If you could teach the whole world one thing, what would it be? I asked Twitter and read out every answer. Not one person said maths.
To fish. Be kind. Communication. Gratitude, which took a surprisingly long time to come up. Your ego is not your amigo. And my favourite, crochet, because it is relaxing, therapeutic and you end up with a blanket. I read out some genuinely good news first as well, because the world is not only going downhill, whatever it feels like.
One thing to try: Answer it yourself. One thing, for everybody. See what actually comes out.
In this episode
(0:04) Doing something a bit different this week
(1:28) The world is not only going downhill, and here is the proof
(3:17) Hydrogen planes, and a fifty seater on the way
(5:46) The Twitter question, and the answers starting to come in
(7:19) To fish, and why we need all sorts of teachers
(10:39) Your ego is not your amigo
(13:01) Be kind, do not be an idiot, and crochet
(15:56) Not one answer was a school subject
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
If you could teach the whole world one thing, what would it be?
I put that to my followers on Twitter without any plan to make an episode of it, got about sixty answers, and read out every single one.
The heart of it
Nobody said maths. Nobody said English. Sixty answers and not one school subject.
Almost everything people chose lives in the heart rather than the head.
The best answer of the lot was a word I had never heard before.
The obvious ones came in waves. Love, from a good dozen people. Kindness, from as many again. Confidence. Forgiveness. Trusting your instincts. Manners, which my parents said cost you nothing and are still saying to me now.
Then the practical ones, which I liked more than I expected. To fish. Guitar. Swimming. Graphic design. How to negotiate. Golf cart battery maintenance, which came from somebody who sells golf cart batteries, and fair enough. The world needs all its skills or there is a hole where one used to be.
Some I keep thinking about. Talk to your body in a grateful and encouraging way. Make your identity your strength. Your ego is not your amigo. The value of your own time, which is one I recognise in myself and do badly at.
Gratitude took nearly the whole list to come up, which surprised me.
My favourite for sheer honesty was crochet, because it is oddly relaxing, therapeutic, and you end up with a blanket.
And then the one that stopped me. Sonder.
The realisation that each random passer by is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
That is the whole spiritual journey in one word.
I also read out some genuinely good news at the start, from Positive News, because the world is not only ever going downhill whatever it feels like. Beavers back in Wales after four hundred years. A Scottish community buying five thousand acres to turn into a nature reserve.
One small thing to try
Answer it yourself. One thing, for everybody. See what actually comes out.
Then notice which department it came from. Almost nobody reaches for the things we spent eleven years being taught. Useful as those are, we do not live from there.
Questions people ask
Why does it matter what people picked?
Because the pattern is the finding. Sixty people, no coordination, and almost all of it about how to treat yourself and each other. That tells you what we all know we are short of.
What is sonder?
The realisation that every stranger you pass has a life as full and complicated as yours. It is not an old word, and it does more work than most old ones.
What would you teach?
Take a deep breath, slow down, and stop talking. Then live from the heart rather than the head. I am aware of the irony of saying that at the end of eighteen minutes of talking.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
love · compassion · values
Read the transcript
Hey, how's it going this week? I'm Steven Webb and this is Stillness in the Storms podcast. And this week
I'm going to do something a little different. And if you guys like it, I think I'll do it more
often.
But before we get on to that, today's show is what one thing would you teach the world? I put
out to my Twitter followers this question and I got about 60 responses. And some of them were really fascinated.
Some of them were... Very much what I would say. Very much the things I would like to teach the
world. And some of them were just a little different. And I love them. They're so they're so honest and
so awesome that I I just wanted to do a podcast sharing them with you guys. And I want you
to think about while I go through the list a little later in the podcast, what you would teach the
world. But before that, I said I wanted to do something a little bit different. And I'm going to tell
you some positive news stories this week. And I found a website. And they don't sponsor this podcast in any
way. They don't even know I regularly go to their website. It's called Positive.news. I think most weeks they
do an article that basically the positive news this week. I just wanted to go through a couple of them.
And I just think it's a really nice thing to do. As well as a nice thing, it's like nice
to have news that picks us up. Very often we think the world's dire and it's always going downhill and
it's always getting worse. And that's just not the case actually. There's many things that are happening in the world
that are positive and pushing the world in the right direction and We don't focus on that enough. So
I'm going to. And the first one is Netflix committed to a net zero emissions. So Netflix, you no longer
have to feel guilty about binge watching Netflix because as from next year, 2022, and I like this because it's
ambitious. So from next year, they're going to be net zero. So they're going to offset some carbon and they're
going to make sure they move to all electric vehicles, Led lighting they're going to Cut international travel. They're going
to employ people locally and all that. So they're going to do all sorts. So that's what that's the first
good positive news story. The next one is a little closer to home for me. Beavers were reintroduced in wells
After 400 years, they were wiped out across most of the Uk. In actual fact if not all of the
Uk, I think. I might need to check on that one. But an adult male and his offspring has been
released into the cause die feed National Reserve in Powers this week. So that's good. You know, we need beavers
that They are the natural keepers of the waterways. And they build up habitats and everything like that. And they
prevent flooding. And just driving them out of the waterways like we have really doesn't help. And I'm in a
city that suffers from flooding and I think we've introduced beavers just outside of Truro I might be
wrong on that, but I think we have down at daubers somewhere But anyway um I digress. Another good news.
Hydrogen planes were scheduled for takeoff. So a startup company, Zero Avia, a
us uk aviation company, claimed it's ambitious for a 50 seat hydrogen plane to be
propelled towards, they've just received 24.3 million dollars funding that is going to help them to
deliver by 2026. So a plane that isn't putting any
more chemicals in the atmosphere. How awesome is that? I don't understand why we don't have more hydrogen cars and
hydrogen and everything.
So you might wonder, what has this got to do with stillness in the storms? Isn't this exactly what stillness
in the storms is? There'll be a good news in the middle of the storm. Google Maps is to show
eco-friendly routes from now on. In America, especially at the moment, I think it's going to come out to the
rest of the world. When you put in a journey in your car and all that, it's going to show
the most eco-friendly way of getting there, avoiding hills, avoiding things like that. There are more than 900 blue
plaques on buildings across London, but pitiful few, just 14 are dedicated to women in a bid to... Even this
out. English Heritage has been calling on public to nominate female candidates. And it was announced
that Princess Diana, Ellen Craft are among the women to be remembered. Diana would have celebrated her 60th birthday
this year.
It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. Anyway.
And finally, conservationists achieved the impossible in Scotland. A community in Scotland has completed
one of the country's largest ever grassroots land buyout and is now turning the estate into a nature reserve.
They basically fundraised 3.8 million pounds to buy 5 200 acres of land.
How cool is that? And they're gonna make it into a nature reserve. We need more of that, don't we?
We need more of our land looking after. So that's the positive news and you can head over to positive.news.
It's a great website and it's so much better to sit and listen to that or sit and read that
while I'm eating my lunch as opposed to go to the other news stories that tend to be quite negative.
So yeah, on to today's podcast. Okay, I've got a list and I haven't got this in any particular order.
I was going through them and I just really enjoyed. Reading the results. And I didn't know that I was
going to do a podcast when I put it out there. I just basically asked a question. If you had
to teach someone one thing, what would you teach? And
I was quite overwhelmed by the amount of response, actually. I was quite blown away. So I'm going to go
through a few of the names and I will go through a few of the results and give you my
thoughts. And I'll give you my thoughts at the end. It was quite interesting, actually, some of them. So the
first one, Lynn lassad Talk to your body in grateful and encouraging way. Oh yes, we don't do that often
enough, do we? We all need to look at ourselves sometimes and go, do you know what? This is the
body I've got and I should love it and appreciate it a little more. And there's a rizuka
Yuka says, help people who are in need in any way we can, no matter who you are,
who they are. Yeah, I like that. And help them no matter who they are. I think that's the key
there. And
then quite a few people said love or love in some way, loving ourselves or love is everything. Nancy, Jennifer,
Mama Martin, Suzanne, Dawn, Cola, Zara.
And a few other people said about confidence as well. Josephine was one of them. Building up confidence and teaching
confidence. And I think that would make a big impact on the world. If only my life were that simple.
I suppose to fish. Philly Cheese Eagle says to fish. I like that. You know, teach
the world something. I would teach the world to fish we need all sorts of different people to teach all
sorts of different things, don't we? It's no good everybody teaching one thing because there's going to be a huge
void in skills. And a few, Lorraine and Caroline Babs Charlotte and Catherine
all said a similar thing to to be kind. To
be kind to one another. Kindness in some way. And absolutely. Yvette says to love ourselves. Yes. Understand his
or her feelings. This is important jose says to understand other people's feelings. And our own, of course.
And a few people mentioned about God. Teach people about God and religion. And not that I would be a
big advocate of religion, but I think everything needs to be included in some way. Mark says a golf cart
battery maintenance, of course I I think his account is, that's exactly what they do. Sell batteries for golf carts.
But yeah, absolutely we need golf cart battery maintenance. Of course. Who doesn't need that in a world going
forward?
A few people also mention forgiveness. It's necessary for inner peace. And there's no peace without forgiveness. And
trusting our instincts. Tedra, Maggie, Brian all mention that in some way. Dark Side Johnny.
Dark Side Johnny. He says, Guitar. Teach people guitar. Yes. What would the world be
without guitar players? It would be a lot dollar that's for sure. Smiley Rose says, Yesterday is not ours to
recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose. That's a quote by Lyndon B. Johnson. Yes, absolutely.
And a few other people said about truth. To be true to oneself. And the art had been honest paul
paulette strofa Martin The art had been honest. Tony mayor says manners.
Yeah, that's my parents used to say all the time. Manners, dear boy, cost you nothing. I think I've still
got my parents to say that to me now, actually. Where's the please? Where's the thank you? Melanie says, finding
the capacity, the depth of understanding and sharing compassionate love. Yes, I love that. Definitely.
Make your identity your strength. Shafiq says, yeah, make your identity your strength. I
cannot pronounce this guy's name or this person's name. My son, the power of being selfless. I like that. The
power of being selfless. Selfless. So make it about other people
jesson says swimming.
Swimming. I like that. How to negotiate, Gary says. The value of one's time.
Yeah. We don't value our time enough, do we?
We spend time just wasting time doing stuff. Procrastinating, avoiding life. We just don't value our
time enough. I I really do. Yeah. I resonate with that one. Graphic Design. Yeah, we need that, Ezra.
The Ego is Not Your Amigo.
Your Ego is Not Your Amigo. I like that true jello I I don't know the first his first name
or their first name. Positive One says Empathy.
Amicable Comedian says Forex Trading. Yeah, we need that.
I don't know if we need it, but yeah, it would be handy someone that in Forex Trading. The Unusual
Buddha says meditation. Oh, I'm in agreement there. I think meditation would lead to many of these other things.
Meditation leads to loving ourselves, loving others, empathy for others, growing strength, being selfless. Meditation teaches many of these
things. Perhaps not guitar or battery maintenance, but it certainly grows. It certainly will
grow wisdom in many other areas. Baby Bear and Dg dg Edai says love yourself. And shabu
says self-respect arpin says and this is the first time gratitude's come up, which is quite interesting. We've only got
about 10 to go, and it's quite interesting that gratitude took so long to come up arpin beg date says
a sense of gratitude. Yes. Monica, to fight for freedom. Yeah,
we need that. If you didn't have anybody fighting for freedom, we would all get... We would lose our freedoms,
I guess. Life in Colorado says to simply always be polite. Comes back to the manners though and simply always
be polite. Yes. If you haven't got nothing good to say, don't say anything at all. And it comes down
to the kindness again. It's Just Me says common sense. Difficult one that because common sense is relative.
And one person's common sense is not another person's common sense based on your experience in life. But I know
where they're going for I know where they're going. I apologize now. This one's got a swear word. Judy Jewell
says, don't fuck up other people's spirit. Yay all. I'm probably not saying that in the right accent.
Be kind. That's it. Don't fuck up other people's spirit. You all. Be kind. That's it. Oh,
I agree. Yes.
Don't be an asshole. Ashley.
Crochet. It's oddly relaxing, therapeutic and you can make sick blankets. That
has to be my favourite and I love the way she's put it and my carer would say the same
thing because if you ever see my video sometimes I'm wearing these awesome colored hats and one of my carers
knits me them. I don't know if it's crochet or knitting. I have no idea but And Ashley says, crochet.
It's oddly relaxing, therapeutic, and you can make sick blankets. How cool is that?
