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You grew up and live in Haifa, in the North of Israel. How present is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in your life?

I think the conflict is so intertwined in our lives that we don’t even feel that it’s a conflict. We live our daily lives and it seems like people outside of Israel, hear about the conflict even more than us. Because you know, at the end of the day, you live your life, go to the supermarket and do your things. And we did have some incidents, some terror attacks in Haifa as well, just as in every other city in Israel. But generally, Haifa is a city of coexistence. There are many Arabic speaking neighbourhoods and Hebrew speaking neighbourhoods kind of side by side. The whole city is kind of a puzzlepiece.

What does Aravrit mean?

Aravit means arabic and Ivrit means Hebrew. So it’s not just a hybrid of two scripts, but also a hybrid of the words in the name.

Where did you get the inspiration for the project?

The inspiration came from a moment where I saw a sign in Haifa. And all the signs in Israel have three languages on them, Hebrew, Arabic and English. I was looking at that sign, I remember I was driving and I was kind of shocked that I was actually ignoring the Arabic on the sign. I was looking at it like it was just decoration. And the reason for that is that I never learned Arabic. A lot of people in Israel learn Arabic, but I was in a middle school where they taught French. I just realised that I have been around this for so long and I don’t know it. I was ignoring it and I felt like I need to do something to force myself not to ignore it anymore. So Aravrit started as a little personal project. And then it began to resonate with people and it grew more and more.

A video about your project went viral. How did people react and how did it resonate with politicians?

I tried to analyse why this happened and for some reason it really touched people. I think we are so sick and tired of talking about the conflict and at the same time we are not talking about peace anymore. It is not on our agenda. It was when I was 10 years old and we drew doves and peace symbols all the time. But then peace processes kind of crumbled and we stopped talking about peace. And then this project came from something very daily, very effortless, you know, language, stuff we see all day. Like food and water. I think it touched people from that point of view. So it is not a politician saying: Please live together or some sort of message. I was kind of highlighting this situation making people not ignore whoever is living next to the them. I think that this dailyness is the reason people cared about it. And then this video kind of became viral and millions of people watched it. And then someone else did another viral video. And then it reached a larger audience which doesn’t even speak Hebrew or Arabic. And it kind of got to people.

What role does typography play in our daily lives?

The role of typography in the daily lives are enourmous. It’s one of the basic things that we do have. I consider it a part of our life like food and oxygen. It’s such a basic thing, that we don’t even notice that we do read letters and understand content. So even if I would tell you not to read something, you would read it. We view letters everyday, all day long and we read them and we get the content. I think the role is really enourmous. I think it’s also why part of why Aravrit works, because it highlights this normal, daily thing and actually uses it to convey a message.

Do you see any chance that Aravrit could become an official script for signs in Israel?

Well I didn’t intend to. At the moment I am kind of still exploring what can be done with it. I am at a stage where people still need to know about it and start a discussion. And then the ball can get rolling and see we will see what we can do with it. A lot of people are asking me if they can use it as a tool to teach Arabic for instance. And then I say that this is not the purpose. Because in order to learn a language or a script, you need to know it the way it should be first, the proper way. And then you can start playing with it, cutting it, putting it together with other scripts. It does serve as an incentive for people to learn Arabic or another language. Lots of Arabic teachers in Israel are using this. Like first lesson, showing kids what can be done with it and telling them, that at the end of the year they will be able to read both scripts.

© Gavin Gough

There’s no peace in sight at the moment and there haven’t been any serious peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine in years. What does it need to get peace?

This is a very big question. What I was highlighting are mainly the people who live next to us. Within Israel. Within our neighbourhood, within our cities. I think this is, where the change comes from. Again from daily encounters, going to the supermarket, finding someone. Again floating this to the surface and again making people less afraid of the other person that they don’t know. Their language and who they are. So Aravrit unites you in a unique way. Because you read something and another person reads the same thing and each one reads it in their own language, but both see that the other person is there, they can’t ignore each other. And perhaps I am much more optimistic than I was before this project started. I can tell you that I was avoiding to design the word peace. And I said that I don’t want to design it. For me it kind of doubles the message. The letters themselves represent peace. And by using daily words, the peace kind of shines through. But then, people started to create the word peace themselves. So there is a graffiti in Haifa that says the word peace and I haven’t designed it. So someone took inspiration. And this action of someone really making the effort in one step towards this holy peace that we all want, it was really moving to me. So maybe one day, I don’t know.

Is it just my feeling that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is way more political than it is for the people? I never had the feeling that any of the people I met wants conflict. Do you think that the political system creates conflict for whatever reason, but people could be brought together way more directly, as they are sick of this.

I think definitely. I think politicians need to make a big plan, they need to zoom out, they need to see where you’re moving the people, moving the country, where you move the borders. And we live our lives. A person is a person is a person. When people ask me what I think about the conflict, I need to pause and think for a minute. What do I think of the conflict? Obviously I don’t want it. But then we just live our lives and we don’t zoom out.

Is there any kind of protest movement going on with decisions like the one that Hebrew is going to be the only official language of Israel in the future?

There is always protests for these things. The government is elected, so there is a limit of what you can do, but of course there is protest. This particular example is again using the language as a symbol, saying that one language is not official any more of course says something bigger. That’s exactly what Aravrit is trying to do: say something bigger through language . This concept can be used both positive as well as negative.

What is your advice for people who want to become active?

I would try to look at things that seemingly clash – maybe they don’t really clash. And maybe the way that you connect them can create something new and kind of create a new message. SLike Aravrit, it doesn’t make sense if you think about it. But it does make sense. Because in this case, if you cut two things in half and then combine them again, you get something greater and something much bigger than the sum of the parts. So I would advise people to try not be afraid to try to connect things, break things, then redesign or rebuild them. And then see if this new hybrid creates something that’s worth mentioning and talking about later.

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Nipun has received many awards, among them the Dalai Lama unsung hero of compassion award. Today, he gives lectures and speeches around the globe and spreads the message of »giftivism«.

What’s your personal background?

Ever since I was a kid, I would always ask the big questions of life. What’s the purpose of this whole charade? What happens after you die? What is the motive for action? Often, I didn’t find the answers I was looking for, so I would start investigating. Seventeen was a turning point of sorts in my life, when my spiritual search came into the foreground. I was playing a lot of tennis (secretly hoping to turn pro), I took a lot of advanced academic classes and was already a junior in college, and I was en route to a degree in Computer Science at UC Berkeley. My first (and only) job was as a software engineer at Sun Microsystems but my prime focus had shifted, somehow, to dealing with my unanswered existential questions. The journey still continues to this day, but where previously I was looking for answers, I now look to dissolve the questions.

Would you consider yourself an activist and if so, what are the tools you apply in your activism?

It depends on one’s definition of activist. If an activist is someone who tries to disrupt the status-quo to alleviate some suffering in the world, then definitely yes. But if an activist is someone who is angry with status-quo and the people who engage in it, then definitely no. I’m not motivated by anger, but I do think we can continue to innovate and upgrade our designs to improve our collective well being. You know, it took us 5 thousand years to put wheels on bags. In that sense, I see activists as innovative entrepreneurs — but with two key distinctions.

One is that instead of working in the confines of the monetary markets, they work in the commons of humanity. They know how to work with intrinsic motivations, not just carrot and stick models of extrinsic punishment and reward.  They are sensitive enough to value multiple forms of capital, well beyond financial returns and tangible metrics. And they have the patience to work with a longer timeline, that sometimes can span many generations.

Second, and this is really the most important for me, is they understand how their inner transformation is connected to external impact. All too often, in our haste for changing the world, we forget to pay attention to what’s happening inside of us. As a result, we help others on the outside, but forget to be kind to those nearest to us.  Burn out becomes common. Ultimately, in trying to build five bridges, we might just burn three others along the way. Social change giants like Gandhi taught us a much deeper way to serve: be the change you wish to see in the world. Anyone who serves in this way realizes just how difficult inner change is, and that alters how we engage in external service.  As Rachel Naomi Remen says, when we help, we see life as weak; when we fix, we see life as whole; but it is only when we serve with an understanding of how that act is changing us, our service become an offering of humility and gratitude. Such acts create a rich ripple effect.

Now, that’s not the typical definition of an activist. So we invented a new word, for this kind of inside-out service — giftivism, where it’s not this versus that. It’s this *and* that. It’s about considering both the oppressor and the oppressed, in our field of love.  That’s the real legacy of people like Gandhi and Mandela and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr.

In terms of tools, I think everything is at our disposal. The question is about being skilful, and using it in the right proportion. For instance, I’m a technologist from the Silicon Valley, so Internet is one of the biggest tools we use. We have millions of line of code that powers our work. But we don’t allow any ads in our networks or email, and we encourage using online networks to build offline networks. For someone like Facebook, this is a bad idea since you can no longer monetize engagement when you’re off the Internet, but we don’t design for monetization — so it creates very different patterns.  All the upcoming tools like machine learning and AI will also pose similar challenges and require collective wisdom of finding the right balance. This is usually where society runs the risk of going off kilter, because we are so focused on narrow metrics and short-term impact, a giftivist’s toolkit and intention is much broader and could offer a great counter balance.

How did the transformation from working at a Silicon Valley computer company to founding an organisation with the aim of spreading generosity come about?

In my third year of college, I was offered a job at Sun Microsystems, working on the C++ compiler. Lots of PhD’s in my group, and I got few promotion in a very short period of time. This is the late 90s, so the dot-com boom just started and my peers were all starting their own companies, and greed was very much in the air.  It felt like flaunting their fancy cars, big dreams, and their own startup. Some of it was exciting, but lot of it didn’t land with me. So I wondered if we can do something to channel that creativity, enthusiasm and energy of the Valley into a different direction. Gordon Gekko famously told us that “Greed is good”, but our hypothesis was that generosity is better. So we started with four friends, building a website for a homeless shelter. The thought was, “We can’t do what you’re doing, but perhaps we can amplify your capacity in this small way.” Website building was great, and got us a lot of attention in those days, but what was even more remarkable was generosity itself. It was transformative, and regenerative. The more we gave, the more we wanted to give. Not just for me, but for everyone. And rather quickly, ServiceSpace went from 4 volunteers to 40 to 400 to 4 thousand to 40 thousand, and now well over 400 thousand. It’s really a testimony to the power of love.

In 2005 you went on a pilgrimage with your wife. Can you tell me what it was all about?

Six months into our marriage, my wife and I dropped all our plans, went to the Gandhi Ashram in India and decided to embark on a walk.  We had no plans and no end date. Humanity poorest billion live on dollar a day, so we decided that’s what we’d have between us. We would serve wherever an opportunity showed up — from pushing stalled cars on the highways to helping old farmers carry loads to cleaning community places to sharing stories of everyday heroes.  We ate whatever food was offered, and slept wherever placed was provided. Sometimes things didn’t work, and that gave us an opportunity to grow in renunciation; sometimes things worked out miraculously, and that gave us a chance to cultivate gratitude. After about 1000 kilometers, we ended up at a monastery and flipped a coin to see if the pilgrimage would continue internally or externally — we ended up staying, and doing meditation retreats over the next three months.  “Just jump and the net will appear,” they say. That was our experience. It’s scary to jump and trust like that, but when we did, we happily discovered a net of compassion and interconnection that we were previously blinded to.

What was the most touching experience you had on your pilgrimage?

On our walking pilgrimage, we noticed that those who had the least were most readily equipped to honor the priceless.  In urban cities, the people we encountered began with an unspoken wariness: “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”   In the countryside, on the other hand, villagers almost always met us with an open-hearted curiosity launching straight in with: “Hey buddy, you don’t look local.  What’s your story?” In the villages, your worth wasn’t assessed by your business card, professional network or your salary. That innate simplicity allowed them to love life and cherish all its connections.

Extremely poor villagers, who couldn’t even afford their own meals, would often borrow food from their neighbors to feed us.  When we tried to refuse, they would simply explain: “To us, the guest is God. This is our offering to the divine in you that connects us to each other.”  Now, how could one refuse that? Street vendors often gifted us vegetables; in a very touching moment, an armless fruit-seller once insisted on giving us a slice of watermelon.  Everyone, no matter how old, would be overjoyed to give us directions, even when they weren’t fully sure of them. And I still remember the woman who generously gave us water when we were extremely thirsty — only to later discover that she had to walk 10 kilometers at 4AM to get that one bucket of water. These people knew how to give, not because they had a lot, but because they knew how to love life.  They didn’t need any credit or assurance that you would ever return to pay them back. Rather, they just trusted in the pay-it-forward circle of giving.

Nipun Mehta receiving the »Dalai Lama Unsung Hero of Compassion« award.

You then started Karma Kitchen. What is it all about?

Karma Kitchen is a pop-up, gift-economy restaurant. Like any other restaurant, you walk in and have a meal but here, your bill reads zero. It’s zero because someone before you paid for your meal, and you have a chance to pay forward for someone after you. Most people think that you can’t trust people like that, because people are fundamentally selfish. To be frank, even we didn’t know how long it would last. So that was our experiment. It turns out, that if you build a strong context, people respond to generosity with even greater generosity. Tens of thousands people were fed, and the chain is still going — and in fact, it has spread to more 23 locations around the globe!  It even inspired seminal research at UC Berkeley, which was aptly titled, Paying More When Paying For Others.

Of course, this need not just to limited to a restaurant context.  Much in the same way, we run a rickshaw in Ahmedabad, an art magazine in the US, and so much more. Such a “gift economy” model that cultivates a shift from transaction to trust can be applied in umpteen ways, and is much needed in our culture today.

What do you think is the reason, that people in western societies ended up with such a self-centered way of life?

Today’s culture favors individual merits over collective intelligence, immediate gratification over equanimity, personal grit over unearned grace. Invariably that me-centered approach is going to disconnect us — systemically, socially, and spiritually.  We are seeing ripples of that gap across the board. We desperately need to reconnect, and generosity is such an elegant and accessible lever to bridge that chasm towards a we-centered life and society. The small act of kindness reconnects us, first and foremost, to ourselves; by its very nature, it reconnects us to the other; and in a matrix of such nodes of trust, it allows very different systemic designs to emerge.  So what seems like a simple thing, a little act of service, is a rather revolutionary act in today’s era of disconnection.

Apart from the “Survival of the Fittest” approach of Darwin, one can also find an approach of survival of the kindest in his mostly unknown publication “The Descent of Man, and Selection In Relation to Sex”. Do you integrate scientific research into the development of your projects? Which theories are most important to you and why?
When I’m talking to school kids, I will often ask them, “Do you think we are fundamentally compassionate beings who sometimes have selfish experiences, or are we fundamentally selfish beings who sometimes have compassionate moments?” It’s usually 50-50. But science is quite clear that we’re actually innately compassionate, that the untold story of evolution has indeed been about “survival of the kindest”. During World War II, for instance, an army general found that more than 80% of the troops intentionally misfired, simply because we aren’t wired to kill! His findings have been corroborated by many other studies. Of course, it’s a sad tale that we have now built sophisticated methods to numb our innate nature, but there is overwhelming science that tells us that we are wired to care, wired to be connected to each other. Even before we learn words and concepts, toddlers already have a propensity towards generosity.

In a thousand ways, neuroscience has opened up radically new conversations as we see just how deeply we are connected to each other. Dacher Keltner has probably done the most comprehensive work on this. Mindfulness, similarly, has seen a massive explosion of compelling research that one of our friends in the UK, Jamie Bristow, got the whole UK parliament to meditate! Robert Emmons has done some ground-breaking work on the science of gratitude. In one study on awe, Paul Piff showed that looking at a tree — instead of a building — for just 30 seconds, made people behave more pro-socially.  Just a simple smile release incredible hormones in our body.

So, really, there is no shortage of science around well being. But, as a culture, we have been painfully slow in adopting these insights into our systems.

In ServiceSpace, we are constantly looking at new research and cultural trends. For instance, we see across many studies that behavior change doesn’t happen by individual will alone. That repeated practice and community is a huge factor. So on KindSpring.org, we created a 21-day challenge platform across many different themes like kindness and gratitude and mindfulness, that you would engage with your community.  And moreover, our entire basis of being volunteer-run, is a testimony to power of intrinsic motivation — which Edward Deci and many other scientists have repeatedly shown to far more powerful than extrinsic motivations like money. [More in: Making Gratitude Viral]

Service Space has several projects with a pay-it-forward approach running. Can you explain how the pay-it-forward mechanism works in the cases of Smile Cards and Karma Kitchen? Why do these models leave something in people’s brains and hearts?

Pay it forward idea is fundamentally rooted in gratitude. When we engage in a transaction, we engage in direct reciprocity. Me and you. It’s very narrow. A gift economy, on the other hand, invites us into a much broader engagement of indirect reciprocity. Someone who came before me has paid for me, and I hold gratitude for that. Then I pay forward for people after me, who will never be able to say thank-you to me. It’s not tit-for-tat at an individual level, in that I might give more or receive more than what I put in, but all together, it affords us a circle. And the beauty of the circle is that it is greater than the sum of its parts. So by letting go direct reciprocity, we birth an entire new realm of possibility.  It’s rooted in a shift from me to we. [More in: Three Stages of Generosity]

At a practical level, the way something like Karma Kitchen works is this — we rent the restaurant for X amount of money. Then we take over the restaurant, from its ambiance to its processes. Our aim is to build a strong context of love. Volunteers do everything from serving food to busing tables. When guest come in, they have their food just like they would at a regular restaurant, but at the end of their meal, the check reads zero. They can pay forward whatever they are moved to offer. At the end of the day, we add it all up and pay for next Karma Kitchen’s rent. Sometimes, we have a deficit, but on average, there’s always a surplus and the chain keeps going.

Similarly, with Smile Cards, we ship them out as a gift to anyone who wants them. People will do an anonymous act of kindness for someone, and leave a Smile Card behind which tells the recipient that they don’t know who did this, but they can pay it forward and make someone else’s day like that.  Because giving is such an intrinsically rewarding experience, people are typically moved to make a financial offering even when it is unsolicited. Using this gift-economy model, we’ve put millions of Smile Cards in circulation. It works, because generosity works. Any act of kindness make us feel great, and more often than not, we will want to pay it forward and return to our innate state of connection with others. It’s just human, and our model of operation counts on that.

Where else can this model be applied?

Ultimately, this can be applied wherever there is a transaction.  And that’s everywhere.

Practically speaking, though, it is easier to pilot this idea in a context where subjective value matters, where marginal costs are low, and volunteer labor can be easily integrated. If Karma Kitchen was a buffet instead of a full-service restaurant, it wouldn’t work as effectively because you are stripping out the possibility of subjective value of the interaction between a volunteer and a guest.  We run a print magazine, works & conversations, in this way but that’s probably not going to be as effective with your Lexus car dealership because your fixed costs are so high. Similarly, this works really well for all kinds of services, like our gift-economy rickshaw or a gift-economy health clinic, because the premium is on the service.

All in all, the key to making this work is context.  Just as quid-pro-quo transaction is very narrow, context driven design is very broad. Generosity never fails, but the question really is — can we create a strong enough context for people to feel and then respond to generosity?  It’s always possible to turn any transaction into an expansive experience of compassion, but we need to shift our orientation to tap into this. It takes a fair amount of inner growth to become a black-belt in regenerative generosity. In fact, we started Laddership Circles as peer-learning virtual circles to help support this kind of growth.

You use the term Gandhi 3.0. Can you give us an overview of what is meant by that term?

In the times of Gandhi, social action organized in a one-to-many formation.  One Gandhi and many of us. His successor in India, Vinoba Bhave, came along and built a stronger network by walking across India and cultivating one-to-one connections.  Along the way, he also pointed to what was emerging: “What rises up like a fountain, will return in the form of many distributed drops.” That’s exactly what we’re seeing now.  We call it Gandhi 3.0, where Gandhi stands for the age-old principle of leading with inner transformation and 3.0 represents the many-to-many networks that are popularized by the modern-day Internet.  In a sense, it’s a bridge from the Internet to the Inner-Net. It’s a journey of building distributed and decentralized movements that lead with inner transformation, of leveraging technology to nurture generosity, of cultivating practices that encourage “being the change”, and ultimately of putting priceless gifts — like empathy, trust and compassion — into greater circulation.

What is the main transformation that people need to aim for to change their lives?

I would identify four key shifts. First would be consumption to contribution; can we open each door and ask, “What can I give” in place of asking “What am I going to get?” Second is a shift from transaction to trust; can we move from direct reciprocity to indirect reciprocity, that affords us the circle?  That leads to a fourth shift from isolation to community; can we learn to hold multi-dimensional relationships with tolerance, in place of seemingly comfortable echo-chambers? And lastly, scarcity to abundance. We’ve created this implicit equation of wealth equal money, when, in fact, there are multiple forms of wealth. Can we create value in the world, even if it doesn’t advance the GDP?

You even question Maslow’s pyramid… What’s your approach?

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs refers to a linear progression from material to emotional to spiritual well-being. We’ve just seen it rendered false across the board, and Maslow himself changed his mind. When Victor Frankl narrated stories from concentration camps, about how “basic needs” were not met but it was “higher needs” that increased their chance of survival, Maslow admitted, “Frankl is right.” What social scientists are now using to frame this conversation is that our various are more like Vitamins. We don’t finish life’s entire need for Vitamin C before we get to Vitamin D. We need it in balance. So yes, we have to pay attention to the basic needs, but Vitamin G(enerosity) is not a luxury sport. It’s not something you arrive at when you retire. You need it now, no matter who you are and where you are planted.

Why do you think is it, that the idea of connection is approached so much when it comes to making profits and starting protest movements, but not when it comes to spreading love and generosity?

Prior to the Internet, we often heard this phrase, “strength of loose ties.” But what modern day social networks have done is turned everything into a loose tie. We optimized for the quantity of connection, and forgot about the quality. That has disconnected us altogether. People nowadays have very few deep friendships, and that’s creating all kinds of unexpected problems in society.  If 50 of us are watching TV, we just 50 connections; if 50 of us had phones and talk to each other, we would have 1225 connections; but if 50 of were on group-forming network like Whatsapp, we have the potential of 100 million trillion connections. This is what a “many to many” network is all about.

For the past 15-20 years, we’ve seen the power of this play itself out in the world of profit, and to a smaller degree, in the world of protest. But we have hardly seen this applied to the possibilities of compassion. CNN’s of the world lead with bad news, not good news, because it gets you more eyeballs. There is no dot-com around kindness. No one is trying to increase trust in society with artificial intelligence algorithms. Part of the reason is because the only lever for organization we are familiar with is commercial — hierarchies operating with carrot and stick incentives, for short-term results. That may work well for certain things in society, but not everything. We owe it to ourselves to keep an entire spectrum of organizing alive, and to do that we need the younger generation to be equipped with not just “leadership” skills but also what we call “laddership” skills.

Your approach is very much focused around the individual. Some of the biggest challenges need systemic change. Do you think individual generosity, even in networks, are the basis for the change it needs to save the planet and make it a more social world for everyone?

Oh, I’m all for systemic change. During Obama’s presidency, I served on his advisory board for addressing poverty and inequality, and we argued for a shift from transaction to relationship.  There are very many concrete things that can be done to address this. Separately, I was part of a global group for deepening the conversation around well-being, where we spoke with the prime minister of Bhutan who implemented Gross National Happiness, and with president of Costa Rica which had abandoned it’s army since late 40s, and Ecuador’s leadership where they have given rights to rivers and trees. I also sit on the board of Greater Good Science Center, whose upcoming project is about bringing science-backed empathy exhibits into major museums around the United States. Just last week in London, I spoke to 500 investment bankers about ethical considerations in the realm of technology.

At a macro level, society has three major spheres — private sector, public sector and the voluntary sector. In theory, public sector is supposed to balance out the private and public sectors, but in reality what’s happened is the private sector of gobbling up the public and also voluntary sector (as most recently witnessed with the sharing economy bubble). If we want to create change, in today’s context, we are required to be subservient to the private sector. I’m not saying private sector is all bad, but it is far too narrow to be the king of the hill. Both private and public sector should actually be in service to the voluntary sector.

So that is the system that actually needs a change, a radical upending, a revolution. Sure other “systemic” changes may provide some short-term relief, but it’s not going to last unless we shift our core organizing principles. Internet is not the Internet without Net Neutrality. For that deep, seismic, cultural shift, I think individual generosity and transformation is place of highest leverage. If an individual gives, is held in a web of deep ties, has space for inner transformation to arise, it will create the foundation for rich, sustainable growth.  That’s what ServiceSpace is committed to.

Do you think we need new idols?

We desperately need new idols, and new stories.  Israeli professor, Yuval Noah Harari, articulate this concept of “inter-subjective” reality. There’s the objective and subjective realities, but what makes human beings unique is that we can cooperate at varying scales, and we do this through our manufactured narratives. Money is a story, Europe is a story, Google is a story. What makes it powerful is that it’s a shared story. Can we create a new story? And can we find heroes and sheroes who are courageously living into that new story? I think we must, if we are to create change.

What’s your strategy of spreading your messages to the world and scaling your projects internationally?

You know, when Mother Teresa was asked about her strategy for sustaining 400 centers around the world, she just said, “Well, I pray.” She never kept any cash reserves. In secular terms, I see that as a radical trust in emergence.

If you’ve built a strong field, with a rich matrix of interconnections, your job goes from “plan and execute” to “search and amplify”. In place of seeking and strategizing, you are focused on keeping the field in integrity with its organizing principles. And our principles are to: (a) be volunteer run; ie. driven purely by intrinsic motivations; (b) don’t fundraise; ie. unlock alternate forms of capital; (c) honor the small; ie. trust in the process and let outcomes take care of themselves. After 20 years of building such a field, with millions of inputs coming in every month across a myriad different doors, you can imagine just how many things are arising on a moment to moment basis. It’s mind blowing. I could’ve never predicted this, 20 years ago, and if I’m being really honest, I can’t even predict what’s going to happen in the next 2 years.

In that sense, my strategy is to trust in the core values. We have never pitched a story to the media, and yet received ample media coverage; we have never asked to speak at any place, and yet been in front of hundreds of thousands;  we have never done any fundraising and yet have never felt a lack of financial capital. On paper, it might seem magical, but in practice, it’s just hard work — but in a particular way. First, I have to live into the values; to the degree that I can “be the change” is the degree to which I can see the emergence (and not have it in my blindspot); this requires an untiring mind. Then, I have to ensure that the entire ecosystem stays aligned with these values; this takes immense skillfulness when you don’t have any coercive power to use. And lastly, it invites you to “search and amplify” patterns of positive deviance; and one has to learn to “ladder” projects from the back of the room in place of leading from the front of the room.

So many people seem to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of issues we are facing as humanity. What do you tell people who ask you: “What can I do”?

Yeah, sometimes it can be overwhelming to see the suffering in the world. My wife knows this — I will sometimes just walk on the streets and notice a homeless person, and start crying. Or even just a waiter in a restaurant.  You know, we want to share our love with everyone, don’t we? What helps me, though, is to remember the flashlight principle. If I’m at point A, and I shine my flash light at my destination, point Z, I won’t get anywhere. But I stay humble, focus on life in front of me, I would see point B, and then point C, and then bit by bit, realize that I’m progressing towards point Z. No matter what state the world is in, no matter what state we are in, the only thing we can do is serve in this moment.

So to anyone, and everyone, my first suggestion would be: do a small act of kindness, for life in front of you. Here and now. Surely, it will create an inexplicable external ripple effect, but it will create even more significant inner ripple effect. It will change the eyes through which you look at the world. And my second suggestion would be: support others doing acts of kindness. In supporting others, you will build a web of deep friendships — and that will give you resilience when the going gets tough.

If you could take 3 books to an island, which ones and why?

I’m not sure I would take books to an island. But three significant books that I have deeply enjoyed: (a) Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, for the reminder about the eternal pursuit of “Who am I?”, (b) One Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka, for the design principles of permaculture, (c) Hind Swaraj, by Gandhi, for a vision of a society that leads with inner transformation.

Additional Information

Nipun’s talk at TEDxBerkeley gives a deep insight in his approach to project design in the context of giftivism:

The post Nipun Mehta: Changing the world through generosity appeared first on DREAMA TV.

Today, Wise fights against the construction of the new Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota and is the head of the international indigenous youth council. We talked about the start of the protest movement, the situation of indigenous people in the USA and her hope for future generations.

How did the movement against the Dakota pipeline start in general and how for you?

The dakota access pipeline was led by a group of youth who had met President Obama in 2014 when he had visited the reservation and they felt deeply moved because he had told them “I love you” and “I think of you as my own children, I’m going to protect you”. Even though the project was on the table for 2 years already. When they found out, they went all the way to Washington. And when Obama didn’t meet them there, they went all the way back and talked to their elders. They asked how they should proceed. The elder women said that they have some land and they could make an occupation of the land. I don’t think that the 10 of them ever thought that this would turn into a multimillion movement. People from around the globe got involved.

For me: I had read articles about this youth who were running. My brother and sister had graduated from high school and weren’t doing anything and their mother called me and asked me to say something that would prompt them into the next phase of their life. I shared the article with them and the next morning their mom called me and said that they have gotten into the car with all their things and were on the way to North Dakota. Our grandma told us when we were kids that when you want to know how much the US government hated indigenous people, you had to go to the Dakotas. So I felt very strongly that I had to go protect them from this thing that they a…

When I got there they had all this wonderful people with them. And they said: This is my big sister and she has the wallet and a car and I unwillingly became the mother for 30 youths immediately for my six months stay.

Where are you from originally?
From new Mexico, about 24 hours away from New Mexico.

Why did you decide to go there?

I think every indigenous people felt the will to go there as you coul. For once in a life you saw what it would look like if they would have left us alone. For all of us it was really a healing moment that it had taken away from us but that it’s possible that it could happen again.

You became an activist as a safeguard for the younger?

No, it started way younger. Every indigenous person is born with the knowledge that we are responsible for the next 7 generations. The decisions that they make impact all those who come behind us. So the responsibility to care for our land and for everyone who cannot speak for themselves. Our relatives, our animal relatives, the water has its own spirit, the air has its own spirit. And for people who so much disregard the beauty that is in every living thing really broke our heart. And for our youths knowing that their futures would being denied to them by people who didn’t care if they would live or die was really cumbersome and they decided to lift the burden.

Which methods did you use to stop the pipeline?

There was a lot of ceremony. We were always in peace and prayer. Everything that we did, there was singing, non-violent direct action. People who were locking down to the equipment trying to prevent construction. People who were putting their bodies on the line, trying to make it more difficult to construct. Because where they constructed was over and through the graves of several hundred ancestors. We told them that the bodies where there. They disregarded us and them went through anyway. It’s already horrible enough to know that your mother earth is desecrated in such a way. But seeing that on top of seeing the greed earth and the bones of your ancestors. This told us to do whatever is necessary but we have been told in the ceremony that we would not be successful and if we remain in peace in prayers.

Sioux at Standing Rock chained to a Bulldozer.

What did the corresponding police brutality do to you emotionally?

I think that was really fucked up, I don’t know how to put it any other way. And it’s not even post traumatic, these oil companies are still attacking us. They arrested almost 900 people. They are not even halfway through the trials. They still have a friend, a sister of us in jail, she’s a prisoner of war and she’s been in jail since December 2016. You know that though you are not in Standing Rock anymore, the local communities are still abusing indigenous youth for being indigenous, even if they haven’t been involved in the camps. The amount of terror that the non native communities spread among indigenous people is awful. We are now 2 years away from the camp being set up and nothing has changed in north or south dakota. It’s only gotten worse. You feel a horrible responsible for having been so bold and ambitious to trying to stop a pipeline to protect water for 16 million. You carry the burden of knowing what the home? community is feeling and you also carry the burden of knowing that no matter how hard we fight that we are still less than nothing, that we are still 0,1% of the population in a country that was ours. Everyone else has a place to go. We don’t have anywhere to go. I think it’s even more dramatic to see that no matter what happens everyone else has the ability to leave and you just have to stay because everything that your ancestor resisted is the reason for your existence and you have to buckle down. We are all horribly sad. I can’t see no fireworks no more. I don’t feel safe in public spaces. I am only one person, I took care of the youth. I can imagine what the more popular faces at the core are facing when I see what I’m facing today.

What were the consequences? I heard of a 2 billion lawsuit…

They didn’t file the 2B lawsuit against the NGOs and organisations that were supporting us. My theory is that they wanted to scare the NGOs to help and support us again. At any given time we had more than 10.000 people in the camp.

The police used tear gas and rubber bullets against the peaceful protesters at Standing Rock.

How did it feel to get Trump elected?

On the day Trump was elected, we didn’t have any signal at the camp, so we didn’t believe it when we heard it. It took several hours for us to finally believe that trump had been elected. When he got into office the first executive order he signed was to open the KXL pipeline again and to approve the dakota access pipeline. His very first executive orders were just a slap in the face, saying: how dare you even try? But I think it emboldened communities, especially communities of colour to reclaim the power. To say: You’ve taken everything from us, even your ancestors cared so less about people besides yourself that you think you deserve anything. And you do not. So I think we have the right to exist and the right to thrive. And just because some overinflated, egoistical, narcisticall, womanising, machoistic bastard says we can’t doesn’t mean we can’t, because we can and we have done.

What did the Standing Rock movement do to the youth?

A lot of the people that came to the encountments brought all their skills with them, skill that the kids haven’t seen before. We had medics who were doing acupuncture and massage therapy, not just street therapies. We had carpenters and builders and engineers who built stuff, people who built solar energy. They would bring solar energy to the camps. The kids they were saturated with these great minds. When we left Standing rock, they were heartbroken, but then they started thinking ok, where are we gonna go next? My little sister is starting to put together solar panels, others are fighting Fracking in new Mexico. I went to Minnesota to fight Line 3. Others went down to Louisiana to find the end of the Dakota access pipeline. There have been more resistance camps since standing rock than there have ever been. And the kids recognise that it doesn’t only have to be frontline work they are doing. They wanna be journalists, photographers, media makers. Any field that they saw were valuable for the movement. They now wanna be a part of it. Because they realise that every person is a part of the puzzle and they see that the only way we can all fit together is if we all work together. So I think that they are brilliant. And I’m so proud of them, that they are overcoming all the fear that was prevued upon them by the police, by the local law enforcement, by the private security. Everything that they were told they can’t do they are now doing.

The Standing Rock Camp was covered in snow for weeks during the protests.

Why do you think standing rock became the greatest indigenous protest movement in history?

I think that through many many years, especially with repercussions of boarding schools, people were too scared to be themselves. It was horrible to say that you are native, because if you said so. There are still signs in North and South Dakota that say “No dogs and natives”. They would prefer dogs before they would prefer native people. And for once in our lives to be able to say: You know what, there is nothing wrong with us, there has never been anything wrong with us. And we are beautiful and we have so much to offer this world. And we have been offering it. This country wouldn’t even exist hadn’t we fed and housed and clothed these people. For all of us to remember that and then have people see us in our true form, not this scared cartooned charactered versions of ourselves, to not see us as the cowboys and Indians from the Hollywood westerns. But to see us as doctors, as educators, as philanthropists, movement makers. I think was really empowering. I think The reason we all came together was because people finally saw who we were and recognised “oh sorry we weben living on your land without permission. You are actually really lovely and we would love to get to know you. And because we are kind we said that’s great, because we love all of our relatives please come join us. And when people did, there is something beautiful of being part of something that you haven’t been part before. I think the reason that it became so big is that people realized that something was happening that they had never seen in their lifetime. And I hope that we continue this. I don’t want this anymore. It is the only model in my life where I remember what it is like to be an indigenous person without any boundaries. I never want to forget the feeling that I had or have the youth forget what it felt to be their own leaders in their own right to not be questioned, to be embolden and empowered to do more.

What’s your mission statement?

To overthrow the United States government (laughs). Well partly. My mission is just to ensure a future for the youth and I know that it sounds silly but people underestimate young people. Young children – people talk down to them like they can’t understand. But I think children are so much smarter than we are as they are not impacted by all these biases that we carry around. And I think that it is my mission that the kids remember that they have a voice and a path. Our ancestors resistance is the very reason for us existing. And I want them to remember that there are people that have suffered way harder than we have for our ability to stand up for the next 7 generations. And if it got easier at that point of time, it will even get easier in the future. So my mission is to overthrow the US government and make sure that the youth are the ones making the decisions from here on now.

Do you think that grassroots movements can lead to systemic change?

Absolutely! Because governments didn’t always exist. Governments fear among, they elbowed their way in, but they didn’t always exist and they are not stable. Grassroots are communities of people that are working towards a common goal. And a movement used to stay in a movement. Not just with the same people for years and years, but by bringing in new generations of people to carry the message on. So I think grassroots are the heartbeat and governments and politics are just the clothes that you put over the body. They are not the life itself.

How do you feel then if you loose at standing rock, if you lose the battle against state authorities and the projects are still being built?

It was hard. But pipelines can be dismantled. We had a group of people that went and turned off the pipes. Right now we have people that are now in jail, because they decided to turn off the pipes. We didn’t stop the Dakota access pipeline, but we sure woke up the entire world. And made them start talking about extracting industries. Make them start looking through lenses that they have never looked through before. And make them accountable for everything that they have been part of, all their privileges that they carry and make them acknowledge their role and why it is that we as indigenous peoples are fighting for what is right. And I think that I am not sad because everywhere I look everyday there is a new form of resistance and more than half of the time it is led by the youth. I couldn’t be more proud to know that the kids that I worked with that kids that I cried with and prayed with every single day are doing something that is impacting youth around the globe in such a way that they are starting their own movements and leading the people in a brighter direction.

What’s your advice for future activists?

I’d say be open for new learning opportunities and be open for teaching and learning opportunities. You will never know everything. When you’re entrained into a community I would say get in touch with the people or build around the community that has already existed and don’t build around existing communities. I would also say for young activists to be vary and to think very much about safety culture and the necessity of being cautious. I think so often we ware open and welcoming. In activism you can’t really afford to be so warm and friendly. You wanna build community but you also protect yourself and the people. The best way to do that is to have a decreeing eye and an open heart.

What is your next project?

I’m moving back to the southwest. Trump recently reduced a national sacred monument to about 1/8 of the original size, he wants to open up everything for Fracking. So it is my goal to go and preserve my own people now to if I ever have kids in this horrible world that they a have a place to go. And I can tell them the story of our people. It breaks my heart that Palestinians have to know that their children will never ever see where they came from. They’ll never know what their lands used to look like. I don’t want this to be the case in my home. They’ve already taken so much from us, I refuse to let them take anything more.

What’s your big wish to the world?

I wish that we all remember the humanity and that we treat each others as human beings. We all have that one thing in common and if people stop this directing and segregating of everyone and everything they see and they remember aside from my skin color and aside of my hair we are all made of the same things inside. I would love for people to remember their humanity and to start caring for one another again. I know it’s a fabulous wish, but it’s easier than world peace. It’s easier to treat each other well. Following the saying: Treat each other as you want to be treated.

In your workshop yesterday, you talked about grassroots activism. What topics did you see in Austria?

The guests talked about the 3rd rundway at the airport. And I told them about a leck in a refinery near the pipeline. And they recognised that it can happen here too. So they felt empowered and it also empowered me to see that. It would be great if also in Austria more power would go to the youth. I was telling them: A lot of people will maybe be angry on you now, but if you buy them and your children more time on this planet by your decision, your voice will be heard. The youths have the strongest voice because they don’t have this societal standard that we adults have. So it may not be possible to stop the 3rd runway, but the participants had a whole list of things that shall be changed and they will change it.

The post Eryn Wise: »I fight for a sustainable future for the next seven generations« appeared first on DREAMA TV.

Albert Frantz is a world-class pianist from Pennsylvania who started playing at the extraordinarily late age of 17. His early piano teacher told his mother to throw her money in the garbage rather than spend it on piano lessons for Albert. He discovered his love for classical music while in high school and his passion made him accomplish seemingly impossible things. He was the first pianist in nearly a decade to win a Fulbright scholarship to study in Vienna just a few years after starting out. This led him to study at the official conservatory of the city of Vienna in Austria, the home country of many of his musical idols.

Even before he could finish his education, he started suffering from scoliosis, first discovered in his adolescence, that virtually incapacitated his piano playing for more than six years. Desperately looking for a therapy that would promise any amount of relief, he found relief through Bikram yoga. No sooner did he recover from his back pain when he broke his left wrist upon getting hit in the face by a tram on a cold and icy Thanksgiving weekend. Breaking a wrist is a nightmare for a pianist. For Albert, it turned out positively in the end, as the injury led him to play pieces by Charles-Valentin Alkan, a 19th-century French virtuoso and one of the only composers to write music for the right hand alone. His music was considered unplayable for over a century and is regarded as the most athletically challenging music ever written for the piano. Albert took it as a challenge, which led to his critically acclaimed debut CD dedicated to Alkan’s music. His debut album was an official jury nomination for the prestigious German Record Critics Award, designed to recognize the “most rigorous standards for supreme achievement and quality” in the field of music recording.

Besides turning his interest to the works of Alkan and Liszt, his back pain also led him to pursue an IRONMAN triathlon. This is especially notable, as there were two situations in which he almost drowned during his childhood. Swimming in open water made Albert panic throughout his adult life. After a change of perspective, Albert found himself training for one of the most challenging sports competitions in the world. He finished his first IRONMAN triathlon – 3.8 km swimming, 180 km cycling and a 42.2 km marathon – on June 28, 2015.

INTERVIEW

Pianists at your level normally start at the age of 8 or even younger…

Even younger! A colleague of mine, a very famous pianist, is sometimes asked by interviewers, “You started the piano late, didn’t you?” to which she answers, “Yes, very late, I was 8.” Often they start at two or three these days, though four or five is very normal. My teacher and mentor Paul Badura-Skoda started at six and he even called that “rather late.” At least that’s what we tend to assume. If there is one thing that I want to communicate – and I hope to do it through my own work in my own field – I think we place limitations on ourselves. We don’t really know our true capabilities, or we let the world place limitations on us. We let other people and society tell us what we can’t do. What if we ask ourselves what we really care about? “What would I do ideally and how far can I go?” We simply don’t know our own potential.

How did you accomplish becoming a world-class pianist and teacher starting at the late age of 17?

I am happy that on the one hand I did have a natural talent, but, on the other hand, I really attribute so much to having found great teachers. I’m absolutely not self-taught. I was just fortunate enough to find wonderful teachers who recognized that I had talent and took me under their wing and really helped me to maximize that. I still need that until this day. I think it’s incredible important to have teachers and mentors and trainers.

“YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO NORMAL THINGS, LIKE STARTING A FAMILY, GETTING YOUR HOUSE IN THE SUBURBS WITH A WHITE PICKET FENCE, THE FAMILY DOG, ETC. I DIDN’T GO FOR THAT LIFE.”

Which effort was needed to achieve what you achieved so far?

An enormous effort. I wish it hadn’t been quite so much. Actually my parents were not exactly happy. At that time, their idea for me was to go to university and study something that would get me the best job. You’re supposed to do normal things, like starting a family, getting your house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, the family dog, etc. I didn’t go for that life. I think it is a wonderful life path – I know plenty of people who did and lead very happy and very fulfilled lives – but it wasn’t necessarily for me. Growing up, I was always fascinated by science and I always knew that I would become a scientist or an engineer of some sort. Then I discovered music very late, but I knew that it was my real passion, even if I had to go my own way back then, with some significant challenges. At one point, unfortunately I had some major problems with my spine. It looked like I would never be able to perform again. This made me unable to perform for a long time and I did a lot of physical therapy and a lot of sports. Fortunately, I was able to avoid surgery and I am very happy that I didn’t have to go under the knife. In the end, I always kept going. So when It looked like there might not be a way, I just thought to myself that I just need to find it, because there is always a way. It’s just a test. So whenever there is an obstacle and we think we can’t go further, to me that means it is just a test. A test of real power, a test of our commitment, our determination.

Later on you got a Fulbright scholarship and today you are playing in great concert halls and also play endorsements for Bösendorfer. Did you think about that when you were 17, when you started out with playing the piano? Could you imagine something like that back then? 

Yeah, young people, young athletes for example, dream of playing in the major leagues and young creative people, actors, musicians dream of making it big. I don’t know if I thought about that. I just knew there was something in me that I have to pursue. I don’t have some big, glamorous career right now; I am not unknown either, but for me what is most important is the quality of the work that I do. This, for me, is really an important topic. I think in our society, too often we look for shortcuts. We see certain pop stars for example, we see them rise and fall, and sometimes it seems to me that we seek cheap fame, because we think that the fame is going to bring us something. We think that if millions of people like us, then we get all this love. To me it is better to do my best work and to know I really strive to be the best that I can and to find mentors that help me to get better and know that I have done good work. That’s more important to me than doing mediocre work but becoming very famous for it.

On which level do you categorize your playing today?

The important thing is to reach the level of artistry where hopefully nobody cares about how fast your fingers are, and people just concentrate on what you have to say artistically. That is when you transcend technique, what every artist really works on. To me that’s what it is really all about.

Do you think you reached that level already?

Well, it’s my job to be an artist! Which is not to say that other people are not able to play the same pieces better and more expressively. At some point it becomes subjective.

Who is your favorite composer?

Okay, I will give you two answers. One is Beethoven, because of what Beethoven stood for. He represented a real revolution in the concept of what a musical artwork can be. Beethoven created truly self-contained masterworks. Beethoven wrote in a very idealistic manner, and he was extremely aware of his place in cultural history. In some of his later works he really wrote for the future and even said as much.

In the “Hammerklavier” Sonata, for example, he wrote to his publisher: “Now you have a sonata that will keep the pianists busy when they play it in 50 years,” because he knew that it was not for his current generation of pianists. There, he’s referring not only to the extraordinary technical difficulties of this piece, but also to the incredible musical complexity. It was difficult on all levels. I don’t wish to make the argument that a future generation was required to understand it musically. I’m sure there were also other people who understood it in his time, but aesthetically, it was so futuristic. The same can be said of his last string quartets. Some of it sounds like it was written yesterday. Incredible. So Beethoven is one answer.

And the other is: I have this unhealthy obsession with this composer, Charles-Valentin Alkan, whose music I just recorded for my first CD. He is an unjustly neglected and incredibly interesting composer. He was Chopin’s neighbour and best friend in Paris. He wrote the most fascinating and unfortunately the most purely athletic music ever written for the piano. He really makes the performer sweat.

With which historical composer would you like to have dinner?

Definitely Franz Liszt. He is the most interesting.

Why?

Because he was a rock star! He had such an enormous personality. He was also true cosmopolitan. He wasn’t just huddled up in a little apartment, just writing music day and night. He really lived life, he lived a large, grand life. He was surely the most interesting.

“TRY TO DO EVERYTHING TO FIND THE VERY BEST TEACHER AS EARLY IN YOUR STUDIES AS POSSIBLE.”

Which suggestions would you give to young people starting to play the piano? Which tips would you give them? How should they start out playing the piano?

The most important thing is to find a really good teacher, and this is advice for the parents as well. Try to do everything to find the very best teacher as early in your studies as possible. There is a misconception. All too often we make the assumption that an entry-level teacher is good enough. It’s understandable—parents just want to see whether their child likes music. Yet I think the most advanced, the most experienced and the very best teachers need to be teaching as early in the learning process as possible and not simply at the very advanced, already professional stages.

Which hobbies do you have besides playing the piano? Lately, I saw you quite often in fast cars!

Yes that’s a new hobby (laughing out loud). Racing cars.  I have to be careful about that. I’ve gotten to chase Formula One drivers around the racetrack! It definitely makes me nervous. But that’s a fun hobby. I decided one day that life consists of more than just working. There are so many rich experiences to be had. At some point I thought, I have to live more. So when an opportunity comes up, now I say yes, and then find a way. Often these kinds of opportunities are opportunities for growth. We tend to limit ourselves way too much. I am definitely nervous sitting at the wheel of a supercar on a racetrack. But that is an opportunity for growth. We regret the times when we say no to such opportunities. That’s my latest hobby. Another one is that I do a lot of sports and I trained for several years to complete an Ironman. It was a goal I had for several years, actually more of a fantasy than a real goal. And then I thought – wait a second – I am not getting younger. The time to start is now.

What was it like training for the Ironman?

Above all there’s a major time commitment. The official recommendation from the Ironman organization is at least 15 hours a week of endurance training just to get to the finish line. It requires total dedication. No excuses. I didn’t always feel like working out for hours in bad weather but I knew I couldn’t let that stop me from reaching that finish line. I learned to love extreme heat or cold since it makes for such great training opportunities. People don’t work out because it’s uncomfortable. It’s easier to sit at home. Then, when they do work out it’s too easy to seek comfort in discomfort, to make the inherent discomfort as comfortable as possible. This attitude makes it all too easy to convince yourself it’s “too this” or “too that” to work out that day. I learned to turn this around: The worse the weather, the greater the motivation! You can’t control the weather on race day, so you just have to be prepared for anything.

I spread my Ironman dream out over three years. This included starting running again after twenty years (after a very halfhearted attempt the year before), learning to ride a fast time trial bike with aerobars, and learning how to swim. I’m still surprised every time I don’t drown!

How did it feel to cross the Ironman finish line?

It was exhilarating. The first thing my coach, Paul Nelsen, said to me was, “You don’t even look tired.” And amazingly I didn’t feel tired. I was just so overwhelmed.

Is this your advice for other people? Just speak out your dream and go for it?

Yes, absolutely. It’s not about just going for things recklessly, though. I think that deep down we know – I say this but then I remember Steve Jobs said it as well, and much more eloquently – deep down we know who we really want to become. Everybody has dreams. Some dreams only have to be done once to realize, like skydiving. That can be done once and it is accomplished. Other dreams are more about who you become, becoming a pianist in my case. That was something that took years and is ongoing. I think often our dreams are much closer than we think. I don’t think we could seriously entertain a dream unless some part of us deep down knew that we are capable of achieving it.

Coming to the last question: What is your dream?

I have so many of them actually. My biggest one is to make as much of a contribution as I am able to in my lifetime. That’s truly my biggest dream. Even if it’s in this tiny part of the world called classical music and even if it’s a relatively small number of people who care about it or appreciate my work. My biggest dream is to make as much of a contribution as possible. And I want to do that in three ways: through my playing, by becoming as good as I can become and leaving behind my best work. The second way is through education. I am equally passionate about education as I am about playing. And the third way is that I hope to inspire some more people to question our limitations. I think we are capable of so much more than we think we are.

Additional information:

Official Website: http://key-notes.com/

Photography: David Visnjic

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What I found out about scoliosis in the last weeks

Where should I start… For a long time I had faith into the academic medicine. I thought it is the only way there is, the only thing that could help me. But doctors are telling me: “You will have scoliosis for the rest of your life. It will probably get worse. It could be that you need a spine surgery someday.”

I don’t want this to be true. So I began looking for another solution. I have heard about many alternative healing methods and I came in contact with people for whom “healing” means something else than in academic medicine. They work very much with the psyche, the emotions, the subconscious, the spiritual.

The last weeks weren’t easy for me. I dove in the deepest and darkest corners of my subconscious, my suppressed emotions. And what I found there was amazing. I found a beautiful bright light in the darkness. I found a way that could heal my scoliosis. Now I know that my scoliosis is the best thing that could have happened to me for evolving personally and spiritually. Now I know: First I have to heal my soul, then it is possible for my body to heal too. My intuition strongly tells me that this is my way of healing. I will investigate further and document my journey on my Youtube channel “Große Träumerin on Youtube”.

It is unbelievable how this event changed my life. I have never dared to ask for help before with this aspect of my life. I didn’t want to have much to do with it. I thought, the less I think about it the smaller is the impact that it has on my life. But that’s not true. The more I didn’t look at it the bigger “the problem” got. Our body gets ill when it wants to tell us that something is wrong. It wants us to listen. And by attending this event I really started to listen to my body. Now I laid the foundation to heal. And I am forever thankful to the organizers of this event and to everybody who helps me on my journey <3

Future plans

I want to help people with scoliosis on a mental and emotional level. In my opinion there is far too less information and investigation on that side of scoliosis. Scoliosis has a huge mental aspect which I think has to be addressed. I want to help people heal from the inside and give them back the power over their own lives. This is my dream. And it feels like my life purpose. I want to become an expert for scoliosis. One day I want to do a TEDx Talk about everything I found out about scoliosis.

How can you help?

If you have scoliosis too, you can contact me at Selina[at]big-dreamers.com and tell me your story. I want to find out patterns of how scoliosis occurs. And collecting wishes, problems and stories from scoliosis patients is what I wish to do to throw more light on this topic.

And if you do healing of any kind, I would love to talk to you. Maybe we can do an interview on my Youtube channel. Or we can just exchange knowledge and experiences privately. I would love to know more about healing!

If you have any further ideas on how to help me, please contact me. Maybe you have heard of a healing method which is not commonly known. Or you know somebody who healed from an “incurable” illness. Every information is important for me. I’m glad about any support I can get.

Thank you so much!

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Event Date: February 27, 2016, 6pm
Location: Impact Hub, Vienna

PREMIERE

Another month, another premiere coming up. This time, we have a close look at the story of Peter Hackmair. After quitting his professional soccer career, Peter went on a world trip, wrote two books and now works on changing the way soccer training and the corresponding education work with his project TECO 7 Planet. Find out more in this article.

After the premiere, Peter will be live on stage for a Q&A session.

DREAM DEVELOMENT WORKSHOP

This time, we will host a 4 hour dream development workshop in the afternoon before the premiere for 6 selected Dreamers. You can apply now by sending us a 60 second video in which you briefly describe your dream, the status you’re in at the moment and your next steps to hello[at]dreama.tv.

The six lucky ones get an invitation for a four hour dream development workshop hosted by DreamAcademia in which we will shape your dreams and work on your vision. In the evening, you will pitch on stage for the title “DREAMA OF THE MONTH”. This means you will be featured for a whole 30 days on our social media channels. Crowdsourced dream development for the win!

This is what our first Dreama of the Month, Selina, says about her experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FlKD-yfz6k

We are looking forward to another evening of inspiring stories and limitless dreaming.

GET YOUR TICKET

There’s only a limited number of tickets available, be sure to check yours in time.

The post DREAMA TV Premiere: Peter Hackmair plus Dream Development Workshop powered by DreamAcademia appeared first on DREAMA TV.

City: Vienna

Location: Impact Hub Vienna

PROGRAM

PITCH YOUR DREAM ON STAGE

We will start off with a DREAMA-SPEED-DATING followed by a DREAM-PITCHING-SESSION. Six of you will have the chance to pitch your dream on stage (90 seconds each), followed by a collective dream development workshop in which people in the audience can offer their resources, contacts or simply input on your idea.

One of you will then be selected as our DREAMA OF THE MONTH and will be featured for a whole 30 days on our social media channels. With this experiment, we want to try and document how a crowdsourced dream development process could work. Now how’s that?

To apply for one of the pitching slots, simply send us an email with your name, a short description of your dream (maximum 500 characters) and your current stage of development to hello@dreama.tv. You will get a notification as soon as we reviewed the applications.

PREMIERE: HEINI STAUDINGER

The second part of the event will be dedicated to our brand new episode of DREAMA TV, this time featuring the man who is commonly known as The Shoe Rebel. After the screening, Heini Staudinger will be available for a Q&A session on stage.

The post DREAMA TV Premiere: Heini Staudinger plus Dream Development Workshop powered by DreamAcademia appeared first on DREAMA TV.

By definition, values are important and lasting beliefs or ideals about what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable. They have major influence on your behavior and attitude and serve as broad guidelines in any given situation. In other words, they are like magnets in your moral compass that will guide you in making decisions, especially in situations where the right thing to do isn’t the obvious.

Having a strong set of personal values means standing for something and staying true to yourself. It will offer you an answer whenever you ask yourself: „Should I do that?“. And, most importantly, it will help you define who you are and who you want to be.

Finding your personal set of values

Defining a set of values is a tough job. After looking through numerous methods, I came up with the four-step process below.

Step 1: Brainstorm

Usually, you already have a set of values that you carry with you. They can be influenced by your parents, people you surround yourself with or topics that are important to you, just to name a few.

To get started, just brainstorm values that come to your mind when you think about your personal life. Write them down. Then put the list aside. That’s your starting point.

Step 2: Expand your list by choosing from a pre-selected list of values

To extend that list, simply go through the list of values below or find any other list of values by simply searching for it on the internet. Now take yourself some time and circle the ones your gut says fits you.

Now you have a selection of values in front of you. To complete the process, you may go through one last step: Finding external values.

Step 3: Expand your list by finding values externally

Defining your values should not only be based upon who you are, but also on who you want to be. A great method to find additional values is to think about people you look up to. Which values do you see in their actions? Why are they desireable? Take the ones that you find most important and write them down.

Step 4: Select your most important values

At the end, you’ll have a list with numerous values. Now take some time and think about your most important ones. Three is a good number, it should definately be no more than five in the end, as they should stick in your brain and subconcious mind. As soon as you selected them, write them down. Pin them onto the wall in front of your desk. Tattoo them onto your wrist. Whatever you do, be sure to think about them whenever you need to make a decision.

Congratulations! In addition to your strengths and passions, you now also know which values are important to you and should be part of your life. In the next articles, we will cover some techniques that will help you work out your dreams and visions in more detail. Stay tuned and most importantly:

The post How to find your dream part 3: Defining your personal values appeared first on DREAMA TV.

He never got on with the banks. Capitalism is abhorrent to him. He sees their exploitative wrongdoings personally in regular trips to Africa. For example, cobalt mining and the accompanying degradation of rivers and lakes in Congo, in his opinion one of the most beautiful regions of the world.

We’re visiting Heini Staudinger, 62. In the small nest of Schrems, Lower Austria, near the Czech border, a man with a huge grin approaches us. “Hi, I’m Heini, a warm welcome to Schrems.” We’re standing in the courtyard of the Waldviertler shoe factory, which doubles up as Heini’s garden. He has lived in a former storage room in the factory since 1991. It is around noon. The atmosphere at the table as we eat lunch is delightfully familiar. The boss’ smile seems to affect his whole staff, who always say hello and are ready to talk with you for hours.

Heini grew up as the son of a greengrocer in Schwanenstadt in Upper Austria. After finishing school he went on his first trip to Africa; a 12,000km journey on a 50cc Puch moped with his best friend. From Austria, through the Sahara to Tanzania. The impressions he got on this journey would deeply influence his life. He was fascinated by the humility and generosity of the people there. Nobody has anything and yet everybody has so much.

He spreads these values until today in his company. Firstly they made him study medicine and then later, completely on a whim, become a shoe salesman. He packed his sleeping bag and hitchhiked up to Denmark to buy his first batch of shoes. He borrowed the money from friends and never once entertained the idea of going to a bank. Some years later he founded the Waldviertler shoe factory and independently manages every area of the business, from the production right through to distribution to the customer.

Over the years Heini has invented a new way of advertising, concentrated on content marketing, a term that hadn’t even been invented at the time and has financed new warehouses at the factory by borrowing money from friends, long before crowd funding was even a thing. By doing this he has also dumfounded the Austrian financial authorities, who prosecuted him for illegal banking procedures. Heini battled it until the highest court in the land. He lost the case but played a huge role in the formation of the Austrian crowdfunding law.

The story of a rebel who lives his life with humility and sustainability and who started the process of change while others were merely crying out for it.

INTERVIEW

Please tell me a bit about your background.

I grew up in the small town of Schwanenstadt. My parents were greengrocers and I’m the oldest of five siblings. My family’s living environment was pretty much the grocers itself, it was totally mixed up with the shop. There was a door from the living room to the kitchen and another door that led to the shop. Everyone in the family had to work, that’s still the backbone of my entrepreneurship today. I learned to greet people when I was two and at only three years old I learned how to serve and attend. At the age of six, we were all able to do some mental arithmetic. But what I think is the most important thing is that I learned humility. The greengrocer business suffered from the time I was born. And as it got worse and worse, my parents said, “As long as we can make a living, there’s nothing to complain about.” I heard the same thing later on in school, expressed a little bit more elegantly, in a quote from Seneca; “Never is too little which is sufficient.” This attitude still helps me today in running the Waldviertler Schuhfabrik.

Young Heini Staudinger and his sister in front of their parents grocery shop.

During your schooldays, you broke out of Schwanenstadt for the first time.

Exactly. I went to a Catholic college in Linz. When I got there in 1963, it was essentially a penitentiary. Interestingly, in the seven years I went there, it underwent a complete process of change. The reason was that the spirit of ’68 was infused into the college. We had a prefect who was employed as an educator by the bishop, though he hadn’t been an educator. And he thought about how the perfect educator would act. He was a Catholic preacher who thought, “The perfect educator must be God”. And then he thought about which tools God would use as an educator, the most important of which was trust. So from then on, trust was his most important tool. In practice, this meant that we enjoyed total freedom in the 7^th and 8^th grade. That was a significant event in my life. At the same time, this experiment led to the biggest educational success in the history of the school, 14 out of 24 boys started to study theology, one of them was me.

Your enthusiasm did not last long.

One semester, to be exact. For me, no one was excited and believed enough. I studied science of communications and politics for another semester in Salzburg, when a friend wrote me a letter where he informed me that he would stop his studies, planned to travel to Africa and asked whether I wanted to join him. I wrote back a card that had only one word: Yes.

Heini Staudinger saying farewell to his mum before his trip to Africa.

How did you manage to finance this trip being just 19 years old?

1972 was the year of the Olympic Games in Munich. We earned 3,000 German Marks (around 1,500 Euros) for dumb work – night watchmen. With that money, we bought two mopeds and traveled to Africa. 12,000 kilometers in six months. We started off on December 12, 1972, in the middle of the winter.

That sounds like a huge adventure.

It was indeed! We first went to Palermo, then moved on to Tunis by ferry and from there crossed the Sahara desert, first to Western and then to Central and Eastern Africa. It was an unbelievable time in my life. In Nigeria, for example, we went to the area where Boko Haram is now so active, which makes me really sad. Another example is East Congo. During my life I had been asked several times what I found was the most beautiful landscape in the world and I always answered, East Congo. The 5,000-meter-high Ruwenzori mountains in the East and the steaming jungle in the West. Rivers, lakes, woods – blossom in unbelievable glory, fruits in all colours. The soil is so fertile it’s jaw-dropping! Five potato harvests a year. And exactly in that paradise, people had bad luck, as the soil contains the coltan that we need for the production of smartphones. Through that coveted mineral, an economical war started that killed six million people. And the rivers and lakes are now so polluted that no animal would ever drink out of it. I find that enormously tragic, as we enjoyed unbelievable hospitality there, such that we Europeans should feel embarrassed, as we will never reach such a level of magnanimity. After six months we reached our goal in Tanzania. These times will always be in my memory.

What did your parents say when you told them your plans?

When we told our parents that we wanted to go to Africa, they said, “You’re crazy, finish your studies first and then you can still go afterwards”. Then they realised somehow, that logical arguments weren’t going to work here so my mum played the emotional card and said, “If you go, I’ll die!” On the day we left I said to her, “See you, I’m going so I guess you’re going to die!” We both cried. She didn’t die but we did leave. Even that was an important thing to go through, to not buckle under that emotional pressure. Willy Reich would say that I followed my own sense of longing – that is the key moment where life opens up in front of you.

What’s the story behind you starting a shoe company?

Upon getting back from Africa we realised that we had never actually talked about what we were going to do once we got home. We both started studying medicine because of the awful illnesses and desperation we had seen in Africa and I increasingly became aware that the problems in the third world were clearly linked to the craziness we have at home. I was studying for an important pathology exam with my friend Peter, who passed while I failed. He had a rich father who gave him 10,000 Austrian Schilling with which he went shopping in Munich.

We met later in Café Merkur on Florianigasse and he showed me what he had bought. He was completely made up with the shoes he had bought, which you couldn’t get anywhere in Austria. I looked under the table at these shoes and he’s still going on about them and so I lifted my head and said, “You know what Peter? I’m going to stop studying medicine and become a shoes salesman”.

You changed your life plans from one minute to the next?

Indeed! I hadn’t been interested in shoes for a day in my life but in that moment everything fell into place and I’m still astounded, 35 years on, that it all happened like this.

What were the first steps into your new life then?

I hitchhiked up to Denmark and hid my sleeping bag in a park so that they wouldn’t realise that I was poor and travelling like a homeless person. I went into the company’s office and said, “I’d like to sell your shoes in Austria”. They said, “Super!” I told them that I didn’t have any experience in selling shoes and that they should help me put in a first order. They wrote out an order for 300,000 Austrian Schilling. I had no money, so to hide it from them I signed with a smile and hitchhiked back home!

I rung my friends up and asked if they could lend me money as I had bought 300,000 Schilling’s worth of shoes and within two days I had the money I needed to start. I didn’t consider for a moment that I could have gone to a bank to ask for the money; doing it among friends was much more personal for me.

When I came back to Vienna, I cycled through the streets for an hour and found an empty shop that I liked because the sun was shining into the shop window. I rang the landlord, we went to a tobacco shop to buy a lease contract and five minutes later everything was fixed. The contract is still effective today! Sometimes I think that in many areas it would be good to go back to the simplicity of those times.

How did your first years as an entrepreneur work out?

Shortly after the first shop opened, friends of mine opened shops across Austria. After the rebranding, the company was renamed to GEA in 1984, the Waldviertler shoe factory was established. I was totally unsatisfied with the reliability of my Danish suppliers and by happy coincidence, a friend who was shoemaking teacher made a suggestion to found a shoe factory in Schrems (a 3,000 person village in lower Austria). There, the textile industry had just fallen apart and many people were unemployed, so our initiative was supported from different sides.

Heini Staudinger in his new home Schrems, 1991.

You became CEO of the shoe factory a few years later. Why did you move to Schrems from Vienna?

The company has never really been completely been economically sound. So as the debts continued to grow, the shoemakers got scared that they would have to pay back the 8,000 Schilling’s worth of loans that they had taken out and started searching around in panic for someone to give the company to. Then Gerhard Benkö, who was  a business manager at the time, and I took over the firm in 1991. And because the company didn’t have any money and we couldn’t afford a business manager who would have had an idea about how to get out of debt, I couldn’t think of anyone who could have done the work for free apart from myself. I had been able to live off the shoe business so it was a piece of cake to roll my sleeves up and get going. I didn’t think for a second that I should have looked for an apartment in Schrems, I just put a bed in a sort of garage and slept there. I worked in the staff room and about ten years ago I got a wooden floor and heating so I’m pretty much living like a king!

Heini’s new home in Schrems, an empty storage room located in the factory.

From then on, you had a double burden…

I was in the Waldviertel region of Austria trying to get the company there healthy and up and running again and while that was happening, my own company GEA was slipping into crisis. I wasn’t able to see it for a long time and when I did finally catch on, it was nearly too late. When we had no money left in 1997, I had the thought that helping each other, saving and working hard was the way out of this mess.

What were some practical steps out of the crisis?

As I thought about saving, I thought that it’s most effective where we’ve got the most expensive people on the books, which in our case was the advertising specialists. I had a friend who was an unemployed architect and I said to him, “Didi, let’s try and put an advert together”. Advertising is actually shit; they bother us on TV, on the radio, as we’re driving along looking at scenery and now on the internet. So since we’re having to advertise, I wanted to gift a little bit of fuel for the heart and mind as a thank you for looking in the first place. That’s how we got onto the idea of these advertising brochures where every second is a full-page photo with a poem or philosophical or literary text.

I think that we’re doing these brochures right when they answer one fundamental question: What are doing here in the world? This here is a favourite passage of mine, which I found in a book from Dorothee Sölle, ‘Mystik and Widerstand’. It says, ‘Boundlessly happy, completely fearless, always in difficulty. This is all part of the potential of our life’.

Content marketing of the first hour.

Indeed. Funnily enough with these brochures that Didi and I had created, we had our first advertisements where we could measure their impact in turnover afterwards. And we had some unbelievable success with them. The company grew 40% in 1999 and we were lifted out of the debt and losses of 1997 in quick fashion. In 1999 I was invited to a meeting with the bank where I was told that our credit limit was being reduced from 12 million Schilling to 7 million Schilling, something that made me livid when I first heard it but something that I am thankful for now as I was then able to say, “Being independent of any kind of group is the most important thing for my company”.

This led to your crowdfunding activities later on. Do you feel a higher sort of obligation to your private investors than you would to a bank?

You can definitely say that. All in all, it’s now 350 people who lent us almost five million Euros. If the money had come from a bank, I obviously wouldn’t wish for us to go bankrupt but when I imagine that we could cause any sort of damage to people who were kind enough to lend us money because we made a mistake, I would really hate it. These people have not only lent us their money, they have also wished us the best for the development of our company. They wish that we act sustainably with their money. On the one side, I feel that we have a strong moral obligation, on the other hand it’s a warm and positive connection following the principle of not letting each other down. Now we invite our investors once a year to our factory. We show them what we do with their money and our tax accountant answers all of their questions. This gives me a very special feeling – economics can be that beautiful. If only a small part of our economy worked like this, it would have an enormous educational potential where people could gain a huge range of competences.

Your economical approach was not exactly well received by everyone. When did you start putting your moral sense over the common laws?

Through our approach we came into conflict with the Austrian Financial Market Authority, who accused us of running illegal bank businesses. And what they demanded from me was essentially impossible. They wanted us to pay back the money we had borrowed from private people within a few weeks. You could ruin almost any company in Austria if loans are terminated in a very short time frame but the problem was that I had no choice. I couldn’t just go to the bank and say, “I need a loan because I need to pay back the money I received from private investors”. The banker would have felt it’s absurd.

Where did you find the confidence to take the case to the supreme court?

My disobedience towards the FMA was ultimately obedience towards my colleagues and the work we are doing here. When I realised afterwards that the whole community was behind me, being brave was a piece of cake. Now I think that just like there are contagious illnesses there is contagious health, and just like fear can be contagious, so can courage. D und I have seen some crazy things – like walking through Vienna, having cars stop in front of us and people shouting at us, “Don’t let them bring you down!” Somehow with this wind at my back, being courageous isn’t very hard. I think that we should share this courageous wind with as many people as possible as there are so many things that are screaming out for change and that won’t happen unless we tackle the issues at hand. It’s all there in what we want for the world. We want to put the things that we see and hope for back into motion.

How do you approach things that you want to tackle? Do you have any advice?

I think I have a strange talent for perseverance. I often find myself playing around with thoughts in my head and I can’t leave it, though I sometimes wish I could – wish I could not permanently think about something! But if things that are important to me capture me, I permanently need to think about them. Perseverance. Somebody once said it was stubbornness, to which I say, “No, in ‘I Ging’, the Chinese book, there are many encouraging phrases concerning our lives. And the last sentence always reads, ‘And if you want to succeed, be persistent’.”

Heini on his Puch MC 50.

What do you still want to achieve in your life?

My goal is to find a model of how to run a business that is communal and as compatible with people and nature as possible. If I could do that and it were copied a hundred times by other people, I would be very happy. The way economics is set up now is destroying the planet and leaving at least a billion people behind. Gregor Gyzi said it nicely when he said, “If we don’t take responsibility for the third world, they’ll come to us”. It’s also noticeable how we are already at the maximum point of this way of living and that we’re barely able to hold the lid on it all. And so I believe that something big is coming. If we are able to see it as a challenge to our humanity, one which we are ready to take on, it could be a major success. The egomania that has been dominant in the last few decades cannot be the way forward. It’s tragic that in this way of life, even the ‘winners’ aren’t winning. I don’t know anyone who has been able to live in these consumeristic times where I would say, “He’s got it all together. I want to be like him”. Not even a little.

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