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What Would You Teach the World? (I asked Twitter and got amazing answers)
Episode 565th April 2021 • Stillness in the Storms • Steven Webb
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If you could teach the whole world one thing, what would it be? I asked Twitter and read out every answer. Not one person said maths.

To fish. Be kind. Communication. Gratitude, which took a surprisingly long time to come up. Your ego is not your amigo. And my favourite, crochet, because it is relaxing, therapeutic and you end up with a blanket. I read out some genuinely good news first as well, because the world is not only going downhill, whatever it feels like.

One thing to try: Answer it yourself. One thing, for everybody. See what actually comes out.

In this episode

  • (0:04) Doing something a bit different this week
  • (1:28) The world is not only going downhill, and here is the proof
  • (3:17) Hydrogen planes, and a fifty seater on the way
  • (5:46) The Twitter question, and the answers starting to come in
  • (7:19) To fish, and why we need all sorts of teachers
  • (10:39) Your ego is not your amigo
  • (13:01) Be kind, do not be an idiot, and crochet
  • (15:56) Not one answer was a school subject

Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk

Thank you for listening.

Steven

Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.

Transcripts

Steven Webb:

Hey, how's it going this week? I'm Steven Webb and this is Stillness in the Storms podcast. And this week

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I'm going to do something a little different. And if you guys like it, I think I'll do it more

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often.

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But before we get on to that, today's show is what one thing would you teach the world? I put

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out to my Twitter followers this question and I got about 60 responses. And some of them were really fascinated.

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Some of them were... Very much what I would say. Very much the things I would like to teach the

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world. And some of them were just a little different. And I love them. They're so they're so honest and

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so awesome that I I just wanted to do a podcast sharing them with you guys. And I want you

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to think about while I go through the list a little later in the podcast, what you would teach the

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world. But before that, I said I wanted to do something a little bit different. And I'm going to tell

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you some positive news stories this week. And I found a website. And they don't sponsor this podcast in any

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way. They don't even know I regularly go to their website. It's called Positive.news. I think most weeks they

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do an article that basically the positive news this week. I just wanted to go through a couple of them.

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And I just think it's a really nice thing to do. As well as a nice thing, it's like nice

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to have news that picks us up. Very often we think the world's dire and it's always going downhill and

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it's always getting worse. And that's just not the case actually. There's many things that are happening in the world

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that are positive and pushing the world in the right direction and We don't focus on that enough. So

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I'm going to. And the first one is Netflix committed to a net zero emissions. So Netflix, you no longer

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have to feel guilty about binge watching Netflix because as from next year, 2022, and I like this because it's

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ambitious. So from next year, they're going to be net zero. So they're going to offset some carbon and they're

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going to make sure they move to all electric vehicles, Led lighting they're going to Cut international travel. They're going

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to employ people locally and all that. So they're going to do all sorts. So that's what that's the first

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good positive news story. The next one is a little closer to home for me. Beavers were reintroduced in wells

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After 400 years, they were wiped out across most of the Uk. In actual fact if not all of the

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Uk, I think. I might need to check on that one. But an adult male and his offspring has been

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released into the cause die feed National Reserve in Powers this week. So that's good. You know, we need beavers

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that They are the natural keepers of the waterways. And they build up habitats and everything like that. And they

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prevent flooding. And just driving them out of the waterways like we have really doesn't help. And I'm in a

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city that suffers from flooding and I think we've introduced beavers just outside of Truro I might be

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wrong on that, but I think we have down at daubers somewhere But anyway um I digress. Another good news.

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Hydrogen planes were scheduled for takeoff. So a startup company, Zero Avia, a

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us uk aviation company, claimed it's ambitious for a 50 seat hydrogen plane to be

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propelled towards, they've just received 24.3 million dollars funding that is going to help them to

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deliver by 2026. So a plane that isn't putting any

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more chemicals in the atmosphere. How awesome is that? I don't understand why we don't have more hydrogen cars and

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hydrogen and everything.

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So you might wonder, what has this got to do with stillness in the storms? Isn't this exactly what stillness

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in the storms is? There'll be a good news in the middle of the storm. Google Maps is to show

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eco-friendly routes from now on. In America, especially at the moment, I think it's going to come out to the

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rest of the world. When you put in a journey in your car and all that, it's going to show

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the most eco-friendly way of getting there, avoiding hills, avoiding things like that. There are more than 900 blue

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plaques on buildings across London, but pitiful few, just 14 are dedicated to women in a bid to... Even this

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out. English Heritage has been calling on public to nominate female candidates. And it was announced

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that Princess Diana, Ellen Craft are among the women to be remembered. Diana would have celebrated her 60th birthday

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this year.

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It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. Anyway.

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And finally, conservationists achieved the impossible in Scotland. A community in Scotland has completed

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one of the country's largest ever grassroots land buyout and is now turning the estate into a nature reserve.

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They basically fundraised 3.8 million pounds to buy 5 200 acres of land.

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How cool is that? And they're gonna make it into a nature reserve. We need more of that, don't we?

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We need more of our land looking after. So that's the positive news and you can head over to positive.news.

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It's a great website and it's so much better to sit and listen to that or sit and read that

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while I'm eating my lunch as opposed to go to the other news stories that tend to be quite negative.

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So yeah, on to today's podcast. Okay, I've got a list and I haven't got this in any particular order.

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I was going through them and I just really enjoyed. Reading the results. And I didn't know that I was

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going to do a podcast when I put it out there. I just basically asked a question. If you had

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to teach someone one thing, what would you teach? And

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I was quite overwhelmed by the amount of response, actually. I was quite blown away. So I'm going to go

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through a few of the names and I will go through a few of the results and give you my

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thoughts. And I'll give you my thoughts at the end. It was quite interesting, actually, some of them. So the

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first one, Lynn lassad Talk to your body in grateful and encouraging way. Oh yes, we don't do that often

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enough, do we? We all need to look at ourselves sometimes and go, do you know what? This is the

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body I've got and I should love it and appreciate it a little more. And there's a rizuka

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Yuka says, help people who are in need in any way we can, no matter who you are,

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who they are. Yeah, I like that. And help them no matter who they are. I think that's the key

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there. And

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then quite a few people said love or love in some way, loving ourselves or love is everything. Nancy, Jennifer,

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Mama Martin, Suzanne, Dawn, Cola, Zara.

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And a few other people said about confidence as well. Josephine was one of them. Building up confidence and teaching

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confidence. And I think that would make a big impact on the world. If only my life were that simple.

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I suppose to fish. Philly Cheese Eagle says to fish. I like that. You know, teach

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the world something. I would teach the world to fish we need all sorts of different people to teach all

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sorts of different things, don't we? It's no good everybody teaching one thing because there's going to be a huge

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void in skills. And a few, Lorraine and Caroline Babs Charlotte and Catherine

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all said a similar thing to to be kind. To

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be kind to one another. Kindness in some way. And absolutely. Yvette says to love ourselves. Yes. Understand his

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or her feelings. This is important jose says to understand other people's feelings. And our own, of course.

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And a few people mentioned about God. Teach people about God and religion. And not that I would be a

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big advocate of religion, but I think everything needs to be included in some way. Mark says a golf cart

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battery maintenance, of course I I think his account is, that's exactly what they do. Sell batteries for golf carts.

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But yeah, absolutely we need golf cart battery maintenance. Of course. Who doesn't need that in a world going

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forward?

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A few people also mention forgiveness. It's necessary for inner peace. And there's no peace without forgiveness. And

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trusting our instincts. Tedra, Maggie, Brian all mention that in some way. Dark Side Johnny.

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Dark Side Johnny. He says, Guitar. Teach people guitar. Yes. What would the world be

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without guitar players? It would be a lot dollar that's for sure. Smiley Rose says, Yesterday is not ours to

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recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose. That's a quote by Lyndon B. Johnson. Yes, absolutely.

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And a few other people said about truth. To be true to oneself. And the art had been honest paul

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paulette strofa Martin The art had been honest. Tony mayor says manners.

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Yeah, that's my parents used to say all the time. Manners, dear boy, cost you nothing. I think I've still

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got my parents to say that to me now, actually. Where's the please? Where's the thank you? Melanie says, finding

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the capacity, the depth of understanding and sharing compassionate love. Yes, I love that. Definitely.

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Make your identity your strength. Shafiq says, yeah, make your identity your strength. I

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cannot pronounce this guy's name or this person's name. My son, the power of being selfless. I like that. The

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power of being selfless. Selfless. So make it about other people

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jesson says swimming.

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Swimming. I like that. How to negotiate, Gary says. The value of one's time.

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Yeah. We don't value our time enough, do we?

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We spend time just wasting time doing stuff. Procrastinating, avoiding life. We just don't value our

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time enough. I I really do. Yeah. I resonate with that one. Graphic Design. Yeah, we need that, Ezra.

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The Ego is Not Your Amigo.

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Your Ego is Not Your Amigo. I like that true jello I I don't know the first his first name

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or their first name. Positive One says Empathy.

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Amicable Comedian says Forex Trading. Yeah, we need that.

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I don't know if we need it, but yeah, it would be handy someone that in Forex Trading. The Unusual

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Buddha says meditation. Oh, I'm in agreement there. I think meditation would lead to many of these other things.

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Meditation leads to loving ourselves, loving others, empathy for others, growing strength, being selfless. Meditation teaches many of these

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things. Perhaps not guitar or battery maintenance, but it certainly grows. It certainly will

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grow wisdom in many other areas. Baby Bear and Dg dg Edai says love yourself. And shabu

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says self-respect arpin says and this is the first time gratitude's come up, which is quite interesting. We've only got

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about 10 to go, and it's quite interesting that gratitude took so long to come up arpin beg date says

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a sense of gratitude. Yes. Monica, to fight for freedom. Yeah,

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we need that. If you didn't have anybody fighting for freedom, we would all get... We would lose our freedoms,

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I guess. Life in Colorado says to simply always be polite. Comes back to the manners though and simply always

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be polite. Yes. If you haven't got nothing good to say, don't say anything at all. And it comes down

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to the kindness again. It's Just Me says common sense. Difficult one that because common sense is relative.

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And one person's common sense is not another person's common sense based on your experience in life. But I know

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where they're going for I know where they're going. I apologize now. This one's got a swear word. Judy Jewell

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says, don't fuck up other people's spirit. Yay all. I'm probably not saying that in the right accent.

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Be kind. That's it. Don't fuck up other people's spirit. You all. Be kind. That's it. Oh,

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I agree. Yes.

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Don't be an asshole. Ashley.

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Crochet. It's oddly relaxing, therapeutic and you can make sick blankets. That

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has to be my favourite and I love the way she's put it and my carer would say the same

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thing because if you ever see my video sometimes I'm wearing these awesome colored hats and one of my carers

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knits me them. I don't know if it's crochet or knitting. I have no idea but And Ashley says, crochet.

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It's oddly relaxing, therapeutic, and you can make sick blankets. How cool is that?

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Yvonne doughty says liberation psychology. Oh yes,

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freedom. Freedom of the mind. Liberation. And my teacher, Jun Po, says, your

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angst is your liberation.

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Yeah, I would go with that.

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Counsellor Moore says, Stop. There is power in the pause. Breathe.

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Yes.

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The power of the pause. Cheryl always says that. Yeah, totally.

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Dr. At Legal says, If people didn't want things this way, they would stop doing it.

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Hmm. If people didn't want things this way, they would stop doing it. I guess that's in reference to teach

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people to change their habits, change what they're doing. You know, if you're not happy with your life, do something

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about it. And Dami says, communication and networking.

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Communication and networking.

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And here's my ultimate favourite. And it's by Chris Brock. And I got to thank you, Chris, for this. It's

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a wonderful word. And it's one of those words that... You see and you look up the meaning of and

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you just go, yes, that's it. And the word sonder.

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S-o-n-d-e-r. Sonder. And it means the realisation that each

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random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.

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The realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid. And as complex

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as your own. How beautiful is that?

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Imagine how much that would lead to in freedoms and in love and self-respect and carelessness and kindness,

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compassion for others, that

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every passerby

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is living a vivid and complex life as your own. Wow. I think that just goes right to the heart

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of um the spiritual journey. Yes. And

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what's interesting is not one of those things about teaching. Comes up with English or maths or drama

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or It's just interesting those school lessons just don't come into bearing when it comes to

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real life. We

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leave school with these academic subjects. These very head subjects.

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But it's not from the head that you live your life. It's from your heart you live your life. It's

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from your whole body. And it isn't until you start living your life from your heart. That things really

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start making sense. The world starts making sense. The universe starts making sense. Others start making sense

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to us too. Nobody's totally wrong and nobody's totally right, including us. We

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recognise that we're all deeply perfect and deeply flawed. We recognise that everybody is looking for the same thing. Everybody

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wants to be loved. Everybody's trying to prove something to somebody. And no amount of English and maths

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is ever going to do is ever going to teach that. But they're valuable subjects to have the valuable subjects

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to have, especially when you're counting your money or when you're having to read a book. So that's my podcast

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this week. And let me know... By way of replying, if I post this on Twitter or post this on

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Facebook, please reply with your thoughts. And you can always go over to StevenWebb.com and message me and let me

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know what you think. I love having feedback. And you can always, if you're not up for typing and I'll

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always just go over to StevenWebb.com. Book him for a virtual coffee, 15 minutes, no charge. And he'll come up

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with a time in your time zone. And you pick a time and then... We can hook up and I

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can meet you. I love meeting new people. Give me your thoughts. Tell me what you would teach the world.

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What would I teach the world?

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Take a deep breath, slow down and just stop talking. Live

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from the heart. So on that note, stop talking. I love you guys and namaste.

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