Joel Monk: [00:00:08] Richard, it's a delight to be with you again. Yeah, you've become a dear soul in my life. And I'm looking forward to exploring today where we go in our topic. We're going to kind of talk about the world and what's unfolding and how are you first of all?

Richard Hames: [00:00:44] We'll solve all the world's problems, Joel. Let's do it. I'm sitting well exceedingly well probably too busy doing a lot of writing, doing quite a bit of mentoring. and trying to figure things out, as usual.

Joel Monk: [00:01:02] We are bringing people's bio into the start of the podcast, let me read out yours a little bit and then I'll see if there's anything you want to add to it to those who don't know who you are. So we'll take from you from it. Yeah, exactly. So Richard is a philosopher activist, futurist, and leadership strategist who has advised government institutions and multinational corporations worldwide for over 30 years. As the founder of the Centre for the Future and the chairman of the Asian Foresight Institute, he is renowned for his deep design approach to profound second-order change, which is based on the integral nature of complex living systems. Richard has authored 27 books, including his latest work Wayfinding: On Navigating Without Maps. So anything you want to

Richard Hames: [00:01:57] Now, if people are really interested to go further, they'd just go to my website and the website for even for me is overwhelming, it's difficult to navigate, but nevertheless.

Joel Monk: [00:02:10] So let me actually read something out that you wrote, Richard. I want to use it as a kind of springboard for where we go today. And so it's, because I really appreciate reading your sub stack and I'll just keep this brief. It's just a couple of paragraphs. So a civilization that's only failing is a different kind of phenomena from the one that is simultaneously failing and metamorphosing. By any external measure the caterpillar in the chrysalis is dissolving, its organs, liquefying, its structure becoming unrecognizable, its previous functional coherence as a caterpillar entirely gone. Someone that didn't know about butterflies observing only the chrysalis would conclude that it was witnessing death. And then the second part, you've gone says, and it's the same with industrial economicism.

Joel Monk: [00:03:03] Could you say more about that, actually? You kind of say, like, could you talk about why this view, why have you written about this view and what's going on right now?

Richard Hames: [00:03:15] I wrote about it primarily because, especially with the young people I talk to, it all are messaging at the moment. is doom and gloom and it goes more than that. It goes more to the substance of how people are feeling about what's happening in the world. There's in a lot of places I think people are anxious, apprehensive. A lot of people seem to be cutting off from friends and family and getting into a state of loneliness and [00:04:02] I think what we need to do is for people to understand that in any complex system collapse, there's also regeneration happening at the same time, it's just difficult to work out where and how that's happening. So in terms of the civilizational model,

Richard Hames: in our world today, which is based on what I call industrial econism, which is more than just predatory capitalism. It's the whole notion of scientific realism, of cutysian logic, of binaries, black and white, left and right in politics and things like that. the cult of the individual in the West with enormous pressure, therefore, on individuals to perform. And then the whole economy of based on more production, more consumption, as a kind of cycle that we can't seem to get out of. [00:05:04] um it's like this giant ferris wheel that seems to be going faster and faster and faster and it seems to be no way of getting off um so with all that going on I felt the need to offer hope of some kind or a different perspective, if not hope, a different perspective, that within any failure with any system collapse, there's always regeneration and renewal and rebirth going on at the same time. So in our history, in the history of homo sapiens on this planet, civilizations have come and gone and new ones have always taken their place. Difficulty now for us is there's nowhere else to go before when civilisations collapsed.

Richard Hames: [00:06:01] There was always somewhere else to go. There was always a distance and over there things were happening well. It was just here that was in a state of collapse. We're now truly in a planetary crisis where you know that the difficulty is that the scale that we've got to deal with and that's unprecedented in terms of civilisation civilisations. So with all of that going on, I just felt the need to try and find a way of giving people a different perspective.

Joel Monk: [00:06:39] We're going to, I'd like to talk to you in a moment about hope and what you see taking place regeneration. And I think we can also talk a little bit more about some of the the deep ideas or beliefs like, you know, Cartesian logic, the cult of the individual that you named, and what might be the invitation in terms of, you know, in terms of transformation or evolution. [00:07:14] And like maybe we will end in where what we can do, like what's, you know, there's some practical things we can do. So could you talk like, because we've, on the podcast, explored quite a lot about complex adaptive systems and how systems become perturbed and that creates the opportunity for something new to come through, but it also feels really uncomfortable.

Joel Monk: It's like, yeah, it's perturbed. It's not stable anymore. You could say a little bit about that, but I'd love to you to say, like, what are you seeing

Richard Hames: [00:08:03] Yeah, it's patchy and it's not everywhere, but there are individuals and communities doing things differently and escaping to some extent at least the dominant paradigm, the preventing paradigm. but the problem is we're all trapped in that prevailing paradigm at the moment. It's Joel, I think it's difficult to start off talking about the monumental, the global, the planetary simply because we're not at her modulus species at all. There's a different energy, certainly, where I live to where you live, and that energy, I feel, is more optimistic here and more hopeful, even though we have our own problems, and they're just as bad as you've got in Europe, but they're different, they're different problems. [00:09:18] And I think fundamentally, we have lost trust in our institutions in the West, particularly. And if the West ever had moral ascendancy, It's lost that totally in recent times because of what's been happening in the U.S. in the Middle East, in Europe even and now a lot of people in Southeast Asia and China look at what's going on the West and we're just shaking our heads thinking what is going on. [00:10:03] And I think what is going on is accelerating collapse.

Richard Hames: I think that's what's going on. But it comes back to trust, how do we, in order to get hope, you have to restore trust, trust in each other, trust in our institutions, trust in the word. that's used by different people, not just politicians, but corporations and the words that people use to convince us of their integrity.

Joel Monk: [00:10:40] I think of the internet and the polarization that's taken place online as being maybe Um, one ingredient in eroding that trust, but yeah, you're actually pointing to, yeah, of course, the actions that are being taken by by institutions and and governments and I sit with where does that trust come from and is it, does it come from the grassroots, does it come from? [00:11:09] You know, I've been for a while, I've sat there thinking, is there going to be another leader that shows up that has a kind of integrity? but I think that's the wrong way to look at it. And I wonder if trust is something that's created in relationship and community through these grassroots projects. I mean, how do we get back to trust and again, what is the pathway there?

Richard Hames: [00:11:38] Well, there's no single pathway of course, but you're right in the, I mean, trust is a very granular thing. You could trust me to deliver a keynote and inspire people. You couldn't trust me to fly an airplane from swanaboo, swanaboo, you know, airport over there over to London. [00:12:01] When the two things are just totally different, and so I think using trust as a blanket term is a difficulty right away. We trust, we must trust for certain things. And the first thing to restore in terms of trust is that those people we put our faith into lead, which is a stupid thing to do anyway. but we can come back to that. But if we put our faith and our trust in people to do the right thing, then we should at least be able to trust them to do what they say they will do.

Richard Hames: And right at the moment, that's totally broken down. We cannot trust anyone in power with authority and

Joel Monk: [00:13:01] why is that?

Joel Monk: [00:13:03] I mean, I mean, not not like not why doing not trust them because we've talked about that, but why are they not doing what they said they would do?

Richard Hames: [00:13:12] Is that just human nature or I know, I think I go to a quote by Paul Polman who was the chief executive of Unilever. And I tend to two stories, but first Paul, Polman on a platform, said the knowledge and expertise that qualified me for the top job yesterday is precisely the expertise and knowledge that disqualifies me from knowing what to do today. And I think that's one problem. I think a lot of people in power with authority are simply out of their depth. They don't understand complexity. They're still engaged in a linear reductionist world. And so it's, here's the problem. Oh, here's the solution.

Richard Hames: It's a leap to action immediately, because that's what the society demands. [00:14:04] And that's a problem in itself. The second instance is something you're quite with because I was quite a few years ago, I was mentoring the chief executive of a global bank. One of the most probably one of the most powerful men in the world. And he didn't want to mentor and he was convinced that he should have won. And so I started working with him and the first meeting was fine. Second meeting I turned up, he was a bit late and apologised sat down. And as you know, the role of the mentor is to ask the question that is a surprise that that catches you by a surprise and you have to stop and think, carefully.

Richard Hames: And I asked him a question and he paused and then to my shock and horror, [00:15:04] And starting crying, this is a macro guy. I mean, very tough, huge reputation in the press every other day, talking to the market on television, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And here is this tough man in front of me sobbing because of a question I asked. And after two or three minutes, I said, you're okay, because I couldn't get a word in it. And his first response was Richard the has to be more to life than this, what I'm doing, what I'm responsible for, this whole enterprise, this industry, we're doing things wrong, and the pressure on people like me is unbearable, help, what do I do? And so the second thing is, again, people are out of their death. [00:16:01] We expect too much from ordinary human beings.

Richard Hames: There's a third component, which I think comes into the equation, which is a kind of, it could be a distracting factor, but I don't think it is. And that is as the heat from a changing climate rises, and we're actually on track now to arise of between two and three degrees Celsius. So way beyond what was hoped for at the Paris summit, the impact on individual humour and mood It's having quite an impact and there's now research, which validates the fact that as heat rises, we get more angry, we get more irritable, we get more frustrated with things not going right and with each other. [00:17:05] And I think this is a third component that's just entering the equation. So you have those three things. You have people totally out of their depth,

Richard Hames: with enormous pressure on them to perform when in a situation when very often it's actually impossible and they just have to stick to the script and there's the third aspect of what we're doing to each other in terms of the climate, for example, not least the climate but other things as well is having an impact on how we interact with each other.

Joel Monk: [00:17:46] So here's a reflection, like even as you name these issues, I start to feel a little overwhelmed. And then I notice that in person me to kind of find a solution, like so that you mentioned you name the problem solution, it's a paradigm. [00:18:04] And then I, because I kind of want to ask you like, what do we do then, Richard, which could be the right question teasing out more of the complexity of the situation and... But yeah, at the same time, I can see how I'm like, well, tell me, tell me what to do.

Richard Hames: [00:18:27] So it's a sorry, Joel, it's the wrong question, and it's a trap. So let's go to basic learning, a basic learning model. Now I'll go to David Kolb's learning model, which was basically for a sequence of four steps. When you're learning about something, you're sensing that something's happening. and you want to find out more about it. So you do, you do some research and you find out and you make sense of what's happening. And then when you've made sense of it, you want to respond in some way. So you design a response, and then you put that response into action.

Richard Hames: [00:19:03] And then if you're really learning, you monitor the impact of that. And then sense what's happening out of that and go, you say you go around the cycle. Increasingly what we're doing in our society because the demands of society is moving from the first step to the fourth. We're actually side stepping how to think, how to make sense, our ability to make sense, I think, is flatlined. I think that the time we spend on thinking in the making sense phase of learning is flatlined. It's almost non-existent because we need to move quickly to action. And that shows us that we're decisive. And that's all about leadership, isn't it?

Richard Hames: It falls into so many of the traps today that we move immediately from one, sensing to for taking action. [00:20:02] And it's wrong. The real question to be asking is, how should we be thinking about this? How do we make sense better sense of what's going on? Why is it happening like this? What's the underlying code or world view or ontological view that keeps this intact, that we keep doing what we're doing? It's those kinds of things that we don't explore.

Joel Monk: [00:20:29] Do you have you seen any institutions around the world embrace this kind of inquiry around what they're doing to look at like how we caught within what paradigms that we caught within that are having us feel stuck or contributing to this challenge? Are you seeing people opening

Richard Hames: [00:20:58] in the global north, no signs, no signs whatsoever of that kind of thinking at the moment.

Joel Monk: [00:21:11] In a way, so far in our conversation, we've named quite a lot of, you know, something you just named there, what belief, so we are unconscious, that are maybe part of why we're here and you've named like the kind of cult of the individual. like the culture, the leader, there's like a kind of Cartesian logic. We're treating things as complicated problems to be solved and jumping very quickly into doing so. Could you share more about this? What is the worldview that these beliefs that are that we should examine, you know?

Richard Hames: [00:22:01] Well, the Occidental World View and the World View leads to the world system with God. So everything we see around us, which I refer to as the world system in terms of institutions, the law, educational systems or everything that goes on around us, is derived from that underlying story, the world view, in other words, are dominant shared beliefs about reality. And in the West, the major paradigm that emerged was with the Industrial Revolution and the and that led to a belief system that is now, it did us a lot of good, I mean it created so much wealth, it created inventions like I mean in health for example medicine, extraordinary breakthroughs it allowed us to live [00:23:15] better quality lives longer, so it changed food production, it changed so many things, but it's got to a stage now where we have a surface of those things, and it's now, it's like the Urubrus swallowing its tail, it's actually got to the point where that paradigm, which was so good for us, or many of us, is now destroying us. It's become toxic, it's

Richard Hames: it's actually poisoning us. So for example, the amount of plastic now that you will find in your bloodstream or in your brain is just extraordinary and it's affecting everyone. [00:24:06] It's a global phenomenon now, that kind of toxicity. The chemicals we use, the insecticides that we now spray is destroying the insect population. I can't remember the stats of hand, but I remember as a child listening to the wasps in the Elm trees in the village where the Elm trees have gone through Dutch Elm disease. The wasps have gone because the Elm trees have gone. And I remember when I started driving at the 10 age of 1920, at night, all the insects that were splashed on the windscreen, you don't get those now at all, they've all gone.

Richard Hames: They have all gone. And when we get to the point of destroying hub species. The hub species would be a pollinating bee population, for example, because we rely on bees to pollinate flowers and then we get our food from that. [00:25:09] So if we interfere with the food chain to such an extent that we take out hub species, because of the chemicals we're using, then we're destroying ourselves. So this paradigm of industrial economy, that that's why it's not as capitalism as it's the whole range of factors that go to make up. the world system that we're living in is destroying us.

Joel Monk: [00:25:32] It's got to that stage where it's destroying us.

Joel Monk: [00:25:38] How can we, so you're exposing some of the, you know, the ways we thought and then the consequences I know you write about complexity as well and you've recently wrote a piece about Edgar Morin, I think that's how you pronounce it. [00:26:03] And what, what views could we kind of play with, that would help us perhaps not kind of fall into the same traps, but like I guess I'm sat with like, You know, people talk about certain principles which could be ontologically generative as opposed to just kind of trying to overlay another simplistic set of beliefs to try and find that solution again. Do you know what I mean?

Richard Hames: [00:26:40] Yeah. It comes back to first principles. who are concerned about what's happening today and the world we're going to pass on to our children and their children. [00:27:00] I think it's incumbent upon us all to actually think quite deeply about what it is that keeps us shackled to the current. within the current prison. Because it's a prison of our own invention. It's a human invention. It's and anything that a human invention can be reinvented.

Richard Hames: So in terms of the world of you, I think it's going back to take anything you see on television, for example, just earlier on. I was watching some police in New South Wales, Australia attacking a civilian and clearly, not abiding by their role as a police officer, as guardians of society, but being real thugs. I think you take an instance like that, and especially if it's something that involves you, like buying groceries, for example, and seeing the price rise. [00:28:07] So simple things that actually impact you as a person. I think we have to go back to first principles and say, How would we need to organize each other or relate to each other differently in order for a different result to occur? Because the thing about the one thing, the overwhelming thing about complex systems, is that they're designed to give you what you get.

Richard Hames: So the fact that we're getting what we don't want means we have to go back to the inputs and say, we have to change the design, we have to change the inputs. And I think the most important input right at the moment is our relationship to each other and understand that we are one species and that we can't afford any longer to be so tribal that we attack each other. [00:29:11] because that in itself is destroying us. So I have to be careful what I say here now because I've recently been accused of something which I am not. But it was an accusation that really cut to the bone it actually led to the cancellation of five of Keynote's that I was giving. So that's my living. So I have to be careful what I say.

Richard Hames: But I think for any one group to say we are superior, we are better, we know better, we have done better. [00:30:03] and the proof is in looking at what we've achieved compared to you a lot over there, which will call by a derogatory name and start killing you because you're animals. I mean that is a level of inhumanity which I can't grasp. And I think that's one of the fundamentals that we

Joel Monk: [00:30:31] And this brings up, for me, I think a lot of people listening would agree to that, just like not killing other people, you know, that just morally makes sense. I've been in a view of, you know, I was talking to Adam Kahane recently and he was talking about power and love and justice and that sparked something for me that we might get into, but in a way, I was like on the love pole, you know, I was like, I was this sense of, are we being invited to evolve as a species to recognize our deeply interconnected nature and therefore collaborate [00:31:22] and I started to feel like, wherein that is there a naivety, a kind of like peace and love naivety that there will always be, or there will be different types of people who don't agree with that and who use for some power to take what they need. So I'm not sure, You know, this is a complex topic, of course, but I'm not sure these days, what, what, and there's a kind of utopian idea that a lot of people have that I think. [00:32:02] Just feels either naive or kind of even dangerous. Okay, so yeah.

Richard Hames: [00:32:08] So first of all, language, the use of language can be weaponized as we know. Now, if I'm going to say to you, I disagree with you, and I think you're being naive, that is a certain disposition attacking you for the idea you have. If I am saying you're a warm-up and I believe that you're contributing to the extinction of the human species by continuing doing what you're doing, that is also a weapon. it's not as powerful a weapon at the moment because they're going back to the overarching paradigm that we're in, the language that we use is more acceptable for me to say you're being naive. [00:33:03] Because that allows the system to continue until we start using the language that's important and relationships and love and connectivity and we feel empowered to do that. And we're not attacked for that. Then any attempt at civilization or renewal will be doomed.

Richard Hames: The language has to change first. Yeah, the language will change before

Joel Monk: [00:33:41] That that makes sense.

Richard Hames: [00:33:46] Can I just elaborate, why do you're thinking? I just elaborate one other thought because if we look at technology and at the moment technology is not governed by any kind of rules. If you want to make money, you can go into tech, you create an app or you can create a gadget or you do this platform, whatever it is. [00:34:08] There are no rules that say in order to benefit society, why don't you focus here? it's the same with the pharmaceutical industry to be honest. The paradigm is making money. So if there are things that would benefit humanity, but don't make money, then we don't do it. Now what that means is that the radical nature of some ideas around the world, because that's the first question you ask me.

Richard Hames: Are there other things happening, which give us hope? Yes, there are. The problem is the first problem is to tackle that very often, if the current paradigm sees that as a threat, it will hijack that radical idea and it will pull it in and domesticate it, it will use the language to keep on doing what it's been doing. [00:35:06] So, you know, like hopeless social responsibility kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, you name it, for example, though, yeah, all of those things, they become part and parcel of the current paradigm and don't retain their radical, the radical nature of what they were originally.

Joel Monk: [00:35:30] And it makes me think of, what we need to get to in order to try something new, what level of pain might there be? That example you shared of Pakistan in one of your pieces about how they transition to 20% of their energy from solar, because they're having blackouts, and so That makes sense, you know, that's, that's going to instigate that level of change. [00:36:04] Will that be the case across the board in other places?

Richard Hames: [00:36:10] Yeah, it can be, but not necessarily. I think what we do wrong when we talk about the need for change is that everybody thinks, what does that mean? We need to change the government, or we need to change individuals, or we need to get Trump out and get a new president in and everything will be OK. That's not the case. It's the underlying principles of the paradigm that we're in at the moment. a few years ago, in the keynote, I half jokingly, but half seriously, I said, every billionaire is a policy error. I do some laughter, but I really believe that's probably the case in a situation where so many people are on the poverty line, and yet others have [00:37:06] extreme wealth that they can't use to be honest. And the legend or the myth around that, especially with the great man, the great man myth associated with that situation,

Richard Hames: is that they work hard to get where they are, you shouldn't denigrate them, they deserve this and look, they're being philanthropic in what they're doing. It's a whole range of nonsense, of course, because nothing on this planet. has been devised and originated and executed by one individual, nothing. It's always many, many people involved. And that's why, for me, the language of leadership as it's typically understood is just nonsense, because true leadership is a collective phenomenon. [00:38:07] It's people coming together, to improve one or more aspects of the human condition, and it can be at a very granular level. In this community, we're going to dig wells so that we can drink potable water, for example, or it can be at a large scale, but true leadership has nothing to do with individuals or individual status and position.

Richard Hames: Nothing.

Joel Monk: [00:38:32] And like how Marvin Oka who introduced me to spoke to this in terms of that there's a collective sense of angst in a community and then one person or two maybe stand up to speak to that angst and maybe share a possibility around that and that mobilizes the group around around that angst [00:39:02] It kind of brings me to what, again, what we might do. And you've said, like, actually examining the current paradigm, what are the beliefs it's based on as important. And it seems like sense making is important. You mentioned Cobb's learning cycle. And then you've also mentioned actually coming together in relationship, is important.

Joel Monk: So I'm wanting to lean in what to do. And let me just share a quick example. Recently, Staci Haines created this Outer Work Project, which was about how She's an expert in somatic coaching and somatic in a work. But how can we organize around these topics that concern us, like the climate, whatever it is. [00:40:02] lead from what she called power with instead of power over and how can we, how can we leverage our nervous systems so that we're not kind of just polarizing and, you know, creating more problems through the way that we, the way that we take action around these topics. So that's, you know, I see people, I see these kinds of initiatives popping up. Like, what would you, you know, maybe you could name any initiatives you see, but what would you, how would you recommend people gather and what examples do you see of people beginning to mobilize and try new things?

Richard Hames: [00:40:41] Well, even at the council level, I was reading just the other day about something that's occurring in your neck of the woods where playgrounds are going back to being dirt rather than plastic and the impact that's having on kids health so getting back to nature is important because at the moment we're just destroying nature. [00:41:06] But I think it does start with the individual and then the connection with somebody else and then the connection with somebody else it has to start small because starting big. you know, if you're someone like me, that's rather different. I can speak to power, because of my age, because of my experience, and I guess to some extent my knowledge and my connections, and that's my role. But for most people to stay in the ambient circle, your end and effect And I think how we educate is critical in that respect. At the moment, I'm advising and the educational authority in Australia. [00:42:00] And we're trying to get away from the standardisation that every kid is the same, which they're not.

Richard Hames: And they actually need credentials to get a job, which they don't. So I'm trying to... effect some impact on the thinking there, but go back to what I said before. I don't think it's what you do. I think it's how you relate to each other, in love, and caring, caring is so important. And thinking from first principles, What can we do in a very straightforward and simple way that can change that and benefit? And we can benefit from that.

Richard Hames: What's the positive change that's possible?

Joel Monk: [00:42:53] When you say thinking from first principles, could you say what you mean by doing that? What first principles are as well?

Joel Monk: [00:43:04] Okay, so you have a garden.

Richard Hames: [00:43:08] And the first principle would be how, the question, what do we do with this garden? what are we going to do with it? What are we going to grow? What are we going to cultivate? How are we going to cultivate? Will we use fertilizer? Or will we try and use permaculture? So it's a range of questions you use as a starting point for knowing what you want to do in order to reach a certain point.

Richard Hames: Let's just first principles.

Joel Monk: [00:43:44] I mean, one might be like, what's our deepest longing here? What brings us together around this? Absolutely.

Richard Hames: [00:43:53] Yeah. Yeah, small groups, even groups, you know, like alcoholics are anonymous. I mean, people laugh at them. [00:44:00] But some of the most fundamental ideas in AA can be applied to many other different situations.

Joel Monk: [00:44:15] Like, could you give us an example?

Richard Hames: [00:44:19] I'm drawing on that in ignorance, because I've wanted, I haven't actually, I've never been drunk in my life, Joel, I've never, you know, I've been so, so innocent and pure. But if you look at that, I can't remember the rules now. You've put me on the spot, but I think I need to 10 rules in our clerics along us. And I think those could be applied in a lot of other situations.

Joel Monk: [00:44:47] I mean, what, you know, grant me the ability to, you know change to kind of change what I can and not and not kind of I'm going to badly paraphrase but that one which is like you know I'm not going to try and worry too much about the things that I can't control but I'm going to act on the things that are in my power that that feels like powerful transferable principle and you know this is like brings me to the [00:45:24] a decade ago, he's writing a new book now and he's bringing in a third element, which just this, which he feels is like they're acting, I'm going to again paraphrase him, but that's the enacting ingredient that allows love and power to be manifested in the world. And so I think we need, I think people have been talking about wise agency in circles, I know Again, it's like, we've focused a lot on it, on inner work, but if you don't know about agency and power, you know, then you're not going to be have much impact in the world. [00:46:03] So I like that people are bringing these two together, but then just this for me, this piece got me because I thought, just this is something, what is just this to me, you know? And we could say, you know, social justice has been a big movement in recent years, but that felt like it other people are a lot like, they kind of created more polarity in some in some ways, even though I had honorable aims.

Joel Monk: And so this to me came back to, our embodiment, you know, that truth goodness and beauty and that there is a, there is an innate capacity within us, that to, to, I know we're, I know we're capable of deceiving ourselves, you know, so I know this is going to sound maybe a bit idealistic, but, You know, my inner work has allowed me to refine my sensitivity to my own sense of what feels good and true and beautiful and that in these times where things are getting more complex and uncertain, that's getting louder and it's not, okay, I can feel the parts in me that want to protect. [00:47:12] and kind of control, but what's getting louder is like, how can I give, how can I orient around treat beauty and goodness and justice, which is a felt experience that in relationship.

Richard Hames: [00:47:27] But you see, one of the things you've been able to do and you've just exhibited that is to stamp over the language in order to keep doing what you're doing. that is that kind of self-criticism should be lifted because it's not, it's not idealistic, it is what we should be.

Joel Monk: [00:47:51] Right, yeah, which is why I like being in a conversation with you and I mean, you know, in a way what you're pointing to now Richard for me is part of a path of [00:48:05] Uh, what is it to, in sovereignty, you know, what is it to align with what feels most important and, yeah, that common about it feeling sounding idealistic is a, is a kind of protection mechanism against someone saying to me, you know, whatever, like that just, uh, Yeah, you know, I'm coming with a Christian system.

Richard Hames: [00:48:30] So yeah, you have to step over that language if you truly believe that fundamentally love and caring for others and justice because there's more injustice in the world today than there is justice, especially in the West our legal systems. of late and you know that the two are not the same thing. [00:49:03] So Adam I think is absolutely spot on. It's the kind of thing I've been trying to do with the clarity, which is a port mentor word, bringing ecology with security. It's botting the two together with integrity. And you know the first kind of security we need, is the security of the planet. We need a living planet, able to sustain life.

Richard Hames: And what are we doing? We're wrecking it. Yeah, and there's no escape. I mean, thinking that we'll all go to the moon. That's a nonsense anyway, but an even greater nonsense is to think that we'll escape to Mars or somewhere distant because if you actually examine the physics, it's impossible. to take a human population and plant them on an unrepleted. This is our hope.

Joel Monk: [00:50:00] I mean, the thing is, I don't know where she's like, how bad does it have to get before we actually align with that. You know, that's the question. And I don't think it's necessarily worth talking about that because we don't know. But, um, you know, like in coaching and I'd love to go there for a moment, but you know, one of the things in transformation is, and you know, you mentioned AI, AI, sorry, not AI, but AI, like you, you know, they talk about getting to the bottom, you know, before you feel the pain, you know, and you feel the pain enough there to make the change and is that collectively what we'll need to do as well.

Richard Hames: [00:50:41] You know, I've been thinking a lot about that. And that certainly used to be the case, but just think what we're capable of these days. Well, what we've created in terms of our tools and technologies and our life systems, what we've created and also created that could destroy us, but the imagination, the level of imagination of the human being is just extraordinary. [00:51:12] And if we can't use that imagination to actually get ourselves out of the situation we're in today without having to go onto a burning platform, then, Again, I don't understand that with the people in power at the moment who want those people who want to maintain their power, want to maintain their wealth, I wouldn't start there. I'm not starting there. I mean, as it happens, one of my projects at the moment is ahead of state, but it's not the head of state who's in the on the front page headlines all the time.

Richard Hames: It's a head of state who wants to actually create real change of the kind we're talking about. And that's where I will spend by time and energy. [00:52:00] changing the language, changing the thinking and giving them more options cut to designing their, their, what otherwise makes it exist.

Joel Monk: [00:52:15] A few streams of thought kind of come together here, Richard, like, because I was thinking of the idea of a tipping point and whether that's relevant here, but I'm on some substax, which blow my mind of people talking about technological innovations and, you know, it's not just the kind of like techno up to missed. kind of Silicon Valley crowd, which also shares some mind-blowing things, but it's a very particular worldview. You know, I was reading about some guy that invented, like, basically, carrier bags out of algae, you know, that are like just as strong as normal plastic carrier bags, but they're biodegradable and, you know, it's just, you know, every day I'm reading things like that, like the cancer drug breakthroughs at the moment. [00:53:10] you know, the health innovations coming the solar and you know, and it's astonishing. I find it truly astonishing and you know, is it James Jamie RB who wrote solar, you know, I kind of, then I was forget the name of the book, but it's like you read it and you feel like that we have everything in place to make their shift. The technology is there and it's not now just about the technology. So I I wonder about the tipping point, you know, like, and again, an example I've shared on the podcast before is like, if you look at Eastern Europe, the fall of communism, that happened in several places within hours, you know, a day or what, you know, and you can't

Joel Monk: [00:54:01] change and you know will it will the tipping point being like that, you know, what it did maybe already happening in different places, you know, a change of that.

Richard Hames: [00:54:15] type massive change doesn't just come out of the blue. I mean if you monitor very, very carefully, you can pick up patterns that are converging at a rate that could lead to something like that happening. invited by Alan Greenspan to give Alan a dress in New York in May 2005 to bankers. And during that luncheon, I laid out. what was likely to happen to the American financial system if certain changes didn't take place and I showed them the patterns and how those patterns were converging, particularly around the things like credit default swaps and which were so complicated that no one really understood them [00:55:20] really on very low incomes would put food on the table before they'd pay anything else. And it was laughed at and caught my suggestion that they would lead to a financial collapse, but three years later, of course, he did. So there are, if you can monitor patterns,

Richard Hames: Then there are patterns existing at the moment, which is why go on the public record as saying, watch the US. It's crumbling. The infrastructure is bad. The economist disastrous. It's It's it's trajectory is more or less predetermined. [00:56:01] Now I can't tell you when definitively that that final grain of sand in a dissipative structure will cause the tipping point will cause collapse. final collapse.

Richard Hames: It may not be for five years, 10 years, 20 years, but if those patterns aren't changed, if a deliberate action is not taken to change, how the U.S. devises its strategy, domestic strategy and foreign approaches, foreign policy, then it's almost not totally, but almost inevitable. What you've got as well, because I'm living in this hemisphere, is as I said at the beginning, as a different kind of energy, I don't get the apprehension that you're living under here, the optimism here in science and we've got, it is very, very different. [00:57:04] And as you know, I do a lot of work in China, When you go to China, it's like stepping into the future, literally, everything's clean, everything's safe. You're not looked at in a way which is far and I go away. It's a welcoming gesture everywhere. And every aspect of the society is on the rise, every aspect of the society.

Richard Hames: And in the West, you can't criticize the political system. If the people in that society welcome that political system and accepted and embrace it, you can't do that. But I think it's a counterweight, what's happening in this part of the world and in the global self. I really think it's a counterweight to what's happening in the West. And I find that as a very positive thing because I find this society [00:58:04] are more ethical in a general sense than I now find the West.

Joel Monk: [00:58:14] Send to say that.

Joel Monk: [00:58:17] Where would you recommend we look, you know, like which people would you recommend we follow or read, which you name the global south where in the global south you think is you know the other inspiring projects taking place like, could you point us in directions where we might look?

Richard Hames: [00:58:45] I'm reluctant to do that, but because they're small, they're happening everywhere. I'm in just in next to me in Cambodia. There's a small project which is centered around education, which is tiny, but it offers hope to the community. [00:59:07] There's a woman 80% over 80% of her employees are women who have been abused, raped, or are disadvantaged in some way. These individuals and small communities, you know, Joe Brewer, what Joe is doing in terms of land restoration. They're in the little patches all over the world, what we're not doing is connecting them up, and so they don't have scale.

Richard Hames: No, I think find your own. That's a terrible thing to say in one sense, because I should be saying, read me, but no, because I don't have the solutions, everyone's looking for. [01:00:00] We all need our own solution. I start with my 14 year old son. who I homeschool and essentially a single father to an autistic boy. And the way I educate him is a way that offers hope for him. and a future for him that in the mainstream simply doesn't exist, in terms of mindset and what he's allowed to do or not allowed to do and in the whole design of what I bring to him in terms

Joel Monk: [01:00:57] Beautiful, you know, this podcast is primarily for transformational practitioners and coaches and, you know, so, but I love having these times of kinds of conversations because coaching is taking place within the world we're talking about, of course, [01:01:26] How is everything we're talking about today relevant for coaches? I know, yeah, maybe it's obvious to people listening, but I'd love to speak into that a little bit.

Richard Hames: [01:01:36] No, I think everyone has to ask that question for themselves. And, you know, you have to start from humility. One of the problems that we haven't spoken about before, but is prevalent in the Western mind. is a lack of humility. We believe that if we have an opinion on science that it's a better opinion, then a scientist has been studying that topic for 20 years. [01:02:08] I think the lack of humility in within the paradigm now is sad and appalling. It's a great loss. So I believe if you claim to be in a position where you will coach or mentor or care for another individual, then you have to come from a point of humility.

Richard Hames: and open us in terms of the relationship, because essentially, if you're a coach, you should not be bringing information into that relationship without a reciprocal thing, happening to you. There should be something being given back, even if that giving is not deliberate.

Joel Monk: [01:03:03] I think, well, that brings up his, and it connects to what we've been talking about in terms of seeing yourself as a coach, coaching another person. You know, as in, I'm coaching you and I'm helping you transform, but actually shifting from that to we're both partners. in our conversation where life is inviting us to transform. And that, I think, changes the nature of the relationship fundamentally. Now it's not to say that, you know, I don't have certain expertise in certain ways. I'm still holding the lead in the terms of the container, [01:04:00] For me, I think it's a kind of transcending and including that there's someone with me that has a longing and need. They have a topic, and that longing and that need is life itself.

Joel Monk: I know that sounds a bit abstract, but it's like they are an intimate part of the complex. interconnected web of life. And so, yeah, I hope this doesn't sound too abstract, but that we can kind of, if we hold our role in that way, we are participating in emergence itself. And, um,

Richard Hames: [01:04:40] So I agree totally with that. I think we need to get back to in relationship. We need to get back to praxis, not at an old term, not practice, but PRAXIS praxis, where we're both changed in the process of becoming. [01:05:00] And that's the key for me in mentoring, certainly. I don't remain untouched by a relationship with any of my projects far from it, it's a joyous experience of learning and manifesting in a way which is more than I would get without it.

Joel Monk: [01:05:34] We're coming to the end of our conversation. I'm just kind of like checking out with this, like, oh, I share something and just see if it sparks something in you. It's like a sense of I find myself feeling really inspired, like unreasonably so. I've been sharing that in these conversations recently, not like hopeful, like I know the answers to things. [01:06:03] I don't know, really, the inspiration, just like a kind of a liveness in me, I think it connects to what I was saying about love, power, and justice, and a sense of, I used to feel quite pessimistic, but now I feel thrilled and that doesn't mean I don't have moments where I feel very overwhelmed and scared about what's unfolding and what I find what I'm trying to say as well is like it's just the astonishment is in part like what the fuck is going on excuse my language Richard but I'm like on the one hand I'm like You know, looking at the, like, the news and, and, and, and, you know, everything we talked about today, we're talking about collapse in one sense.

Joel Monk: And then I read about these astonishing, like, you said about China, like, it's like this technological breakthroughs and innovations. [01:07:00] And like, this is, This is like sci-fi stuff coming in. They're gonna start potentially manufacturing drugs in space. That's like an idea that's not too far away. Now, whether we think that's a good or a bad thing, like it is one thing, but the fact that people will start to try to do that just blows my mind. And so it's like really hard to know, you know, like just, where we're at.

Joel Monk: I think that's what I'm trying to say, so that I think that's part of my astonishment. It's less overwhelmed than it used to be in more. Wow. Is it said a question? It's not a question. I just said, I'm checking out. I'm just sharing it and you may they're making absolutely nothing that comes back and that's fine.

Richard Hames: [01:07:53] I mean, I know you pretty well now, and that to hear you say that is delightful, and I think it's where you should be, because I think really people who think deeply about the situation we're in, personally, in terms of, you know, and ring after ring to the planet as a whole, but [01:08:25] in totality. I think there are many reasons to be optimistic and for me, I think I'd like to bring us back to that opening analogy, which actually isn't a metaphor, the biology of the dissolving caterpillar. with immunity system of the caterpillar, still working over time to kill off the imaginal cells because they're a threat to the caterpillar, which is dissolving, it's collapsing. [01:09:03] And it's coming to an end. The key is more and more imaginal cells recognizing each other. I recognize you, we have the same philosophy. We're trying to,

Richard Hames: they have the same kind of impact in the world and connect as a third over here. This is why I do so many connections because we need to connect with each other until that imaginal disk actually takes over. So I don't believe we need a burning platform. What concerns me is that the point I made earlier with such a global civilization now that we've nowhere else to turn to. We have to, that metamorphosis has to be us doing it to us. [01:10:01] That's not been done before. That's unprecedented.

Richard Hames: And whether we can do that, I don't know, but we have to because the only other thing is extinction.

Joel Monk: [01:10:13] Yeah, let's, let's bring it become, well, you know, that might sound like a, you know, to end on the only other thing is extension might sound like a pessimistic thing. But again, I find myself, it rouses something in me, which is not not fear and it's not also not needing to go out and fix things either.

Richard Hames: [01:10:44] So I should correct myself. When I use the term extinction, I don't mean everybody. I see extinction in my terms means a reduction of the human population to around less than 2 billion. [01:11:06] So it's very, very much probably going back to basics and rethinking everything. I don't mean extinction in terms of everyone disappearing.

Joel Monk: [01:11:15] But it's still pretty, that's still pretty, it's generally absolutely horrific to imagine that. I mean, I'm not laughing out of humor. I'm laughing out of, that's a, that would be

Richard Hames: [01:11:34] Well, yes, and a lot of pain, but hey, opportunity is still there.

Joel Monk: [01:11:40] Yeah. Right.

Richard Hames: [01:11:42] Right. Because one of the overwhelming things about humans is that we are so resilient. We are an amazingly resilient as a species.

Joel Monk: [01:11:55] And you can never discount that.

Joel Monk: [01:12:00] Yeah, maybe just ending on, as we, you know, this is something Tom's who bullseys is like in our nervous system is millions of years of resiliency of adaption, which is an intelligence that we have, you know, as a capacity we can tap into and that we do tap into. So,

Richard Hames: [01:12:24] I mean, one of the things we've spoken about before is how we tend to ignore or set aside Indigenous wisdom. And a lot of the, if we want solutions, a lot of the problems that we've got today, especially environmental problems, but also social issues as well. They were sold a long time ago by many Indigenous communities. We just think we're better than them and more sophisticated in the superior. It's not so. There's a lot to learn from those societies. There's those first nations.

Richard Hames: You know, they came from that beginning and look what they managed to do or managed to create. [01:13:09] Society is still going today in spite of the Western colonial hammer

Joel Monk: [01:13:18] Where can we find out more about your work Richard?

Richard Hames: [01:13:22] You, the best place to go is to the website, which is RichardHames.com. That has everything there. It's just been revamped actually. So it has everything there. You can talk to Richard AI about anything going on in the world at the moment, to have a conversation with Richard AI. It's just been trained on everything I've written, the books that I aimed at are 700 homes reports. And goodness knows thousands of daily activists, So, is that you can see where my agents are, get in touch with my management, you can do everything through the website there.

Joel Monk: [01:14:07] Yeah, thanks Richard.

Richard Hames: [01:14:08] Including the mentoring job?

Joel Monk: [01:14:10] Yes. Yes. Which I can recommend. All right. Thank you, Richard. Pleasure. Here we are, we're at the end of the podcast. Just a heads up again, if you're not on our mailing list and you want to stay in the loop about other things we create, then head to coachesrizing.com, put your name in the sign-up box there.

Joel Monk: You'll also find some of our other offerings our online trainings for coaches there. And just want to end by wishing you well, and I'll see you again next time.