August 29, 2019 • 53 mins
Whether you're in Bhutan and understanding their Gross Happiness Index, or in rural Western Australia at a pop-up dinner with Fervor, your sense of right and wrong is always being shaped and challenged. Perhaps we can call it a value system edited on the road. Aussie chefs Paul Iskov and Mark Olive talk about being more awake when traveling, and Tim Phillips, from Beyond Conflict, weigh in on hope and how to be better in this world. #travel
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm Daniel Scheffler, and this is everywhere Today's travel commandment,
thou shalt know happiness. Everything is about happiness, what it
(00:24):
all means, what it all feels like, and of course,
how to acquire it. The New York Times publish as
a piece about happiness every few months. The format might change,
but the basic premises the same. It is something you
should be pursuing. Endless amounts of workshops are scheduled across
(00:45):
the globe, with names like The Simplest Path to Happiness
or Craft Your Deepest Joy. I noticed that Amazon dot
Com had specific divisions dedicated to books on obtaining happiness,
and these titles are even better than the workshops. You
Are your Happiest Itself or Take Your Path Back to Happiness.
(01:10):
I don't know where I was, but apparently I needed
to go back. Remember that episode of Sex in the
City where Charlotte was in the self help section in
the Barns and Noble store in Manhattan and she pretends
she was looking for travel, only to order starting over
yet again. So apparently happiness used to also be shameful,
(01:33):
but at a different time. Now, and as someone who
loves Los Angeles can tell, you here, you are hunting
for happiness every minute from your uber, from your raiky
appointment to your juice bar and some healing at the
ranch in Malibuu. They're all these apps specifically engineered to
(01:54):
help you find happiness, usually through some meditation for the
subway or more ex tests of exercising right at home
in your lounge for a mere six minutes. Or of course,
you can actually travel to one of these millions of
wellness retreats where goats can stand on top of you
for yoga, or you could howl into the sunrise. The
(02:16):
more you yodel, the happier you'll be. Of course, it
makes sense to me, But luckily Bhutan has bigger and
better plans. In two the country's fourth Dragon king coined
the phrase gross National Happiness, the g n H. The
idea was to build a country based on Buddhist spiritual
(02:39):
values opposed to all this Western materialism usually defined by GDP.
And decades later, the citizens, from my very limited visitors
perspective walking around seem happy as you can be. But
long before Baton decided to give importance to something other
than I don't know, money and greed. The ancient Greek
(03:00):
philosopher Aristotle said, happiness is in the meaning and the
purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
And who are we to argue with that? The tricky
part is, isn't happiness totally subjective? Bhutan reveals these factors
in the smallest and biggest ways, like the fact that
(03:23):
they cap the amount of people who are proved for
visas every year because they don't just want the country
trampled by tourists. And secondly, there's a minimum spend of
two hundred and fifty dollars per person per day, which
means you have to save up a little to go
to the country. Basically, it's not a cheap holiday where
you can just backpack and leave your mark. They want
(03:45):
tourists to choose it actively and consciously, and therefore they
hope you'd respect it and value it so much more.
And it's true I did, and I do so. Before
arriving at the country's only airport in Paro, Mount Everest
comes into immaculate view within moments. The plane then descends
(04:08):
onto one of the most challenging landing strips in the
whole world, with peaks rising up to sixteen thousand feet
surrounding us, and then this crazy, notorious turn where rooftops
are almost clipped by the wings of the plane as
it touches down. The flight attendant, who was in the
jump seat right in front of me, proudly told me
(04:30):
that only eight pilots in the world are skilled enough
to do this specific landing. It's a great honor for
them that the pilot is the best in the world.
When last did anybody say that about a flight? Anyway,
The country is squeezed between a global giant, China, who
they are mightily wary of, and India, who they pretty
(04:52):
friendly with, but they remain autonomous in all their dealings.
The first evidence of this somewhat insular world is they
have national dress. From the moment you set foot on
this holy land, almost everyone you see is robed. Men
wear this knee length robe called it go that's tied
at the waist and has a pouch for food or
(05:15):
a dagger or maybe an iPhone, and women wear a
kira which is ankle length plus a little light outer jacket.
The Amound Resorts has created a way to see it
almost the entire country where they've built these five equally
beautiful Zong inspired Resorts. Zong is a traditional beautiful building
(05:37):
styled in this specific Butanese way. So they've placed them
in a sort of circuit formation, the five or dubbed
Aman Cora, which combines Aman, which is sanscrit for peace
and cora meaning a circular pilgrimage in Zonka, the Butanese language.
So Nam who was my guide, and I chatted about happiness,
(06:00):
and he revealed that for him and his family, they
live a life where dreams aren't crazy big, they're just
the right size for finding them. And as John Reid,
who's the Aman Resorts regional director but also a bit
of a prophet, said to me, you come to Bhutan
to understand respect for others. The country itself feels like
(06:22):
a perfectly sized dream opposed to a dictatorship style monarchy.
Jing Ma Kesar Namja buang Chuk married a commoner and
runs his country according to kid which is a tradition
based on the rule of Dharma king whose sacred duty
is just to care for his people. Then there's this
modern school system with free and universal education and even
(06:45):
free healthcare. It's also the only country in the world
where smoking is completely banned from the outside. There seems
to be no suffering. It's also just so iconically beautiful
and marvelously peaceful. The statistic so, of course hard to verify,
but at like thirty miles an hour speed limit, it
would seem logical that fewer car accidents happen. So Nam
(07:09):
didn't even understand. When I asked him whether people drink
and drive, he just said, why would anyone do that? Again,
it's in the small things, but then there's also in
these breath taking the big things, like hiking to Tiger's Nest,
the most sacred monastery in the country. It's literally perched
(07:30):
on this cliff in the fluffy clouds. Its name is
fundamental to understanding the country's reverence for Buddhism. So the
legend says that in the eighth century, Guru Imposh flew
hair from Tibet on the back of a tigress, a
manifestation of his divine consort. His reason for visiting was
(07:51):
to subdue a demon, and then he eventually decided to
live in a cave for three years, three months and
three days while atating and in this is where they
built this iconic monastery. Day to day life here is simple.
Some people work in the small cities, and it's mainly agriculture, forestry,
(08:14):
and then of course tourism plus the sale of hydro
electric power to India that keeps the country's economy going.
But most people embrace this kind of gentler life, one
where Buddhist values are adhere to in families, to almost
all activities together. I had lunch at this local family's
home and the entire family piped in to eat broth,
(08:38):
served with their national dish, which is this sewee, cheese
and peppers mix, all served with rice. Everyone sat on
the floor and before the herbal tea was served, everyone
shared their favorite story of the day. How's that for
a hopeful Monday moment. Fresh produce markets are quietly filled
(08:59):
with local people buying their goods, chatting about the broths
they're going to be preparing at home. And so here
we have people at their finest, belonging to I don't know,
world order of togetherness, acceptance and tolerance, something that a
tiny country in Bhutan with mostly I guess a homogenized
(09:19):
population is able to take great pride in. I just
so wish the rest of the world could do with
some of these lessons. Baton, with all its harmony and
quiet beliefs, functions within the world as its own world.
The Buddhist prayer flags and iconic red, blue, yellow and
green colors they littered throughout the country. Every bridge, tree
(09:44):
and street has them, breathing in the mountain air and
flapping out pure joy. Some of that's the metaphor I
have for the country. People might be somewhat different, but
yet attached to some great ambition for the world. Some
may even call that happy nous, But what do I know.
(10:04):
I found my very personal, very Daniel moment of ordinary
happiness in Western Australia, flying to a little town called Parabado,
northeast of Perth, where I landed in mining country. I
looked down from my plane window and I saw this
rubicund earth and truly not much else. I stepped onto
(10:28):
the melting tarmac at this tiny bush airport and I
could smell something dusty and ancient, a life before life
kind of beauty scent. It is here at this tiny
building with no gates, where I met Mark Olive, an
Aboriginal chef from Australia. We had a moment to sit
(10:53):
down on a little bench right in the Airport almost
building to talk about nate of ingredients and eating kangaroo. Hi.
My name is mircoel If. I'm known as the Black
Boles around Australia and through my TV series, but not
only that as a judge on the Chef Line as well.
So what I'm known for in Australia is about Indigenous food.
(11:15):
And when you're talking indigenous food, you're talking about proteins
like kangaroo in, crocodile, possums, wallaby, so our indigenous native animals.
And look, people freak out a little bit that we're
the only country that eats our coat of arms. But
let's face it, high protein, extremely tasty. And what we've
(11:37):
got to remember is in Australia, but not only data
around the world that for indigenous people it was never
their coat of arms. It was their actual dreamtime stories,
it was their totems, it was a life source and
it was their clothing source as well. So we've got
to remember that, and I think once we do that,
it's the inn where we start understanding about the food
(11:58):
of Australia as well. We have an amazing sort of proteins, herbs, spices,
fruits in Australia and it hasn't been tapped into anywhere
else in the world. And we're very, very fortunate, because
we're feel isolated that we're lucky enough to have this head.
But you know, it's been documented all around Australia through
(12:20):
paintings and through storytelling oral story generally right around the country.
In the day, there was over three hundred sixty eight
communities the indigenous communities that were active in this country.
Travelers often come to places one thing to be parted
and wanting to understand culture and place and history. Were
(12:41):
you doing a good job champion the food part of that,
which I think is to me, I feel food is
such an amazing way into a culture because food becomes
personal and food is something that brings back memories and essential.
So for me, travelers come to Australia, seek out Indigenous food,
(13:02):
Indigenous chefs, indigenous tasting dinners and stories and that's your
way in. I'll totally travel as what we have in
this country's exciting when you say these paperboys, so he's
really embracing what we've got here. I waved Mark Olive goodbye,
(13:24):
and now please imagine my face when I arrived at
the car raintall place, and they give me this badass
mining car. Now to imagine this vehicle, think Mad Max,
but a few less skulls. But they were gargantuan headlights,
tires as tall as I am, and a flag sticking
(13:45):
out at the back. The flag had an EMU on it.
The lady at the reception said she could change it
for a kangaroo if I'd prefer. Apparently those are the
only choices on offer here. The machine came complete with
a radio for communication, which I had no clue how
to use, and many many extra tires, a host of
(14:08):
surplus supplies, and what looked like a towing facility that
I hoped I wasn't going to have to employ. I
think I was wearing my black birken stocks throughout this
whole adventure, because I was ready for the deepest, greatest
sandy desert. I was free and untethered, and I was
let loose into this prehistoric land. Of course, within the hour,
(14:33):
I had missed the tiny sign I was supposed to
look out for. With no phone service and just a
hand drawn map that may have needed just one more stemp,
I was now cruising with some local radio station playing
what sounded to me like did you redo country music?
(14:54):
Ozzie girls, Kath and Kim would have been so proud
of me at this very moment. Look at Marie, Look Marie.
Right then I slammed on the brakes and they locked.
As I skidded sideways, just about rick rolling this monster truck.
I came to dead standstill, right out of any action movie,
(15:15):
my face touching a handsome kangaroo. Oh hello. He lunged
his pocket lips at me and bam. Right there, in
the deepest remote desert, I had my first kangaroo kiss.
I had my windows open so that the dry air
(15:36):
could blow through my hair. For hours now, I had
not seen a single car. I was the out back
at its finest. The sun was coming down a little
and the shadows were starting to form. When I arrived
in a little town, well, what seemed like a little town.
Giants signs saying turn back now down her, of course
(16:01):
intrigued me. I skulked a hand and saw a very
tanned person hanging up their laundry. Oh hello, I was
sure she was going to offer me a bevy as
the Aussies say, so, I pulled over, I hop out,
and I introduced myself with some cheer. She seemed shocked.
(16:22):
Nobody comes. Yes, She tells me it's condemned and the
government is trying to buy our home and send us
away as bestos. If I had service at this point,
I would have googled the words as bestos and the
little town's name, Wittenoom, and I would probably have returned
to my car and run off. But she was fascinating,
(16:43):
and she didn't care about asbestos. She cared more about
her home, and so she was one of the last
three remaining residents in this mining town. I oddly admired her.
She eventually sent me on my way with some directions
that made sense, and I found my around to the
pop up dinner that my friend Paul Is Scoff was
(17:04):
hosting with his further team. Paul and I stand around
under a tree and talked about the importance of native ingredients.
How do you feel about eating kangaroo? So we are
kangaroo when we're in America, and some of the guys
were a bit wary of eating it, but we got
(17:26):
everyone in the room to try it, and they thought
it was delicious. Kangaroo has lesson to sent that's really
high and high. It's not farm so all the kangaroo
here is wild harvested. We don't want to fade it
or give it water. It doesn't have any hormones or anything,
so it's I guess you could say free range or
(17:49):
open range. It is really healthy, really delicious, and there
is an abundance of tangaroos in Australia. When they're holding
across the country, they actually spread maybe see. They don't
compact their rounds, whereas cattle kill. Something that I find
so amazing is that there's this sort of respectful the
(18:11):
indigenous people of especially Western Australia, where you come into
contact with people that are native in much bigger numbers
than when you were in Melbourne, Sydney with the kind
of touristic parts of Australia. Here, it feels like it's
so respected and thought about. How did you decide that
(18:32):
this is how you want to cook? I think a
really important thing for us was to do it in
a really respectful way, and us provision and learn from
the traditional end. These Abiginal people have thousands and thousands
of years knowledge and they've looked after country and kept
(18:53):
those grants and animals growing in a really sustainable way.
So for us it was about our permission and then
sitting and listening and learning about these plants and animals.
And I think the more we do that we feel
connected to where we are. But I think people come
into visit it's a great way to be introducing the
(19:17):
cultures through food. Each region visiting in wasting in Australia
is totally different to the others. So some of these
ingredients are blowing these so called super food exam the
water so healthy. But I think it's really important for
especially the chefs using them, to do it in a
respectful way. And when these foods are purchased, if it's
(19:40):
Aboriginal people wildhuvest, they get paid failure in that they're
including the conversation. And I think that in the years
to come, the world is going to see just how
incredible Australian foods are. Paul's dinner is a long table
of twenty overlooking an enormous gorge as Lucy and the
(20:03):
night sky filled our eyes with diamonds. Paul sends up
these bush dinners all over Western and Northern Australia, using
Aboriginal ingredients foraged from the land, and he only works
with locals, real people. He brings a truck or two
and sets up a truly pop up kitchen with his
medley chummy crew. It brings your attention to the beauty
(20:26):
of the place, sure, but the significance of what local
and truly from the land means is what you're thinking,
Whose land is this really? Who foraged here before the
tattooed hipsters came? And Paul, who grew up with the
Aboriginals in Western Australia, talks about all of this over dinner.
(20:50):
Why is it so important to eat kangaroo as a
sustainable meat? How can we respect the land and its
original people? As I sit watching these courses of unique
and marvelous ingredients come out from marinated emud to green
tree antslop, wild flowers, lemon, myrtle, wattle seeds, quandong, sandalwood nuts,
(21:18):
I could go on. Suddenly I was reminded that no,
I'm not at some cool dinner. I'm actually tapping into
a deeper consciousness of place and people and all that
actually matters. And yeah, fuck yeah, this is happiness not
for dummies. Now for a slight respite and I'll be
(21:50):
right back with everywhere after a word from our sponsors,
thanks for sticking around. Here's more of everywhere. H Holly,
thanks for being here with me today. We're in New
York and rainy New York talking about happiness. So. I
(22:12):
spent some time in Bhutan, and one of the things
that stayed with me after being there is that I
don't want to measure my life in any other way
than in a gross happiness index. There's such merit to that,
and I wish that so many other countries could think
about this and not only see capitalism and commercialism and GDP.
(22:38):
I think Bhutan has put this beautiful thing in the world,
and if you spend time there, you realize that every
citizen believes this thing. They buy into it, and they
feel that and they measure their life in a totally
different way they do. The problem, I think is like
trying to integrate that ideology in the lives that we
(22:59):
have built is going to be tricky, because, like if
you look at the history of happiness and how it
has been viewed, you start to see that particularly like
Western culture, European and North American culture, we kind of
tried to get the message and we messed it up.
Um So for example, in the Christian tradition, happiness was
(23:20):
originally the state in which Adam and Eve existed before
they had knowledge. It's just this, you know, state of
being without all of the detritus in our brains that
we develop as soon as we start thinking about things
and in ways that define them and and identify them,
and then there's an interesting thing that happened. Right. So,
in Indo European language, without exception, going all the way
(23:43):
back to ancient Greek, the word for happiness is a
cognate with the word for luck. They're very deeply intertwined.
So the idea is sort of that happiness is not
something that you could work toward or achieve. It either
came to you or it didn't. It was just a
matter of how the coin fails, so to speak. And
(24:03):
then the writings of Confucius, happiness and luck are very
deeply intertwined. So per his ideology, a happy life was
just one that was smooth and free of obstacles. But
of course that doesn't involve having a lot of stuff.
It's not about like I have achieved X, just I
feel like my life is pretty smooth happy. Well, it's
(24:24):
not how we think about happiness now, like the world
sells you happiness in a way that feels so far
from anything that I personally believe, Like I watch happiness
being sold to me by advertising, sold to me by television,
sold to me by radio, everything everywhere. You cannot get
(24:46):
in a cab without an ad for something that is
going to make you happy. Finally, and then Greek and
Roman philosophy kind of twisted that I don't want to
say twisted, but they evolved it to a point where
happiness started to be a thing that you earned, but
it was very closely related to the good deeds that
you did and living in a simple way. And again,
(25:10):
the other thing that we have to think about is
that to them, this happiness did not mean like I
feel blissful. It just was more of like a stability situation, right,
like my needs are met, you live well and morally,
so your soul's needs are met, and consequently, like the
world is going to be pretty smooth for you. So
it's not an emotion so much as it becomes a
(25:30):
way of life, not something that was due or expected,
but something that you kind of created by being a
good person and doing good things. Sister, A later defined
it as happiness would lose all joy if nobody rejoiced
with us, which is sort of beautiful, right. It's that
sense of happiness within a community. And he also equated
happiness with a tranquil mind. So up to this point
(25:53):
we aren't messing around with the ideas of having things,
getting things checklist, which I know, how you know checklock,
I do. The Age of Enlightenment is where things start
to turn a little bit, and I think the intent,
as so often as the case may have been good,
but it got very distorted along the way, right Like
(26:16):
at that point the Age of Enlightenment involved this idea
that happiness was a right, not so much the result
of your behavior, but you were entitled to happiness. Of
course you're a human, which is not a bad idea.
The Declaration of Independence kind of bakes it right. In right,
we hold these truths to be self evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
(26:36):
creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life
liberty in the pursuit of happiness. Of course, you should
go chase your happiness. That's just part of being human.
I love that. I love that idea that we should
all be pursuing that, whatever that means to Like, I
think about my happiness, like I think we've been told
that happiness is this thing, and then travel teaches you
(26:58):
that happiness comes from within. So I spent so much
of my life looking externally for happiness and whether it
was in people or places or things, and then I
realized I have to turn that inside. And when I
got together with Michael, one of the first conversations we
had within hours of meeting each other was that we
(27:18):
would never believe that somebody else was going to make
you happy. That we both felt independently that happiness came
from your responsibility towards it. You're very much in line
with the ancient Greek approach to it, right that it
is look at me, ancient Greek, the journey of a
life lived well, and it's not a destination that you
get to and then happiness chacha. Well, happiness to me
(27:42):
is like yoga. I think about it like that. It's
forever more like you can't get good at yoga. It's
not the point of yoga. You can be good at
some postures, or you can maybe better your breathing or
perhaps your meditation, but you never master any part of it,
because they will always be more of it. And happiness
is like that, you just have to bumble along for
(28:02):
the rest of your life, seeking it, finding it, losing it,
picking it up along the road into me. I find
like the simplest things give me the greatest happiness. Now,
of course, I'll talk about Ellen now. And this morning
I was playing with her on the beach and I
was throwing this ball for her and I was like
watching her tooth gets stuck in the soccer ball, and
(28:26):
I was like, I looked at this moment and I
was like, so happy man, so happy me and the dog.
It's a moment like that that I'm able to reflect
inwards and ask myself, why am I happy in this moment?
What is that I'm happy within? And she's my reflection.
She's showing me that joy and I can access it
(28:48):
because it goes in and I'm able to turn it
inwards and travel is that teacher. It's the lifelong teacher
of happiness that it shows you the destruction and the
decay and the beauty and the raggedy ann as well
as the princess. Right. It shows you about these things
and when you're able to see it, you see yourself. Yes, well,
(29:14):
I'm gonna just call Marge Simpson Holly and ask her
what she has to say about happiness. Okay, hello, Marge,
is that you? What do you think? Well, you could
(29:35):
be like Madge's twin. No, I have twin sisters, but
I have no twine. Tell us about happiness. Happiness is
when Homie is asleep and the children are in bed
and the house is peaceful. Well, thanks for that. My
(29:56):
apologies to Julie Kavner for what has just taken place.
Thanks Holly, thank you, my love. You make me happy.
Talking about happiness with Holly is of course fun. I
also have Samara Henderson who has her own podcast Life Stuff.
Samara and I bonded over what happiness is and even
(30:20):
after tragedy, how she could still choose happiness. Samara, thank
you for coming in to be in studio with me.
It's so nice to see your smiley face. Thank you
so much for having me. This is such an honor. Really, well,
I found your own podcast Life Stuff, and I found
(30:42):
you and you and I started chatting about happiness. And
I believe for myself that I wake up every day
and I am able to choose happiness. I have a career,
I have friends, and most portantly, I have someone who
loves me and lives with me and has made a
(31:04):
life with me. And then of course I have my husband.
I meant my dog, but you know, I have Michael,
who's such an amazing part of sharing happiness. But I
am able to choose that happiness because I live in
the Western world. I have everything I need. I'm healthy,
(31:26):
I have money, I have privilege, I have unconscious privileged.
I have all these things. But is it possible for
the person who's living in a favela in Brazil and poor?
Or is it possible for the person who's disabled or tortured,
like is it so easy for them to just choose happiness. Yeah,
(31:49):
that's a complicated question. I feel as though people who
don't have as much as we do over here in
the Western world, who are going through struggles that we
couldn't even touch or ponder. I I believe that that
you can have moments, you can choose to have moments
(32:13):
of happiness enjoy for yourself. Um, it's really a mindset
thing that you can take with you. So I like
to look at kids. Kids don't know the value of money.
Kids don't really know how much they have or don't
have until they grow up and learn these things and
learn about social status is and learn about different things
(32:35):
that could hold them back potentially. And kids always find
a way to play and be happy and just enjoy
wherever they are, and I I feel like you could
really learn something from them. I mean, even when they're
bored out of their minds at banks or grocery stores,
they always find a way to enjoy what they're doing
(32:56):
in their life in that moment. And I think if
we just take that child like essence with us and
the world around us could be totally how but that's
what it is. You know, you can or cannot change it,
but you just have to look at it and say,
I'm just going to choose to smile about something. I mean,
(33:16):
I'm going to choose to look at the sky and say, hey,
that color blue is really awesome and I'm enjoying it.
Or simple things things, simple small things. It doesn't have
to be Oh, I hit the lottery, I'm so happy.
It could just be I had a really good conversation
with someone today, or um, yes, just like right now,
I'm very grateful for this. But I look at my
(33:38):
you look at kids, I look at my dog. She's
such a beautiful reminder to me to just be in
the moment. Yes, definitely, it doesn't matter what's going on externally,
because if you stay present and you stay within yourself,
happiness is within you. Then So yes, maybe it's hard
(33:58):
for someone who's a lot own and living in poverty
to choose happiness external happiness. But the wish that I
have for the world is to tap into the happiness
that they do have access to, which is internal. And
we're all worthy on that. We're we're entitled to be Definitely.
I mean, I know that it's such a tricky thing
(34:19):
to talk about because because I don't want to be
disrespectful and people be like, you know, imagine you were
impoverished and you how do you be happiness? But I
think it's just about an internal happiness, and I think
we should talk about your sexual assault and how like
you've been able to find joy and continuation of life
(34:40):
after that. Yes, it it was definitely a journey and
I definitely had to choose to want to be happy
and to get out of that slump. It actually happens
multiple times throughout the course of my life. So when
I guess starting from about fourth and fifth right to
(35:01):
my last year of high school, so you know, spaced
out trauma being a child not knowing what's going on.
It's I don't want to say that it's harder or
degrade anybody else's experience, but being a child of not
knowing what's going on and trying to figure that out,
not knowing what you can say or how to express it,
(35:24):
and then growing up and doing certain things and being
like is that connected to my past? Or is this
you know, trying to just navigate it and figure out
what's going on. And so it took a long time
for me to realize that I was even depressed, or
that I was that I had anxiety. It took at
(35:47):
first acknowledgement that I wasn't happy. That was the first step,
and then after acknowledging that I was just like, Okay,
I don't want to be this anymore. I don't want
to be sad. I'm tired of the you know, I'm
tired of these excuses of being stuck. I'm just tired
of this mental space. I don't feel like this is
(36:08):
how my life is supposed to go, like, if there
is a way to be different, I want in on
that way. So I didn't know how at all. I
didn't know how I was going to get there. But
just having that attitude that I was going to get there,
I really believe propelled me to be where I am today.
So of course I looked into counselors. I didn't like
(36:31):
it at first. I hated it. I started googling things
about like meditation and anxiety, learning more about it. I
read a whole bunch of self help books. Yeah, I
just took a lot of everything that seemed to work
for me, and I just decided, you know, I'm not
(36:52):
gonna let somebody else control the nature of my life
and control my mental space innocence, you know, Like this
is my life. I only get one, So why am
I letting somebody running around in my head? You know,
and they could be off doing god knows what, not
thinking about me at all. So I was like, you
know what, I'm going to take my mind back. And
I did that, and it was very hard. It took
(37:13):
some years, it really did. It's still a journey, but
I am very grateful for where I am now. I
am so much more happy or so much more content
with my life, so much more open to people and
receiving love and giving love and you know, really being healthy.
(37:35):
And in that I learned how to really monitor my
thoughts and catch myself. And I don't know, it's just
a whole bunch of things that I've learned, and it's
been an amazing experience in journey, and so in a
weird sense, I am grateful that I had to go
through all that to get to where I am. I
feel like I appreciate peace and joy and sleeping at nights,
(38:01):
just all of those things a little bit more. Wow.
I mean, you look very happy to me, thank you.
You walked in here with such a beautiful smile and
optimism that to me, it seems you've done so much
of the work. But the thing about it is, I
guess it's forever, right, Like the work is, there's no ato. Yeah,
(38:24):
there's no end game, there's no I made it, there's
no here's your golden ticket. It's just a continuous journey
of growth, innocence, of just self growth and improvement and
becoming a better human or becoming the best human that
you can. And I just feel as though if everyone
tries to do that the world would just be amazing.
(38:46):
But when I optimists, clearly, Yeah, obviously, Now everyone for
a time out except for responses. We'll be right back
with more everywhere. Well, and once again to everywhere, let's
holp back to it. For my next interview, I'm with
(39:11):
Tim Phillips, the founder and CEO of Beyond Conflict. We
chat about hope and how that interacts with happiness around
the globe as well as in America at a very
complicated time. Thank you for spending time with me flying in.
(39:33):
You speak to my heart when you speak, and I'm
so glad we can do this on Mike. Well, thank you, Daniel.
It's a real honor of being here. And I love
hearing your voice because I spent a lot of time
in South Africa, so it sort of warms my heart. Well,
you know, I have the hybrid South African accent, which
only if you've spent time there will you realize it's
not as South African as it could be, but not
(39:56):
not South African at all. I would love to talk
about South Africa. So South Africa is for me a
very complicated place as a white boy born in South Africa,
as someone who's both the colonizer and the believer in
change and hope and the Rainbow Nation. It has been
(40:17):
both to me the shield and the sword. It has
protected me and saved me, but it is also deeply
hurt me. I have been a victim of incredible crime, hijackings,
being held up, I've been shot, aunt and attacked in
my home in the street with guns and knives. And
(40:41):
yet I've somehow returned to South Africa again and again
because the almost blood that I spilt them is part
of its healing on me and part of its healing
for itself. So let's talk about South Africa and your
involvement beyond conflicts involvement. Talk to me a little bit
(41:03):
about that process that you've gone through personally and obviously
with your organization. Yeah, thank you, And I mean everything
you just said just sort of resonated with me, not
only in my work but in my own life experience.
You know, I grew up pretty modestly in New England
and it wasn't until I was in my teenage years
(41:24):
that I actually got to travel outside the United States,
and I had this curiosity about the world. But it
wasn't until I left these shores and went to other
countries in Europe or Central America, that I really started
to have a sense that there is truly a world
out there that's bigger, but in a lot of ways
much closer to my existence than I ever imagined in
(41:45):
reading in books or hearing about it in school. And
so was that opening for me that years later, when
we had the collapse of the Cold War in and
I decided to travel to Eastern Europe and Central Europe
to see what was going on, that I had this
notion that, wait a minute, you have all these former
(42:06):
dissidents and people who were imprisoned and suffered for trying
to create change who are now running these governments. And
I had this instinct, wouldn't be interesting to bring together
these new leaders with people who themselves have been through
difficult transitions from in those days dictatorship to democracy. And
how do you do that by bringing people together by traveling,
(42:27):
by getting people to go from those countries of Latin
America and elsewhere to Eastern Europe, and get people from
Eastern and Central Europe to go to those nations in
places to see firsthand. And this was before the transition
started unfolding in South Africa. And then when people started seeing, wow,
we can learn from others. There's something about engaging with
(42:49):
the other outside that begins to slowly open up our aperture,
begin to open up our notion of wow, maybe change
is possible. If they can do it, why can't we.
And so I had the pleasure of first meeting Nelson
Manila when he came to New York and there was
an event at the Rainbow Room and I went up
to him through somebody introducing me, and I told him
(43:12):
what I was doing. He said, we need that in
our country. And so I went to South Africa, had
a chance to meet some of the folks who are
emerging leadership, from Desmond Tutu to Albi Sachs and others.
And then I realized that there's such profound knowledge, this
profound dignity and power and what is evolving in South
(43:35):
Africa that needs to be shared with the world. But
how do you share that by bringing people together? And
how do you do that by literally stepping outside your
comfort zone. There was something about just that connection, that
physical connection that you can only get by traveling and
getting out of your comfort zone, that you can imagine
that change is possible. When I tell people the reason
(43:56):
I travel, it's this very notion I can go and
touched into this humanity and it's available to everyone, not
just people that are meeting Nelson Mandela or f W
two clerk. It's available to anyone everywhere. So that brings
us to a crucial part of this conversation. And when
(44:21):
we talk travel, we don't necessarily mean abroad. There's American travel,
and I think at a time a complicated political time
in this country like now, it is absolutely crucial to
go and travel America, to spend time with people that
are not like you, to spend time with people that
(44:41):
don't vote like you, or think like you, or look
like you. And as you know about Hopeful Mondays, a
tradition started by Little's parents. As I refer to them
on the podcast, it is one of the most meaningful
and beautiful things that I've ever attended in my life. Basically,
(45:01):
the story is that two thousand and sixteen s election
happened and we started. They started a Monday night dinner
and it's called Hopeful Monday because that's where there will
be some hope. There's always a cake with the word hope.
On it, and we go around the room and everybody
(45:22):
shares what they're hopeful for. And next year we want
to take it on the road and share this hope
with other people, with people that you wouldn't necessarily have
in your realm. So to me, it is such a
difficult time in America for many people. We need to
go and understand that. So I think what we should
(45:43):
talk about is what do you envision as something you
could do, something that ordinary people could do here. Yeah,
it's really interesting that, you know, I'm almost in American,
but at the same time spent the last thirty years
mostly working around the world, working in about seventy five countries,
(46:03):
very much with this notion of shared human experience, you know,
bringing in people, often former enemies, who couldn't imagine the
change was possible in their country. And I remember friends
from South Africa and Northern Ireland, Central America, the Middle
East have been saying to me as an American for
more than ten years, you know, you need to focus
on our country. You need to really look inward and
(46:26):
see the things that make us deeply concerned. And I
would say, well, I can imagine. I mean, we do
have some profound problems, and they're like, I don't think
you realize that a lot of the same things that
we've experienced, those mindsets, those fears we see developing in
your country, sort of like canaries in a coal mine.
And yet here we are in two thousand and nineteen
(46:48):
in a place that I think a lot of Americans
never imagined they would be in. And so what we're
starting to do as an organization is normally look within
the country to say, what do we need to do
as a country, But what can we learn from the
experience of all these other countries that have struggled to
change to bring those insights to this country. So it's
a combination. And the way I see it, we see
(47:10):
it is we need to listen to each other and
not purely in these sort of intuitive ways of people saying, okay,
you need to state either your privilege or your position,
or how you're victimized to what is sacred to you,
what is important to you, what do you fear? Because
we live in a big, diverse country, and those divides
(47:33):
are going from a you and I mindset to an
US versus them. And the more we go to an
US versus them mindset, the more difficult it would be
for us to really not just reconcile, but to find
what we have in common ast Americans. We see that happening,
and one of the things that we have been doing
is working with brain and behavioral scientists, and one of
the things they know from just the research is that
(47:55):
when you go to an US versus the mindset, a
whole range of unconscious psychological processes come online to really
push us further apart. Those sort of creup identities, sort
of features of our brain to look for difference, really
kick in and unconsciously we make choices, we make decisions
that further pull us apart. And so how do we
(48:17):
approach this deepening divide in America? And one way is
to bring those people from outside who have been through
change to our country. The way, in a sense, we
set the table in other countries as Americans over the
last twenty five thirty years to help people learn from
each other. And now there's a certain beauty and certain
(48:38):
um serendipity elegance that they want to come here and
share their experience with Americans, not in a lecturing way,
not in a hectoring way, but to say, don't make
the mistakes we made. What we had to do in
South Africa, what we tried to do in Northern Ireland
but we struggled with still in the Middle East, is
that we dehumanized, demonized each other, We delegitimatized each other
(49:03):
so much that will take generations to build a sense
of a common humanity as people in the same nation.
Different interests, maybe different ideologies, but we're still you and I.
We're not us first as them. And so the notion
is how do we bring that shared human powerful experience home.
And it's really powerful because it says you've got to
(49:26):
treat people with dignity, no matter who they are, right
as Mandela would say, don't be tough on people, be
tough on structures, be tough in institutions. So that was
sort of our m O was we, you know, sort
of curate and convene leaders to go into countries who
are struggling with different types of change. And then about
(49:47):
ten years ago I met a neuroscientist who said to
me one day, you know, we're not rational beings with emotions.
He said, speaking as a scientist, it's just the opposite.
We are emotionally based beings who can only think rationally
when we feel that our identities are understood and valued
by others. And I was like, holy shit, I said,
(50:09):
you just collapsed everything I've experienced in the previous twenty
five years, everything I've experienced in my own lifetime. And
I sat back and I thought, the Enlightenment got it wrong.
We are not these rational beings with emotions. It's just
the opposite. The Enlightenment was based on the emergence of
science and that we are not only these rational beings,
(50:30):
but we're better than all other species, which we also
know as bs. Right, But now it's science who's saying
to us, no, no, no, no, focus on how we
think as humans, not what we think, because how we
think is so deeply unconscious, and our unconscious and mostly
based brain literally shapes our capacity to be rational. That's
(50:50):
how we navigate the world. I mean literally every moment,
every day, our brains are predicting our social environment on
my slow it down the totem Polese scale. I say
this all the time. It's never the one, it's always
the how. And I say that about travel. No, I'm
(51:11):
not telling you when to go, way to eat, way
to stay, what to see. I'm telling you how to
be there right, how to be yourself there. People ask
me for the travel recommendations and I say, nope, you
can figure out where to go get coffee by yourself.
But what you can figure out is an attitude, and
I'll help you with that. You know what's really cool
(51:33):
about travel? Have you ever noticed when you go to
a completely new city or place, you see more alert.
That's your brain coming online because it's a new place.
That predictive brain I just mentioned, all of a sudden
comes online and says I'm in a new environment. I
don't know this, I need to understand it. Travel does
(51:53):
more to increase neural activity, create new neural connections just
because you're rain without you explicitly sitting here saying okay,
time to kick ahad does it automatically? Notice everywhere you
go somewhere new and different, your brain becomes more active,
more aware, and more alert and expands literally more energy
(52:14):
because it needs to understand this environment. That's the great
thing about travel as well. So thank you for spending
time with me. This is the beginning of many conversations.
I know. Well, I thank you, Daniel, It's been extraordinary. Well,
I had a good time. I hope you did too.
(52:36):
If you'd like to reach us, go to Everywhere Podcast
on Instagram, everywhere pot on Twitter, all the website, everywhere
podcast dot com. I'm Daniel Scheffler signing off. I'll be
seeing you everywhere
Hi, I'm Daniel Scheffler, and this is everywhere Today's travel commandment,
thou shalt know happiness. Everything is about happiness, what it
(00:24):
all means, what it all feels like, and of course,
how to acquire it. The New York Times publish as
a piece about happiness every few months. The format might change,
but the basic premises the same. It is something you
should be pursuing. Endless amounts of workshops are scheduled across
(00:45):
the globe, with names like The Simplest Path to Happiness
or Craft Your Deepest Joy. I noticed that Amazon dot
Com had specific divisions dedicated to books on obtaining happiness,
and these titles are even better than the workshops. You
Are your Happiest Itself or Take Your Path Back to Happiness.
(01:10):
I don't know where I was, but apparently I needed
to go back. Remember that episode of Sex in the
City where Charlotte was in the self help section in
the Barns and Noble store in Manhattan and she pretends
she was looking for travel, only to order starting over
yet again. So apparently happiness used to also be shameful,
(01:33):
but at a different time. Now, and as someone who
loves Los Angeles can tell, you here, you are hunting
for happiness every minute from your uber, from your raiky
appointment to your juice bar and some healing at the
ranch in Malibuu. They're all these apps specifically engineered to
(01:54):
help you find happiness, usually through some meditation for the
subway or more ex tests of exercising right at home
in your lounge for a mere six minutes. Or of course,
you can actually travel to one of these millions of
wellness retreats where goats can stand on top of you
for yoga, or you could howl into the sunrise. The
(02:16):
more you yodel, the happier you'll be. Of course, it
makes sense to me, But luckily Bhutan has bigger and
better plans. In two the country's fourth Dragon king coined
the phrase gross National Happiness, the g n H. The
idea was to build a country based on Buddhist spiritual
(02:39):
values opposed to all this Western materialism usually defined by GDP.
And decades later, the citizens, from my very limited visitors
perspective walking around seem happy as you can be. But
long before Baton decided to give importance to something other
than I don't know, money and greed. The ancient Greek
(03:00):
philosopher Aristotle said, happiness is in the meaning and the
purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
And who are we to argue with that? The tricky
part is, isn't happiness totally subjective? Bhutan reveals these factors
in the smallest and biggest ways, like the fact that
(03:23):
they cap the amount of people who are proved for
visas every year because they don't just want the country
trampled by tourists. And secondly, there's a minimum spend of
two hundred and fifty dollars per person per day, which
means you have to save up a little to go
to the country. Basically, it's not a cheap holiday where
you can just backpack and leave your mark. They want
(03:45):
tourists to choose it actively and consciously, and therefore they
hope you'd respect it and value it so much more.
And it's true I did, and I do so. Before
arriving at the country's only airport in Paro, Mount Everest
comes into immaculate view within moments. The plane then descends
(04:08):
onto one of the most challenging landing strips in the
whole world, with peaks rising up to sixteen thousand feet
surrounding us, and then this crazy, notorious turn where rooftops
are almost clipped by the wings of the plane as
it touches down. The flight attendant, who was in the
jump seat right in front of me, proudly told me
(04:30):
that only eight pilots in the world are skilled enough
to do this specific landing. It's a great honor for
them that the pilot is the best in the world.
When last did anybody say that about a flight? Anyway,
The country is squeezed between a global giant, China, who
they are mightily wary of, and India, who they pretty
(04:52):
friendly with, but they remain autonomous in all their dealings.
The first evidence of this somewhat insular world is they
have national dress. From the moment you set foot on
this holy land, almost everyone you see is robed. Men
wear this knee length robe called it go that's tied
at the waist and has a pouch for food or
(05:15):
a dagger or maybe an iPhone, and women wear a
kira which is ankle length plus a little light outer jacket.
The Amound Resorts has created a way to see it
almost the entire country where they've built these five equally
beautiful Zong inspired Resorts. Zong is a traditional beautiful building
(05:37):
styled in this specific Butanese way. So they've placed them
in a sort of circuit formation, the five or dubbed
Aman Cora, which combines Aman, which is sanscrit for peace
and cora meaning a circular pilgrimage in Zonka, the Butanese language.
So Nam who was my guide, and I chatted about happiness,
(06:00):
and he revealed that for him and his family, they
live a life where dreams aren't crazy big, they're just
the right size for finding them. And as John Reid,
who's the Aman Resorts regional director but also a bit
of a prophet, said to me, you come to Bhutan
to understand respect for others. The country itself feels like
(06:22):
a perfectly sized dream opposed to a dictatorship style monarchy.
Jing Ma Kesar Namja buang Chuk married a commoner and
runs his country according to kid which is a tradition
based on the rule of Dharma king whose sacred duty
is just to care for his people. Then there's this
modern school system with free and universal education and even
(06:45):
free healthcare. It's also the only country in the world
where smoking is completely banned from the outside. There seems
to be no suffering. It's also just so iconically beautiful
and marvelously peaceful. The statistic so, of course hard to verify,
but at like thirty miles an hour speed limit, it
would seem logical that fewer car accidents happen. So Nam
(07:09):
didn't even understand. When I asked him whether people drink
and drive, he just said, why would anyone do that? Again,
it's in the small things, but then there's also in
these breath taking the big things, like hiking to Tiger's Nest,
the most sacred monastery in the country. It's literally perched
(07:30):
on this cliff in the fluffy clouds. Its name is
fundamental to understanding the country's reverence for Buddhism. So the
legend says that in the eighth century, Guru Imposh flew
hair from Tibet on the back of a tigress, a
manifestation of his divine consort. His reason for visiting was
(07:51):
to subdue a demon, and then he eventually decided to
live in a cave for three years, three months and
three days while atating and in this is where they
built this iconic monastery. Day to day life here is simple.
Some people work in the small cities, and it's mainly agriculture, forestry,
(08:14):
and then of course tourism plus the sale of hydro
electric power to India that keeps the country's economy going.
But most people embrace this kind of gentler life, one
where Buddhist values are adhere to in families, to almost
all activities together. I had lunch at this local family's
home and the entire family piped in to eat broth,
(08:38):
served with their national dish, which is this sewee, cheese
and peppers mix, all served with rice. Everyone sat on
the floor and before the herbal tea was served, everyone
shared their favorite story of the day. How's that for
a hopeful Monday moment. Fresh produce markets are quietly filled
(08:59):
with local people buying their goods, chatting about the broths
they're going to be preparing at home. And so here
we have people at their finest, belonging to I don't know,
world order of togetherness, acceptance and tolerance, something that a
tiny country in Bhutan with mostly I guess a homogenized
(09:19):
population is able to take great pride in. I just
so wish the rest of the world could do with
some of these lessons. Baton, with all its harmony and
quiet beliefs, functions within the world as its own world.
The Buddhist prayer flags and iconic red, blue, yellow and
green colors they littered throughout the country. Every bridge, tree
(09:44):
and street has them, breathing in the mountain air and
flapping out pure joy. Some of that's the metaphor I
have for the country. People might be somewhat different, but
yet attached to some great ambition for the world. Some
may even call that happy nous, But what do I know.
(10:04):
I found my very personal, very Daniel moment of ordinary
happiness in Western Australia, flying to a little town called Parabado,
northeast of Perth, where I landed in mining country. I
looked down from my plane window and I saw this
rubicund earth and truly not much else. I stepped onto
(10:28):
the melting tarmac at this tiny bush airport and I
could smell something dusty and ancient, a life before life
kind of beauty scent. It is here at this tiny
building with no gates, where I met Mark Olive, an
Aboriginal chef from Australia. We had a moment to sit
(10:53):
down on a little bench right in the Airport almost
building to talk about nate of ingredients and eating kangaroo. Hi.
My name is mircoel If. I'm known as the Black
Boles around Australia and through my TV series, but not
only that as a judge on the Chef Line as well.
So what I'm known for in Australia is about Indigenous food.
(11:15):
And when you're talking indigenous food, you're talking about proteins
like kangaroo in, crocodile, possums, wallaby, so our indigenous native animals.
And look, people freak out a little bit that we're
the only country that eats our coat of arms. But
let's face it, high protein, extremely tasty. And what we've
(11:37):
got to remember is in Australia, but not only data
around the world that for indigenous people it was never
their coat of arms. It was their actual dreamtime stories,
it was their totems, it was a life source and
it was their clothing source as well. So we've got
to remember that, and I think once we do that,
it's the inn where we start understanding about the food
(11:58):
of Australia as well. We have an amazing sort of proteins, herbs, spices,
fruits in Australia and it hasn't been tapped into anywhere
else in the world. And we're very, very fortunate, because
we're feel isolated that we're lucky enough to have this head.
But you know, it's been documented all around Australia through
(12:20):
paintings and through storytelling oral story generally right around the country.
In the day, there was over three hundred sixty eight
communities the indigenous communities that were active in this country.
Travelers often come to places one thing to be parted
and wanting to understand culture and place and history. Were
(12:41):
you doing a good job champion the food part of that,
which I think is to me, I feel food is
such an amazing way into a culture because food becomes
personal and food is something that brings back memories and essential.
So for me, travelers come to Australia, seek out Indigenous food,
(13:02):
Indigenous chefs, indigenous tasting dinners and stories and that's your
way in. I'll totally travel as what we have in
this country's exciting when you say these paperboys, so he's
really embracing what we've got here. I waved Mark Olive goodbye,
(13:24):
and now please imagine my face when I arrived at
the car raintall place, and they give me this badass
mining car. Now to imagine this vehicle, think Mad Max,
but a few less skulls. But they were gargantuan headlights,
tires as tall as I am, and a flag sticking
(13:45):
out at the back. The flag had an EMU on it.
The lady at the reception said she could change it
for a kangaroo if I'd prefer. Apparently those are the
only choices on offer here. The machine came complete with
a radio for communication, which I had no clue how
to use, and many many extra tires, a host of
(14:08):
surplus supplies, and what looked like a towing facility that
I hoped I wasn't going to have to employ. I
think I was wearing my black birken stocks throughout this
whole adventure, because I was ready for the deepest, greatest
sandy desert. I was free and untethered, and I was
let loose into this prehistoric land. Of course, within the hour,
(14:33):
I had missed the tiny sign I was supposed to
look out for. With no phone service and just a
hand drawn map that may have needed just one more stemp,
I was now cruising with some local radio station playing
what sounded to me like did you redo country music?
(14:54):
Ozzie girls, Kath and Kim would have been so proud
of me at this very moment. Look at Marie, Look Marie.
Right then I slammed on the brakes and they locked.
As I skidded sideways, just about rick rolling this monster truck.
I came to dead standstill, right out of any action movie,
(15:15):
my face touching a handsome kangaroo. Oh hello. He lunged
his pocket lips at me and bam. Right there, in
the deepest remote desert, I had my first kangaroo kiss.
I had my windows open so that the dry air
(15:36):
could blow through my hair. For hours now, I had
not seen a single car. I was the out back
at its finest. The sun was coming down a little
and the shadows were starting to form. When I arrived
in a little town, well, what seemed like a little town.
Giants signs saying turn back now down her, of course
(16:01):
intrigued me. I skulked a hand and saw a very
tanned person hanging up their laundry. Oh hello, I was
sure she was going to offer me a bevy as
the Aussies say, so, I pulled over, I hop out,
and I introduced myself with some cheer. She seemed shocked.
(16:22):
Nobody comes. Yes, She tells me it's condemned and the
government is trying to buy our home and send us
away as bestos. If I had service at this point,
I would have googled the words as bestos and the
little town's name, Wittenoom, and I would probably have returned
to my car and run off. But she was fascinating,
(16:43):
and she didn't care about asbestos. She cared more about
her home, and so she was one of the last
three remaining residents in this mining town. I oddly admired her.
She eventually sent me on my way with some directions
that made sense, and I found my around to the
pop up dinner that my friend Paul Is Scoff was
(17:04):
hosting with his further team. Paul and I stand around
under a tree and talked about the importance of native ingredients.
How do you feel about eating kangaroo? So we are
kangaroo when we're in America, and some of the guys
were a bit wary of eating it, but we got
(17:26):
everyone in the room to try it, and they thought
it was delicious. Kangaroo has lesson to sent that's really
high and high. It's not farm so all the kangaroo
here is wild harvested. We don't want to fade it
or give it water. It doesn't have any hormones or anything,
so it's I guess you could say free range or
(17:49):
open range. It is really healthy, really delicious, and there
is an abundance of tangaroos in Australia. When they're holding
across the country, they actually spread maybe see. They don't
compact their rounds, whereas cattle kill. Something that I find
so amazing is that there's this sort of respectful the
(18:11):
indigenous people of especially Western Australia, where you come into
contact with people that are native in much bigger numbers
than when you were in Melbourne, Sydney with the kind
of touristic parts of Australia. Here, it feels like it's
so respected and thought about. How did you decide that
(18:32):
this is how you want to cook? I think a
really important thing for us was to do it in
a really respectful way, and us provision and learn from
the traditional end. These Abiginal people have thousands and thousands
of years knowledge and they've looked after country and kept
(18:53):
those grants and animals growing in a really sustainable way.
So for us it was about our permission and then
sitting and listening and learning about these plants and animals.
And I think the more we do that we feel
connected to where we are. But I think people come
into visit it's a great way to be introducing the
(19:17):
cultures through food. Each region visiting in wasting in Australia
is totally different to the others. So some of these
ingredients are blowing these so called super food exam the
water so healthy. But I think it's really important for
especially the chefs using them, to do it in a
respectful way. And when these foods are purchased, if it's
(19:40):
Aboriginal people wildhuvest, they get paid failure in that they're
including the conversation. And I think that in the years
to come, the world is going to see just how
incredible Australian foods are. Paul's dinner is a long table
of twenty overlooking an enormous gorge as Lucy and the
(20:03):
night sky filled our eyes with diamonds. Paul sends up
these bush dinners all over Western and Northern Australia, using
Aboriginal ingredients foraged from the land, and he only works
with locals, real people. He brings a truck or two
and sets up a truly pop up kitchen with his
medley chummy crew. It brings your attention to the beauty
(20:26):
of the place, sure, but the significance of what local
and truly from the land means is what you're thinking,
Whose land is this really? Who foraged here before the
tattooed hipsters came? And Paul, who grew up with the
Aboriginals in Western Australia, talks about all of this over dinner.
(20:50):
Why is it so important to eat kangaroo as a
sustainable meat? How can we respect the land and its
original people? As I sit watching these courses of unique
and marvelous ingredients come out from marinated emud to green
tree antslop, wild flowers, lemon, myrtle, wattle seeds, quandong, sandalwood nuts,
(21:18):
I could go on. Suddenly I was reminded that no,
I'm not at some cool dinner. I'm actually tapping into
a deeper consciousness of place and people and all that
actually matters. And yeah, fuck yeah, this is happiness not
for dummies. Now for a slight respite and I'll be
(21:50):
right back with everywhere after a word from our sponsors,
thanks for sticking around. Here's more of everywhere. H Holly,
thanks for being here with me today. We're in New
York and rainy New York talking about happiness. So. I
(22:12):
spent some time in Bhutan, and one of the things
that stayed with me after being there is that I
don't want to measure my life in any other way
than in a gross happiness index. There's such merit to that,
and I wish that so many other countries could think
about this and not only see capitalism and commercialism and GDP.
(22:38):
I think Bhutan has put this beautiful thing in the world,
and if you spend time there, you realize that every
citizen believes this thing. They buy into it, and they
feel that and they measure their life in a totally
different way they do. The problem, I think is like
trying to integrate that ideology in the lives that we
(22:59):
have built is going to be tricky, because, like if
you look at the history of happiness and how it
has been viewed, you start to see that particularly like
Western culture, European and North American culture, we kind of
tried to get the message and we messed it up.
Um So for example, in the Christian tradition, happiness was
(23:20):
originally the state in which Adam and Eve existed before
they had knowledge. It's just this, you know, state of
being without all of the detritus in our brains that
we develop as soon as we start thinking about things
and in ways that define them and and identify them,
and then there's an interesting thing that happened. Right. So,
in Indo European language, without exception, going all the way
(23:43):
back to ancient Greek, the word for happiness is a
cognate with the word for luck. They're very deeply intertwined.
So the idea is sort of that happiness is not
something that you could work toward or achieve. It either
came to you or it didn't. It was just a
matter of how the coin fails, so to speak. And
(24:03):
then the writings of Confucius, happiness and luck are very
deeply intertwined. So per his ideology, a happy life was
just one that was smooth and free of obstacles. But
of course that doesn't involve having a lot of stuff.
It's not about like I have achieved X, just I
feel like my life is pretty smooth happy. Well, it's
(24:24):
not how we think about happiness now, like the world
sells you happiness in a way that feels so far
from anything that I personally believe, Like I watch happiness
being sold to me by advertising, sold to me by television,
sold to me by radio, everything everywhere. You cannot get
(24:46):
in a cab without an ad for something that is
going to make you happy. Finally, and then Greek and
Roman philosophy kind of twisted that I don't want to
say twisted, but they evolved it to a point where
happiness started to be a thing that you earned, but
it was very closely related to the good deeds that
you did and living in a simple way. And again,
(25:10):
the other thing that we have to think about is
that to them, this happiness did not mean like I
feel blissful. It just was more of like a stability situation, right,
like my needs are met, you live well and morally,
so your soul's needs are met, and consequently, like the
world is going to be pretty smooth for you. So
it's not an emotion so much as it becomes a
(25:30):
way of life, not something that was due or expected,
but something that you kind of created by being a
good person and doing good things. Sister, A later defined
it as happiness would lose all joy if nobody rejoiced
with us, which is sort of beautiful, right. It's that
sense of happiness within a community. And he also equated
happiness with a tranquil mind. So up to this point
(25:53):
we aren't messing around with the ideas of having things,
getting things checklist, which I know, how you know checklock,
I do. The Age of Enlightenment is where things start
to turn a little bit, and I think the intent,
as so often as the case may have been good,
but it got very distorted along the way, right Like
(26:16):
at that point the Age of Enlightenment involved this idea
that happiness was a right, not so much the result
of your behavior, but you were entitled to happiness. Of
course you're a human, which is not a bad idea.
The Declaration of Independence kind of bakes it right. In right,
we hold these truths to be self evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
(26:36):
creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life
liberty in the pursuit of happiness. Of course, you should
go chase your happiness. That's just part of being human.
I love that. I love that idea that we should
all be pursuing that, whatever that means to Like, I
think about my happiness, like I think we've been told
that happiness is this thing, and then travel teaches you
(26:58):
that happiness comes from within. So I spent so much
of my life looking externally for happiness and whether it
was in people or places or things, and then I
realized I have to turn that inside. And when I
got together with Michael, one of the first conversations we
had within hours of meeting each other was that we
(27:18):
would never believe that somebody else was going to make
you happy. That we both felt independently that happiness came
from your responsibility towards it. You're very much in line
with the ancient Greek approach to it, right that it
is look at me, ancient Greek, the journey of a
life lived well, and it's not a destination that you
get to and then happiness chacha. Well, happiness to me
(27:42):
is like yoga. I think about it like that. It's
forever more like you can't get good at yoga. It's
not the point of yoga. You can be good at
some postures, or you can maybe better your breathing or
perhaps your meditation, but you never master any part of it,
because they will always be more of it. And happiness
is like that, you just have to bumble along for
(28:02):
the rest of your life, seeking it, finding it, losing it,
picking it up along the road into me. I find
like the simplest things give me the greatest happiness. Now,
of course, I'll talk about Ellen now. And this morning
I was playing with her on the beach and I
was throwing this ball for her and I was like
watching her tooth gets stuck in the soccer ball, and
(28:26):
I was like, I looked at this moment and I
was like, so happy man, so happy me and the dog.
It's a moment like that that I'm able to reflect
inwards and ask myself, why am I happy in this moment?
What is that I'm happy within? And she's my reflection.
She's showing me that joy and I can access it
(28:48):
because it goes in and I'm able to turn it
inwards and travel is that teacher. It's the lifelong teacher
of happiness that it shows you the destruction and the
decay and the beauty and the raggedy ann as well
as the princess. Right. It shows you about these things
and when you're able to see it, you see yourself. Yes, well,
(29:14):
I'm gonna just call Marge Simpson Holly and ask her
what she has to say about happiness. Okay, hello, Marge,
is that you? What do you think? Well, you could
(29:35):
be like Madge's twin. No, I have twin sisters, but
I have no twine. Tell us about happiness. Happiness is
when Homie is asleep and the children are in bed
and the house is peaceful. Well, thanks for that. My
(29:56):
apologies to Julie Kavner for what has just taken place.
Thanks Holly, thank you, my love. You make me happy.
Talking about happiness with Holly is of course fun. I
also have Samara Henderson who has her own podcast Life Stuff.
Samara and I bonded over what happiness is and even
(30:20):
after tragedy, how she could still choose happiness. Samara, thank
you for coming in to be in studio with me.
It's so nice to see your smiley face. Thank you
so much for having me. This is such an honor. Really, well,
I found your own podcast Life Stuff, and I found
(30:42):
you and you and I started chatting about happiness. And
I believe for myself that I wake up every day
and I am able to choose happiness. I have a career,
I have friends, and most portantly, I have someone who
loves me and lives with me and has made a
(31:04):
life with me. And then of course I have my husband.
I meant my dog, but you know, I have Michael,
who's such an amazing part of sharing happiness. But I
am able to choose that happiness because I live in
the Western world. I have everything I need. I'm healthy,
(31:26):
I have money, I have privilege, I have unconscious privileged.
I have all these things. But is it possible for
the person who's living in a favela in Brazil and poor?
Or is it possible for the person who's disabled or tortured,
like is it so easy for them to just choose happiness. Yeah,
(31:49):
that's a complicated question. I feel as though people who
don't have as much as we do over here in
the Western world, who are going through struggles that we
couldn't even touch or ponder. I I believe that that
you can have moments, you can choose to have moments
(32:13):
of happiness enjoy for yourself. Um, it's really a mindset
thing that you can take with you. So I like
to look at kids. Kids don't know the value of money.
Kids don't really know how much they have or don't
have until they grow up and learn these things and
learn about social status is and learn about different things
(32:35):
that could hold them back potentially. And kids always find
a way to play and be happy and just enjoy
wherever they are, and I I feel like you could
really learn something from them. I mean, even when they're
bored out of their minds at banks or grocery stores,
they always find a way to enjoy what they're doing
(32:56):
in their life in that moment. And I think if
we just take that child like essence with us and
the world around us could be totally how but that's
what it is. You know, you can or cannot change it,
but you just have to look at it and say,
I'm just going to choose to smile about something. I mean,
(33:16):
I'm going to choose to look at the sky and say, hey,
that color blue is really awesome and I'm enjoying it.
Or simple things things, simple small things. It doesn't have
to be Oh, I hit the lottery, I'm so happy.
It could just be I had a really good conversation
with someone today, or um, yes, just like right now,
I'm very grateful for this. But I look at my
(33:38):
you look at kids, I look at my dog. She's
such a beautiful reminder to me to just be in
the moment. Yes, definitely, it doesn't matter what's going on externally,
because if you stay present and you stay within yourself,
happiness is within you. Then So yes, maybe it's hard
(33:58):
for someone who's a lot own and living in poverty
to choose happiness external happiness. But the wish that I
have for the world is to tap into the happiness
that they do have access to, which is internal. And
we're all worthy on that. We're we're entitled to be Definitely.
I mean, I know that it's such a tricky thing
(34:19):
to talk about because because I don't want to be
disrespectful and people be like, you know, imagine you were
impoverished and you how do you be happiness? But I
think it's just about an internal happiness, and I think
we should talk about your sexual assault and how like
you've been able to find joy and continuation of life
(34:40):
after that. Yes, it it was definitely a journey and
I definitely had to choose to want to be happy
and to get out of that slump. It actually happens
multiple times throughout the course of my life. So when
I guess starting from about fourth and fifth right to
(35:01):
my last year of high school, so you know, spaced
out trauma being a child not knowing what's going on.
It's I don't want to say that it's harder or
degrade anybody else's experience, but being a child of not
knowing what's going on and trying to figure that out,
not knowing what you can say or how to express it,
(35:24):
and then growing up and doing certain things and being
like is that connected to my past? Or is this
you know, trying to just navigate it and figure out
what's going on. And so it took a long time
for me to realize that I was even depressed, or
that I was that I had anxiety. It took at
(35:47):
first acknowledgement that I wasn't happy. That was the first step,
and then after acknowledging that I was just like, Okay,
I don't want to be this anymore. I don't want
to be sad. I'm tired of the you know, I'm
tired of these excuses of being stuck. I'm just tired
of this mental space. I don't feel like this is
(36:08):
how my life is supposed to go, like, if there
is a way to be different, I want in on
that way. So I didn't know how at all. I
didn't know how I was going to get there. But
just having that attitude that I was going to get there,
I really believe propelled me to be where I am today.
So of course I looked into counselors. I didn't like
(36:31):
it at first. I hated it. I started googling things
about like meditation and anxiety, learning more about it. I
read a whole bunch of self help books. Yeah, I
just took a lot of everything that seemed to work
for me, and I just decided, you know, I'm not
(36:52):
gonna let somebody else control the nature of my life
and control my mental space innocence, you know, Like this
is my life. I only get one, So why am
I letting somebody running around in my head? You know,
and they could be off doing god knows what, not
thinking about me at all. So I was like, you
know what, I'm going to take my mind back. And
I did that, and it was very hard. It took
(37:13):
some years, it really did. It's still a journey, but
I am very grateful for where I am now. I
am so much more happy or so much more content
with my life, so much more open to people and
receiving love and giving love and you know, really being healthy.
(37:35):
And in that I learned how to really monitor my
thoughts and catch myself. And I don't know, it's just
a whole bunch of things that I've learned, and it's
been an amazing experience in journey, and so in a
weird sense, I am grateful that I had to go
through all that to get to where I am. I
feel like I appreciate peace and joy and sleeping at nights,
(38:01):
just all of those things a little bit more. Wow.
I mean, you look very happy to me, thank you.
You walked in here with such a beautiful smile and
optimism that to me, it seems you've done so much
of the work. But the thing about it is, I
guess it's forever, right, Like the work is, there's no ato. Yeah,
(38:24):
there's no end game, there's no I made it, there's
no here's your golden ticket. It's just a continuous journey
of growth, innocence, of just self growth and improvement and
becoming a better human or becoming the best human that
you can. And I just feel as though if everyone
tries to do that the world would just be amazing.
(38:46):
But when I optimists, clearly, Yeah, obviously, Now everyone for
a time out except for responses. We'll be right back
with more everywhere. Well, and once again to everywhere, let's
holp back to it. For my next interview, I'm with
(39:11):
Tim Phillips, the founder and CEO of Beyond Conflict. We
chat about hope and how that interacts with happiness around
the globe as well as in America at a very
complicated time. Thank you for spending time with me flying in.
(39:33):
You speak to my heart when you speak, and I'm
so glad we can do this on Mike. Well, thank you, Daniel.
It's a real honor of being here. And I love
hearing your voice because I spent a lot of time
in South Africa, so it sort of warms my heart. Well,
you know, I have the hybrid South African accent, which
only if you've spent time there will you realize it's
not as South African as it could be, but not
(39:56):
not South African at all. I would love to talk
about South Africa. So South Africa is for me a
very complicated place as a white boy born in South Africa,
as someone who's both the colonizer and the believer in
change and hope and the Rainbow Nation. It has been
(40:17):
both to me the shield and the sword. It has
protected me and saved me, but it is also deeply
hurt me. I have been a victim of incredible crime, hijackings,
being held up, I've been shot, aunt and attacked in
my home in the street with guns and knives. And
(40:41):
yet I've somehow returned to South Africa again and again
because the almost blood that I spilt them is part
of its healing on me and part of its healing
for itself. So let's talk about South Africa and your
involvement beyond conflicts involvement. Talk to me a little bit
(41:03):
about that process that you've gone through personally and obviously
with your organization. Yeah, thank you, And I mean everything
you just said just sort of resonated with me, not
only in my work but in my own life experience.
You know, I grew up pretty modestly in New England
and it wasn't until I was in my teenage years
(41:24):
that I actually got to travel outside the United States,
and I had this curiosity about the world. But it
wasn't until I left these shores and went to other
countries in Europe or Central America, that I really started
to have a sense that there is truly a world
out there that's bigger, but in a lot of ways
much closer to my existence than I ever imagined in
(41:45):
reading in books or hearing about it in school. And
so was that opening for me that years later, when
we had the collapse of the Cold War in and
I decided to travel to Eastern Europe and Central Europe
to see what was going on, that I had this
notion that, wait a minute, you have all these former
(42:06):
dissidents and people who were imprisoned and suffered for trying
to create change who are now running these governments. And
I had this instinct, wouldn't be interesting to bring together
these new leaders with people who themselves have been through
difficult transitions from in those days dictatorship to democracy. And
how do you do that by bringing people together by traveling,
(42:27):
by getting people to go from those countries of Latin
America and elsewhere to Eastern Europe, and get people from
Eastern and Central Europe to go to those nations in
places to see firsthand. And this was before the transition
started unfolding in South Africa. And then when people started seeing, wow,
we can learn from others. There's something about engaging with
(42:49):
the other outside that begins to slowly open up our aperture,
begin to open up our notion of wow, maybe change
is possible. If they can do it, why can't we.
And so I had the pleasure of first meeting Nelson
Manila when he came to New York and there was
an event at the Rainbow Room and I went up
to him through somebody introducing me, and I told him
(43:12):
what I was doing. He said, we need that in
our country. And so I went to South Africa, had
a chance to meet some of the folks who are
emerging leadership, from Desmond Tutu to Albi Sachs and others.
And then I realized that there's such profound knowledge, this
profound dignity and power and what is evolving in South
(43:35):
Africa that needs to be shared with the world. But
how do you share that by bringing people together? And
how do you do that by literally stepping outside your
comfort zone. There was something about just that connection, that
physical connection that you can only get by traveling and
getting out of your comfort zone, that you can imagine
that change is possible. When I tell people the reason
(43:56):
I travel, it's this very notion I can go and
touched into this humanity and it's available to everyone, not
just people that are meeting Nelson Mandela or f W
two clerk. It's available to anyone everywhere. So that brings
us to a crucial part of this conversation. And when
(44:21):
we talk travel, we don't necessarily mean abroad. There's American travel,
and I think at a time a complicated political time
in this country like now, it is absolutely crucial to
go and travel America, to spend time with people that
are not like you, to spend time with people that
(44:41):
don't vote like you, or think like you, or look
like you. And as you know about Hopeful Mondays, a
tradition started by Little's parents. As I refer to them
on the podcast, it is one of the most meaningful
and beautiful things that I've ever attended in my life. Basically,
(45:01):
the story is that two thousand and sixteen s election
happened and we started. They started a Monday night dinner
and it's called Hopeful Monday because that's where there will
be some hope. There's always a cake with the word hope.
On it, and we go around the room and everybody
(45:22):
shares what they're hopeful for. And next year we want
to take it on the road and share this hope
with other people, with people that you wouldn't necessarily have
in your realm. So to me, it is such a
difficult time in America for many people. We need to
go and understand that. So I think what we should
(45:43):
talk about is what do you envision as something you
could do, something that ordinary people could do here. Yeah,
it's really interesting that, you know, I'm almost in American,
but at the same time spent the last thirty years
mostly working around the world, working in about seventy five countries,
(46:03):
very much with this notion of shared human experience, you know,
bringing in people, often former enemies, who couldn't imagine the
change was possible in their country. And I remember friends
from South Africa and Northern Ireland, Central America, the Middle
East have been saying to me as an American for
more than ten years, you know, you need to focus
on our country. You need to really look inward and
(46:26):
see the things that make us deeply concerned. And I
would say, well, I can imagine. I mean, we do
have some profound problems, and they're like, I don't think
you realize that a lot of the same things that
we've experienced, those mindsets, those fears we see developing in
your country, sort of like canaries in a coal mine.
And yet here we are in two thousand and nineteen
(46:48):
in a place that I think a lot of Americans
never imagined they would be in. And so what we're
starting to do as an organization is normally look within
the country to say, what do we need to do
as a country, But what can we learn from the
experience of all these other countries that have struggled to
change to bring those insights to this country. So it's
a combination. And the way I see it, we see
(47:10):
it is we need to listen to each other and
not purely in these sort of intuitive ways of people saying, okay,
you need to state either your privilege or your position,
or how you're victimized to what is sacred to you,
what is important to you, what do you fear? Because
we live in a big, diverse country, and those divides
(47:33):
are going from a you and I mindset to an
US versus them. And the more we go to an
US versus them mindset, the more difficult it would be
for us to really not just reconcile, but to find
what we have in common ast Americans. We see that happening,
and one of the things that we have been doing
is working with brain and behavioral scientists, and one of
the things they know from just the research is that
(47:55):
when you go to an US versus the mindset, a
whole range of unconscious psychological processes come online to really
push us further apart. Those sort of creup identities, sort
of features of our brain to look for difference, really
kick in and unconsciously we make choices, we make decisions
that further pull us apart. And so how do we
(48:17):
approach this deepening divide in America? And one way is
to bring those people from outside who have been through
change to our country. The way, in a sense, we
set the table in other countries as Americans over the
last twenty five thirty years to help people learn from
each other. And now there's a certain beauty and certain
(48:38):
um serendipity elegance that they want to come here and
share their experience with Americans, not in a lecturing way,
not in a hectoring way, but to say, don't make
the mistakes we made. What we had to do in
South Africa, what we tried to do in Northern Ireland
but we struggled with still in the Middle East, is
that we dehumanized, demonized each other, We delegitimatized each other
(49:03):
so much that will take generations to build a sense
of a common humanity as people in the same nation.
Different interests, maybe different ideologies, but we're still you and I.
We're not us first as them. And so the notion
is how do we bring that shared human powerful experience home.
And it's really powerful because it says you've got to
(49:26):
treat people with dignity, no matter who they are, right
as Mandela would say, don't be tough on people, be
tough on structures, be tough in institutions. So that was
sort of our m O was we, you know, sort
of curate and convene leaders to go into countries who
are struggling with different types of change. And then about
(49:47):
ten years ago I met a neuroscientist who said to
me one day, you know, we're not rational beings with emotions.
He said, speaking as a scientist, it's just the opposite.
We are emotionally based beings who can only think rationally
when we feel that our identities are understood and valued
by others. And I was like, holy shit, I said,
(50:09):
you just collapsed everything I've experienced in the previous twenty
five years, everything I've experienced in my own lifetime. And
I sat back and I thought, the Enlightenment got it wrong.
We are not these rational beings with emotions. It's just
the opposite. The Enlightenment was based on the emergence of
science and that we are not only these rational beings,
(50:30):
but we're better than all other species, which we also
know as bs. Right, But now it's science who's saying
to us, no, no, no, no, focus on how we
think as humans, not what we think, because how we
think is so deeply unconscious, and our unconscious and mostly
based brain literally shapes our capacity to be rational. That's
(50:50):
how we navigate the world. I mean literally every moment,
every day, our brains are predicting our social environment on
my slow it down the totem Polese scale. I say
this all the time. It's never the one, it's always
the how. And I say that about travel. No, I'm
(51:11):
not telling you when to go, way to eat, way
to stay, what to see. I'm telling you how to
be there right, how to be yourself there. People ask
me for the travel recommendations and I say, nope, you
can figure out where to go get coffee by yourself.
But what you can figure out is an attitude, and
I'll help you with that. You know what's really cool
(51:33):
about travel? Have you ever noticed when you go to
a completely new city or place, you see more alert.
That's your brain coming online because it's a new place.
That predictive brain I just mentioned, all of a sudden
comes online and says I'm in a new environment. I
don't know this, I need to understand it. Travel does
(51:53):
more to increase neural activity, create new neural connections just
because you're rain without you explicitly sitting here saying okay,
time to kick ahad does it automatically? Notice everywhere you
go somewhere new and different, your brain becomes more active,
more aware, and more alert and expands literally more energy
(52:14):
because it needs to understand this environment. That's the great
thing about travel as well. So thank you for spending
time with me. This is the beginning of many conversations.
I know. Well, I thank you, Daniel, It's been extraordinary. Well,
I had a good time. I hope you did too.
(52:36):
If you'd like to reach us, go to Everywhere Podcast
on Instagram, everywhere pot on Twitter, all the website, everywhere
podcast dot com. I'm Daniel Scheffler signing off. I'll be
seeing you everywhere
Everywhere News
Host
Daniel Scheffler
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
1. The Podium
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
2. In The Village
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.