Steve (host):
Welcome to the 24th Wonderspace. It's great to have you on board. My name is Steve Cole and since September 2020 I have been asking the same 6 questions to people from around the world. The questions revolve around life and wonder, places of reset and stories of hopefulness which I think we need more than ever. The setting for all of our interviews is a virtual window seat on the space station 250 miles above earth where we see everything from a different perspective.

Steve (host):
This week our journey will take us down the west coast of America over San Francisco, Costa Rica and finishing over La Paz in Bolivia. And to experience these views with us in this ultimate window seat we welcome Dave Erasmus who is a digital entrepreneur, business coach and public speaker. He spends part of the year off-grid in the woods and the other part in the modern world developing concepts around technology, ecology and their relationship to the human experience. A shorter version of this episode together with stunning photography of this journey down the west coast can be found on our website ourwonder.space where you will also find the previous 23 episodes. I start by asking Dave, from this seat 250 miles above earth, which place or city or country would you want us to fly over and why?

Dave:
There are so many places that I love, but for today I think it's got to be the Corcovado Rainforest in Costa Rica. About 5 years ago, I wanted to go on a soul-searching trip and I asked some friends, where's good to go that's kind of got natural beauty But it's not too over commercialized But also there's not stark poverty that will get me to think about that I want to go into myself and get inspired and 2 different friends both said Corcovado Rainforest in Costa Rica and it's the most biologically diverse place on the planet. It has 2.5 percent of the world's biodiversity in 1 canopy. So the flavors, the tastes, the colors, the smells, the sounds, it's all just like... It's amazing.

Steve (host):
Dave, give us a glimpse into your life story so far.

Dave:
So a glimpse into my story so far is after being born in South Africa and whisked back to Wales to be with family, I found myself in Surrey at about 4 and lived there in a pretty stable community until now. But, you know, when I was about 16, 17, 2 things kind of broke loose in my life. 1 was adventure, driving and traveling with friends in mini buses and trains all around the world, driving to Africa, train to China, sort of exploring the world and realizing how you can do that together. But also the internet broke loose and I started buying and selling stuff on eBay and then I found Google and advertising on Google and built a company with all my friends till from 19 to 21. We had 20 of us all working together, having a great time.

Dave:
Then I got a chance to sell that company. I built a log cabin in the back of my garden and kept life very simple and got to explore broader themes. You know, what work is worth doing, you know, I've managed to pay off the mortgage and, you know, I would just look like a dick to my friends if I bought fast cars or anything like that. So there's no incentive to do that. So you're thinking, well, okay, what kind of work should I bother doing then if I don't and what's the potential of this internet you know if it's that powerful that it can make loads of people loads of money what else can it do so that led us to a project called Givi.

Dave:
A friend had an idea what if we could get everyone to just give 1? And I realized the technology wasn't quite there. So we tried to build that technology and working with PayPal and a few other significant partners. We ended up writing white papers trying to influence the government. And we did TED Talks and all sorts of things, trying to build the value proposition for giving, trying to help people understand why has this behaviour called giving stood the test of time, and why do we need it in this generation as much as any other?

Dave:
And that was a wild journey looking into the science of behavior economics and macroeconomics and the neurochemistry of giving and why it's so potent as things like sex and chocolate and really has a powerful role to play in our lives. And then by the time I got to about 29, I was in San Francisco trying to scale that company with Salesforce and my investors didn't get it. And they ended up sort of looking, they wanted a new CEO, a new leader for that business. And so that was the end of my path really. And it was that's when I went to the rainforest for some soul searching inspirations to sort of like cry on top of a mountain screaming out at God saying what do you want from me and that led to a new adventure really of setting up in a forest in Sussex about an hour from my parents with no plan, no agenda, nothing to do.

Dave:
I really wasn't sure what was going to happen but I bought a shepard's hut on eBay and wheeled it in to 25 acres and just began to sit there and just see who came and see what I would learn. And it was an amazing, amazing year-long experiment that opened my eyes to a whole new way of being with the world, with the environment, with each other. Found a deeper sense of beauty, deeper sense of friendship, a deeper sense of creativity. As you can tell, the common theme here is just deeper. Sort of the doing of life stops, so the broadness and the busyness stopped, but the beingness of life kind of developed and deepened my reservoir, if you like.

Dave:
And I've just been following that rabbit hole ever since, 4 or 5 years in now. We're just rolling together as friends all over this global village trying to bring authenticity in the face of uncertainty and figuring out how with that we can adapt well to the world that we find ourselves in. And that's taking a whole load of different forms if you like in each of our lives in different ways.

Steve (host):
Where on earth is your place of reset or recharge?

Dave:
My place of reset every day or 2 is my shower wherever that is in the world at that time. It's that place where I forgive myself for all the things I've missed, messed up. Mainly it's missed, mainly it's the sins of omission really, the things I didn't bother engaging with that I should have done, whether that's emails or existential crises or unfound parts in my own emotional landscape. But I need that every day or 2. Try and keep it to every day or 2.

Dave:
It's a good hook. But yeah, geographically, for me, it's about, it's being around a fire. It's being off grid, it's being in the analog, it's in the silence, in the stillness, ideally with some little tweeting bird in the background, but just 1 or 2 so you can focus on her rather than being pulled in lots of different directions. And for me, most of the time I've found that in the woods or sitting on some water over the last few years at least. I never thought I'd say this really, but these days I think the wonder of the natural world that excites me the most are flowers.

Dave:
You know, when I hear this question it makes me think of big things, the Grand Canyon, stars. But when I slowed down, it was the smaller details that started to jump off the page to me a bit more. And I'm not being funny, but some flowers are just mental. Their design is frankly a joke and it blows my mind. In the most surprising of places as well.

Dave:
So yeah not the answer I thought I would give, but definitely, definitely the most frequent place I find myself most surprised is in paying close attention to these little flower petals that spring up in random places.

Steve (host):
Dave, what is your story of hopefulness that's not your own about a person, business or non-profit who are doing amazing things for the world?

Dave:
My story of hopefulness for the world comes from a chap called Alastair who I had my first Zoom call with this morning and he Instagrammed me last week saying that he started an idea called Tastybakes.com and I spoke to him today and he explained that in Covid him and his wife had both lost their jobs and their livelihoods are probably not coming back anytime soon and they've had a passion for baking and they started baking some goods and selling them on the front of their outside their house and started having conversations with their neighbors and started really enjoying that and now they're creating a website to try and help connect neighborhoods together getting old grannies who are isolated from their family to be able to make cakes for people down their road and to sort of really service that kind of local neighborhood community. And it would be easy for me to think of a story where there's pain and tragedy and fighting involved and grit. And there are lots of very, very worthy justice causes. But today I was excited by the hopefulness of somebody creating something out of passion that really they are loving.

Dave:
They're just loving it and everyone's loving it and it's bringing joy and celebration in the nature of the cakes and it's including people and getting them to think more creatively about how to get out of the slump they're in with Covid and I just thought yeah that's awesome that is hopeful.

Steve (host):
Finally as we prepare to re-enter what insight, wisdom or question would you like to share with us?

Dave:
The insight I'd really love to share is such a basic 1 which is that I really believe that we do have enough time. And I think that if you believe you truly have enough time, it changes everything about how you go about your day. And the futures we want to build for ourselves and for our families and for our communities and societies are all based off interactions, small moments where we connect in various different ways with each other, with systems. And if we ultimately think that we don't have enough time and we're operating out of a lack and a rush and a doingness, we can miss every single 1 of those moments that goes into building our collective futures and lives together. And so I think just taking a moment to pause and accept that there is enough time, I have agency, I have choice, I can decide what to do with my day, helps you approach each moment in a very different way or at least that's how I've found it to be since coming back out of my time in retreat and that's what I want to leave you with.

Steve (host):
More information about the work of Dave can be found at DaveArasmas.com And most weeks Dave is also producing content for his YouTube channel which is also worth exploring. To join the Wonderspace community and share your own wonders and stories of hopefulness or to listen to the previous 23 interviews the website is ourwonder.space I want to thank Dave for joining us on this Wonderspace and I hope you can join us next week for more wonders and stories of hopefulness.