#8 – Charity EP1 – Great have made mistakes that we never want to repeat!

Transcript

[00:00:01] Oh, hi. Didn’t see you there. I was walking down the street yesterday and I was walking past an 8 M machine, and in that machine it’s a hundred dollars. And I took them for myself. No, I’m kidding. The one actually took the money. That was Erik Bergman, the founder of Great.com and in today’s episode of the Becoming Great podcast, we will explore how Erik is a thief. We will also talk about charity.

[00:00:35] We’ll talk about how can you engage yourself in charity in a way that feels good and keeps you excited. We’ll talk about how can you think strategically about charities so you can maximize your impact. And we will. And so we won’t answer the big question, how much money will Great.com give away this year?

[00:01:00] Stay tuned for fixes.

[00:01:06] All right. Good morning, Erik. How are you doing today? Good morning, Emmil. I’m doing well, I guess, as I mentioned before, I might.

[00:01:15] My head is a bit wobbly because I want to kick off a Thai boxing yesterday. And, well, let’s say I didn’t win.

[00:01:23] Did you feel insecure again?

[00:01:26] Yeah. She was bad to me yesterday, you know. Shit. She’s a little bit like Jackie Chan. So I came. I wanted a hug and she like top is spinning round.

[00:01:37] I’ll stick to my jaw, which is her way of saying I love you. I’m sure of that.

[00:01:42] That’s a pretty sweet kick. If you’re watching this on YouTube and I can see that you’re standing up. What’s that like?

[00:01:49] I do not like standing up.

[00:01:50] But our producer has told me that it’s more energy if I’m standing up and jump around and take it with him than doing whatever he wants. But yeah, I do not like our producer today.

[00:02:02] You’ll get into it. You’ll get into it. And today we are talking about charity. And why are we doing this today?

[00:02:11] So the reason of charity is it’s complex and we can be looking at so many different directions.

[00:02:18] The main reason would be that we would like to explore what we know and what we don’t know about this topic because it will be such an essential part of what great is doing. And we want to understand more about it ourselves, as well as explaining about the things that we all understood so that there will be a way to to go back and see. OK, so how did we think about great at this time? How do we think what charity at this time? And then why did we do the decisions that we wanted to do? That’s the overview part of this. To elaborate a little bit more on it and we’ll get back to that further into the episode. It’s like, are you I’ve done a lot of mistakes with charity before. Great. Personally. And I’ve had a lot of. Prejudices about what charity is and can’t be. And whenever whenever I talk to people or whenever I hear about it, everyone seems to have an opinion about a charity. And it’s tricky topic because it’s it’s loaded with with all kinds of emotions like guilt and anger and all kinds of things. I think it’s an interesting topic to try to elaborate on and try to understand and kind of unfold. Where do we stand on this? What do you want to talk about this?

[00:03:44] I liked what you said in the beginning, but I think it’s important to show what we don’t know insofar because I think that can that welcomes in help from other people. And I think that’s a really fast way for us to learn. And then again, I think sharing our perspectives.

[00:04:04] I think we have come far enough so that we have value to give to others that might be feeling those feelings of confusion, shame. I don’t know what to do. I want to do something good, but I’m not sure where to begin or what will happen if I participate.

[00:04:21] So what is the most common idea you see people have that you talk to about charities?

[00:04:31] So this charity is one of my most passionate topics, so I end up in conversations about charity more or less on a daily basis. And the most common thing that people say is that they don’t know where the money goes. So if I donate to this organization, what will actually happen? And there there is very common that people say. Yeah, but it’s all gonna be overhead. It’s not going to reach who’s ever going to. And I think that the reason for this is that this is the way charity is being described in media. Because if Doctors Without Borders cure disease, that’s not news, because that’s what they’re supposed to do. But if they go to a brothel, then that’s big news. So that will be all over the newspapers. And this is what people see on Twitter. The same goes for me.

[00:05:25] I’ve seen I’ve definitely had this relationship to charity for a big part of my life. I mean, what was what’s been your relationship to charity before this?

[00:05:38] I can very much recognize myself in what you’re saying, because when I was way back when I was a teenager, even up, I wanted to do something good for someone else. Part of that was so I could feel good, sure. But I generally wanted to help people.

[00:05:56] So from when I was a teenager, I donated anything between five to fifty dollars a month, a different kind of mainstream charity organizations.

[00:06:09] When you say teenager, is that 13 or 19 or everything in the third 13? Something like that. Yeah, I was really young.

[00:06:16] Yeah, but it was like a hundred kroner a month or something and it could be that me just giving some change here and there to collectors.

[00:06:25] Stuff like that. So wasn’t big money, but I wanted to do something nice. That was most of my intentions.

[00:06:32] The way I think that drive came from. I mean if you started already at 13, I guess most people in your school did not do that. I didn’t do that.

[00:06:45] I don’t know. I think I think that in drive to be nice and to help out is a core need and a lot of humans and that sort of came out of me on a good day, I guess.

[00:06:59] Beautiful and it is. It felt good to me to do it.

[00:07:03] I’m trying to recall whenever I donate to something the first time where I actually made the decision of donating my own money and made maybe I donated like change in some store or to some homeless person outside somewhere. But when I actually made the active decision of donating somewhere to some organization, I think that was probably twenty three. Twenty five. Somewhere like that, they were 10, 10 years ahead of me.

[00:07:35] You know what happened to us? My parents always gave like 50 dollars a month each to different organizations. And then I think I wanted to participate and they invited me to participate. And then I gave maybe ten dollars out of my weekly allowance to two that were going to section two.

[00:07:57] Yeah, that’s interesting. This is brings things to myself. My family has always donated, well, proportionately a lot of their money to a different charitable organizations. So this is something that I believe should have stuck with me and I was just not there. What one story that recalls is. I was 18 years old and I was playing poker and I had been going to the to the ADF. And late on Friday night. Something to do, withdraw cash to go to the poker club. And there were no fifteen hundred kronor so well as hundred and fifty years in the A.T.M. so no one had taking them taken the cash. Maybe a thousand I don’t remember. So someone I forgot to them and I was like waiting. And I took that money and I went playing with it. I don’t know how it turned out. But then I told my father about this story when I come home. And he got so disappointed in me for keeping that money and not trying to find the owner. And I was like, no, that’s my money. And I. I remember feeling. Guilty for doing what I did at the same time, I felt that that was my decision and at the same time I felt like. I really didn’t want him to get involved with this, and I felt I regretted that I told him and he ended up calling the bank. And apparently the bank has cameras and all the damage so they could see who had done that withdrawal before me. And they could see, obviously see which bank account that was withdrawn from. So my father paid this person back. I refuse to. And. Yeah, it just brings up this story in mind of where I’m coming from and how my family was probably very was very fair, honest and righteous in many ways. And I wasn’t. And I’m not sure where that was. If I was as rebellious or didn’t see this growing up teenage years, I was not at all thinking about these things.

[00:10:11] So what you’re saying is that you did something that your father thought was wrong.

[00:10:15] He phrased that in a way that made you feel shame. And now you didn’t want to participate in.

[00:10:23] I’m not sure if I wanted to participate from the beginning either. I’m not sure if that story plays a big role in my charity perspective, but I think it’s interesting to look back and see, OK, if it’s so important to me to give now and to be fair now, and it really wasn’t when I was 18, or at least I didn’t see that in this situation. I felt like that someone who’s drunk enough to forget his money and A.T.M. in the middle of the night probably don’t need him. Which is not a very fair way of thinking. That’s where I was in my thoughts at the time. I’m not sure if that story plays a bigger role in my lifetime, but I think to see how it’s how it relates to if you are giving at this time and I don’t know how you would have dealt in a situation like this. But it’s yeah, it brings that store to mind for me.

[00:11:14] And I think it’s interesting as well even what kind of effect that guilt has on you. If I could imagine that could even have opposite effect.

[00:11:25] Yeah, that’s true. And I think a lot of marketing to our charity is is coming from that energy.

[00:11:32] Yeah, that’s actually true. So I probably was further away from wanting to give the money back afterwards than I was before.

[00:11:39] I think so. Yeah. And you feel bad about yourself from that state. People are less likely to do nice things. I think.

[00:11:48] Yeah. So elaborate on this, I’m a bit on that. What what do you mean when you say the marketing is is based on shame? How do you think this ties together?

[00:11:57] Ok, so. I see marketing done toward charity where it’s like. Take climate change, for example. A lot of the marketing that is done is stuff like. It’s all going to hell, the way you are living is egoistic, and thanks to that. Things are gonna get even worse. You should do something about it. And if people don’t think if people see marketing like that, they don’t feel a sense of hope and they don’t see a practical way for them to change. I think what’s natural to do is to look away and ignore the problem anymore more. So instead of maybe doing a little a little bit, they’re not doing anything.

[00:12:50] Yeah, that’s probably true. It’s just easier to close your eyes completely.

[00:12:55] Yeah. So, I mean, how do you how do you wish that your father had tried to do that that day?

[00:13:11] Well, at the time, I wished that he would just had said, well, congratulations and wouldn’t make a bigger fuss about it than that. That was Eric, 18 years old, that didn’t want to consider this more. Going back, if I could stand next to my father today and whisper in his ears.

[00:13:30] I would.

[00:13:32] I wanted him to take a neutral position in this and. Elaborate on why I felt that I deserved that money for finding them or getting to the core of that. Okay. So. Why is it that. Who do you think? Yeah, I would probably start there. Who do you thing forgot this money? And I would probably has had some drunk guy who was probably going to drink it all the way or gamble it away or whatever anyway.

[00:13:59] And maybe from there start to understand. Okay. But who does that and why do they do that? And kind of paint the picture. Who was this person getting me to even know the feeling of guilt that at least I feel them understanding? Who did I actually take this money from? What? What kind of person forgets that money? Regardless, anyone. Why would. Why do I deserve them more than the person who.

[00:14:27] Who forgot them and helped me to get up to that conclusion rather than anywhere else.

[00:14:35] And I think that’s key. So help you think instead of telling you what it’s right. Yeah. Costello is listening the same. Now, what if he would have taken an approach that would have been. OK. You’ve found this money. The universe gave it to you. If that is what you think.

[00:14:54] How. What can you do to give something back and then help you be creative in that way?

[00:15:01] Yeah. Never been an interesting way of doing it. Yeah. So maybe I felt that the person who forgot the money didn’t deserve the money in a sense. And the universe is better with me. But then I should do something good with him. I should not take him to the pole.

[00:15:13] Kentucky. Yeah. Or talk to you a little bit about effective charity. Right. If you take a little bit of that money, you get a lot of good.

[00:15:28] Yeah. Let’s get back on track a bit. So you were talking about teenage Jasmine. I’m donating money. What? What happened later on when you were shipped to charity cancer?

[00:15:39] I would tell you that I cannot say that. I’m glad you shared that story, because I think that’s a microcosm of what some things that I see failing in the casino industry, the charity industry. That’s shaming the shaming. Yeah. Yeah. See, that’s a big fail that charity is doing. And you can’t lump all Sharon into one. One thing. But I think if if you can overcome that, if we in great can overcome that feeling of shame, I think that’s one of the better things we can do in our communication when it comes to charity. Yeah. And that’s to me is one of the bigger reason why I want to improve my skills on this topic and improve my communication in this topic.

[00:16:31] Yeah. And think about why is this such a big part of the marketing done or things around it? It’s one of two things that I can see. First one being that that’s the first idea that pops into anyone’s head. It’s so easy to show planet Earth turning into fire and it’s traumatic or a child suffering from starvation. It’s very it’s still obvious thing. It’s either that or it’s actually the most efficient way, at least short term. That if you give someone enough guilt, they might donate money and then be able to look the other way. And that’s it becomes an efficient strategy short term. But I don’t think that anyone would come and look back because they came from. I would probably donate and then look away. I don’t think I’d like to see the results to do these kind of things. And I wouldn’t feel inspired to want to donate more because I want those eight that donation with a feeling of guilt rather than a feeling of accomplishment or I did something good or whatever.

[00:17:41] Yeah. So if if your dad forces you to give that money back to that drunk, you will do that on Sunday. You would never want to touch it again. But if you don’t torture people. Yeah. And if but if you were told, OK, how can we use this as an opportunity to see how you can be more generous in your life? Maybe that would have gotten you good emotions and you would have liked to do it again.

[00:18:03] Yeah. Interesting. I don’t remember what happened after I remembered my father giving the money back. I don’t think he ever he he never forced me to do that. And I don’t think I did. But I’m not sure the long time ago. But it’s a it’s an interesting anecdote and an ties into charity or at least doing the right thing.

[00:18:25] I think so. You’re asking me a question before.

[00:18:29] Yes. I always studied he started telling about the teenage years of charity and donating. And then we kind of we kind of took a sidetrack from there.

[00:18:38] That was a little bit of a sidetrack. Yes. I thought it was interesting. That’s what I wanted to say. Yeah. So I was donating small amounts to this different kind of mainstream charities. And my main problem with that must that I couldn’t see or touch or understand what was actually happening with the money. The one I liked the most was when we donated our family to one specific child.

[00:19:01] So we helped one person with reoccurring donations and we can see how she did in school, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:19:08] And that was actually the only time where I enjoyed that I could see what was happening with my money. And after that, when I was around 19, I started to make good money from poker. And I always remembered that I felt that I wanted to give some of this money back somehow because I realized I’m not doing anything good for anyone playing. But that feeling of, OK, I don’t know what’s going to happen with this money was too strong. So it’s. I guess I want to wait for a better opportunity.

[00:19:49] Can I stop you there for a second and just elaborate? Yeah. You think this is your rational mind giving yourself excuses afterwards? Or do you think this was actually the reason? You understand the question. What were you actually looking for reasons not to do this?

[00:20:09] I think it was.

[00:20:18] I think if an opportunity would have presented itself where I could get more involved and have a higher understanding of what I was getting to, I think I would have participated in.

[00:20:33] And I think it’s his just take going back to the A.T.M. story. My mind was just looking for arguments for not to give the money back. I wouldn’t do that. If I could come up with arguments for that, I would stick with him. And if I would find arguments for the opposite, I would probably sweep them under the rug as it is. So that’s just why I’m asking. If you honestly feel that that was the reason or if somewhere you actually wanted to keep them on it for yourself and then it made more sense to have those excuses.

[00:21:07] I think it was both. And I think a fun opportunity good enough would have presented itself where if I had more understanding, I think that feeling would have been stronger than the feeling of wanting to keep them honest for myself.

[00:21:23] When I was 24 25, an opportunity did present itself. And that was my high school buddy touched.

[00:21:32] He came to me and he had a project that he wanted to start because he had been. Studying in Ghana? Yeah.

[00:21:41] I’d been doing a project there and now he wants to start his own charity project where he would collect laptops and money from Swedish people and companies and then send them down to Ghana and do I.T. education for children and. Had a good feeling about this for many reasons first, I really trust and touched him. I knew he was a good guy. I knew that from the moment from from since I known him. I know that he’s really cared about other people. He’s very left politician and he really, really wanted to help. I know that this is a good guy. I can trust him and I’ll have an opportunity to see what my money is actually doing.

[00:22:33] So at that point, I felt all right. Now I want to participate. This is an opportunity to give back from poker. But I want to participate in.

[00:22:45] Yes. That’s interesting. So one thing is gonna ask for a country in Western Africa for anyone who didn’t know that. I didn’t know that a couple years ago. And one thing that it’s very interesting that you touch upon here, it sounds like trust. Let us get you really high. I really trusted him. Probably the biggest challenge for charities, and so it’s a very common answer that people say, gee, I don’t trust them, I don’t know where my money goes. And you were kind of saying the same thing about your team. If you don’t do that. So what what made you trust touched that you had a long relationship together or how do you pass it?

[00:23:31] I could trust. I could trust him and I could, I think, trust and understanding. So if I were to give that money. But I gave the costume to Doctors Without Borders. I have no idea what’s going on. I just have no emotional connection to it because it feels like the money’s going out in a black hole. Yeah, because it’s such a big organization. Yeah. And if I had done my research, I would have felt differently. You know, I think but not this is much more tangible. This is one person that I see that I can trust.

[00:24:06] Yeah. I can trust that he will do his best. Yeah, for sure. And he would give everything a fair trial. Yeah. So how did this project develop? It.

[00:24:24] But I was impressed by how it developed, so he managed to get everything going. He managed to get some sponsors. He managed to get laptops. He managed to get them down to Ghana. He managed to get a section of a school building in Boucher, a small village in south of south of Ghana, which here is it. Do I think this is 2015? Yes. He managed to get this project off, which is remarkable. It’s very challenging to get a project started and to get funding. I think I’m actually having an interview with him tomorrow, and I will let him tell the whole story of how we built this, because I think I’m impressed. I think a lot of young people have ideas. I want to bring this into the world to help. And I. How many people do you think succeeds?

[00:25:21] So if you do. Yeah, I imagine that is it. I don’t have the actual data on that, but I’ve heard a lot of times that nine out of 10 startup companies fail within the first year or something like that. Yeah, I can imagine that for sure. D That number is even higher because the drive behind is is different.

[00:25:45] And yes, you have to have funding from somewhere else. You don’t make money from it. So you have to really accomplish things. You have to get more people involved from the outside. It’s harder to get somewhere with with just hard work. And I can imagine that the the passion stops quite soon as well. So if you’re passionate about your startup company and the passion runs out, maybe you’re still committed because you are putting money in and want to do this and that. And I can imagine that if you’re passionate about charity project and it just doesn’t work. It’s much more likely that it’s a give up because there is never a financial upside. You probably don’t have the same commitment. That’s just. I don’t know that. But I would imagine that if the fail rate is 90 percent of startup companies, it’s probably at least 95 percent charities. And that’s where a wild guess.

[00:26:37] Yeah, I think that gas is spot on. I’m looking back at it. It was a very short investment, I think. Well, the only thing I wasn’t sure the investment was that I think believing in good people is a good thing, but it was a sure investment that turned out great.

[00:26:55] So I was lucky there and it was lucky for another reason. It got you, Ringwald. How did it happen?

[00:27:06] So the first thing I haven’t told you this either, to be honest. So you told me about this audit incision.

[00:27:13] I think you told me about it at that first dinner we had that we spoke about in previous EP is out and you spoke about Torsten and his project.

[00:27:23] And. That they needed money. And I think I donated fifteen hundred euros to that, and to be honest, I didn’t care that much about the organization. I just wanted to impress you.

[00:27:37] I have to automatic crush on year at the time. Oh, which leads to ruin them because I think that was I didn’t have the best charitable intentions if that was ever from from me for sure.

[00:27:53] And then it kept developing. And after the the IPO that we did with Katrina and I made more money than I will ever need in my life. I ended up in a situation where I wanted to get more, I wanted to find a purpose with things, I wanted to understand charity in a different way. And then this is now two thousand and sixteen. And then the children as an organization and group grow and they were building their own school building. So they needed about fifteen thousand dollars for this to complete it. And I decided to donate that money and I still didn’t have that much emotional connection to it. Now I think it is more for better reasons than to impress you. Yeah, we we went down there early 2016. You, me, you, me and Johanna. I found like to go to the celebration, the opening of that school building when it was finished. And I still don’t have much relationship to charity at this time. And I came down there and had no idea what to expect. This village Bissau in Ghana. And I remember coming to the schoolyard and I saw these on the left. On the right hand side, there were three buildings and they were worn out, grey concrete, steel bars through the window and look like prisons. And on the left, there was a splash of colors. It was yellow, green, red. And it just looked so, so playful and fun. And that was our school building. And this school building touched down. And these guys had a built and it felt so cool to see just that very big contrast between what is used be what the school for these kids usually are. And then this.

[00:29:52] And I remember the strongest part about that because after this school day in the evening and Thorsten told me about that, the other teachers were allowed to use our school building whenever they wanted. But it wasn’t one condition. It was in our school building. You never hit the kids. And that one struck me hard. Just think about that for a second and like. How would it feel to be a kid going to school and knowing that you would get hit? What will that do to your eagerness to learn our relationship to grown ups? To life. Jeff Authority. To me, that that became very strong and I felt like a case in our school building on a scolding that and the guys had built. The kids were safe and they had fun. They were there. They wanted to learn. And there was this splash of colors.

[00:31:05] And we then feel like, wow, I want to help. I want to contribute. I want to make the world a safe place where kids or grown ups, for that matter, don’t have to worry about these things.

[00:31:19] And with that feeling.

[00:31:23] My perspective to charity changed a lot. I felt like, OK, I want to do this because it inspires me, because I want to help, because I want to see this changed in the world. And not because I want to rid myself of guilt.

[00:31:38] So I think that came from seeing the change to touch down on his his team had created.

[00:31:46] And.

[00:31:49] Yeah, I think the first donation might have come from guilt as well, that I wanted to do something different because I wanted to feel a certain way would get rid of some emotions. But this was the first time I felt like, wow, this changed, this can happen.

[00:32:02] I remember a moment when at the opening ceremony, because you described this emotional hour, you realize that children do get hit and how awful that is. And then that thanks to destination, there will be a change. And you understand that like buried deep.

[00:32:25] And I could also see after the opening ceremony, maybe one hour in there, this whole classroom was full of kids that play computer games running around, being kids. And you were standing there looking around. I looked at me with like a sparkling.

[00:32:38] You said this feels really, really good. And I think that that time was, I guess, your strongest positive experience to charity.

[00:32:53] Yes, I think definitely. And I believe it’s still it’s what you said before, it is so hard. If you don’t money to these big organizations, you know, it’s so hard to get an understanding. So it’s hard to get emotional connection. I think the biggest emotional connection you get is less money in your bank account. But here I I could just step in to the effects of this and I could just see it in front of my eyes and I could touch it, smell it. I could I couldn’t really taste it. But you get it. Yes. These. The chaos of kids playing around because this was after the class was ended and they were allowed to stay there and play around and have fun being that it. It gave a total understanding of what’s actually going on. Which is one of the trickiest things about charity accomplished.

[00:33:48] I think that is one of the trickiest things. And.

[00:33:54] Let’s switch gears a little bit here and talk about, because since then, you and I, we have done a lot of. A lot of research on how we can give money away as effectively as possible, and luckily we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

[00:34:09] There are huge organizations out there with a lot of very nerdy people doing a lot of analysis and looking at data on how can you help out as effective, effective as possible. And I think they’re doing a great job. I think the challenge is that all of that job is very heady. It’s very logical and.

[00:34:32] There is no there isn’t that emotional connection that comes from you sitting down on a computer and teaching a kid excel. Which is very real and tangible. So.

[00:34:47] When giving. How do you think how important do you think giving from the hand and giving from the heart is?

[00:34:57] We can take this in to to the mistakes that we have made and how we’ve seen this, and in some ways I would argue that the donations started for children was a mistake. Oh, yeah.

[00:35:10] I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

[00:35:13] I mean, in some ways we could argue that in some ways it was brilliant and amazing because of the effects in other areas. Let’s get back to that. So when I first got into charity with this story and some others, I did maybe five different donations like this. I donated only with my heart, like this is what feels good. This is what I can see. This is what I can understand. So the kind of key things that we would. This is what I trust as well. That was a big part of those. And I donated money to talk to four children and I donated money to this organization working as trafficking in India.

[00:35:53] And I donated quite a lot of money to this organization in India. And it was I’ve heard all of these horror stories about this, and I really wanted to help. What they did was that they saved these these girls that was being locked up. And to save those girls or to donate to this organization. And in one way could be seen as a mistake. Not because the recession wasn’t brilliant, it’s amazing you’re doing a very good cause. But. Because it’s very hard to see what’s actually impacted. So if we made it into this organization, managed to save 10 girls or a hundred girls.

[00:36:38] But didn’t do anything about the demand of the people actually wanted to pay for this or the people who wanted to kidnap these people or buy them and lock them up. There might be, and I’m not sure it’s saying that this is the case, but there might be that the only effect was that they kidnapped someone else or bought someone else and locked them up. So the pain that were were inflicted on the first people being locked up might just have shifted to some someone else. So that total effect might be zero. Might even be minus of that donation. And there there’s no way for me to know that. Still, it felt very good during this donation. It felt like a very important cause to give to. So it was a very hearty decision came from my heart. And looking back at this with a very logical approach, knowing that there might not have made any difference whatsoever. And if it was, it’s impossible to measure or track it is. And I felt very deeply about this when I realized. OK, this might have been money wasted in a sense, the total effect of this might not have been positive at all.

[00:37:49] So that’s when I got into this research that you were just referring to and looking at this from a. From a grain perspective. So that became another way of doing mistakes in the sense that we did this research together, you and I, and what we learned was, amongst others, that giving mosquito nets against malaria in malaria areas is one of the most efficient ways of helping. And some other as a vitamin A pills and D worming medicines, all of these things are very trackable. You can understand the difference. You can mathematically calculate on it. And well, if you take GID de worming medicine to one kid, it’s not like another is kind of getting tested for drugs because of that, which might have been the case in the trafficking story. So for a while, all the donations that we did went to those kind of causes. But we felt nothing. So we lost this engagement. I lost the passion of doing these kinds of things. I lost understanding of what it actually happened. So I ended up in a situation where that became a mistake.

[00:38:55] So. All right. So you’re giving. Let’s say you’re donating. You’re giving away mosquito nets that you truly believe will make a huge difference for a lot of people. What is it that you think the magic lose emotional connection so that you can see it? You can’t really understand it. What you think?

[00:39:18] I think there’s several of several things. So if we just paint two pictures in our head, you know, the first one is a child being locked up, can’t even stand up because it’s such a small cell that they’re in. And there is a grown man coming in there. We’ll just leave it at that and the other is a family and they have a mosquito flying around. Just seeing those two pictures. Who do you want to help? It’s very, very easy choice. And that picture gives an emotional connection to those kind of stories. So.

[00:40:05] Since the only thing that happened, only thing is that the family in the first in the first scenario was save a child from hell on Earth. In the second scenario, you will give someone a mosquito net. That might make a difference in mathematically, that will make a lot of difference. But the brain can’t really understand the heart content standard. That is my heart cannot understand that.

[00:40:31] So I think that it’s.

[00:40:33] We’re giving to something that had less vivid images, it makes it harder to grasp. Let’s make it harder to talk about. If I’m talking to someone about how passionately I want to save these kids from rapists, then everyone’s gonna be very connected to that. And yeah, I have a strong social bond with someone about this and probably I’m going to have a strong social status from caring about these things.

[00:40:58] I mean, just when you tell that story about a girl that can stand up, it’s almost impossible not to listen to you. Yeah, but when you when we talk about numbers, it’s easy to say no. It’s it’s hard to understand.

[00:41:13] Yeah. So and this is me being a very mathematically and logical driven person. And I still can’t make that connection strong enough to feel engaged. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, I donated money to these organizations to Against Malaria Foundation, which is known to be one of the most efficient organizations to give money to if you want to make a difference in terms of numbers of lives you save. The dollar is a great organization and I remember donating money to them and telling my mother about this. And she didn’t give me much credit about it. And I remember feel like she should have given me she should have cared more. This kind of feeling within me. And I sat with that feeling for a while. And after a while I realized it’s not her job to give me credit for this. I’m not even giving myself credit for this. I can’t relate to this enough to say to myself on the shoulder. Good job, Eric, because I didn’t even care enough. That was the hard part about this. So I called ask someone else if I don’t even care for the publisher, which came. How do I care?

[00:42:26] And how do you increase your care with scale to so if you give one hundred thousand dollars or a million dollars to mosquito nets to a problem that is so big that you probably it’s not going to get sold regardless of how much you donate. Like the difference in your mind in your experience between those two donations, it’s going to feel pretty much the same as it even though one is ten times bigger.

[00:42:52] Yeah, I don’t think I wouldn’t feel at all different, to be honest. Yeah, I wouldn’t change anything. I think it would.

[00:43:00] I think it would turn negative because I see so little of the fact that I understand so little of the fact that I would see more of the downside in my bank account. So I would emotionally get a worse relationship towards that donation.

[00:43:16] And it makes no sense. But that’s the emotional part of this.

[00:43:21] Yeah. And this is the tricky part, because it’s difficult for you because you never experienced malaria. You have never seen anyone probably that have experienced malaria, and you don’t know anyone that have intestinal worms in their stomach. And no one here in the West where a lot of the money is, has any relationship to these courses. So we don’t give because we don’t understand it. And one key thing we have realized is that the more neglected that means, the less attention a problem has gotten. The more likely you are to be able to do good there. So this is kind of a paradox that we are in and especially with great because we benefit from getting PR, from getting links, from getting attention when we donate. So we want that attention. But the causes that are the most effective to give to are the ones where we get the least attention. So that’s a paradox for us.

[00:44:22] Yeah, definitely. You know, the logic there is that the the harder it is for us to relate to it, the less likely it is to appear in the media, basically, because the least people care about it. People, if you can’t relate to it, it’s all harder to do care. In a sense, yes. As you’re saying, I have no connection to malaria whatsoever. I have a friend who had it once and for him it was just a big fever because he was not a grown up. Pretty much everyone dies from malaria is less than five years old. So, yeah, this is this is one of the challenges with this. And one of the main challenges with us. So to connect to what you said about our benefits from this. Is that we want to be able to donate as much money as possible, and that means that we need to generate as much money as possible in profits. And if we can get publicity and we can get business relationships thanks to us showing organizations that will make the total donations bigger.

[00:45:23] So we benefit from in the future at the moment. We don’t really benefit from it, but in the future we will benefit from getting publicity from those kinds of donations that we’re intending to do it. So it’s yeah, it’s definitely a paradox that we want to make the biggest possible difference. And at the same time, we want to donate to places where we get the much, most and most publicity.

[00:45:50] So PR is this ties into something that we touched upon earlier. Like what is it that we don’t know about this? And this is one of the things we don’t know which way to go here, how to combine these things.

[00:46:05] How do we donate in a smart way where it benefits the business so that we can donate more in the future?

[00:46:15] Because if we donate money now and it doesn’t benefit the business, that means that we will be able to donate less in the future because we missed out on that opportunity.

[00:46:26] Yeah, so one of the things that that is a challenge to us right now is to find. The most interesting kind of stories you can say the word interesting from a publicity perspective that is still very, very efficient from a from a charity perspective, that they make a big difference. And that is how it’s tangible.

[00:46:52] I had a question. OK. So you said that great bone take donations. Why is that?

[00:47:01] So we would love to guide organizations of how to donate. Similar to what the founders pledged are doing and talk about these things. And I believe that if we were to take on donations and have some people or companies donating to us, it would be very hard for us to give an unbiased recommendation. It’s it’s so much strong to say if I say donate to e-mail. He is the best person out there. I donate to him. I trust him with my money. And that has a certain strength to it, and it’s a far bigger recommendation than if I say you should give the money to me. I’m the best person for the job.

[00:47:41] I can help you with it.

[00:47:43] So we if we were to take on donations, we would lose that possibility. And we want to donate very openly because we want to inspire others to donate. So if we donate the founders pledge now, for example, I’d like us to talk a lot about that. I’d like to share this in whatever way possible because I want to inspire others to do similar things.

[00:48:06] Amen to that. We’re running up towards the end of this episode because I would have loved to explore the benefits of donating publicly. I think that’s a great idea to get out there. So let’s say that one for the next charity episode.

[00:48:20] I mean, we have materials to talk about this for hours and hours. It’s some very complex topic. The art here, I think, is to make it simple. So if you.

[00:48:33] We’re now to talk to someone listening to this. They are kind of where you and me were as teenagers. They haven’t thought much about charity. They don’t know what’s out there. How can someone get started to get a better understanding of how can I contribute in a way that is the fans good. But it’s also efficient.

[00:48:56] I think what you touched upon early on with with your own personal story from your child when you were giving to one child all the time. Yeah, I think that that’s a great place of starting. It’s probably not the most efficient way of giving, but it will give you it will give the person who’s donating an understanding of what’s happening and how this change can actually see. And I think to get started with charity, if you don’t know anything, if you haven’t donated before. I think that the heart connection is much, much more important than the brain. The brain can come later on because the first five or 50 dollars that you were talking about as a teenager is not going to make the biggest difference for the bigger perspective anyway. So the best thing that is for you to get the person who donates get a bigger connection to donating so they will learn more in the future, make bigger and better decisions where the brain is more involved. I would start with with giving to one child. There are tons of organizations that can help you with that. And I would give to give directly which is directed up or I think is the domain name where they set this up for you. Quite simple. You can see in some ways how you give to one person and they will choose people that are suffering from extreme poverty that have nothing. So that’s where the money will make the biggest difference. The least the people you give to believe the least they have, the less they have, the bigger the impact will be.

[00:50:30] Cool. So you’re saying if you’re just getting into charity, the most important thing is to start doing it. Start feeling good about it and to somehow be able to see the difference that it’s made.

[00:50:42] And was one way to do that could be an organization like give directly where you can donate to one person and you can see the effect. Yes.

[00:50:50] Now, if someone has already has already gotten going a little bit, has gotten this heart connection, but now they want to make sure that the money is doing as much good as possible. Where could someone get started to become more efficient in their giving? If that is what they care about.

[00:51:07] I would start by visiting. Give wealth, which is also good. Well, dot org, I think maybe give well, dot com, which is this organization that is probably the most renowned one when it comes to comparing organizations and telling you about how these add up. Today they have a top list of these are the ten most efficient organizations according to their parameters, and they are very focused on statistics and data on things that can be proven. These kind of things, which is a very good first step into understanding these things. And there are an author, a professor called William MacAskill that has done a lot of research and is a big part of this. He’s also written the book Doing Good Better, which is very well to a very well spent time reading. And he’s been on the Joe Rogan podcast and the Ted Ferriss podcast, and he’s done a TED talk so well. MacAskill Is it good to donate to get a first understanding about what a good person can do research, to get a first understanding about how to donate? And I would start with a TED talk that’s 20 minutes. An easy way to get the first understanding.

[00:52:19] That’s a good start. I also like the book and I’ve recommended it to some friends that I have almost no knowledge of charity and they really liked it and said, Ah, I think this guy, it’s logical. I can understand this. It’s good storytelling in the book.

[00:52:34] Yeah, I think the book is great as well. I would start with whatever is the easiest. So if you’re a person that prefer reading. Start with a book. If you’re not, start with a podcast or the TED talk and see if that gets the not nothing Gage adopted up to read a book.

[00:52:48] All right. So we are closing in towards the end. Any final thoughts before? Yes. Hi. And a final thoughts before. Before we wrap this up.

[00:52:58] I’d like you to wrap this up. I’ve wrapped up a lot of calls. I’d like to hear your final thoughts.

[00:53:02] All right, then I have a question. When was the last time you did some really random act of kindness or can you come up with one right now?

[00:53:10] Did you would do some trying to smash the ball back to you and your smashing it back to me. So I’m going to ask you, when was the last time heard an act of kindness? And you can go out with a bang.

[00:53:22] You should smash. I’m sick, I’m seeing a girl and she heard Jaws replenishing. She had problems with her jaws. And I thought the doctor, Dr. Emile, knows what’s on the back. She needs money to support her son.

[00:53:43] My niece, him and I bought her a lottery ticket because she won the lottery one year ago and has been bragging about it and the money.

[00:53:51] So sold her to your pain. And she won a hundred dollars on that lottery ticket and bought a cat for that money. So balance kind of like touchstones. I did. They cut him in. She should have done it. She should definitely have done that. All right. So that was like the donation to touch their charity. Sometimes we do nice things. You become really lucky.

[00:54:15] I have got something I have recently started doing. Probably going back to how my my father was behaving. So when when I was a kid, whenever we went to the beach. My father started cleaning the beach, taking up other people’s garbage and throwing it away. And I felt shame of him doing that. I felt that people see you don’t do that. And. Now, I realize that I do that quite frequently and now lately I’ve actually put it into a system.

[00:54:51] I go for garbage picking walks and.

[00:54:55] I’ve done this now quite a few times and I realize it puts me in in a good mood. So some things that that changes my mood as well, exercising or walking at fresh air music and doing things for other people as well as doing things where I can easily see the result of it. So I walk along the beach. I pick up all the garbage I see. I listen to music. I get some exercise. I get some fresh air. I kind of dance around a little bit. Then I can easily see like, hey, I made this difference for someone else. So it works very well to just do it like that. It’s my teeny tiny charity garbage. More thing.

[00:55:41] I can highly recommended it for anyone who is in a shitty mood. Go out to pick up some garbage. That sounds like some.

[00:55:47] And if you want to have it even more fun, if you see someone drop a piece of of paint or something, pick it up, run over to them and say, hey, man, you dropped your thing here and see the stuff from here. It’s just like the Bible. All right. Let’s wrap this up. Nice talking shirt. Thank you. Have a lovely day. Ciao. Now.