 What's going on everyone welcome to another video. Now this is probably one of the most requested videos I have ever been asked to make. Now this question I get nearly at the end of every single one of my speeches and it's also probably one of the hardest questions to answer. Earthling Ed has done a very good video on this topic which I'll leave linked down below and I always link Ed's video but I thought I'd do my own. It's about dealing with non-vegan friends especially as a new vegan. Now this can be a very difficult topic and also can be a very hard scenario to be in and everyone goes through it so you're not alone. Now not everyone can sit their whole family down like James Aspie did with one conversation and turn them all vegan. Although that does happen it's not really realistic for the majority of us. There's always going to be some resistance from friends and family and for some reason I don't know what the psychology is behind this but friends and family are less likely to listen to you and that's just what I've found from my own experience and a lot of other people have found the same thing. Now there's no blanket solution for this problem. I can't give you one amazing solution to everyone's issue because everyone's scenario is so unique. Everyone's character is so unique you might not be able to handle certain situations that other people can. Everyone's family members are very different in their own character so there's too many variables for me to give you a blanket solution but I can give you some strategies that will help you. So first off you have to be a lot more strategic when you're talking with friends and family. You don't really want to alienate yourself from your friends and family. You don't really want to create a big argument so you have to use something called tact. Be very tactful in these situations. Now one of the most powerful things I do when I'm educating people is called Socratic Method. Now this is the art of asking questions. It's a lot different to sitting there and pumping information down people's throats especially friends and family they're going to find it a little bit overwhelming. You can do that if you feel like the situation calls for it but if you feel like people are switching off the best way to educate anyone in any situation especially friends and family is to ask them leading questions. Do you think there's a humane way to kill an animal who doesn't want to die? Do you think there's a humane way to kill anyone if they don't want to die? Do you think you can be healthy without eating meat and animal products? Are you an animal lover? Ask them leading questions okay. Make sure you don't look like you're that emotionally invested in this that you're going to have some kind of you know aggressive breakdown in front of them. You're going to be calm, cool, calm, collected, logical okay. They don't know the information that you know. I know it can be very hard watching your friends and family eating products that are very bad for their health and that are destroying the environment and that are hurting these innocent sentient beings. That can be a very hard truth to wake up to. It's like you've woken up in the matrix and you can see the truth and your friends and family just can't but you have to maintain a calm demeanor when you're discussing this with friends and family. You're going to be in uncomfortable situations. You're going to be at the dinner table and there's going to be meat and cheese on the dinner table but you're going to bring your vegan food and you've got to say hey look at this this is dairy-free cheese and dairy-free chocolate and vegan meat substitutes which are awesome plant-based with no cholesterol no saturated fat you know. You're going to be really positive shining light and I think that is probably the best way to do it be a positive calm shining light and make sure you are very educated on this topic. At the start inundate yourself with information so that you can answer the questions calmly and respectfully and politely and then you can chuck a question back to them. A really good way to get experience that this is to watch either myself, Earthling Ed, James Aspie, some other good YouTubers that do interview style videos and see how we handle the situations and mimic that but never let your emotion run the conversation trust me it's going to cause problems and you don't want problems within your friends and family. I mean unless you've got a really thick skin and unless you don't mind a bit of conflict that's fine you can do that but I think for the majority of people it's best that we maintain calm respectful demeanor. Another great strategy is if your friends and family are less likely to listen to you then you point them in the direction of a documentary what the health. Caspiracy is a fantastic one get him on the health and the environment first maybe and then bang maybe a Gary Orozky style speech if Gary Orozky is a little bit too full on for them point him in the direction of James Aspie or Earthling Ed or one of my videos or even Bite Size Vegan Emily one of her really educational videos the content you share with them should be specific to that person's character if you think your mom's more of a Gary Orozky type of person I'll leave and share that with them if you think she's really into her health then share what the health with them if you get someone else to tell them they're more likely to listen and I'm I really wish I knew the psychology behind this if anyone does know the psychology leave it down below I want to tell you a story about some obstacles I faced with my friends and family and it was with my father and my father got very sick very quickly and it was because of lifestyle choices and the doctors were telling him to eat more bacon eat more cheese eat more butter so we could put some weight on because he had something called Crohn's disease now Crohn's disease happens when you have a leaky gut and then dairy proteins get into the blood and you create antibodies which fight these dairy proteins but at the same time they eat away parts of your intestinal tract now I knew this my father didn't the doctors don't really promote our lifestyle change to cure these diseases they were giving my father chemo radiation therapy injected into his veins and then they were feeding him dairy in a feeding bag and I to watch my father get bad information from the doctors listen to their advice over mine and I was getting my information from plant-based doctors and it really hurt me it hurt me to see my dad suffer in front of me because of preventable illness now this was a very big lesson for me because my father he would rather have listened to the doctors than change his lifestyle and I think my father actually knew but what I was saying had some truth to it but the point is is that you can't convince people to change if they're not ready and you have to come to terms with this it is not your responsibility to turn that person vegan and it's so much harder because you care about them but you have to maintain a zen like state with it you have to realize that you can't control everything you can't control people's lifestyle choices you can only be a shining positive light for them and I learnt that the hard way but I want you to know that you are not alone in this and we all go through the same type of problems now there's something I want to talk to you about it's called the hundred point system and this is by amazing activist who heads vegan friendly in Israel his name is Omri Paz and this will help take some of the burden off of you thinking you have to convert everyone to veganism straight away it's called the hundred point system okay now what it is is someone might have a conversation with you they've never heard about veganism and bang you give them 25 points in that conversation now that same person could be scrolling through facebook and see a video on the egg industry and bang that would be another 15 points so essentially they're up to another 40 points okay now what happens when they get to 100 points they go vegan okay now you might meet someone in the street they might already have 80 points and you might be that last 20 points for them okay then bang they get to 100 points and they go vegan but the point is it's not your responsibility to turn that person vegan you just need to be that 30 or 40 points now with your friends and family that's what you need to be doing is planting seeds okay now you're not going to convert people straight away not all the time that's not how it works you're probably the first person they've heard this message from what you can be is a shining positive example a shining light and don't let them see you get too angry about it be pretty chilled with them okay take take your time leave documentaries around buy some plant-based milk alternatives buy some vegan alternatives for them to try and watch documentaries with them okay make it a point hey for my birthday mum let's watch this documentary together also i want you all to choose your battles very carefully okay some people can get very aggravated by talking about this and you need to choose your battles use your judgment and social intelligence in situations and really feel the situation to get the best result okay so that would be my advice when it comes to friends and family like i said there's no blanket solution for this you can only try your best and remember if you're hanging out with other vegans as well you're not going to feel so isolated and alone if you're getting involved in activism yourself if like what i did i just got online okay my friends and family weren't listening to me i was trying to be that shining light of inspiration to people around me and no one was listening to me my inspiration was falling on deaf ears so what i did is i got online and i started talking to a camera and i started spreading that message around everywhere okay and now i'm really helping people who want to hear the message okay so you've got to find people who want to hear the message and edify them okay and this is what i've done and this has really helped boost my confidence give me a sense of fulfillment okay and give me a real sense that things are changing and that people are willing to change if you've isolated yourself and you're just hanging out with your non-vegan friends and family you're going to feel isolated you're going to feel smothered and you're going to feel like no one's listening to you but that's why hanging out with other activists doing things with other vegans okay chatting with other vegans looking for support through the vegan community can really help you when it comes to these problems with friends and family we all go through it okay so that would be my advice i hope this video helps you all really if anyone's got some really good tips that i've forgotten leave them in the comment section and let's just make the comment section a community where we can all help each other and share this video with someone who you think's going through some problems with friends and family and let them go through the comment section and maybe we can all support each other as a community about this it's a very hard topic to discuss and like i said there's no one answer that fits all but i hope these strategies can help you all right guys i'll see you all in the next video and peace