 That meaning, that purpose as part of your business model is not some social responsibility that you just patch on after you have kind of, you know, tear down all the trees. It's like, you know, and I think these companies also, and that's a, you know, if you continue to have that type of short-term thinking in your business, I do not believe that you're here in the next five years. Aida Thwaibbakan is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas, brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Aida is co-founder of Catapult FutureFest and Catapult Cloud Conference and community platforms. Aida is actively engaged in social impact communities and projects around the world. She is a public speaker and writer about technology, urbanity, and gender equality. As a former partner at Nordic Impact and the Catapult Group, she worked with impact investing and supporting solutions, conversations around technology and businesses used for good. With her education and training in philosophy, history, and pedagogics, she has a robust human driven approach to technologies and how to apply them to solve society's complicated issues. Summer of 2019, she chose to push the pause button, see deeper in her spiritual practice, work and readings, creating more head space, time for meditation practice and connecting to nature. She has gained more awareness and strength to collaborate and hold space for social impact work. Aida, welcome. It's so good to see you. Thank you, Mark. Good to be here with you. It is so great to have you just from our listeners. You're coming live to us from Costa Rica and I'm jealous. I'm in cold Hamburg, Germany. It's snowing and been snowing and cold and you probably just came from swimming as I heard and experienced some good weather. Yeah, that's right. This morning, I went out at 5.30 and I surfed so I paddled out on my surfboard, watched the sunset and yeah, as you said, connecting to nature. And it's really wonderful. I took the choice of going here this year. I've been traveling here to Costa Rica for about 20 years. It has a really special place in my heart. And of course, it was a difficult decision to do this year, but I did. So I've been here since November 2020 and I will stay throughout May. Beautiful. So where are you originally from and do you have like a second home there or kind of tell us, you're kind of this global citizen. So we originally met, well, a long time ago through other connections through Kinternet, that H-Farm and Venice and then we last saw each other in Copenhagen and in Denmark at a future IO event, which was really beautiful as well. And since then, we've begun to both been in lockdowns and not seeing much but our past and crossed over the year. But you're kind of this global citizen doing a bunch of different things. Can you catch us up to speed on what your world looks like? I guess home is where my heart is at any given moment. But yeah, I originally born in Colombia. I was adopted to Norway when I was one and a half year old. So I grew up in Norway until I was four, between I was four and 12. I lived in Denmark on a small island called Bornholm, which is a beautiful little place filled with artists. And that time, a lot of pottery, ceramics, a little bit hippie-ish, the whole environment there. So I was there until I was 12, moved back to Norway. And I will say most of my grown up independent life, I have been seeking out, I have been traveling and just curious on the world. Now for the last 10 years, I've been more in Oslo. But before the pandemic, traveling a lot, always on different conferences that you said we met in outside of Venice in H-Farm. And then later, I think a year later, we met again in Copenhagen. So that was really my way of working and life and being part of these communities of communities and connecting for social good. But I still have my base in Norway. But the last year, I've been kind of moving towards dividing my year and half. So half of my time here in Costa Rica and half of my time in Oslo, Norway. Well, I couldn't think of two more beautiful places to spend your time. So I think you're doing something right for sure. With all your experience, and I know I could have read a much longer biography because you've been doing some wonderful things for a while now, and especially around Catapult Future Fast and Catapult Cloud Conference and some of the things that you do around community building and really speaking and writing about urbanity and gender equality and empowering women and girls and things. Has any of that given you resilience and helped you to weather this crazy time or world experience in the last 12 plus months? And I'm not just talking about the pandemic. I'm talking about Black Lives Matters and Belarus and the inauguration in the U.S. and the Trump apocalypse and all the other many other things I could go on and on, craziness going around the world. Has that helped you kind of that experience and that breadth of experience and knowledge that you have in the past? Does that help you weather this time any better or give us an update and tell us how it's been? Wow, that's a very good question. And I think there's also many answers because it's so several layers. But I had this kind of a ha moment when I was still in Oslo in June last year and I think, yeah, I work a lot with people from the West Coast and I was on a Zoom call with a person in California and then all the wildfires was going on and this person, you know, it's the wildfires, it's locked down. It was just a lot for them and then you have, you know, the past president, you know, tweeting and coming with, you know, all this, well, messages all over, mask, no mask and all these things. And I remember that moment when I kind of turned off the Zoom call and I was like looking around myself like in my living room or my office space there and also in my home and thinking, oh my god, I'm so happy that I'm from Norway right now because that country and I turned like kind of like a little bit patriotic the last year to circle back to your question because I feel that living in Norway, it's a welfare state, it's up in the Nordics, we have a honest, it's a high level of trust, we trust our politicians, we trust them to actually work for the benefit of us and that gives me a headspace and that gives me resilience and then of course it's, you know, my own spiritual practice and journey and that personal work that we, I think I would encourage everyone to do, you know, to actually stay steady and calm in the storm and unpredictable times and complex time because that's a whole other story but it is the practices that supports us but in that moment in June I felt like, okay, I'm here, I'm safe, I'm good in this country and it can help me to stay sober because I think that's also one of the things that we need to do, we can react from a place of fear, right? And I'm so happy that I like have a country that can contextualize that for me and then as on a personal level, having these spiritual practices, meditation and so on every day that can, you know, ground me back every morning, like every morning I get up at 4am and I sit and meditate for an hour and you just, you know, I enter the day with some clarity and that helps me having resilience and of course I grew up with artists so there's nothing that is predictable in that context so I don't even get, I don't get that shaken by not knowing because I think and also as a creative interdisciplinary growth mindset thinker that I am, I actually get a little bit energized so it's like, you know, what are these patterns and how can we leverage that and all that society and I'm meeting, you know, things with growth mindset and curiosity, I think that's also part of being able to stay more resilient in not only this year but, you know, in general because it is massive what we are, you know, living in right now with information overflow and stuff like that, yeah. That's great. Your work with impact investing and impact, the Nordic impact in general, was that more specific for Nordic startups and entrepreneurs or was that global work that you kind of dealt with people from all over the world? Yes, they're dealing with people from all over the world so Nordic impact was the company that started and established Catapults so we kind of went from Nordic impact to Catapults and now everything is organized in Catapult Foundation, Catapult Group and Catapult X. I was part of starting, which is Catapult, the previous Catapult Future Fest, I was part of starting Catapult Future Fest and now we are leveling up to Catapult X and our goal there is to build and I would say a trailblazer and impact influencer machinery for good that is focusing on how to use the tool of money which is within the strategy of impact investing and the tool of technology and emphasizing tools for both of them and money and technology, they are tools and they can be used for good and they can be used for bad. We will try to have people use them for something that is beneficial for people and planet and not exploiting us either our brains or the way we work or the way we live or the consumerism or mother earth, the planet which we are dependent on, all of us and then the third pillar which is consciousness and I think that part of the work for me kind of came up through after Catapult Future Fest 2018, I always create like taglines for myself that are kind of creative, putting creative boundaries for myself so I created these taglines so the first year we created Catapult I came up with the tagline the future is now because it felt like this and it felt like this for us also doing Catapult for the first time back in 2017 so we wanted to create an urgency about ethical and existential conversation around tech and bringing the humanities in and the second year I came up with the tagline the future is human and it still wasn't enough for me somehow I think from a personal like place as well I think I mean I can maybe speak about that a little bit later but I'm talking about love these days and starting with self-love but also putting love as KPIs and really you know being articulate that you know if you come from a place of love from our intentions I always say like we can't predict the future but we can set our intentions right and I think if we put our our parameters from love there's a lot of things that we can do with technology and and money or capital right so the consciousness part for me came up from a thought that wow we have you know the 2030 agenda there is not much time are we going to be able to fix this are we going to be able to make this and I was like I don't think we will not if we can't figure out ourselves first so I was like maybe we need SDGs for emotions maybe we you know need to have that conversation that like inner work and I think it kind of bias because I needed it frankly to be honest myself as well so I came up with the tagline the future is you and that's where when catapult became even stronger around the consciousness part so for catapult x our goal is to have like a larger it's I don't like the word influencer I actually not the machinery but I don't know really like I've been thinking like media house but at least like say ecosystem that can put on the agenda the combination of money as a tool that we can use for goods we still have this existing capitalist system that we know of we probably have to reimagine that a little bit as well we have technology that we can choose to use for something that is beneficial for people and planets and then we have that part of the consciousness and I think these needs to work together so that's where we're heading now we just hired an excellent wonderful CEO to do that work and want to you know connect with all organizations that is doing that type of work and also what we also do then to circle back to Nordic impact we have in the group two accelerators we have we do some direct investments uh we are having some initiatives in Mauritius right now and things are building there so that's our action you know part and also our commercial part catapult x is a is a nonprofit and then we have the catapult foundation as well which is a nonprofit and so yeah that was a long long answer but I call it catapult universe because I think we need to work on many layers again the complexity right with you have to to change the system maybe you have to you know systems need to take talk to each other kind of exactly and it's for me it's never too long of an answer so I really appreciate you getting into the depth and actually what it what it makes me there there's a couple so not only with the question I asked prior there's kind of I'm leading you on a journey of what we want to discuss and kind of unpeel the layers and get into a little bit more sense making of what you've been working on in your journey so before I go to the next step of of that question kind of of what you've experienced you touch on a couple things in there that I want to dive deeper into or ask you a little bit more about it one you you you said you were very fortunate to live in the Nordics and to Denmark and and that you felt secure and that was such a different feeling for for you from what you were seeing other people and on a zoom call what other people around the world were experiencing some extreme craziness and extremely hard times but that they were blessed without that fortune ability and and as well as you know now in Costa Rica there's some there's you know different ways to live what and I don't know how we can tickle on this a little bit more or discuss it properly don't you have this overwhelming feeling that we need a world that works for everyone not just people in Costa Rica or in Denmark or in Germany or in Finland or wherever it is that that might be beautiful or have a good social infrastructure good government or good policies because aren't we all on this spaceship earth and so how how with your impact work with what you're doing with with a catapult and and what you just described in the next questions about consciousness so I don't know if you can separate those two before we get into more more of that how how do you wrangle with those feelings I'm I'm a person where I can't stand knowing that there are other people with not the same rights that I have and I'm not saying I have them all but it just it's very frustrating for me because I feel like a global citizen I feel like those are distant cousins and that there are no nations and borders we're all on the same planet earth and I would like that equality for all in that a world that works for everyone so that you know we don't have to feel like oh well the only place that's going to be good to hide or to to feel safe is we need all go to Denmark that's not going to hold the whole world but how can we create a whole world or a whole earth that works for everyone where we don't have those type of things and so those are the kind of the things I deal with and so I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into to what you know what you said you had those feelings and and and you kind of went back into yourself and more meditation and kind of taking care of yourself but how can we help our other distant cousins around the world to to be in a world that really works for everyone Yeah no absolutely and I have the exact same feeling and I think one of the largest challenges that we have is inequality right in the world that it's like this world is not evenly the wealth in this world is not evenly distributed it can be and it should be and we all have and I since I you know when I think about myself like I was a doctor from Columbia like my journey is so long right and I'm so fortunate here I am in a warmer climate and I think it's genetically like I need to be here it's where like my my skin my hair my everything like tries right it's not in the colder climate like Norway so I kind of have done a circle and I'm so fortunate that I can do that and I in my impact work and my spiritual practice I think I that's what I'm dedicating my life to to to work so we can all have the same opportunity to cover well first and foremost basic needs right and then you know education and then the opportunity to thrive and all these other things that we as humans are have the the heart and the minds and the souls and the cognitive abilities to to be right actualizing human beings to to thrive where they are in in this world and together with nature and together with this planet without feeling that there's a there's a like we could be able to shape this well so we all can live in a place of uh abundancy right it's it's here but now we're over you know we're pressing the planetary boundaries and so we don't have so I think that's extremely important I like in the work of of catapults uh so one thing is like concrete like catapult futurists I have always curated that very diverse so and I don't mean like only gender but it's like uh geographically age disciplines uh and having these and being very specific on having uh into the generations that is cross-disciplinary and that can get everyone voices heard because it's in that mix of these conversations that maybe can spark collaborations we can find you know communicate and and create understanding because I think a lot of this is also understanding each other you know and recognizing each other and as you said to your point of like aren't we all the same it's like sometimes it feels like we are thinking that oh no we're not the same right but if we could you know create that empathy then we will understand like well and I'm circling back to love again right it's like that then we are um I think more uh I would think we will be more geared into working for all of us instead of this extreme individualism so and I'm catapult accelerators we pick companies from all over the world a lot of companies from Africa a lot of Asia as one from Costa Rica some years ago uh and if that makes us well that is about supporting founders from all over the world that have solutions and very often these solutions are uh answers to local uh challenges that they want to solve these founders and then helping them in scaling their business and also investing in them so I think we need to have the conversations that are you know building empathy and understanding and collaboration and then we have you know the actions as well which is the investing which is the tools and so on and so I'm dedicating my my my life to this work and I find deep meaning and purpose in it that's beautiful so this leads nicely to what you've already tickled upon with with the consciousness and that's kind of the new framework but but you you mentioned so eloquently that without the basic needs without meeting everyone's basic needs there's it makes it extremely difficult to raise to to gain another level of consciousness or to even have collective consciousness so to say to align with others because you're so worried about the basic needs of food breathing food water safety security many many things um so can you explain a little bit more what what you mean about consciousness what that journey looks like how you're trying to to make that transformation or transition to help pick people up where they're at to take them on this journey and what what does that exactly mean for you and what you're working on with that consciousness if you can if you can for us that will be great yeah wow I have to sit with it a little bit uh what I'm like every morning when I'm you know so I have I have um I have two practices that I do that I think everyone can do and and every every every night before I go to sleep I put my hand on my heart and and say I love you I don't say it out loud I don't want I sometimes I do but I will say to my spiritual body I will say it to the room I will say it to my physical body and then practicing that that self love in the morning when I wake up I put my hand on my heart and I just say thank you I like you know I'm practicing gratitude and then I go and and and meditate and I think that meditation practice is for me about connecting to to the energy connecting to well nature connecting to and with nature also mean ourselves right and and finding that inner voice you know some call it light some call it call it god some call it you know the chakra some call it just what's in the ether like you know connecting like the messilia you know and then from that place developing and and I will say honoring and and and growing that compassion that empathy for everything being and I think with that with that meaning with that understanding with that purpose with that connection I feel that I'm on a path where I can connect with you know everyone and that as you said like there is no borders there is like with it's it's all one and if we can tap into that space rest in that space and really truly truly understanding we are all one I think from that or at least from me in my experience it has really helped me come from a place of true true tensions and and and meaning and purpose and good will for everyone and that's where I find my strength in continuing this work and I am not going to like I could for example and I it would probably be lovely to do one there maybe like you know go up in a mountain and meditate for a year right and and just kind of like the old sage said you know like but I think for me and and I hope for more people with these practices that we actually when we have them and we are connected to them that we apply them and we share them because I don't think this is a is a nice to have I think it is something that we we need I think this moment in time is a spiritual moment and spirituality can be so much right and I'm I'm not afraid of using words like spirituality love and so on because I think that could also a lot of happens in language and and now being in a moment where we are quite secularized where many of us have then you know lived through a year of wow what just happened right and again as we started out we're talking today about like how do you stay resilient and I think a lot of these practices is important for the resilience the collective resilience of humankind and also as a consequence of COVID I think we're looking towards that mental health big mental health challenge it's underlying I don't think we have seen the beginning of it and but then we still have climate crisis then and we still have inequalities and all the other you know entities that we need to work for and we can't do that if we are not resilient so that's where I use my consciousness work very focused in particular and do not run off in a cave and meditate although I would love to do that at one point but not now I well there's a couple more things that you've unpacked that I'd like to address so when I I talk about resilience quite a bit there's quite a few definitions of resilience so there's the the personal resilience of mental and physical emotional resilience where someone spits on you or hits you or verbally abuses you or physically abuses you that you have the resilience to survive and and come back and and get through that type of of trauma or or that type of resilience but then there's the other type of resilience is like a very dystopian resilience where you are still surviving in the future but you're doing it with a gas mask a space suit your the your environment is so toxic whatever whatever it is that it's not it's not a normal life it's more of a dystopian you've got some kind of artificial support allowing you to live like a space suit or a gas mask or oxygen mask or or something like that to enjoy continuing to live which to me wouldn't be very big enjoyment it's more dystopian or there's this resilient desirable way to live and that's one where we we change the way we live by using renewables and non-finite resources we start to live within planetary boundaries we start to live sustainably which gives us a form of resilience or even when we think regenerative practices give us a lot of resilience because the earth is always regenerating itself and we're living with as one planet living in a circular economy and so there's a few other definitions of resilience and I won't go into them but there's so many people are you know they're not well defined with even the basic terms that when they hear resilience and I think one of the main ones you or you were describing tell me if you're wrong was the one of mental emotional physical type of resilience or did you mean more of a worldview circular economy or regenerative you know a world that is still beautiful but we're not doing at the cost of human suffering and fossil fuels and and environmental destruction I'll answer that and I think it's it's connected and and I I can come this from my own experience and a very personal perspective on it I I was exhausted I wasn't happy I had my body said like this is six years ago my body said like gave me something called vertical it's like some crystals in your air that it gets loose and then like the whole world is just like you know you're just totally vertical right and I had to figure out what that was and yeah absolutely it came from stress it came for overworking escape from you know not living my life accordingly to you know my my nature at all even though like you know high achiever and from successful in many layers right but I didn't have that and I had to be honest I didn't have that self love practice so that's why I also came back to that self love love practice and then for the gasman point like you know you have to put it on yourself and then you can support others and so I needed to to to do that work first for myself and then that transformation with myself and it doesn't come easy it's been many years with you know digging deep in my psychology and my physiology understanding more about new science understanding more of meditation having discipline and so on you know and but then when I realized oh my god this is really really supporting me but another consequence of that is that I and I don't know if this but like here in Costa Rica like I literally don't have anything I'm renting this place that I'm living in that the most expensive thing that I have is the Mac that I'm talking to you about with on now and my surfboard and I actually you know I my my I live an extremely minimalistic life and I'm I'm happy with that and I really are cautious about not people being wasteful to to the point of you know not using too much and I you know I eat vegan food and to using too much of our um living within the planetary boundaries right that we have and and for me as one single individual not being a consumer that is not being sustainable on this this for this planet that we are on so I think that awareness and that consciousness around my actions has also come through me through my spiritual practice and a practice that literally my physical body said like you need to do this because you're not treating yourself sustainable so it's if you look at it holistically and that's I think to truly understand well the the beauty the limitations and the need for taking care of ourself and with ourself I mean the planet we need to scale down and and that's also what I have done and and and my conscious and spiritual practice has has learned me to scale down because I find more beauty in less that's so beautiful let me let me veggie back on to what you just said if possible so and correct me if I'm wrong so what I what I'm hearing is first you need to to get an alignment have your own resilience get back in and your own consciousness in order to be part of the collective consciousness that seems to be emerging more and I if that's correct how do you see this I see a new emergence you know not not even just the one that Carl Sagan said you know the there's this new consciousness emerging that the seeing the earth as one organism and an organism divided amongst itself is doomed or at war with itself is doomed and I'm I'm seeing you know in this this great crazy time where we're seeing you know the like this world is really not working for a lot of us we're feeling this civil unrest this dis ease with the civilization frameworks in our world that we're also feeling this extreme rising consciousness the collective consciousness that people say this is enough this old systems aren't working for us anymore we need new civilization frameworks that are working for all of us that are working for all of humanity is that kind of correct on the this path this journey that you're on and and how are you seeing this new rise of collective consciousness no I think you're right and so the so the tackle for the fourth year when we had to pivot to to catapult clown because we were planning a physical event so we went so then I went from the future is you right we need to have that personal transformation to the future is one and then you know having those conversation of that oneness and I work a lot about around the the word belonging and then like how can we feel that belonging that the place in the organism because I think that's what what is about as well like this this emerging new collective consciousness because frankly like you many religions they are serving a purpose a purpose of belonging of collective of groups so we can we can feel supported right it's about support and feeling being held but then when we have science and technology and then you know we are like connected to our iphones and you know there's so many things that is I will almost call them an almost synthetic or artificial kind of belonging or answering to that like need inside of us it's not like it's not giving us love it's not giving us connection it's not giving us meaning but it's like keeping us occupied so we don't dig deeper into you know what is it that we are missing why do we feel lonely why don't we feel why don't do we feel disconnected and I think this you know new collective consciousness it might be the 21st century's kind of version of a new well spiritual practice and you I wouldn't say religion but a spiritual practice right that that we can tap into with our 21st century's culture reign and I think to your point also do we what more do we need I think we need new social contracts I need to we need to revisit like the existing usage of capitalism that we have now we need to rethink you know the existing political systems are they still you know working for us and they're still serving us education big one right so all these systems these social constructions in the system that we have built over the last you know I would say since the industrial revolution that may be a little bit earlier right and we need to create I would say new maybe existential new narrative new languages around how we speak about ourselves how we speak about society and what kind of future we want to create and and how we want to you know pass on this planet to future generations because right what we're doing right now that is not working and I think we kind of all know that and from that that new collective awareness work is emerging like this it's very simple like this is not working okay but what do we do right so there's something that we wanted there's more and more people thinking we want something different we want to live differently and we want to come out of this place that we can see with our eyes that is not good but I think we need to help each other because we are all so so dependent on our capital system many a lot of wealth on this system and many people have positions and and and also how we view humans right like I would say now like the corner office is dead the Wolf of Wall Street is dead the companies need to be sustainable or environmental and and and taking care of people and planets because I think if not they will not be competitive but it's hard because that's a culture shift and shifting culture that sits see that sits inside every single one of us and that is very very hard to shift but and that's why we need I think spiritual practices to help us get through that to that next collective new and commonalities around what do we want do we really want this or do we actually want to be you know and more caring to ourselves than our surroundings well I mentioned it earlier what what Carl Sagan said you know that the consciousness is seeing the earth as a single organism but he also said a couple other things that I think are very fitting towards this this this collective consciousness this collective intelligence but also this emergence that that we're seeing is that truly we are all star stuff we're all star dust we're all we're we're actually a way for the cosmos and the universe to know itself so what that means is that the basic elements of life that you can find in our body oxygen nitrogen carbon calcium those are all iron those are all the basic elements of life but they're also the basic elements of our earth the the basic elements that we received as start us in the formation of this earth and we crawled out of the primordial soup of this earth we weren't dropped off by Mars or Venus or any other place we crawled out of this earth we are born in this earth and and and we're part of it and so this consciousness is not only separate or different than than the earth we are integrally deeply tied to our earth and and and there's this term comes actually from Carl Sagan's first wife Lynn Margolis and and it's called symbiotic earth we are part of a symbiotic earth the birth of earth to today began with bacteria and microbes and and that's how we crawled out of this primordial soup is because we're closely tied to our earth and what what I'm really trying to say is if we can realize that we're an integral part of this symbiotic earth and quit distancing ourselves from the earth and the way we live and that's kind of the capitalistic models that we start to think more of an ecological economy or natural capital and true cost and instead of seeing those things that we get out of this earth as resources but see them as a part of a relationship that we have with our earth where they're they're not resources but they're a relationship that we have this very much this symbiotic type of exchange with them that's regenerative that plays upon itself and it is the circle of life and and creates circular economy creates this cradle to cradle thought process because there is no thorough way on this earth and once we've depleted the resources or messed up those resources that are here so that nothing can regenerate itself we've ruined it for ourselves but there is another way as you you've said a couple times to live in harmony as a symbiotic homo symbiosis as part of the symbiotic earth in harmony with with our earth and our planet within the safe operating spaces of our planetary boundaries and you've said it a few times and I think that is another form of collective consciousness that really says hey what why are we looking for a consciousness somewhere else we already know we are away for the cosmos and the universe to know itself but we also know we crawled out of this earth so we're actually instead of this ego at the top of our earth controlling everything we're part of an ecosystem we're integrally part keeping this whole earth spinning and moving and healthy and during this pandemic we've really realized that more than ever that our biome of our earth is closely connected to the biome of our body of our health and that's how we got the pandemic and that's why it spread so fast because our biome wasn't doing good and we were doing things that created the pandemic in our biome which then quickly transferred to the biome of our gut and our body and our health and so it's really interesting how that's kind of how I look at it and how I know also see I don't just see the doom and gloom but I see that as a wonderful way to to fix and solve our global grand challenges and to to receive this this collective consciousness and integrate ourselves as part of the solution hmm yeah no absolutely do you think that the word word resources I'm like is that like I'm looking for like do we need to find other words for this transformation well that's why I liked relationship instead of a resource it's a relationship I don't I don't think it's a I think it should be a relationship you would you would see it and use it differently if you thought of it yeah as a relationship instead of as just oh no that's just a resource and it's there for us and but if it's a relationship that's given take back and forth it's a whole different view yeah yeah no I think I like that very much and I think that's why we also need to have these conversations that and changing the word because well words also changes our thoughts you know and and changes and and unpacking what we're allowed to feel and then I think there's a lot of conversation around leadership these days right and I think like we have all we have we have the science we have the knowledge we have you know we have the things that we need to change this situation around for us is it's a matter of is a matter of well will and I think it's a matter of of leadership as well but then when we have you know if we could have more conscious leadership which is much of the leadership that we have seen has been very transactional has been very like you need to you know you need to get your way in the corner office and it doesn't matter in what way you get there as long as you get there because that will give you the position in the society that is rewarded and you're you're you know very often not the best human traits other other other traits that is you know are attitudes that is getting you there which is being you know more ruthless or just not be giving but just taking and and climbing that ladder and we have been rewarding that type of leadership and I think also it's a time to to redefine what is a true leader and what what type of leaders can be part of creating these new narratives I think there is a lot of vulnerability there is a lot of consciousness work in in those conversations as well and I will be interesting to see like how can we support the people who can be part of driving that shift this shift from a leadership perspective I totally agree and I really see the big shift I mean especially during the pandemic for I mean a very horrific thing it's still awful now with the mutations and everything but it's been the the most enlightening time ever to see the problems with our systems to have the problems bubbled to the surface and to not for us to know where we need to look to fix them but really and the the emergence of so many people almost waking up to say these models that we've been working on in business and and our corporation and our organization they're bad models they're one they're not necessary which was proven by the pandemic in most situations so much inefficiency so unnecessary so much micromanaging instead of working as an organism as a an organization that really is moving in the same direction together helping nurturing as as a community as a family as someone that it's not just nine to five and those are my colleagues but people on a mission to leave the planet better than they found it on on purpose driven corporations that are moving more into planetary services how can we go beyond sustainability and make sure that we we have plenty of resources in the future that we leave the planet better than we found it for future generations that we're thinking 13 generations in our organization that it'll be around and thriving and creating wonderful services and products to heal our planet to to drive humanity into better futures and i really i see that with all sorts of new leaderships new paradigm shifts of of how we do our business model so there's a big shift in business model adjustments that moving towards platform systems dynamic business models ones that address the entire organism the entire organization as a system instead of individual siloed facets of a system and i'm really positively not not even surprised just that the results you know i've been speaking about sustainability and environmental social governance for for decades and and what happens is when usually when i talk to people one it was always lip service there they were like yeah okay we should do that but they never did anything and it was just kind of like that's costly how do we make that transition are we gonna is there is a profitable is it worth it and now all those companies that had done it before the pandemic began the proofs in the model the proofs in the pudding they all weathered the pandemic better than their conventional counterparts they they've come out the other end or still emerging out the under other and more resilient and and because they're better models and they don't need to bail out matter of fact most of them were in positions to pivot during that time to help others in need to provide respirators to provide masks to provide personal protection who'd many many other services which were which is amazing to see and and all of them right god we feel so good and that's such a it's a different form of consciousness it's like wow that we're getting so much back we're helping we're all in this together and then that shifts others or somehow how did they do that how did they serve that we need to go on that model you know and that was that's what occurred I'm sure with you as well but with me I was receiving calls off the hook and emails mark we should have listened to you what can you do how can you get us back to work and we need to know how to do reporting and how can we make a shift in our plans and and be more environmentally conscious and and and do more and and you know how how's that transition and now it's like the the SDGs came out yesterday you know it's the funniest thing but I'm so glad it's just been a beautiful shift and I'm sure you've seen that as well yeah no absolutely and and it's so many layers also but again like you say with these companies that are able to support well the direct crisis or other companies is you know coming from a full cup coming from a place of meaning coming from a place of true intention right and as you say like having that meaning that purpose as part of your business model is not some social responsibility that you just patch on on after you have kind of you know tear down all the trees it's like you know and I think these companies also and that that's that's a you know if you continue to have that type of short-term thinking in your business I do not believe that you're here in the next five years five years I think that those times over the market is not there the talent will not work with you so I think if you haven't called Mark or me yet I think you know do that and and fix those plans for your for your business because if not someone else is going to come and take your place I will say and you know the famous famous new app the clubhouse the other day and I was listening and I do that a lot listening in on conversation on gensets uh I like if you haven't done it try it uh because they're coming in with a totally different mindset and there was a genset vcs conversation and they had like one of the the people on the call there was saying like well there is no brand if it's not doesn't have a community and it doesn't it's not sustainable and that's a very clear message from a group of people a generation that is now they're well that now they're probably using their money their parents money to be consumers but they're soon going into the workforce right so they will be the talents and for them that there are that are brands with a clear purpose of treating this planet and ourself good and that they want to have agency they want to be part of that conversation it's not allowed b2b or c2b or b2c but it's actually from c2b it's actually consumer to business that we're talking about they want to be part of your brand so I think that's also something that to reflect around it definitely is so I have a few more big questions for you today but but this is probably the hardest one that I'll give you and it's the burning question it's wtf the burning question but it's not the swear word it's what's the future and so I don't want you to tell me what what you think the US's future is or Denmark's future I want you to tell me what you think your future is or the future that you're working towards is what's the future I think the future is collaborative versus first and foremost yeah I love that and you know that's that symbiotic earth I mentioned that's there there is no deal in neo darwinism neo liberalism survival of the fittest only the strong survive it is about collaboration cooperation it's about seeing ourselves amongst the symbiotis that that's the way that we go the furthest that's the way that we have the most regenerative long lasting relationships and and and survival of the human species is by being collaborative those who are so so goers or I'll do it myself or you know let's just step on everybody on the way there they don't go very far that that model is a dead model that model is a dead model is a short time term thinking model is an individualistic model and it doesn't have a place in the future so the future is definitely that organism of collaboration and as you say relationships now I really want to get into how why what what is your reason for empowering women and girls and talking about gender and and these things what sets you on this path how is that working what are you seeing the trends even during this pandemic time where the world's moving and where it needs to go oh that's a longer I think it's been throughout life I so I told you about moving a little bit back from from Norway and then Mark when I was a kid and I moved when I moved back to Norway I moved to my father he's a writer he's the kindest man I must say that I know of he just looked at him and he's just sitting there you know serving dinner or breakfast and he was also the person that was like baking the bread and he was like you know and then also creating like this a headspace for himself and being a writer with five kids in the house that was that was a I still I still can't really understand how he did it but and then two older brothers and a little brother and a sister or a little sister but my two older brothers and my father we were kind of the first kind of for my father's first marriage so I spent a lot of time with my two other brothers and my my father and and and these are like my male kind of figures and I never I was like what feminism what why do I need to like you know worry about that right and then I ended up in some business situations some um six seven years ago and I was like wow this is what people are are struggling me I was never in a situation where I didn't felt hurt because I was a woman uh like back in my house there was like like it wasn't even a thing like I wouldn't it wouldn't it didn't occur to me so I actually you know I was a little bit shocked and I was like oh this doesn't feel good and then there was this whole big report coming out like we need more female founders and so on and you know all the venture capital goes to to men and it's like men investing in men and I was thinking wow okay uh well maybe we need to start put the money then me women uh so that's why I was you know taking the path into to investment because I wanted to to see was why is this happening and then you know digging into technology I was part of creating a yearly kind of day for girls who code but they were they're between nine and 12 years old and it's about it was crazy it was like 300 of them like at the same time and you can imagine the level of sound with 300 girls in in in like a couple of floors but they were there all of them and the joy and how they just like expressed themselves with you know we did it more like a maker thing uh so it was like you know it wasn't only consumers of technology but they were like creating things and they were to see things move and so like a science uh science day kind of and when I saw like how they expressed themselves in a creative way and just like you know without the boys there because with the boys are there they stay a little bit in the background I just felt that oh my god we need to and I can you know work with this for many layers like being aware of like always having I I one of the best compliments I have gotten for catapults actually there was a woman that looked around and she said like and it wasn't even talking to me hence like you can you can see because I was standing just next to them and it's like you can see that there's a woman that has created this and and I think that feminine I would say touch or energy uh now when I'm coming back here to Costa Rica and there's a lot of women here and we're doing a lot of like you know kaka ceremonies and so on what I also noticed after having been here all through the pandemic in Costa Rica coming back in November I see how collective the women has uh kind of turned themselves like they're really holding space the women here it's really strong and it's grounded so I would say like that strong grounded collective oriented uh but also vulnerable uh voice and uh women I think is so important in this shift as well and then even for for men that that are very trained in other ways of you know succeeding or being I think we just have to go in as an example and and talk more about love and talk more about collaboration and talk more about these things and I think that's that's where you can see the importance of the female strength I agree that I always you know I talk about the sustainable development goals as really one of our world's first global moon shots and and plans for the world to reach a more desirable resilient future and to keep us you know at 1.5 degrees of warming but as a roadmap a plan of action and there's also Paul Hawkins book drawdown that kind of says you know what are the top 100 things that we could do to draw down human suffering and our global grand challenges our global warming issues and really the in the top three spots as global food reform and number two and three is empowering women and girls and you know a lot of time to get the question back well why is it empowering women and girls and it's you know you kind of gave the answer on a more developed or western world what it looks like in the business aspect and also many things but in many parts of the world just developing especially when our women and girls it just changes our entire world it's has a a drawdown effect for human suffering and environmental problems that is in the 70 percent of a pile of abilities to quickly rapidly make a shift in our world because women will feed their children and their families better they'll when they have an education they'll go on to to better our world in science and innovations and other much needed areas there's just a whole plethora of of bonuses that our world gains from having that that touch my my greatest mentor and love of my life and best friend was my mother and she and then after her it was my both my grandmothers that were the biggest mentors and examples to me in my life on how to treat other people on how to live a good life and to really give back to humanity and to make the world a better place than they than they found it and I'm so thankful when I meet wonderful women like yourself who are empowering women and girls and taking messages to raise consciousness to to empower women and girls to live a better life to to give them the basic tools that they need to ascend to those different levels because it's only for the good of all humanity it's only for the good of all of us and so I thank you for that and I appreciate your example I only have three last questions for you and they're all selfish for my guests because they're all things that might get my my listeners really need to know and hear from you that would make their life a lot better and the first one is if there was one message that you could depart as a sustainable takeaway for my listeners that really has the power to change their life what would it be your message practice self love it's not self selfish and I think people need to understand that a practicing self love is not about being selfish and you cannot help other if you do not love yourself first and so my little like you know evening practice where I just put my hand on my heart and say I love you it's not for self-centered reason it's actually for being able to come from a full cup to have a compassion for others as well so I would I would really encourage people to do that what should young innovators entrepreneurs in your field be thinking about if they're looking for ways to make real impact what they should be thinking about and what truly matters to them what do they want to to change where do they see that there is something that they can solve and where is their additionality where is that contribution in this organism that we've been talking about I really agree with you I mean that's so true most of the best innovations the best impacts the biggest things have come from people who experience it in their daily life and they say this isn't right I got to make the change or there's it got to be a different way or something that I've learned and they put their own tweak or their innovation and learning on that and kind of personalize it and it just always turns out to be so far reaching and impactful so I fully agree with you the last one is really what have you experienced or learned in this long journey so far that you would have loved to know from the start um maybe you know what well maybe not taking things that seriously actually have a little bit fun like be a little bit joyous and I think my one of my main approaches now move towards life with curiosity like if you're just curious you'll learn and the gift of learning new things that we like that we humans we have this wonderful apparatus of senses that we can learn and we can learn with all of them not only our brains we learn through our hands our eyes our ears everything right so I will say that like learn with some joy be curious with joy that was absolutely wonderful and that's all I have for you unless there was absolutely something that you would like to tell my listeners or that we didn't get a cover that you'd like to quickly discuss I'm done I really appreciate you being here but I get you know I give this last bit of time to you if there's anything you didn't get a saying you wanted to say now it's your chance thank you mark you know I you know what I think there's been a wonderful conversation I'm so grateful for you inviting me and I'll hope you know listeners around will will appreciate our conversation and feel free to to reach out if there's anything they you know collaborations is where I'm coming from your voice is very powerful and I'm sure you will touch just the right people and yeah there'll be many who will be very interested I'm so thankful for you Ida and I wish you a wonderful day take care of them beautiful coast Rica thank you bye bye