Welcome And Guest Introduction

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Welcome to the Where Shall We Meet podcast. Our guest this week, back for more, is Alistair Campbell, who is, most obviously, the co-host of The Rest is politics with Rory Stewart.

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His new book is Per Civilians, the word the world needs now, which went straight into the Sunday Times bestseller list. In it, he coins a word for the ability of an individual, group, or organization to turn any situation, setback, or meaningful experience into a positive opportunity to grow, to advance and secure their core interests. His case is that perseverance and resilience are both negative, defensive ideas, and that our time calls for a more positive mindset built on belief and integrity. The book makes his political analysis with personal reflection on grief, disappointment, mental health, friendship, family, love, and more.

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Alistair was Tony Blair's press secretary from 1994 and then director of communications and strategy in Downing Street from 1997 to 2003. Before that, he was a political journalist for the Daily Mirror. In 1986, he had a psychotic breakdown, and since then he has campaigned on depression and mental health. His other books include several volumes of diaries, Winners and How They Succeed, Living Better, How I Learned to Survive Depression, and But What Can I Do. He supports Burnley football team and plays the bagpites quite brilliantly.

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We talk about why he wants to coin a word and have it added in the dictionary.

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What perseverance does that resilience and perseverance don't.

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That life should be easy is the real mindset problem.

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The gap between perception and our reality.

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Why people who hate you online are the loudest.

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Whether labor should stop trying to out-reform, reform.

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The serenity prayer, depression, and feeling everything fully.

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Agency and trying to write your own script.

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Let's begin.

Why Coin A New Word

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Hi, this is Amida Stari.

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And Natasha McElhone, and with us today we have for the second time Alistair Campbell.

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Hey Alistair. How are you?

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Welcome. We've just read your book civilians, which but I've I've just had an epiphany about you. Cool. Can I share it? Yeah, go on. Basically, okay, you want to be in the English dictionary, and you were quite transparent about that. But you also want to be knighted.

unknown 2:48

No.

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Those two things. 100%. That's what I got from the book.

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100% law. 100% law. God, I thought you were really gonna say something profound and interesting that I'd never thought of. How long have I known you?

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Most of my life. Yeah, yeah.

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Uh you surely know me well enough to know that I would never, ever, ever, everything.

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I just thought along with this new word, there may have been a whole Alistair revolution. Low. 100% low.

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Oh my god.

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I think you're gonna say something like it here, guys. I thought you were gonna say something like that.

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He's gonna reject that icon. No, it's not gonna happen. It's never, ever, ever gonna happen. Ever.

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Okay, let's let's catch everybody up what's

Defining Persevilience With Real Examples

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going on. Um, so perseverance, resilience, perseverance. What does the word do that the other two don't?

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It's positive.

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And you think the other two are negative?

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Yeah. Yeah. Perseverance. You never you you've just been talking about nice films, okay? You never ever say, I went to see a great film and I persevered all the way through. Because you're not enjoying it. Perseverance is it's a struggle, it's dure, it's resilience is like this table's resilient. If I bang my head against this table for an hour, it's the table's still gonna be there and my head's gonna be sore. I'll be resilient because I bang my head against a wall for for an hour. So perseverance is it's how do you take the negatives of a person uh of an experience that requires perseverance and resilience and turn it into a positive. And is it here we are today? Two very good examples in politics. Uh, Lula and Bruce. Right, yeah, yeah. Run civilian, yeah. Loses the first round, fuck this for a game of soldiers, motivates enough people to come out and vote. Get good out of bad. The students in Serbia. Right? 14 years, Vucic is in power, they think he's a sort of terrible autocrat, they want to get rid of him, they they mobilise perseviliance. So they haven't seen themselves. I guess you you could say Lula, yes, he's resilient.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yes.

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But but it's more than that. So it's that's what it is. It's it's turning those things that I think are negative into a positive.

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First of all, the wonderful chapter about Finland and that word. Yeah.

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Sisu, yeah.

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Uh a bit like the way that we commandeed hooger, that Danish word for sort of coziness or warmth or whatever. I'd have thought, oh, you could have done that. Like we could just could have that. We could use that word. We could. Because it's very difficult to spell.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

What perseverance? Yeah. No, it's not. It's really not. That's two really silly things you've said, ladies. Knighthood, ladies. It's really hard to spell. Spell persevere.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

No, I okay. Well, I mean, it's possible, but it's just hard. Okay.

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So what I was going on to say is not an Anglo-Saxon word.

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I like Sisu.

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I love the Cisu.

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Yeah. I mean, it's lovely to have new words, isn't it? Don't you think of that already exist, that are ancient, and that we can, but we're we're not Finns.

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I look I become a good thing.

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But you're celebrating a Finnish quality, a sort of thing.

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The great thing about Sisu, I think, the this your listeners should know, is a Finnish word that sort of means grit, it sort of means resilience. But what's interesting when you talk to Finns about it, it kind of means whatever people want it to mean. Whereas perseverance is what I want it to be.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Okay, no, no, no, no, no, but I think we've intro introduced words like Zeitgeist and Schadenfreude and all these things as well, right? They're existing German words. Yeah. Cisu is is completely. Oh, we see what you mean, yeah. Yeah. So we try to.

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Cisu might be in the dictionary for all I know. Okay. It's been around a long time.

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What I was going to go on to say was just the things for me that are contradicting themselves is you say, Oh, listen, I I want to do away with perseverance and resilience on their own. I want to combine the two because they've both got great qualities and make this word, because they're a bit joyless. Then you proceed throughout the book to talk about how it's really important not to chase happiness and to find a sort of state or a way of being and living that's about meeting challenges and turning them into generative experiences thereafter. So why are you trying to make this word that you say is so much more positive? Because I feel like on the one hand, you're almost kicking against our current culture of trying to make everything softer, everything's about, you know, your comfort or not uh I'm definitely not saying that. Yeah.

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But No, I the the what I'm trying to say, it's not that it's not difficult, it is difficult. So you know, and some of the examples I give, I talk about my friend Lindsay, who's just had so much kind of grief and trauma, right? So that's been really difficult, and it's still very difficult. But somehow she's managed to keep her mind and her life in a place that she can she can always cling to positives. Even when it's as dark as her saying that the reason she's never taken her own life is because the people she's lost value life more than anything. So that's it's not that it's easy. I'm not saying, oh, you know, everything's gonna be easy. On the contrary, I I actually I agree with the premise of your question. I think we've got a real mindset, cultural mindset problem that we do think life should be easy. We do think we should get everything on a plate, and life has never been like that and it never will.

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But I think this is Well rather than we're being told that that's what we should think. I I think everyone's own experiences prove that that isn't the case. So therefore

Polycrisis Anxiety And The Mindset Trap

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they feel sort of alienated and disenfranchised because we're meant to be with whatever algorithm you're following in your phone or looking at.

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Or apparently, telling you.

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Yeah.

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So this book is for the times. It was never thus.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

I think it is. I because I I think I think there's so much happening in the world that wasn't happening before. I talk I start right at the beginning, I talk about polycrisis. Now look, there's always been challenges, but I don't think you've ever had so many come together at the same time and give people a feeling of existential threat. Climate's the most important thing.

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So Blitz Spirit was easy because we came together over but more focused and less confusing.

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Look, we're seeing this now. One of the reasons I say Finland is the most perseviliant nation on earth is because of the population of five million, they've got almost a million military reservists.

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Yeah.

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Because they understand that the threat from Russia is real. I saw a poll in the UK the other day, it was something like 50% said they would under no circumstances they would fight. So the Blitz spirit, it was real. People came together. Uh, they all understood that they needed to be on the same side of an argument. I think today that's very difficult for any argument. And even in Finland, there are, you know, there are a pretty small number, but there are conscientious objectors who just refuse to take part in this. But I think I think the the sense, the reason why I think it is now, you go through it. Climate change, AI, the fact that this is the first gener, you know, your kids' generation is the first growing up without any even remote guarantee that they're going to be better off than you. That's the first time that's happened. I think that is the driver of a lot of the kind of angst that people feel. We feel it on behalf of our kids, and they feel it in their in their real life. So these are all, to me, things coming together that require us to have a different mindset. Otherwise, you get drowned.

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You get I can see the positive of this AI stuff too. You know, I do think in a way, so the the reality is I feel that a lot of this stuff um is just an awareness of things that are happening that we never had before to that extent. I think a lot of crazy things and weird things were happening all over the place in years before. They may have not been as global because we're more interconnected. You know, uh there is uh interactions between faraway places in our our world, right? And that wasn't the case 50 years ago because the world was not in the world.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Let's just go back to the time when the biggest fear in the world was that America and the Soviet Union were not. Yeah, exactly. Cold War, you know, yeah, okay, Cuba crisis. And so that that was the big fear. Yeah. Okay. Now, one, that would have been horrific. Yeah. It wouldn't have wiped out humanity necessarily. It might it could have led to that, but it but when you have the reason I say I AI, yeah, two reasons. You're right that it, you know, we keep hearing they'll find a cure for cancer. Well, bring it on then, but I haven't seen much sign of it yet. But there's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of science. There's a lot of stuff. But my point is that when you have the architects of it, on the one hand, in many cases, the same people who have given us the social media revolution, which I think has been a catastrophe for the world, and secondly, are saying themselves there is somewhere between some say five, some say ten, some say 20% chance of us wiping out humanity. Yeah. All I'm saying is I think that is good reason to be worried.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah, 100%. Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

No, no, no. So what you're doing is persevilient. You're basically saying, well, I'm going to look at the positive. Right. Okay. I'm doing a different form of perseverance, which is to say, at a time of potential polycrisis for the next for the young people, our responsibility, all of us, is actually to think about how we avoid this polycrisis overwhelming their lives. So that's a persevilient mindset as well.

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So it all depends what the condom inches of news and information you're looking at, as you know, and how supported it is, where the data's from, where the stats are, what what poles you're looking at, whether they're even human poles or bot polls. And one of my biggest bugbears is that we just constantly hear this very, very negative narrative about how this new generation will never supersede their parents' economic success. It's like w one, is that the only metric by which to find happiness or to progress or look at all that they have access to. I agree. No, but I'm we're I don't know. I mean I mean look at Grace and how she has my daughter. I mean she does and was doing when she was incredibly young all these innovative things with this technology and getting people to come and see her shows.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

There are massive opportunities there. I'm simply making the point. You know, the question was whether it's worse than before. And I'm simply saying Look, clearly our lives are so much better in so many ways. Okay. And and not least the access to opportunity and culture and tech, and so there's so much more that we didn't have before. I'm simply making the point that there are a number, I think a large number now, of relatively new factors, perhaps old factors in new form. There's always been technology, but the technological development now is so quick and it's alarms a lot of people. We now have a breed of political leadership that, you know, we've not really had since the pre-democracy.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Uh well, we have had Nixon and these type of people before, right? Of course, they're not the same thing. I agree with you.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

No, so I'm you know, I we probably agree. I I'm not saying that. And by the way, one of the things I try to do about young people, I don't buy the idea that this is a snowflake generation that doesn't know what it's doing, that's addicted to the things. I don't buy that at all. The fact that that is a general view of them, and sometimes that is their view of themselves, that is what I'm trying to things I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

I completely agree with that.

Perception Versus Reality In Media

SPEAKER_00 14:17

I think that the only point to make here is that we should discount the general dread and negativity by the amount of amygdala hacking that is happening to get our attention to make money off of it. Yeah. Right? I mean, I think that's basically what I'm trying to say. Is like, sure, everything you say, fine, but let's take 30% off the top because like there's a lot of stuff that is done to us. Russia's misinformation bots. We know this stuff, right? Like, we know what they say about the London Shakira law that's gonna happen here, and MAGA people say as well. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. MAGA people and probably driven by some bots here and there, whatever it is, and that we live in a crime hellhole. All this stuff is not true, but this perception is still hanging over us. And I have some really good, like educated friends that are afraid of going around in London, you know, because again, the perception that is created does not fit the reality, and that's all all we're saying, basically.

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I get and I agree with that. And also it's terrible. I mean, London, which is I still think I think it was yet again voted the city of the world.

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Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Right, there's London.

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Yeah.

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You've got the Russians pumping this stuff out about the you know, you can't walk down the street without being stabbed. Yeah. You've got the Americans pumping this stuff out that it's a as you say, Islam is Islamist Muslim hellhole. Yeah, uh, with this, you know, this brown-skinned mare that Donald Trump has a weird fixation with. So I'm saying that the persevilient mindset does not say absorb that, it says challenge that. Right. It says push back on that and actually try to get out a sense of a of a reality. Fine. We're on the same page. We agree. We agree. We agree. Well, that's really would you take a day hood?

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I mean, I what I'm taking about this interview so far is that we really want this to be day with Asha Bachel.

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But so, I mean, we are talking about this generation, and you brought it up, which I think is good. But do you then believe that like previous generations that had to go through more adversity were more trained to be per-sevilian? Or is it is it something that we need to teach? Is it a skill?

SPEAKER_02 16:17

I think it's a mindset. Um, and I think it I think it can be developed for sure. Whether you can teach it, you can't just say teach it. It's like people say, Can you teach resilience in schools? But you can you can certainly teach people about situations that require it and people who demonstrate it. And that's one of the things I try to do in the book, show different ways of demonstrating it.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

But that's the point. Your book, it feels like it clarion called to something from yesteryear that maybe we've lost because perhaps there isn't enough adversity and perhaps we're not being challenged enough. It's sort of the opposite of all the woes that you've just said. It's poor generation coming in. There are a lot of challenges.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

There are a lot of challenges. We look when you and I went to school, we didn't have to walk past people sleeping on the streets. I don't remember it. I don't remember that. Do you?

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Yes, of course.

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Or you're younger than I am.

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I mean, of course.

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Yeah?

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Oh well I well, I think it's worse than ever. I think it's worse than ever. I think there's an well, put it this way, I think there's an acceptance of things that we would have considered highly abnormal. And so if something's there that you think is abnormal or wrong, my point is we all have agency and the ability to challenge that. The book starts really with politics. And in fact, it started out almost entirely political, it became something very, very different. But I think we have uh a number of very, very high profile, quite powerful, strong political leaders around the world who basically want to destroy our agency, want to make us think feel that we're powerless to make change. And that's why I say Lula, and uh that's why you say why I say Mark Carney, why I say Albert Azy winning again, why I say all the check, why I say Andy, I start with, you know, Andy Burnham is become Prime Minister. Extraordinary kind of act of perseverance in many ways, because he's he's taken out a serving prime minister with a huge majority, because he's decided, and I think he was probably right, that if this goes on like this, the Labour and in his view the country are going to a very, very bad place. We've got to stop it. That's perseverance.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

But you don't think Kier is persevilient. I think he had resilience. You see, if we had looked at Keir after he came in and won the election, you may have called him persevilient.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

I would probably, because if perseverance is g is taking any bad situation and getting good out of it, he did that.

SPEAKER_04 18:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, yeah, he stayed the course. He came. So yeah, I probably would. So a post factum, you can change your mind. That's true. That is definitely true, and that and that is but you know, isn't that everything's like that? You can you can analyze after the event. But let me tell you, there were definitely people who were saying at the time this isn't gonna work. Andy Burnham was one of them. Right. I talked to him about it at the time, and he said this isn't gonna work because they don't get politics. And so there were always doubts. There were doubts from day one, does he have a plan? Right. Um now we're yet to see fully what Andy Burnham's plan is. He keeps telling me we've got this 10-year plan. But and I say in the book, you know, it's early days for Andy Burnham. No, you do.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

And also you say that you didn't recognise or see early signs of him being a leader. But that is what I love about your whole book is that life is full of surprises if you allow them to happen. Don't make assumptions about because this and this and this have happened, the rest is going to be shit.

SPEAKER_05 19:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

And I feel that's what our media does is it says if you can't afford to buy a flat or to rent a flat, it's over and you should be angry and you should rise up. Well, I I just find that messaging is so incredibly not just negative, but it does the opposite of what's the opposite of galvanizing? It just it's it's exhausting, this tsunami of some of my kids' friends who seem incredibly optimistic, they sort of say, you know, it's it's very difficult to say that you feel really positive and excited and optimistic about the future because people sort of think you're silly or you're not really tuned in. I don't want to tune in because I find half of what I have to tune into just isn't true. A lot of the amplification is from quite a a certain mindset. And there's another mindset which is just out there getting shit done and doing things and not partaking in this narrative.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

But you know what's what's um interesting when I'm out and about talking to people and I do all these events and you know, business and schools and colleges, and you can have a conversation because of the media landscape in which we're in. So social media, negative, negative, negative, most of the mainstream media, negative, negative, negative, Trump, nightmare, Putin, nightmare, climate change, nightmare, all this stuff. And that all comes up. Okay. And I try and be positive and persevilient, but it can get quite down, okay. And at the end, I always say, or you know, I say a lot of the time, okay, we've had a pretty dark, depressing conversation. Hands up who's broadly happy with their own life. Virtually everybody puts their hand up. And I think it's this disconnect between the world that we live in, where even with big challenges, a lot of people have good lives, and a and a narrative in our media and our politics that is relentlessly negative. Absolutely. So that's the disconnect. And essentially what I'm trying to say, and and by the way, as somebody who's been in journalism and then in politics, I've been as, you know, as much a driver of that negativity at times. You know, when we were trying to get rid of the Tories, we just negative negative.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

Just highlight everything that was wrong. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Yeah. And when and when I was a journalist, you know, bad bad news sensor. Looking for bad things, yeah. Yeah. So once you escape that, and here's the here's the upside. I mean, the downside of the this book I've just been reading about the the way that sort of screens are killing our reading and our capacity for long-form reading and newspapers dying, etc. There's an obvious downside to that. The upside, in a way, is that if you don't want to, you can escape the the the disconnect by escaping the media landscape.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

I mean Fiona, you know, Fiona, my pilot, she's not been on social media now for years. And and I will mention stuff. She hasn't got a clue what I'm talking about. Because now she knows all the big stuff that's going on. Of course. She knows that Lula won the election. She knows that Serbia's just had a change. She knows that Andy Burnham's, you know, just been on Breakfast Telly talking about Europe again. Right. But she doesn't know all this stuff that she probably doesn't lead to. The shit on social media.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

And I think it's by and large true that the digital twin that we've created about the world is as evil as possible as the twin. Right? Like it's not the reflection. I think what's happened is that we frayed proximate social connections for these digital friends and people that we have in our lives. And those digital places that we occupy are anonymous and pseudonymous, and all these people can be the worst selves. And that becomes a reality while our proximate social networks that have been frayed that we no longer occupy and we're no longer part of as much are actually still very normal places. You know, when you speak to somebody on the tube, they won't jump your jump at you. You know, they're actually pretty decent human beings. Even if you feel like you actually have a walk around with a t-shirt that says immigrant, and like a person is probably of uh different. By the way, he's wearing a t-shirt that says immigrant. Of course, if the podcast was filmed, we know that would be right. Um, and so even if you they're of a different political, they won't jump at you, they won't do the things that they will do online.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

So well, and to that point, I remember this is when social media was nascent, but being with you when you had a job that was influential and that we had a lot of haters and obviously a lot of supporters, but the haters definitely had a much greater presence. Yeah. Or just they were more vocal and they got a lot more coverage. And I remember being being so surprised if I got on a bus with you or we went for a cup of tea or something. The number of people that came up and wanted to shake his hand and just say, I love what you said the other day about that. Uh, can you tell Blair from me? Blah blah blah blah blah. They would they would entrust their opinions, their thoughts, they would solicit your idea. It was extremely you couldn't move.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

That's what I mean by the disconnect. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 24:43

That but that's I'm just highlighting when you list all the woes, that is not what I see as lived experience.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

That's exactly my point. No, I yeah, I agree. No, and the the it's it's interesting, you know, and I I I I write in the in the book about how look, the there are haters, okay? There are real haters, and there are people who really, really want to do damage to you. Um but most people are not like that. And it's funny you talk about the tube.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Rory Stewart was telling a story the other day about a friend of his who came from South Africa, uh, I think it was South Africa, and he got on the tube, but he went around and shook everybody by the hand because he thought that's what you did when you come and talk about someone shake each other's hands. He went on the tube. And as people thought it was a bit weird at an eccentric, but they didn't beat him up.

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

So, no, I I think the I think this, but but this thing about a kind of is it possible to have because you where you where I agree with you, I think our media culture, exacerbated by social media, exacerbated by this war that's being waged against us by all sorts of different forces, is deliberately trying to make us feel more negative about our own selves and our country. And secondly, is trying to deny us any sense of agency. And what I'd say to people, and this is why I love going to schools, because actually kids get this. They they if you give them permission to have agency, they'll seize it. Yeah. Um but I think too often they feel they can't. So Yeah. What about a damehood? You didn't answer. Would you take one?

SPEAKER_03 26:17

It's just like such a non-secretary talking about it.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

Yeah, I know, but you know, you started with a non-secretary.

SPEAKER_03 26:22

Oh no, but you've written about it.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

What about knighthood?

SPEAKER_03 26:25

Yeah. When? In your book.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

No, I haven't.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Should we look it up? I don't know if it's about knighthood, but it's about Charles's speech.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Oh, is this where I say that I've given up the Republican fight? Yeah, but that isn't to get a knighthood. That's that's Sisu. That's Sisu. That's you've got to know you've got to know when to give up. I've got a lot of fights on that I'm still fighting.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yes. So yeah, the the point was that you uh have decided that it's a benign thing and that you don't need to fight it anymore. Actually, that it has some beneficial aspects of the case.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Well, I'm just saying, but that might just be me giving myself an excuse not to rage against it as much as I'd I have done through most of my life.

SPEAKER_05 27:04

Yeah.

Institutions That Build Better Rules

SPEAKER_02 27:05

But I and I do think I thought it was I just thought it was interesting. I I I I sat down and I thought, right, I've done a persevilient country, Finland. Yeah. And perseverant people, I've done persevilient politicians, I've done perseverance in myself, mental health. And then I thought about institutions. And I just so I actually had a short list. Um and do you know what? There weren't that many. There weren't that many that I could really think of. Alcoholics Anonymous was an obvious no-brainer to me. But I think the thing about the the monarchy is it is unbelievably persevilial. People think it never changes, it changes all the time, it adapts, it weaves. And I do think his speech in Congress was just superb people.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

And I loved your analysis of it as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

Um no, and and also it was it was the moment when I thought, I actually thought this listen, this idea that once the queen dies, it's all over, forget it.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

They've adapted. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

The Queen would never have made that speech.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

She would never have made that speech. She'd have done something very different, and people would have been hugely.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

It was very playful, actually. I mean, since it was uh Oscar Wilde, who was it that said you you telling people they should go to hell and they should enjoy the ride, something along those lines, right? Like that it was that, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:18

It was just like And also it was the theatre. It's like, you know, there was JD Vance. JD Vance, I think, was the only person that remembered. Okay, he knew what was going on. Idiot was going on. But at no point did I say, please might have a nighthood.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

No, I know. I was teasing you. It was a team. I'm teasing you.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

On AA, though, because you you brought up AA as a second uh institution that you think is per civilian. Um one of the big tenets of AA is actually patience, right? And the serenity to accept things that you cannot control. Yeah. Which I do think is antithetical to your general kind of philosophy. It is, yeah. How do you square that circle?

SPEAKER_02 28:54

I square that circle by saying that the organization and its principles are persevilient. It's an extraordinary thing. And and I just love the story. I guess it's also I'm trying to say this quality can produce amazing things and it can start from literally next to nothing.

SPEAKER_04 29:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Like if that guy Two guys. Two guys. One guy gets off a plane, he's trying to stay sober, he's desperate for a drink, he asks around, he looks up churches, he looks up all these places to the people at the hotel, do you know anybody's trying not to drink? He finds this guy, and that's Bill and Bob, and they get together, and from that, there are literally right now as we speak, thousands and thousands of people around the world who are having to be patient, who are having to be serene. My point is that has stemmed from what I call a kind of extraordinary act of persevilience.

SPEAKER_03 29:50

A lot of people that are in the rooms say, why can't government structures be like this? Why can't we find a way to rule ourselves in some kind of citizens' assembly that's formed like this is not a hierarchical.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Well, I'm a great believer in citizens' assembly. I I think we should have them for different things. I I don't think you could govern on a principle of AA. But I think the the the value of people just contributing or as little or as much as they want to a discussion at a different point, knowing that everybody in the room is, you know, to to greater and lesser degree confronting the same things, but all in completely different ways. It's just I think it's just it's a phenomenon. And also the Al-Anon thing as well.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

I mean, like, you know, right write in the book about But how much of it do you think is that it's not transactional in terms of that there's no money involved principally? I mean, I'm sure there's money involved for renting things. But but basically you're not paying anyone to listen to you or you're not asking about it. That's my point. It's m money it has to be Yeah. One of the separators. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Yeah. But I think the other thing is is that look, it doesn't mean that by the way, you don't necessarily have difficult conversations in there, or that there aren't personality clashes and all that stuff. It's not like it's a kind of panacea and and also Well, that would be dishonest.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

I mean, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about being able to have healthy, vibrant discussions where we disagree and people grow through that disagreement and then think differently than they did before, right? Or they hear and witness someone's experience and their prejudice melts away because when that person walked into the room, they thought there were a certain set of things that they turned out not to be, etc. etc. I mean, but it's I think, yeah, the two things. I think listening and being forced to listen, which a lot of people in the room maybe didn't before. They just like to speak. And secondly, the the lack of it being anything to do with money or something.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

I think what what I like about it is that it's um declaratively describing a different rule set for engagement. You know, the thing is like I feel we miss this. Like, for instance, churches are similar, right? Uh or places of worship as well. You enter that space and there's a different rule set for engagement that is implicitly explained through the tenets of that religion. And we have very few places in communities that are as explicit about a different rule set being applied in this space. And I think doing more of that, like having spaces where the rule set is explicitly uh, you know, forced upon people in a way of engagement with each other, can create so much more beautiful interactions between people. And we don't have many of those places that well, we have far fewer than we did.

SPEAKER_03 32:38

Because that's one of the big regrets about social media, is that that was never thought about enough.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

No, people think that is the you know, even the word friend, you know, Facebook friend. Well, they're not friends, they're people who you just decided to follow on a social network. No, I I think and uh what I the other thing I love about AA is just the the people are everywhere. You know, and they go out, they go in a room, then they go out, and then they're just sort of I just they're part of society as everything. I think it's one of the greatest things that has ever been achieved by two people meeting.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Yeah, yeah, you may have to be. And you don't think psychedelics are involved.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

How do you feel stoicism relates to per civilians?

Mental Health Tools And The Jam Jar

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Oh, I I got asked that this morning.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Oh yeah, okay, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

That's uh learned of it. Um I well I guess this is me hanging on to the idea of more positivity. Is stoicism kind of you know Stoicism to me feels a little bit you've got to take what you're given.

unknown 33:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

And you've got to you've got to So it's more the perseverer, resilient style of approach to life. And and so but I get it. I get the the I get why people can see that see the the parallel. I just feel we're in this this mindset, it's not a crisis, we're in a mindset problem. And and what I've learnt in relation to my own mental health, and it took me a long, long, long time to learn it, is there's so much we can do to change our own mindset. Right. And I'm thinking if I can do that as an individual.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Oh, it's the absolute superpower.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

You're your jam jar. My jamjar, and and just the whole my my whole approach to how I think about my mental health.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

And describe your jamjar just through.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

So my jamjar is um or the psych uh was it a psychiatrist who it was uh a geneticist who who I was interviewing about depression, and she said at the end it was about a documentary about depression. I was asking her about whether it's genetic, and that was the the purpose I was there, she was in Canada. Uh and then at the end, and I've normally got a really good radar for people with depression. She wasn't on my radar at all. So at the end she said, So how do you deal with your depression to me? And I said, Oh, well, I see a psychiatrist and I take pills. Oh, okay. She said, Because I get very dead depression. And I was like, Oh, really? Just called Janine. Really? You do? Yeah, I do, yeah. I said, How do you deal with it? And she said, I've got a jam jar. And she said, She's the one, she's the author of my jam jar. So the jam jar, see if this podcast was filmed, I'd be able to show this to the people now, but never mind.

SPEAKER_03 35:12

You're allowed to say that three more times and then. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

How many times I was gonna say the day would you just keep I think you're doing it a lot, but you're not getting a response.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

But you're uh you're a good journalist, so you'll keep going.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

So there's my jam jar, and at the bottom of the jam jarsted is your genes. Nothing you can do about that. It's just sediment in the jam jar. The rest is your life, and your life, all of us have literally billions of experiences and billions of thoughts and billions of stuff that happens. And the big stuff stays in, good and bad. Okay? Births, death, marriages, crises, happiness, all the big moments stay in there, and some of the other fluffy stuff as well. Most of the time we're coping and we're managing to keep our life under control. When it gets too much, the jam jar explodes. And that is when we get ill. And she said we spend all our time trying to undo what's in the jam jar. When actually what we should do is grow the jam jar. And I didn't really fully understand it. Um, and but about five days later, I was back in London, woke up in the middle of the night, I've got it, I understand it. In fact, weirdly, because I was asked about this as well this morning by somebody else, they said, Would I send them the picture of my jam jar?

SPEAKER_03 36:30

No your maison described it in the book, but it's not okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

My born my mom is the real jam jar on my desk. But this is the one that I drew, and I've got to tell you, it's it's faintly obscene. Show us I mean I'm first saying we can. Oh, okay, yeah. Okay. Jeans, life, then it goes FFF, going to family friends, MA, meaningful activity, sleep diet exercise, then it's the personal stuff, Burnley Football Club, Bagpipes, my dog, my bike, etc. Music, curiosity, creativity. And I've got all these things. I'm right at the top before I've got to psychiatrist medication. And since I've done that, and since I've got my word, it could be just age and life being in a different place, but my depression, I still get depressions, I still but the it's just I've just got it under control before in a way I never did before. And I think that was a turning point. So that's like, you know, and it it's it's and what it what it means is now when I get a depression coming on, yeah, I I just I just do things in relation to all the things that I know I've helped before.

SPEAKER_05 37:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Um the the thing about stoicism in the traditional sense, I know we kind of uh took the word in various different directions in the modern sense, is that you should feel everything fully. Your response can also be to weep. That is absolutely fine. It's not that stoics are supposed to not weep or keep it all in. Matter of fact, you can respond to it with your full range of emotions because life is to be fully lived, uh, but you then move on, knowing full well that that is what you're supposed to do.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

That these things defined like that is very similar. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

I think that's what I wanted to say. Does perseverance allow you to also take life at the full range of emotions and feel it? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:20

Yeah. Oh yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

And and but but I think the thing I often feel is the only things we can actually control as individuals are what we think. And even then, it's not always the case, but what we think, what we say, and what we do, and what we and what we do and what we say about what we do. That's nothing else. Okay? So as long as you understand that as you do that, there are going to be big setbacks. And also, I mean, I've got a chapter in the book about grief. I I just think grief is such a fundamental part of who we are. And it and it gives us, I mean, you know, talking to you, it gives us some of the worst moments of our lives, and yet then it becomes the foundation of something bigger. I I I've been amazed how much uh how many one, how many people I've lost, but how much I still feel them in my life.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

I I I just want to go back to we can control what we think. I I think I disagree with that.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

Okay. No, I I don't normally say that. Why did I say that? I normally say say and do, but I threw in things.

SPEAKER_03 39:28

I I'm just really thinking about it.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Well, we could put it this way.

SPEAKER_03 39:31

We what goes on inside our head Well, it's the Sam, it's the how can influence you. That homunculous thing that right from the beginning of the day, and I'm sure it's manifest greatly in depression, where the the negative talk or the negative voice in one's mind, which could be called thought, is telling you how useless you are, how hopeless you are. And you it's very hard to control that.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

Yeah, no, I in fact I I retract that. You're allowed. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Yeah. I don't I wouldn't retract that.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

I mean no, wait a minute. Most of the time, most of the time, most of the time, we can control what goes on in our head. I think what we hold to control. Sometimes we can't.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Yeah, I mean, listen, we don't have to talk about the moments of uh mania or like you know, um where we're super impulsive or something, that those are extreme states. And in a normal state, I do get to choose what I want to hold on to, you know, as as a as a as a am I gonna be am I the ADHD brain or am I the person that is a little bit like overly jumpy here and there and can actually come up with a lot of different ideas and the spot and like moves around a bit too much, right? Like you can choose which which uh label you want to apply, and I think that is actually a superpower, and that in itself is generative.

SPEAKER_03 40:46

Choosing a label or self-identifying as something or not choosing it or dodging it, I still don't think that's thought in one's mind that does run rampant and cause so many issues for human beings, and that that's what makes us so complicated, and what makes AI are trying to align or trying to align AI to us is a nonsense.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

No, some of my worst times have actually been when I'm clearly unable to control what I think. Of course. Yeah, particularly when I can't sleep. Of course. And my mind is literally racing in. It's a compulsive thing, right? But even then, even then now, with my jamcha, with my perseverance, I think I'm better at being honest with myself. This is happening.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

And it's happened before.

SPEAKER_03 41:36

It's like that happiness curve, isn't it? After 60 people report being a lot happier. Isn't that just to do with how many times you have been around the circuit and you're able to recognize these signs earlier and earlier and earlier?

SPEAKER_00 41:50

I would say it's more like, you know, on you unlock levels as you live. Right? In the beginning, you live as a teenager. I was talking about this, like as a teenager, you just live inside your own head and you do what you think. And all of a sudden you realize, okay, this other person has an opinion on what I say as well. And then society has an opinion on what I say. And then uh I actually start questioning whether society's opinion on something is right or wrong, and whether the other person's thinking about me is right or wrong, and how I want to be and how I am, and where there's a gap, and I want to, you know, these are all things that we unlock over time. It's not that it's there, and I think you've when you age, you obviously unlock the levels. And when you unlock this level where you can say, okay, this is what's something that's happening, but I have the metacognition to take distance from it, let it happen, and let it pass me by. I can see myself going through it, but I don't have to identify with this, what's happening right now. That's I think the the the level that you unlock eventually. And not everybody can unlock it.

SPEAKER_03 42:45

You mentioned in your book, because you have spoken a lot about your breakdown, the early one, in that kind of changed the course of a lot of how you approach life and you know your habits. But also just it seemed to me to change your relationships really dramatically. That someone said to you, Do you think you hearken back to that? Both Jenna and my sister said that. Okay, both of them. Okay. They're two of your closest relationships. I just wondered if it was like one of those criticisms of someone self-identifying as a depressive or as a this or as a that. Or was it just them thinking, listen, you're not that person anymore. Why are you still carrying that big rucksack around?

SPEAKER_02 43:26

Yeah, yeah. And the answer is because I don't carry it as a big rucksack. Um I carry it lightly and I carry it positively and well. Um It's not baggage. I don't feel baggage, no, I feel empowered by it.

SPEAKER_03 43:40

Uh whereas I think they But without discrediting how serious it was at the time that other people are going to be.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

Yeah, and I understand why they would. I think for my sister, because my brother had a far worse mental illness than me, he had schizophrenia. I think my sister probably thinks you know, not it wasn't that bad in the In that sort of judgment, not she's not being judgmental about it at all, but I think she just feels we've we have carried a lot of baggage on the mental health front. Um, and I think with Fiona, it's just that it happened a long time ago. Why did she go on about it? But the reason I go on about it is because it's it I do feel like you're here now, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and it feels fundamental. And as I say in the book, you know, it was also I thought my career was finished, I thought Fiona would leave me, I thought my health was going to be like this forever, I thought it was schizophrenia, because you know, I thought why would Donald get it and I didn't?

SPEAKER_05 44:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:34

So all of that's going on, and I just it it's it's a yardstick in a way for how well I do now and how lucky I am now.

SPEAKER_03 44:42

And that maybe it was propulsive. It was, no doubt about it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

Yeah. But the the day itself when I had the breakdown was like probably the worst day ever.

SPEAKER_03 44:53

You describe it really brilliantly in this book, um, and I've heard the story you know a few times.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

But I think Rory about the book, I think you brought it up as well, which I thought was really good by removing your chat with Rory about the interview, yeah. Yeah, Rory's a really well.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

But don't listen to that because it's not nearly. There's a podcast called the Russians Politics. Yeah, exactly. It's the number one podcast. Nobody cares about

When Power Lacks Integrity

SPEAKER_03 45:13

that one.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

No the thing that is interesting that you bring up in the book that we haven't touched on yet is that evil people can also be per civilian.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

Yeah, but I've reflected on this. Okay, tell me. If I've reflected on this with the help of quite a few people, I did an interview on Newsnight and I talked about how look, I hate Trump, I hate what he stands for, Putin's clearly evil, but you have to say if you're you've been in power 25 years in Russia, 26, you've got perseverance, and Trump, you know, to have lost an election, still denied it. And anyway, somebody wrote quite a few people got in touch and say it said, no, because this is what we put it really well. She said, as I read it, your definition of perseverance is getting good out of bad. He gets bad out of good. That's so true. That's so true. What I'll try I need to recalibrate this is they have many of the characteristics to associate with perseverance, but the most important, getting good out of bad, they fail on that.

SPEAKER_03 46:18

Because just for our listeners, um, this all starts with the heroes like Mandela having perseverance and what he's the patron saint. Exactly. Yeah. Um, so you read and you think, oh my goodness, yeah, and who else is there? And then we go to the street. Trump repeated a Farage, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

But I think you have technically, it is is that a form of perseverance to lose seven elections and keep going? It is. Trump's energy alone. I don't care what drugs he's on, his energy alone at his age is it's an act of perseverance. But I think the values piece and the integrity piece are so important to this.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

That's right. And what I got mostly from the book was just how to live with integrity. I d I mean the new word, I can take it or leave it. The value system. You like it. Yeah, I well, I love the book. Such an easy read for anyone who's thinking about to get someone for Christmas. Yes. Yes, this is all really. But and you cover so much territory in a really gentle way. Um it's sport and it's politics and it's personal. Um But why should it be short? But if we're talking about perseverance, it's the long road, isn't it? It shouldn't be short.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Yeah. But I think there are gonna be offshoots. Okay. No doubt. I think there could be a perseverance book for sport. I think there could be a perseverance book for kids. Yeah, I think that one would be good. I think there could be a I think the thing. Yeah, they could. Yeah, but I'm talking about, you know, primary. Yeah. Yeah. They had kids, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

Yeah.

Politics Media Presence And Reform Pressure

SPEAKER_00 47:50

And so there's this uh Yids quote The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. You know, when we talk about Trump and Farage and all those guys, right? Uh it just feels like the populist right has that right now and and people in the center are kind of lacking it. Do we need to get more persevilient in the centre or oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

And also, I see this is what I think. I do think Andy Burnham is is doing something really quite interesting. So when we had Jeremy Hunt on a podcast called The Rest is Politics, um, and he said something really interesting, which I've thought about a lot, because this is when Keir Starmer was Prime Minister, and he said he said Keir Starmer needs to take a leaf out of Donald Trump's book. No, wait a minute, wait a minute, bear with, bear with. He said, I don't mean by lying, I don't mean all the bullying, I don't mean all the sort of making up nonsense, but he is ever present in the conversation. And I think in the modern age, leaders have to be ever present in the conversation.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

And that Andy Burnham is what do you mean ever-present? He doesn't listen to anyone.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

No, no, he's everywhere. He's everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

Oh, I see. Sorry, sorry. I was saying he's the leader's present whenever I've seen him filmed having a conversation. Oh no, he doesn't listen.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

What he says is in our conversation.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

Oh, yeah. Unfortunately, I was hoping we could avoid talking about him.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

That's what I'm talking about, Andy Burnham. So Andy Burnham at the moment is ever present in the conversation. Yes. You know, you wake up this morning on breakfast telly again. Yeah. And he was on your pod as well. He was on the broadcast and and said something consequential about Russia. But you don't Yeah, that was, I think, a big moment, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

But that that's why I and I'm never say this kind of thing about what my allegiances are politically, because I don't really have any. I just I try and take the best out of whatever anyone's offering. But I did feel that Keir Starmer, the reason why he wasn't ever present on the media is because he was actually doing some friggin' work. Yeah. Work takes time and it takes focus and attention and concentration. How can you be flying all over the place with your face on TV shows if you're really doing the work? I don't understand it.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

Well, because I think it is part of the work, I'm afraid, whether you like it or not.

SPEAKER_03 50:03

I think in the modern age it's a part of it, but there still has to be real work going on under the table.

SPEAKER_02 50:08

And it has to be going on and uh and I'm pretty confident it is, but I was worried at the start because it felt a bit flimflam. And I talked, I was talking before we did the podcast with her, I was talking to one of his communications people, sort of you know, you're talking about Burnham now and logistics and all that stuff. And I said, Are you worried about this? The Tories calling him the TikTok Prime Minister. And they said, Do you know what we do? We have the tick the social media team get 10 minutes in his diary every day. And we have a few ideas, he has a few ideas, and we film a couple of films and we pump them out. Yep. Uh, and I think that's you have to do that. Effectively, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's an effective form of communication. Yeah, yeah. So and and the the thing is at the moment he is in part driving an agenda through the communication. You know, it's interesting, the Brexit thing, he's done it again today. It's like he just keep doing it. Yeah, yeah, very gently, things like that. Keep going. Social care. Just keep on it. So there'll be something in the budget, probably. You know, so I think if Keir tried too much, or his strategy uh was too much about thinking we've lost these people to the right. Okay. Now most a huge proportion of the people who voted reform never voted Labour before and will never vote Labour in the future. Okay. You can get that from the polling. Of course. Some maybe, some maybe. But we've played spent too much time worrying about trying to get get people back that we'd never lost. We lost other people. Yep. And what's happened, I think, is that Labour have stopped trying to outreform reform, the Tories have stopped trying to outreform reform. And as a result, both are doing better. And here's an interesting thing in the in the interview with Andy Burnham. Kemi Badenok's speech at the Tory Party conference, a lot of it was really critical of Andy Burnham and of Labour. Okay, it was a pretty traditional, you know, anti speech. Yeah. When we when we interviewed Andy Burnham, you know, it wasn't it wasn't the interview, it was somewhere where I saw him speaking. The only part of the speech that he mentioned was when he talked about, and I thought she did something really important. Yes, it was with us. It was with us. He said the the really important part of that speech when he attacked reform over over racism and said, you know, don't nobody ever tell me my son's not English. Um and it was interesting how that's the one thing he took out of it. In other words, it ignored all the stuff where he's saying Andy Burnham this, Andy Burnham that. And I just thought that was really clever.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

So I think we're we're getting close to the top of the hour.

Practical Ways To Build Agency

SPEAKER_00 52:36

If we wanted to give people advice how they could become more persevilient, what would you suggest?

SPEAKER_02 52:46

Obviously, get the book for Christmas and read it, read it. I can't believe that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 52:52

This is a manifestation of the thing.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

Take Dame Natasha's advice. Um I mean, I think it's I I I hate answering questions like that. Yeah, I know because it's like you don't know who you're it's a very personal thing, nothing. Yeah, I think so, but I think what I would say is every single one of us has agency. Every single one of us can do something to make our life better without anybody else's help. Every single one of us can care about something, decide what we care about, and make a difference. So I think the important thing is is actually deciding for oneself what are the things I really care about and then really care about them. Um and then do something and show you've got agency. And I think the more you in in little in small things show you have agency, then I think it just becomes a habit. I think you want people I think people in the main enjoy agency, they enjoy thinking, oh I did that. So I think it would be to to identify and seize agency.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

Yeah, I yeah, 100%. I think w a lot of people have become automatons, uh as in you know, they're forced into just reacting uh in a way that is pre-ordained.

SPEAKER_02 54:10

Uh you know, yeah, write your own story, write your own script. That's why I do think the the whole look, I'm as bad as anybody. I've got my phone here, I'll I'll you know I to be fair, I don't have it on at night, I turn it off, but you know, I look at it first thing in the morning, I'm checking it the whole time for this, that, and the other. But I've got better at just thinking that is not real life. You know, write your own real life story over here. That's over there for phone calls, emails, information, stuff you want to see, but root it out yourself. Write your own story, I think is what I'd say.

SPEAKER_03 54:44

I feel like you're not not misrepresenting your book, but maybe I want to add something or reflect something back that I got from it, which was I've read, you know, quite a few of your books. And even though I know you're a socialist, quite often when I hear you talk about certain things, it feels quite individualistic. Okay. Um and I feel actually what I got out of it was the opposite. What I got out of the relationship was commun no, actually acts of service. Like the people that you celebrated most are those who are out there doing stuff for other people, which I don't mean to sound um Yeah, and hectoring or yeah, you know, if you stop looking at how someone else. But I feel like so much of what's turned your life around is actually caring about how these things affect other people.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Yeah, but that's what I mean by write your own story. I didn't mean that write your own story as a No, it's just in case it comes across like that.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

You know, like in the primary schools, it sort of has I rem I just remembered being stunned by this when I was looking around the schools, all the messaging on the walls is you know Individualistic. Yes, it's all about you can realise your dreams, reach for the moon, and you'll hit the stuff. But it's all about you, you, you, you, you. And I I just thought that's very difficult if you've got 30 kids in a class and they're only all thinking about themselves. What does that create? It would it creates some elbowing and some jostling.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

The school song was you belong. Uh it was all about together. I I wasn't meaning to be individualistic about that.

SPEAKER_03 56:12

I I think I don't think you were in the book, is what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 56:14

No, I'm not no, but even when all I said there, when I said write your own story, I didn't mean about yourself, I mean you decide what changes to you. What matters to you and go and make you and change it.

SPEAKER_03 56:24

What and I think it's trying to say to people But when you were talking about clawing one's way out of depression, not only your own, but you were citing other people, whether it was Lindsay or Mandela in jail, like what he knew that he had support outside jail, but he also knew that he had a mission and a cause, and it involved making sure that other people didn't live under this oppressive regime. That that was government. He felt this responsibility for others.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

When the question is what advice would you give to people? That's why I hate the question.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

And it has to have to be starting with the individual.

SPEAKER_02 56:58

Yeah, I think it's because because you know there's only one mandala. Yeah, of course. Uh and and by the way, I think there's an awful lot you can learn from that. Funny enough, um, I was the I got a really nice message today from Jonas Garstora, who's the Prime Minister of Norway, who'd read the book, and he was telling me about he was the first name dropping. It is a slight name-drop, but it's in it relates to what Natasha, Dame Natasha just said. Is he was he was the first foreign uh politician to visit Mandela in jail.

SPEAKER_00 57:30

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 57:31

And he was just sort of describing the whole thing. And so I remember once Tony Blair said to Nelson Matt, there's another name drop. Tony Blair said to Nelson Mandela, they were having an argument about Libya, and Mandela had got out and said some sort of pretty pro-Gaddafi stuff outside of his press conference.

SPEAKER_01 57:47

And Tony said, the trouble is you're such a sage, you can say nobody could criticize you.

SPEAKER_02 57:53

So he's kind of unique. But I think the things I learn I take from him is the the attitude that he took to his own situation. Uh you talk about the team. He he had an amazing team of millions of people around the world, most of whom you'd never meet. And he saw his job as just to be and to inspire them. He decided he learned Afrikaans while he was in prison. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that he could talk to the prison guards and be nice to them. He did a law degree. He he persuaded the other prisoners to do a degree while they're in prison. I mean, just an amazing guy. So he's kind of so I guess my advice to somebody in prison would be do a degree.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

I think what you're also saying is maybe read biographies of people that have had a lot of agency in history and have done really interesting things. That would be another way to get there. The other thing that I would say is implicit in your message is that we have a global view, but we don't have to tackle the global thing. As a matter of fact, a lot of the things that you can do, you can do locally. Oh, yeah. And I think you should maybe consider the global landscape, but do not get overwhelmed by it. Do not have the you don't have to act at that level. You can act at a very, you know, local level, and that's through that that you actually get some forward momentum. Um so that's I guess uh a a starting point anyway.

SPEAKER_02 59:24

You can end up at the global scale, you know, but like well no, it's interesting because Fiona Fiona would say that she she she definitely goes local.

SPEAKER_04 59:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:32

But she's a great example of starting. I remember you talking about her being on the school boards when your kids were little and then continuing on after that. I just think that could be an example. I I know she's not a self-centered person, quite the opposite. But even if someone is doing something for their immediate family or their own interests, that then actually can upscale that and it suddenly you can become useful and you're good at it, then you just stay on do and it becomes a much, much bigger thing than you ever intended. Like so many of your experiences were. You got asked to do something, you got you find it hard to say no, you got cajoled. Ah, there's some resentment about I've got to go to that. You arrive and then you're surprised. And you're football board camp examples. Yeah, that's great. And for sure, in my life, so so many amazing things and connections. And if I've ever helped or been effective in a moment, it's always through something unexpected that I never I never planned or anticipated, and certainly didn't draw out or full of things.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

So say yes is another thing that I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:29

I think say yes until you have to say no.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:31

Well, I think I think the other thing I'd say is just be relentlessly curious about what saying yes might lead to. Partly because of the depression, and partly because I do have a reputation as being a bit kind of grouchy and you know, argumentative and balshy and stuff like that. I think people are probably surprised when I say I broadly have a very positive mindset, and I think it's become more positive over time, and I think I have done a lot myself inside my head to make that the case.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:03

Um and I it might be age, it might be age, I don't know. Used to the thing about when you get over over 60%. I don't know. But I feel I'm the same person, but I think differently. Um and that's because I've used the experience I've got to make myself think differently. And I think that's the other thing I'd say is you can you know be open, even though you, as I say, we can have a lot more control of ourselves, be open to the idea that other other people might be able to help you.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

Um I could I would be absolutely nothing without Fiona. I'd be absolutely nothing in the way I think about things, had it not been for the I can't even remember how many years it was that I had this psychiatrist that I saw regularly. Um and I'd be nothing without the experience I've got. And that's the whole network of people and institutions. And so I think curiosity is incredibly important. I think the other and curiosity, by the way, is part of agency because people the other thing that I think we do, you said it automatically. The other thing we do by sort of thinking that happiness is having a good time and this sort of sc endless scrolling on our phone is interesting when it's not. In the main it's not, is that we we shut out real curiosity. Real curiosity is not looking at one TikTok video and then another one. An opportunity, I think, in a way. The opportunity it brings up, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

Yeah, and it I very much resonate with the idea of the um being an optimist in so many ways, uh, against all odds. I think that's part of persevilience in a way. It's the core tenant of persevilience in a way. It is about being uh an optimist. And I you can only get the good world if you can imagine it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

You you can't get you can't get you accidentally gets to the perfect utopia. You really have to work towards it. And so therefore, you have a have to have a positive vision and a positive attitude towards it to begin with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:58

But look at the way, look at the way Zelensky communicates. I mean, how the hell he does it, it's beyond me. But he does it, he's still there, he's still incredible. He's a positive life form.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

Yeah, that's it. Well, so to summarize, grab the book. Definitely get it as a Christmas present. Get it as a Christmas present.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:16

Wait for the paperback with the Dame Natasha back on her quote on the front cover. It's happening. You said it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:22

Um be open and curious to what's out there. Why blessed.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:27

Learn from setbacks and bad experiences. Right. And and embrace them. Right. Rather than just parking them.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:34

Right. And or by being defeated by them, rather. Yeah. And yeah, read uh Mandela's biography, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

No, read his speeches.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:43

His speeches. I think so, yeah. Yeah. Read his speeches.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:45

Oh, and and read the King Charles speech. You you set homework in your book, you said that.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:49

His Majesty.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

His Majesty. Uh Alsa, it's uh it's a pleasure to have you on. I appreciate that you have come around for the second time. You're our first guest, and uh it's glad you am I the first second timer? Uh no. No. And Maria Popova was. Okay. Yeah. Okay, cool. But uh nonetheless, uh, we really appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:07

Thank you so much.