Empowerment is, of course, very well known and used, but I think that is, to me, that feels like the next step up from resilience.

Well, welcome Katie

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

want to introduce you to our listeners, right?

So, Katie and I met at a book launch recently.

Katie is one of the world renowned experts I would put forward, on poverty and, and the experience, particularly the experience of poverty, as

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

host and founder of the Poverty Unpacked,

Uh,

politicians, and, and, and, and advising

Okay.

That's a really kind introduction.

Thank you, Carolyn.

I'm really happy to be here.

Okay, super.

And as I said, we met at this book launch.

I'm going to put this right up

for joining us today.

part of this, book launch.

Podcast.

But before we do that, we always start our podcast with more personal stories.

So

I don't know if you can see it.

to you and, you know, kind of us onto your feeling about resilience.

Thank

Well,

Carolyn.

Yes, a really interesting opening question and I give it some thought before we started speaking today And and actually you just mentioned there might be many stories and that's the thing that came to mind for me In thinking about this in first instance as well.

There's many aspects In life, where one could be resilient or not, or where I found my resilience, and at different times in my life.

and I think that's across the professional sphere, so in my career, as well as, emotionally and financially, which is of course something I'm looking at quite a lot.

In the book that you've mentioned professionally, but of course that's also against the backdrop of my own life and my own story and that's and so maybe that's what I'll pick up on because in

we're very much.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

that was when I started studying and you get exposed to other

Uh,

for keeping me afloat or for allowing me to go to university, for example.

And beyond that, I've always had a feeling of a safety net.

that's very much my financial resilience story, which I think is pertinent as a lot of my work is, is around.

How do you define resilience in that, like, I noticed that you spoke about privilege, but then there's the word resilience that floats in the, in the sentence.

What, I mean, resilience has a definition very much about bouncing back from adversity, but how do you use the word resilience within that financial context for yourself?

Okay.

if you're interested in this, I have a great platform.

And I'm just going to show you a couple of quick slides.

So this is the migratory bird, and here's the model of a migratory bird and it's just a small image of a migratory bird.

So the migratory bird is the largest bird in the world.

or personal development.

But that's also very much the case in the world of.

Poverty or financial security resilience is also a buzzword there and the definition isn't very different it is about being able to back after you've had a financial shock or an income shock.

So it essentially means you don't get dragged down a negative cycle where you have to take out expensive loans and you rack up an enormous amount of debt.

You're able, if there is an income shock, to sustain a minimum level, um, to be able to make ends meet.

That's a very minimal level of resilience, I would say.

I think in many cases.

And certainly when I think about my own personal life and my own personal definition of my financial resilience, it would be a level above that.

It would be feeling secure as well, having a sense of, safety in the fact that not only am I able to bounce back from a loss of income if I get ill, for example, or any other things that might happen, but knowing that I will lose the house I live in or,

Okay.

Okay.

possibly for ourselves we might be more or less ambitious than, than for others around us.

I don't know how that chimes with your definition of resilience, but that's so I'm thinking

Silence.

talking talked about as a level of reserve, right?

A level of.

So you have a certain level of reserve, reserve financially that makes you feel secure, and allows you not to, take the impacts.

And I think sometimes when you're talking about this in the, you know,

Okay.

Okay.

You don't have to.

comfort is okay.

It's okay for different people, right?

When, when maybe everybody needs a certain level of reserve,

Silence.

on just having enough reserve, do we miss the picture altogether about what we're actually trying to achieve when we're, to thrive, right?

So, so there's 2 things here.

I think 1 is what you're pointing out is the level of reserve that we think people need is very different, right?

Depending on who you're talking about, which is discriminatory.

But there's also the question of as a society as a whole.

Looking at are the way we look at the reserve?

Is that is that the way right way to look at it?

Especially again, thinking about, um,

Well, there you go.

And we, the rest of this call will be for questions and answers at the end.

So if you guys come to us, we'll be here to help you out.

So We'll see you next time.

On behalf of the board and urea organizations.

Take a seat.

so much.

so much, everyone.

Okay.

the discussion about resilience is about Keeping people, maybe keeping people at a certain level, they don't drop below a certain level, or if they do, they're able to bounce back up, but the discussion about resilience is often less about, well, how can we help people and develop in ways that are important to them.

applies or socially, as well as emotionally, I think.

And it's interesting, this conversation too, because my own sense of the resilience conversation is very much, well, what I hear sometimes is, well, I pull myself up on my bootstraps and so other people should be able to do it too.

Uh, or, and there's a lot of justification of.

You know, you're just not working hard enough or you're just not thinking the right way.

A lot of gaslighting for, for people, you know, and so where I have a problem with the resilience conversation is just, just the definition in itself is very much like, okay, we're limited to, again, bouncing back.

And I love what you're talking about the springboard, which feels like moving, like springing forward.

But it seems that the way we keep talking about resilience still keeps us back in that, I'm saying us, because it's, it's, it's like the water we swim in as a conversation.

I think that this is, again, it's, you have done more, you've done all the research on this.

I'm just offering an opinion or what I, what I think is an observation is that, the way we define resilience ends up being an individual act.

And yet we talk about the, like, global or, um, uh, like, community responses, and yet it ends up feeling like an individual crusade.

So I'm just curious what you, what you were, what you would add to that, or what you think about that.

then the society will be better off, but you cannot be resilient on your own.

It's impossible.

Uh, I think across all aspects of life, we live together in, in our families, in our communities, and, um, we cannot bounce back from, uh, Shocks, whatever they are, or setbacks, individually, we need each other for it.

But also, again, from an economic perspective, that the same holds.

Again, I think the reason for its popularity, the popularity of resilience in, say, anti poverty interventions, is because it allows on the individual, and that makes makes it possible to be very focused in interventions, narrow, one might say, and very targeted.

So if we direct certain resources towards an individual, then we can very easily see whether it has an impact on their lives.

have to deal with all the systemic issues around employment, or around lack of welfare, or the fact that people are reliant on food banks, and we just zoom in on the individual, give them some support, and then it's with them to become resilient.

So that's exactly as you say, Angela, then it becomes the individual's problem, if they don't manage to become resilient or indeed, become poor or fall down in deeper poverty because they've lost their job or because somebody in the family has become ill and they've racked up medical bills.

The person next door is able to say, well, they really didn't manage.

Their lives well enough.

They haven't become resilient, but that's their own fault because they were given some support or they just didn't have it within them.

resilience is an individual something.

So if it's not with the individual, then it's their fault.

So I totally agree with you that it's a problem of the concept and the way we approach it.

So how do you think I go ahead, Carolyn.

I was just interested in, you know, like you said that people are then.

In a way, blame for not being resilient enough, and yet you know, we're not only blind to the things, the external things that have put them in that situation, but we're also blind to their actual resilience, right?

In the face of all this, it's quite paradoxical, right?

Because, because they've.

They're still dealing on a daily basis with so many things, right?

And we're not, we never recognize that.

We never recognize that the, I think you put it in the book, the cognitive load that, that people are going through all the time to try and manage, even in the most desperate circumstances.

Right.

Yeah.

well.

But actually when people aren't doing so well, but they are managing, they are coping on a day

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

habits.

I would still go, um, and do sports or I would be able to manage my finances much better.

And, um, Again, this is sort of blaming of, of others for, for not being resilient, but as you say, Carol, and also not seeing the resilience because they think they would be doing it better, which.

think in 99 percent of the cases probably wouldn't be true because it, it requires such, as you mentioned, cognitive load, energy, headspace,

Okay.

struggling every day is, is a form of resilience, I agree.

Mm.

I'm really touched by this conversation as well.

And, and this is why I think we're this resilience conversation.

We need to transform it.

And we might not be able to transform addition definition of resilience because it's a definition in itself.

It's just about bouncing back.

And when I think that, you know, that that.

Conversational resilience was initially about the capacity of a polymer to retake the same shape after it had been subjected to heat.

I'm like, why are we applying this to human beings?

This is, this doesn't seem right in the first place.

Um, and then I can just see from your conversation how much that shows up.

It's like, well, we'll just apply that to people.

And there's an idea that some of us would get, you know, would be able to deal with this better than others.

And there's enough.

I think prove to see that there are people who have not had support and have had resources and have, uh, you know, fallen for different reasons, into, into poverty and into dire circumstances.

So it's interesting that the sort of the ego that, and the ego and the judgment that holds up this resilience conversation.

Um,

but it's also interesting what you say, Angela, about this definition.

I didn't know that that's where the origins of resilience were, but, um, bouncing back to what it was like before or, or a standard, I think that's also a problem of definition of resilience, that somehow there is a standard that we apply to, um, but to everybody, but differently.

But why is it about bouncing back to something that was there before?

yeah.

about diverting to something different or using that as an opportunity to go down a different path?

Um, again, economically or just how you shape your lives, there's a lot of judgment in there.

If we take going back to what was before, um, as, as our starting point, as our benchmark.

And that keeps some form of, like, there's global poverty and there's financial, you know, like, so global economic and financial poverty, but that's, there's a, for me, if there's that, there's a poverty in everything, there's a poverty in inner resources, there's a poverty in, in mindset, there's a poverty in connection, um, and all of that's intimately linked and intricately linked.

So tell us a little bit, Katie, about what you think would be, um, beyond resilient.

What would a beyond resilient world look like and what's needed for that, do you think?

I think there's two things to it.

One is, um, what we were talking about earlier in, in terms of safety net and springboards.

I think something beyond resilience would be the, the phrase of empowerment, which isn't new in any shape or form.

Um, also across many domains of, of life, including in the world of socioeconomic studies and political studies.

Um, Empowerment is, of course, very well known and used, but I think that is, to me, that feels like the next step up from resilience.

But alongside that, it is also taking different directions.

So, they go hand in hand, I guess.

You're empowered to choose the life for you that

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

what was behind me?

Where was I before?

Can I get back to that?

It's more about what else is out

Silence.

And maybe what I had before is where I want to get back to, but maybe it is something else that I would like to achieve together with others.

Um,

In my

You're speaking to a

myself and in the bigger world around me, not just me as an individual.

So to also take that individual view away from our own concepts of where we're going to go in life.

coach, so of course I'm all for the, the dream and, and, um, we talk about the individual, but I also hear, to me, it's, um, there's something we all have personal.

It's personal.

Our lives are personal.

Um, and I think the resilience conversation that we were talking about, the bouncing back becomes very individual, but when I hear you speak, what it feels like in that freedom, the, the freedom to choose.

There's some personalness in there, not just me, the individual, but I'm hearing you talk about the, you know, within my community, there's my personal capacity and my, my personal dreams and how do they, how do they interlink, uh, um, connect with the dreams of the other people in my community and, and my culture and, and that too.

Yeah, absolutely.

And in a lot of my research, um, I framed conversations around wellbeing.

What do you, what do you think constitutes wellbeing for you?

What, and what do you need to live well, to live a good life?

And of course, often people first frame it, especially if they do live in poverty, in having, um, the ability to meet basic needs, to buy food, to to live well, in a good house, etc.

But very often, next, that, or next to it, is about being able to, um, connect to other people, to be a good mother, or, um, to be able to, to part of a community, and, and realistically that often also means being able to contribute to birthday parties, or going to a wedding in a nice dress.

So these elements are all interlinked, so the personal is not.

individual, it is connected to, to the, to those around us.

I wanted to, I had this really deep thought as you were going through this, which I'm not sure, I'm kidding, you're going to go with, but will you bear with me for a second?

You in the book have this, um, uh, the three R's, which is about, you know, um, relating and realizing and then reacting, right?

Did I get those three right?

Um, and, and, and I was thinking that in terms

Um,

So how do I relate to the problems that I'm seeing?

You know, how can I understand them better?

Bye bye.

Um, Um, Um, Um,

we don't have the.

bandwidth or the kind of mental capacity anymore

or Or Or Or Or Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

We know what we need to kind of do something about, we know the steps.

But we can't get people to do it.

Right?

How come we can't get people to sit down and do it, right?

What are your thoughts on this?

How have you been

Okay.

and thinking

Silence.

Silence.

it.

and maybe also there is a sense or a narrative that that's not where we should be dev devoting our headspace or our time.

Um, it's almost like a luxury or, uh, maybe a bit fluffy to sit back, about ourselves in that way.

Um, but those steps make a lot of sense.

Certainly thinking about, um.

Some of my own journeys in, in coaching and taking it away from the financial and economic

Um, We wish to thank the Board of Regents, you did a great job.

Sarah.

it, it also takes, and let me put it in the, in the eye form, it takes me away from deficit thinking because it allows me to see the privileges that I have for what they are.

Other people don't have them, but it does give me a step ahead.

If I do want to

Okay.

but I make the point in the book that it's, I frame it as respond rather than react, because react is very often,

Yeah.

Well,

sorry, just to make the point that react is very often out of our instincts and that can, again, be away from the realizing, the relating and the realizing that we've just done the response is more of a deliberate act rather than something we do out of our instincts, maybe a fight or flight.

Response.

yeah.

keep us in that fight flight freeze.

I've just got to.

do more work harder, a lot of expectation and then

checking

and then external judgment that mirrors that as well, that pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

I would be better than you sort of thing and all of the fear and how that links as well to, I want to go back to the beginning of the conversation where, um, because I work with people as well on scarcity or deficit thinking as you're calling it.

And there are people with Many, many resources.

And part of the reason they have so many resources is because of deficit thinking.

And they still, they don't have an, in a sense of security.

And we're talking about like.

Like average, you know, like somebody like me and you and Carolyn to people who are multi millionaires and they still have deficit thinking and they don't have any worries about getting up and being able to eat, for example.

And yet that's still running the show and running their resilience narrative.

But I want to come all the way back and, um, and just talk about your empathy fix and, and, and, and how you see empathy, um, leading us to a different paradigm, a world beyond resilience.

Yeah.

that links to responding.

Yes.

Thank you.

That's a really interesting question.

And as you're speaking, I'm, I'm trying to make the links in my head, but there are very clear links because we're having this conversation.

We come to understand resilience is very judgmental and I would say empathy or the empathy fix is the direct opposite of it.

You have to be able to look beyond what is wrong in your life and other people's lives you want to relate to what is happening.

to you and to them, and that requires a step away from judgment.

And if we, if we go back to what we were saying earlier about, um, you know, thinking about our own lives, if we've done well as a success, and therefore thinking about somebody else's lives if they haven't done well as a failure,

Transcripts provided by Transcription

story, I think that judgment.

So

Outsourcing, LLC.

Um,

drop the judgment for others if you judge it for yourself.

Mm hmm.

and I think the beauty of the empathy fix is

Silence.

I take issue with the fact that very often it's, it's individually focused.

So it focuses on us being kind to ourselves, but I feel often there's a limit there to then not extending it to others.

So, um, we free ourselves from judgment about where we got to and how successful we are, but that allows us to stay judgmental for, towards others as a way to tap ourselves on the back for our personal successes.

So empathy challenges us to think more broadly.

And if we do go down the nonjudgmental routes, staying, um, moving away from that resilience conversation, possibly, we have to expand it to others as well.

I think that's the crucial thing.

We cannot just limit it to ourselves, to our personal story.

And just in coming in from the coaching perspective, what I notice with people who do the kindness, the way that you were just talking about it, it's, it's a thinking kindness rather than a feeling kindness.

Uh, as what I noticed because when you actually connect with your heart and you feel kindness and you feel empathy, then you can extend it to others.

But if it's filtered through a deficit thinking, and I've got to protect myself, the kindness remains very rigid and hard and up here in the mind.

Um, and yet kindness is a feeling and I also noticed sometimes that, you know, we'll see people, I'll be kind to other people on the outside and I won't be kind to myself, but that's still part of that same paradigm of.

It hasn't reached the heart, really.

It's a way of letting myself off the hook, but it's still coming through deficit thinking.

Um, so I'm really touched by what you're saying about the, yeah, it's an inside out process, but true kindness is a felt, and empathy is a felt sense, not a thought sense.

What do you think about that?

I think it's both.

So there is in, in, uh, in writing the book, I did a lot of research on empathy.

I'm not an empathy researcher, so I had to do that purposely.

And, um, there's people who talk about the cognitive empathy, so more at the rational level and actually make quite a claim for it because one of the downsides of felt empathy is that Is that it's very easy to, um, limit it because the innate empathy that most of us have tends to be limited to people who we feel easily connected to,

Mm hmm.

So there's this in group, out group.

issue and the danger that we, um, we feel empathy for, um, yeah, people that are in our social groups or who are the same color of skin, who are in the same socioeconomic class, but, uh, we are less inclined to expand it beyond.

Um, some argue for the rational, more cognitive empathy.

To realize that that's what we're doing.

And so

Mm hmm.

the empathy onward.

So I think it's a combination I do really appreciate what you're saying about people Rationalizing kindness for themselves

Mm.

and that stops them from broadening it out Felt for themselves and then and then for

Mm.

Yeah, absolutely

That's really interesting.

Thank you.

I think it's the justification of the kindness.

Right, well, I'll be kind to myself now.

And that can lead to indulgence sometimes as well.

I think I said that with a really harsh voice.

We can sort of lead to confusing those terms when we collapse kindness into indulgence, which isn't quite the same thing either, you know.

But I'll just go and eat another bowl of ice cream and chocolate.

That's being kind to myself too.

Yes.

another narrative that you bring out in the book that I think is in parts, which I think is in our society as well, which is around, so there's the scarcity narrative.

also the no pain, no gain narrative.

You know that.

And I think there's a quote in here that says sometimes people Need to think they need to light the load and other people think they need to just fight through the pain and most people are, you know, the narrative right now is let's fight, fight and fight through the pain and deal with it.

And it's such a, it's such a a miserable looking at the world.

Oh, it just me or am I missing the title?

Um, I'm sorry, but there's a lot of stuff in there.

I'm going to show you a couple of things to make it seem more like a project.

Um, so this is the first one.

It's a new one.

Um, that's also a new one.

So, this is the second one.

I'm gonna show you a couple of things that are new.

and this is a little bit of a new one.

the organizations that we live in from the responsibility to provide a caring environment for the individuals.

We place the responsibility for, for moving

Um,

It's a very convenient way of placing things back on people's and people themselves and interestingly in the individuals Myself as well.

I'm not immune to it.

We are all part of this narrative and this public conversation.

We adopt it and we do take it as a badge of honor.

Um, and instead of thinking it as something that is quite of it as something that's quite miserable, it becomes a way of, of life and thinking that that's how, how we should go about it.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

and kindness, empathy as well, of course.

Hello.

I

This is a big subject for me and Carolyn because we're both like distant swimmers and, and the whole, this, this whole resilience conversation for me started when I crossed the finish line with a dislocated shoulder of a, of an adventure race that I'd done.

But I started the race with a dislocated shoulder and I had very much had the no pain, no gain, and I can do this.

And I, um, I identify with being the one who can endure.

And it was when I crossed that thing, Where else is this happening in my life?

And, and, and where else is this playing out in other people's?

And that was when I just went, oh my God, the whole world is functioning on no pain, no gain.

Which, I mean, everyone listening to this would say, yeah, except that they're not seeing the absolute harm that's causing on a global level, on an individual level, personally, you know, on a community level.

And it's very linear.

One, unidirectional.

And again, it only leads to There's only one way to go.

You either, you can either get up or fall again.

And it's, and it's all on you, like you're saying.

And as I started to listen to some other athletes, like I went to this, um, a friend's place who was, uh,

we're

triathlete, an elite triathlete.

And I went to her house one afternoon

April.

and she said, you can't stay.

I have to sleep.

what would

And she went, you know, sleep is sleep as part of my training program.

And this is my scheduled sleep time.

it

sleep on command.

She went,

or outside the

Right.

And

it

just remember

Do

that very much like rest day is training day.

It is not an indulgence.

So.

think I

For some of these elite athletes, well, all elite athletes, I think, rest, rest is training and I've been starting to learn that, and I know this is still the individual, but I wonder if we filtered this out into society with the well being, like recognizing that rest is not an indulgence, it's essential for human thriving, but also for best results in anything.

Um, if you force something to grow the whole time or get up the whole time, it's eventually obviously going to wilt, and that has a community

Facebook.

World wide

questions about

Um,

please

yeah, so I was going to say something else I've forgotten.

So I just sort of, it's just, I love that you brought this up, Carolyn, and I want to hear more from you, Katie, on this as well, because I mean, it just seems self defeating, even for organizations, because it's, it's so linear.

So,

And there's such, oh, that's what I wanted to say.

There's a, there's this 4 percent rule

University

they've done

and

Um, some research on as well.

You might know this already.

It's, um, Stephen Kotler, I think, has been doing the research that, um, the,

a senior

the, the difference between, uh, the challenge and the capacity, I'm saying skill set, because often if we put that in an organization, we'd say skill set, but current capacity shouldn't be more than 4%.

Um, and we can keep building on a four percent challenge that actually allows humans to thrive.

So we don't have to make gaps so hard for people so that it's so painful.

And you can actually, and so looking at these elite athletes who get into this state of flow and can really achieve amazing things, results that they would never have been able to get by grinding away, making it difficult, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, forcing, gritting their teeth and doing it all alone.

So I'm throwing that back into the conversation because I'm fascinated by this no pain, no gain and why are we still doing this mindset?

Yeah, and I think actually we've gone backwards on this.

When I think about, um, the, the socioeconomic sphere of it, and, and when I think about the research that we do on how people their livelihoods, have jobs to, to live their lives, um, When we industrialized, at some point there was a recognition that it's more productive if people have reasonable working hours, go home, have a family life, have rest.

But we are now in a position where many people work multiple jobs, work shift work, have to juggle that with, with family.

care, family life, and especially women, obviously.

Um, but it almost goes unquestioned, certainly for people who are, um, on lower incomes, where it's just that this is what they have to do to live well.

And then we wonder why they're not making quote unquote more of their lives.

Well, it's just impossible.

It's the daily grind of it.

Um, and there's a lot of pain and no gain at all.

So, um, yeah, I, I agree with you.

I, I think what you've just said about needing to take rest.

I think that holds for all

Okay.

us.

We can apply that logic in all parts of life, certainly in, in, um, thinking about how we organize ourselves socio economically, we might've taken a step backwards than forwards,

Hmm.

But one of the things.

And I love the fact that you're able to Katie to keep bringing us back to, you know, your focus, um, which is around, you know, poverty and

the data is available and, and having a look at the data.

It's available on the web at any time.

It's free.

You upload it, and it is just kind of.

If you have a license, you simply upload it, right?

It's just.

And if you don't have one, you can, you can just, uh, you can just add it back.

they have, you know,

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

The is

to say?

Goodbye.

I'm sorry I didn't get to talk.

Goodbye, everyone.

made over the last few weeks, um, about cutting aid to, you know, that will help millions and millions of people because we just don't think we have enough to help

Okay.

Okay.

There you go, The the.

Right?

There you can see it's.

I think we got somebody that's getting veryinis.

We've, we've, we've, We will, do a couple of experiments

by the very

So, very much for having me and I look forward to working with you in the future.

as we've seen in the last few weeks before that,

All right.

it

yes, but the, um, I think it's the, um, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the

the scarcity is partly, and I'm saying that particularly for those who do have enough money for the middle class and

Um,

upper class, the scarcity is in our heads, not so much in our pockets,

Um, Um,

um,

Okay.

So there's always the need for us to realize that we are a cog, a tiny cog, but in the machinery of the world, but we do have some and impact over that as well, to counteract the stories around resilience and what that is, but also scarcity and what that means.

and do something different than tap into the fear and insecurity that we see around us so much at the moment.

Okay.

we stopped tapping into that fear?

Tell, tell it, tell us the vision of the world that you have, the world that's beyond resilient, where things look different to what they do now.

Okay.

Oh, I would, I would hope it's a world where, um, true care for each other and support and reinforcement is is the benchmark, is the reference point for everybody, and that is, again, in socio economic but it's also about how we treat our neighbours, or how we judge their success.

Um, we celebrate it, rather than think, oh, why them, not me?

Or, if they've done well, Well, there must have been some dodgy activities, or if they've done, if they've not done well, well, they've not worked hard enough.

Staying away, or moving away from that judgment, and, and being, um, much more positive about each other, seeing the good in each other.

And that sounds fluffy, I appreciate that, but I think there are real consequences, in terms of how we live together, if that's in which we, we treat each other and want to, to view each other, policy wise and in all ways, but also, um, for us personally, psychologically, I think it would make us a lot happier.

It's interesting how we think of, you've said a couple of times that sounds fluffy, but I think we're, we're like conditioned to hear that as being fluffy.

And yet there is functionally and like, uh, objectively a lot of good.

There are mostly people who are like, when you give people the opportunity, they are good.

The people who are not are very, very, very rare.

And so even we could.

We could almost, like, start looking at this as fluffy and look at it as cold hard fat, you know, and

yeah, you're

start culturating that.

Yeah.

there is, um, uh, another Dutch, uh, philosopher called Rutger Bregman, who's written, um, I think quite a bestseller book called Humankind, where he counteracts these narratives that exist about the, how bad people are, their inmates, um.

negative nature.

So some of the experiments that we always refer to to show how, bad people treat each other and that's part of their human nature, counteracts them quite successfully to suggest actually in most part, most of us are good and we want to help each other.

So why not that and tap into that and much more than we, than we do.

I'm sure Carolyn wants to say something, and I know we're getting to time, but may I add one more thing?

Um, it's the, it's the cog in the wheel, and I would love us to stop seeing ourselves in cogs in wheels, and start seeing ourselves as what, the word you've just said, nature.

The comparison, the self comparison to some form of machinery is just, that to me is as ludicrous as comparing our capacity to bounce back after being subjected to hate.

It's like, We're actually living organisms.

We're nature and nature's inherently collaborative.

There's been this superimposed idea that nature is competitive only and it's inherently competitive, collaborative and, and good.

And it helps, you know, plants help each other survive in so many different ways.

It was like, we could do the same and flourish.

And we see flourishing environments

things

um,

going

know, like

doing

and plants helping each other.

And that was like, we could do this.

It's not that hard.

And, you know, just going back to the book that you were speaking about, there's enough examples of that for it to be, um,

in

that we can take and use to reinforce ourselves with.

text.

I wonder what that difference, what difference that would make to the world, you know, and to how we consider policy and to how we reflect on the different systemic ways of interacting with each other and what we could, the world that we could grow then.

Mm hmm.

Absolutely.

I like that metaphor better than a machine.

Katie, it's been such a pleasure having you on this podcast.

We've had such a really interesting discussion and I so much appreciate your reminding us again and again about the different lenses that we're using, um, when we're talking about not just, um, resilience, but scarcity, poverty, all those things.

Is there anything else that we didn't touch on that we, you think we should have picked up on in this conversation?

Yes.

I think we picked

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

um, of people around us in their day to day lives.

And I hope I've also conveyed some of those stories.

in the power that they have in the, in the book, in the empathy fix, but it's mostly about people living their daily lives.

Um, not the grandeur of big achievements of those few people that we see on TV in the news about the big things they might have achieved sports wise or career wise.

Um, so the one thing I'd like to leave the conversation with is to encourage people to see that in the people around them is that there's so many Things to learn from others, resilience, empowerment, or otherwise.

Um, and I think if we open our eyes a little bit more and wanting to see it, can all take positive things from it.

Beautiful advice to leave the, to finish the conversation with.

I do have one more question.

Bye.

Okay.

Is there a favourite story?

I mean, you've got all these stories in the book.

Is there one that you could share, um, with, with our listeners

uh,

you in particular?

One of these stories that you're telling about, you know, telling us about that, that they could look out for?

One that, one you can tell, yeah.

So,

one that, um, is, uh, set in, in Dhaka in Bangladesh, which is, um, Um, around a program that I was working on in that, in the low income area, and we were visiting a woman who was living a tough life, her son is ill, um, and she was visited by one of the community workers from the program we're working with, and talking about How, uh, her relationship with her husband was really difficult and, and also feared her husband coming back in as we were having that conversation.

It comes back to what we were talking about earlier.

It's not a grand story of resilience or jumping out of her situation because of, know, the constraints that there are, but she was coping in such a impressive way.

I was, I was there and I thought, I don't know if I would be.

able to manage that situation as well as she is with all the struggles that she's having with her son, with her husband.

Um, and it was just a very impressive reminder of, the everyday how we, how coping is, is an act of resistance.

resilience and empowerment all wrapped in one.

So it's one that stayed with me for a long time.

Thanks, Katie, for sharing that.

It

if people want to, um, know, find out more about your work, listen to your podcasts.

Can you, can you give them some

Absolutely.

Um, so I'm on various social media platforms under my, my own name, which is unusual enough for people to find me if they just look for it.

So that's on and blue sky and Instagram.

As you mentioned, I also have my own podcast called poverty unpacked, um, where I publish.

episodes with guests every two months.

And in between, I talk about all things, poverty, things that come on my desk or that, that, um, my attention.

And that's also on Instagram and blue sky.

And then obviously there's the empathy fix, why poverty persists and how to change it.

the book, nice, bright green.

can find that wherever you buy your books.

That could be online, but also more independent local bookshops, which of course is always preferable.

totally is.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot, Katie, for being with us.

It's been a fantastic conversation.

Thank you

Thank you both.

I really enjoyed it.

So Carolyn, we have just re-listened to the incredible Katie's conversation on, uh, empathy and its relationship to the worlds beyond resilience, and I know how important a topic this is for you.

So, would you love to share the highlights and the, and the golden nuggets that you think our listeners could take away for themselves from this conversation?

Well, I would, of course, one of the reasons I love this conversation is I'm really invested in the idea of how we get beyond poverty and, and beyond resilience and beyond poverty are really connected.

And the conversation that we had with Katie showed that, and I, it's such a different conversation that some of the ones we've had before, because she really focused firstly around financial resilience, how we experience financial resilience in the.

Sort of middle class versus what people in poverty, how they experience resilience and, and really it's that idea that we don't always touch upon in our podcast, which is part of resilience is have feeling safe and secure.

Mm-hmm.

Totally.

And that safety.

And

we need safety and security and, and.

We define safety as security, partly as well, how are we gonna survive?

But also how are we gonna thrive?

And what our, our, our conversation is in order to get resilience is about surviving beyond.

Resilience is about thriving.

And yet when we are talking about supporting people in poverty, we often only give them enough money if we do it all.

Just to survive.

Mm-hmm.

So they're always in this loop of, uh, and potentially falling through that, the safety net into debt and, and further poverty.

And it's because we don't really understand what they need and we haven't listened.

And Katie was really, really clear what is true of security and what is true resilience for them is, is maybe something that we haven't really understood.

And, and that to get beyond resilience for them is, is really empowering them to take steps in their life rather than just survive.

And then even beyond that is the freedom to choose what they wanna do, which is again, something that we've talked about internally, but also for them it's really practical.

Um, and yet we judge people.

For not doing that.

That's the judgment, isn't it?

It's a beyond.

It's, it's, it's a killer for, and it's impossible to thrive on the judgment for any of us.

Self-judgment, externalized judgment.

Uh, so it's, that's a really key point that you're bringing up.

Just coming back really quickly, like as all human beings need a level of stability and safety and just as at least at a particular level, to be able to thrive, to be able to grow.

And we have an inner need for growth and stability.

And if that stability isn't meant, growth can't happen, like true.

Organic, internal, personal life growth can't happen.

Uh, so that, that was a really important point and something for all of us to look at, like what, how much, how, how, what is the stability we need?

What are the stability of people around us and need, and how can we contribute to that so that we, uh, not, not just one person growing and thriving, but collectively the world, you know, um, the communities in the world.

And then, yeah.

This, what more did you find out about the judgment?

How did that strike you?

Well, uh, one of the things that Katie described in her book was, and she described it very well in our conversation, was the fact that, um, these people are under so much pressure.

When you, when you don't have that stability, you don't have the security, the additional pressure they're under.

We tend to judge them and say, well, they're not coping.

We're, in fact, they're coping a hundred percent more than we are in our daily lives.

And, and we flipped it because we don't really understand what they're dealing with.

We don't understand their circumstances.

And so for me it was her, her prescription in a book.

Is that really, uh, those three Rs relating to people.

And then, um, um.

Re so relating to people, understanding what they're going through and then going beyond that to realizing what they're going through and really internalizing that, and then only responding and understanding what it's about.

Um, but that's, it's much more important to try and think about that, uh, that in our own lives as well.

How do we relate to ourselves?

Do we really take the time to understand what we're going through?

How do we.

Re realize what we might need to do differently to shift it.

And, and then how do we respond?

And instead of just always being in react mode,

I think what you're speaking to as well, and I, I know Katie's books about empathy and true courage sooner or later requires compassion.

I mean, you can have the, the brute courage of being, you know, I've.

I, I've run off Lacey's headfirst and my fantastic brothers jumped out of helicopters, and you know that, that's courageous.

But to really relate to other people, drop your assumptions, question your own judgments, takes another heart quality, which is also compassion.

And that's where, where true courage comes in as well.

And that, as you just said, with respect to other people and with respect to ourselves.

Uh, and that's practice that isn't necessarily encouraged in the current resilience mindset, which is about, you know, like just getting on and doing it.

Sort of like coping and bouncing back and, and, and just get up and pick yourself up by your bootstraps.

And, and so should they and, and, oh, doing so, you should be able to, and.

Having that courage and curiosity to look a little deeper, see what it is you're not seeing, how you, how, how we can, um, create systems or have different conversations.

First of all, I, I love that.

Yeah.

Process of, um, uh, relating and then realizing, and then responding.

So fabulous, fabulous process that people can apply to themselves and to others at all times.

In fact.

Yeah.

And there and there's two qualities that building on that exactly two qualities that we talk about, connection and building community.

We could talk for

hours about this and I think we will and recognize how much everybody has

something

to give and there's a lot more we can give.

Yeah.

Well that was wonderful.

It was a great podcast.

And again, more, more gifts within and the abundance of gifts within that podcast.

And that brings us to the end of another episode of the World Beyond Resilience Podcast.

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