How to Harness the Evolution of Storytelling to Grow Your Mission - Jon Budington

11:41AM May 22, 2023

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Jon Budington

Keywords:

story

mythos

talk

world

people

john

donors

language

gift

today

printing

optimism

find

organization

give

human

storytelling

feel

community

idea

Hey, I'm John.

And I'm Becky.

And this is the We Are For Good podcast.

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an Impact Uprising.

So welcome to the good community. We are nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

So let's get started. Becky, the day is here, are you so pumped?

It's been like nine months in the making. But we finally have John Budington on the podcast. Can I tone set a little because, you know, part of the joy of this podcast is talking about how we find people in our community. So I want to take you back to September of 2022. We're at the Association of donor relations professionals conference, ADRP, shout out to our donor relations, friends, oops. And we meet what we think is a software founder. And that is the least impressive thing about John Budington. And we learn about his heart for storytelling, and for humanity, and for words. And we're like, Okay, we have to meet this human. And then he walks up on stage and for all of you who do not know what the word SHODAN Vida is, I mean, this is one, it's fun to say that word, it but it's a it's a sad word, because it's getting joy from other people's misery, basically. And John steps up on stage and says, You know what? My ethos, the ethos of our company is really Freud and Freud, which I probably mispronounced that, which is finding joy in the success of others. And then he goes on to basically unpack our values as his values. And we're like, we found a friend immediately. So it is our joy, to introduce you to John Budington. He is a philosophical optimist, but he also just happens to be the president and CEO of more bang and mythos, you might know those two companies. And today we're gonna be talking about human evolution through the lens of language, and storytelling, and John just has this fascinating story, he seems like your best friend, from the moment you first meet him. But at the wise old age of 18, he decided to get a degree in printing from Rochester Institute of Technology. And then he says, I found out after graduation, that I was getting a job in the printing industry. And it seemed like a great idea. And then they invented the internet, and social media. And so he spent a decade reinventing his business model, and really coming to terms with the changing value of printed media and words and language and humanity. And in 2016, he developed mythos, the software platform that's designed to capture impact stories created through philanthropic giving. And the way he talks about it to us is every gift results in a story. And so their goal is really to help focus those narratives, find them, and create a lasting belief in the purpose while connecting donors to the impact of their giving just the little goal right there. And when he's not creating incredible stories, storytelling, and lifting the humanity of giving out through this wonderful platform, he is also I believe, a founding member, board member of lift, if you don't know that nonprofit, we're going to dive into it today. But get ready friends, because you're about to be Freud and Freud, we're going to find the joy and the success, success of others. And we're going to talk to a wonderful human today. John, welcome to the podcast. Glad you're here.

Wow. Thank you. Thank you. And John, that's gonna be a hard act to follow. So that's the best introduction of me I've ever heard. I was like, Who is this guy? I want to meet him.

done all of that. And I think, you know, you ended up introducing us, right before our keynote, you went up. And we had only met in visited maybe 20 or 30 minutes and your introduction of us was honestly one of the kindest introductions we've received. So this almost just feels like it's come full circle. So glad to have you on the podcast and give us just a little bit of your background and your story and what led you from printing to here telling stories of the world's humanity.

So I think the the crazy part of the story is at 18 thinking, I'm gonna go into the printing industry, which, you know, a lot of people 18 have great ideas that make it till about 19 and a half or 20. Unfortunately, when you when you graduate with a degree in printing, you often find yourself in the printing industry. And I got there right at the end of the kind of, you know, the apex of the industry success, just before the internet. And even at that point, I really wasn't exactly sure what I was doing there. But what I do like today still is I love to read, and they spent a lot of time in our printing plant like kind of reading other people's words. I think it's a very noble business to do. deliver other people's language, you know, this kind of idea of amplification of other people's ideas. That's what the printing business was all about. And if you really believe in the printing business, when the internet does come along, and social media starts to change the fabric of our language, you want to get engaged in that, because the why of our business was always amplification, and that, and that delivery of somebody else's idea. And so when we saw this new technology, we really got excited about it. We were terrified. I'm not gonna lie. But we were also, you know, as philosophical optimist, we had to find our path and our way through. And we did,

I think it's just really fascinating to me, John, that you saw this so early on, you and your team, studied human evolution through this lens of words. And I want to know what you learned in the story of that process? And how did it shape not only your business, but the way that you look at how you interact with people and lift these stories up?

So yeah, we definitely took an anthropological approach to how to build this mythos product. And, you know, the, the underlying idea is that humans are the only animals on the planet to tell stories. And when you think about a story, we think about, you know, the, the now that we're living in, but a lot of animals live in there. Now they know how to find food, how to find shelter, how to find a mate, humans will write their history, whether they've got it right or wrong. And we often have it wrong, how we how we look back at how we got to where we are. And we also think about things like a future. We think about like these kind of intangible ideas and the futures like the ultimate intangible idea, I like to say my kids are when they come out of college, they feel pretty cold start, like convinced, right? And this, this idea that the entire value of the last four years is going to be realized. And that future state of your life, no other animal on the planet does that no other animal will go hungry to build a temple for their gods or stand up in a court and talk about which squirrels will stick took my nuts from the from the tree, right. And I want justice here. They're very human traits. And they're all based on our ability to tell these complex stories. So it's interesting language was originally physical, you know, we still do the things with our hands that we probably begin language with people say that you shake someone's right hand because most people were right handed dominant. And that was the hand that would hold a weapon. And that was the ultimate outlay of peace before he had the words to kind of explain that. So we're all we've carried that physical language. But we've also built very complex vocabularies to explain very complicated ideas. And that idea of that storytelling is what truly makes us human. You know, like Yuval Harare, you know, he's, we're the storytelling animal. It's a very interesting way to define Sapiens, our wildness is our ability to command language. And yet we spend a lot of time studying that and thinking about language, I'll tell you a fun fact. Most of the words that we use today were invented by women. And

I believe women.

There's a great quote women, right. And actually, it's exactly that is that, that, you know, whether you like it or not, the realities of life, that meant where men and women are different is who holds the womb. And it's a very vulnerable place for women to be, you know, for these little phases of their life and raising small children and having additional children. So they built a lot of complex language to build community to kind of share labor share responsibilities to make sure that they were safe, while men were out, often doing not very smart things to impress women. You know, there's a great book called gossip theory by Robin Dunbar. And, you know, he talks about that people that hunted and gathered and were able to trap small animals, they would actually provide more calories for the group with the men like to go out and risk their lives for the Macedon because they thought that that was going to somehow be more attractive. But women in those very early days of of, you know, human development, were building the complex community around them to support their families, their children, their kind of long term survival. And they did that around this idea of gossip theory, like building language that explained a lot of those intangible things, things, you felt things you believed that didn't necessarily mean a fact, or a definition. It's kind of it's very interesting, hard to talk about sometimes, but you know, in rooms that don't necessarily believe in the way humans evolve the way I do believe it. And I believe that everybody's beliefs have merit. But there's a lot of good facts that kind of support this today.

We've taken swaths of the podcast, just to talk about, we're missing the bigger question like we're asking small questions when we should be asking bigger questions. And you're sitting over there realizing the power of what was happening through printing was world changing and it forever will be about amplifying ideas. But just the tactics are going to change. Like maybe we're not going to buy the Gutenberg Press of something using the Gutenberg Press. And I'm sure it was way past that, right. But I love that you're just so subscribed to the deeper intrinsic value of that, that you're like, that doesn't mean that we're dying, it means that we're evolving and like what a cool leader, you are to step through that. And so I just think I want to give you a platform to talk about what is storytelling look like today? I mean, you can't see this, if you're listening just to the audio version, John's sitting in front of what I would guess is like 2000 books, like on a bookshelf. But I mean, what do you think a lot about storytelling? What is the state of nonprofit marketing and storytelling today?

So yes, first off my book collection is a problem. And what I like to think about is that you don't have to be the smartest person, you can inherit everybody else's great ideas behind you, literally behind me right now on the bookshelves. And I find, you know, reading and reading other people's stories is like the best way for me to gain perspective to gain empathy into places that I haven't necessarily been or, you know, times of history that I wasn't alive. And I think what's been interesting lately, though, is that the way we tell our stories has fundamentally changed. And I don't think it's coming back I you know, I, I wonder, what the long term consequences what will the history books write about social media and how our language has become more casual and more democratized? Right? I mean, you know, what the printing press did for the world as it made it easier to explain your ideas and your beliefs and to share it with a larger audience. And that it was very disruptive at the time, you know, the 100 Years War was fought over the Reformation because somebody thought to print up Martin Luther is 95 thesis and say, Hey, maybe we've got some things wrong here and the Holy Roman Church, and you know, created a lot of havoc. Social media today is creating a lot of that Havoc as well. But it's, it's given us a couple things. One is that, you know, all language began around a campfire somewhere, right? People learned how to cook their food and wood that they needed to chew less than they had plenty of things to think about. So they were able to talk, stay warm, stay together. In some ways, social media platforms that live on the internet, are like a giant campfire, right, we can build collections of people that we agree with, maybe we disagree with and share very human, very casual types of conversation. Most of the old printed media that we lived in, it's ironic, the written language that was designed to capture how we spoke became very formal, and it held on to language that kind of got old vocabulary words that kind of fell out of date, I very rarely need a dictionary to talk to anybody. This door, right? Maybe today, but you guys are very smart. But But I think, you know, Social Media Language is making more beliefs, out of the types of stories that we would tell around the campfire or around our dinner tables

fascinating. And I was today's years old, and I learned so much of that. So thank you for, you know, opening this conversation. I mean, so we've gone way far back and storytelling, let's look at like the moment today, and we talked about the Edelman barometer trust quite a bit on the podcast. You know, probably our listeners are aware that trust is down in the nonprofit space. Like it's a it's a factor that we're all looking at. But this really startled me this is a new stat that's they found that 70% of Gen Z ears will fact check claims made by businesses, and that unlike previous generations, they place more trust in user generated information than information provided by brands. I mean, what a moment in time, right? I mean, we're not controlling the narrative. The narrative is being controlled outside of our walls. Can you talk about what that what that means and how we need to do with that.

So two things was I don't think that nonprofits are doing such a bad job here. I think trust is just down across the board in our society. And I mean, I remember as a kid, we would watch CBS Evening News and Walter Cronkite would sign off every night and say, and that's the way it is this date, you know, and, and everybody's like, well, if Walter Cronkite says, that's the way it is, that's, I guess, the way it is. And I feel like we're so far from those days where single person can speak for the entirety of the community, right, where we bifurcate our opinions on just about everything today. But I do think that, you know, we've spent a lot of time obsessing about facts in our society. And that the reality is, is that they probably never mattered as much as we thought they did. The difference was that we all used to work from maybe a shared set of facts, like I said, like those Walter Cronkite, or, you know, the major newspaper in your town. And today, you know, we're we're bombarded with lots of opinions that pick up little pieces of facts that that support their opinions, like to say facts are really important to people until they don't support what they believe in which case they just leave them out. Yep. And, and I always like to say like in the history of the world, I don't know that anybody has ever cried over an infographic that they didn't create themselves, right. We get obsessed about it The statistics of our value, but really the r value is is an emotional experience. So when I, you know, I think you said it well, John is like, you know, in this world where people are fact checking, or they're or they're going to their group to see, you know, if they believe that this claim or what this organization does, is it really good that in some ways, it's the it's the, it's the sign of change in how our media works. I think we all think of social media as a strategy, as opposed to making our own media more social, the real strategy, right, we need more of the voices in our community, that can explain our value, because it's always going to be more believable than us trying to explain it from some position of authority. And, you know, if that's an essence, what I think is changing for everybody in the media industry, everybody who's delivering somebody's words, that's we're going to be delivering the community's words, and giving them some weight, along with the organizational value of the brand, that can still speak with authority, but it backs authority up with the people in the community that are most effective.

Thank you so much for saying that, because I want to create, like some space to just talk practically to nonprofits about that, and I want to, like tattle on myself first, a way to do that. But I really think that when I got into the storytelling aspect, like as a young professional, it 24 years old, walking into a university trying to tell the story of philanthropy there, it was very much a top down effect, I would maybe look in my database, I might look and see or ask a development officer, who do I need to talk to, and then I would intentionally go forward and engage with a script that I had created. And the problem with that friends, and if I want to like tap, little 24 year old Becky on her head, because she was really trying her hardest and was really trying to pull that story out. But what that missed, was just listening, and asking for the story to lift up organically from the community. And because I went in with a narrative that I thought was in my head of the story that I thought I was going to get, I missed a lot of that story. And so as I'm listening to you here, and I'm thinking about what is the evolution of that is specifically now knowing these Trust Barometer stats, knowing where the values are tied to Gen Z, and frankly, I'm watching millennials and my own Gen X come up and saying, Oh, I kind of actually want to evaluate my brands that way, too. And I actually don't trust everyone right now. I think it's really asking yourself, How are we going to our community? And asking them to speak into the story of our mission? How are we creating a culture of listening? How are we saying, how do you see us and by the way, if they see us in a negative light, we're not going to delete that comment. We're going to double click on it. And we're going to say, Okay, help me understand that more. Because when someone shares their story, they want to feel seen, they want to feel like those words matter. And when you listen and reflect back, friends, that is where the magic happens. And that is what we call our core value. Number four is we don't believe specifically, in the donor, we believe in a believer, we believe in someone that doesn't just give money, we believe in someone that comes with their story, with their network, with their volunteerism, with their lived experience. There is a much richer relationship to be had here. And I think you're really getting into the heart of it, John, and that is the practical application that I'm taking away, at least at this point in the conversation.

Boy, that's a good point. And I'll tell you why I say that we we we had our old tagline on the on the website was turning donors into investors. But I think it just confused people because investor wasn't necessarily the right word. But But the idea here is that a donation is a transaction. And, and it's very easy to do. It's very easy to like, you know, you show up at the event, you you hear the great story, and then you transact, but a very good story. And a series of good stories are basically helping people get fully invested in this idea that they can have agency here that they can actually make the world a better place in some areas where we look at with our clients is to try to try to transition the value of the of the of the impact back to the donor like directly related this is this is kind of a story that you created with your gift. And we want you to believe that these types of stories are out there and that the world is actually statistically a better place than it was 50 years ago, 100 years ago. Some people don't believe that. But it becomes that because people can invest in and like I said, this idea of helping other people live their best possible life. The word philanthropy. It's funny we all think of it is I ask people to define philanthropy. I'll ask you, John, how would you define the word philanthropy?

I mean, we talked about Got it a lot. But I really do believe it's a love of humankind, I believe.

That's the That's the definition, the literal Greek word right Fila to love and Entropia, your fellow humans. And it comes from this Greek myth about Prometheus, where he gave the uncivilized humans fire and optimism, ironically. And but we've, we've transitioned this idea that philanthropy means to give money. Philanthropy means to love your fellow humans. Forgiving is the best way to help the fellow humans that need to improve their lives that need our help. Right. So it's a John, you did great on that. But I, but I do think that it's it's this idea that we need to move beyond talking about the goal, the campaign, the big numbers, and start humanizing all of this were individual donors who have their own unique interests and their own stories about why they're involved, like we used to speak to an audience, but we now see with data that we're speaking to a large field of individual people with their own unique interests. And as an as an organization, our job is to relate our value through our you know, the stories of our community that boasts we're best relates to those data points in the audience of our individual donors.

Okay, I'm loving every bit of this for getting back to the heart of philanthropy. It is, once again, you've heard it here, probably every podcast, it's not about the gift. It's not about the money only. And if you think it is, you're shortchanging the relationship, the mission, and honestly, the gift. And so I want to get practical with this. And I want you to give listeners, like a case study maybe of an organization or a mission that is really leveraging the power of storytelling to deepen their impact, like, Give us one from your work, because we want to learn from them. Sure. So

you know, our business, we we deal quite a bit with large universities, health care organizations, health foundations, but like in the university world, I think there's there's been this growing skepticism that you've kind of read in the news, like, just college matter, you know, does it does it work for people just, you know, find jobs, but the, the idea that the goal of going to college is to get a job to go of going to college is to get an education, educated people always have access to, you know, hopefully fruitful life, including employment and, and, you know, an understanding of the world that they they live in. That is the goal of an education, the innocent. And I think it's a tremendous gift. And it's unfortunate that not everybody in the country has the belief that they have access to that. But the reality is, is that the the universities and the organizations that we work with, raise significant amount of money to make this a achievable goal for just about everybody in the country. And so we essentially, I'll give you a good case study where we report on major givers around the specifics of their impact. And people can restrict a gift to say, I want to help with scholarships for the specific school, I want to help with this program or specific faculty members. And what we like to think of at mythos is we're delivering donor joy, right? We're this this idea that they're seeing their gift in action. And it's not just the financial data of the gift, but it's the actual hear the stories of the people who've received those scholarships. But a funny story from having a couple of years ago, actually happened last year. That was one of their donors had called in like on page 50 of their donor report, they found a small little typo in the fund report, and said, Wow, that is was minor, they were just trying to help out. But then they realized that had been in that same type of been there for multiple years, like three, four years, my nightmare, and what they realized I believe it by adding all the story content into the fund reports, people were reading every word, right? People were just absorbing this entire thing where like, this was the first time that this person who had seen this exact same report for the last three years, had read down and said, Oh, by the way, I just want to help you out here. This idea of engaging donors is that we want the message of the brand to come through the purpose of the fund the purpose of the of the campaign, but to really humanize it with the stories and to get people to read your content, you've got to put some of those stories in there that make people follow along all the way through that long form content of the brand.

I mean, you're surrounded by applause over here, we've feel the same way. I mean, we feel like it's your secret sauce. I mean, it's what differentiates you to is these stories that come out these personal testimonials and, you know, times of impact and all those sorts of things. So you know, you got us as rabid fans over here. So I want you to share about mythos. Because the fact that you built a company around this social enterprise around this, like it's just super cool. So we believe that every gift results in a story What advice would you give organizations to find and build those narratives and then kind of explain it and how you'll do that mythos.

Yeah, so As the you know, the relationship is somehow between the mission of the organization and the the donors that support the organization. And it's, I think that, you know, step one is to recognize the differences in your donors, but to start to see them as, you know, different cohorts, different groups of people that have their own specific reason for supporting what the organization does. And as you start to do that, and you start to recognize that, that the donors are a little bit different, you start to look for, like, what are the stories that would most resonate with best resignate with these ideas with these specific interests, I think everybody sees themselves as a great storyteller. But their best story might not be the best story for everybody that they're speaking with. So it's really about defining those groups and finding the stories inside of your organization to best support that, and then using those stories to essentially create this, this demonstration of the impact that you could possibly have, if you're maybe asking for a gift. But also, and I think the most important thing is once that gift is given, that person is qualified. They are they've engaged enough, they've overcome that it's a steady stream of understanding of how that gift continually create impact in the world. And, you know, it could be a small gift for, you know, a COVID fund that helped a student that couldn't get back home to find an apartment when the when the campus closed down, to get access to a computer. So it doesn't always have to be a big endowed gift. Just every time somebody is giving money to something that the organization is collecting. The organization knows how they're going to use that. Think of that as an opportunity to tell that story. Tell that story in a very human social way. So you know, the way mythos works, but like, say great questions, create great stories. So the real creativity is if I know that a story was created, how do I get people to help me help? Share that story help us find their words to explain this, the value of this? So mythos begins as like a story collection system uses data to ask very relevant questions of people that maybe have received funds or gifts. Could be faculty could be research. And then it organizes all those responses as data. And then we align the tags of that data to the tags that you have about the individual unique interests of your donors. And we use that to create anything from a thank you card, to a full website full of Thank you videos that are personal to John, Becky, we really want to thank you today, because it's great for me to be able to share my story, right? Like those are the kinds of things that we can kind of automate and build out. We live in this world with an expectation of relevance. It's not a nice to have anymore, people just assume it's going to be there. So when you go and communicate, like, I want all of the content to be as relevant as possible, the brand's voice, as well as the community's voice and all the stories that we're able to share.

Okay, where were you 20 years ago, John, I could have transformed my organizations with this toolbox. Because that is exactly what we should be doing. And I think what I liked so much about what you're saying, and I want to make sure that nobody misses this and the fact that I am saying it, there's still people that reprinted pieces out there print hello is not dead at all. And I really appreciate that you have taken these unique stories, sound bites lenses, words in you have you know, and we call it syndication, you have syndicated it in different ways for people to absorb in a way that works for them. And again, that is a kindness because people want to feel seen. They want to get their information in a way that they want to consume it. And I just think mythos does a beautiful job of this, I think the way you storytel on your website, if you want like a heartfelt founder story, go to mythos his website, and watch like the they've got the classic napkin photo of how the dream came to be. And it's just a beautiful story. And I and I really, I've looked at your donor reports, and they're just really, really evolved. And so and I think I'm going to tell the story just because it occurred to me, but you don't know this. But when we were at ADRP mythos giveaway, and I'm holding it up for everybody on camera, these little booklets that were completely blank for people to write notes and tell their stories and it was just like a really great little gift for everybody. What you don't know is that someone in the audience Her name is Gretchen was very profoundly affected by our talk and our keynote. She came up and visited with us several times she fully immersed herself into nonprofit and this is someone who has a day job. This is someone who is running a nonprofit on behalf of a child who has an incurable disease. And she's running that on the side. And she literally told the story of ADRP in this book, I'm like you couldn't look at the sheets of paper of everything she learned here. And she gave it to us. She took pictures of it, and gave it to us and said, This is everything I learned while I was here, and I'm taking it back. You literally John helped Gretchen, tell her story in this document in a very disruptive way. And I just want you to know that that had a profound impact on us. As it came back, I got it out for our session. And so how you show up to listen, and empower matters, y'all, how you allow someone to find their words, and learn and be curious and grow truly matters, you don't have to have the Bucha software, it does help PS, it will help your mental health, it will help save your time. But it also just comes in the form of a physical piece sometimes. So thank you, John, for connecting us to Gretchen by way of just providing this and empowering her with her story. So now I'm going to flip the script and say, you know, we love the power of story and philanthropy here. What's one that stuck with you something that you've experienced a moment that you felt changed by we'd love to hear it.

So as you kind of mentioned on the way in, I'm very involved with an organization called Lift, lift communities.org. Or why we lift.org I think is actually our new website, the address, but they both go there. But the the underlying principle of lift is that there are families that are trapped in poverty that don't need to be. And what they really need is a network of people that are there to support them. And so lift basically enrolls people into this two year, very intense mentoring program. And it just helps it listens, it starts by listening, what do you want to do? What are your goals, and we start with parents, we're a family organization, but we basically help parents achieve their goals, finish their education, get a better job, find more stable housing. And I think what, in a lot of cases, what these parents haven't experienced is somebody that really believes in them. And there's just tremendous power of your peers, believing that you can succeed in helping you actually find the energy to the work

Freud in Florida.

We were watching was about a year ago, we were watching some videos that they had recorded of some people who had graduated out of the program, and they were just full of joy, they were three women just kind of talking about their stories of of you know, where they started and where they are, and kind of launching in their lives, Commencement for them in some ways of kind of beginning to achieve their dreams. And there was this one moment where this one woman was talking about her goals, and what she was going to do next. And then all of a sudden, I see this little girl, pop her head behind her. And she's just you know, she's maybe eight years old, and she's just full of awe for her mom. And it occurs to me sometimes that there's this force multiplier effect, you can help one person but you what you realize is that we've completely changed this young girl's life because she's looking at her mom now as a superhero. And as a role model and as somebody that's going to do something great. And that's going to inspire her to think well, my job now is to actually do something great. And this is what I like about lifting people this is what I like about lift is like this, just this idea of there are so many people who have the potential to live a better life. And if we just find the time and the investment, and we get behind them, we all benefit, right? Multiple generations benefit.

Gosh, I love that story. Love that organization love that their name is our verb, like on multiple levels

is like a rising tide lifts all boats, you know, like it totally embodies that concept. Great organization.

John, I mean, you've listened. Yeah, so we'll link that up in the shownotes. Definitely go explore that incredible mission. You listen to the show, and know how we kind of round this out. I'm sad to ask you this, because the conversation has been so rich, but what's the one good thing that you leave with our community, this could be a personal habit or secret to success, or just whatever you're feeling like drop it on us a wisdom nugget as we are dropped, you know, laughing before we started

recording. So in all of my reading, what we've identified is that I'm a philosophical optimist. And it's actually the baseline of our company is this idea of optimism. And I think that most people don't really understand the word optimism for what it means. But what an interesting nugget is that optimism is all about the present. It's not about the future. And it was essentially it was Gottfried Leibniz, who actually also gives calculus, the math of change gave us this term optimism. And the idea of optimism is that we live in the best possible world. But the challenge for us is that the world is always changing. So everybody finds some period of time where they feel like they're very optimistic, but all of a sudden, you know, maybe it's the recession In 2008, maybe it's, you know, some of the social changes that we've kind of seen in the country today where people don't feel that they're, they understand that and they're not willing to make those changes, they anchor themselves to some period of time that happened in the past, thinking that we're going to somehow spin the earth backwards and get back to where we were, where it all made sense for us. So the idea of optimism is that everything that I know now is only so valuable, you know, the, the, if you believe in science, the the distance today that we are from the center of the universe is going, we're going to be farther away tomorrow. But the difference is, if we're this far away, that today, we're this far away tomorrow, we're not only moving further from the center, but we're moving further faster from the center, which what it really means for us is that change is just constantly accelerating, right, the types of changes that I had to deal with when I was a very young person versus what I have to deal with, like in my 50s. It's just, it just happens quicker. And as long as you're an optimist, you look at every day, and you say, Hey, this is different, this is hard. This is good, this is bad. But as an optimist, I just have to accept it, I have to accept that the world that I'm living in is the best possible world. And my job is to find opportunity there, find ways to take all of my value, make the life of other people better, make my own life, my family's lives better. That's, that's what optimism is all about. And I just, I feel that we shouldn't ever doubt ourselves, we shouldn't ever feel like it's okay, that we didn't understand something that we understand better now. And we're going to understand it better in the future. As an optimist, you just every day that you wake up, you just take that to the bank, and you just believe that my job is going to be to evolve with everybody else here on the planet. And then, quite frankly, you'll look around and think this is, this is a great place to be.

This is why we just want to hang out with John, I just feel uplifted truly. And I have to tell you, I am somebody who gets more energy and joy from chasing that. And I also think that when you have that kind of hope you guys know how much I hate canceled culture because it doesn't allow you to evolve. It doesn't allow you to have forgiveness and allow somebody restorative peace. And so I want to live in this world to I think it's a world of understanding of letting people be who they need to be and listening and allowing yourself the space to share your story to So, John, thanks for coming in. I mean, it's been an incredible conversation just about words and humanity and story. And I just think this beautiful company that you've created is just really a gift not only to the sector, but to the world. So tell people how they can connect with you. Where are you hanging out online, tell them how they can connect with mythos or vein, give us give us all the details.

I am. I am obviously on LinkedIn, as John Boddington, but also my email address is John at community mythos.com. And JLN. Like you, John. And you can reach out to me there follow our blog. We're always writing about language and words. And I just wanted to say, having watched your podcast since meeting you or listen to your podcasts after ADRP This is what the world needs, right? This this ability to compassionately Listen, share, tell stories. Like you guys ask great questions to help us, you know, explain what it is that we're doing in the world. And it's just it's a it's a real service. And I thank you for that.

Just receiving that. Thank you. And I'm gonna give a shout out to Julie because it's ironic that literally this morning I texted her I was like these questions are fire. I can't wait to have this chat. But it's a village that surrounds this. It's a community that surrounds us. So thank you. Just so honored to be in this work with you. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on the podcast

my friend. Great to see you both.

Hey, friends. Thanks so much for being here. Did you know we create a landing page for each podcast episode with helpful links, freebies and even shareable graphics. Be sure to check it out at the link in this episode's description. You probably hear it in our voices but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before. We'd love for you to join our good community. It's free. And you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. You can sign up today at we are for good.com backslash Hello. One more thing If you loved what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find our community. Thanks friends. I'm our producer Julie confer and our theme song is Sunray by Remy Borsboom