074 The Adventures of Scout

074 The Adventures of Scout

About this Episode

The three engineers are on a mission  to supply a book to every Primary school in the UK and encourage readers and children to join Scout’s team (the book protagonist) to help better the planet.

Let me introduce you to the 3 Engineers. They are:

Nick – Chartered Senior Systems Engineer -  10 years at Babcock International 

Matt - Chartered Assistant Chief Engineer – 14 years at Babcock International – Lead Technical lead for several large programmes

 Jon – Chartered Project Engineer – RWG Renewables

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:00
Have you heard about the adventures of scout? The three engineers have applied the science and the tools and technology of engineering to their process of creating a children's book, I interviewed the three engineers and I asked them what they would change about the education system. Here's what they said.

Matt 0:17
I think the first thing we have to do is figure out what's important, we'd have to identify what's really important, is it that children need to be able to spout off facts in a about a specific subject in a exam, or is it that we need to teach our children how to live their lives as best they can.

Katherine Ann Byam 0:43
The Adventures of scout is one of the most interesting and engaging children's books I've had a look at recently. And it really encourages positive action positive momentum for the planet. Tune into this really insightful episode, and give the three engineers and the Adventures of Scout a follow, make sure to go download or buy your copy of The Adventures of Scout today. This is season five, the great debates of our times, Season Five will be centred around the great debates. And we will be comparing and contrasting different viewpoints on various topics that are consuming the public discourse at present. The reason I decided to take this approach is because we or at least many of us, are losing the skill of debate. And I think this is an essential skill for us all to practice once more. I don't see how we get to the point of saving the world and saving our planet. If we don't know how to discuss our differences. I also think that the solution to most of our challenges is somewhere in the spectrum of views, but never a type of extreme. I will be working with guests to curate the content and discuss beforehand, I will understand their positions their areas of genius, and navigate my questions around that so that the conversation is challenging and stimulating. Without being combative. I hope you enjoy season five of where ideas launch the Sustainable Innovation podcast. The three engineers are on a mission to supply a book to every primary school in the UK and encourage readers and children to join scouts team, the book protagonist to help better the planet. Let me introduce you to the three engineers they are. Nick is a chartered senior systems engineer at Babcock International. And Matt is a chartered Assistant Chief Engineer, also at Babcock International. John is a chartered project engineer at RW G renewables. John is not currently available with us today. But the rest of the team is here. So Welcome guys to where ideas launch. Hello, nice to meet you, Katherine, great to have you both. So let's get started. So can I just say this is the first time I'm interviewing a group of men doing a sustainable project. So typically, I get groups of women or I get women who are really trying to make change happen. But I don't often get recommended men who are making changes in this space, and doing it as a side gig. So what are your thoughts on that?

Nick 3:09
I think from our perspective, we've done it just independently, we didn't really consider too much beforehand what we were going to do we got together as a team to do something different. And what happened was we quickly realised that what was important to us and our values, were the environment, health and well being and technology. And then we looked at the amount of time that we had and resources to be able to dedicate that to this idea. And that's how the book was born.

Katherine Ann Byam 3:39
So tell me a little bit about the project and what drove you out of your niche. So you're both working in sort of big engineering type operations? What made it happen if I direct my question to Matt, perhaps,

Matt 3:54
Our work, we were all working together in the same place at the time. And on Friday afternoons, we used to have Friday afternoon off, so we didn't have to work past 1230. Normally, we'd just all meet up and hang out and go to the pub or something like that. And one day, we sort of said, Oh, we should probably do something more important with our time other than just sink a few beers. So I set up five meetings, basically I said, right, instead of, we're still gonna go to the pub, we'll have a purpose to it other than just socialising and try and figure out whether we're going to do something different and meaningful with that spare time that we've got. And yeah, that's just out of those five meetings. That's how Nick, John and I sort of formed together as the three engineers.

Katherine Ann Byam 4:39
And do you guys have kids?

Nick 4:41
Yep, I've got a 13 year old.

Matt 4:44
Yeah, I've got a six year old and a three year old.

Katherine Ann Byam 4:49
And what sort of stimulated you from doing this project from that perspective. What were you seeing in terms of the kind of material or curriculum that your kids are experiencing that made, you want to do something a little bit different. Maybe I go to Nick this time,

Nick 5:06
We didn't really set out, like we said, to come up with books, we came up with lots of different ideas. And as engineers, we've got lots of processes and tools. So we've decided that whatever we do, will stick to those processes and tools, and we'll basically map out an idea. So we came up with lots of ideas, scored them in a matrix. And I think each of us had individual sort of ambitions. So I wanted to improve career advice to school because mine wasn't as good as I had hoped, Matt really liked tech stuff. So he really liked the idea of having forums or websites and blogs and things like that. And John came from a different angle where he wanted to design sustainable products. And combining and merging all of those ideas together, I think Matt came up with the idea of having how can we have the biggest impact. And we all decided that with the time that we had, if we could pull it off, if we could write some kids books, about some of the topics that were personal to us. So for example, I particularly don't like litter, I pick up litter, and Matt is from sort of from the countryside down south. So he really remembers his childhood as like with bees so we kind of tried to link them all to our sort of personal touches. So yeah, so

Matt 6:13
At the time, when we formed back in 2018, my three year old daughter, she wasn't even born, my son, we were in the midst of like, he was just consuming literature, like reading stories to him. It was like dozens of stories every day. And I think that's where one of the ideas that well, we had a couple of ideas in our Scoring Matrix were to write children's stories. One that it's about solving problems, one that was for promoting women in engineering. They were the two ideas. Yeah, that sort of they say it sort of came about because my, I could see how my son was just consuming information, and really thinking about what was being told in these stories. And like Nick said, we wanted our project to make the biggest impact. And by, like, sort of feeding in those messages at such an early age, you can have an impact, not just at that age range, but like a three year old is more than happy to tell an adult to pick up litter because it's bad. So teaching their parents, their teachers, their siblings about this message. We just felt well, why wouldn't we focus on that area. And so that's where it did influence from my kids anyway,

Katherine Ann Byam 7:35
I've just recorded an episode with Susan Krumdieck. She's a transition engineering specialist, she's based out of Heriot-Watt in Scotland, in Orkney. And one of the things that she talks about in her work and in the book that she's written, actually, is that engineers are really the engine room of the of the economy, even though probably engineers don't even see it that way. And she applies this to sort of past major shifts that we've had to make. So things like I don't know, solving water problems, or different types of solutions that we've had over the time of our evolution, and how engineers are actually the ones who make stuff happen, who apply certain methodologies, certain scientific principles, etc. Whereas economists operate more like sharman. It's a really interesting episode. And I thought she was really funny. But I wanted to tap into this, because you mentioned that you have a Scoring Matrix, and you had this sort of discipline of how you were going to tackle this problem. Tell me a little bit about those tools that you've been using.

Nick 8:48
Matt is a pure systems engineer, he's got lots of experience. So he brought to the table Venn diagrams and kind of mind mapping exercises where we could really hone down on a particular idea, but also really expand and understand how wide a range if we're looking at our environment, everything that we could possibly think of regarding the environment to make sure that the stories, made sure they link consistently back to what we wanted to do. I suppose moving a bit forward on from once we captured the idea, we had no idea how to write books. We are all engineers, we prefer maths over English. I'm sure Matt will agree. And we decided to try and design it. So we had no idea how to rhyme. So we went to some bookshops. So we spent four months basically writing up all the books that we could find the best rhyming books. And then we did some pattern analysis and sort of book structure and syllable counts on all of the rhyme such that we could then try and find our own winning formula. And yeah, that was a really fantastic way for us to learn because we were then able to sort of critique our work as we went along with some form of confidence that if we kept that formula, we will have something at the end we'd be happy with.

Katherine Ann Byam 10:01
Oh my god, I've never heard of someone writing a book using a mathematical algorithm. You sound like my partner who's a data scientist. Let's go into a bit about the journey. So in terms of conception to production, you talked about the four men sort of doing the research and background. But I think doing an illustration and children's book takes a bit longer than that. So tell us about that journey from conception to production.

Matt 10:24
Yeah, so the illustrations were a funny one. Really, the original plan was to do everything off of our own backs. If we needed to learn a new skill, learn a new piece of software, find something new, we would do it ourselves. illustrations, when we first tackled illustrations were like, right, okay, let's, let's have a go ourselves. So we did actually do some drawings ourselves. And I think I bought like digital, like art pads that you can get to plug into your computer for, I bought two of them, one for me, and one for Nick and John sort of share between them. So we could have a go at digital artwork, and we produce some pictures. But it takes so long, it's such a like if you haven't been doing it and the hours that you have to put in to master it and to get great at it just weren't good enough. And it didn't really live up Nick, did it to our expectations, we had a picture in our head of what it should look like. And then when we tried to draw it, it was appalling. It was abysmal. So we went through like looking at different illustrators. So we just sort of, we wanted to choose a style. So we had a couple of friends who are into illustration. And I have a friend of a friend that I talked with, and we did a couple of sort of meet and greets, and, oh, here's our idea. Draw, what do you think this would look like? And it didn't quite work out, letting the artist sort of just finding an artist and letting them create it. So we decided to trawl the internet basically for styles that we liked. So we almost did a bit of a, not a Scoring Matrix, but we assessed and evaluated what it was we liked about different types of illustration, and different colour palettes and things like that. And we we came together and we sort of chose, it's really difficult to find a common style that we all liked between the three of us. But we had some like ideas that we thought yeah, it needs to be bright. It needs to be detailed. We like the detail it needs to be digital art not sort of natural art, like drawn. And then, Nick, through hours of trawling the internet, found a lady in Georgia, in the country, Georgia. And we reached out to her, we had a look at her website. And it was fantastic. And then I don't know how many months you spent Nick trying to bend her arm into taking on our project.

Nick 12:57
Six months, got turned down four times.

Matt 13:01
So yeah, we were persistent. And we finally got her on contract to do the first one. And, yeah, we couldn't have been happier in terms of how she visualised Scout. Lots of what you see in the illustrations is actually in the first book, especially is coming from us. So we have designed what it should look like in the perspective. And then we sort of do a really naff pencil sketch, and then send it to the illustrator. And then she does a better pencil sketch, we sort of back and forth on that. And then she does a colour digital image that's sort of blocky, so we know what colours she's going to use. And then when we're happy with that, she will then do the full detailed drawing like, over 40,000 brush strokes per picture. Basically, there's hundreds of 1000s of brushstrokes digital brushstrokes in the book. The second book, we've let her have a bit more creative flair, let her do her own thing a bit more. We've got our working relationship going. But the interesting thing is we've never physically spoken to her. So Nick does it all through Facebook Messenger. So yeah,

Nick 14:18
Hundreds and hundreds of texts a day. But we we do also to add to that we've got a really detailed kind of storyboard description. So down to almost exactly what the characters are kind of like doing, their kind of like expressions, easter eggs, and because we design and wrote all three books first, we were then able when we came to the illustrations to think we're way ahead and be able to basically make references to each book throughout each book. So hopefully when we have our second book out, people will certainly see and start spotting those kin of easter eggs and kind of correlations between them.

Katherine Ann Byam 14:55
That is brilliant though and the illustrations are absolutely wicked. So for my listeners, if you really want to go check out these books, they are awesome. They're fantastic visual content as well as, you know, reading content. So let's move to some of the critical reviews you've received so far. So I know that you're working with schools, and you're having some some different types of collaborations with with education facilities and buddies. What has been sort of the feedback you're getting and what's garnered the most interest?

Nick 15:25
We've had, we've had a bit of a yeah, getting feedback from, our perspective, who are not authors is quite tricky. And it's kind of hard to take, I think we first sent our scripts out to some librarians who literally tore them apart. And said they didn't rhyme, said, why have you got a poison dart frog as a friend and kind of really hit us back and we were going like, we just kind of too close to this. And maybe we can't see that it's any good. But then we tested it a lot with schools and kids and fundamentally, like kids love it. They love finding Vinnie, they love rhyming. And that's kind of why we chose rhyming, because we it's such a powerful tool when it's done right. And yeah, and obviously, you've seen the illustrations, they're just, you know, so essential to have good illustrations, like I've just actually applied for the Guinness World Records to see if they will actually take it as a, or consider it as a world record for the most digital brushstrokes in a book and trying to credit Ann. And because I couldn't see it on their website. So I thought we have to go for it because it's, yeah I think there's 483,000 brushstrokes, in it and it took 11 months full time to illustrate. It's just a piece of absolute stunning work.

Katherine Ann Byam 16:32
Yeah. Wow. That's incredible. And what have been the reactions from kids? So let's, let's ask Matt, this one,

Matt 16:39
They've been really good. In general, we've done quite a lot of virtual book readings, to schools. And we've started doing like physical book readings, now we've been to a number of schools physically. And we were down in Plymouth a few months ago, or a couple of months ago for Plymouth children in poverty, where that charity donated our books to all the schools. And we went round for World Book Day and read to various schools and then did a litter pick at the end of the day. And we read to different age ranges as well. Year one, two and three normally, are the classes that we read to in primary. But yeah, generally the children have had positive feedback, especially if you engage them on the pictures like if they find they've got Vinny to find on every page, like the poison dart frog, and also the message we've got in the back of the book. And each book will have like a glossary. It's like a description of questions that you can ask about the topic of the book. So it allows after you've read the book to really explore the message and the action that Scouts trying to get everyone to take. My own children personally, have been fantastic. Before we had the book, like physically, they liked it, and they went along with it. And then as soon as you have a physical book, it's great to have them say, like I said, on our bookshelf at home, and it's great when I pick it.

Nick 18:00
We also want to add further to that we've had a number of kids basically dress up as Scout for World Book Day, which was incredible. And we get basically sent posters all the time and pictures of basically kids, you know, taking action and actually joining Scouts team and and actually litter pickingin. And yeah, we've got from an educational perspective, we've got so much like material coming in from schools. It's just fabulous to see.

Katherine Ann Byam 18:21
That's incredible. So is Scout going to become a Disney character anytime soon, Nick.

Nick 18:27
Yes. I basically, I think, from our perspective, we wanted her to be as world widely recognised as Dora the Explorer, but also kind of had that Captain Planet feel, which was kind of a cartoon back in the day, that really sort of was a positive role model. Instead of all the stuff we see now just we just kind of like always fighting and sort of we want we want to see some more positive action. Yeah, once the three books are out, we've got great ambitions. And we'll certainly be pushing it under the noses of people to see if they would like to consider it as cartoons, hopefully, or other things like that.

Katherine Ann Byam 19:02
Now, this is great. I do think you have that potential. So like, really good going, guys. So how are you juggling all of this with your day jobs?

Matt 19:12
Not gonna lie. It's quite tough. We both work full time. So five days a week, we don't work four days a week and have the odd day to dedicate to it. Obviously, I have two small children. I've also moved into a house that was empty for 11 years before we moved in. So it's got a lot of work that needs doing to it. So Nick does a fantastic job at keeping the momentum on the project going his energy is what what keeps us going really, I only step in when Nick's energy drops a little bit and he needs a little help himself. I try and step in to help with that. But yeah, it is tough is tough. We used to every We used to meet up every Friday afternoon. And then when the pandemic happened, obviously we couldn't meet physically and then meeting virtually just isn't quite the same. And then now I've moved out of Bristol. I am not as close to Nick to just, on an odd evening, just meet up. So, yeah, we're looking to meet up physically more, but it's yeah, dedicating that that time really don't know if you've got anything to say on that, Nick.

Nick 20:22
Yeah, it is extremely tough. I'm sympathetic with Matt and John's sort of situations with the young kids. We've all got really busy jobs with, you know, big teams, that some of us lead I even had to move home for two years, back to my parents to fund the project, which has been extremely difficult. But yeah, ultimately, like all things, for persistence, you've got to just find energy. But like, if things don't work, like it's acceptable to sort of have those low moments, I'll be sprinting and then the mat sort of bolster me up or when I'm on my lows. But we're certainly looking to sort of get people more involved we're sort of looking to get, let's say, a third engineer back involved a new drummer, let's say the ambition sort of project manage and give me that energy that I need. Yeah, I suppose when you reach a goal, when you've actually published something, it's fantastic. And it kind of the wheels come off then. And it's, it's just trying to make sure that you grind out it's so tough with the day job.

Katherine Ann Byam 21:16
I know what you mean, you touched on this probably before we started recording, but I just want to, you know, put that in front of my listeners as well. But you started as three and and now you're sort of two and a half. Tell me a little bit about that.

Matt 21:29
Yeah. So like I said, when we started in 2018, there was the three of us, Nick, John and I, and we all had the same energy, the same input, we were still, we were keen to make this project a success and make it happen. And we were having a lot of fun. I can't remember what year it was, Nick. But we, it was getting to the crunch point of having to form a business rather than just do it as a as a hobby. And that commitment. And like Nick had a real drive and ambition to make this go, to make this go really far. I was sort of in between John was just happy coming up with ideas and dreaming, that it could be a big thing, but not actually necessarily doing something to make it happen. That sounds a bit harsh, but he'll own up. It's like the commitment is high. And it was we had a lot of discussions together when we were forming the business about how are we going to split it who's going to be responsible for what, what are we going to do. And John was just honest with us and said that he was happy to be involved in helping write books and be part of the story. But in terms of the other stuff around it that we were doing. He wanted to do other things with his time. And he was just had a newborn baby as well. And similar sort of house renovation things. He's now gone part time as a stay at home dad. So who knows? He might find some time, but I doubt it.

Nick 22:57
Yeah, I think we actually had, so there's multiple times where we sort of had to sort of reflect on how we were driving it forward. It's hard to sort well, with one person having a vision, bringing everyone along equally. And it caused not any not resentment, but it kind of did cause some form of resistance, because as we were trying to sort of take this forward, we had to have a look kind of like my leadership style to see whether if it was my leadership style, which was causing it say energy to sort of like lower, and whether or not other guys could step up. And I've really like, take my hats off to the guys, we've done really well to be able to manage those conflicts and come out the other side. And, and like Matt said, John, pretty much was just being fantastic and honest, you know that he understood what he wanted from the project, which made things super easy in our first objective was always, whatever we do, we must remain friends after the end of this. And that sort of still is embedded in us really, we need to make sure that that's the last reller.

Katherine Ann Byam 23:58
That's brilliant. And thank you for sharing. And I know that, you know, it's probably tough to sort of experience this and go on the journey that you're going on with so many big dreams and goals. And you know, working with friends, it's there's always tension. There's always creative abrasion, as they call it when you're coming up with creative projects as well. And yeah, so kudos for learning how to manage that. And you know, bringing everyone along till the end. So my next question is going to be what does growth look like for you guys? So we've already touched on sort of the Disney books. So what's immediately next in line for Scout?

Nick 24:36
So we've got three books. So that's where the second book is almost published. And then we've got, we've managed to secure the illustrator for the third book, which is just amazing. What we started, what we wanted to try and do as each book was designed such that we could have this educational resource but also trying to encourage taking action. And we then decided that we wanted to partner with people that were taking action. And to make sure that that message was coherent throughout. And what we want to do is we want to set up charities, that the books can actually fund and we can apply for different funding to the charity that we then can support those kinds of causes that are in the books. There's so many amazing people out there dedicating their time and volunteering to litter picking. They're inspirational for me. And same with with bees with partner colonise, they pitcture dreams where we want to get the book into every school in the UK. So that's number one priority. And we're sort of talking to lots of big organisations to understand whether they would like to participate in that for their social sort of responsibilities within the communities, I really wouold like the idea of basically creating resource sheets that are free for schools to download, because we're currently encouraging STEM because Scout's a problem solver, what we really want to do is be able to use the imagery of Scout as a scientist, as an engineer, as a mathematician. So when the kids see that positive role model, they might then look at maths and go, Oh, wait a second, I could do this too. So we're working with STEM quite closely around the country really, and basically trying to look at different opportunities where we can create different resource sheets. And then globally, I'd love to be able to do that and tailor like curriculums in different countries with those kind of resource sheets. And really grow with partnerships, really. So there's so much to do. There's so much to do.

Katherine Ann Byam 26:21
If for some reason I had a really important listener on this programme, in terms of a big company that you might want to collaborate with. Who would that be?

Nick 26:31
Oh, we've approached quite a few friends of the earth we wanted to sort of approach them to start off with because they had a fantastic bee saver kit. And it was a kind of everything that we wanted to create, which they already had. So we would love to partner with them, especially with the book that we've got which is about the bees, that would just be the perfect partnership. Yeah, well, I suppose we're not really focused on any particular one. It's kind of like, you know, how can we work with, you know, create a good relationship that sort of promotes Scout but also helps other people with their organisation? So, Matt, have you got any?

Matt 27:05
Well I don't know if, like Chris Packham from Spring watch, or David Attenborough foundation would listen to your podcast. But our third book is about loss of habitat of like animals, specifically UK, endangered animals, and how we can help take action to improve the habitats of local animals and recognise the problems that with having astroturf grass and things what that brings to, to our local wildlife. And yeah, it'd be great to be able to have even a testimonial from, from any of those guys, I'd love to go on spring watch.

Katherine Ann Byam 27:50
That's brilliant. So I want to ask another question. And this is more to do with our education systems as a whole. And like, I know, this is a really fun project. And it's a very engaging one. It's very problem solver oriented as well. Do you think that the way we educate kids today needs to radically change? And would you like to see more sort of problem solving and sort of situation creation in the classroom?

Matt 28:16
Wow, that's a really tough question. Because we are not teachers. And we have friends like my next door, neighbours, both my next door neighbours are both teachers. And they work incredibly hard at their jobs. And I know how tough it is to be a teacher of the schools that we've been in as well, in terms of what education are they getting, from what I've seen, there's quite a lot of red tape for teachers to be able to, before they actually get round to teaching. And the message, I think the messages are really good in most schools at the minute and they're tackling lots of different issues. And there's so many things that need to be looked at, when you're educating young people, diversity and inclusion, religion, the environment as, health and well being. I don't think it needs to change the actual structure, because I don't know as much about it. But I think more funding needs to go into it to help it be as good as it can be.

Nick 29:11
Yeah, and I think, from what I've seen in schools is there's certainly a really large commitment by schools to sort of have eco committees and get kids engaged early with the environment, which is fantastic. And I think most schools then try and aspire to join eco schools and the green flag sort of award system. And I think I might have to just basically err on what Matt said, and I think it just comes down to funding you know, when we have more funding and more publicity and marketing focus around those subjects. I think that's when you'll start seeing a bigger commitment level and then change hopefully in schools.

Katherine Ann Byam 29:44
If this scenario was that we could not do schools the way we do them. And we had no more funding, you guys are problem solvers, remember that? What would you do, what would you change, how would you reshape it? What would you do? a radical question?

Matt 30:02
How would we change the educational system? Right? Okay. (Not a biggie!) I think the first thing we'd have to do is figure out what's important, we'd have to identify what's really important. Is it that children need to be able to spout off facts about a specific subject in a exam? Or is it that we need to teach our children how to live their lives as best they can, whilst exposing them to focus areas and like maths or science to allow them to go into those subjects, if they choose? I, that's what I would do. There's so many graduates and things that we see at work as well that come out. And some of them, they can do so many sums and integrate these crazy formula. But can they boil an egg? I don't know. But life skills, I think are so important. And teaching those in schools needs to be something that changes I think.

Nick 31:10
That was a great answer. Yeah, it's leading towards to problem solving, I think problem solvers. And being able to physically basically recreate and learn through activity, I think that's such a big thing. And I think we are actually seeing that in schools, a lot of that, instead of us just creating sort of standard resource sheets, like colouring in, but they're not that teachers are far more open to activities where the kids are getting involved by building sort of spaghetti bridges and trying to work out whether they're gonna hold them or marshmallow spaghetti towers, and it's that creative hands on approach, which I think is definitely more beneficial for children, rather than, like Matt said, you know, having to sort of study for exams, I'm trying to think that's where I would naturally sort of lean towards, but it comes down to again, what matters is what is important.

Katherine Ann Byam 31:57
Yeah, perfect. Thank you. I had to squeeze that out of your story. So how can people engage with Scout and your work,

Nick 32:05
We've got a number of social media platforms, we've got our Instagram account, which is called Stop underscore dropping underscore litter. And that really showcases how incredible our talented illustrator is you can see almost, her penwork and how she does it on an iPad, which is just crazy. Like, I saw pictures of her doing some work. And she's just sat there at a football pitch with her son doing work, which is just crazy. So definitely worth a look there. Our website is where you can basically get the book. And that kind of gives a good overview of who we are, the project and things to come, let's say, and I think we might have some long term kind of ambitions to get the book on other platforms as well, to make it more accessible to people globally, because we've had a huge amount of interest globally, through Facebook groups. But we don't currently send the books abroad. So yeah, we'd certainly love to do that.

Katherine Ann Byam 33:02
Much Any closing words from you?

Matt 33:04
I'd just like to say, thank you very much, Katherine, for having us on. It's, always great to talk about our project and reflect on it. I think we've achieved so much in the time that we've had; been able to dedicate to it. We really believe in the message in our books. And we get so much fulfilment out of like visiting schools and like teaching kids and things like that. It's great. So anything like this, I absolutely loved it. Thank you very much.

Katherine Ann Byam 33:32
Okay, so I'm gonna do something that I that I didn't tell you about before. So it's rapid fire questions. So I'm gonna ask you a question. And you just tell me the first thing that comes to your mind as quickly as you can favourite animated movie,

Matt 33:44
The Little Mermaid?

Katherine Ann Byam 33:45
Would you choose a car or a bike?

Matt 33:48
Bike.

Katherine Ann Byam 33:49
Wind or solar?

Nick 33:51
Wind

Katherine Ann Byam 33:51
Book or audio?

Nick 33:54
Audio

Katherine Ann Byam 33:55
Why do you choose Audio? You have a great illustrated book. Tell me about this one,

Nick 34:00
I just Yeah, like Matt loves reading books. And I've never been someone to read books I've always like, had a different way of learning through audio and visual so that it was more alien for me to write some books. It really was compared to other people. I just generally read textbooks. And that's about as far as my literature sort of aims and ambitions go,

Katherine Ann Byam 34:20
Which really explains why this is going to be a Disney movie at some point. Great, thank you so much, guys.

Matt 34:28
We get asked that question a lot in schools, what book are you reading at the minute and Nicks says; I don't read

Nick 34:36
Systems functional engineering.

Katherine Ann Byam 34:39
That makes sense. Thank you so much, guys, for joining me today.

Matt 34:42
ckThank you very much, Katherine.

Nick 34:44
It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much.

Katherine Ann Byam 34:48
This podcast is brought to you today by the brand new Women in Sustainable Business Awards. That kicks off in 2023. If you're a business owner who's starting a business with principles of sustainability in mind and you want to preserve some lost skills, some handcrafting artisanal work, or you're a social media manager supporting purpose driven brands, or you're creating fashion or something that is relevant to the sustainability and green transformation. You are more than welcome to join us and to get involved in these awards. Check out our group on Facebook women in sustainable business, or follow the podcast where ideas launch on Instagram to find out more

058 Activism Through Stories

058 Activism Through Stories

About this Episode

Sally Giblin is an Eco Founder, Climate Reality Leader, and Environmentalist. Her purpose is to inspire others to take dramatic action on our climate and biodiversity crisis - the most important issue of our lifetime. She’s the CoFounder of Be The Future, which inspires parents of young children to raise heroic leaders for environmental change, drawing on storytelling, behavioural science and positivity. She’s spreading the word about environmental action through writing for media publications such as Climate Conscious, Pebble Magazine, and The Grace Tales, and speaking at events such as It’s Time: A Festival Of Climate Action.

She’s also a startup mentor for Founder Institute, the world's largest early-stage accelerator. She has also been at the forefront of many social impact initiatives over the years, with organizations such as Young UN Women and Social Good Summit. She previously Co-Founded Pure Bundle, an award-winning startup that was transforming the experience of Re Loving children’s clothing.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:03  

Sally, it's such a pleasure to have you on where it is lunch. Welcome to the show.

Sally Giblin  1:46  

Thank you so much for having me, Katherine.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:49  

I'd like to start with a story I found about you on your LinkedIn profile about a trip you made to Sydney in early 2020. Tell us about what that experience was like for you.

Sally Giblin  2:00  

Yeah, sure. So I'm an Australian living in London. And back before the pandemic, my family was going to visit everyone back in Sydney. And you know, usually going back in the summer, it's all about the beaches and blue skies, beautiful weather. But Sydney was gripped at the time by these catastrophic bushfires. And they're the worst bushfires Australia has ever had. And it was just, I think, incredibly humbling and, and really quite shocking to really kind of realise, just the fear, the loss that was happening in the country at the time, and, you know, 19 million hectares burnt 1.2 5 billion animals perished. About 33 human lives are lost. And so it was, you know, an incredibly difficult time. And I think, for me, that was really the moment that I realised that climate change is not in the future. It's happening here. And now. And you know, weather events, extreme weather events are getting more intense, more frequent around the globe. And I think, you know, many, many more people are sort of having these climate moments where they're really realising how much we do need to step up and keep taking more action and hold our leaders to account.

Katherine Ann Byam  3:15  

Yeah, what was it like to sort of experience that from the eyes of people who live there?

Sally Giblin  3:22  

I think I mean, growing up in Australia, I was incredibly fortunate, because it's this beautiful country with a lot of natural nature, and, you know, beautiful waterways and beaches, and I think my childhood was was very much about, you know, growing up in the outdoors, and really enjoying a lot of that beautiful space. And I think, you know, there's a, there's a term called Sal Australia, and I think it was an Australian, who coined the term and all about basically people mourning, kind of the nature and the environment that used to be that is disappearing. And so I think, you know, it really made me feel incredibly upset, it made me feel incredibly guilty as well, because we were back there to see family and friends, you know, have a wonderful time and enjoy ourselves. And I remember I kept having these conversations with people saying, I feel guilty, you know, trying to go out and kind of do those normal everyday things when something so devastating is happening to so many people around the country. So I think it's, you know, a real, real wake-up moment. Yeah,

Katherine Ann Byam  4:26  

Absolutely. I know that children are central to all the activism work that you do as well. So tell me about how your son is sort of helping you navigate to this complexity?

Sally Giblin  4:37  

Yeah, sure. It's a good question. So I think like many parents, you know, when I had my son, it was very much you know, something that made me step back and go, what kind of future Am I creating for him? What, how can I create that best life and, and I guess, in the context of the climate emergency, you know, there's really this, this whole challenge around, what kind of future, you know, will be there for our kids. And you know what that next generation is stepping into. And so I've very much decided to focus on how we can help inspire and nurture that next generation of children to really care for the environment and want to be leaders for environmental change. And so there's some really simple things you can do with young children. 

And one of the first things is very much to inspire them to love nature. And you know, that can be as simple as playing outdoors quite a bit, having nature play activities, talking about, you know, animals and the environment. Because studies have shown that when children learn to love nature, as they're young, they often grow up to want to protect nature. And I think a second thing is, it is very much about inspiring them with stories, and games and puzzles, and all sorts of things that, you know, help them to learn about how they can care for the planet, but in a really fun engaging way. And, you know, as we all know, I think we all get drawn in as humans to storytelling. And it's such a powerful learning tool for young kids as well. And I think the third thing I'd say is around role modelling. Because, you know, children very much learn from what people around them and what the adults around them are doing. So as people start to, you know, make some changes in their own lives and understand more about this space. That's one of the best things you can do. You know, and one of the most visible things for kids is single use plastics. And so you know, things like explaining to your children if you're trying to make choices that are moving a bit more towards Reusables, and how we can do some things differently, you know, doing that with them and explaining why you're doing it. And it's quite surprising to see how that can then solidify in your child's mind. And I know during one of the many lockdowns here in the UK, I remember my son just deciding he wanted to start at about four. And he wanted to start making his little mini posters about trying to tell people about not using single use plastics and how they can hurt the fish. And I remember he listed me to make about 150, these tiny little posters he wanted to hand out. And that wasn't me, you know, telling him to do anything, he just decided, you know, after this conversation, so it's quite interesting to see where some of these very small things can actually plant something your child's mind where they can lead,

Katherine Ann Byam  7:29  

oh, my goodness, four years old, and an activist already. He's gonna give Greta a run for it. So let's talk a little bit about social impact and change and what the stories that you've written. What would you like to share with my listeners about some of the journeys that you've been on through your storytelling and through your writing, that have created an impact in the work that you do?

Sally Giblin  7:56  

So I think one of the things that has really stood out to me, as I've immersed myself more and more in this space, is this thrill need to try and transition from getting lost in all the doom and gloom and despair of a lot of the headlines that are out there, and really trying to immerse yourself in the positivity and the solutions and the optimism. And someone who is incredible in this space is Christina Figueiras, who led the whole effort around the Paris Agreement in 2015, you know, getting nearly every country in the world to sign up to try to catch the 1.5 degree temperature increase or two degrees at the most. And I think for her, when she first got put into that position of leadership, she remembers, you know, going to a conference and saying something, when asked a question about how are you going to do this, you said something about, well, we're not going to do it in my lifetime. And I think, you know, that was a response. She didn't even mean to say but she put it out there into the world. And I think she did a lot of soul searching after that and realised, you know, what, if I'm going to lead this effort, I need to be what she calls a stubborn optimist. And I need to be, you know, really believing and truly believing that this is possible to make this real change. And she shifted her mindset and was able to bring so many people along to do something that no one really did think possible at the time. And so I really hold that idea of, you know, not digging our heads in the sand, not pretending everything's okay at all. But really having hope and believing that, you know, we really can still do this, and project drawdown which is the world's most comprehensive view of solutions for the climate emergency. You know, really tacking on to that and and taking the view that if we, you know, people who kind of rise up for change and are able to help facilitate and take action to, you know, get our world leaders, businesses, individuals to do everything they can to To implement the solutions we already do have, we really can, you know, slam the brakes on this crisis and turn things around?

Katherine Ann Byam  10:06  

Yeah, no, I like that. And what made you yourself decide to become such an activist? What moment made you drunk?

Sally Giblin 10:16  

So I think I'd always been searching ever since I was a teenager, for what, something to really get behind. And it's always been so important to me to try and make something better in the world. And I think it started with a trip, I was very fortunate to take over to the Philippines when I was a teenager. And it was actually a geography tour. And, you know, I remember saying, you know, a lot of very difficult things over there, one of the things was visiting this orphanage and seeing these kids as young four or five, who'd been sniffing glue and being, you know, trapped into these terrible circumstances. And I remember just thinking, I just want to be able to do something to help. And, you know, I did a lot of volunteer work, a lot of social impact things. I did a master's in international development. It was reaching and exploring for a long time. But then I think the reason I think I've really landed on the environment, and the whole climate movement is because it is the biggest issue of our lifetime. And I think there is such an immense need to create change there. And there's so many ways people can get involved. And I think, you know, I just find such meaning in trying to be one small part of helping to try and turn the tide on this immense, you know, crisis in our lives.

Katherine Ann Byam  11:34  

Yeah, it's incredible, because there's so much at stake at the moment. And there's so much that's changing at the moment across a number of different spheres, you know, and whilst, like, I'm not a scientist and not an ecologist, but for me, it's like, it's equally as an unimportant part of the story about people and what you talk, what you spoke about with people in the Philippines, and etc, and your experiences when you were growing up. And it's so important for us to recognise as well, that we need to share the wealth of this planet in a way that it's sustainable for the planet and for us. So there's so much going on, at the moment that it feels sometimes it could get scary and overwhelming. I don't know if you feel that at times.

Sally Giblin  12:20  

Look, I absolutely still do. And I think it's just constantly trying to navigate these different feelings and emotions and try and, you know, keep bringing it back to where you can try and take action and where you can try and find community and do these things to sort of keep on this path. But I think it's only natural, and a lot of the climate psychologists out there do definitely say that it is a completely normal reaction, to feel some of these emotions of fear or despair or loss or overwhelm. And then it's about trying to navigate through that, and, and trying to find your path in your way. And I think, you know, taking action in a way that resonates for you, personally, is a really, really valuable way of not only trying to navigate those emotions, but also making an impact and trying to change things. And back to something you said about just the intertwining of the social and environmental issues here. Absolutely. And I was very fortunate to be part of Al Gore's Climate Reality leader programme earlier this year. And, you know, in terms of basically what the Climate Reality Project is all about, is trying to empower people to rise up and be voices for climate action and talking to the reality of the climate crisis and try and help more and more people make ripples of change. And their approach there is very much about how the climate justice and social justice movements are completely intertwined. And, you know, disproportionately the climate emergency is affecting people who are already more disadvantaged. And so there's just so much need there to address this, you know, the whole the whole thing together. And the intersexual environmentalist, they're a wonderful community on Instagram, and they, you know, really go into a lot of face issues and really doing a fabulous job of trying to pull that apart and help to kind of advance there.

Katherine Ann Byam  14:18  

Yeah, absolutely. Let's kind of move our attention to cop 26. So this is coming up. There's a lot at stake. What do you expect in terms of outcomes? And what would you like to see?

Sally Giblin  14:31  

Yeah, it's a great question. So, I mean, I think John Kerry, the US climate invoice, you know, he sums that up quite well when he says that the COP 26 UN summit in Glasgow in November is the last best chance to take action on the environmental crisis. And so I think there's really three main things that I really want to see happen there. Firstly, to see big, hairy audacious, you know, tar bits that are going to be followed through on by countries around the world. And I think it's all about going deeper and wider on action, as well as you know, pulling forward the time frames to really be slamming the brakes on emissions, and, you know, putting emissions into emissions into reverse in terms of, you know, carbon sinks and really pulling carbon out of the atmosphere as well. The second thing would be around helping countries that are already feeling climate impacts to adapt, because, like we were saying earlier, you know, there're many countries already feeling devastating impacts, who need, you know, support and planning to really try and address that for their people. And I think the third thing is that the richer countries of the world committed some time ago to providing $100 billion in funding a year to poorer countries to deal with the climate crisis. And that funding hasn't eventuated as yet. So it's imperative that that happens to to help those countries, you know, who are going to be feeling more of the impacts, and less able to deal with it, get that funding to them to make sure that those people are able to have the best chance,

Katherine Ann Byam  16:10  

slightly geopolitical questions, you don't have to answer if you don't want to. But do you think that we can make change happen with our current nation state sort of process and mentality?

Sally Giblin  16:24  

So look, it's a really good question. And I think, you know, there's such a need for systemic change to happen on so many levels, and and throughout how, you know, our societies are built, and I was listening to a fabulous podcast on this actually on force of nature the other day. And I think, you know, the nation state model can be quite troublesome in terms of that. And I think, you know, one of the things that I foresee as a real path forward is more localised mesh methods of production and consumption in terms of energy in terms of food. And so whether the nation state model is the best fit model, you know, for going forward. It's not my area of expertise. But I'm incredibly interested to see you know, whether that is something that can be evolved and changed. I'd love to know what you think about that, Katherine?

Katherine Ann Byam  17:21  

I also think that it's something I would like to see evolve and change. I think localization is a big part of the story. And a lot of what digitalization has brought is this feeling that we could be everywhere, but actually, I don't think it's the right solution. So it's learning how to use the tools that we have, within the context of the constraints we have. And we haven't quite navigated that yet. And I think there's a book called tools and weapons. And it's not, it's about digitalization in general. But it made me reflect on sort of the kind of parameters that we need to have in place, you know, so where doctors have Hippocratic Oath, so whatever, you know, we need to have the same thing for people coding the systems, we need to have people taking certain sorts of decisions that are different than we did before. Knowing what we know, now knowing the constraints that we never thought we had before. So yes, I think there's a need for change. But i i Also, I'm not qualified to speak on June 4, geopolitical issues. So what's next on the agenda for you? And how can my listeners support your mission?

Sally Giblin  18:33  

Yeah, sure. So I think there's probably two big things. So firstly, my co founder, Helen and I, so we're working on building up our business called be the future. And essentially, this movement is just all about trying to inspire guardians of our next generation, whether that's parents, grandparents, teachers, family members, to, I guess, nurture heroic leaders for environmental change. And there's just such a possibility with how we can help shape that future generation to really care for the planet and do things in a better, greener, fairer way for everyone. And so at the moment, we have our community, we're building up on Instagram, where we, you know, are really trying to inspire people to take action to have hope, and your leaders share real tips for real change. We are starting to record a podcast which is exciting called Hope at thrive. And that is, is really again, about you know, bringing in all sorts of different voices to help inspire people. And in the background, we were building up a collection of storybooks and puzzles and games that were released through different themes. Because I think we're big believers in storytelling and immersing ourselves and things that inspire us to really try and help kids and their guardians to really learn about this space and be inspired to make change. So that's sort of the first thing that would be the future. And then the second thing is around the Climate Reality Project. I'm involved in some stuff with cop 26. And also, you know, doing quite a bit of writing around trying to spread the word about climate optimism, and about actions people can take. And I guess, trying to help be part of changing that conversation from the doom and the gloom that that can really, you know, fair enough, encourage people to just want to switch off and try and really build in the inspiration of what the world could be and try and get more and more people involved in, you know, this incredibly important shift in society.

Katherine Ann Byam  20:38  

Thank you so much for sharing that. I think this has been a really fantastic conversation. Can you tell my listeners how they can follow you and get in touch with you? Yes, sure. So

Sally Giblin  20:47  

The best place is probably on Instagram, and our account is called be the future Earth.

Katherine Ann Byam  20:53  

Perfect. Thanks so much for joining me, Sally.

Sally Giblin 20:55  

Thank you so much for having me, Catherine. It's wonderful.

004 How to be Creative

004 How to be Creative

About this Episode

I met Malika over a question. I was consumed by the idea that people who do really great things, do so because they ask great questions. I shared this thought in a virtual social networking group and Malika chimed in - As artists, this is exactly how we work. We seek to ask questions only the individual viewer or consumer can answer. if the question is answered, the piece loses interest for us.

In this episode we discuss

  1. How culture and diversity influences creativity
  2. How she combines mental and physical challenges to open new portals and generate new ideas
  3. How she uses her environment to stir her creative genius, no matter the setting.

Born in Morocco to Austrian and Moroccan parents, Malika is a visual artist and photographer, who cites her diversity curiosity and connectedness as inspirations for her work.

Having lived in various countries, without her family from an early age, she identifies with a feeling of belonging to everywhere, and being the foreigner as well. She learned to exploit this polarity in her art and photography, creating different mosaics of culture and a universal perspective, shaped by her natural optimism and hope.

Her travels and work have taught her to seek the similarities, common wisdom, and shared mythologies of the ancestors, rather than the differences and boundaries that disconnect us.

Malika’s work has been exhibited on four continents, and in cities as diverse as London, Marrakech, Los Angeles, and Seoul. In 2013 she also delivered a masterful TedX talk on her travel along the latitude line 34.

Malika was also a qualified personal trainer and holistic lifestyle coach Kettlebell athlete for a decade in London. She is also a fully licensed skydiver and skydiving camerawoman and created a personal photography project while in the sky.

” we are made of Atoms, ideas and stories, for if we don’t act on our ideas they don’t become stories. “ Malika Sqalli TEDx Casablanca 2013

To view Malika's work, you can access it here

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Byam  0:02  

Malika, I'm sure all of my listeners are dying to meet you. Welcome to Where Ideas Launch.

Malika Sqalli  2:31  

Hi, Katherine. Thank you for having me.

Katherine Byam  2:34  

So I wanted to get you online because I know that you can teach my listeners a great deal about creativity. You have such a colourful backstory. You were born in Marrakech, your father is Moroccan, your mother's Austrian, you've lived in London, you lived in LA, you lived in Paris, and now you live in Battersea in Austria. Tell us about what those cultural experiences have brought to your life.

Malika Sqalli  3:04  

So being from a mixed cultural background already teaches me that there are many ways of approaching life There are many ways of thinking there are many rules from one country and the other. And it showed me that nobody has the ultimate answer. It's just that some answers work better for some and some not so well. And it resulted in the feeling of belonging anywhere and everywhere, and nowhere at the same time. So for me, often being on the road is where I feel at home, going somewhere, I don't know. And so yeah, I'm quite lucky to have been able to, to feel more global, and not get stuck into who's right and wrong.

Katherine Byam  4:03  

Let's get into this idea of how cultural diversity adds to your art. So you're an artist, and you've worked in very varied, places in the art are very varied types of arts. Tell us about where you've worked and what cultural diversity is brought to those elements.

Malika Sqalli  4:23  

That's interesting. I had never made the connection between my diverse background and the different tools that I use in my work. That's interesting, because, indeed, I've used installation work, I've made embroideries on photos, I've had instant sculptures and made little animations. Lately, I've used photography a lot. And I've also painted on photography on photographs. So I've used the tools that fitted my message like a vocabulary. I've worked with more abstract concepts, and I've also worked with indigenous cultures, where, in fact, we go back to the topic of belonging and identity. I was fascinated, but by cultures that wear their identity on their face through facial tattoos, and this probably really spoke to me because I don't have this feeling of belonging to one culture. So that was, that was also very enriching to see people who have this sense of identity and roots and are prepared to wear it on their face,

Katherine Byam  5:44  

I get excited every time we start talking about art and your cultural experiences. So we also talked about the mountains a lot. You tell me that you you love going up to the mountains and taking a call dip in a lake, I can't imagine what that's like, it's not something that I do. But tell our listeners what this means for your work, and how you're able to use this as part of your creative drive.

Malika Sqalli  6:12  

Okay, so this is a big mountain to climb actually, and this is a big topic. And I have discovered the mountains quite late actually. And, and it came from a frustration that I had, and that I wanted to feel things a lot more. And I will start by saying that. For me my artworks, I don't see them as something visual, but I see them as something that needs to instigate emotions. I want people to feel something not to see something. And I was a fitness coach for a long time I did boxing and kettlebells so I was very incarnated.

And I needed to find another way to incarnate myself in my work. So the mountains to me are multi-faceted they are big metaphors of life. Because in life, I think we climb mountains, we go down, climb again, we go down, we go to valleys gorges, we stay up for a while, and nobody likes to go down. And it's a bit like that. It's one of the best metaphors I think we have for life. And climbing mountains is also learning the right to be old. It's earning the landscape. It's timing it, it's taming it, because when we drive, and I had just done a long project, driving, just before I started learning about discovering the mountains, all this travelling that we do with planes and cars - they're not human scale.

 But when we climb a mountain, we go back to our speed, we go back to a time in our humans time, as opposed to the speed that we are encouraged to live by. So for me, mountains are very important. And this is maybe why now I'm quite happily living in the mountains.

Katherine Byam  8:21  

Wonderful. So you also do skydive photography. I think my listeners are probably sweating right now. Tell us about how you got into this field.

Malika Sqalli  8:34  

That was an answer to a question about a problem I had. It was during this time, I was doing a project around Latitude 34, which linked my hometown with the town I was living in Los Angeles, and the number of years I was on the planet. This was a very impulsive project I had. It was just an idea that popped in my head and I acted on it. And the line of the road, the yellow line I was tracing on the road became a metaphor for life. And then I played with that concept and I shot pictures where I was tracing the line because sometimes we don't know where we're going and we have to trace it.

At times we fall off the line. I wanted to depict how the sky's the limit or ask whether the sky is the limit. So I get to take my yellow line up and I shot one shot a few images where I flew a ribbon up in the sky and that was just not convincing to me. And I decided I needed to go up there and shoot my picture really in the sky. And this is how I called a skydiving center and told them I needed to learn to fly and I did not measure the consequences of this because I was 37 years old at that time.

 I was not completely fearless, you still have filters, the older we get. And I had no idea how to have four licenses for this and that I was going to be petrified for 50 jumps. And but I had a goal I had to target. And I think this was what matters. And fear was anecdotal. And the goal was what mattered. So this is how it started.

And then I did a series of images of their photos because I figured there was no artist who actually did a series of creative images up there. So I would take props with me and shoot and shoot colours, basically splash colours up in the sky in the same way and artists would intervene on the landscape through land art, or paint over a picture. And then the club asked me to do the videos for that tandems. So it was completely unplanned. It was total serendipity.

Katherine Byam  11:06  

It's so crazy. I am just excited. I want to grow to do something different now just listening to you. So how would you recommend our listeners approach creativity? How do they embrace creativity if they have what they feel might be monotonous jobs? How would you ask them to open their minds?

Malika Sqalli  11:28  

Okay, so I will, I will say before that what we create does, and then I'll say how to tackle this. I'll read a quote from a photographer. And she says that "photographers are investigators, the unconscious obsession that we photographers have is that wherever we go, we want to find the theme that we carry inside of ourselves." So in other words, what I see is a synthesis of who we are.

And what we give to see is also what we are. So creativity is also a way to know who we are. It's a double mirror, we show what we see. But it also shows us. So for this to be creative. We really need courage and curiosity. With courage, we have to drop our filters, we jump into cold water, and it can feel daunting, because somebody might say, this is really bad - what you've done, or it's just not good.

But being creative does not mean we have to be the best, we have to make a masterpiece. And we are masterpieces in the making because we always sketching something that will become better later. And so we have to have the courage to take action. And since ideas, our ideas our answers to questions and they come from a line of inquiry.

Malika Sqalli  13:23  

It can be hard that to have people look at what we do, it can be really hard. And that's where it takes courage to do it in an authentic way not trying to be like someone, not trying to emulate, we can be inspired but it will it has to be authentic and come from the heart and from the gut. Curiosity is where we find all the seeds that have the potential to become ideas and artworks.

Malika Sqalli  13:59  

And I also think that we are a kind of alchemist, where we take all these seeds, all these different things, all these different elements, and with our own personal little chemical reaction, we produce something new. In the same way when we learn from many people, we make our own idea of something. We don't just copy and paste and creativity is this little magic.

Malika Sqalli  14:36  

This is my transformation. This is why we transform things. We take a lot of it a lot of the what's around us and we transform it into our own personal way of expressing what we have to say. Really courage and curiosity I think are what will help your listeners be creative without holding back

Katherine Byam  15:03  

Malika, how do we get out of our own comfort zones to get out of our own way?

Malika Sqalli  15:08  

I will start by saying that going out of our comfort zone does not necessarily mean high adrenaline, thrill-seekers, thrill activities like skydive and things like this. These activities - they do just that. They give us thrills, and they give us a hit, they give us a kick, a dopamine kick which is why they can get very addictive for some of us. They can be very empowering. They can be very euphoric.

They can have this feeling of achievement which can be very beneficial to get going and get started on things and yes - feel empowered, which we know can have a great carry over in whatever we do in life. However, I am not sure if it really has an impact on creativity per se. I have many fellow skydivers who I would not qualify as creative. So I think that going out of our comfort zone is something that can contribute to creativity.

But it has to be nearly like a way of being a way of life, a lifestyle, and one that is based on trust. And what I'm trying to say here is that going out of our comfort zone does not have to be high, adrenaline does not have to be extreme. It can be speaking up. It can be telling or saying our opinion when it's completely divergent from everybody else. It can be traveling to a country we've never been to and doing it alone. It can be going out in the crowd when we don't like crowds. It can be really soft things softer things.

And this I equated to some kind of character and brain gymnastic. So it's all down to flexibility, creativity comes down really to flexibility. In the same way, as when we learn various languages, our mind becomes a lot more flexible between languages. And we can have don't get stuck. If there is one word we don't understand, we can make it up. So it's really about this flexibility in the way we approach things.

The other thing, I think that is very important for creativity. And I'll quote a critic Lyle Rexer, who told me when I was in a residency where he was taking part. He told me that my as a man, my images take him to a place in his heart, he does not usually go. And this is a bit of that. Out of the comfort zone can also be going within in places we don't normally go. It's this inquiry again that we were talking about the questions. We going to a little corner that we are we don't know how it looks like. We're going to investigate.

And this is one of the keys. And this can only be done with an open heart to be really authentic and really moving in touching. It has to not be driven just by the head and logic and whatever filters we acquire as we grow and go through life. So this is also why I think that artists are heart openers because it does require this attitude. And this is also why I created this group called Heart with Malika with capital to try and help people drive their creativity through their hearts.

Katherine Byam  19:15  

I love this. I have been so excited by this. And I'm sure my listeners will want to learn more about you. How can they reach out?

Malika Sqalli  19:23  

I have a website. It's malikascalli.com. And I also have a Facebook group where I talk about all things creative and how that can also have a positive impact on everyday life and on knowing who we are. Because when we know who we are, we know where we are going.

Katherine Byam  19:46  

Thank you and thank you listeners for joining us for Where Ideas Launch. See you soon.

Katherine Byam  19:54  

Thanks for listening. This podcast is brought to you today by the depot virtual service hub. The virtual service hub is our digital transformation strategy service that supports startups needing to optimise their processes and their performance to scale up growth. We also help medium sized firms and modernising their operations and Our services include sustainable strategy, analytics and tech enablement. To find out more contact Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn