 Thanks for organising. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Thank you for the introduction. I don't need to introduce myself to anyone here. Is everyone familiar with my work? Yes. Okay, sometimes there's one or two people and I'm like, what are you doing here? Okay, so before I start, I always ask who here is already active for veganism or the animals in some way? Wow. When I ask this question, there's always maybe a couple of people that don't put their hand up. I think that more and more people are putting their hand up lately, which is great. But I think what it is with those who don't raise their hand is they have a perception in their mind about what they think an activist actually is and they think that you have to do street protests. You have to be in AV wearing a mask and showing slaughterhouse footage. You have to be stopping slaughterhouse trucks. They are forms of activism. Not the only forms of activism, though. You can be an activist in many ways. An advocate. If you're persuading people to change, creating social change, that could be in your circle. You could be sharing stuff on your social media. You are a activist, okay? So think of it like that. Now, first thing you had to find out before you got started and first thing I found out before I got started was the reason why I'm doing this. The reason why. Now, if you don't know the reason why or it's not reinforced in your heart strongly enough, as soon as things get hard, you're going to give up, okay? I would have given up the start of this year when things got a bit hard with the media and all that. Maybe the start of this week when it's quite a tiring tour. But because I understand that I'm doing this for something bigger than me, okay? For someone other than me, it keeps me going. And that's what you all need to remind yourself. If you've forgotten why you're an activist, do you start to, you know, get a little bit... I always remind myself bearing witness, coming to a sanctuary, focusing more on the victims than myself. Really important. On the way here, that's the alarm for the next part of the speech. No, it's not. That's me forgetting to set my alarm. This must be a really important part and it is because on the way here, on the plane, we're watching a film and before the film, there was a quote by Mark Twain. And it said, the two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why. Okay, so I hope you guys have all found out why because I definitely have. Now, when I first started, I had a fire inside of my heart right here in my chest. I couldn't explain it, but it was burning, a desire. I spent the better part of 12 years causing people around me, hardship, a very negative person. I was in violent gangs taking drugs. I ended up in prison. Spent a long time taking, not really being grateful for my time on earth, not really giving too much back. So now I feel like I'm fulfilling that purpose, the reason why I'm here. If anyone else has that fire inside of your chest, never deny yourself the chance to spread it because that is your purpose and it's calling out to you. Now, if you're going to start teaching people something, which is basically what advocacy is, education-based activism, I feel like is one of the most effective. Not the only though. You need to have a base-level understanding on what you're talking about. You probably all have that. I mean, it doesn't take more than five hours to get a base-level education on ethics, environment, health. Ethics is the most fundamental. Without ethics, there is no veganism. It's not veganism without ethics. But all you need to know is more than your average non-vegan. You don't need to be earthling-educated or Gary Orofsky-educated. Just more educated than your average person, which is not hard to do because most people haven't looked into this at all. When I first started, I inundated myself with information, ethics, health and environment as well. But you can always fall back on, is it morally justified to stab someone for a burger when we have alternatives? Is it morally justified to stab someone to get iron when we can get it from plants? So you've got that ethical foundation. Don't be afraid of getting in a debate with someone. This is irrefutable. Ethics is irrefutable unless they would admit they wouldn't mind human beings being treated in this way. Unless they admit they have a double standard for animals and humans, okay? So ethics is really strong. So don't be afraid, but yeah, educate yourself constantly throughout your journey. Really powerful. I'll get into more about why it's so powerful. Who here has been following my work for, let's just say, more than 18 months? Okay, oh no. Oh God. I deleted most of them videos, okay? Now, when I first started, I was obviously angry about what was happening to animals. Very angry. And where I come from, the environment I come from, the way you deal with emotions like that is with aggression, okay? I was pissed off, okay? And I was wondering why anyone, why everyone wasn't just like as pissed off as me and doing something about it. And I found out pretty quickly about the lack of compassion people showed when it comes to this topic. So I was venting a lot on my channel. Now, vegans loved it. They loved to hear me say the things they wanted to say. But I wasn't trying to reach vegans at this point, was I? Unless I'm doing these workshops, which I do now. But I wanted to reach the non-vegans. So I had to really think about that. I had another epiphany through my advocacy journey. And I was like, when a friend of a friend's father said, I've been watching your videos, and I was embarrassed. And I was like, oh, shit, which one did he watch? I don't want to feel like that. Okay, so I thought how far reaching is my effect here. So I changed my advocacy, not for me, okay? I changed it for the animals, okay? And I wanted to be reached by more people. Now I have grandparents sitting down with their grandkids and whole families watching my stuff. I still speak with clarity and conviction. And I do not lie about what's happening to animals. But I don't swear. I don't insult. I don't wish cancer on anyone anymore. We've all been there. I just find angry, okay. A psychologist actually said this to me, and this is a really important point, okay? Anger is a very useful emotion. Feel angry. If you don't feel angry, you're not looking hard enough, okay? But aggression is anger in action, okay? So yeah, feel your emotion. It gets you off your butt to do something. But when you act that emotion out, that's when I believe it becomes detrimental. Now is all aggressive activism not effective? I don't know. I haven't done the study to show that aggressive activism never works. I think it probably does work when there's people first shaming and they become, you know. But I think for the most part, when we're talking about the majority of people, I think the approach, the respectful approach, has worked better just in my own experience. I always talk to people like they're my friend as far as I can. Sometimes I'm a bit tired and a bit short, but you know, we try our best. But I'm always, you know, hey brother, you'll never see me insulting anyone though. Calling them a name, if they call me something, I don't call them a name back. Keep it on, you know, based on the topic. But I find it lets people drop their guard a bit, especially when I say, you know, I used to consume animals as well, you know, for 26 years. I was also committing conscious acts of violence in gangs. So if anyone should be judged, it's me. So it just brings me down a little notch there, and they understand that way. I was consuming animals too. I was contributing to the same harm I'm asking them to stop. And it opens up the door for dialogue a little easier. People think you're being superior, even when you're trying not to. Okay, so you've got to be a little bit conscious of that. Don't be afraid. When I first went vegan, I had vegan amnesia. I forgot that I'd been consuming animal products for most of my life, and everyone was an animal abuser except for me. So yeah, be conscious of that. Now, I always ask who here, because everyone thinks they knows, who here thinks they know what the most effective form of activism is? If you've seen my workshop, which no one has actually called me out on this yet, if you've seen my workshop, you would know that, does anyone know? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The most effective form, it's very, that's very good. It's very good to teach people, but the most effective form of activism is the form of activism you are personally, individually, uniquely best at. Everyone is unique in their talents, skills, and abilities. Not everyone is the same. We're all different people. We all are good at different things. Let me give you an example. You don't get the public speaker to burn the vegan food, do you? And you don't get the vegan chef to come up and ruin the speech. Okay, we're both as important in our designated areas though. So I'll give you another example. James Aspie is an amazing public speaker. Okay, that's what he does. He's done hundreds of speeches. But without the person organizing his speech, getting him there, making the venue, the speech doesn't happen. So who's more important? James Aspie would be talking to a tree if he didn't have someone organizing the event and getting people to come. So we all work together. So don't feel inadequate. If you can't do outreach like Ed can do outreach, he's a really good, he's one of the best when it comes to that sort of thing. But you might be really good at something else that he's not good at. Okay, and we need you doing that. So be a little bit more creative about, don't wedge yourself into doing one form of activism when it's just not you. Okay, we need you in other areas. So think about that. Also, I'm going to tell you what I think is really effective form of activism. And I'll give you some really powerful examples of why. Because people go, I know the most effective form of activism. Okay, where's your evidence? Where's your evidence that that's so effective? Here's my evidence. Who here doesn't know who Gary Rofsky is? A few. Do you even vegan? Come on, everyone should know who Gary Rofsky is. If you don't, check out his speech. Best speech you'll ever hear. Yeah, you know, you've seen that. Okay, you've seen his speech. His speech is more famous than he is. That's crazy. But Gary Rofsky, animal liberation activist. He was most controversially known for liberating about a thousand mink. Served six months in prison with murderers. Okay, for liberating animals. Figured out that maybe education-based activism might keep him out of prison and, you know, be more effective. He did around 2,000 speeches to around 50,000 students over the course of his public speaking career. Okay, someone in the audience filmed one of those speeches. Wasn't even him. He didn't ask him to do it. They just did it. Got put up on YouTube. He's gone viral, 3.5 million views for his main speech. His, that's, parts of that speech are still going viral on Facebook today. Okay, if it wasn't for someone putting that up on social media and other activists helping that go viral, no one would even really know who Gary is. He would have just been another teacher. Fallen on the ears of those in the classrooms. Some are interested, some are not. Now, everyone really in the meagre movement, except for you three, know who Gary Rofsky is. But that just goes to show how powerful making videos is. You can reach so many people with very, very, low energy output, energy to outcome output. People say to me, you know, Joey, I'd love to start making videos, but I don't have the amazing camera that you have. So if I say for three years and get the good camera you got, maybe I can start making videos then. No, and they say, well, you know, the lighting's not absolutely right. I haven't had my hair done. Everything's going to be perfect. No, start where you are. Use what you have and do what you can. Three important sentences. This isn't my quote. I heard it and I use it. It's very, very important though, because when I first started, I had this little iPhone 5. I bought it for $100, okay? Second hand, cheap, had a little crappy $400, $500 computer. And I just started talking into my phone. That's how I started. The beauty is not everyone is going to watch your first video. And trust me, you'll thank me for that because if I had the reach that I have now back then, oh God. So you have time to improve your, you know, the way you speak and what you say on camera and edit. And you know, you just have time to grow. And as you grow, your reach increases. It's really good. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. Now, without social media, let's not kid ourselves here. Without social media, there is no movement. Mathematically impossible. They have advertising. They have tradition. They have habit. They have billions of people repeating the same crap. Just would not be possible for us to break through that. Okay. If you went vegan 30 years ago, 25 years ago, or 20 years ago, like my partner Laura, you got a pamphlet from an ALF member talking about the egg and dairy industries. Otherwise, you wouldn't have known. You would have thought vegetarian was the moral choice because it's pretty obvious that's chopped up murder victim, even though I didn't see it. But now we have social media. Someone can make a video, flick it up on Facebook. It goes viral across the world. Everyone knows what the horrors of the dairy industry now. If they don't, they're living under a rock, but we make sure they see and they know because we comment on everything that they post. And vegans are all over social media and we work 24 seven. They can't stop us even work in the weekend. Don't even have to pay us. Dairy industry are paying people and we don't worry. We work overtime. So true. So utilize social media. Okay. If you did all of your activism, let's look, look, people say this. They're not activists. No way. If you did all of your activism from your bedroom on a computer with a phone and you are persuading people to turn vegan and you are influencing vegans to be activists. Okay. You are an activist. Don't let anyone tell you you're not. Two forms of activism going to talk about tonight. First one. Now these aren't the only forms of activism, as I explained. These are just some that I'd really like to do and I get involved with. First one is anonymous for the voiceless. And you don't have to do this under anonymous for the voiceless. I do. I also get involved with vegan outreach. That isn't anonymous for the voiceless, but their style with the TVs, the masks, just showing slaughterhouse footage and doing vegan outreach. Basically is the two fundamental things. Showing slaughterhouse footage. Vegan outreach. I'm going to give you some outreach tips. Anyone not know what AV is? It's more, yeah, they're more well known than Gary Yarowski. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to give you some outreach tips. These apply no matter where you do it. Really, like no matter where you do it, you can apply these tips. I don't always follow my own advice because I get stuck on autopilot. Like I said, sometimes I'm tired. Sometimes you just forget. It's okay. Not trying to be perfect here, but we're just striving to be better advocates. The first one is building rapport. Something people overlook, and I overlook sometimes, but building rapport. Building rapport is basically adapting to who you're speaking to based on their characteristics, personality traits, the way they speak, softer, they're more broader. I'll give you an example. You're showing some dairy footage an elderly lady walks up and she says, hello dear, what are you showing here? And you go, dairy cows are raped in the dairy industry and that their children stolen off them. So you can eat cheese and she falls on her back and she nearly passes out. You haven't built rapport with that individual. You might be a little bit more softly spoken. You might choose your language a little bit more. Okay. Another example, group of 15 year old dudes, one smoking a cigarette. They think they're pretty cool. You don't talk down to them like you're their teacher. Okay. Worst thing you can do. You really haven't connected with them. Sometimes I'll get it down on their level. Hey, bro, have you seen this before? I don't think it's cool to be cruel to animals. I've been to prison and I don't think, oh, you've been to prison? Oh, you're my mate. So building rapport. Okay. You probably do this anyway when you're in supermarket in different scenarios. When you go into a job interview, you obviously conduct yourself in a different way. Find out and basically it's about understanding who you're talking to. They walk up to you, who you're talking to. Is she a parent? Three children? She might really empathize with the maternal bond that is broken when dairy cows have their calf stolen from them. Is he a bodybuilder? Is he like, does he look fitness orientated? Maybe they want to know that they don't have to stab animals to get protein. That's a really good point. Number one point for me. That's what the first thing I looked up was protein. Might seem silly to us now, but really it's a point and point. So just understand who you're talking to and just analyze them and go, okay, this is what I'm talking to. This is the game plan. You get better and better as you go. But like I said, sometimes I forget and just emotion gets in the way, but that's fine. Always, even when you're not on AV or doing a vegan outreach, have vegan info on you. I had this little fanny pack. This fanny pack used to have other things in it when I was in gangs, but now it's got vegan info. So I'll keep these cards concise. Meaning a small amount of information because you don't want to overwhelm people, trust me. We live in the age of shortest tension spans, don't we? People want to watch small short videos. Few links. Ethics, environment, health. Really, really short. For environment and health, you know, Cows, Spiracy have done the research. The sources are linked. People go, oh my God, it's vegan propaganda. Just point them to the sources. They're all linked there. Same with what the health. It's vegan propaganda. The sources are linked with the peer-reviewed studies on the website. So we've got the movie and the facts page. With ethics, choose one that is local to your region. I don't know if you have local slaughterhouse footage you want to show people. Something that they can relate to. Something that's at least current, not like from the 1960s that happened in Zimbabwe, and they can just go like that. They're not going to connect with that. I've got Darius Scary, Gary Rofsky's speech, Land of Hope and Glory. I use Land of Hope and Glory because I did a lot of my advocacy in the UK, obviously, and I've got Watch A Thousand Dias because it's Australian. On the back, always have a resource where people can get coaching for going vegan. This is, I only introduced this about, I'd say about 18 months ago, but it's very important. I'll tell you why, because you can inspire about a million people to go vegan if you want. You can. Okay, it's possible. But what happens after that? They're inspired. I've seen Joey's speech. I've seen that video on YouTube, really inspired. I'm going to go vegan. They go back out into the environment. Okay, the parents are like, Oh my God, you're going to die of protein deficiency. Their teachers are like, What are you doing? You need dairy for calcium. Their friends are making fun of them. They go to the store. They buy a tofu and one carrot. They eat that for the week and their hand really falls out. They run up a hill and nearly pass out. Then they're making a video saying that veganism nearly killed them and they're doing anti-vegan activism because they didn't have the right coaching and information. I use challenge 22. The reason I use challenge 22, a few reasons, takes 21 days to rebuild a new habit, build new neural pathways or whatever. They also have a 67% success rate at keeping people vegan after the challenge. I know veganism isn't a challenge. It's a moral principle against the exploitation of animals. I'm aware of that. But if it keeps people vegan, that's a good thing. How do they get those numbers? They ran surveys. They follow people with binoculars and they ran surveys afterwards. The ones who didn't go completely vegan after the challenge reduced their meat intake or animal product intake or went vegetarian. I don't ever advocate for that, by the way. And I don't tell activists to ever advocate for reduction or forgoing vegetarian. Clear vegan message and inadvertently, if they do that, not because you told them to, if they do that, it's not a bad thing. But we should be consistent about the message we put out. I want to talk to you about something that's really obvious, probably to you, the power of showing slaughterhouse footage. I don't think there's anything more powerful than showing someone what happens inside of those hellholes. Because people have this picture in their mind. They make it this picture. I don't know where it comes from. Maybe the propaganda put out by the industry. They think they know what goes on there. No, they don't. They don't know what goes on in there until you see it. You cannot describe it. Words do not do it justice. Nothing I say will do it justice. The footage does not lie. When people see that, they cannot unsee it. That's it. They see the flesh on their plate and they know it was torn from the body of an animal who drowned in their own blood in a hellhole. This is the information they get from one minute of this footage. Intense. There is a problem with it though. And we need to be mindful of this. When you are showing instances of cruelty on a particular farm, some outrageous outside of the box abuse in a slaughterhouse. It's all abuse, I know. But there might be something that's just outside of the guidelines. That's someone booting a turkey or something like that. You show that. Maybe you show battery hens in cages. Without the right type of outreach, you could lead someone to the conclusion that there is a humane way or a moral way to exploit animals. They see the battery hens. They could go, oh, they're in cages. Maybe I'll go out and buy a free range like that's a moral choice. We know that it's not. They might say, okay, well, they kicked that animal before they shot them in the head and stabbed them in the throat. Maybe if we take the kicking out of it, then it would be a moral choice. Maybe I'll select which slaughterhouse I'll buy my flesh from, you know, like those humane gas chambers. No, we don't want them to leave with the idea that there is a humane way to enslave someone, to separate families, and to kill them, okay? So we have to be very careful when we're showing that type of footage and you take it to the humane debate yourself. Do you think there's a humane way to do this? What does that look like? How can you humanely kill someone if they want to live? These type of questions very, very important. Without an outreacher, without someone on vegan outreach, people just see cage hens. I'm going to go buy a free range. Okay, so it's important that you're on to that as well. As much as you can, and as much as you want to lash out sometimes, remain respectful, okay? Remain polite. Now, respectful looks a bit different to different people. I think like there's a spectrum, like obviously, you're confronting them. No, we're just talking to them at the screen. As long as you're not insulting them, swearing at someone, okay? And you're maintaining this level of respect in the conversation. I would never ask any of you to respect someone's actions when it comes to their harm and exploitation of animals though. You don't have to do that, okay? There's a difference between respecting someone's choice to harm animals. No, and showing them respect in the dialogue. It's different, okay? When you are on outreach, you are not representing yourself. You're not representing other vegans, okay? You're representing the animals. So it's important that that dialogue, you know, turns out, you know, in a respectful way. Some people are offended by you even describing what happens to animals. Oh, you're sensationally ours. No, no, that's different. That's different. As long as you're maintaining, you know, respectful dialogue, still explain what happens to animals, you know, a lot of people will be offended no matter how you approach it. So don't have to respect their actions, but show them respect in the conversation. Also, everyone you talk to is unique, okay? I want to tell you a story about, you've probably seen this video. There's a guy in a blue tractor, farmer in a blue tractor. He wouldn't stop his tractor. Actually went viral on Facebook, asked him to stop. He wouldn't stop and I was moving back and he just kept driving. He acted like we weren't even there, basically. He looked really uncomfortable. Anyways, we stepped out of the way and he goes, I'll be back, I'll be back. And he dropped his cow off to be slaughtered, came back and I said, what's up, dude? Like, we only want 30 seconds to say goodbye to your animals before they're butchered. What's the problem? He said, you guys are making this harder for me than it already is. One of these farmers who cares about their animals but thinks there's no other choice but to butcher them for their body parts and sell their body parts. He was quite emotional, this guy. So I was like, wow, he's having an emotional response. I'm going to talk to him about it. I said, you don't have to do this. You don't have to kill your animals. There's another way. There's other ways to make a living. And he was having this emotional response and you could see like he was tearing out of his eyes. Someone behind me started talking about rainfall and like grain, how much grain it takes to feed an animal. And it took it out of his emotion and into his logic. When you have someone having an emotional response, you keep it there. We want someone to feel something. We want people to feel something. We have a society full of apathy, apathetic people. They're steering away from having an emotional response. People won't always remember what you say to them but they will remember how you made them feel. If they feel angry that you raised this question. Good. That's a feeling. I feel angry. I'm angry too. Yeah, I'm absolutely disgusted that we're all paying for animals to be murdered. And I did for 26 years. You know, you should be angry. That's a good emotion. Feel it and change. You don't have to bring emotion into it at all though with veganism. Sometimes you meet people, you can't even take it there. You try. You just like, no, they don't want to have an emotional response. They're just logic. They just want to talk about logic and that's fine because it's a completely illogical position to eat animals. Because most human beings have a moral system that they adhere to when it comes to other human beings. Even other animals, certain animals, certain species of animals. But they completely disregard that moral system when it comes to cows, pigs, chickens, fish, lambs. So they contradict their own moral system. It's really easy to point this contradiction out with the right line of questioning. Completely illogical. So don't have to bring emotion into it at all. But if you can do it, I'm really good at drawing emotion out of people. Anger, people get upset, outraged. That's okay. Now it's time to change. We're not in the business of making people feel comfortable with exploiting animals or paying for them to be gas chambered and stabbed. If you haven't participated in vegan outreach, maybe it's AV, maybe it's some form of vegan outreach, I highly recommend you do. For the fulfillment factor, it's actually good for many different reasons. Why aren't you helping animals, which is great. Sometimes you can feel overwhelmed with what's happening. You might feel helpless. When you go out and have conversations with people, you watch them change in real time. Nothing more fulfilling than that. Someone changing, taking a card, signing up to challenge 22, and you go, oh, 67% chance they'll stay vegan. And then you start doing the vegan calculator and you go, how many animals have I helped over the course of this person's life? What if they turn some people vegan? What if they turn into an activist? What if they start their own save group? What if their video goes viral? Because you start doing that and then you go fulfillment. Okay, sometimes you can feel like your family's not listening or you feel ostracized. Your friends just don't want to hear it anymore and you just feel like, what am I even doing? Is this even working? People that stop at the screens when you're doing anonymous for the voiceless type outreach, they stop because they want to talk about this. They're interested. This is your chance to opportunity. You've been holding all that in. Get them. Get them. So go for it. I definitely think you should be incorporating fulfilling activism into your regime if you're only focusing on the harsh stuff. It's not good. Okay, now you raised a very good point, which is this part of the talk here. One of the most effective methods for educating people called the Socratic Method. Now I was doing this for years before I knew what it was and people in the comments section actually called me Vegan Socrates and I had to Google who he was at Socrates. Who's that? I know. That's pretty bad. But I Googled him apparently Greek philosopher who taught people by asking questions and I was like, wow, I do do that. I used to do these interview videos and now they've become quite popular online. There wasn't many people doing interview videos when I first started about three years ago. I had a series called Joey vs the Public. One other YouTuber inspired me to do them. Martin from Think About This. And then about a year later, some other activists come and did it. But the reason they are popular is because they are so effective because you can watch their mind going, that line of questioning. With the right line of questioning, you can lead someone to the vegan conclusion. They feel like they've reached it themselves. You haven't told them. You've asked them. People love to be interviewed. They love to be interviewed. They love to get their opinion on stuff and they trip over their own contradictions in the process and they're like, yeah, no, no, I do care about animals. Do you eat animals? Yeah, I love the taste of bacon. Do you think taste, pleasure, justifies an immoral act? No, I don't know. Would you eat a dog? Oh, no, because I love dogs. Okay, what's the difference? Oh, there is none. I don't know. Their brain starts to malfunction. So effective. And you can remain polite, respectful. You don't even get upset. Okay, because asking questions diffuses. I'll tell you something. Sometimes people say something that's really hurtful to you and they don't know that it's hurtful because they're innocently ignorant as to the plight of animals. They have not witnessed what you have. Many of you have probably seen animals going through hell and it's really disturbing. So they might say something to you and they don't understand the weight of what they just said. Okay, but you do. So you might feel like an emotion here. You might feel like, oh, god, I tell you right now, I'm pissed off. How do you deal with that without lashing out? Which is what people ask me all the time. Joey, how do you stay so calm? Okay, feel the emotion. And instead of reacting to it, which I should apply into my other parts of my life because this would be really helpful because sometimes I get so pissed off. But instead of reacting to your emotion and acting, it's like an unconscious action, a reaction if someone taps your knee and you go, instead of that, we respond. We go, okay, I feel like this. I'm going to respond. When you respond, you respond with a question. Important question. Is there a humane way to kill someone who doesn't want to die? How can you love some animals and butcher others and eat their bodies? Whatever the question may be, dependent on what they say. Okay, you respond based on what they say. Diffuses the argument. Gets them back on their back foot. Okay, and you're back in control of the conversation. Really powerful stuff. Now, you can have someone on outreach. You might know heaps about the dairy industry and you've just been itching to tell someone about it and then someone stopped at the screen and you're just like 10,000 words a minute. Brrr, dairy cows. Now, you might feel like that's really effective, but it only takes one second for that individual to switch off. Okay, your lips are moving. Their lights are on. No one's home. All of a sudden, they're wondering if they left the oven on and when they're going to pick the kids up from school. Oh my God, they're still talking. When are they going to give me this pamphlet? Oh my God. If you ask them a question, all of a sudden, they go, oh, they just asked me something. They have to have some type of cognitive thought process and then answer, okay. Based on their answer, you ask them another question. They have to critically think again, give you an answer. So then you know something's happening. You know something's happening. People have society thinking for them, the TV thinking for them, their parents thinking for them, friends, okay. We want people to think for themselves and when you ask someone a question, you turn that on. You switch that on in someone. It doesn't switch off after that. You've started something. Questions don't end on outreach. They live on. They go and ask their family member the next day. Is there a humane way to kill someone if they don't want to die? What about you? Oh, how can we eat? We don't eat dogs. But you know, they start asking people those questions. They might repeatedly ask themselves that question. Questions are so powerful. You just can't expect someone to retain information like that, like heaps of different information. They might retain a few parts of the information, but a question lives on. So think about that. Next time you're on outreach, try to navigate a whole conversation using questions alone. Not even on outreach, just with someone that you're in a debate with. Just try navigating the whole thing with questions. Powerful. Really powerful. Now, I want to talk to you about another form of activism. This form of activism, probably the most effective form of activism, the most powerful form of activism I've ever participated in. The save movement. Not just the save movement, but what's a big part of the save movement, which is bearing witness. Now, I used to speak up for animals before I'd met them, before I'd met them at sanctuaries, before I'd met them at the front of a slaughterhouse. And I understood what was happening to them was an injustice. It's plain to see what slaughterhouse footage that's messed up. Something changed to me though, when I met them at the front of that slaughterhouse. They just transmit this energy to you when you're witnessing them. And they are so terrified. They don't know whether you're their friend or their enemy. They don't know where they're going. You do though. How many people in the audience have been vegan their whole life? How many? None? That's fine. I wasn't either. So the way I look at it is, I haven't been vegan my whole life. I paid for them to be on those trucks and go into that slaughterhouse. The least I can do is be there with them and bear witness to them once or twice. I recommend doing it regularly though. Like it really does help remind you why you're fighting. Build solidarity within the movement. Amazing quote that's echoed throughout the save movement is we should never turn away from suffering. We should move closer and try to help. So true. Let's the animals kind of know that we see them, we're here with them and we're trying. People say to me often I get this a lot like what is standing out the front of a slaughterhouse going to do? You're not going to change the world like that. Get a job. I get that a lot when you get a job. People like to stick their finger up and say that a lot. Nearly every one of my viral videos got over a million views. Nearly everyone happened at the front of a slaughterhouse with the save movement. Debates, the blue tractor guy that happened at the front of a slaughterhouse. My most viewed video ever which helps start off the media campaigning in the UK was me talking to two police officers at Scotland Animal Save. Six million views. Like millions of seeds planted. That one video alone. Intense crazy like thousands of vegans inspired to be activists. Okay just by making videos with the save movement. Now you might say like Joey that's all well and good but I've never had a viral video. I put up a video gets 20, 50 views sometimes. Okay that's amazing 50 views. You try going out and talking to 50 individuals about this. Okay you're going to burn out. If you hear plants feel pain one more time you're going to jump off a bridge. But think about that. You made one video. Okay reach 50 people. Think about if every individual in the save movement worldwide made one video that reached 50 people. How big collectively is our platform? You might have, everyone's got about 20 percent, 50 percent. As your vegan longer you get 2 percent non-vegans in your friends list but but if we all reach out like that that's how how big is our reach collectively. That's what you got to think of. If everyone had the attitude like I only got 50 views I'm not going to make a video then you know we would never reach anyone. But that's how that's why the save movement is powerful. Taking footage and pictures of the animals sharing them with local individuals who are nearby that slaughterhouse and you can say here's the personality the face and the suffering of the animal that the flesh on your plate was torn from. Okay you're making the connection. It's nearly as powerful as showing them what goes on inside of there. Sometimes it's actually more effective because when you put up a video of an animal being butchered it gets censored like that. Reaches no one. I have to be careful about the footage I put in my videos now. With the save movement pictures they don't get censored. More people see them. People are less likely to unfollow you. It's more of a g-rated kind of way of saying like these are the individuals. These are the victims that you're eating. You're consuming them. Because of you they're in them trucks. And I think that that's a very powerful message to send. So people who think the save movement doesn't work just don't understand how effective it really is. Not just on a personal level as an activist either. Just fundamentally on a larger scale. But on a personal level like I said it's changed me in a way that I'll never be the same ever again. Like people when I talk about those victims people can feel that energy from me. They can feel it. You take the experience from Bearing Witness and you go out and do your vegan outreach then. Okay conviction you speak with. You transmute that to others. If you haven't gone to Bear Witness I highly recommend you do. And people say to me this is very common and you're not alone. When you say this but people say Joey if I go out there and Bear Witness to the animals I'm going to break down. You don't understand. I'm you know I'm quite a sensitive individual. I'm just going to fall on the floor and collapse. It's going to be too much for me. Never actually seen that. Never actually seen that. I spoke to Anita Crank. She's the founder of the save movement. She's never actually seen that either. What we see more of is people arriving at the save for the first time. Seeing those terrified animals in the back of that truck quiet terrified animals. And they have this realization when they see those animals. They realize that it's not about them and it empowers them. And they say I have to be strong for them and try to help them. Because as nervous as you feel when you witness those animals. You go wow I feel pretty nervous at the front of this slaughterhouse. Imagine how they feel. I get to go home after this. They face a knife in the neck. Perspective. Very important thing to gain. This leads in perfectly to the next part of the speech which is getting over the fear of doing activism. This talk is called fearless activism but that's a lie. There's always some fear associated with doing activism especially for the first time. But I'll give you some of the tips that have helped me get over that fear. The first is what the save movement and bearing witness actually gives you. Which is like a catch 22. It's perspective. Okay so you're nervous to go to the save. But once you go you gain something very powerful which is perspective. This always helps me when things get tough. And I go wow you know like I'm really tired exhausted. I don't feel like going out to do this right now. I don't want to go and do this interview. I don't want to go and you know it's cold. Imagine what the animals are going through. And it puts my feelings. I put my emotions aside. And I go wow like that is so bad. That's helped me a lot and it might help you as well. I highly recommend having that perspective taking the light off yourself for a sec. Putting it on the victims. And then going from there. Now being educated. How can being educated help with dealing with the fear of doing activism? Well if you know heaps about this topic. You're not afraid to get in a debate. So you get confidence okay. Confidence is a very you know people can read it. When you're in a conversation with someone you're confident about your answers. Boom quick. They go wow they it's very persuasive. And it helps you. Helps you with your nerves. I can get in a debate with almost anyone about this. You know as long as they're not setting me up or something like that. That was some ridiculous topic that they were trying to get me on the tv to talk about. I'm careful about the topics that they try to set me up with. They're gray areas. But otherwise I'll debate nearly anyone in any scenario about this topic. Because I'm just confident that there's no way to refute the ethical argument here. Also you might not do people very well. Which is fine. Some people just can't they've got social anxiety. A lot of it okay. And they just don't want to associate with anyone. But they want to be an activist for the animals. Totally fine. You can remain 100% anonymous as an activist. And be an amazing activist. I'll give you the most powerful example on earth of this. I don't know if you know of anything more powerful than this example. Anyone know the page best video you'll ever see. They changed their name recently. Life changing videos. Got seven million followers on Facebook. Okay. You know partly responsible for Gary Rofsky's speech going viral. James Aspie's parts of his speech going viral on their page. Videos get millions and millions and millions of views on that page. I don't know how many millions of views it's like collectively on that page. Probably a billion or something. But Earthling Ed's speech and excerpt of his speech got 21 million views. This vegan has more of a reach than any other vegan on earth. Responsible for persuading, drop planting more seeds. Probably turning more people vegan than anyone else in history. Okay. More than Gary way more. Just mathematically. Anyone know who this individual is? Okay. They're anonymous. So that's the power of remaining anonymous as an activist. You could still help animals. Also people who do things in the background now. I made a video recently about my partner Laura. She never really asked for any credit. Okay. She's always in the background though helping dealing with a lot of pressure, a lot of stress. I mean she takes on a lot of my stress. Organizing all these things that filming. She filmed six months of my work. Okay. She's only little holding this camera in the freezing cold. Okay. Never complained. Done a lot. Really helped support me. Made me a stronger activist when things got really hard. Okay. Mostly anonymous. She never really wants to be on camera or take photos or, you know, that's why you probably don't see her very often. You can do that type of thing in the background. Never have to show your face or talk to anyone. You can do it all from, I get people helping me from all across the world and, you know, they're anonymous. Okay. And donors as well. Anonymous donors, which is amazing. Also, there are forms of activism that actually require you to be anonymous. There's a film called Dominion. Okay. That's about seven years in the making obtaining that footage. They were required not to show their face. If you're doing anything like that, that's a requirement and it probably fits into your personality. If you don't want to, if you're too much fear with just doing human beings, which is fine. Also, this is probably the number one fear of humans. Like public speaking and like people, you know, focusing on you like that. Dealing with criticism. Okay. This is a big one. How do I help myself deal with criticism? Because I get it a lot. Trust me. And the more you start getting out there, the more you're going to get it. There's only one way to avoid being criticized. Say nothing, do nothing and be nothing. Okay. You're not going to get much done for the animals like that. I get criticized by non-vegans. By vegans and by other activists. Luckily, I'm not doing it for any of them. No offense. I love you guys, but do this for who? Exactly the animals. Their criticism is the only criticism that really should matter. Okay. Now imagine this scenario. Like you're on the way to a slaughterhouse to be butchered and you're terrified and you're covered in your own feces. This is exactly what they go through. Okay. You've been a slave your whole life. There's a group of people out there trying their best to save you through all adversity that, you know, they're copying it from every angle. It's not a popular view and they're going up against the world basically to try to save you. Now, one of them one day lashes out and it's a bit aggressive and, you know, maybe their wording wasn't good. They insulted someone. And the rest of their group are criticizing this individual. What would you say if you're in that truck and they were trying their best with all their heart to help you? Would you be like, oh, you failed. You know, nice try. Don't even try next time. No, you'd be like, thank you seriously. Oh my God. You know what I mean? Like imagine what they like. And this is what like I need to hear sometimes because sometimes you can be your own worst critic. And like there's been times when like the vegan movement have, you know, had a real big go at me. Like especially probably one of the biggest radio interviews I've ever had, seven million listeners. Apparently the guy was a big deal. I didn't actually know. I was a foreigner to the UK, Jeremy Vines show. I went on and I was really fired up and I was like, you know, I'm going to do the animals justice in this interview. I've had enough and, you know, they're going to really feel this. Like I didn't go on this radio show to promote myself. Okay. I wasn't like, I'll follow me on Instagram. Hey, you know, no, I was talking about gas chambers, the dairy industry, animals being stabbed and murdered. And how the public are contributing to that. Not very popular view. Now, when I arrived, he had a ham sandwich on the table. And before we started the interview, he made a point of pointing it out and waving it in my face. And then he went on to say, when he went on air, so apparently there's an association with vegan diets and making you angry. Why are vegans so angry? Are you angry today, Joey? So he poked a bit of fun. And, you know, I went on to talk about the animal that was gas chambered so that he could have his sandwich. And that's how the energy of the conversation started. And then he put me onto the truck driver for the animals and I was already razzed up. And it probably wasn't my best work. I mean, I wasn't very James Aspie, more in the Gary region. But my heart was in the right place. And after that interview, I felt like, okay, that went well, you know, but about 35% of the comments on my pages were from vegans going, you know, you really messed that up, you know, he made us look bad. No one's going to come to an aggressive party. And, you know, you really failed the animals there. And I was just like, that hurt me a lot because I was, you know, midway through this big tour, taking on a lot. And I was tired and stressed and really, you know, trying my best and, you know, exposing yourself to so many, you know, you feel so criticized, feel so exposed. And it hurt me a lot. And I was like, you know, maybe they're right. Maybe I did, maybe I did fail the animals. Laura was like, no, that was awesome. Keep going like that. But I'll tell you a little something about that. As a result of my conduct in that interview, the next day went viral in the newspapers. Jeremy Vine and militant vegan activist criticizes Jeremy Vine's ham sandwich. And they went on to talk about gas chambers in the UK, okay, which gave the animals a voice there. And then as a result of the viral newspapers, I was asked to come on TV and debate to dairy farmers. Okay. And that was then the next day went viral again in the newspapers. And then they, the paparazzi over there started doing a bit of research from me found out about my past and thought, oh, well, this will be a good poster child to smear campaign. And then they started making all of these, all of this noise and sent so many people to my channel. And what happens when people go to my channel? Do they get awarded down health message? No, they get a strong ethical vegan message. Okay. And this kind of helped propel the ethical vegan message into the forefront of the mainstream media, where it wasn't really happening before. Okay. People started to get the real message. And so the thing about criticism is you're always going to get it. If your heart's in the right place, keep going, but take on constructive criticism, but all the rest, you know, just, just, if your heart's in the right place, that's the only thing that matters. Now, is it okay to have some nerves? Of course it is. I'll tell you an example of when I had nerves. My third interview video was about the dairy industry. I was talking about the sexual abuse. The questions were very controversial. I probably wouldn't ask them in the same way again, not these days. But I was going to the city and I was learning to reintegrate into society because I'd just been pulled myself out of gang life and, you know, drugs and alcohol. Usually I'll socialize with alcohol. Soba, I had anxiety. I was in the city. They were controversial questions and I was like, you know what? I'm going to turn back. I went to turn back and I was like, wait a second. Who are you doing this for? The penny dropped. And I was like, am I doing this for me? Or am I doing this for those dairy cows who have their children taken off in their whole life and be murdered? Perspective. So I went and did it anyway, which brings me to my thoughts on courage. Courage isn't something you were born with. Courage is something you build and you work on. It comes from gradually stepping outside of your comfort zone and speaking up. Now you might have a really small comfort zone, okay? You might not even step out of the house. That's fine. You can still take a little step outside of that each day. My comfort zone is a little bit bigger, so I can still step outside of that. Courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyway. And it's a liberating feeling to do that. If I let fear run my life, I would have turned back at those dairy interviews and never looked back. Okay? And I never would have got where I am today with spreading the message. Now, the animals need you now, not when you develop confidence. So we need you to start pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. Does this mean I want you to throw yourself straight in the deep end and do something so far outside? No. Gradually, each and every day, do something that makes you a little bit like, oh, you might not have done any vegan outreach before. Maybe this is your first opportunity. You might not have gone to bear witness before. Maybe you go to one save. You don't go up to the truck yet. The next save, you move a little bit closer and closer and boom. Then you take some photos and show it to your mom and try to turn a vegan. Whatever it might be, gradually, gradually. Okay. Now, this is the most important part of the speech for me. And people try to change my mind on this. I can make vegans especially feel a bit uncomfortable with this, but it's okay. Discomfort is good because, like I said, it helps you change and evolve. Why I believe it is a moral obligation when you find out about what's happening to animals to be an activist in some way. Now, remember what I said about activism? You don't have to stand out in the streets yelling at people's throwing fake blood on people and or even being the same movement or AV. It's about being proactive in the vegan movement, persuading people to change in some way, advocating. Veganism is where you realize that you've been causing an immense amount of harm to others with your actions, okay? And you stop. It's a non-action. It's a neutral position, veganism. If you are neutral in times of injustice, you've chosen the side of the oppressor. Let me give you an example. You're walking down the street and you see someone abusing their spouse, okay? Domestic violence, really brutal. Abusing a dog, kicking them, okay? Burning a cigarette on their face. Something horrible like that. About to kidnap a small child. You witnessed these atrocities and you didn't say nothing. Do nothing. What would society say to you? Could have done something. You don't have to get yourself hurt, but you could have screamed out, thrown something, called someone, called the police, do something. Why is it any different for farmed animals? It shouldn't be. If it were you in the animal's position, like I was talking about on the back of that truck, would you want someone to help you? Would you want me getting in an uncomfortable interview on radio with seven million people? Would you want yourself on vegan outreach, talking to someone, persuading them to change? Of course you would. Of course you would. Animals would save themselves if they could, but they can't. They are defenceless, helpless beings. The only time a dairy cow exhibits their own life is anything that looks like aggression is when they're having their calf stolen from them. About after the third time, they stop fighting. Maternal trauma, they just go numb. They stop fighting. They need us. If vegans don't speak up, who's going to? And where is their obligation to? Because they don't know what you know. If you don't know of a small child being kidnapped, where is your obligation to speak up? We know, and there's a responsibility, okay? That's what we have. There comes a time when silence is betrayal. Martin Luther King quote, very relevant. If you remain silent when you have the perfect opportunity to speak up about this, you've essentially betrayed the animals in the slaughterhouse. Now am I asking you to get in some big argument in some really bad situation? No, but you can always do something. Even if it means just leaving a card, okay? Really non-confrontational. There's always a strategic, tactful way of speaking up. Just be creative about it. Now, when I talk about this, some people feel like I'm putting a lot of pressure on me, Joey. You put me under a lot of pressure. I used to put myself under so much pressure when I started to advocate. I felt that it was my obligation to turn everyone 100% vegan in that first conversation or I was a bad activist. It is not your job to turn everyone 100% vegan in that one conversation, although that's the ideal situation, but it's too higher expectation. Your job is to plant seeds, okay? Let me tell you about the 100 point system. This term was, this concept was coined by my friend Omri Paz, heads and organization in Israel called Vegan Friendly, okay? Israel is one of the most vegan countries on earth per capita, okay? There's a few reasons for that, partly because of the work of Vegan Friendly, partly because Tal Gaboa, animal rights activist, one big brother, went viral over there, and Gary Rofsky did his two tours over there. His speech went viral over there, and amazing activist from Best Video You'll Ever See is also located in Israel. Let me tell you what the 100 point system is, basically. You have a blank canvas, they walk up to the screens, oh no, not the screens, not the screens yet, but they're just walking down the street, okay? Blank canvas, never, didn't know anything about veganism before, until someone walked past them with a T-shirt on that says, male chicks are macerated in the egg industry, okay, on the first day of life, and they're like, oh my God, that's crazy. 15 points, they're on their way, they've just gotten started, okay? The next day, their friend invites them to a restaurant, and it's a non-vegan restaurant. They have vegan options there, their friend orders the vegan burger, they go, ooh, I might have a try. Taste the vegan burger, realize it tastes delicious, okay? And they go, wow, vegans don't just eat carrots and lettuce, that's amazing. 35 points, they're up to 50 points essentially. A few weeks later, they're scrolling through Facebook, they see something about the dairy industry, bobby carts being killed with blunt force trauma on their first day of life and chucked in a bin. That really hits them a lot, because the bobby cart reminds them of their dog, and that's another 20 points. Okay, a few months go past, they're walking down the street, and there's the screens. They walk up to the screens of Anonymous for the voiceless, and they see pigs struggling for their life inside of a gas chamber, that's really hectic for them, that's another 15 points. So they're up to 85 points essentially. You walk up to them and you say, hello, how are you? Did you realize that by purchasing these products, you put these industries into business, the blight is on the hands of the consumer, and we're asking you to make a moral choice and be vegan. And they go, you know what? Is there any resource for me to sign up to some type of challenge? And you go, well, as a matter of fact, here you go. So you pull it out your fanny pack and you give it to them. And that's the last 15 points that they needed, basically, then they're up to 100 points and they go vegan. You might think, I'm amazing activist, I'll turn them vegan in that first conversation. But more often than not, they've heard this message somewhere else before, okay? Now you might be that 10 points to get them started, or the last 15 points to finish them off. But what are you if you remain silent? Missed opportunity. Okay, so don't put too much pressure on yourself. Think of it as a point system and you're walking down the street and you're just dropping five points here, 20 points here. There's someone at the fridge over there in the shop and they're buying some milk and you give them documentary, dairy is scary to watch and you're like, do I have 20 points, swish? And then you move on throughout your day, you know? Some people can only take on a certain amount of points at a time. You just can't force too much on people too much. You know, you've got your mum in the corner, you're making her watch Earthlings Caspiracy and what the health in one day and she has to go vegan or she can't leave the house. Think of it as a point system. This really helped me when Omri told me about this. Now, the longer you're vegan, the longer you're an activist, okay? Or it might just happen with the short term, vegans, the suffering of the animals is getting a lot for them. It can be really hard and you can start to lose hope. You might feel like your efforts are not enough, you bear witness all the time, you're sharing videos of animals at the front of slaughterhouses, the trucks keep rolling in week after week after week, year after year. Start to lose hope. Now, I don't actually lose hope, okay? Because what I do is I focus on the exponential growth of the movement. Now, I understand what's going on with animals, I bear witness and I see their struggle but I also focus on the evidence. Now, if people don't think that vegan activism is working, they're denying reality, okay? They are denying reality. Let's just talk about marches alone, vegan marches. If you haven't been to a really big vegan march, I highly recommend you do it. It's a very exhilarating feeling. First, big one I went to was in the UK two years ago. 5,000 people came. We were marching through the streets screaming for animal liberation. It was amazing. A vegan march, not one for dolphins or dogs, it was for all animals. Amazing feeling. We shut down the streets of London and then two weeks later, we went to the biggest animal rights march in history in Israel for 25 to 30,000 people. She looked amazing from the sky. It was huge. This wasn't happening five years ago. This year in the UK doubled. It was 10,000 people this time. It was amazing, really amazing. Also, there are more vegan products on the shelves. Big fast food chains putting on vegan options. Now, big companies putting on vegan options. Do they care about animals? Vegan companies care about animals? They're not vegan companies. They're just corporations. They care about them. Of course, they don't care about animals. What do they care about? They care about money. Okay. Why are they putting on vegan products? Because there's more vegans. Why are there more vegans? Because activism is working. Okay. So don't lose hope. Focus on that. Now, two years ago, 5,000 vegans marched through London and then there was this stat that came out and there was like, oh, there's 500,000 people who identify as being vegan in the UK. And I was like, 500,000? There's like 50 or 60 million people in the UK. And I was like, 500,000. That's like 1%. And I was like, 5,000 of us marched in the UK. That's like 1% of the 1%. And I was like, that's not very many. But then I was like, I thought about it. I was like, still kicking massive goals, though. Should see the UK now. There's vegan options everywhere. It's huge. They've actually changed the number of vegans there. It's a lot higher now. But still kicking massive goals. And that just goes to show that even a tiny pinprick of light can brighten a room full of darkness. That's how powerful the truth is. People say, we are, I've got the truth. Every movement has got the truth. Every religion has got the truth. No. You are paying for animals to be stabbed. Here is a slaughterhouse. Okay. That type of truth. Reality. We have that. It's very powerful. Spread it. I want to talk to you about something that really I don't take my own advice on. And it's avoiding burnout. Okay. How do we avoid burnout? You don't do a three-week tour with 50 events and fly to 14 countries. That's a quick way to burn out. Get sick and, oh, it's been crazy. But I'm doing it for three weeks. I'm, you know, it's only a short-term thing. I wouldn't do this long-term. But my number one tip for that would be rewarding activism. Incorporate rewarding activism. And that would be, for me, outreach. Okay. Watching people change in real time. It's nothing more fulfilling than that. It really isn't. You have to be doing something fulfilling in your advocacy. Otherwise, you just, it's all output and no getting anything back. It's all animals suffering. It's all, I'm so helpless out the front of this slaughterhouse. I can't rescue any of them. It's all of that. But you need to have something fulfilling when you're giving back. Also, this is the first tour I've incorporated exercise and meditation. Now I meditate as a requirement. I'm not James Aspie with it. I've got a little app and it tells me when to meditate for 10 minutes every single day and he talks me through it. But I do it because I've figured out that I have PTSD from my gang days and all the violence that I was participating in and witnessed and drug use. So I do it and it also helps with my stress levels while touring and going through everything as well. But whatever it is for you, don't be afraid to have a little bit of a break to change up your advocacy as well, to go from whatever it might be focusing on something really negative to maybe something a little bit more light and positive. Switch it up a bit. Give back to yourself. Go out and get some nature. Don't be afraid to have a break while you're having a break. Someone else is kicking goals for the animals as well. So these little tips for avoiding burnout but like I said, I just go as hard as I can. Then I go, I can chill out a bit and then I just edit videos and couple the criticism online. Then I go back out to do other stuff. So look, I'm not the perfect example of avoiding burnout but that's the sort of best tips I can offer you. Meditation, exercise, rewarding activism is the number one. And don't be afraid to have a break. Now when I was in the UK and everything went viral on the internet media, I heard this like, it was like a consistent message coming from animal agriculture and the dairy industry and the meat industry that we're not really too afraid of those vegans. What they're doing isn't working. Dairy sales haven't decreased when they had. Don't ever let the opposition tell you what your movement is. They'd love to demoralize us. They'd love to. They would love to. Now for this to manifest a vegan world, we all have to collectively believe it is possible. We called the UK tour the vegan prophecy tour and people are like, you know, there's religious connotations. No, prophecy just means going to happen. Going to happen. We 100% believe that a vegan world has already happened. We just haven't caught up to it yet. Okay. And that's what we all need to believe. If you're putting energy into it, not manifesting, what's going to happen? Everything is born out of a belief. Okay. I believe that's possible. Okay. And we should have an unwavering belief in this. I want to talk briefly about infighting because guess what? You're not special. It happens everywhere in the movement. People not getting along. Okay. People criticizing each other's activism. My activism is better. I don't like that person, this person, this that. All that, all that happens everywhere. Now what I've learned is that we shouldn't be focusing our energy and attention on that. The only victims of infighting are the animals. Okay. Because we're putting much needed energy into infighting, which contributes to burnout. People losing, you know, their motivation. Now what I do is when I have these pages making up, we've got pages dedicated to, you know, making up stuff and, you know, just sledging us. When I, when it gets back to me, I don't focus on it anymore. But when it does get back to me, I'll just sit there making a very big long drawn out post about the dairy industry. Okay. And that's how I channel the energy. Now we should be focusing on what unites us, what we have in common, which is what we are fighting for. Okay. Now, if you don't get along with someone, that's fine. It's a very big movement. The reason there's infighting is an indicator that the movement is going very fast, very big. Okay. So not everyone's going to get along. It's impossible. Wouldn't expect everyone to. Okay. You don't have to go have a tea party with someone you don't like. But what I like to do is I'll go, okay, I don't like that person's character. Something they did their personality, it's not me. Can't be around this person. But I really appreciate that post they put up about, you know, the slaughterhouses, you know, speaking up for pigs. That's great. And the animals have a very powerful and fierce advocate for them. And I'm grateful for that. And it helps change your perspective on them and you make it more about the animals, okay, and what we're fighting for. The biggest threat to any movement is the movement itself. Okay. And animal agriculture would love to hear that we're all bickering and backering and, you know, fighting within each other and not focusing on fighting the real enemy. Which brings me to my last final point. We're all in this together. Okay. Solidarity. And I want to tell you a story about where I felt this the most. I went to Bali for the Bali Vegan Festival and I wanted to do something more in Bali for animals than attend a vegan festival. So I was going to do a vigil for the animals. Bali's first vigil. So I was thinking, where's the slaughterhouses? I was asking, where's the slaughterhouses? Couldn't really do a vigil there because trucks just aren't rolling in that these slaughterhouses are a bit smaller. In my heart, I decided I want to bear witness on the kill floor. I want to see what it's actually like for these animals. I want to tell their story from the kill floor. Not a requirement. If anything, I would steer people away from doing this. This can cause serious trauma. So not a requirement as an activist at all. Something I was drawn to do. Now I went in under the guise of being from Australia, involved with animal agriculture myself, a student. Cows were my favourite animal. I really wanted to see what happened in there. I had a translator. We went in. I covered my vegan tattoo. We did a tour and we said, wow, that's amazing. Took photos, footage. And then we said, when's the kill floor start? And they said later on tonight. So we said, are we allowed to come back? They said, yes, we came back. Man came out with a big knife in his hand. T-shirt off and he was like, what are you doing here? We said, I was actually quite, you know, worried. We said we had permission to be there. And he said, okay, come in. We went in straight away. As soon as we walked in, there was a cow who had a rope through her nose. Beautiful animal puppy dog eyes. Dragged onto a machine. The machine was holding her down. Her throat was exposed. And straight away, he dragged a knife across her throat and blood sprayed straight past me. When an animal has their throat slashed open and they're fully conscious, they try to struggle for their breath. So they're breathing in and blood is going into their esophagus, into their lungs, and they vomit out of that same hole. Very disturbing thing to watch. Legs flailing around. Took each of those animals. I watched four animals be decapitated that night in front of me. And took them each about 10 minutes to die. Really, really horrible. Now, the hardest part about that for me was witnessing what was happening to them and not being able to physically intervene. The best thing I could do is tell their story through the camera. Obviously, in that moment, I knew it was about the animal. I took it off of me and put the focus on the animal. I was like, oh my God, how terrible this all is. Made a video. Put it up on my YouTube channel. I edited out most of the gore. So the animals having their throat slashed open. All of that's edited out. It's still on my channel called Vegan Witnesses Insane Hello Slaughter. Now, when I put the video up, though, in the comments section, a lot of the community saw something I didn't see. And they said, Joey, you've been working pretty hard lately. Maybe you should have a little bit of a break. PTSD can kick in later on. You don't know how much this has affected you to afterwards. Do you want to talk about what you've seen? Inboxes, messages of support. People asking me if they want to have a phone chat. Now, I felt like I was OK. I've got a thick skin. I've been through quite a violent past. And I felt like I dealt with it. OK. They didn't know that, though. I had support there if I needed it. And that's what we all should be for each other. Support if we need it. OK. Now, the person next to you might be doing it a little bit harder than you. They might have a softer skin than you. They might not be as experienced as you. And you just asking them if they are OK could be the difference between them leaving or staying in the movement. So you might be going through, you might have gone through the family thing, being ostracized from your family. That's a big one for people. And someone else might be going through that and not know what to do. And your experience and your guidance and support could really help that individual. So I think we should incorporate the support network just into our activism fundamentally. And it will create a stronger movement of stronger individuals if we all feel like we have been supported. I get amazing support from so many people. I also get a lot of the criticism but it's all drowned out by the support. And, you know, it's amazing. I always finish my workshops with this quote and I think I always will. It's amazing. The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil but by those who stand by and watch. So let's get out there and do something. Thank you so much.