 I live my life with the philosophy or with the belief of three M's, okay? No matter the future will come, I will live my life with moderation, which means the wisdom of balancing between me, myself, and other life. The second M is mindful, okay? Before I make any decision, I have to think through. I have to be conscious about the impact, about the karma. That's why in addition to my talk on the sufficiency economy, I always have a talk on the karma marketing because there's something that can either create a positive footprint or positive footprint. Karma is a footprint, right? So I always am mindful. I always think about if I do this, what's going to be the impact, not just the outcome, what's going to be the impact of my action. And the last one, whatever I do, I have to make sure that it's meaningful. Because if there is no use, if they cannot be beneficial to other life, it's just the action. Dr. Siri Kul Nui Lao Kai Kul is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas brought to you by Innovators Magazine and 1.5 Media. Nui is a brand strategist and sustainability advisor, the brand being consultant, country director, sustainable brands, Thailand founder and director of the creator Poor Lao Di. And she'll correct me if I say this wrong. Nui began her career in brand marketing in the creative area and later progressed to the strategic side of the business. She received her bachelor's degree in mass communications from to a long corn university, master's degree in advertising management from University of Texas in Austin, Texas, and PhD in human resource development from international program of Victoria University, Australia, and Borapa University, Thailand. After working for the global network for close to 20 years, Siri Kul founded her own consulting firm with a mission to be a small but competent strategic advisory company aiming to work with Thai clients who truly believe in sustainable branding with systematic methodology. Her approach to develop and design brand strategy is based on the sufficiency economy philosophy and practice she passionately advocates with a background ranging from communication and management to sustainable development in addition to her own unique combination of creating flair and strategic thinking. Nui is one of a kind consultants who can provide strategic and holistic recommendations that are sensible and practical for each client's needs. Her strengths lies in compelling brand strategy development, brand model and brand architecture, as well as corporate social responsibility. She has been representing sustainable brands in Thailand since 2006 and successfully commenced the conference among the business circle for more than five years. Additionally, she founded the Creator Poor Law D program aimed at strengthening immunity among young entrepreneurs through sufficiency economy philosophy. Nui is a wonderful speaker sought after all over the world on branding and sustainability subjects. She has been invited as a key speaker in several countries. Her speech on karma marketing and moderation and sustainable development have been admired and are referenced among those who practice business with compassion. Nui, boy, that is a long biography and I know I could say a thousand more things but welcome to the show. Thanks for being here. Sawadee ka. Sawadee ka. Sawadee ka. You still remember some Thai. Yeah, a little bit of Thai. So I didn't mess anything up too much, right? Only one thing. You have to pronounce the project names like Paul Laody. Paul Laody. Paul. Paul Laody. Laody. It means enough is good. Wonderful. So that sufficiency philosophy comes from King Ram the Ninth and maybe that's a good starting point as well. I would like to kind of maybe can you tell me a little bit how you came upon it, how you decided this, how it's developed into your entire life's mission and work? I think I'm just like people in the baby boomer generation. We were born to be like a professional employee. So I has been working in the big corporation for almost the whole of my career and up until the certain point that I feel like being a CEO, being a MD, but when I came back home I never feel fulfilled. I always get moody to the people around me. I have only the figure in my head that I have to make more billing for my boss and I feel like this slide is not healthy. I have to stop it. I feel like it is enough for me and by that time I think it's like many people when you want to change or transform yourself, you search for something that you can hang on to. So I came across one book that called sufficiency economy philosophy. And the term sufficiency in Thai we pronounce pao piang. Pao piang for Thai people. We feel oh, this is represent how I felt right now that I feel like this enough. So I started to read it just to get familiar with the principle. And the more I read through it I feel like I can just follow his teaching, my king's teaching, just like a framework for my decision making in anything. So it gave me a swing to quit my job and start my new sharpening life because the principle of the sufficiency economy allow me to give you more detail. It's comprised with three factors and two conditions. The king said that if you want to get into the south decision you need to consider three factors. The first factor is about yourself. You have to to let you know yourself so you know your own condition. The second one he called reasonableness. Everything should have a reason and not only the reason of doing, you have to understand the impact that your action or in the Buddhism we call karma will create. So every cause has impact. And the third factor is about in Thai word we call it phoom kum gan. In English it's more like a self-immunity. All of these are more like an internal factor. You really have to consider all of these things before you make a decision. But the king said that that's not enough. You in addition to knowing yourself you have to know the surrounding, the external surrounding. So he said that the condition about knowledge is also very critical. We really have to know what's going on in the in the context that you try to make a decision. But like you know knowledge is very powerful. It's like any other thing in life like technology like any power. If you use it without any ethic you can use it to take advantage or ruin other people. So the second condition that has to be incorporated into the decision making is about ethic. So out of this thing is what comes to be what we call sufficiency economy philosophy. And actually in the nutshell this philosophy is developed based on the thinking of Buddhism, the moderation. And when you're talking about moderation it's not like in the middle of anything because in the translation people say that moderation means the middle path. But it doesn't mean that the right has to be equal to the left. But moderation is more like a wisdom of balancing. That's why we call philosophy. So I feel like this is the thing that gives me a framework, gives me something that I can have a courage to transform myself. So I quit my job and start my own branding consultant. And I even use the sufficiency economy as a framework to develop brands to my clients. So it's not just something that more like a philosophy that you think it can also function as a methodology. That's how I get into the wisdom of the moderation derived from sufficiency economy philosophy. Beautiful. Thank you so much. The reason I wanted to dive right into that in the beginning of our call is not only because it's disgusting your biography but it ties closely to King Rahman and the ninth and also many things that we're going to discuss throughout our talk today through our dialogue and discussion that we're going to bring that up. And I want to make sure everybody has a good foundation of what it is and how it ties into some other things that we discuss. First and foremost, I want to update my listeners and let them know how we know each other. We met in Bangkok, Thailand. You're in Thailand now. You're going to have to tell me the name of the city where you're at or roughly the area that you're at. Right now? Yes. Right now I'm in Khao Yai. It's like two hours and a half drive from Bangkok. It's one of the area that has the best ozone in Thailand. It's probably one among seven in the world. They add conditions. They're very good. This is my shelter during the COVID actually. Great. I love that. And we met originally. It was probably almost, was it three years or two years ago? Yeah, at the MA conference. The TMA, Thailand Management Association conference. And we were both speakers. You spoke after me and gave the most wonderful eloquent talk and everybody was standing ovation and loving what you had to say because of your passion. And you also touched on, I believe, the sufficiency economy philosophy at that time as well. And then over the time our Passive Cross obviously was Sustainable Brands and other Thailand Management Association talks. And you have blessed my life by showing me wonderful places in Thailand. We did the Sustainable Brands. Chantaboon, Chantaburi. We did Sustainable Brands. Chum Paan first. This last one was Chantaburi. And Chum Paan was first. And we went to the crab bank and had wonderful food, fabulous experiences. But more so it was this familiar family feeling very hospitable, large event, helping locals, regional communities, university, a lot of youth, a lot of Indigenous local people who are there trying to build up their communities, build up the way they produce and make food, the way they see environment and recycling and things. So it was just a fabulous, fabulous, beautiful time. And I thank you. And I'm so glad that we can meet here on Zoom and have a podcast and discuss some things. I would like to, because you've been on this path and journey, not only the sufficiency, economy, philosophy, but sustainability, corporate social responsibility, brand being, you know, the responsibility and ethics of brands, you mentioned it in your description and kind of about where you've gone. How has that helped you from in your life during this time of a lockdown of a pandemic? Has it given you any resilience or helped you in any way to weather this horrible storm? Can you kind of give us an update of where we are till now and what that's looked like for you? I think the pandemic let it show everyone, especially among my people who believe in sufficiency, economy, philosophy, that one of the factors that the king said about immunity is very important. Actually, when we transform or translate self-immunity to the business practice, it's about risk management, right? So during the pandemic, most of my quality people, I mean, the young entrepreneur or even my SME clients who practice sufficiency are the ones who support the society. Can you believe it? Because they conduct business with a sense of prudence, they have a good saving, they never over invest, they have something that they prepare for uncertainty. So during the COVID, the big issue that everyone is facing is about food, right? Because you were locked out, supermarket work closed, you cannot go out anyway. But you know what? I have a lot of food sent to me from my people. It doesn't mean that, okay, I'm the center of their attention. But because of those people, we were taught about sharing. So once we recognize that people in the network, people that we know in our circle could have some issue in food, we start to send it out. So this really proves that during the any crisis, the business that practice sufficiency, business who has sense of self-immunity could be the one who has a better chance to get over, has a better opportunity to support the society, which you probably call with resilience. So I really confirm to myself that what I believe and what I've been teaching to my students, what I share with my clients about the moderation, about the sufficiency, especially in the crisis. Yeah, I follow you online on social media as well. And I've seen and I know that somehow over the years, through this way of living, through your thoughts on circular economy and sustainability, sufficiency, sharing economy, things like that, that whether you call it resilience or not, or immunity, or you are put in a better place in those of your clients and all those around you that you're speaking with your network, which is fairly large, I have to say that we're in a place that they could then help those who were less fortunate, who were maybe not in a position to have that resilience because they're maybe at a different poverty level or their circumstances couldn't be such that they could have even the basic sufficiency. So now there's a network of people supporting them. The other events that we were at and did that I participated in that you put on were really all based around sustainability, food, and how that happens. You teach women in one of the largest prisons in Thailand, how to cook food. There's a network of chefs, Michelin star chefs to organic chefs to all sorts of different types of chefs. And I saw, you know, they were delivering packaging meals and providing, even some who weren't doing food were providing masks and other opportunities and things to help people during this time to make sure things were okay, which is the strength of your network. But maybe you could tell us about, you know, I believe the number of meals that were delivered in that were as just enormous as a numerous every single day in that network. I don't know if you want to tell us a little bit more insights or give us some wisdoms on that. Okay, before I go to how many boxes or how many packages, let me tell you the original of this project. Okay, I'm a brand consultant. So I believe in the power of branding. And every time that I arrange or conduct or organize the sustainable brand conference, I always aim for the action oriented. I don't want people or speaker or even you when you come to the conference to just come and talk. I want you to create impact to the communities that I arranged. Okay. And the time that we have a SB in Shumpon, the theme is about food. Okay, because Thailand is a position as a kitchen of the world. And we have a very rich in on kinds of food resources. So I want you to focus on the sustainable food in the SB. But I don't want just a big brand to come and just share the practice. And just say they're sorry how what is their CSR policy such and such. I want the brands to come and listen to the community about what they want from the brand. Because I believe that when we say a sustainable brand, it doesn't mean brand has to create its own sustainability. But brand has a role to create sustainability for the society. So brand should act like a platform to collaborate every single player to change the system. Okay. So we start the project in Shumpon. I have several shapes come to SB conference in Shumpon if you recall. And after I talk to them, I feel like actually they can do more than just help me look after the seafood supply chain or the food supply chain. Every single shift are the key inferences. If they can use their personal brand impact to create something positive, they can help a lot of people in the society. That that's how I come up with the project that I call with chef for chance. I feel like a chef, if they combine strength together, they can they can cook something more than a good meal, but they can cook a good mission and serve to the society. So we start the project form go to the prison to teach the prisoner how to how to cook. Actually they let you know how to cook to teach the prisoner about cooking is nothing new. But to go there with the chef and the chef willing to share the recipe. Okay. And willing to allow the prisoner once they get out and they want to set up the food stall and refer to the recipe of each chef. The chef are okay to do it. And I think that's that's a very unique point of this program. Because if give a faster opportunity for the prisoner, if they want to start their own life in food service, they can just start right away. They can refer to the chef recipe. They can go with the cold brand with the chef brand. So that that's how we start the chef for chance. Okay. And right after the SB in Jantaboon, it came the pandemic. I was sitting here in this house. Okay. And the next day I have to go back to Bangkok to pick up my daughter who flew from San Francisco. And while I was waiting for her at the airport, I got a phone call. One of my friends call me and say nuy. I just came back from the hospital. You know how hard they work. The nurse doctors, they didn't even have time to find any food to eat. Can you help me? I know you can help me. Can you find me someone your network to cook the food? And I just say yes, I can. And I call one of the chef who belong to the chef for chance project. Her name is Jejong. Okay. Jejong is just like a very sweet food. Mass food. She sell fried pork. Okay. For the people like taxi drivers in a very affordable reasonable price. So all of the mass people knew her. I call her and say Jejong, can you help me prepare your food? A thousand box to send to the doctors, to the nurse in one hospital. And Jejong just say a thousand. They say yes, a thousand. And he just say yes, I can do. But okay. But Jejong, I have to tell you that I cannot find any money at this time. So we have to advance our cash for it. And tomorrow I will do the communication. I will announce this project on my Facebook. And you can announce it on your Facebook too. But at this time, let's help the healthcare people first. I arranged all of these things in half an hour. That's beautiful. The next day she delivered the a thousand box to the hospital. And we show the picture. Mark, you may not believe it that in that afternoon people with good heart came to her shop. Some gave her cash, the money. Some came with the pork. Some came with the eggs. Some came with the rice. It's just very overwhelming how people willing to help each other. And after that, we never have to spend any of our own money for this project. We earn more than 1.5 million baht for this project. And we can arrange three weeks of the meals for the healthcare officer. And we also gain the collaboration, the support from other chiefs. It's not only Jejong, okay. So we have a lot of chiefs called and offered that they want to be part of this thing. So this really shows that brand can function as a platform for the collaboration. And this is the project that you also should be proud of because you are one of the founder. If you recall the workshop that you helped me conduct, that we called the Chef Manifesto in Chupon. Remember? Yep, I do. I do remember. It was beautiful. So we did, we've done a couple manifestos, seafood manifesto, chef's manifesto. That is such a beautiful story and I'm glad that that works. I know the strength of your network, but more so the heart and hospitality of those people who have strong ethics and care about community and about sustainability and how we can show people a different way of doing business in a sustainable, resilient way that thinks about environmental, social governance about our world and our people. So I love to hear that type of story. So it's around four o'clock where you're at. It's around 11 o'clock where I'm at and I hear the beautiful rooster crowing in the background and you live in a beautiful area and you have a beautiful, what one of my guests on a previous show said, this beautiful human zoo that we live in. A lot of us now in this lockdown and this pandemic time are seeing our human zoo much closer than we have ever seen it before for a lot more time. So we're realizing if we did a good job at making it the type of environment or the type of zoo that we can survive in for a long time or if there's some things that need to change. And so this kind of leads into a different question that is much bigger on our world level, our world zoo, our World Bank, our home and the world kitchen. Do you feel like with your languages and abilities that you're a global citizen, do you have any thoughts or feelings what it would feel like if nations, borders, walls were broken down and didn't exist anymore in the future? What exactly is your question? So another thing that you mentioned in your story during the beginning of the pandemic was almost around the same time. I was just leaving Bangkok to go to some other events and go actually to the United States and some other events. And at that time, people in Thailand were already wearing face masks. They'd been doing it almost, I think it was almost three months prior because the air pollution was so bad, correct? Yeah, for the PM, for the air pollution. And so when the pandemic hit, it wasn't, it was bad, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been because people are already protecting themselves with a mask for air pollution. But at that same time, you were going to go pick up your wonderful daughter who had just finished her degree and it was supposed to be a celebratory time. You didn't get to do that and you had to then meet her at the airport, which you said. And my question now is, what's happened is from the pandemic, we're kind of in a lockdown situation. But as someone who has dealt a lot with Japan, has dealt a lot with the United States, studied in Australia, studied in the US, has friends from all different cultures and areas of the world, do you personally feel like you're a global citizen? And if in the future, there were no divisions of nations, borders and walls, how would you feel? What can you kind of give me a description or feeling if that's reality, if you would like to see a world like that? Oh, actually, when you're talking about the global citizen, Mark, I would say, yes, I'm one of the global citizens, but I also value the local citizen. Okay, because of the thinking of the middle part, or I just mentioned to you about the moderation, I think in the real life, you really have to balance between global and local. You can have a mindset of the global citizen, because in your culture, you probably say that it's about the same ecosystem. But in Buddhism, we have a teaching that says that everyone, every single one is the same one, so it's similar to the oneness theory. Everyone is the same one. What will happen to you will affect to other life. Okay, so in a sense, I feel like I'm a global citizen, because I'm one of the people that belong to the world, a small part of the world. Okay, but in some context, you still have to feel like you belong to some local or some community, because you still have what we call culture, something that gives you a loot, something that makes you feel belong to. Okay, so I think, yes, I'm one of the global citizens, but also I'm also one of the local population, and I think to combine when should be the global citizen, when I should act like a local population, I think it's a matter of time and space. I think it's everything, there is no absolute answer. It's all rarely depend, it's all relative. And if you ask me, if I'm one of the global citizens, what should be the issue that I concern most, it should be about food. I think people work so hard. People live, people work to get the money for food. Among all of the SDG, among all of the SD goals, I think food is a foundation of everything. For sure, yes. Right, so for me, one of the global issues that I'm very try to be part of the solution is about food. That's why last SB, I asked you to conduct the workshop called Moonshot to the organic food. Yeah, and it was absolutely beautiful and it had a great time. So I don't know if you know, but I've kind of been leading you on a way. So yes, I asked you about global citizenry and what your thoughts or feelings are, but I also want to make a point because you brought it so eloquently. During this lockdown period, what was our global citizen? Our global citizen was food, was our energy source. You said it yourself, Thailand is seen as the kitchen of the world. It is one of the number one exporters of food during the pandemic. That's the only thing that was moving around our world was food and it is a global citizen and it is our most vital resource. And so those two tie very much together and your 100% spot on with this global and local. There's a new term that's developed about five years ago. It's called global. So the global and local together and it's very much this holistic view. We are all Homo sapiens. We're all connected as distant cousins and related in one way or the other. I must say I feel very at home at Thailand, not only with the food and things, but you can go anywhere in the world and find the Thai food and the rice and the imported goods from Thailand, which is food is that global citizen. Many respects and you know I'm writing a book. You also have a wonderful contribution within this book menu B. Within that the book and within when I speak about food, I often say that we didn't domesticate food. It domesticated us. So you know at the beginnings, we were hunters and gatherers and foragers and we moved around the world and we went where the fish were and we went where the food was. And then we kind of thought we were domesticating food and started farming and doing some things. But in reality the food didn't become domesticated. We did. We ended up staying put in these four walls, this human zoo that you know I was mentioning. And so it's actually domesticated us and our diets have gotten poorer and the way we eat and the way we do things has kind of gotten more confined and not so much global like it should be. And that brings me to a question and I don't know how much experience or if you can even answer it, but with the western diet with highly processed foods that aren't organic that are coming onto the market, you've mentioned the the Buddhist religion and even your dealings with monks or the Buddhists there. They're starting to have more diabetes, more overweight, more health problems because of this highly processed food, because of the diets are changing a little bit. What are your thoughts and feelings of that and do you have anything you can share with us in that respect? What you're seeing? I don't know if I'm going to answer your question or not, but what I have in mind is when I'm thinking about the food or even the future of food, the problems that we people, most of the people gain from food because of the term process. I think the way we treat food right now, we treat it without any respect. We don't respect the power of nature. That's why I feel like the term organic is very important. And when we say organic, it doesn't only mean some food that would be good for your health, organic means you have to respect to the nature, the nature of the food that we grow either by the term geographic indication or even your own nature. People in the East and people in the West should consume different things. We don't have to consume the same processed food. I think the way we treat our diet is this thought, the nature of the body, the whole system. That's why a lot of people get sick because you don't select what you're going to put in your mouth. So I think in the future, if you try to make everything more like organic and give a real definition to the term organic, that's only not about the food, it's also about you, the eater. I think the health issue can be decreasing. That's why when actually people in the past, we don't even have to say the term organic because we never have to fertilize, we never have to give them a tool to come to the term like overproduction. This comes from the term greed, right? That you want more, you want to control the nature. So the scientific, even the technology want to control the nature. And this is how the nature teaches you. The pandemic is the world lesson. So if you go back and learn to respect the power of nature, especially in the food, you will know how to treat the soil. You would know how to treat the ocean, not just about the rice, not just about the fish, but the origin, the resources that provide food. So that is my opinion. I don't know whether I answered it or not. You did answer it and that's exactly what I wanted to know. And I really want to know your opinion, your thoughts as someone who is a cultural leader and someone who has had a lot of thoughts around food and how we produce food. You also, I think, have the largest network of organic farmers under your clients and those who you associate with one way or the other, pretty much almost all the ones and you're constantly trying to find new and also educating to try to get new people to transition into this type of organic agriculture and with diversity and different tools and things of producing food. That doesn't nicely lead into my next question but some of it does and you touched on it just a little bit. This sufficiency economy philosophy, believe it or not, ties extremely well into the sustainable development goals and I know that you also see the sustainable development goals that all 17 of them are tied to food, 11 of them intrinsically deeply are tied to food, but really it also ties to the sufficiency economy philosophy. How do you feel Thailand, how do you feel you're going, the companies that you're working with are going towards achieving the sustainable development goals and how their work and progress is going? What are your thoughts and feelings now five years into it with 10 years left to go? One thing, one very important thing that I learned from the pandemic is now I only believe in the power of small business, small people. I used to work for a big corporation. I still have a big corporation as my clients but believe me when it's come to the social change, small people can do a better job. The better job means they can do faster. They don't have to go to the boardroom to get the approval. Imagine the story about helping the healthcare people deliver the food to them. If I have to go to my big corporation clients, I think the faster we can get the approval could be three days instead of 30 minutes. So right now I only believe in the small people. So I really don't care much about the SDG goal. I don't know how the big corporation will get to that because so far I haven't seen any big corporation draft or write a business plan. Let's start with the SDG. That's more like the goal of the CSR department. So that is very sad. If they really believe in it, it should be at the top of the corporate strategy and deploy into the business strategy, the brand strategy, operational strategy. But right now, the SDG is just like something that I need to know because I'm a public company. And I don't think that can create that much change. But when I say this, I didn't say that what the big corporation doing now is useless. Don't take me wrong. I just say that consider myself as a small consultant, small people. If I want to create a real impact, right now I will go to the small business. I will go to my SME clients. I will go to the people that use more of the common sense, not corporate sense. They might even know the term sustainable development. They don't even understand what brand means, but they have a heart for people. So they are the the one who can, for me, create the real impact to the to the society. So that's how I feel towards sustainability, pandemic. Give me a hope in the small people. And I can see, I can witness the real change that they already create to the society. I agree. I think I want to dive deeper into that and unpack it because I think there are some things that might not everyone might not understand and maybe I'm not understanding it. So you might need to clear me up. I think with large corporations, there's not enough on board. There are some big ones coming on board, especially the beginning of this year was really positive. But it's not integrated in their core values and their business plan enough. We both said it earlier that all the sustainable development goals are tied to food. And so really, whether someone indigenous or local or small, medium organization or person, the small individual knows it or not that the sustainable development goals aren't for big countries. They're not for corporations. They're not for cities. They're for us, because they're all tied to food and they're for us as an individual and they're to be seen like Maslow's hierarchy of needs are basic needs of resources, breeding food, water, food, security, shelter, security of body, security of resources. It's our basic needs. And most people don't understand that. That brings me to what you mentioned several times about the SMEs, the small, medium enterprises, organizations, the individual, the small individuals. One thing that's very difficult that they don't realize is these big corporations, the big food producers, the big, the big whoever, they're actually big, but they're the minority in our world. The majority is small, medium enterprises have the biggest piece of the pie, the biggest piece of the cake and have the biggest touch points to all the individuals. And in many respects, whether it's IKEA or a Unilever or someone else, they go get their raw goods and their resources from many small individual, small, medium enterprises, organizations out there. And if we realize that true strength and empowerment that we actually hold the bigger piece of the pie and we unify locally as a force and food and in the sustainable development goals, our impact is enormous. What we can do not only in times of need to restore the communities to restore and help and and resiliently bounce back, that is unbelievable. It's been shown and tried and proven time and time again. So in that respect, I'm absolutely, I'm absolutely with you. I deal with the sustainable development goals in a lot of different areas. Philippines is another area where people are so impoverished that and so they're thinking about their basic needs. They have no clue what some shiny sustainable development goals are, but they have a better understanding of them because they use the sufficiency economy philosophy. They use another philosophy of the way they treat their locals, their friends and support and help each other, that in other ways they are implementing them and using them to the best knowledge possible. I guess for me to come in to the sustainable brands event or come to Thailand for you is and I want you to answer this is what your thoughts and reasons are. My views and feelings why you had me come is to bring the bottom up approach to every individual to show them that every individual has the opportunity to innovate, to do things differently, to do things organically, to think and look at food in a different way, to reduce food waste, that it doesn't have to be this crazy thing that's unreachable but that every individual can do it because it's something we do anyway. We all hopefully eat every day and that's the biggest way to impact and there's probably some other reasons why as well but I'd love to hear your thoughts and feelings on why you've had me come to Thailand to try to help the locals and to speak to people to move them forward in a different direction because the direction is the direction of the sustainability development goals of the sufficiency economy philosophy and so I'd like to hear your thoughts or views. I think you rub it up and lead it to the very good point to get into the sustainability SDG and it goes at the end of the day it's on about people either people at the bottom or people at the top right even if you are in the big corporation but people in the top they will believe in it they they will value the triple bottom line they still only see the the profit and keep saying business sustainability that means profit forever you cannot change anything okay so everything go down to the term to the word people people has to be the one who who changed I try to change the people at the top from working with a big corporation okay and in the big corporation the issue is every time when they change the the leader if the brand is not solid or strong enough the division of the corporation change accordingly okay but if I work with the people at the bottom either they are the SME either they are the startup either they are the consumer within my circle or even they are the community I just see more opportunity to to help them to be the the driving force for change okay that that's us probably how I see it and that's one of my my goal towards working on the sustainability and in Thailand in order to to move people to get to the point of sustainability which means we have to value our life we have to understand the term inclusiveness right that you are not the only species that if you survive because you are the strongest but if you are the strongest and you are the best you have to carry other life along with you to make people understand the term inclusiveness or caring sharing to other life I think the philosophy of sufficiency it's a tool it's a right tool it's a right mindset to make type people at least people in my circle understand the value of sharing because my king always said that it doesn't matter that Thailand has to be the tiger or one of the best country in Asia the most important thing for his task is to make sure that every single type has enough to survive have enough to survive doesn't mean equally it doesn't mean equal everyone has a a different share different section but they should have like enough according to to their life so when I use the term moderation or the middle part and I teach them that I never stop that when we say that we have to walk slow it doesn't mean that you have to stop but you have to walk slow enough so you can bring another people to walk along with you but if you just run or you rush to the to the top you're probably there alone so if you slow down a bit you can include other people to join the journey and you can make sure that no matter what happened in that journey you have a network you have the people to support you so for me I think the sufficiency philosophy it's more like a means for sustainability because when we talk about sustainability sustainable development people always ask how how we can do it but in in my circle or in my belief I use the sufficiency as a tool to take the business to take my clients into the journey towards sustainability it's also a model of philosophy that is very cultural that's one that comes from king ram the ninth and it's been very most people know about it most so and it's it really is very tied into and fitting towards the sustainability in general but also the sustainable development goals so it fits hand in hand and I truly truly believe that local regional aspect of how we apply it as where we need to go we need to apply to the culture in those areas I have one of the hardest questions that I ask all my guests that I'm going to ask you next and that is the burning question wtf which is not the swear word but what's the future and I want to know what's the future for noi and what your thoughts on the future are I think the future is uncertainty right as a as a buddhism we can say that if you make the present right you don't have to worry too much about the future the future is the karma of today okay so the minute that you understand your meaning of life that you were born not for yourself but you were born to create value to other life and you know how to do it for me I don't have to worry about my future as long as my life right now I live my life with the philosophy of with the belief of three m's okay no matter the future will come I will live my life with moderation which means the the wisdom of balancing between me myself and other life the second m is my fault okay I I before I make any decision I have to think through I have to be conscious about the the impact about the the karma that's why in addition to my talk on the sufficiency economy I always have a talk on the karma marketing because there's something that can either create a positive footprint or positive footprint karma is a footprint right so I always smileful I always think about if I do this what's going to be the impact not just the outcome what's going to be the impact of my action and the last one whatever I do I have to make sure that it's meaningful because if there is no use if they cannot be beneficial to other life it's just the action so if you want to have a future with the immunity with the surround by love and support I think by leaving today with three m's I think my future would be fine yeah I'm pretty sure it would be as well and I've heard heard you talk about this before and that's absolutely beautiful the karma is a footprint is a very powerful statement it is oh so true and ties into a lot of other things that we're experiencing in our world with earth overshoot day and and a global footprint and things like that during this pandemic this lockdown where we had this pause we actually through the global footprint the earth overshoot day was July 29th last year and this year it's august 22nd so we gained 24 more days but I have to caveat that it was very positive for some time and now we're getting all sorts of reports that since June the Antarctic and Siberia and Canada glacial sheets are melting and breaking off and we've got huge forest fires that are in the northern hemisphere where it's normally pretty cold where there's a permafrost and and because of a forced pause because of the COVID I think it's nice because there's some benefits that could that kind of came out off of a bad situation but it's not enough to set our planet back into alignment of our planetary boundaries and fix things and so there are some some some disheartening things coming that are all pointing to that each individual like you just mentioned needs to live this sufficiency economy philosophy live the the three M's and and kind of look how they can live in harmony with the people planted in our environment and that it's really important that we live within these planetary boundaries that leads me to my last hardest question which is probably similar to what you've already answered before but it's a little bit of a twist because I ask you to take this global perspective and answer the question what does a world that works for everyone look like for you I think the world that show more respect to the nature okay because if we believe that the world is also the living thing the world has life okay it's not just the the place that we go and say in people will never be important or greater than nature okay so I think once the people start to to treat nature well the nature will treat you well I think what's really happening right now is a karma that people give to the world and now it just come back to everyone okay so my future world is actually when people will lock up at home and you say that some people even experience the animals soon I think it's the best time for every single soul to appreciate the nature I walk around my house almost every morning during the pandemic I look at the tree I look at the plants and I start to to realize the importance of the the plant the tree that I never give importance I just feel like they were born for me because when I were born the tree is everywhere around me okay but when you have time with yourself and you start to walk around and appreciate the coexist of everything I think if we really value the term coexist we know that people it's just a small part of the universe and we shouldn't try to to overcome or win over the nature we should learn to respect the nature we should learn how to nurture the nature and then we will have the the future for our next generation that that's how I see the world in the future that's so beautiful thank you Noe and and I I know you and are connected very connected to nature I mean even in our podcast I don't know if those who are listening or who can watch the video they will hear the rooster crowing and the birds chirping and they'll see the bugs flying around and hear the the wind freezing a little bit you are very close to nature you try to ground yourself and not only the way you think in your philosophies but also with nature and I believe that is one of the most healing things anyone can do wherever they are in the world is to get out and look at trees take a walk and enjoy things that maybe you haven't seen or realized before now that you have the opportunity and if you're don't feel like you're forced with this opportunity that you should definitely take the opportunity to see things that you've maybe never seen before and enjoy them and understand them I always say and I have for a long time it comes from Lin Margolis that this symbiotic earth that Homo sapiens truly need to become an integral part of this symbiotic earth I was in Songdo Korea in 2019 yeah it was 2019 for the resilience frontiers and there was a Professor Chin there and he spoke that not only we need to become part of the symbiotic earth but Homo sapiens actually need to start to evolve a little bit more to be part of this what we could call a Homo symbios a new evolution of Homo sapiens that really see themselves as an integral part of nature and our environment our world with all other species of our world I really believe that is a big way to connect and ground yourself and to live a long and healthy life if you have that connection I want to ask you for something I'm pretty sure you'll give it because you're a giving person but I want a a valuable sustainable takeaway for all my listeners whether they're designers branders marketers advertisers innovators organic farmers that you can give them some kind of a wisdom a tool a sustainable takeaway from newly and your years of experience and wisdom that you say if I could give you this one tool or this message this is what I'd like to give you because it will empower you it'll make you better or it's just some good wisdom to live by I'm going to ask you to maybe depart that free gift to all my listeners before we say goodbye today well actually uh there are three aims would be the thing I would love to to share to the people who have the same belief that life has to be coexist with other life okay no matter what you do you're going to build a brand you're going to create the social innovation you're going to do anything do it in the sense of moderation which means that it has to be in the middle part that provide benefit for the society and also for the commercial or the business whatsoever okay at the end of the day everything should be about people everything should answer to the common good all right so moderation we will give you the good sense of practicality a good sense of how you're going to use the resources either in terms of natural resources or financial resources whatsoever you will do it with a sense of moderation which doesn't mean in the not like uh not up to the top quality you still can do it in the very high quality but in the sense of balancing okay and the second one is mindful okay to be mindful I think it's very important otherwise people won't try to practice the meditation okay to be mindful it means that you stop to think and you think true there are many times that people try to compete with the speed they try to go fast you try to be the the number one in the competition and you forget about other people so to be mindful it's like you you think true you go through the thinking process and the last one which for me is very important and could be the most important element of living is live your life in the meaningful way okay there is no uh I think to to to be the meaningful is uh doesn't mean have to be like a big kpi if you do something that really means create impact to other people either small group two or three people it means that your action is it's value okay so to live a meaningful life it means that you have a purpose of living and I think that's very important because otherwise how could you compete with the AI how could you compete with the technology so on of these three m will give the power back to the mankind so I think for me the three m is very important for the last m the mankind great that's so wonderful thank you very much earlier in our talk when our discussion when you mentioned the three m's you also and probably also earlier with the sufficiency economy philosophy you mentioned survival of the fittest and competition you also mentioned it just now this competition um there's this thing called neo darwinism neo liberalism and what that is is this thought of competition that only the strong survive only the survival of the fittest only competition um I hate to swear but it's bullshit it doesn't exist neo darwinism doesn't exist neo liberalism doesn't exist there is no such thing as natural selection survival of the fittest only the strong survive that does not exist that's not how nature works that's not how a symbiotic earth works that's not how um our world works um that was something that came up much later and was twisted but that's not reality we need to live in harmony and cooperation and symbiosis with our earth and our planet and that is the true way to be not only successful but also to be live a long life to be sustainable to be sufficient to be around for multiple generations to to nurture our world and live within planetary boundaries no way I love you and I thank you so much for your time and that you're took it out to be on the show and I look forward to seeing you soon at another event or another time where we can break bread together show come out compassion to one another through food and through good conversation and you're welcome anytime here in in Hamburg Germany and I look forward to seeing you very soon thank you so much for being on the show thank you everyone I will I will thank you so much Newey take care