Intro:
Orbiting 250 miles above, the space station provides us with the ultimate view of planet Earth. From this perspective, we ask our guests to engage with six questions that orbit around wonder and stories of hopefulness. For the next few minutes, this is our wonder space.

Steve:
Welcome to the ninety third episode of the Wonder Space podcast, which is a creative expression of a family trust called Panapur. My name is Steve Cole, and since September 2020, I have asked the same six questions to over 90 people from around the world. People like James Arbib from RethinkX, who in episode 32 talked about the challenge for all of us to unlearn what we thought we knew. Because when systems change, everything changes. And in some ways, the greater and deeper our expertise of the old system, the more we have to unlearn.

Steve:
For our third year, we are once again collaborating with Ask Nature, who are a project of the Biomimicry Institute. Their work looks to nature for inspiration to solve design problems in a regenerative way. Here is another moment to help us to re wonder.

Ask Nature:
Although being known as wood rotting fungi may make it sound like bracket fungi are detrimental to the trees that host them, they actually play an important role in the life of those trees and the forest as a whole. The fungi break down the lignin in the dead wood in the center of the tree, making it easier for other organisms to bore through or consume. They also help release essential nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus back into the soil. This even benefits the host tree since it can now access nutrients that were previously locked away in the wood and use them to power new growth. The hollowed out trees and logs left behind by the bracket fungi also provide homes for all kinds of animals from tiny insects to larger birds and mammals.

Ask Nature:
So the next time you see a bracket fungi, give it a nod of appreciation for all the unseen work it does to keep the forest healthy and biodiverse.

Steve:
This week on Wonder Space, we welcome John Brown, who was nominated by Matt Hocking from the creative agency, LEAP. John is the founder of a brand activism agency called Don't Cry Wolf, and is passionate about businesses being a part of solving some of society's biggest problems. John is also a campaigner for more transparent campaigns from brands that are looking to promote their green credentials. With this expansive overview of Earth, I start by asking John, if we could do a fly past on any part of the world that is significant to you, which place, city, or country would it be, and why?

John:
What a great question to start with. I think the the one for me is Istanbul in Turkey. So I'm half Turkish. All of my family except for my mom live there, and I'd love to check-in on them, see how they're doing. Turkey's going through an incredibly turbulent time.

John:
Yeah, only just recently, unfortunately, had a another act of what seems to be terrorism there. And it's approaching some very, very important elections where there's a chance that someone who's been in power for far too long, wielding far too much corrupted power could be ousted. And I just wanna check-in on them, make sure that they're alright, make sure that they're still fighting the good fight, doing good things, maybe blow them a kiss from afar and say hello.

Steve:
John, give us a glimpse into your life story so far with an emphasis on what you are doing currently.

John:
My life story is actually all revolving around the point at which I found my wife and I had two magnificent children, Freddie and Luna, and moved down to Cornwall. That's what I'd say is my life sort of story, really. Like everything else before that was kind of gearing up to this moment where we've we're in this fantastic kind of environment with one another. And that's that's my majority of my identity. Dad, husband, little sort of Cornish outdoors eco pirate is what the wonderful Matt Hocking calls me.

John:
And and, you know, but from a professional perspective, it's an experiment, man. That's what I'm doing. I'm seeing whether I can take some very fortunate skills that I've managed to gain around creativity and activism, combine that with some pretty extraordinary people and create an agency called Don't Cry Wolf, which is geared towards helping brands through comms campaigns, branding, PR activation, to sort of help them find their identity, their voice, with a view that they kind of then either sort of address a key issue in society, perhaps they solve a key issue in society, or at least agitate conversation around it. But they do so elegantly, creatively, with a sort of strong voice. That's kind of the work that we do, the way that we run the organization.

John:
We're a B Corp agency. At the very core of our philosophy is around sort of relentless transparency. And I don't know whether it's gonna work or not. You know, it's been fun. It's like we're just enjoying the the journey right now.

John:
Know, we've had been going since 2018. We've got some beautiful clients on board, wonderful team members who have just become the life and soul of the agency and you know, we give 1.5% of our earnings away to charity each year. We're absolutely embedded in the idea of running the agency in line with science based targets. And it's going okay. Everyone's earning well, everyone's doing some great important work.

John:
If it continues, brilliant. If it doesn't, I'll think of something else.

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

John:
Yeah. I mean, this was an immediate one for me that I just thought, I know I know this off the top of my head. There's this wonderful little beach called Polestreth. So I live in a and I live in a charming, beautiful, quirky, weird little fishing village called Mevaghissy, which has a wonderful identity to it still in Cornwall. And just sort of to the side of the harbor is a a beach called Polestreth, and you have to climb up and down, down on the way there, up on the way back, a significant number of steps to get there, which means that it puts a lot of people off.

John:
And and yet when you're down there, you can feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. I've done some 05:30AM swims with my wife, Lois, and it's just a place of complete relaxation. You've the cold water therapy. You've got the beautiful peace. You've got seals floating about, swimming about the place.

John:
You feel like you're in a completely different world. And it's fifteen or ten minute walk from my house.

Steve:
What wonder of the natural world excites you the most?

John:
Steve, I love mushrooms right now. I am becoming a little obsessed with them. I'm gonna become a bit fascinated with them. I'm not sure if you've read it, but Merlin Sheldrake's book, The Entangled Life, I mean, wow. Right?

John:
You know, to understand the importance, the history, the prehistory of this life form, which you could probably suggest was like, without it, nothing would be here as we know it from a sort of planetary perspective. The delicate, entangled web that is almost pulsating with life underneath what we see is just the mushroom, the flower if you like, the impact and effects that it could have from solving depression through to nutritional benefits, through to gut health, just the way that mushrooms or fungi in general form a life structure for everything else. Man, we need to have, we should have mushrooms emblazoned on t shirts and and fungi kind of hotly debated in parliament as being a natural wonder of the world. Right? I mean, I think this is they are extraordinary things, and, right now, I'm absolutely fascinated with them.

Steve:
John, what is your story of hopefulness as not your own about a person, business or nonprofit who are doing amazing things for the world?

John:
So I'm actually gonna give a really recent example on this. Last night I attended the Longford Trust lecture. So for those that don't know, Longford Trust is an organisation set up to help prisoners find route to a new life. We're hearing stories of prisoners who've gone on to create art, to set up their own charities to help others like them. Heard from a tremendously powerful, profound, you know, deeply emotional story about Mina Smallman.

John:
So Mina Smallman, she was one of the first women of color to be kind of, as an archdeacon in in the in the Anglican church. And in 2020, her two daughters were murdered in a common in North London during lockdown, murdered by someone who had essentially fallen into a deep hole of misinformation, disinformation, you know, ending up with sort of satanic vibes coming from poisonous people from across the world connecting with the most ugliest of people across the world. And she forgave him, you know, and she gave there was a deep level of forgiveness for an individual who had committed one of the most unthinkable acts for anyone. You you're, you you're you don't even have to be a parent to even kind of, imagine such a shocking thing. And Mina's story was inspiring, extraordinary.

John:
The way she talked was frank, human, honest, but filled with a kind of love and a level of forgiveness that I don't even think I could aspire to. It gave me an enormous amount of hope for a few reasons. One, there was wonderful, impassioned, loving talk around forgiveness. But the fact that there's this love and warmth and the long for trust in itself was promoting this idea of redemption for all, really, for those that work at it as well, which I think was important. Know, had some fascinating stories about prisoners who genuinely worked through their inner demons to kind of face up and then build beyond.

John:
And actually, think there's there's a lot of things that we can take from that. I think we all deserve a bit of redemption. I think we all deserve a bit of self forgiveness at times. And to have an organization that is that is literally what they're standing for, for forgiveness, for redemption, fills me with hope. Because I think if there are people and businesses, individuals, organizations that are working together for that, we need to forgive ourselves a touch as humanity so that then we can build from there.

John:
So I think it's a beacon of hope for us.

Steve:
Finally, as we prepare to reenter the earth's atmosphere, what insight, wisdom, or question would you like to leave with us?

John:
So Michael A. Singer's written these books called, like, the untethered soul. And I was listening to him on the on a podcast recently and there was a real message. So I'm gonna totally rip off his message for this because I think it's an important one. And it kind of leads on from what we were just talking about.

John:
How do you find your inner peace? That's the question I'd love to do with people because from what he was saying, and it rings true, think, for all of us, We might get agitated by big things, small things. We might be in a position where we're frustrated, feeling hate, feeling anger, feeling resentment, feeling unloved, what have you. A lot of that, almost all of it starts with a sense of finding first inner peace and inner calm. And from there, you are indestructible, man.

John:
You are like you're a superhero. Right? Because nothing can penetrate that. And I guess the question that I'd leave people with you know, I'm a pain in the ass activist on a heap of other a heap of other things, and I have to work at it each day, and I'm nowhere near found this in a piece. But it's something I really wanna work on, because I think from there, you can be fearless.

John:
And I think what we need are more fearless people in this world to for people like Mina. Utter sense of fearlessness. But to become fearless, you have to have a sense of profound inner peace and self comfort. So my question to everyone is, once you're inner peace, find it, nurture it, do it, work on it, live it, love it, and then build from there.

Steve:
You can find out more about Don't Cry Wolf at dontcrywolf.com. In his story of hopefulness, John talks about the remarkable work of the Longford Trust, and you can find out more at longfordtrust.org. What is your story of hopefulness that's not your own? About a person, business, or nonprofit who are doing amazing things for the world. We would love you to consider recording yourself in under thirty seconds, sharing your story on your phone through your video or the voice memo or recorder app.

Steve:
You can then simply upload the recording to the link on our website, ourwonder.space, and we will look to include them in future episodes. Thanks to John for joining us on Wonder Space this week. Let's continue to share wonder and stories of hopefulness that makes a name for someone else. We need them like never before. Thanks for listening.