A lot of this podcast is about filling our cups and well boy do I have a new way to fill your cup. This time with plant based milk soy almond cow is a product that I was introduced to recently, and I couldn't be more excited to be collaborating with them. Almond cow makes the experience of making plant based milk at home simple and fun. There's no straining involved and it takes less than a minute. It's an awesome little machine that for me helps you make milk at home, budget friendly and healthy. And as I focus more on being my best filling my own cup almond cow is one of the first things I think of each day. So want to try it for yourself. Almond cow is offering a special code for you that gives you $25 off your purchase of $200 or more, you can shop at Almond cow.co. That's co not calm, and use code your good news at checkout. Hi, and welcome to the your good news podcast with me your host, Katherine Getty. Each Thursday, I'll give you the scoop on the good news coming out of Washington, and how you can get involved with this thing called democracy. Welcome back to another episode of The your good news podcast at the end of season one. In 2022. I was thinking about how I was going to take Season Two into a new direction. And I just so happened to have an interview with our next guest, Brandon Harvey. At the end of the episode, we just chatted for nearly 40 minutes about podcasting about trying to ensure that you were creating good material for folks that is interesting. And he really lit a spark in me to pursue this new Schoolhouse Rock that we've been doing overseas until I wanted to release this episode this interview because it touched my heart in such a way that I am so grateful that Brandon was willing to have an interview with me it is an amazing interview, you're surely going to enjoy it. But also, it's just a good reminder of how important it is to speak into other people's lives, to have deep conversations to make the time for others. And so I hope that that inspires you as well. And without further ado, my interview with Branden Harvey. My heart is so full today for today's episode with Brandon. As I get started with every episode, Branden, what is your good news?
Oh, my goodness, I forgot to come prepared for this question. But also, you know, it's my job to spend time thinking about good news. So, for me, if I was to just encapsulate the thing that is my good news right now, it is truly just the fact that I continue to see people stepping up in creative and beautiful and unique ways to make a difference in their own communities. And it's not like the big stuff is the small stuff. It's being like, Oh, this is the unique thing that I can do for my kayaking club, you know, the unique way I can make a difference with my free fridge in my community, you know, these very small, specific things that add up to a lot of big change in the world.
I love that so much. So let's set the stage I was able to share with the listeners a little bit about you and all the things that you do. So but I want to hear from you yourself. How did good good guy get started? Was it kind of the newspaper first was the podcast First, there's so many amazing things. If you haven't listed the podcast, go subscribe right now. Sounds good. But I'll turn it over to you how to get started.
So before there was good, good, good, there was just me running around being very interested in people making a difference. My background was as a humanitarian photographer, where I got to travel all over the world with a bunch of amazing inspiring nonprofits, helping them tell the story of the positive impact that they were making, and specifically, really the solutions they were creating to the world's greatest problems. So I come home from these trips really amped up being like, wow, I felt really overwhelmed by you know, HIV and AIDS rates or maternal mortality rates are, you know, like these big ideas. And I would come home and be like, Wow, there are people working to create amazing solutions to these problems. They are inspiring, they are creative, they are using, you know, like just the people in these communities who care deeply about these issues. And they are making a huge difference in the world. And it was just so energizing and inspiring. And I could not help but find ways to share this. And that's where good good good begin with a sense of essentially trial and error. How do you communicate these ideas because I learned this later. Apparently, all of our brains have this internal negativity bias where bad news sticks to our brains like Velcro And good news lies right off our brains like a Sobey. Slip and Slide. And the the, the terrible thing about that is that even though we all say we want good news, even though we all, you know, maybe even try to see out good news, it just doesn't stick to our brains as easily. And so I've got these stories that are super inspiring to me. And I know from my conversations with friends who love hearing them, that there's a lot of people who want them, but they just can't compete on social media, they can't compete online. And so I'm basically just trying to figure out, okay, well, how do I get these stories to other people, because I also want to make sure more of these stories are coming to me to kind of come back to the logistical question of like, what came first, the first thing I did was I started a podcast. And my thought process was, hey, we all connect on a story level with other people, an emotional level, I think this could work. And it definitely did. And it took me down this rabbit trail of learning from a lot of amazing inspiring world changers and specifically about like, how they had found their way to making a difference, which, you know, we can get into a little bit later. The short version, though, is that they all were really in tune with the bad news of the World. And only because of that, were they able to create good news. So we started with the podcast. And then I was like, you know, this is working. But I also think there needs to be something that's like competing in almost like the news space, if that makes sense. You know, because we're bombarded with bad news, and maybe our inboxes our social media feeds. At the time, you know, the daily wasn't a podcast, you I don't think there was as much news stuff happening in the podcast base, it was much more comedy conversations, you know, my nerdy last podcast that I listened to back in the day. And so I launched a newsletter at that time, and it was this total like, fluke, where I was just like, hey, I've heard of people starting newsletters. I'm gonna, I did. This is definitely like, not the way to do this. But I just posted on Instagram, like, Hey, who wants me to send you an email with the week's good news, I'm going to do some research by that what good is happening? comment with your email address below. Like, I'm sure all those people ended up getting a bunch of spam from people who like scraped their emails, but I'm very grateful. It was a lot of people who responded, sent out that first batch of good news emails. And apparently, like, the standard open rate for an email is something like eight to 15%. Ours, our open rate was like 70%, like people wanted this thing. And it's still like, 50 60% To this day, like, it's, it's unreal. So I was like, Okay, well, this is working, and then began just the process of okay, well, what are the other things that will kind of cut through the noise in a weird way, and the biggest, weirdest way that we've done this is, we created a print newspaper filled with good news called the good newspaper. That goal was, you know, essentially saying, Okay, well, we cannot compete with traditional media, we don't want to, we just don't have any money. Like, we're just, I'm very poor, I don't have like the ability to, like, you know, invest millions of dollars in, you know, the time, like, a big common thing that media companies were doing is, they would buy a Facebook ad for articles to drive clicks over to the article on their website. And then they would, you know, recoup that revenue from ad revenue on the website. And I'm like, I just don't have the ability to pour millions of dollars into that. Not to mention, it's just gonna get a worse click through rate or whatever, then probably the bad news is because a bad news story is going to connect deeper. So the goal was, what's the weirdest thing we can do to get attention. And of course, as a millennial who had never bought a newspaper in my life, I was like, ah, it would be so funny if we made a newspaper, build of good news. And then it that joke turned into committing a lot of time and energy to actually figure out how to do it. We launched it on Kickstarter. And again, I was surprised by the reaction, I expected that it was maybe a 5050 chance of whether or not we reach our full funding goal and actually get to do it. But we reached that full funding goal within like 56 hours or something like that. And so we were like, Okay, I guess we have to make a newspaper filled with good news now. You know, we figured out that whole process, and ever since then, we've just been trying to continue to find weird, fun ways to help. You know, other people fill their life with a little bit more hopefulness. And it's mostly just because that's what I need. Like, that's what I'm craving. And it's so far is working. We're still in business. We're still sharing good news. And it's really cool to have found a community this growing community of people who care about celebrating good and then not only just celebrate Good, but then going out and becoming the good of the world and making a difference, and taking action so that they can be the next good news story that gets reported and inspire somebody else. And the cycle continues. There's just so many
nuggets. I was like scribbling on my paper, so many, like nuggets. But I think a couple things I'd love to delve even further is like the idea of the negativity bias like this. I started this podcast and 2021 It really was an idea and 2020 because there were so much news that I couldn't I was living by myself with my cat. Like, it was a sad time. It was scary. I didn't know what was happening. Yeah. And how do you kind of like, push through or not push through kind of like, sometimes I'm like, I'm just gonna be in this space and allow myself to feel negative feelings, but still choose like, maybe it's like going smiling at the barista? How do you kind of deal with your own negativity bias to sell create good,
I will say so I mean, natural optimist. I naturally, like wake up in the morning with a smile on my face, all this stuff. And that got me through life pretty well, for a long time. But other you know, natural born optimists have experienced this as well, I'm sure you hit a point where you completely burnout because I think that that optimism is coming from an unsustainable place. And for me, it was that basically what I was doing with my life was I was just pretending that bad things weren't happening. And part of that is just like the privilege that I experienced of bad things weren't necessarily happening to me, they were happening on the news, or they were happening in different communities. And at some point, either that bad news starts happening to you or somebody you love, or you know, community you're a part of, or you just, you know, you have this logjam of like, I can't block it out anymore. And that was actually a big thing that that I learned from starting our podcasts. If you go back and listen to like, the first year or two of our podcasts, you basically hear me coming into all these conversations, happy and optimistic, talking with people that inspire me who are making a difference in the world and seem really hopeful. And every conversation, I'm almost confused, because I'm like, Wait, you're talking about so much heartbreak and pain and feeling these these challenging feelings? This, like, how does that make sense? How do you get from there to actually like, feeling hopeful. And I think that the only way out is through like, I think that the only way that you can actually feel better about the state of the world, is to acknowledge the real challenges of it. And actually a good good good, we've almost at this point created a framework from all these conversations with, you know, activists and world changers, but also like a neuro psychologist, and all these folks who kind of know their way around these things. And we basically say that the the route to hopefulness is, step one, pay attention to what's happening in the world, and feel the feelings of what's happening. If you see a natural disaster, if you see a mass shooting, if you see something heavy, it's natural for you to feel those feelings and mourn that loss. And so do that actually go through that Brene Brown says you can't selectively numb emotion. And I think it's really important that you can actually feel that depth of pain sometimes. So that then you can feel that depth of joy. But then we never want somebody to stop there. Most people stop there with just feeling that pain. The next step that we encourage people to do is to look for the helpers, Mr. Rogers talks about this idea where he's got this quote, where he says, When I was a boy, and I'd see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, look for the helpers, you will always find people who are helping, and we just kind of like, Take Mr. Rogers mom at her word, that there will always be people who are helping. So when that natural disaster strikes, you know, who's showing up on the ground, who's making a difference in their communities, who's helping their neighbors, you can look for those stories, it's easier to find, if you're, you know, in that community or for us, you know, it's our job to find people in that community and share those stories. So that somebody you know, across the world can can tune into us and, and we'll share who those helpers are. And then, you know, we basically say, you know, if you have the privilege of experiencing the news through the news, if you have the experience of looking for the helpers from afar, then maybe you have the obligation to take action and make a difference and become a helper yourself. When you basically complete that full cycle for mourning, to looking for the helpers to becoming a helper yourself. That's how you can feel better about the world. And it does not have to be a big thing every time like if like if there's a natural disaster in I think about I used to live in Tennessee and they had this horrendous hurricane or sorry, tornado, right as COVID was starting and I felt so helpless from afar because I couldn't show up like my friends were and like, move debris and help people you You know, salvage things from their, their houses and stuff, I couldn't do that from afar, but I could donate some money, I could, you know, lend some, some support to my friends, like, there's a lot of different ways that you can make a difference. And they can be in big and small ways. But truly, I think going through that whole process is what allows us to feel better about the state of the world. And I try to do that literally, with anytime I see a bad news story, I'm like, Okay, if I want to actually like go through the full like, like, cycle of my brain processing this, I have to do all three of those things. Otherwise, it's just gonna keep rattling around my brain until, you know, I think I have a breakdown or something like that,
oh, 100%, I think it's really powerful how you talk about, we so often can stop kind of when we get in that room, we're paying attention, and we're mourning, and we sit there and we sit in that emotion, it's like, you can kind of get stuck. And that happens from time to time. But I think it's so powerful, how you're like, will look for help or look for a North Star look for someone who you can emulate, and then create your own good and your community. And that is like, so powerful to like, think about that choice that we can have, because it feels, I think sometimes when we see it, we can feel, personally, I feel like, what can I do that makes even a difference? What can I do that even makes a dent.
And I feel very encouraged by this idea that, you know, of course, I'm not going to have the same impact on the ground as somebody who's like, right up close and personal. But I can do something that makes their life a little bit easier. So they have, you know, 5% more to give. And there's a you know, a ton of different ways that somebody can do that. But I, you know, it almost sounds a little bit like woowoo spiritual of me. But I'm like, I think that each of us have a role to play. And by just me even showing up to respond to one crisis that's really staring at my heart, you know, that might actually help free somebody else up to respond to a different crisis. And I think we all have a role to play, but it does, it does not have to be big, there will be the moments in your life where you're like, This is the thing that I'm going all in for this is the big thing for me. Yeah, either because it's in your backyard, or because it's something that you're really passionate about, or it's really storing your heart. But for the other things is just, you know, how can you play a role in this and just continue to be a member of this society,
I think I love it's making me think about how and 2020 We felt so isolated. But we there was still such a connection, you know, we got really used to zooms do we love them all the time. Now, there's technical difficulties, but it did give us an a way to connect. And there's still ways that we can connect now and it's changed. And I think that that is such a. And we all know when someone walks in the room, and they have that they're having a bad day, you can feel it, I think that we all are kind of connected, and I'm into the woowoo spiritual. So I will, I will totally buy the idea that if we do something for someone else, it's kind of that pay it forward, like you can just kind of give to another person, which makes me think about in the pre show prep, you kind of share this idea of the difference between feel good news, and real good news. And I would love for you just to dive in there. And that's to talk about that.
Yeah. So this is something that we kind of have slowly put language towards through the years. But it's something that we were kind of sensing we are all about at cricket good sharing what we call real good news. And real good news for us is saying what are the problems and injustices and the things that break our heart in the world? And how are people responding to those and creating solutions to those and pushing back against those things for us, like that's the kind of good news that we wanted to share. And we launched because we didn't see enough outlets or or an outlet doing things the way that we had hoped for in this specific regard. Now the opposite of that, which is you know, if I sit next to somebody on a plane, and I tell them that, you know, oh, I work for a company that shares good news, or I make a good news newspaper. And inevitably, what somebody says is they'll they'll be like, Hey, I watched this video yesterday of this puppy and kitten playing together and it was so cute. Or you know, there'll be like I saw this cute video of a bunch of toddlers holding a sign on the side of like making something up write up like a marathon saying like, run faster like all of these things are so cute. I love that. That's basically half of what my tick tock feed is every day. But we would describe That is as feel good rather than real good. And the easy way to kind of break down this difference is feel good is basically an escape from bad news. It is an is simply the absence of bad news. But real good is the response to bad news. And I think sometimes when we are seeking out a feeling of hopefulness, we're seeking out a sense of like, Is everything going to be right in the world? You know, like, these big questions, our natural instinct is to is to almost be like, oh, I need to find something that makes me feel good. Yeah. And I would say that that is ultimately going to be detrimental to or at least, not supportive of your end goal of actually finding a sense of hopefulness. Yeah. Because, again, I think that the process and you know, our research has found that the process of actually feeling more hopeful about the state of the world requires you to acknowledge the heartbreak and pain to mourn it, to then find the people who are making a difference. And then to, in to some degree, join it. And so it's super okay to distract yourself to watch those tick tock, and turn on that Netflix movie, like whatever that is, like, go like, I mean, I just been binge watched a whole new series this whole week. So like, go for that. But I think that it's super important that we don't presume that that is going to be the step towards making us feel better about the world, because it's just is a temporary escape from solving that actual problem. And so that's the big thing that we're really focused on it code good good is when people are ready and interested in and finding that real good news, we are there for that we are here to help support it. And you know, our community is showing up to create more of it to make the world full of real good news so that we can continue telling those stories and inspiring more people.
Oh, my gosh, I'm inspired. And I think that's such a powerful way to think about feel good versus real good news of an as you're talking it kind of in my brain was thinking it's almost like putting a BandAid on a, like, I hate to Yeah, it's like a band, it's just putting a bandaid on something versus actually addressing the root cause. And I think to your point of like going through the cycle of acknowledging where you're at and acknowledging what feelings you're having, and then becoming that person that gets involved. Yeah, whatever that is. And I think that I like feel really strongly about like, the small things make big changes, like small like holding a door open for someone may feel small, but it may change the way they are feeling about their day, or like, there's little things that like, I know, that's like very, that's a very feel good example. But I think there's ways that we can show, you know, human connection and courtesy and create that good in our little communities and then address the massive problems. Exactly well and are facing. And I think
that's exactly right. Like I think every problem has the immediate short term solutions, and then the systemic solution. Yeah. And I think it's important and valuable to be able to do both. And I often err too much on the side of the systemic things, and I'm probably the person who is going to neglect to be like, Oh, I'm gonna hold up in the store, because that actually matters. And who knows how that can shape somebody's day in their life. You know, and I think being able to do both is super important and key. And I think it's super important to be able to celebrate both, as well. And there might be different resources for for celebrating and finding both of those stories, too.
I love that. And I, I'd love to get your thoughts as you're talking about when you share that you work at a good news company. And you work at Good, good, good. And do you also get the question of like, man, you just must be a positive person all the time. Like, how are you always positive? I'm always like, I'm not always a positive person. I know you said your natural optimist, but I think feeling the range of emotions creates a better, like, you can create from that good even more when you're feeling all the feelings. How do you kind of deal with them? People are like, Oh, you must be super positive all the time.
Yeah, yeah, cuz so for me, I think I was that natural optimist. And I think that that optimism was was a blind optimism. And then I had to intentionally go into a space of saying, I'm going to feel this pain, I'm going to acknowledge this heartbreak. But going through that process, day in and day out, you know, because my job is to ultimately look at the bad news so that we can respond to the bad news with good news. Doing that day in and day out has really helped me feel a deeper sense of hopefulness. And there's a I think there's a key difference between the words optimism and hope. Optimism is really this idea of wishing for the best. Or you can almost think of it in terms of, if you've got a favorite sports team, I am optimistic that they will win, but I have no ability to shift the meter on if they will win or not, I'm just cheering them on from the sidelines. But hopefulness is coming from this sense of like, I am a part of this team, I have the ability to respond to this problem. And I know that if I will it enough, that I can actually make a difference here. And you know, not alone. But I know that if I'm showing up, then maybe, you know, in a woowoo spiritual sense, me showing up means that somebody else will show up and mean, somebody else will show up. And by all of us showing up like we can, will this thing into existence. And so my sense of hopefulness truly comes from paying attention to knowing that there's a lot of helpers out there, and that I am joining them. And together over time, we can create the change we wish to see in the world. And so that's, that's the thing, and I don't get into that on airplanes, because I mostly just want to put in my headphones. And I want to, you know, eat my peanuts and watch my show or whatever. But if I were to talk to somebody for a long time on an airplane, that's what I would really get into. But I think that the people that I admire most the most hopeful people in the world, I think of Jane Goodall, I think of John Lewis, I think of Cory Booker, like these people, their their sense of hopefulness is coming deeply from practicing what they preach and living out that action every single day of their lives. And that's, that's what I would want to aspire to.
I mean, as you're, as you're saying, this, I'm thinking, man, if people want to join the helpers, how do you how would you encourage them to get started, because it can feel sort of overwhelming. But I think we've talked, you've talked a lot about, you can make small impacts in your community. So where do people get started? So
I think the first thing is, I think everybody is going to find something that really stands out to them as something that they are uniquely drawn to, you know, I've got friends who describe it, as you know, what's the thing that breaks your heart, because you probably have that thing, whether it's because you've been impacted by, you know, mental health in your own life, or mental health in somebody else's life, or whether it's because you experienced some sort of, you know, experience in your childhood, or you like, we're really connected with an issue you saw on the news, like, whatever the thing is, you know, find that thing that breaks your heart and know that that same thing isn't going to break everybody's heart in the same way. And so the fact that it breaks your heart means you have an opportunity to use that pain, and turn it into purpose. But then the next thing is, when you look for the helpers, there, you're pretty immediately going to find somebody with a big name, who's probably famous for doing this thing and probably leads a big nonprofit, or as a political figure, they're doing something huge, you do not have to do that huge thing, they have been doing this for a long time, there's a reason that they are there, the best thing you can do is do the smallest thing you can you can think of. And yeah, sometimes that's, hey, I'm going to just donate $5, because even just pulling out your credit card is, you know, challenging enough, donate your $5 or, you know, find one day to volunteer, you don't even have to commit to weekly or monthly, just find one day to volunteer, or, you know, go on social media and spread the word about an issue, do that one action step. And then we have found time and time again, that that one action step is going to create this weird nerdy feedback loop in your brain where your brain is gonna be like, we should do that again. And it will naturally pull you into doing more and more and more, and every single nonprofit leader or activists that I've interviewed, you know, they started off by doing something, you know, small in their life. And then they just did another thing. And another thing and another thing, and now they run a big nonprofit, now they run a big advocacy network, you know, like, eventually they, they grew into that thing, but it was because they started small. And so my encouragement is there's no action that is too small. And and I think anybody has the ability to show up and do that. And what that small thing is, will depend on so many things, your level of privilege, how much money you have, how much time you have. But I think everybody's got an opportunity to do something. And then just remain open to what happens next and what opportunities lie ahead.
I mean, I could keep talking forever and ever and ever. I mean, I think there's so many things that you've talked about today. It's so important. that we we really celebrate the small things that people can do, of recognizing that we're going to do some trial and error along the way. And that that negativity bias is there. And we're going to have to acknowledge it, mourn it, pay attention to it, look for those helpers, and then become your own helper become the helper in your community. Brandon, I am like, so jazz. Is there anything you want to leave with? Before we wrap up today?
No, I mean, I'm loving this conversation. And I just love anytime that I get to, you know, talk with you. I just think that there's a very special community in the world of people who are willing to take action and make a difference and dive into like things that help them feel more hopeful and make the world a better place. And not everybody is up for it. And that's part of like, the interesting thing about goodgoodgood is, we're not trying to be huge, we will never be competing with traditional media companies. We know that we are just trying to be a support system for this, like special kind of person. And I think that that special kind of person is, you know, your listeners, this amazing community you've brought together. And so it just feels like such a treat to get to talk with these people. Because these people are my people. And it makes it really, I mean, it comes back to that first question. Like, it's these communities of people that make me feel so hopeful about the future of the world, because I have no doubt that when the next crisis hits, or when the next when we noticed the next problem in our neighborhoods or in somebody's life around us, you know, we all have the ability to acknowledge that to look for other people who are responding and making a difference. And then we can join in and make a difference ourselves.
My heart is so full, I'm so excited. I'm gonna put everything all of your handles in the show notes. But folks, please, please, please go listen to Branden's podcast. Follow goodgoodgood get the good newspaper. And thank you so much for your time today, Branden and for all that you're doing. I'm gonna go look for some helpers and get involved in DC. So thank you. I love it.