Rob Greenfield on the enormous power of small changes

Hello and welcome to the Slow Home podcast. This is the podcast all about slow living in a fast-paced world. I am and Brooke McCallery and my name is Ben McCallery and welcome to episode 241. We're getting up there aren't we? We are 241. We certainly are in this episode. Hang on let me quantify this first. So we're currently on the road starting our big slow tour. We are. Like officially like almost on this exact date. Yes. So obviously we have been keeping things updated on social media and over on the events page on slow your home. But we are currently touring around the Yukon which is cool. And well look, being transparent we're not actually right this second. We've recorded this just before. We are touring around the Yukon. But that's right now if you're listening to this today it comes out where we will be. I'm trying to link what we're doing now to what our guest is doing or what it would have done and has been doing throughout North America for quite some time. And our guest today is Rob Greenfield. And for those that don't know Rob has clocked up some caves or miles. So yes I'm sorry I'm a little slow on the uptake today but that's absolutely a beautiful time to make. But Rob Greenfield you may have come across him at some point on social media or in a newspaper or something like that because he is a guy who does big things to get people's attention drawn to a particular issue. So Rob is the guy who you say Rob is an activist definitely. Absolutely. Would you say Rob is an environmentalist? I would. Would you say Rob is a legend? I would. Rob is also a dude making a difference. Oh nice. But Rob is the guy who collected the average amount of rubbish that an American creates in a month I think it was. And he strapped himself with big plastic bags see through plastic bags and war that rubbish around New York City for it might have actually been a month. So Rob like that's Rob. Rob's also the guy who traveled something like 4,000 miles without a single penny to his name just to see what it would be like to rely on others and to kind of meet people and and become part of something bigger. And he keeps doing it like he starts he keeps doing it. Yeah. He's a PR dream really. Well look he is but he's not doing it for any reason other than to make a difference which is what I really like about him. And I mean the reason I've always found him really fascinating but the reason that I wanted so badly to chat to Rob is because he's starting to make this shift. He's done a lot of zero waste activism and lives a zero waste lifestyle himself. But he's also now focusing much more on food security and the opportunity we have for growing our own food and becoming part of a food growing community. And here and I talk about that in today's episode along with a lot of other things but the other thing we touch on is something that I still grapple with myself. And I know a lot of people listening do it's the enormity of all these problems. Once we we we become aware and he talks quite a bit about his process of becoming aware of the issues in the world. Once we become aware we we feel both inspired but also kind of defeated by how heavy these problems are. And he and I talk about that and how he's able to harness this idea of making one small change at a time and being able to look back and seeing how far he's come which I find really inspiring. So there's a lot of I mean there's big ideas here big campaigns big changes big choices but also the power of small daily actions that Rob talks about. That is awesome. It is it was a really really fun conversation. Find out more about Rob just head over to slow your home.com backslash or forward slash let's not get into that argument again episode 241 that's 241. And you can also head over to Rob's website which is Rob Greenfield dot TV there you will find a history of all of his campaigns and his activism and what he's up to now. And he's also got a really great community on Facebook. Yeah Google Rob Greenfield if you want to go through down that rabbit hole which is yeah it's it's a pretty great rabbit hole. But until then enjoy today's episode. Rob hello hello how are you I'm so well how are you pretty good life is good here in Florida right now. I'm glad to hear it and I'm also glad to be talking with you I've been following you and your your your inspiring campaigns over the last couple of years and I'm actually stoked that we get to chat about it today. Well that's nice to hear I like to speak to people who have been enjoying the adventures and getting something positive out of it. Yeah no which is a lot of a lot of people and that's really where I want to start because you're like a self describe dude making a difference these days. And the ways that you're helping people make a difference often center on things like zero waste living and living a simpler more sustainable lifestyle both in terms of finances and the impact we're having on the environment. But that wasn't always a case was it I mean this isn't you weren't kind of you were born with this mission in mind so what we what was life like for you ten years ago. And what was the catalyst for change yeah so well I guess ten years ago I would have been twenty one years old because I'm thirty one now and. For a long time I was living what would be sort of continue considered a pretty typical American life my you know I was very focused on money you know work my goal at that time was be a millionaire by the time I was thirty. I was very focused on my car at that time I had just bought a brand new car and I would spend two hours every Sunday shining it and making sure that it was spotless. I was very focused on material possessions and you know it was a lot of that was largely ego based and then a lot of it was based on doing what I thought was considered success consider you know the life to strive for. And so I took you know my actions in you know how my actions affected the environment or humanity other people very minimally into account it wasn't really my thoughts my thoughts were mostly but based on personal gain and yeah personal gain and pleasure in life to a large extent. And to me that's just incredible to see how much you've shifted in that period of ten years was there a moment or something that happened to you in in life for things to change it was a gradual realization you know did it perhaps start with the book and then a slow shift towards living a different. In a different way I mean how did that shift happen well I would say that that is without a question maybe the most commonly asked questions in the like. And I guess the reason why is that people see that I really transform my life I mean it's a stark difference between today and even six years ago I mean just a totally totally stark difference and so most people expect that I had some sort of moment of enlightenment or some sort of near death experience you know that really stereotypical maybe that's how it's portrayed in movies. And for me it was the total opposite of that no moment of enlightenment no near death no death in the family that made me realize I needed to live life it was really just that I started to watch a lot of documentaries and read a lot of books and it wasn't just one book or one documentary it was. A accumulation of knowledge and what happened was my whole life started to unravel before me because through these documentaries and books I started to realize that basically everything that I was doing the food that I was eating the car that I was driving the gas that I was pumping into my car even the water that I was drinking. In San Diego for example that water was coming a couple hundred miles or three four hundred kilometers away from the Colorado River where it was being sucked dry to the point where it doesn't make it to the ocean just my simple act of drinking water and everything else hundreds of things I realized I was doing what's causing destruction to the world. And at that point I said well I don't want to live a life that destroys the world I want to be good to the world and so and I know I don't want to live a life that causes destruction to other people I don't want to buy stuff that means other people are slaving away and so I realized all of these things and just made a very realistic rational decision that I got to change my life. I love this because I often am asked by people about making changes so I'll often interview people or I've shared some of my own story where it was you know a mental health issue that caused me to change the way I was living previous to that I was living very similarly to you focusing on living a quote successful life and having all appearances there of. But so many people say to me I don't want to wait until I have a health crisis or until a relationship breaks down or into my life unravels how do I make these changes now before some huge crisis kind of hits me. And what I love about what you're saying is it's possible to do that simply by changing your inputs starting to. Make a shift in terms of the knowledge that we're acquiring in the books you're reading in the documentaries you're watching and use that and I guess did you get to a certain point where you couldn't unsee what you are seeing you couldn't I know what you had discovered. Yeah a lot of people like to use the term ignorance as bliss they like to live that life have some very intelligent friends that intentionally don't learn things because then they know they'll have to change their life. A perfect example is my you know I'm over at a friend's house and he's taking his factory farm meets out of the fridge that came from I think Sam's club in bulk like chicken breasts and I say you know you know where those chicken you know I don't say this to everybody is a good friend of mine. I said you know where those chicken breasts are from right and he's like well basically you know I kind of know but I haven't really looked into it because if I know then I can't buy these anymore. And I want to buy these right I think humans are incredibly good at sticking our heads in the sand on things that make us uncomfortable. Yes and so basically I you know there is no going back to what I learned and I don't want to because for me truth really is central to my life it is really about understanding. So so here's the thing if I'm doing all of these things that are causing a negative impact on the world and I'm ignoring them intentionally or I'm just kind of shoving them to the side that to me is living an untruthful life. And I'm definitely on a you know a constant quest for truth which in today's world is a very hard thing to be in a state of truth because you know we just don't live in the most genuine authentic world today. Well there's a genders everyone's got a genders you know both sides of every argument has an agenda and we have so many tools I guess at our disposal in terms of media and social media that allow people to spread various levels of truth and untruth. And I think that's probably a big part of it actually for people struggling to make these changes I mean maybe they know they want to but then they start to investigate they start to read and watch documentaries and you know listen to podcasts and what have you. And then become really overwhelmed at everything that they now understand is problematic where do they begin you know and this is another question that I'm asked to look where do I start how do I begin when everything needs to change. So you mentioned that you formulated a rational plan and it was realistic and you simply started so what did you start with what were the first changes that you made. Yeah and so yeah I'm glad you brought it back to that because I was going to as well and because here's the good news for anyone listening. You don't need to change your life overnight it's very easy to feel overwhelmed you know you realize like I realize there's hundreds of problems with my life. Other people are realizing that as well that so many things are so messed up and so it's very easy to feel overwhelmed and say well I can't do anything because it's all so messed up. But I did the opposite instead I became very inspired and very excited to start changing my life one bit at a time and it started really small. At first I you know I was going to Walmart and buying everything there my food was coming from there all my cheap good was coming from there and everything would be double bagged in plastic bags. So one of my simplest changes was getting a reusable bag something that is really easy to do that takes that's not stressful at all that was one small change. And then you know I kept making one small change like you know instead of driving to the grocery store that was just a half mile away. I would bike to the grocery store that's a half mile away or sorry or like three quarters of a kilometer you know things that are manageable and so I started with manageable things and the more positive changes I made the more really ultimately easy it became because. Everybody knows that when something feels good you're more likely to do it so I felt good which made it easier to do more. I changed my diet which made me feel healthier and and I was biking more which made me feel healthier and happier and so most things that when you change things that are better for humanity better for the you know the environment better for other creatures typically the good news is it's better for yourself as well. So you know once you get the journey kick started enough then it you kind of end up sort of a snowball rolling down a hill right and that momentum sort of feeds into larger changes to the point where maybe you look back at where you've come from and realize well I actually have changed a great deal. Absolutely and that's that's the thing like radical transformation doesn't happen overnight it starts with one small change and then another one and another one but here's the thing if you're adding. I can send to your yard every day just a pile of sand right in your yard you'll you'll just every day you gradually see it until there's a big pile but it never looked over like the transformation happened over a short period of time that may be a really crappy analogy I'm just looking at I'm just looking at the garden in my yard but the point is you won't even know how much your transform transforming as you're making these small changes it's just starts. It really starts to take place and then after a while then you can really like look back and say whoa that is a lot even if you're just making one positive change a week. Exactly absolutely and I think that not fearing small change is really important because we're you know we're we're all about kind of instant gratification you know we decide we want to change the way we live so we want to do it yesterday we decide that we want to make an impact on the world so we want it to be audacious and immediate and I think to re-learn that change is small and consistent is really important and it kind of goes against the grain of the way that we have been living. For the past couple of generations which is instant gratification I want it yesterday. Yes absolutely and I feel like I should either something I want to say and that is I may have just made it sound easy but transforming your life is not easy. I mean very few really good things are easy I feel like that's kind of like one of those cliche statement what is it like nothing easy in life nothing good in life comes easy but I mean when it comes to these sorts of things that's generally the case it's not going to be easy to totally change. It's easy to totally change your life and to take back the power from big corporations and and you know look at life in a different way so it's not going to be easy and if you care about humanity and you really care about the environment in my opinion it means you're going to be going against the grain to try to really have your actions. Align with your beliefs it means you have to go against the grain of society because I would say the grain of society currently is it's more on the aesthetics more on the instant gratification you know more on this just kind of like convenience. It's not going to be convenient to totally transform your life so you know as much as it can be an enjoyable amazing journey it's I'm just going to say it's it's not just going to be like this easy change. I yeah I couldn't agree more on everything you just said I think convenience is really one of the enemies of progress in you know in society at the moment and I think I often talk about the idea of slow living being counter cultural and that that comes with a certain set of challenges you know when you're moving against the grain when you're turning left when all of your friends and family are turning right you do need to have a set of values or something like a foundation or a belief in what you're doing that is really strong because. The reason that everyone kind of goes in the same direction is because it's easier it's not better for us it doesn't make us feel better but it is easier to just let go and go with the flow so I mean did you have any. Strategies or ways of describing the changes you are making that either put you at ease or allowed other people to see that what you were doing was based on your personal values did you have a way of kind of making that clear. Let's see you know I actually didn't have to this is an area where I had less of a hard time than I know a lot of people do and the reason being is that I've always just done what I wanted even I mean in the past what I wanted to do was stuff that was you know more ego based as I said work my way up the ladder be a millionaire all that sort of stuff and when I was living that life I just did what I wanted whether people you know. You know liked it or not so for me that's always been. That's an easier thing about changing my life is that it didn't really matter to me I wanted to change my life so I was going to do it right so that made it you know obviously easier for me but one of the things like I still have an ego but my ego has definitely dropped many levels since six years ago or so and you know some of the things I do for example. Thumbs to diving to raise awareness about food waste. I'm surviving as a fihip term but if you could also call it just eating garbage or digging food out of the trash I mean those are both equally accurate representations although good food in the garbage isn't garbage but to the average person it's garbage. Now for that's a perfect example of how by doing that it put my it had it made it forced me to drop down my ego anybody eating out of the garbage is going to be humble is going to it's basically an experiment in social acceptance and so what I did is I I kind of kept doing these things that put myself out there outside. My comfort zone because although I've dived into thousands of dumpsters today the first time I dive into a dumpster I was extremely worried what people would think about me but by practicing stepping outside of social norms in sort of a bold way really what that did is it allowed me to the smaller things not even have to think about that so there's all sorts of little things that I would recommend for example. You know one of the week long experiments I did is that for one week I couldn't use any utensils to eat no forks or spoons or knives so no matter where I was I eat with my hands and you know during that week I even went to some you know parties went out to dinner with people and I had to eat with my hands. Easy experiment anyone can do but it forces you to be outside of your comfort zone and the more times you force yourself to be outside of your suicidal non comfort zone the quicker you are able to just settle into yourself and really just naturally be you. Right I really like this idea I mean because you're as you said you're you're well known for putting yourself out there in kind of like really obvious ways like strapping all of your like the typical amount of rubbish that one person creates in a month in like strapping it to your body and walking around that sort of stuff catches people's attention but as you say it's also a really fascinating experiment that allows you personally to expand. Your like your comfort zone and maybe shrink the ego and find your place within this this big kind of mess and and just forge away ahead that makes sense to you rather than worrying about what other people think and I'm hugely positive on the whole idea of experimentation because I think it's also it's a very low risk thing to do that teaches you about yourself or the way you react or the way you view the world or the habits that we've formed over a life. And it gives us a really gentle way of pushing back against all of those things I think. Yeah absolutely and it should be pointed out like yeah the project called trash me where I wore all the trash that I created while living like the average American for a month in New York City. I was covered in trash on the trash monster the trash for that trash former all of the and you know I was just a walking ball of trash now the reason I bring saying this is because I could not have done that six years ago. The only reason I could do that is because I continuously stepped outside of my comfort zone with these smaller things to the point where I stopped got to the point where I. I don't worry what people think about me enough to the point where I can walk around New York City covered in trash for a month right. And I mean what what's your experience with the interaction to have with other people when you're someone who is now really comfortable I guess or as comfortable as possible in putting yourself out there in such big ways. What I mean how do people respond to that well and here's the really good news about all this which is not something I would have known six years ago. But I think that what people really want are authentic people you know when you look at the politicians and so many of the movie stars that there's just so much fakeness in the world. And so really to me it doesn't matter what you're doing as long as you are being your absolute self that is one of the greatest accomplishments in today's world is to truly be yourself. And I think that people are extremely attracted to it I know for me you know a lot of the things that I worried about turned out to be called the opposite direction the more that I just truly was my authentic self the more people were actually attracted to me and what I was doing. I doesn't matter who how weird you are you know we're all we are all a bunch of weirdos and I think people are attracted to it so I would really. You know a lot of this is about the environment but it's also about living a good life. You know it's pretty hard to be certain about what the purpose of life is but I don't see a harm in really trying to live a quality life that doesn't harm others to me that seems like a really worthwhile endeavor in the time that we have. And I think that value of yours of compassion and generosity and thinking beyond yourself well beyond you know the bounds of yourself in your own personal comfort and interest that permeates everything that you do and have done over the past few years. And the story of your bike having been stolen was that at the end of last year yeah yeah you had your bike stolen and the story that that kind of came out of that really inspired me and I know it inspired a huge number of people to just all and it takes us to look through the comments of your Instagram posts to see the number of people who reference this story can you just tell us what happened when your bike was stolen. Sure yeah so this is in November and I'm actually my girlfriend was at work and she asked me to come meet her and ride home with her so I rode my bike over there I got there a little bit early and had a couple of really long days and I I set my bike down on the bike rack and walked about. I don't know ten feet a couple meters away from it sat down like really just relaxed for the first time in a couple of days looking up at the full moon. I was sitting here this weird noise behind me and I look back and I see my bike and someone on it just speeding off in the light of the moon into the distance. I get up and I chase you know chase down obviously he was biking fast that I could chase and then I decided that I quickly said I'm going to turn this what would you know objectively be considered a very negative situation this is my bamboo bike I've used it to bike across the country I only had about 111 possessions at the time which this is probably my most important possession my most valuable possession. If I had much sentiment this would be the thing that I had sentiment to but I quickly said here's the situation how can I turn this into something good so I brainstormed and I said okay I know what it feels like to get my bike stolen it's it's a pretty bad feeling. I'm going to use this to help people who have had their bike stolen so I quickly created a go fund me to buy bikes for people I do mostly kids who have had their bike stolen so I could turn this one bad deed into a good deed and the other idea was to sort of like you know bad won't create more bad big you know I really have been inspired by Martin Luther King and one of the things he says hey cannot drive out hate only love can do that for me I thought here's bad deeds. Bad another bad deed will not drive it out so good deeds can crowd it out so one bad deed happened let me make 10 good deeds out of it. And so that's what I said out to do and then I ended up raising enough money to buy 50 bikes and recently finished that 51 now and then I went on a bike search and I spent two days looking for it I met the guy who stole it get our Johnny was his name got the bike back gave Johnny a big hug and actually the person who helped me find guitar Johnny just sent me a Facebook message she was one of the homeless people who helped me find my bike. Actually just sent me a message yesterday or two days ago and so Johnny is is at home now and he's cleaned up and sober wow wow that's incredible yeah I don't know if it will for sure last but that was pretty positive to hear so my hope was to have a positive impact on him through by the by showing you know. Compassion rather than anger and whether it turns out to have worked with a try yeah and I mean and and beyond that made you you can only control your choices and your actions which you did but beyond the impact that it may or may not have on him it's had a huge impact on other people who were watching and who are inspired by your compassion and generosity made it's really unusual I think to see people model. The ideas of forgiveness and compassion because they're like they're difficult they are not easy and I think to see someone do that is really powerful and I will have further reaching impacts and maybe you could even imagine. So I think I just want to say thank you for putting that kind of that kind of stuff out into the world because I think it's important I really do. I appreciate that and I want to make another point about this so today that came as second nature but six years ago or ten years ago I was not and I had I had really great parents but you are expected a lot by not just your parents but by media by all the people around you by popular culture so I definitely was raised by the retaliation mindset. So to go from that to today to you know hugging the thief and hoping for the best from him again not something that happened overnight I realized that I wanted to change the way I looked at things so I practiced compassion the only way that you can gain. So any of these abilities is to practice them it's just like if playing a sport you will never become a professional basketball player overnight you need to practice practice practice and the same goes for any personal characteristic you'll only become these things if you're not naturally born them which most of us aren't born necessarily these things if you practice it. I would put myself into situations where I was forced to practice these these characteristics that I wanted to be and that took time it took years but after years of doing that I created the foundation where now when something happens I never I really never think retaliation I think how to turn this negative thing into a positive thing for everybody involved. Yeah and I think that that shows in everything that you've done and that you continue to do so as we wrap up just give me a like a sneak peek or a preview into the next big experiment that you are embarking on for this coming year. Sure this one's a little different because most of my most of my projects are usually a little on the shorter edge and like one month a couple maybe sometimes it's a week sometimes it's a month sometimes it's a couple month but this is one year of growing or foraging 100% of my food down to the even the oil I have to make my own oil the spices I have to go to the ocean and harvest my own salt can't go to a party and have a morsel or snack. Or anything for an entire year after growers forage 100% and you know I think I can do it but I personally have never met anyone who has done it and when I talk to people who say they did it for just a week or two weeks they always say that it was a crazy challenging experience and so to do this for a year I'm extremely excited about it. I'm excited to watch it unfold actually I can only imagine the impact it would have on your view of how connected we all are you know and how much we rely on each other which I think then kind of flows really beautifully back into the humanity aspect of everything that you do you know as you were talking about compassion and generosity and forgiveness and you know just viewing the people on the other side of every transaction and every equation every interaction and you're just doing it in such a massive and audacious kind of way it's really cool. Yeah I mean you know it's easy to think like this is a very individualistic experience like trying to grow or forage 100% of my food so you can look at that as like something that's about like self sustainability and you know individualism but really the whole purpose of this is it's about community. You'll see through this project that this isn't about me being able to do it it's about the only way that I'm able to accomplish this is through creating a community around growing our own food so what I'm one of the projects that I just started is called gardens for single moms and for building gardens for single moms in the Orlando area teaching them how to grow and and cook their own food and feed their families and so as I'm doing this the whole purpose of this the whole you know point of this is to do something that's not big and an extreme but really to just inspire people to start growing their own food whether it's just a window sill of herbs or growing your greens in your backyard or just one you know tomato plant to start that's really what it's about it's really just about inspiring people to to think about their food and to you know start growing a little of their own. It's amazing and I can't wait to watch it all unfold over the next 12 months but Rob I just want to say thank you for your time and for sharing your story it's been fantastic. It's been really wonderful to speak with you I've enjoyed it a lot maybe after the year we'll do this again. I would love to I would love to check in and see how it's all gone. Cool sounds great. Thanks Rob. Alright. Bye. See ya.