quite a while ago,

And the process of getting to a place of actually being able to implement that took personally just some time.

This is good.

This is exactly what I want to talk about.

So I want to,

Let's do it in stages because I want to talk about,

Let's talk about first what you were doing and then how you knew this isn't aligning with my values.

And then we can talk about the process.

And then I want to talk about the Museum of Tomorrow and AI and how you're,

You know,

How you're being super innovative in supporting the climate in this way.

So how did,

What were you doing?

I kind of have tried to stalk you a little bit and you do not have a big media presence at all.

Even on your website,

The Hello TV website,

There's all these names listed.

I had my son come on last night.

I was like,

Okay,

Can you find him?

Where is,

No,

You're not there.

Yeah.

But you're in,

But you are.

I'm the CEO.

CEO of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is interesting.

But yeah,

What were,

What were you doing that wasn't fitting?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I've spent,

I spent the,

Really my entire adult career as an entrepreneur in media and entertainment and communications.

I've started my own company when I was 23 and built that company.

And then it was,

It was right at the sort of first dawn of the internet.

It was 2000,

2001.

Who does that at 23?

Okay.

You just were bold.

Well,

I mean,

I kind of came from parents who were definitely counterculture.

They had moved to Colorado to get away from what they saw as,

You know,

A culture.

It was all about finding a place kind of like you have here that they could really flourish in ways that weren't tied to like what they did as a profession.

And so they,

You know,

They took very nontraditional paths.

Can I say something about your website?

Yeah.

Which is when you try to scroll quickly through it,

It will not let you.

It goes so slow.

You have to read the words.

And I was like,

This guy is,

He's irritating us in a good way that you're,

You're forcing us to,

To actually pay attention to the story.

Yeah.

Thank you for saying that.

It was one of those things that we,

And yet,

You know,

It does,

It does annoy me a little bit,

But I also feel like it's a mindful moment.

Yeah.

It's such a,

Um,

We're so programmed in so many ways now through social media and,

Uh,

And just the use of our phones to move so quickly that I think it's very hard for people to actually,

Uh,

Anything that's longer than like five or 10 seconds is people try to glance off it,

You know,

And,

Um,

And I think that that,

You know,

Is unfortunate a lot of times I think there's a lot of things,

A lot of stories,

A lot of interesting work,

Art moments,

Ideas that cannot be integrated or understood in five to 10 seconds.

Um,

But anyways,

I was doing that work,

Um,

Kind of in a,

In a very sort of general way in terms of,

Oh,

It's an interesting story or it's an interesting project or it's a lucrative project.

I will,

I'll do it.

We'll do it.

Um,

And we made a lot of successful work that way successful in terms of winning awards or being popular or,

Um,

Being financially,

Uh,

Successful,

But that business,

Both the entertainment business and the advertising business,

And that was sort of one foot in either,

Um,

Are really difficult businesses to retain any sense of,

Uh,

Any kind of centered grounded purposeful approach to the work is very challenging,

Um,

Because when you start to peel the layers back of what you're making,

It's very rare that you're making something in a way that you are proud of,

As in,

Um,

All the people involved being treated well and you know,

The,

The resources you're using to make it being well used and minimally used.

And then it's also,

So it's hard to make it in a good way.

Then you see the thing you make and you know,

How many of those things that you make really have a truly positive or important or surprising message or story.

And then who's paying for what you're making and what are their objectives and goals.

And unfortunately the reality is very few projects in either of those worlds ever have alignment across all of those things in ways that at the end of the day,

You can say,

We made this in a way we're proud of.

It's an important thing that's worth having in the world.

And the person who paid for it also has an aligned set of goals around that.

Okay.

I want to pause on that because I think people can,

Maybe they're not relating to your specific story,

But they can relate to this in their work and their career and what they do even in their parenting.

So the three ones were,

I made this in a way that I'm proud of.

I make it in a way that are aligned with my values and then the people that are using it.

Yeah.

The three that I think of are sort of the process,

Right?

Like the way you're making it,

Then the output,

Right?

The thing you actually make.

And then in the case of the work,

It's who supported it or who paid for it or who are you making it for.

How it's going to be used.

How it's going to be used.

Moving forward.

That would be a good way to put it.

Yeah.

So the process,

The outcome and the continuation.

Yeah.

Where does it go now?

And who are the people that are benefiting?

Exactly.

From it.

Yep.

Yeah.

Which could apply to all sorts of things.

I mean,

It could apply to a podcast.

Yeah.

You know,

How a podcast is made,

What sponsors people have or don't have.

I don't have any on purpose because it changes the process of it,

Right?

100%.

And the impact.

Even with the best will in the world.

Even.

It changes it.

Even with green juice.

Yes.

I mean,

It's not like you're stopping after another two minutes and said,

Well,

Now I'd like to talk about a word from,

You know,

Listen to really great podcasts that do that.

But it does.

It's a different dynamic.

Yeah.

It's a different dynamic.

Okay.

So those are three questions to pause on or that you were starting to pause on and ask yourself about.

Yeah.

And it was built on a lot of strengths and values to move into these spaces.

You're getting a little bit more granular about how you're doing it and why you're doing it.

Yeah.

So just a couple quick examples of,

You know,

It was oftentimes I could get certainly one of the three to align and even occasionally two of the three.

Even very recently we did a project where we used AI and haptic technology and real time data to basically invent a way for a blind person to experience expectating a live sporting event in a way that was completely new and also like way more,

Gave them an experience that arguably was even more kind of presence than watching it,

But definitely way more presence than what they were capable or able to do previously.

It was amazing.

And it was a project that we did that,

You know,

We worked with this blind gentleman named Cameron Black who had this dream to be a sports broadcaster,

Never really thought it could be done.

And we using this technology and working with him,

We got him to the place where he could actually commentate live on an NBA playoff game at Madison Square Garden.

And that was an amazing project.

And two of the three things there,

I feel like aligned,

And then you look at who paid for it and it was Michelob Ultra,

You know?

So it's like.

.

.

I did see that.

My son saw that too.

He saw Nissan and Michelob Ultra and I went,

Hmm,

Car company and beer company.

Yeah.

And I think that's where you start to go,

Like you said,

Hmm,

Like how do you,

You know,

It's interesting now we're trying to take that technology and partner with,

We actually own the technology,

So we're taking it and hopefully partnering with someone who will allow us to develop it for soccer,

For,

You know,

The Olympics in ways to make it broadly available to other sight-impaired people.

But yeah,

I mean,

I think that's a good example of,

You know,

You get two of the three,

But you still at the end of the day,

You know,

I don't want to use that work with all due respect to the people who paid for that to sell beer,

You know?

And so I've been,

You know,

Over the last few years particularly really starting to question,

You know,

How much more of that kind of work do I feel willing to do?

You know,

You only have so much energy,

So many projects in you.

And so I've really started to change how,

You know,

How I approach the work and really take those three elements and if I don't feel like I can align those three things in a way that I feel good with,

Then I've stopped taking on those projects.

So I imagine there's some degree of discomfort in doing that.

You mean my business partners?

Yeah,

So all sorts of discomfort.

There could be judgment from other people,

There could be fears about money,

There could be ego,

Like your own identity,

Because if you have something that's sponsored by Nikola Ultra,

It's going to be a big thing,

Like they can put a lot behind it.

And so the type of therapy I practice or the type of approach I use is something called ACT,

Where we talk a lot about psychological flexibility,

Which has to do with identifying your values,

Where you want to go,

So you have these three benchmarks that you're using to sort out,

Does a project fit those or not,

In terms of the process,

The outcome,

And who is it serving,

How is it being used,

Or who is it paying.

And then,

But to get to that point,

You said it took a while to get there.

So to get to that point of pursuing your values,

You also have to move around and through and with obstacles.

And I'm curious,

What were the obstacles or what are the obstacles that show up in making that pivot and then how you have dealt with them?

And it may be that you deal with them in unexpected ways,

Like why I play pick a ball,

Or whatever it is,

Or I buy a house in Costa Rica,

We can talk about that too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

Definitely the second one has been an important part of the process.

Yeah.

I mean,

There's been all sorts of obstacles,

Not the least of which has been all of the ones you mentioned.

And I will be the first to admit that there's the sense of accomplishment when creating work like that,

Where it wins awards at a major event or festival,

Or becomes written up in a magazine,

You feel like there's validation there for sure.

And letting go of that,

And then also,

It's a major financial risk to have basically what we have done,

And we're actually going to announce this on March 18th,

So it's very good timing,

Is we're,

Hilo,

The company is only going to do impact work moving forward.

So we're basically,

It's very good timing because on March 10th,

We're going to be announced to be one of the top production companies in the world of the year,

Which is exciting.

I didn't even know this when I invited you to my house,

I just thought you were a cool guy.

Well,

Thank you.

That's very humble.

Yes.

And so,

We're going to try and use that as a springboard to say,

Hey,

We're making this commitment,

We're only going to work on projects that we feel that we can,

As I outlined,

Kind of those three things can align.

And we'll see.

I feel cautiously optimistic that that will create a pull,

Some gravity towards us for the types of people we want to work with,

The types of projects we want to do,

And the types of outcomes we want to create.

But it's a risk,

And I don't know.

And it's really,

It's a blank slate,

Really.

We have all the work that we've done to this point,

We have the relationships,

But it is a leap.

So,

Tell me more about the obstacles and how you work with them.

Like the inner obstacles.

Yeah.

I mean,

Personally,

I think the most important thing is coming to terms with the uncertainty,

Right?

You've done something in a certain way,

It's a well-worn groove,

You sort of know how to do it,

And sure,

There's always challenges,

But if you've been doing it a while,

Whatever it is,

And you've been doing it relatively successfully,

You kind of know the rules.

And there's a comfort in that,

And there's sort of a stability.

But once you kind of jump out of that track,

There's no real playbook,

I guess,

Or no real.

.

.

You have to recreate those rules or that playbook for yourself.

I think.

And doing that is.

.

.

I think for me,

The hardest thing was maybe,

And still is,

Is having the confidence to do it,

Right?

To say,

If not me,

Who?

If not now,

When?

Tracy Chapman song.

If not now,

Then when?

She's having a moment.

An old Tracy Chapman.

I remember her.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And so it's the getting practice with uncertainty,

Noticing when you're just in your groove and how cozy it is.

If you think about it,

A rut has these nice sides and this smooth path,

And to get out of a rut,

There's some activation energy to get up and out,

And that's just what it feels like.

But when you get practiced with it,

When you've done a bit of this,

Imagine every company that you've built,

There's been a different kind of rut.

But there's a,

I could just stay here and it'd be easier,

But then there's another party that has said,

I wanna go,

I wanna try something new.

And what's,

I think,

Also interesting is just the fact that you're in my office and we're having this conversation meant that we actually did something different than what most people do on an airplane.

You were on one side of the aisle,

I was on the other,

And I could have just worked the whole time,

You could have worked the whole time or watched a show or whatever,

But to break over the rut walls to connect with somebody.

And then to take it another step further and be like,

Huh,

You're interesting,

Let's continue this conversation.

Like even just those small acts,

It doesn't have to be huge ones that people are doing,

But small acts that are just more meaningful,

They feed back to you and it becomes a different type of momentum.

Yeah,

No,

100% agree with what you're saying.

And I think it's only the small acts practiced over and over again or on a daily basis that create the momentum for the bigger acts.

I don't even know if there are any big acts.

I think it's all just small acts stacked on top of each other.

It's our mind that makes them think that it's big,

So then we don't do it.

And our mind that tells us we need to be confident,

Thinking that confidence is a precursor.

I have so many clients that are in the space of confidence is a precursor.

When I'm confident,

Then I'll ask that person out or when I'm confident that I'll apply for that job.

I'm like,

That is not,

I don't know if I ever really feel confident.

I look confident.

Sometimes I feel confidence,

But it's more kind of,

It comes to me when I'm doing the hard thing that I feel the confidence like,

Well,

I'm doing it.

It's like surfing a wave.

When you're on the wave,

Then you get the lifting up of the energy underneath you,

But you don't really get that beforehand.

You got to paddle out and get on it first.

So we have to challenge some of those just belief systems about things like,

I have to be confident in order to pursue what I really want to pursue,

Or it's going to be,

I have to be comfortable first.

I have to have a lot of sense of security.

Yeah.

I mean,

When you have done great things in your life,

Have you ever been comfortable?

You know what I mean?

It's always,

For me anyway,

That sort of like,

Well,

You know,

I think there's that liminal space where you're not so uncomfortable that you can't act,

But you have to be somewhat uncomfortable I think to,

Like you say,

To be able to even paddle into that wave or to make that request.

I was so impressed with you on the plane because you were able to kind of jump that that sort of typical barrier that most people have up and would keep up.

And it actually inspired me to reciprocate,

Honestly.

Yeah.

Well,

I guess at this point in my,

I don't know,

My life,

I have a sense of just not enough time.

Yeah.

Like that we don't have enough time.

We don't have enough time on our planet.

I don't have enough time in my day.

That's sort of that pressing,

Like waking up to impermanence,

But there's a way to get into worry about that.

We don't have enough time.

There's also a way to actually expand your time,

Which is make your time more meaningful.

So I could be on an airplane and think that I don't have enough time and I could spend those five hours doing things that aren't really meaningful,

Or I could actually spend those hours connecting with somebody,

Which is something that I want to do with my time.

That's what I've chosen as my profession is it's a profession of connection.

So that's what I really value.

And I could do it in an airplane.

I could do it,

You know,

In the Nosara Airport when we're walking those back and forth,

Back and forth,

Back and forth to get through customs and everyone's like,

Oh,

I hate this.

And I'm like,

All these people that are hating it,

But this is like maybe an hour that you have with your family,

Or this is an hour to practice walking meditation,

Which takes about an hour.

Yeah.

And you can do that.

Or it's,

You know,

How are we using our time in a way that actually makes it just so that you feel more engaged in your life?

So I think that's very true.

And it's almost like,

And I've noticed myself doing this,

You sort of prepare,

You think that your life is divided into like the time you're preparing for the thing,

The big thing,

The like the moment.

March 18th.

Yeah.

March 18th.

Or,

You know,

Oh,

I like built my day around a particular meeting or a particular time that I'm going to spend with my daughter or,

And it's like,

You can get,

I can get into this mentality where it's sort of like everything leading up to that becomes sort of throw away.

Right.

And then it's so important to recognize that every moment really has equal opportunity for meaning or for,

You know,

A meaningful experience.

And if you're just focusing on two hours of that day to,

To put all that meaning into That's really,

You know,

I think an unfortunate way to,

You know,

You,

That's when you can feel that,

That lack of time because you're sort of artificially creating less time just through your mentality or your perspective of it.

Right.

And there's a,

There's a good amount of research on lack of time.

I mean,

I don't know if you've heard of the Good Samaritan study.

It's like one of the most classic psychology studies where they,

They had people that were seminary students prepare a talk on the Good Samaritan,

The story of the Good Samaritan.

And then they set it up so that they,

Half of them are randomly assigned to be late to this talk.

And they were,

They were rushing past.

They had to like get from point A to point B to go perform the talk.

But then there was somebody on the floor of the,

Of the street that like needs help.

Right.

And if you feel rushed for time,

You're less likely to go and stop and help the person.

Right.

Yeah.

Even though you're about to go give a talk on being a Good Samaritan,

You're not going to help the,

You're not going to engage in the value,

The very value that you have right there.

Like I could be a Good Samaritan right now.

Interesting.

And I feel that in my life when,

It just happened the other day where I was rushing in the morning,

Kid,

You know,

I had to get my kids to school.

I feel like I don't have enough time,

So I'm snapping at everybody.

And then I go for a run and I,

And I'm calling my friend and I'm complaining about how I don't have enough time to be with my kids.

And she was like,

Wait a minute,

You just had 10 minutes this morning where you're not using your time wisely.

Not to judge me.

Yeah.

Just a good friend.

Just to remind,

Yeah.

Just to point it out.

Like you're complaining about,

You're feeling bad that you don't have enough time and then you're snapping at people.

So okay.

So orient back where you,

You got to this place where you identified these three things that you are now,

You're sort of measures of whether or not to take on a project,

You're about to make an announcement of this is where we're going to be directing our energy with our company.

But what we talked about on the plane,

Which was,

I was really interested in,

Was the Museum of Tomorrow,

Which is sort of the big expression of these three things.

So tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah.

So the idea for the Museum of Tomorrow came about a friend of mine who I'd done some work with on,

We in the 2020 election tried to figure out some interesting ways to galvanize his friend groups to help galvanize their friends to vote,

Particularly in battleground states,

Particularly with like younger voters.

And that project we learned a lot,

It's been modestly successful,

Maybe successful enough to want to continue to push on some of those same ideas.

Anyway,

He had come up with this insight,

Which I thought was very profound,

Which we were sitting there talking one day and he's like,

Okay,

Brendan,

Close your eyes and imagine what the world looks like in 25 years if we do nothing about the climate crisis.

So I closed my eyes,

I have all these vivid visions in my head of all things that either I've experienced or definitely seen in the news,

Fires,

Floods,

Drought,

Extreme weather.

And pretty vividly get a sense of like,

Yeah,

I can imagine that world.

And then he said,

Okay,

Now close your eyes and think about what the world looks like in 25 years if we massively solve the climate crisis.

And I,

You know,

I'm in the storytelling business.

I pride myself on having a decent level of imagination and also a decent level of kind of understanding of kind of what's,

You know,

What's going on in the world.

And I really couldn't imagine what that world would look like.

And I said,

Yeah,

I'm not sure,

You know.

And he said,

Yeah,

No one that I have asked to do that has been able to really come back with any kind of really vivid vision of what that world looks like.

And we both agreed that's a massive challenge to the climate movement.

So.

.

.

This is goal setting 101.

Yeah.

Right.

You need to know where you're headed to.

Set the goals to get there.

Yeah.

Exactly.

You know,

If you can't imagine it,

Then how can you desire it?

And if you don't desire it,

Then are you really going to act to get it?

Yeah.

So based on that,

We started to think about,

Okay,

Well,

How could we help catalyze people's ability to imagine a positive post-climate crisis future?

So we went down a few different rabbit holes.

We did some kind of working group,

Kind of did a bunch of trying to understand,

One was like,

How do people imagine things?

What's the process of imagining?

How does that work?

What helps people with that?

What hinders it?

So did some,

You know,

Talked to a bunch of different folks around that.

And then also around the idea of,

Well,

What would a post-climate crisis future look like?

And what we got to after a bunch of this research and kind of thinking was two things.

One is that in order for people to really have an ability to imagine something that they can't imagine,

They need to first have a pretty profound embodied experience of some kind that allows them to open to possibilities that they hadn't considered or that they don't know about in the sort of traditional kind of rational mind of knowing about something.

There's a lot of research that's been done,

Quite a bit of it around experiences with plant medicines,

Like psychedelics,

People having kind of this trajectory of at first it's sort of this disorienting experience and they have this moment of realization.

And then there's ideally an opportunity to integrate that into moving through their lives and into their own futures.

What we came up with was the idea of creating the Museum of Tomorrow,

Which is an immersive museum that will allow people to go through a process of kind of becoming present,

Becoming aware,

Having this sense of connection.

And then we are going to use AI to help people,

Prompt people to imagine a future of a post-climate crisis world.

We're also going to use that AI will be trained on both what are the actual practical solutions and what are the possible futures that we can actually achieve.

So it's not just fantasy.

Yeah,

It's not fantasy.

It's not meant to be 200 years out fantasy world.

It's meant to be real possible futures that each of us in our lives can experience.

And then because AI has such power to do two things.

One,

It can be extremely personal.

So when this,

We're calling it Earth AI,

When it prompts you,

Diana,

It would say,

It would learn from the conversation with you very quickly kind of what you're.

.

.

You like to go running and you like the pink tree out your window.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Things like that.

And you want birds of paradise in your room.

Yes.

And then it's also quite good at then on the generative side of creating in basically real time an experience of that.

The experience will be essentially a short film that will be played for them kind of in a surrounded environment with audio and maybe a bit of narration and music of that future that they've created.

And so that will be kind of the first part of a two part process that the museum will help people through.

So the first is you and I each individually imagine a future based on kind of our hopes and dreams and desires and where we are,

Where we live,

Who we are,

What we care about.

And then at the end of that experience,

Each person is given like a seed basically that represents this vision of the future that they've created.

And then they walk out into a much kind of bigger space where it's sort of an exploratorium where they see different installations with different aspects of that future,

Whether it's regenerative agriculture or free energy future,

All sorts of rewilding.

And then at the end of seeing kind of all of that world,

They're asked to place their individual vision into a collective vision.

And then that collective vision becomes what we're calling a conciliate future,

Which is essentially taking all of these individual visions and again,

Using AI,

But this time in a different way,

Not generative AI,

But pattern seeking machine learning to take all of those individual visions and start to put them into relationship.

And then by creating those relationships between those individual visions,

What the AI is quite good at actually is starting to connect those things in interesting ways,

Ways that we as individual human thinkers can't really do.

And so the hope is that we start to build a conciliate vision of the future,

A collectively designed future that then people can claim some agency or ownership of,

But also recognize is something that is a community effort.

So that's the grand sort of ambition of the Museum of Tomorrow.

We have a location in Washington,

D.

C.

That's going to be the first flagship location.

And we're hoping to open the museum next year,

Fall of next year.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's phenomenal.

I have so many seeds that came from that.

Everything from just in Jane Goodall's book of hope,

She talks about hope as being something that is active,

That you pull towards you.

It's an input,

Not an output.

So we expect it to like,

We expect to get some hope out there somewhere,

But hope is actually something you need to put into the system.

And so there's an input of hope there where you're actually having AI help generate hope,

Which in your initial discussion is people don't have that necessarily around climate change or around a lot of things.

Of course,

I'm like,

All the spinoffs that you could do,

You could do this around recovery from an addiction.

Totally.

What would that look like for you?

People don't have a vision of what that could look like.

Yeah.

They're only in the vision of the problem.

Yeah.

And as long as we're in the vision of the problem,

Like you said,

You don't know what the desire is,

Where we're headed and how to create that.

And then the conciliants,

Listeners of my podcast know that's one of my favorite words.

And when you said that in the airplane,

I'm like,

And I couldn't remember E.

O.

Wilson's name.

I was like,

You mean the entomologist?

It's like one of my favorite words because this concept of conciliants is happening all over the place.

It's happening in fields of psychology.

It's happening in climate change.

Like how do we get these collective ideas together to create sort of a bigger idea that we're all part of,

Which is very much what's needed when we think about the planet.

Yeah.

And that's,

I mean,

And those are all,

I mean,

That's,

You're,

You're hitting the nail on the head there.

I mean,

I think for us,

You know,

We recognized kind of two,

Two things.

One is what you're talking about to sort of even more broadly,

Kind of the mental health epidemic,

Loneliness epidemic,

The sense of apathy that people have around not just the future,

But also,

You know,

How they're,

You know,

A lot of things in their lives and feeling powerless and,

You know,

Wanting to,

To,

To provide a way in which people could reclaim a little bit of that.

And then also,

You know,

Not being naive about how broken and polarized our political and cultural landscape is.

There's other things out there,

Museums of the future or climate museums,

Where it's sort of like expert opinions on like,

This is what needs to happen,

Or this is what the state of the state is.

And,

You know,

Those I think can be educational and they're,

It's important,

But I truly believe that unless people feel like this is coming from them and of them,

They aren't really going to trust it because of how difficult it is in our world to have any kind of sense of shared meaning.

And sensemaking has become almost impossible for people of different sort of political perspectives or different worldviews.

And so the idea here is that we don't,

We're not asking people to accept somebody else's worldview,

We want them to,

To really express their own,

Their own perspective and then see how that might connect in surprising ways to people they would never have thought that they did have commonality with.

Again,

Those are all lofty ambitions and we're,

You know,

We're aware of how challenging it will be to even begin to impact all of those things in a positive way,

But that's part of the excitement of the project.

And also I think the urgency is of how really existential all of these things are at this point for our planetary health and for our civilization.

With the urgency is actually often when we need to slow down the most and be more careful,

Right?

So if you ever watch a physician in the ER,

They are not running,

They are slow and careful and deliberate.

And part of our project,

We had talked a little bit about this with Alyssa Apple,

Where it's a UC wide project where she has a number of really great teachers and mindfulness teachers and climate leaders coming in to work with college students who have some degree of distress,

But are also most likely in positions where they're going to be pursuing a career or a degree in environmental studies or things like that.

And the whole project is around helping them make contact with the pain,

With the suffering,

How to practice mindfulness,

How to take care of themselves,

Like all these things that feel like,

Okay,

How's that actually going to change their,

Their actions,

But it's actually necessary,

Just like hope is necessary or having a vision of where you want to go or where you want this to be as necessary.

And these,

You know,

What you're designing also has an element,

Have you heard of motivational interviewing?

Have you?

No.

Okay.

These are all,

So you're like,

You're like a natural,

You're using psychological principles and it's just like intuitive or people that you're consulting with.

But motivational interviewing is the,

It's like the primary evidence-based treatment or approach to people that don't have motivation to change.

So it's the approach that will be used like to negotiate hostage releases,

But then it's also what's used in treatment centers for like methamphetamine,

Right?

So it's motivational interviewing has to do with how do you get someone to motivate to change when they're not motivated?

Right.

Oh,

Which I definitely need to learn.

And there's a whole science to it and the whole science to it boils down to how do you get them to have their own reason?

Yeah.

Okay.

So we give a lot of individual as opposed to what we usually do is we give a lot of reason giving of why you need to change.

And anytime anyone is like,

Here's why you need to change,

Resistance comes back.

Here's why I don't need to change or here's why you didn't get it right,

Right?

So there's a,

There's an aspect of that individualized,

Making it very individualized and very coming from that intrinsic MR reasons of each individual,

Which is going to be different.

Like one person's reason to stop drinking is different from another person's reason to stop drinking.

If you don't get their reason to stop drinking,

Just tell them it's good for you or to exercise or whatever,

You're going to get nowhere.

Yeah.

And same with climate change.

So you're tapping into some really important psychological principles that I think will work.

Yeah.

No,

That's really exciting to hear.

And I definitely need to learn more about motivational interviewing because I think that's exactly what we're looking to,

To,

To,

To use the AI in a way that helps uncover exactly that,

Their reason,

Their,

Their future,

Their reason to have a positive post-climate crisis future.

And it will be different for every person.

For some people,

It might be imagining,

You know,

Their community in a,

You know,

Sort of vibrant and abundant way.

For other people,

It might be something very specific,

Uh,

You know,

An activity that they love or,

You know,

Their,

Their children or,

You know,

Any,

You don't know.

Until you can kind of get to that.

And then I think once you can get to that,

If they can actually sort of see that reflected back in a way that's pretty vivid,

Uh,

Then I think that that might spur a bit more of that.

Okay.

Yeah.

No,

You know,

What do I,

Now I do want that.

Now,

What do I do?

And that's where,

Um,

The,

You know,

The,

The idea is you can only do so much in a 90 minute museum experience.

So the idea is that we then through earth AI,

Which will become a,

You know,

A platform or an app to be able to then stay in conversation with people afterwards to kind of give them opportunities or,

You know,

Ideas of things that might,

You know,

You told us this is the North star,

The future that you want.

If you want that,

Here's a bunch of ways that you can,

Uh,

Look at either changing your behavior or getting involved or paying attention to,

You know,

What's happening,

Uh,

Politically or whatever,

You know,

To,

To orient you towards that future.

And what you're doing in that or what you can do that because you've created this embodied positive experience in behavioral psychology,

That's a reinforcer and humans are much more,

Um,

We go for reinforcers,

Right?

We go for,

And oftentimes these reinforcers are really far off.

So if you create some kind of behavioral change,

Some kind of habit formation,

Something that you,

That they're going to do with this app,

They can also then bring that memory of the future that they are creating up close and they can actually contact it again because even just our imagery is reinforcing,

We can imagine all sorts of things that are scary or that are wonderful.

Yeah.

That's an interesting idea.

I'd like to,

I'd like to think more about that because maybe part of,

You know,

Cause we're still really working on the,

The presencing part,

The sort of first part of the experience before we asked them to do the imagination exercise.

So you know,

I think we're looking at how do we create,

You know,

I think acknowledge a sense of grief,

Create a sense of presence,

Create a sense of connection and,

Um,

And sort of wonder about,

You know,

Our shared world,

Our shared experience of being human,

You know?

Yeah.

So what's your imagery?

My future.

My future,

I,

For me,

It really starts to be about,

Uh,

The community,

Particularly,

You know,

Because where we live in Ojai is such a,

You know,

It,

It has the potential to be such an extraordinary,

Wonderful place.

And it also under certain climate,

Uh,

Conditions and impacts could be quite,

Um,

You know,

Really almost unlivable.

Yeah.

And so you kind of think about the,

The,

The,

What that valley might look like under a scenario where we really massively did solve the climate crisis.

And I think you,

You see a,

A valley that is probably more wild than it is now in terms of the vegetation and the way in which,

You know,

I think a lot of the,

You know,

The way in which people are currently growing citrus or growing,

Uh,

Other things probably needs to evolve to be more regenerative,

More sort of food,

Uh,

More symbiotic kind of crops and,

And natural,

Uh,

Native vegetation.

So I kind of have this vision of,

You know,

Looking down on the valley of Ojai from,

Um,

Up on,

Um,

Nordhoff Ridge and seeing,

You know,

Something that sort of is halfway between in some ways where it maybe was when the Chumash were living there and where it is now in terms of the vegetation and the,

The,

The,

Um,

Landscape.

But then also,

You know,

I think we're going to need far fewer cars.

So it's going to be,

Uh,

A place where there's a lot more space for people to be walking and riding bicycles and children playing in what are now like busy streets with traffic going by.

I think a lot of that will disappear.

You know,

We'll be able to work to live in a future where,

Um,

Transportation becomes a very different type of,

Um,

Reality.

One that's much more universally accessible,

Ones that's much safer,

One that's much more pleasant.

And I think it's a world where people will have quite a bit more time to your,

To your point earlier than they do now,

Because a lot of,

Um,

What we spend time doing won't necessarily be,

Uh,

We won't be forced to do those things,

Um,

In the same way.

I mean,

Even the idea of work probably evolves quite dramatically.

So in,

In that world,

I think there's the potential for people to really spend their time in,

Um,

Creative enterprises and deepening relationships in community,

In,

Um,

In nature,

You know,

In ways that are not just as observers,

But as participants and as stewards.

Um,

So it's,

Uh,

That's,

Yeah,

That's the world that I,

That I think is possible.

Um,

But,

Uh,

You know,

It's going to take a lot of,

Uh,

A lot of work and a lot of,

A lot of energy and a lot of,

Um,

A lot of people deciding that they want something like that for it to happen.

I think we,

In some ways,

Um,

As you're describing your vision,

I'm going to use some,

Can I add my vision to your vision?

Can we create two seeds come together?

Please do it.

Yeah,

Let's do it.

Because my vision is very similar.

I,

I relate.

I mean,

I live in similar,

Um,

Geography as you,

And,

Um,

There's another aspect of community around sharing of stuff,

You know,

Like my kid is going backpacking,

Do I need to go to REI and buy a new backpack?

Or can I find someone in my community that has a backpack and I don't have to house that backpack at my house because she has it at her house,

Which is bigger than my house and has more storage.

And then when she needs,

You know,

Whatever,

20 cups for the event that she's having,

I got 20 cups and that there's a lot more of that happening where we start to see resources as being more collectively shared,

Which also goes back to a lot of the ways in which humans have lived for a long time,

Where we start to see resources as something that,

Um,

Isn't so mine and so separate that if we share this thing that we both benefit from the sharing because I get your backpack and you get my cups and I don't have to store your backpack and you don't have to store my cups and that kind of breaking down of walls,

Whether they're breaking down of walls on an airplane or,

Um,

You know,

Sharing a,

We see some of this already happening of sharing of bicycles in towns or in our,

In our little lane,

Um,

You know,

Like a farm that comes in drops off boxes for all of us,

You know,

That we share and so that you're not,

We're not using up resources in such a disposable way.

Yeah.

I love that.

And I,

I think that's,

That is deeply intrinsically part of that future as well.

I agree.

And I think it's,

Um,

And I think what's so interesting about it is it's an incredibly abundant and rich future.

You know,

It's not,

I think people have a tendency to think that they will have to give up things that are really,

Um,

Meaningful to them in order to have a sustainable future or the,

For the planet to be able to,

Um,

To be in balance.

And I think that's probably the biggest barrier in certain ways that I see is getting people to,

To,

To think across that or over that or through it and,

And recognize that it's not about having the thing.

It's about what is the experience or the,

The,

You know,

What does that,

Yeah,

What is that experience that you're,

That you're craving or what is it that you're,

You know,

That you're accessing by having that thing and then recognizing that,

That so many of those things to your point could be shared,

Could be done in,

Um,

A community way or could also be,

Um,

Re-imagined to be much less,

Um,

Resource intensive or extractive than they are now.

And also if we have more time,

Um,

I think that frees up so many,

It also frees us from so many of the things that we currently feel keep us from being able to,

Um,

You know,

To have meaningful lives.

And I,

I think a lot of those things are tied together,

You know,

Really connected.

Um,

But yeah.

Can we go back to people are afraid of giving up things?

Yeah.

And that kind of circles back to the start of our conversation about it.

Yeah.

It might be uncomfortable.

It might be uncomfortable to do some of these things,

You know,

To ask your friend for a backpack or whatever,

You know,

Um,

Move your body more than you're using a car.

These things are uncomfortable.

And a lot of our,

Um,

Our problems,

Our diseases,

Whether they're mental or physical or planetary have to do with seeking comfort,

Comfort and avoiding uncertainty.

And I,

Um,

So part of that museum of hope is that we are also,

At least for me,

Is that we're more,

We're more capable and more resilient and more able and more flexible to be with discomfort than we are right now as a,

As a species,

We've gotten way too comfortable with being comfortable.

Well,

How do you,

I have a question for you.

How do you practice that or how do you,

Yeah,

I'm interested to hear how,

How people can become more comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Yeah.

So we're sitting on the floor right now.

It's less,

We would be more comfortable on this couch,

But it's better for our bodies to actually to sit on the floor.

Humans were meant to sit on the floor.

You ever sit in a yoga class and can't even put their knees down,

Right?

Cause they haven't sat on the floor and over age seven,

You can't get down on the floor anymore.

But how do we get more comfortable with being uncomfortable?

There's,

There's a science to it and there's actually a good body of research to it.

And the science to,

Um,

Being comfortable with uncomfortable has these sort of underlying processes of psychological flexibility,

Their processes of doing what you're doing.

So you're already doing it,

But identifying your values,

What's the reason why you want to be uncomfortable,

Right?

What is that about for you?

Not because someone told you it's better for you to sit on the floor,

But because when you start to notice that when I sit on the floor and I'm up and down and that's where my kids are or whatever,

Whatever your values are around that.

So identifying your values is one of those processes.

Um,

Another process around getting more comfortable with being uncomfortable has to do with your mind.

And,

Um,

In act we call it fusion or defusion,

Which is the ability to notice that your mind is always going to have a commentary and you don't have to follow your mind's whatever's.

Yeah.

Don't,

You know,

The commentary are like rules,

But don't talk to that person on an airplane or don't,

You know,

Whatever it is,

You can't do this or you can't do this.

So you're already doing that.

Yeah.

You can build your psychological flexibility by doing intentional acceptance,

Which is how to loosen up and make space for discomfort in the body and start to practice just being with it longer.

Can I be with it longer?

It's building that sort of tolerance and letting go.

So those are three values,

Diffusion,

Acceptance.

Another one has to do with your sense of self,

Starting to expand your sense of self beyond me to like a bigger sense of self.

And then we can start to see that our discomfort is,

Um,

It's like a,

You know,

Like a drop of a drop of food coloring in a glass of water versus a drop of food coloring in an ocean.

And so when we have a more expanded sense of self,

That drop of coloring,

Whatever that discomfort is,

Feels different.

And then we also get more comfortable with the uncomfortable through our behaviors.

So that's like doing like before you feel confident,

You do something that makes you feel confident and that will make you more confident,

You know,

Like you don't have to not be depressed before you do something that you would do if you were not depressed.

You do that first.

Right.

And then you'll work with your hands and your feet and then your head will follow maybe.

Those are the main ones.

So committed action,

Values,

Diffusion,

Acceptance,

Self,

Oh,

And the last one,

Which is the most important one,

Is presence.

That we can handle any discomfort in the present moment.

Most discomfort we can handle in the present moment.

So there's a whole science to it and there's a whole like body of research around each of those individually,

But also those collectively as skill sets that we can develop.

And what the research is showing around psychological flexibility is that it's beneficial across a lot of different domains.

So whether it's you're an Olympic athlete and you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable in order to perform well at your sport or you have a serious anxiety disorder and you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable in order to leave your house.

That these psychological flexibility processes are like you can get trained people on to be able to start to make those small moves that become a big move.

That's amazing.

The dropper in the glass versus the dropper in the ocean I think is a really profound one that I think we're also looking at that from the perspective of recentering nature and the more than human world as part of what I think is a necessary precursor to imagining this future.

Because we're so focused on ourselves or our discomfort or comfort and I think that makes us pretty myopic about the reality of what it is to be in relation to other people,

To communities,

To the more than human world.

And I think once you open yourself to that and sort of can contextualize your place,

It doesn't make you feel,

It doesn't make it feel meaningless or less meaningful.

In fact,

It makes it all feel much more meaningful.

But it also,

To your point,

The discomfort then doesn't become so central.

It becomes more diffuse or more part of the bigger ocean.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Well,

Thank you.

Yeah,

Thank you.

Phenomenal conversation.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Wise Effort podcast.

Wise Effort is about you taking your energy and putting it in the places that matter most to you.

And when you do so,

You'll get to savor the good of your life along the way.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only,

And it's not meant to be a substitute for mental health treatments.