Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Hello.
I came here with a ready-prepared speech
which you're not getting.
(Laughter)
I had conversations earlier this morning,
and it triggered and inspired me.
And it's inspiring me, what I'm hearing here,
to actually share with you something completely different instead.
And that something is an idea that's taking growth in me,
and it's something that I dare to talk about with you today.
It's a thought that came to me
when I actually spent my birthday last year,
July the 4th,
in a forest not unlike this one.
Only unlike today,
because, of course, it was in England, it was in the New Forest,
it was belting down with rain.
(Laughter)
But I did take off my boots,
and I took off my shoes,
and I walked and I walked.
And it was the first time,
and in fact, really, I think it was the only time last year,
that I really gave myself time alone
to just be with nature.
I'd been taking bits of time out, but I'd always be writing.
There's another book to be written.
There was work to be done and emails to catch up on.
There were things to think through.
But those two days that I spent down in the New Forest just walking
and absolutely nobody else out there -
because it was, of course, belting down with rain -
allowed me to just be completely at one with nature,
and it was a beautiful experience.
And actually, I came back to my team and said,
'I've got to do this so much more!
Because every time I do this,
something truly remarkable happens.'
And when I was there -
and Ella mentioned this earlier in her talk -
I challenged myself with questions.
I asked the question:
What shall I do next
once my job is done in bringing Earth law into being?
What shall I do next
after I have brought forth the proposal for a law of ecocide?
What next?
And as I walked and emptied my head, really,
and just savoured the aroma of the land
and its beautiful fecundity that you see
when everything is just moist and damp and dripping and -
There's a specialness to a forest that's really ripe with life.
And a thought came to me,
and it was 'Dare to be great.'
Now, that thought really did take my breath away.
How to be great,
and how to be great from a space
that really is about being the best I can be
with the skills that I have,
in service to something greater than myself?
And the challenge is, of course, to answer to that.
And I came back and I thought, 'Gosh, this is wonderful',
and I kind of voiced it at another talk that I gave,
kindly hosted by Satish Kumar at his resurgence camp.
But I parked it, I put it away again.
I thought, 'I'm to busy anyway.
I have so much work here to do.
I have a law of ecocide to bring into being,
this needs to be taken into the United Nations,
we need to engage UNEP and other related organizations -
there's so much to do.
And it wasn't until this Christmas,
when I'd given my team and myself extra time off.
We actually stopped on the 14th of December,
and I took three weeks out and I slept an awful lot.
(Laughter)
But I went back to this idea:
How to dare to be great? What does that really mean for me?
And how do I, in doing that,
empower and enable others to dare to be great?
Because maybe that's what it's about.
Maybe it's not about me at all.
Maybe it's about you
and you
and you.
Maybe it's about all of us daring to be great,
finding within ourselves that space
that answers to a greater need that's out there
and allows us to do our part,
and allows us to understand how we can move forward
and learn how to co-create this new world
that we're all engaging on
and taking forward here today.
Now, I believe that today, something truly remarkable is happening.
There is a magic in the air; I feel it.
I hear it from everyone that's here.
I feel it underneath my feet.
How wonderful to be able to walk on moss on a stage.
That's truly inspired - thank you - and I love it.
But also that sense of, How do we move from a state of dependency?
Satish talked about this,
that actually, to be an employee is a dependency situation;
it shuts down creativity.
I've just announced to my team that they will no longer be employees.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Well, thank you.
Well, actually, they support me in the decision.
It was a challenge, but we are -
We've decided to move into an independent state,
and then, from dependency moving to independency,
How do we move to interdependency?
Because it's rather like a child
growing to a teenager, growing into adulthood.
A child, of course, when a baby is born,
is utterly dependent on its primary carer,
to give that energy, that oxygen, that food
so that life can be nourished.
But then we get to that stage of teenagers,
and we want to do our own thing and be independent,
we want to stand up, do our own thing.
But it's only then,
once we begin to understand that actually all of life is interconnected
and interdependent, interrelational,
and when we really step into that space,
I think we have the opportunity
to do something and be something truly great.
And I'm challenging myself to do that.
Because what I did was
I learned how to become independent.
I set up a team around me.
And I've empowered - and I hope inspired -
a whole new generation of lawyers out there,
thousands of law students, of lawyers that are already existing
who are now looking at how we co-create a new world of law
that's based on peace, not conflict,
that's based on - dare I say it? -
love, not fear,
that comes from a very different place.
And what I see around me
is that we're having to learn a new language,
a new way of being, a new way of engaging
without judgement, without blame.
One of the most remarkable people I know
who actually is succeeding in doing this in his community
is Mac, Tim 'Mac' Macartney, who you also just heard of today as well.
So, you are part of my journey,
and I wish to learn from you
as to how I take myself into that next space,
where I move away from independence
into interdependency.
That is me challenging myself to be truly great.
Our world at the moment has actually tipped.
I think we are tipping.
We're in that transitional period of tipping
from a state of independence to interdependency.
So just like a child, just like a teenager
that has been trashing their bedroom without looking to the consequences,
so, too, we have been trashing the planet and not looking to the consequences.
But now we're waking up to this,
and we recognize that it's about taking responsibility.
It's about standing up and giving voice on behalf of the Earth.
And when we do that,
then something fundamentally shifts inside of us,
our values shift, without a doubt,
about how we engage with each other,
how we actually bring these ideas forth, these conversations forth,
how communities engage and connect with businesses,
especially businesses that we don't agree with
or feel that they're causing damage and destruction.
How do we do that from a place of peace instead of anger?
That is our challenge.
How do we co-create that world where, really, it is a place of peace?
Because a peace, of course, is a very active, dynamic place to be.
And it's a very creative place to be.
It's my challenge, and I dare myself to be great.
That doesn't necessarily mean standing up on a platform and talking.
Sometimes it is in the smallest of things that remain unobserved;
sometimes it's about how I engage with myself;
sometimes it's about facing my shadow self
and asking those questions that I maybe don't want to ask.
But I ask all of you to help me in that journey,
and I ask each and everyone of you to dare to be great too.
Thank you.