Africa Brooke - How to Keep Your Voice Amid Collective Sabotage (with Q&A)

42:09I almost kind of go into witness mode. I just observe and I'm like, huh, that's interesting. I don't over attach to it and make it mean something deep or that, some kind of shame. But then also what I will do now, because my risk tolerance is much higher, I will allow myself to have an opinion. If I feel that it's appropriate, if I know what I'm talking about because sometimes it's not always useful to externalize an opinion or an idea that you have so i might just toy with it in my own mind and allow for myself to kind of work with it in my own mind without necessarily externalizing it so yeah i think i know the difference between when i'm self-censoring or when i'm just using a social filter and if i am self-censoring i get curious about why every time I screw up okay I don't tell myself don't do it again I just keep telling myself how will you do it next time yes and it's quite interesting that constant you know because it brings something really interesting to the forefront when you when you make a mistake and then you upset someone and then you can go back and apologize and then the next time you want to do something or say something you can say it differently but it also tells you that you're still alive even though you messed up yes it's so interesting right and you know as long as your intentions and right are right and you're saying something lovingly and kindly what ends up happening is yes you may disagree on what you said but you don't disagree on the connection you don't you don't disagree on like oh he's saying this to try to hurt me right and i i think this is uh this is very useful technique is to allow yourself to say by the way the way you deliver a message is as important as what the message is absolutely yeah can you can you because i want to move to you made a comment i can't let go of okay but i want to move there but i want to ask you first if you were to summarize your top learnings tips sort of american style like here are three things you can do so so for those who are finding themselves stuck in a cycle of addiction or a cycle of self-sabotage or your story took you through seven trials to get out of there before you got to find your way what would be your top tips like if someone is listening to this and saying yes i am in the place where africa was and i want to find my way out what would you tell i always want to be mindful with when i'm giving answers to questions like this because i addiction is such a heavy and very serious thing that most people most people will never ever understand it's not one of those things and I I will give an answer it's not one of those things where someone just thinks maybe I'm just drinking a little bit and I just need to to not it's it's not in the gray so much if we're talking about the extreme that I faced and maybe most people do.

45:10But I think just like with anything, and 12-step programs do this very well, even though I didn't go through one myself, it really has to be just a non-negotiable acceptance of your level of suffering. That's what it has to be. There's no way around it. I wish there was some other unique special answer, but there's no way around it. For such a long time, I convinced myself that I was a gray area drinker, which means I thought it was just moderation. I just need to moderate a little bit, or I just need to change the people that I'm around. And then, you know, it's going to get better. But it wasn't that.

45:55It wasn't that. I was an addict the moment that I started. And I always say that my addiction didn't care if I was at a baby shower, if I was at work, if I was, it didn't care about the environment, you know. So I really had to accept, I had to accept that I'm not a gray area drinker. I don't just want to have one drink or two. I want to go all the way every single time. And there was so much pain and destruction in my life. and I could no longer pretend that it was just some kind of rite of passage. I'm young. So I think just a non-negotiable acceptance and then choice follows that, you know, what am I going to do now?

46:40Am I going to stop completely? Am I going to kind of play the moderation game for a little while? And then the next thing is community because you can't do this alone. You can't. I think it's very easy to think that you can, but you can't, even if it's going to just one meeting, even if you think your problem is not that bad or someone is listening to this right now and they're thinking, you know what, when I go out, I don't go out all the time. I don't drink every day, but when I do drink, I find it so difficult to stop. I'll have one drink and then I can't seem to turn it off after that. That's worth paying attention to.

47:19And it doesn't mean that you go to AA straight away or that you need to go to rehab, but there's a level of acceptance that has to take place and then a choice needs to follow. And then community. And in the age of technology, community can look like going onto YouTube and seeing how other people got sober. Community can be, I think it's incredible, the access that we have to community today without even needing to leave your home, you know? So I think if anything that I have said in this conversation in relation to sobriety or addiction has sort of piqued anyone's interest or made you feel uncomfortable there's something there that needs to be looked at so i i think acceptance is the unsexy but very sexy answer to me i think it's the best answer ever i think it all starts with that level of awareness of the reality right this is where i am this is what it is and yeah acceptance i i think the choice of the word is not I accept that I will be there forever, but I accept that this is where I am right now.

48:21You know, I think that really matters. That's beautiful. Okay, so let's talk about your next work. And you just dropped it in there. Can we do that? Can we talk about your next book? Yes. Yeah, okay. My first one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, your next coming up. Yeah, I keep, yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah, so you said that society's censorship is becoming quite reflective of our own, you know, but it's really getting to extremes. And in a very interesting way that I think society is self-sabotaging in so many ways. Which is why I call it collective sabotage. Some people call it cancel culture. I call it collective sabotage.

49:06okay i will shut up and let you speak about that no no no no i mean it that's such an interesting way of calling it so yeah i i will self-censorship myself self-censor myself

49:22collective sabotage what is that so i about five years ago because i i've been researching and studying self-sabotage now for seven years so from the moment that i decided that i was going to get sober. About a year after, I fell kind of headfirst into the world of psychology because, again, I needed to get well. 12 steps didn't work for me. I think it's incredible because it's worked for so many people I know. But for whatever reason, actually, I know the reason. I didn't feel comfortable saying, my name is Africa and I'm an addict because I'm careful about the things that I speak onto my identity.

50:02I believe that addiction is something that I experienced. I don't believe that I am an addict. So again, it's language that works for other people, but it just didn't work for me. So I needed to find unconventional ways to get sober. And as someone that has always loved to learn and to read, I'll always be a lifelong student, regardless of whatever worldly titles I wear. So when I came across the concept of self-sabotage and then discovered Jungian psychology and the shadow, I realized five years after that there was something happening culturally. Again, if you think about it through the definition that I gave before of self-sabotage being when your behavior and what you say you want are in direct conflict, there's like a huge undeniable contradiction.

50:52I had fallen into several social justice spaces at the time, which I'm very grateful for. I'm still part of a lot of them. But because the work that I was doing in sobriety was labeled as activism, even though I never called it that, I just found myself sort of being parts of certain conversations, etc, etc. And I started to notice that a lot of people, including myself, slowly, slowly, a lot of us were saying that we wanted open conversation. A lot of us were saying that we were fighting for more tolerance, but we were using very intolerant methods, extremely intolerant methods to the point where people couldn't ask questions.

51:36If you didn't have the right identity, really take that in. If you don't have the right identity, you can't ask a question. If you're not white, you can't ask a question. You don't get to have an opinion. And I found myself agreeing that that was normal when I knew, I truly knew that there's nothing normal about telling people that they don't have a right to have an opinion on something or to just simply ask a question or to point out a contradiction. Or to disagree. Or to disagree. And we're all people that are on the same mission. but again they were just little things here and there that eventually kind of compounded and they got worse over time I think post-2016 our most intimate lives started to become so heavily politicized and we feel it so intensely now everything is seen and experienced through the lens of politics so I just started to notice that it was becoming very difficult to have conversations with people to disagree to just not have the same opinion people were kind of uh judged as either being left or right which is something i think as an immigrant i have never really understood or even associated we never had left or right in our country so we don't know so when people would start to say oh that's a left that's a left-wing opinion or that's a right-wing opinion i had no idea what i still don't yeah me neither honestly yeah but again i just started to notice that over time it was becoming even with some people in my life who i'd known for a very long time let's say we're at a lunch and i would have friends of mine preface sentences with things like as a white woman or say things to me like for you as a marginalized person so i would i started to think why why are people speaking in this way which is not sort of no it's not the way normal people speak yeah it's not real english it's not real english but there's kind of this twitter speak this social justice speak was sort of embedded in everything but again i i just started to notice the public shaming that was happening online again through positioned as progress but it was extremely regressive.

54:01So again, as someone that has been looking at self-sabotage and the tendencies that we have to kind of contradict and to get in the way of our goals, independent goals or collective goals, I just started to notice that there was a very, very big problem, something that really disturbed my spirit in a lot of ways, something that was fracturing relationships. I had just never in my lifetime, and even people that I have known who are in their 40s, 60s, younger people had just never witnessed that level of division and polarization on a global scale fueled by technology as well so the work that I do now is wanting to understand the psychology behind collective sabotage some people call it cancel culture but I don't find the term cancel culture useful because it has been politicized and I think it will either preach to the choir people who are like yeah everyone's woke everyone and that's not useful or people that think it doesn't exist cancel culture doesn't exist it's people what is kind of the the thing people say we're just trying to hold people accountable people in power etc there's kind of a script that people tend to follow on either sides of the spectrum so i i just think language like collective sabotage for me as someone that really has been researching this stuff heavily for a very long time and takes my work very seriously i just find that it's a more useful term to describe what is happening so i'm writing a book called the third perspective and it's going to be an invitation for people to just get curious about the gray a little bit more i truly believe that every single person on this planet is an embodiment of a third perspective.

55:48I don't think we have to choose whether we're left or right. I don't believe that we have to choose whether we're pro or anti. I really don't believe that at all. And that's an area where I'm so willing to be misunderstood. So willing. Yeah. You go from self-censorship to upsetting everyone. That's it. Yeah. That's really interesting. I'll tell you my personal view of the world, of course, all this comes from science and mathematics. And it's actually quite shocking for most people that when the scientific method originally was all about empowering our curiosity with data and information and analysis and so on, very quickly we had a canceled culture in science.

56:29I mean, if you object to Darwin, you're screwed. You're never going to be published. Nobody's ever going to. When in reality, Darwin himself had some, you know, had his own doubts about certain things. And, you know, scientists were actually invited in his own writing to go and investigate those things. But it seems that humanity has that tendency of, I call it systemic bias in mathematics. When you keep trying to improve a system over and over and over, you take an engine and you try to squeeze 10 horsepower more and 10 horsepower more and 10 horsepower more, eventually the engine will burn, right?

57:01And I think what's happening, which shocks me, is that the movement that started by give us more freedom ends up in a place where nobody has any freedom at all. right it's like we're all pre-programmed these are the exact words you have to what did you say a marginalized person what does that mean these scripts yeah there are scripts and you have to say them in specific order and if you refer to a hair band you know you're sort of offending me and if you're right it's like what's going on people and and i i have to admit you know of course this comes from a world that has lacked compassion for a while okay but the objective is you know if you're if you're pushing in the direction of making the world better then you get to that point and then you you basically embody what you're supposed to be standing for right right so the book is to expose this or to fix it to fix it go for it how do we do that well i the reason why i wanted to write this and with my work and anything that I do, I think the why is important.

58:11And in the context of what we're talking about, it's very easy to assume that the why is the culture war. But I think that's a simplistic way of looking at things. I think, and know, after having worked with thousands and thousands of people at this point in time, people need the how, you know, people absolutely need the how so the subtitle of the book is brave expression in the age of intolerance because i think we have we have become so intolerant and a lot of us have good intentions even those very people that are fueling cancel culture or collective sabotage a lot of them do have good intentions a lot of movements have started because of injustice because people are truly marginalized, not in the past, people still are.

58:57But I think there has been an overcorrection, a serious overcorrection, actually. And I think a lot of us are getting very nervous, we're constantly walking on eggshells, terrified of saying the wrong thing. And where it worries me is when you have people that are in leadership positions, and I work with a lot of leaders, and this includes teachers, this includes parents. If you are terrified to speak your mind or ask a question. What does that mean for the younger generation? And I think that's why this book is, it's not a rant by any means. It's acknowledging the landscape that we're in, but it's giving people the how in a very practical way.

59:36I'm really bringing all my intellectual property as a practitioner, as a consultant, as a mentor, as a writer, as a researcher, and giving people actual practical tools that they can integrate. Because I think we've been in the Y for far too long. I don't think people are stupid i think we can all see what's happening but i i really crave practicality so it's a lot around brave expression and communication and identifying what your risk capacity is what are you actually trying to say and why i why are you so afraid why do we find ourselves so afraid so that's what i hope to accomplish i think this actually is spot on with what we've discussed, you know, you take something like the conflict in Israel-Palestine and the amount of fear around saying anything about it.

1:00:28I stand publicly and I go like, you know what? Stop killing children. I don't think any human being disagrees with this. Stop killing children. You guys can go in another room or another place, kill each other. It's your choice. Okay, you can go and we can debate for hours who did what first. but i don't think any two human being agree that a child should be harmed like if you know if we're walking out of this place and you see someone hitting a child and killing it you know human being will say will stop there and say maybe he has a good reason why right and and i think what's happening in our world today is that we're doing two things one is we're we're censoring people from speaking right and on the other hand we're we're we're flooding the system with talk about issues that are irrelevant right i mean at least at least irrelevant to the topic that really matters and in in in those in those two ways we end up in a place where we're completely deluded by the truth you know we just can't find the truth anymore and and you know in a again going back to science, it was that first guy that stood up and said, hey, it's actually not flat, right?

1:01:45It is actually, I mean, there's a lot of evidence that it's round. And if I'm wrong, by the way, tell me if I'm wrong, right? And, you know, the idea of don't talk about it is in a very interesting way, it's putting society in a place where we become slaves, we become idiots to ideologies that get imposed on us when we are not able to even express our, you know, our disagreements with them. It is, you know, of all of the risks that I think our world is facing today, our inability as humanity to discuss those risks is the biggest risk of all. It's just endless, really. But once again, you know, unless you remove that fear, because so many people don't speak because they go like okay from an roi point of view i may make my my voice heard but will it change anything and by the way will it be worth it what what's the cost to me but that's why i think um i think our interpersonal relationships are the best training ground for all of this because i think it can feel so big and i i i don't think the point in which any of us need to begin some of us maybe is with sort of the big world issues look in your home in your personal relationship with your child where are you withholding your speech there yeah because i think that and again i say this all the time even to people that i work with when you're motivated and inspired it's so easy to want the big audacious platform right in which you finally unravel your self-censorship but what's happening in in the privacy of your own home in your own bed in your own relationships at work yeah that's the that to me is the best and most sustainable training ground for all of us i can't wait africa when is that book out may next year may i object to that do you want it now and is it available for the orders can our followers yes it should be when when will this come out anyway whenever people listen it hopefully it will be say this again in a way that I can put on the podcast.

1:04:09So say yes, go and search for A, B, and C. If you search for Africa broke the third perspective, you should be able to find it. And if it's not available now, just be patient. There's no urgency. It will be soon. Okay. I want to close on a high note. very brave with your fashion style i really do very brave no but also the haircut i mean honestly come on this is the style right right is that a conscious choice oh yes tell me why very conscious such a good question so being raised in the part of africa that i'm raised in women have bald heads women have short hair and since i was a tiny little baby i've always thought it's just the most beautiful thing oh my goodness i just so beautiful and when i was growing up i did have long hair at points but i also had it shaved at different points as well but then when i came to the uk suddenly it was the ugliest thing in the world because suddenly i was a little boy from africa i didn't say that the other children did okay yeah the blind ones so i was being told because it was through the western lens that i was being told that something that i'd always just found so glorious was so ugly but for whatever reason that never penetrated my spirit i never believed that i never ever believed that but growing up i had all of the hairstyles my favorite one was a blonde mahican no way punk at heart no way i want i want to see that yeah is that online i'll send you a photo but can i post it online i'll send you the photo and then we'll we'll see what happens but i had i i've done all of the things i had my mojica and i had braids i had but this i always wanted so when i got sober i think two months after i got sober i went to a barber and i shaved it and yeah it's the best thing i've ever done i absolutely love it i was telling our mutual friend simon salter that my ritual every sunday i'll make my tea because i love loose leaf tea i'll set up my tea ceremony i'll put on my favorite robe very similar to this and i'll just shave my head it's like my sunday ritual every week for seven years every week seven years keep doing it oh i will i have i have to say i i think the the message it gives me is you redefine beauty which i think is a very very very very strong message to all of us who go into addiction and go into all of that need of fitting in of being on the dance floor but not completely aware dancing because we're told we're not supposed to look this way and i think your your your message is so strongly saying, hey, I look the way I am.

1:07:18I look the way I feel inside. I look the way I stand for. And this is beauty. I mean, it is not just your physical beauty. It's your ability to say so strongly to the world, this is me. This is me. Love me as I am. I think that's a wonderful, wonderful message. Thank you. Thank you so much. which I, again, I'm fully receiving that your words really do land exactly where they need to. I'm just so grateful that we've connected and to be on this mission together, which I truly believe that we are, is an absolute pleasure and a joy. I love you too. Thank you. The role of social media. I think social media has become, I'd say, unfortunately, such a massive part of culture, how we consume information, how we put out content.

1:08:10The view that I take on that is that it's somehow, Africa, you spoke beautifully on sort of this ability to hold two truths. And I think social media not only seems to lack that ability, but almost encourage and reward polarization, a lack of nuance. Do you think social media can play a constructive and positive role in the third perspective? Such a good question. Such a good question. I think it can and I think it has to and the reason why I think it has to is because whether we like it or not there's no longer as much of a separation from our digital world as this one you know as we thought there was especially in a post-pandemic world where a lot of us spent our time online on social media connecting with people and I wonder if it really is about what we are bringing onto these platforms, of course, there are the algorithms.

1:09:08Of course, we are working with something that is bigger than us in so many ways. But I think if collectively, if what we have is collective sabotage, what would it look like if we're going onto these platforms with the third perspective in mind, with the idea that nuance exists, understanding that a lot of the things that we're seeing are so rid of context. So when you see a clip or when you see a sentence or something that is being said, realize that it's part of a larger whole. Also realize that you don't have to respond. You don't have to have an opinion. So I think I really don't have this sort of cynical view of social media, which I think I did at a point in time.

1:09:50I think it's about the individual and then so many of us become the collective. So I think we can actually influence the way things are happening on social media. And I see this with my work. When I started having these conversations about four years ago, some people pushed back, but a lot of people I could see and feel and they shared the relief that they felt. And I rarely get any, if any, pushback at all with my work because I think people are yearning for that gray. People are yearning for the nuance. So I think social media will actually play a very important role in this and it's starting to happen it is yeah i i would have to agree very strongly i think social media is made up of two things one is the platform and the algorithms and all of that and the other part is the rest of us and i think the rest of us is the problem right because the algorithm is motivated by nothing other than meeting people's demands so so you know we have a tendency to externalize the blame of the world we live in to social media when we are the ones filling social media was crap and responding to the crap that's on social media right and it's quite interesting because so i i'm i'm extremely picky when it comes to so if i swipe on instagram and and on something i don't like i will swipe away two seconds in right and if i if i don't know what the video is because the algorithm cheats you tells you hey wait 60 seconds until you know what this is about.

1:11:23If it's not clear up front, I swipe away. And in better platforms like YouTube, I will dislike what I don't like, right? And the idea here is to tell the algorithm very clearly that this is not for me. Because what happens is the algorithm shows me more of it, shows a lot of people a lot of crap, and as a result tells the content creators, create crap, they love the crap okay and i think the the the game here is this the game is if we decide that to use this platform for good like i send a lot of stuff to a where we laugh about and it's a wonderful connection and right there is use good use to it and if we suppress the bad sides of it if we can speak the third perspective the you know if we can if we can cover the gray in a respectful way that is not self-censored, then that would be the most amazing platform on earth.

1:12:16The trick is that we are the ones, I mean, as I speak about AI, sometimes I think it applies to social media. There's nothing inherently good or evil about social media, the platform. Okay. There is a lot of interesting good and evil about us and the way we respond to the platform. So that to me is more and more. Okay, I have to say my daughter wants to ask a question, so you guys can wait. Thanks, Papa. My question is for more directed to Africa, even though what you talked about as the collective sabotage is extremely interesting and so important. But I wanted to ask about your transformation with your identity because you mentioned your shadow self, like you discussed that person that would come out as your shadow self.

1:13:10And I wonder just how did you like, was there, did you come together or is it, did she take the back seat? Was there an event that took place that made you like, lose connection to that identity and switch identity or like, I just would love to hear more about it? Yes, such a good question. For me, I had to... She's amazing. She's brilliant. He's my father. She smells really good too. She does. Have you noticed? I did when I hugged her. And she's so pretty. So beautiful. Have you guys noticed the Angelina Jolie? Go for it. Come on. I have the right to. can you be my dad that sounds wrong

1:14:14i'll answer the question um what i had to do and it really is a very good question because i i don't see myself as separate to that africa at all i hold so much love and compassion for her what I had to do was to integrate her I had to integrate her into the person that I needed to be into the person that I was becoming and who she is she had a wildness that I really appreciated like just a level of courage and audacity and boldness and I really did give alcohol and so many other things credit for that but I've always had access to that but I think her shadow was that she could use all of these things she had to manipulate, to lie, to cheat, to not show up, to be very unreliable, to value escapism so much over actually being present in the reality of what is.

1:15:15So I think she had a lot of just wonderful characteristics and qualities that I actually love and I just needed to refine them. And what I've learned about identity is that it's not about casting any parts of yourself away. It's about seeing how you can befriend them, you know, because when you don't, they can become your enemy. And I think she nearly became my enemy for a long time because I just blamed her for not being able to get sober. It's a little bit abstract, but that truly is how I experienced it. I couldn't just pretend that I'm this person now, and that's in the past, and I'm no longer that person.

1:15:54I can still be that person, but I know how to use those qualities for good so i i don't use my powers for evil these days yeah that's that's what i said brilliant yeah that is brilliant i mean the fact the fact that you say that she was you that only the you know the alcohol allowed her to show up yes it was amplifying who i was this is brilliant because basically you're saying there is this beautiful self within me that I can show without the alcohol. And that's the whole idea. Beautiful. I'd like to hone in on your friendship circles throughout those seven pass outs, should we call them? And coming out of it as someone now who's on the other side, are those friends still in your life?

1:16:45And secondly, I guess the fact that, you know, you can almost be with yourself do you look at those previous friends as if to say like what were you even doing with me brilliant question so good everything about my life had to change and my friendship circle is one of those things but the reality was that by the time I got sober that eighth time I didn't have many friends left I that was just the reality of it I I had two. One of them was Roxanne, who I wish was here today. She's my best friend. And she really stuck with me, but she gave me an ultimatum, pretty much, that she wasn't able to continue this relationship and this sisterhood unless something changed.

1:17:36And there was my boyfriend, Billy at the time, who's still a wonderful friend. And he also, even though he was a very conflict avoidant person he also gave me that same ultimatum so I didn't get sober for myself I got sober for Roxanne and Billy those were the two friends that I had left every other person that I had called a friend I had never seen them in the daytime unless we had spent time in the evening and then just hadn't slept for a day or two or three so there was the realization that I didn't have many friends, but the two, even if it was just two that I had at the time, I was so grateful for their love and it allowed me to stay sober.

1:18:22And then also what was beautiful about it, because I think the friendship piece can be the part that a lot of people find difficult. The most freeing thing was that I could make friends who could meet me where I was. I could make friends who I didn't have to over explain why I'm not drinking. I just don't drink. So I really had to embody that idea of being a non drinker. I was able to do that. And even though, again, I know the friendship part can be the most difficult for people. There was that liberation that came with being able to meet people at eye level who I didn't have to over explain my journey too.

1:19:04But again, I didn't need that many people to be on that journey with me, even just one person, let alone two people that still loved me and cared so deeply. That was enough for me at the time. And then to your second question, you know what, it could have been very easy for me actually to blame the people that I was friends with, to kind of look at them as the people that made me drink in the way that I did, made me party in the way that I did, because that's very easy to do, to externalize the blame or the responsibility. But I didn't do that. I think because I had relapsed so many times, I had seen the loss in my life, I had seen the chaos in my life.

1:19:46I was left on my knees in such a way where I couldn't avoid personal responsibility. And it was interesting because I learned that I was the enabler, apparently. It turned out that I'm the pusher. I'm the one that pushes people to drink, not the other way around. So I couldn't externalize the blame. I understood why we had all chosen each other to be party friends, to drug together, to dance together. And we had a lot of fun. It was what I needed at that time. I think I was also able to look at it in that way. Those friends are what I needed at that time. All of those reckless nights, there were so many of them that were fun not all of them ended in chaos and destruction even though internally it kind of always did for me but they allowed for me to see different parts of myself they allowed for me to feel connected so I was able to and because I kind of experienced the world and people through characteristics and qualities and traits I was able to realize that there were a lot of those things that I picked up from those friends that I still carry today so i think i had to humanize them but that only happened because i was sort of humanizing myself but i i had to take full responsibility there was no there was no blaming my father there was no blaming those friends i i had to take full responsibility for for my suffering and and sobriety got it thank you so much thank you i love that bit when you said you could have been the bad friend yes that's so interesting oh yes yes and and may i just one final one knowing where you are now both of you on stage you guys are vibrating on different frequencies i want to say that is life lonely knowing knowing what you know feeling what you felt and understanding how flawed we are as humans why don't you save me and take that one i'm i i was the loneliest man alive until i fell in love a month and a half ago i'll tell you that openly i was the loneliest man on earth it's just especially when you're when you're driven by a mission to make a change by definition that means the change is not yet there yet and that by definition means you're a man against the world it's so interesting because you look you look at i mean simon's introduction was like my travel style is like the rolling stones it really is i mean i travel 240 days a year at least and and you know i'm so driven so driven because i really think our world needs what i'm talking about and then you You just show up and you connect deeply to people that you will never see again.

1:22:41And then you show up again and then you show up again and then you go on social media. And, you know, I made that weird promise of trying to answer every question that I ever get. And so it really was daunting because I'm making a hundred connections a day that are not human connections. They're social media connections. And, you know, I started to use techniques like voice notes so that I can actually be a human with them and they would respond back in voice notes and it would ease my loneliness a tiny bit. Right. But it's quite interesting because there is a difference between alone and lonely.

1:23:20right that you know there is a difference between feeling the pain of loneliness or feeling that you would hope to get the support and i think i was on the second one you know i was i was more into that place where where i really wanted to galvanize the whole world basically to wake up and travel with me or stay where they are and just help somehow but our world is very busy okay our world is never really is never really aware of what the more important bits are you know maybe i'm wrong if i think of them they're as important but what ends up happening however is that it doesn't matter because i will tell you i'm the luckiest man alive it doesn't matter when you really really know what you're standing for this is why I asked you the question at the beginning when you really know what you're standing for I couldn't ask for a different life I honestly couldn't you know it there is a price we pay each and every one of us when we wake up in the morning and we go somewhere to do something okay there is a price you pay to get to work there is a price you pay there is you know to find to meet your friends there is a price to pay but it's not about the price it's about the roi it's about what you get back for the price that you pay and i'll tell you openly i wouldn't change a thing right i'll do this for the rest of my life if i have to it's it's my podcast by the way you're the guest but by the way i love that idea of from now on i basically will do podcasts and have the audience ask the questions so i do the intro and then I sit back.

1:25:08Yes, yes, yes, you should. No, I'm not lonely. No. Solitude is my default. I love my own space. I love my own time. And I love being with people in sort of intimate, smaller groups. But I'm not lonely at all. I'm so grateful to be loved by... And I don't... Here's the thing. Similar to what I said about Roxanne and Billie, I don't need that many people in my life in order for me to feel loved. Not at all. It's about the depth of my relationships. I have a very small friendship group. And when I meet people, it can take me a little while to kind of really lean fully into that friendship. But sometimes I meet people and I feel like I've known them a lifetime.

1:25:54I'm not over attached to how much I speak to someone. For me, it's just about the depth. But I think because I really have learned how to hold myself internally, I really don't feel lonely I think I'm finding myself at a point in time in my life where I feel open and more grounded to share my life with someone else romantically in terms of partnership so that feels really good but I yeah no I feel very nourished I feel very fulfilled and I feel very whole and yeah it's a beautiful thing this last comment means you don't have one no what's wrong with men okay so africabrook.com uh right send your applications and we'll uh more more yes um one thing that i really found interesting is this i think increasing separation within society yeah and it even has an impact on me i'm a humanist by nature but i would lie if i said like i'm not more critical than ever before towards certain things in society right things that should not upset me things that i get upset about when people complain about it and i mean during your time in africa you might confirm that people in africa they have actual problems they don't have the time to complain about banal things as we do as i used to do much more in the past and obviously i try to understand how this is possible to pull off on a global scale social media is one of the reasons right but it all comes down i think to the companies the politicians whoever is in charge to exploit all our psychological flaws biases in the most intelligent sophisticated way right and this kind of brings me to my question because I think it's very difficult to change a generation with evolved brains.

1:27:56It's much easier if you have a son of 10, 5 years, 6 years because they're learning. But the question I have is firstly, what's happening to those children right now? For that reason, I'm actually happy that you published that book. And secondly, is there actually a way on a global scale again to change the minds of the evolved brains already, right? because and i see it with myself and i think you alluded to it before mo i think the the thing that can kill society is the ability or the lack of ability of critical thinking i don't really think that we have a free speech problem yeah there are some people who are shut down but we have a problem that most people completely forget how important this is the ability to think critically because then certain narratives wouldn't even have a chance to survive because people would just question, they form their own opinion.

1:28:50And I don't even think you have to be intelligent for that. Like I talk with very educated people about the Palestinian-Israel conflict. They ask me what I think about this and I actually gave pretty much the same answer. And they're like, yeah, but what do you think about Palestine? What do you think about Israel? They want me to pick a side. I'm a humanist. I don't care. I know that war has incentives and motives for certain institutions, politicians, whatsoever. Things that I can't influence. but I generally care about the people who suffer there. So how can you for yourself but also maybe for society change those pre-planted and existing beliefs, if at all?

1:29:27And then secondly, how do you make sure that you teach the next generation to intelligently navigate through that environment? Social media, all those narratives that they are meant to believe, how do they get the ability to think critically and actually change the world? I think it's such a big question. And I wonder if you can tell me what you think, and you can also tell me if you think this is too simplistic. But from what I can see in just the corner of the internet and the conversation that I'm in is through open conversation. the i've seen that even from an open letter that i wrote four years ago which i was pretty much around what we're talking about now but within months it was read by millions of people and thousands of people from all over the world were sending me emails and messages and their thoughts that they it felt like a permission slip for people they didn't know that they were allowed to ask questions like this.

1:30:32They didn't know that as a black person, they could think in this way because they've been told that they should think and speak in a very specific way. So I think it's the long game, but I think the more and more people that are willing to take those emotional risks openly, I think it can influence something. I think something can happen. And again, I don't know if this is a simplistic answer, but I guess I can only answer it from the plane that I am in right now. But I also think there's something happening within education and it surprises me that critical thinking is not something that is taught in education.

1:31:11So maybe there's a complete overhaul that needs to happen there or is it by design that people are not supposed to think critically. so in fact I feel like I have more questions than answers to what you're saying but I think the conversation piece for me is very important we need more people that are either have existing platforms or are willing to be more open about this fight for free expression and bold expression audacious expression and I think if we're in this for the long game eventually that allows for people to see that there is room to speak and that you get to ask questions and that you don't have to take everything you're fed, hockline and sinker, that you can say, actually, no, I don't agree with that.

1:31:54You know, what do you think? It's my podcast. Don't ask questions. No, so this is the most brilliant question ever. My teacher on the topic I hosted here on Slow Mo a couple of years ago, a data scientist, four PhDs called Rebecca Costa. And Rebecca wrote a book called The Fisherman's Rant. And she looked back at societies that collapsed, you know, the Mayans, the Romans, and so on. And her conclusion was so beautifully purified and simplified. She said, when the complexity of the system built by a society exceeds the intelligence of its citizens, the society will reset. Okay. So I will tell you, we will reset.

1:32:40Absolutely. No doubt in my mind that this will collapse, right? But it will collapse in one of two ways. One way is to assume that this is just a pendulum swing. So we went from a society where there was so much oppression of freedom of expression in reality, right? You know, we said we can be free to speak about whatever we want to speak about. But if you were gay, for example, you had no right to tell the world about that. right if you you know we were we we pretended that we have human rights but if you were black for example you had no rights in certain societies and so on so so you took a pendulum swing all the way to the other side and it's understandable you know you just give people a breather and they go like you know what i want all my freedoms and i want you to give me back all of the years that have been wasted when i wasn't free as a matter of fact i want you to give me the all of the freedoms that were, you know, deprived from other humans since the beginning of society.

1:33:38So there is a pendulum swing and then the pendulum will swing back. Okay. And it may swing back in one of two ways. Sadly, it may swing back in an explosion, right? Where you will suddenly, unfortunately, it's what my expectation is, where everyone will just go, you know what, fuck you all. I'll just say whatever I want and I don't care. Right. And, and, you know, that would lead to more chaos. If you ask me, the hope is that we, we go back and say with reason, yeah, this is amazing. We all agree on the objective and the objective is we want equality. We want diversity. We want freedom of expression.

1:34:17We want to be heard. We want to allow for critical thinking. How can we, you know, do that by allowing us a different style of conversation? So this is scenario one where it comes from the bottom up grassroots we all say we're sick of this and we start to find nice ways to talk about it okay like like me trying to say openly look don't get me into the political debate i'm not interested in politics i don't know anything about politics i don't want to take you know sides in something i don't really understand do not kill children right this is you know if anyone finds themselves questioning what i'm saying then i honestly don't care about their opinion right so so so this is there is ways to do that my fear and you know i'm i'm generally an optimist is that we're heading in the opposite direction we're heading in a direction where unfortunately idiocracy has a commercial value and a political value okay so so there is unfortunately going to be more desire to make us more of it more idiots okay and again it would play out in one of two ways one is the flood of irrelevant information that we're seeing today or the other is a nation state that forces everything okay and both of those in my personal view are very very likely as a matter of fact not one but both at the same time you're going to continue with the evident of AI taking over our lives and social media to see more and more and more and more irrelevant, irrelevant conversations.

1:35:55Okay. And as you, as you get deluded, as you get confused about what really matters, there will be a few that will say, Hey, you know what? This doesn't make any sense at all, but because of the way power and wealth is about to be concentrated with the with the rise of ai those at the top will start to say oh you don't like it let me show you what i can do to you and i and i think this world is sadly a world that will only happen if we don't go to the first solution okay if we don't all now say like africa taught us in this conversation that there is a way to express yourself without self-censorship that meets the higher good and And, you know, as I mentioned, and you express that in a way that is not, that's not attempting to hurt anyone.

1:36:48That's not attempting to serve your ego. That is kind and loving. That is inclusive. If more of us start to show this, I think the movement will start. Okay. I think the pendulum will swing back. Okay. Just one follow-up question because I think it's a very interesting point. the issue that I sometimes encounter I think probably many people who are some way dependent on the internet for their businesses is that you shut up because you're actually afraid of being cancelled and that would have severe repercussions for your life for your families right how do you navigate because also some of the things that you say are very controversial and maybe not things that people want other people to hear how do you message it or how do you make sure that don't get penalized for that you never really do when you get canceled you get canceled by a few and approved of by a majority that's the truth right the truth is unless you're really you have the wrong intentions unless you're a bad person okay if what you're saying is good okay a few will cancel you and everyone else will say oh my god did you see this person got canceled even though they're saying something amazing and the majority is often silent as well i think that's something that we quickly forget um so with social media we assume that the loudest voices are the majority and that is that is often not the case that is often not the case and i think that would come back to risk taking because i firmly believe that we're in this culture of fear and avoidance because a lot of people are not willing to take risks and i truly believe that if you're in business, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a leader, you have to be willing to take risks.

1:38:35And those risks can and should be calculated, but not calculated to the point of you dressing calculation up when it's actually self-censorship. I think there has to be a risk you're willing to take. Otherwise, you sanitize your message. Otherwise, you end up blending with every other business, every other voice, every other platform, and nothing actually makes you stand out. So I think there's more of a cost to that. But I think when you know what your values are, when you know who your clients are, when you know who your customers are, and they know what your value system is, I think that allows for you to understand what your message is.

1:39:12But also not every hill is worth dying on. That's really important. Sometimes the hill is a private hill, not a public hill. You know, there are certain things that I have many opinions on. But I know that these are for my private conversations. They don't have to be on my platform. In the name of unravelling self-censorship, I don't have to lose tact. So I think it's like a delicate balance and it's like a dance that you do, you know, whether you're in business or not. But I think you need to increase your tolerance for risk, for smart risk. So and then I think that informs the messaging. First of all, again, thank you so much for such a beautiful conversation.

1:39:52I just loved the directions you went in and resonate with so much from sobriety to relationships to vulnerability so truly thank you um i actually have been working in education for the past 10 years and although that's not really what i'm doing at the moment my my mission has kind of been to encourage schools to employ health education specialists, which is what I teach. But I also set up a podcast, and one of the questions I always ask is, what do you know now that you wish you were taught at school? So I'd love for you both maybe to answer that question. What do you know now that you wish you were taught in Zimbabwe?

1:40:41My answer, I'm going to say it in a simple way, even though I think it could go on and on. But I do wish that in school I was taught the true history of Zimbabwe. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now as an adult, I think it's quite sad that we weren't really taught our history. I'm from a country that was colonized by Britain. So even back in Zimbabwe, English is the second language. Shona is the first language. It's my mother tongue. It's my first language. It's what I speak today. But I really wish that I was taught when I was in school to be proud of our country because we learned so much about Britain. We learned so much about how great the British were, et cetera, et cetera, Queen Elizabeth and all of this wonderful stuff.

1:41:28But there wasn't really much about our country and our heritage. I would like to think that it's changed more now but I think it would have helped me as an immigrant coming to the UK to not feel ashamed about my country which I don't at all now but as a child I did so I think I would have loved to know the true history of my country which I'm learning about now I think that would have made a lot of difference actually as a child I find that this is fascinating because it goes back to the other question where history is the top level of censorship Oh my God, it's so interesting. One of my lifetime dreams, and hopefully one day I'll be able to do that, is to have AI read the history in every language, right?

1:42:13And then tell us the true history. Because if you read World War II from the point of view of Russia, it's documented very differently than the Japanese, documented very differently from America. And I think there is so much written by the victors. Think about it, right? I won't actually expand at all, but I'll leave you with that thought. I would want to be taught that life is a video game. Think about that. All right. Africa, this was wonderful. Thank you. Do I get more coffee when I'm in London next time? Please. Yes, without those. Expectations. You're an amazing soul. And I think you're on a mission.

1:42:57And I think you're going to make a difference. And I'm very, very grateful that you're here. I love you very, very much. It's always a joy to be in your presence. Thank you. Thank you so much. Again, I'm fully receiving that your words really do land exactly where they need to. I'm just so grateful that we've connected. And to be on this mission together, which I truly believe that we are, is an absolute pleasure and a joy. I love you too. Thank you. For all of you listening, I think we took a lot of your time today. wonderful conversation. I hope you loved it as much as I did. Share it. It really matters when you do rate it like you guys do on social media, like those five-star things.

1:43:42Watch it on YouTube, by the way, because I think not enough of you are aware that we're now quite growing very fast on YouTube. And yeah, take a little bit of time to reflect because as I think of all the things that Africa taught us today. I think the one that really registers most is that brutal acceptance and honesty of where you are in life today, because without that, you would never find a step forward. To do that, you need to reflect. To do that, you need space. You need silence. You need a little bit of slowing down. So it doesn't matter how busy you are this week. I'd ask you to take a little bit of time to slow down.

1:44:21I love you all for listening, and I will see you next time.