Episode 96
Oliver Dauert on Building Impact-First Ventures
Welcome back to Stories for the Future! After a rejuvenating summer break, I'm launching the new season with a guest who embodies everything this podcast is about: purpose, impact, and bold reinvention.
Meet Oliver Dauert, founder of Wildya, a venture helping ecopreneurs transform their love for nature into scalable, regenerative impact. Oliver’s journey took him from childhood fascination with nature to eco-anxiety and corporate disillusionment – and ultimately to building one of the most forward-thinking nature-first platforms out there.
In this conversation, we explore:
🌿 Oliver’s personal transformation from a business student in a broken system to an “impact millionaire” in the making
💡 Why business schools fail to prepare leaders for a nature-positive future
🔥 The real traits that set successful ecopreneurs apart (hint: pragmatism beats perfection)
💰 Why money isn’t evil – and how it becomes a tool for regeneration
💔 The emotional toll of working in the climate and biodiversity space – and how Oliver channels grief into motivation
🐾 What it really takes to scale nature impact in a capitalistic world
Whether you're an ecopreneur, solopreneur, or just someone dreaming of a wilder, better world – this episode is for you.
📌 Learn more about Oliver’s work:
📩 Let me know what resonated with you most – connect on LinkedIn or leave a review!
Want to be a guest on Stories for the future: Beyond the Bubble? Send Veslemoy Klavenes-Berge a message on PodMatch.
You can always find more information about the podcast and my work on storiesforthefuture.com and on Substack
Mentioned in this episode:
Thanks to Creative Space for supporting this episode! Visit getcreativespace.com
Transcript
Foreign welcome back to Stories for the Future.
Speaker A:I'm so, so happy to be back after a really long summer vacation.
Speaker A:And to celebrate that, I decided to kick it off with a guest that will really set the tone for the season and in a brilliant way, sum up what it's all about.
Speaker A:So if you have spent any time in the nature or ecopreneurship space, chances are you've seen this name pop up in your feed somewhere.
Speaker A:LinkedIn is where I connected with him myself and I really urge you to follow and connect as he writes a lot of really interesting posts.
Speaker A:His name is Oliver Dward.
Speaker A:Born in Berlin, now living in France.
Speaker A:He just became a father.
Speaker A:Congratulations Oliver.
Speaker A:And he is the founder of Wild Yacht, a venture that helps ecopreneurs turn their love for nature into serious scalable impact.
Speaker A:He's not here to make you a millionaire, he's here to make you an impact millionaire.
Speaker A:Which trust me, is way more interesting.
Speaker A:We talk about his journey from ego anxiety and the corporate world to creating one of the most forward thinking nature first platforms around.
Speaker A:We dive into the mindset, the money struggles, the burnout and the beautiful stubborn resilience of nature.
Speaker A:Oliver has so many golden nuggets to share and I'm absolutely sure that you will enjoy this conversation.
Speaker A:Let's get into it.
Speaker A:Welcome so much to Stories for the Future, Oliver.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker B:Really appreciate it and what a privilege.
Speaker A:Yeah, likewise.
Speaker A:And as I say in the intro, I have seen your name and read your posts on LinkedIn so many times.
Speaker A:So I'm really excited about this because like to get to understand a little bit more about you, what you do and the biggest vision behind it and also maybe most importantly how you plan to do it.
Speaker A:I'm really curious about that.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And on your LinkedIn profile it says so just to pique people's curiosity.
Speaker A:Not here to make you a millionaire, here to make you an impact millionaire.
Speaker A:And that also made me really curious and we will get back to it.
Speaker A:But I first I would love to start with you actually and like the personal journey and maybe I should say transformation story or something because you said that your quarter life crisis and eco anxiety pushed you into action.
Speaker A:What does that mean?
Speaker A:And what made you walk away from what I understand was like the corporate world and into the wild, so to speak.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So to just give people like a bit of a really quick introduction.
Speaker B:I always loved nature since I was a little boy.
Speaker B:Asked my mom to dress me up as an elephant seal when I was like five and so just to give you a bit of, a bit of context, what a weirdo I am.
Speaker B:So love the, love the natural world.
Speaker B:As a child grew up, realized not everybody has necessarily the same passion and empathy and, and love for the natural world.
Speaker B:Kind of adapted a bit to society because I wanted to fit in as any teenager.
Speaker B:So I was playing soccer and like started to care for fashion and all of that stuff.
Speaker B:Fast forward, I'm 19, find myself in Australia and just realized like, why should I live a life for other people and not for what really matters to me in life?
Speaker B:And that was always the natural world.
Speaker B:And then had to make a decision, okay, I do, I'm going to go the, let's say, the classical route.
Speaker B:So to say, if you love nature, then you usually study like zoology, marine biology, ecology.
Speaker B:Or do I go a bit like off the beaten path and study actually business?
Speaker B:Because in my reflection I realized as like, businesses are the key driver why we are in this nature crisis.
Speaker B:And then I thought like, how can we maybe change the system so instead of extractive, it actually becomes regenerative, but from within because you, you can't really do that.
Speaker B:I think if you don't really understand how the system is currently working, how you currently are incentivized within the system and how can we use all of the techniques that right now companies are using to let's say create like visions, like they're selling us plastic shoes, but what they make us feel is like, oh, if we buy those plastic shoes, we become an athlete.
Speaker B:You know, how can we use this kind of same storytelling and this really powerful way of getting people engaged, but for actually doing something really positive like protecting, restoring, rewilding the world.
Speaker B:And so I started to, yeah, study business again.
Speaker B:Lost myself a bit in that.
Speaker B:So then I started studying, I lost myself again a bit because now I was studying with people where nature was not necessarily the main reason why they studied this.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And again I found myself a bit like in this finding phase of like, what should I do?
Speaker B:And yeah, started to work for different companies and mobility and E commerce and travel.
Speaker B:And one thing that I just realized with all of them was like, nobody was really talking about nature and biodiversity even though their businesses were dependent on it.
Speaker B:And of course I started to do things internally and try to change a bit the narrative and try to create awareness.
Speaker B:But yeah, it became increasingly hard to kind of make the changes from within and then sooner or later ventured out.
Speaker B:And the second part of your question, when it came to the eco anxiety, that was before I Took my first like full time job.
Speaker B:And that was basically a time, I think it was probably mental health wise, probably one of my darkest times where I just like realized, okay, now I'm like, I think it was 26 or 27.
Speaker B:I just realized like, okay, I studied and I did all of this stuff and I ventured out to, to build this wilder world.
Speaker B:And I just like looked at my life and I just didn't feel like I'd done enough so far.
Speaker B:And like, I'm having this picture of myself in my head that tells me like, you know, you are this nature person and you do everything for the natural world.
Speaker B:I just looked at their reality and that was just not the case.
Speaker B:And I was just like, I'm not spending enough time in nature.
Speaker B:I don't have that many friends, I talk about nature.
Speaker B:I don't do anything in my work really, to really, really move the needle.
Speaker B:So I was just like, you know, like, it's just like not who I wanted to become or who I want to be.
Speaker B:And back when I was 27, I was still like very like blocked.
Speaker B:And it was just like a kind of a paralysis mode.
Speaker B:And then luckily that got better when I was.
Speaker B:When the second time it hit me was in the COVID times when we were locked up.
Speaker B:And then the second time I actually got into this kind of action mode of like, okay, I already been there when I was 27.
Speaker B:Now a couple of later years later, I'm not going to go into paralysis mode.
Speaker B:I'm actually going to commit the time and the resources that we have right now and go all in on becoming actually the person that I wanted to become when I was five.
Speaker A:So long story short, I. I'm curious about one thing.
Speaker A:When you said that you decided because you had this, you had this, maybe the love for nature from you were a child and you had these thoughts when you were 19 and were going into studies and you made the decision to study business and not go the kind of more traditional route if you wanted to go into nature.
Speaker A:Looking back, do you think that.
Speaker A:Because in my head that seems very, it sounds really smart.
Speaker A:How do you see it when you look back like.
Speaker A:And a follow up to that question was something I was going to ask you later.
Speaker A:If business schools or what you're taught in business schools are actually preparing you for doing what you're doing today or what is missing in business schools?
Speaker B:Yeah, let me start with the second one because it's a really easy one to answer.
Speaker B:So the second one is just like, no, not at all so at least when I was, I was studying from, just to give people a bit of context, I was studying from.
Speaker B: I think I started studying in: Speaker B:So just in terms of context, so it was not like as it is maybe right now, but when I was studying there was like nothing about like planetary boundaries, there was nothing about climate change, there was nothing about biodiversity.
Speaker B:So you basically had still this kind of teachings about like looking at economy and looking at businesses in a kind of vacuum of like not in the real world, but in this kind of simulation of the world where we wouldn't need nature in a stable climate to do business.
Speaker B:And so that was definitely not the case.
Speaker B:I don't know if that really changed from what I hear at least it doesn't sound like it has changed that much.
Speaker B:There's still often really like a focus of where let's say 99% of the courses in businesses and so forth, they're still not really look at the bigger picture and how we can actually use the businesses and the economy to regenerate and solve a lot of our global issues.
Speaker B:But I think, yeah, that's like one of the things that really need to change because in the end what we're going to do is we always going to create like a new generation that is maybe prepared in this really bubble scenario of a theory of like how businesses work, but they're not really prepared when they then come to the real world.
Speaker B:And that's not just with climate change and with biodiversity.
Speaker B:I think this is really comes when it comes to really actually interacting with employees, interacting with like your customers, with stakeholders, with shareholders.
Speaker B:It's still very theoretical.
Speaker B:And I really hope that the education system is going to change to make it much more practical, to really make it usable in the real world.
Speaker B:Especially now as we living in a time where AI is just gonna change everything, you know.
Speaker B:And the second part, the first question of do I think it was the right move to do that?
Speaker B:It's the only path I know and it's the only path where I can just speak about my truth and my experience.
Speaker B:From what I see right now, I would definitely say yes, it was because I started studying this because I had the feeling like nobody was listening to the scientists and nobody was listening to.
Speaker B:I was always fascinated by especially large mammals, you know, so I wanted to maybe see like whales and elephants and lions and wanted to dedicate my entire life to one species or whatever.
Speaker B:I just realized Almost like nobody unfortunately is listening to them.
Speaker B:On the larger scale, yes.
Speaker B:In the bubble, yes, they definitely listen.
Speaker B:But on a larger scale as a society, they just don't get the attention that they deserve.
Speaker B:And the voices are not really heard.
Speaker B:And which voices are we often listening to who are omnipresent in our media is those really, really businessy people, those CEOs and so forth.
Speaker B:And so I think right now what that allowed me to do is being a bit of a translator between those two worlds, between the business world and between biodiversity, let's say the biodiversity, the nature world.
Speaker B:Well, I understand a lot about the natural world, understand a lot businesses.
Speaker B:And I can try to be a bit the translator to communicate between the two languages because quite often they speak in the languages that is kind of alien to the other.
Speaker B:And so that helps me maybe to build bridges, which personally I think is what's really needed.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:Oh it, I, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker A:And it's, it's kind of the same way that I think about my.
Speaker A:Because my old industry is oil and gas and now I'm in that other bubble so trying to.
Speaker A:Because those two bubbles don't really communicate.
Speaker A:It's like speaking past each other and it's this constant argument war or something.
Speaker A:And it's not like one, the one part says something which is not true.
Speaker A:It's just that we're seeing things from very different perspectives.
Speaker A:So I think that that bridge building role is super, super important.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And especially I'm always a.
Speaker B:Sometimes there are.
Speaker B:What gets me a bit like angry is that still this very theoretical thinking.
Speaker B:I think this theoretical thinking is really important of like, okay, ideally if we could do it, how would we do it?
Speaker B:And so forth.
Speaker B:But then we need to pair it with really pragmatic thinking of like, okay, let's need to get, let's get together on the table and, and actually talk with each other rather than about each other.
Speaker B:Because let's be realistic, especially the industry that you worked in before oil, gas, they have like so deep pockets, they like their entire business.
Speaker B:Everything that we do in our life is still really functioning on that model.
Speaker B:So you can forget about this, that they're not going to play a role in the next like five to 10 years.
Speaker B:It's just not realistic.
Speaker B:It's just like they have so many billions in their, in their treasures.
Speaker B:It's just like you need to get them, you need to get them excited about like how that can.
Speaker B:Okay, we really need to leave that behind because we're really running out of time.
Speaker B:We really need to get better in the, in the climate transition and the nature transition.
Speaker B:How can you play actually as an oil and gas company?
Speaker B:How can you play a role to really change it?
Speaker B:Yes, you make your riches in the past, but that is just not an option right now.
Speaker B:Just the net cost of everything that you do is not positive as it maybe used to be in the history.
Speaker B:Now it's really net negative.
Speaker B:How can you now play a huge role in making it net positive again?
Speaker B:Because when it started, you know, it like it also enabled a lot of really positive things.
Speaker B:And so you can't.
Speaker B:That's just the reality is always you need to think being really pragmatic of like, okay, theory is one thing, but how can you then pair it with the real world?
Speaker B:Because there's just not a high chance that there's going to be this reset button where you're going to be like, okay, now we can build everything from scratch.
Speaker B:The more likely scenario that's probably going to happen is like the engine is running and we need to transition the literally like the engine from like an oil engine to like something that is more first neutral and that just like does maybe less damage and maybe starts to do a bit of positive impact.
Speaker B:But that becomes a regenerative engine that actually just by being it on it actually helps the world to become better.
Speaker B:This is not going to happen from one to the other day, but that's the transition that we need.
Speaker B:And that's I think, yeah, right now I don't see this heart reset coming anywhere near.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's more like turning an oil tanker.
Speaker A:Literally.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:So we had to talk about your company.
Speaker A:Wild.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Did I say it correctly?
Speaker A:Now while.
Speaker A:Yeah, so, so, and to start with that, back to what I said at the beginning.
Speaker A:Not here to make you a millionaire, here to make you an impact millionaire.
Speaker A:What do you mean by that?
Speaker A:Just to get started with that.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think in our society nowadays, I mean I literally study business.
Speaker B:So you have like, you have entire university courses, you have YouTube videos, you have books, you have all our help resources in order to become a millionaire.
Speaker B:That's kind of rude.
Speaker B:That is quite laid out really well for you.
Speaker B:The problem that I saw is I don't think we have that yet.
Speaker B:When it becomes, when it comes to how to be an impact millionaire.
Speaker B:So how can you become someone that maybe changes 1 million minds?
Speaker B:How can you become someone that plants 1 million corals, somebody that rewards 1 million bison, somebody that removes 1 million kilograms of trash from the ocean?
Speaker B:There's not really something like a blueprint or a step by step bear there.
Speaker B:Of course, every scenario, everything that you're going to try to tackle is going to be different, but there are still some, some similarities.
Speaker B:The same as we have a business school, every business is different, but still you learn somehow a bit your ropes and the classics and the tools and frameworks and so forth.
Speaker B:And I think if we want to see a world that looks different than the world that we currently have.
Speaker B:For me this is always.
Speaker B:I always talk about the wilder world because for me I really want to see nature being recovering in my time, not like for future generations, not in seven generations.
Speaker B:No, I want to see that like from a selfish perspective.
Speaker B:It's like if I have the opportunity to see more whales in front of my coastline, I'm going to work my ass off to, to make it the reality.
Speaker B:And so what is, what is necessary in order to get there and then always try to decode it and go backwards of like, okay, in order to get to that vision, what is currently missing that we don't have?
Speaker B:And for me it was like help resources.
Speaker B:We don't have like a really a community that comes together to support one another.
Speaker B:We don't have really the resources, the toolkits, the frameworks in order to really understand like, okay, how can I even do this?
Speaker B:How can I start if let's say I want, I really like corals, how do I even restore corals?
Speaker B:Is there a possibility?
Speaker B:What are the advantages, what are disadvantages?
Speaker B:And how can I then maybe make it a sustainable kind of.
Speaker B:No matter if it's an NGO of it's.
Speaker B:If it's a foundation or if it's a business or whatever.
Speaker B:But how can I make it sustainable so that it can actually scale in the long run?
Speaker B:Because you're going to need the money.
Speaker B:How do I want to get attention so that people actually know about that I'm existing?
Speaker B:So there's just like the people really need to learn a bit of a step by steps and they can learn, obviously we have like a community so they can learn from each other.
Speaker B:We bring experienced people in that are already doing this so that they're already walking the walk and so that they really get to learn from, from those people that are very, very experienced, which exists again, it exists for the business world, but it doesn't really exist for our world.
Speaker B:And then we also like created like a bootcamp where we really take them through an intensive program of 12 weeks where we really go through.
Speaker B:Okay, if you want to Scale your nature, impact, what do you need in order to actually make that possible?
Speaker B:And so we take them through that and again, it exists in the business world, but not really through the lenses of like, okay, that has always been created to maximize your profits.
Speaker B:But, but how can we actually use the different, the different kind of ideas, the different frameworks, the different tools that we already have for profit maximization and actually shift it towards impact maximization.
Speaker B:And sometimes there's just like, actually just little tweaks that you need to do in order to get there, but we need to have those tweaks so that we actually, yeah, follow the right incentives.
Speaker B:And I think this like profit incentives and you becoming, let's say, a millionaire.
Speaker B:I think that is, that has been proven that it apparently also doesn't make really rich people even happy.
Speaker B:Because a lot of rich people, they tell you actually in podcasts and so forth, they tell you like, okay, then I hit this million, or I hit this and so forth, I hit the billion.
Speaker B:And it's just like, there's nothing.
Speaker B:It's not going to give you that much.
Speaker B:Okay, so that's clearly not making happy.
Speaker B:So why not immediately incentivize for something else and maximize towards that direction?
Speaker B:Because if your goal is, let's say, how can I rewild 1 million North American bison, you will have to think like on one side a bit similar, but at the same time you have to just work everything out a bit more differently than if it was just like, okay, I'm gonna make a million.
Speaker B:How do I gonna get a million?
Speaker B:So you're just gonna have like different challenges.
Speaker B:And I just wanted to.
Speaker B:Yeah, that really resonated with me because I think we really have this like a complex nowadays where we, where we give a lot of people that are not necessarily doing work in our best interest as a society.
Speaker B:We celebrate them, we give them a lot of attention, and we give them a lot of resources and a lot of power of us instead of giving it to the people that actually want to make our planet better.
Speaker B:No matter if it's like on poverty, no matter if it's on climate, no matter if it's on women empowerment or biodiversity.
Speaker B:And so, so yeah, that's why I thought, like, okay, let's, let's try to do something crazy like this.
Speaker A:Yes, so true.
Speaker A:And so you started Wildia like two years ago, something.
Speaker A:So you have now then worked with many or maybe through your whole or for many more years, many ecopreneurs.
Speaker A:So I wonder, do you notice something that is special for those who make it, those who are successful in that space, what do they have in common?
Speaker B:That's a really good question.
Speaker B:To really scale your nature impact.
Speaker B:One thing I think that they all have in common is being pragmatic.
Speaker B:So be really understanding.
Speaker B:Okay, this is the reality that we are currently in.
Speaker B:And even if we are working because we want to improve nature, we know that we have to start with like, people, because in the end, people, we are part of nature.
Speaker B:So many of us, we just got disconnected from it.
Speaker B:And so people just realize that, okay, it's not the species that's.
Speaker B:That are destroying each other and so forth, it's basically us.
Speaker B:So we also need to first tackle the human bit.
Speaker B:And so pragmatic approaches to really tackle, like, okay, how can we either create like a financial system for the local community or how can we make it really exciting for shareholders?
Speaker B:Or it's just these really realistic approaches where, you know, okay, this is just like how the world works right now, and it's nice and I want to create a different world.
Speaker B:But while we are here, we need to use the tools and make the case in such a way that it really resonates with people.
Speaker B:So I think the first one is they are all very pragmatic.
Speaker B:The second one is, and we see this often in the negative side is we are still a bit as a human society, we develop, but we are still very focused on this leader needs.
Speaker B:So we really have this kind of complex.
Speaker B:We want to be led by somebody.
Speaker B:I think it's.
Speaker B:I think it got less over the, over the past decades, but you can still see it a lot.
Speaker B:You know, for example, if you look at Elon Musk or Donald Trump or something, where they, where people are still, they're drawn to that kind of Persona.
Speaker B:And so the people that actually are working on creating a better world, I see as well that they often, they have at least one person that manages to build this kind of positive leadership where they either manage to get like, they're really good at embarking people on the vision that they have in their head, and they have actually really concrete ideas of, like, how to realize that vision and, and they manage to onboard other people, no matter if it's shareholders, if it's stakeholders, if it's like employees, if it's like media partners, but they usually have this one person, at least, that, that tries to really look out and, and just be that person that people need in order to see, like, okay, this is not just a brand or this is not just a logo, but this is actually a human being that, that has a bit of a plan.
Speaker B:And I really like that plan.
Speaker B:And so I'm going to support her or him.
Speaker B:And I think that's the second one.
Speaker B:And then the third one is, I think I see it again, like, coming back to this pragmatic approach is like, okay, how do you scale your nature impact?
Speaker B:And we are still living in a capitalistic society.
Speaker B:So the people that I saw succeeding, they really understand that, that money is not necessarily evil, but money is just a tool in order to scale your nature impact.
Speaker B:And it's just like, it's just not realistic right now.
Speaker B:At least how the society set up.
Speaker B:As people need to pay their bills, they have to pay rent, they have to pay for food.
Speaker B:And so they understood that, okay, we need money in order to scale our nature impact because it allows us to do more research.
Speaker B:And if you're working, for example, in new product items and you were developing, let's say instead of plastic, you're going to use seaweed, you know, you can use it for rd, you can invest it into hiring the best people, you can invest it into actually translocating species and so forth.
Speaker B:So you need money because that's just the currency that we all have chosen, that we currently kind of speak a language of value with each other.
Speaker B:And so I think what I see with all of them is that they really understood that, that money itself is not evil.
Speaker B:It's like what you do with that money and how you got that money.
Speaker A:Yes, exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:What would you say that the biggest.
Speaker A:So I guess you have seen also a lot of them not succeeding or some at least.
Speaker A:So what are the biggest obstacles, would you say?
Speaker A:Is it.
Speaker A:Is it the lack of money?
Speaker A:Is it like burning out because you're too idealistic and you, you already hit.
Speaker B:Like two really big ones.
Speaker A:Sorry about that.
Speaker B:No, no, no.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:The first one is obviously money because in the end those.
Speaker B:I always talk, let's say I'm really talking through the nature bubble, because in the end that's the bubble that I'm really in.
Speaker B:And that's just like where I set my focus is on biodiversity in nature.
Speaker B:Not necessarily climate, not necessarily social justice and so forth.
Speaker B:So I can only talk about that one.
Speaker B:But what I definitely see is like, there is not as much excitement in the market in order to really support a lot of these ideas, no matter if it's an ngo, no matter if it's a business.
Speaker B:So people need to be very, very creative how they can pay their rent and that's that's the cool thing about like our bubble is like people, they just want that they don't even need that much, but they want to at least have like their family safe.
Speaker B:They don't want to worry every month of how they're going to pay the bills.
Speaker B:And so even that is quite often a bit of a stretch.
Speaker B:And that's not really easy to get to that level because there's just not in our, in society as a macro level, we don't really value nature really highly right now.
Speaker B:Even though it's the foundation of everything that we do.
Speaker B:It was always for free for us.
Speaker B:And so we are the first generation where it's just like actually not anymore.
Speaker B:Like we destroyed too much.
Speaker B:So we actually need to invest now in order to protect what's still there plus restore, plus reward.
Speaker B:And so that kind of shift that we never had as a species is now we are the first generation that really has to go really through this.
Speaker B:And so it's normal that it's going to be hard, but that's obviously like very, very hard for those people that know what's the problem is that have the solution, that see what can be done, but still working in the reality of like okay, necessarily the community, the society is not necessarily ready yet for the solution.
Speaker B:And so money is a big, a big break.
Speaker B:And that because you only invest usually when there's either like a huge really demand and interest for something as we see with AI.
Speaker B:AI got like so much investment in the past four years.
Speaker B:Like if we would just get a friction of that for nature, we would already be happy.
Speaker B:Or it happens quite often when it's like too late.
Speaker B:So quite often when there's really like something really, really massively a tragedy happened, then we wake up and then we're going to do something.
Speaker B:And so neither of those two has happened yet.
Speaker B:And so that's like creates a bit of the money issue.
Speaker B:So money is one, the second one that you addressed already and I think that is indeed like a really important one, is like people that are in that space.
Speaker B:We are really, really passionate about the natural world.
Speaker B:We all have like different reasons exactly how we got there, but we really, yeah, we are, we just really love what we do and we love really the natural world and we kind of optimize everything for it.
Speaker B:And that comes however, also sometimes with yeah, not so nice effects.
Speaker B:Isn't like being burned out over work, deprioritizing everything else in your life, sacrificing your, your marriages, your friendships, your family, being Often at the minimum of like the, the income spectrum and so forth.
Speaker B:So it just comes with another set of things that not everybody wants to sign up for.
Speaker B:And especially then if you're really like trying to really, really make it happen, that's only then you're going to realize that all of these things come at a cost.
Speaker B:And so that's still unfortunately the case.
Speaker B:It's not like, you know, if you're for example, working in air right now, you also have, you have pressure and you have like, probably investors want their money back as soon as possible.
Speaker B:And so I'm not to say that in other areas there's no pressure, but it's just on top of the how to make your idea work financially, you have also the think that you actually want to maximize the impact part.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:And how can you do this without leaving yourself behind, without sacrificing like your values and so forth.
Speaker B:So it just becomes like, it's just like additionally harder, I would say than, let's say doing a normal startup, a normal NGO is already hard, but then doing it somewhere that is totally overlooked is even harder.
Speaker B:And so I can only share all of that because I experience it daily as well.
Speaker B:So I just like, I built a really thick skin and we can, I can happily talk about like my, all my challenges, but it's, it's, it is, it's not a piece of cake as it sometimes maybe looks from outside.
Speaker B:And that's why I also make it always a really important point to share it really publicly because people just need to know that a bit like what they sign up for.
Speaker B:And I wouldn't change a thing, but it's just like it comes with a cost as well.
Speaker B:So the second part is really important.
Speaker B:And then the, the third part I would say is yeah, this lack of like business, they're just a business sense of it.
Speaker B:And that's why I created Wildia, because I just like realized, okay, this business sense is really like lacking in a lot of our ideas in the natural world.
Speaker B:And just like how we can improve our products, how we can improve, how we can lead our teams better, how we can gain attention, how can we then convert that attention into deals with impact VCs, into grants, into revenues, into donations, all of that stuff.
Speaker B:It's definitely quite shaky in our area.
Speaker B:So that's why I in the end decided to pivot while into that direction.
Speaker B:Just because I saw like, if I can, if I would love to just like work with here locally, we have some authors and so I would love to just make 24,7 my work to just be with authors and try to rewild authors.
Speaker B:However, me personally with everything that I know by now, yes, I can help the movement much more by helping those that creating those impacts locally or with their projects.
Speaker B:And so my position now is like I help those people that want to become this impact millionaires rather than trying to focus myself on let's say how can I rewild 1 million autos in France.
Speaker B:So I rather think like I have a much bigger impact if I have.
Speaker B:My goal is like how to empower 1 million eco printers for.
Speaker B:To say because they again they have 1 million impacts on something else.
Speaker B:So it's a bit of a positive pyramid scheme, but in a good sense, you know.
Speaker A:So yes, I was, I just wanted to go back to the, the second one you mentioned, the part where the not necessarily burning out but the, the mental state stress perhaps because as you said people are very passionate about the course they're working on and you have the grief part in it.
Speaker A:So let's say you work with coral reefs that I would assume comes with a lot of grief and you feel like you're just pushing this heavy boulder up big steep mountain.
Speaker A:So do you have any and you feel.
Speaker A:Feel that yourself like this maybe eco anxiety or stress related to it and what you do to.
Speaker A:To prevent it.
Speaker A:Do you have any hot tips?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:No, always.
Speaker B:I always think I have it like a bit better figured out than maybe some other people's.
Speaker B:But then I have also like days or like week a week where I'm also like just like where I have like.
Speaker B:Okay, that was one punch too much.
Speaker B:Yeah, it is indeed challenging because we in the nature bubble, we.
Speaker B:Nature is often like our place of refuge and so we go into nature in order to recharge.
Speaker B:The only problem is if you know a lot about the space, you can't really fully recharge there either because you just see the other human pressures.
Speaker B:So when I go to beach, unfortunately I see sewage going into the water, I see plastic at the beach or I see that there's a lack of life in the ocean and so forth.
Speaker B:So my nature experience becomes a different one because I've been exposed to this knowledge and I'm aware now.
Speaker B:So it's not like I can just like shut it off and I can just say only just enjoy it.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So that's a bit of a problem is that our place that gives us and that revitalizes us and that would give us usually a lot of energy becomes A bit of a part that also still slightly tortures us when we, when we are there.
Speaker B:And so, so that's a bit like one of the problems.
Speaker B:What I realized that really worked for me is a lot of people and that has been actually been really a mind shift.
Speaker B:A lot of people, they constantly talk about passion, passion, passion.
Speaker B:You know, you need to have a passion and if you have your passion then you're never going to work a day in your life and so forth.
Speaker B:And I reflected it a bit on me and maybe I'm just a weirdo, but I realized I think maybe it's 30% or 40% passion.
Speaker B:The 60% is grief, is anger, is frustration.
Speaker B:And I just like manage to funnel that more into my work.
Speaker B:So when I see let's say a documentary and there is a glacier melting or if I see here locally there is this destroy again like a patch of forest or whatever, that just becomes even more of my engine fuel to even be more like okay, now even more than ever, like that is like my work gets even more important and I just need to do better.
Speaker B:Where am I currently like wasting time, resources and so forth and just like try to become even sharper of like okay, how can I really try to move, move the needle as much as possible.
Speaker B:And that helped me a lot because I think there's like positive toxicity that says like okay, it can only be passion that fuels you.
Speaker B:I think that blindsides and that's you have those emotions either way, you know, especially if you, if you like nature, you probably felt that and so why not?
Speaker B:Why don't use those things and to positively channel it into something because you're going to feel it anyways.
Speaker B:So why not make it like, you know, part of your engine fuel?
Speaker B:And that helped me a lot because I was just like before I kind of was exposed to this way of thinking.
Speaker B:I was separating the two a bit.
Speaker B:I was like, ah, no, I was only motivated by my passion and so forth.
Speaker B:And I was always having this, all this anger and this frustration and this like grief for like losing all those pieces.
Speaker B:And that just like paralyzed me more.
Speaker B:And since I shifted that way of thinking, I got now just more fuel in the tank.
Speaker B:And so that really, really helped me.
Speaker B:And, and that's just like something super.
Speaker B:It's just like something mental.
Speaker B:But that's just like, was like a big, big, big game changer.
Speaker B:And then the last part I would say is like when you are in nature, nature is still very inspiring because it still clings on.
Speaker B:So I made it Much more of my daily routine to expose myself more to nature.
Speaker B:So go longer into nature.
Speaker B:Plus being more on the lookout for the positive things.
Speaker B:So, like, looking at the detail, looking at some new species.
Speaker B:So, like, just the other day I was walking on the parking lot, and so usually I don't really look down that much because it's just like cement and just like asphalt.
Speaker B:Nothing there.
Speaker B:But then I saw this, like, tiny, tiny.
Speaker B:It was like, you know, like sometimes you have this white thing on top of your nail.
Speaker B:Like, I don't know what it's called.
Speaker B:Like, the tip of your nail or whatever.
Speaker B:It was smaller than that bit of the.
Speaker B:You know, so it was tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny.
Speaker B:And just like, I never seen this.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:I still don't know.
Speaker B:I have tried to Google it and whatever.
Speaker B:I. I still haven't figured out if it was like a caterpillar or something, but it was just like, so incredibly tiny.
Speaker B:But it was incredible.
Speaker B:And that was like, right on the parking lot.
Speaker B:And so nature is still holding on.
Speaker B:Nature's still, like, giving us so much in.
Speaker B:In our world and so forth.
Speaker B:And so I just, like, try to make it more of my routine to look for these kind of, you know, fighting stories where nature is, like, still there and doing.
Speaker B:Still giving us everything.
Speaker B:And, yeah, that.
Speaker B:That really helped me.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker A:Nature is just amazing.
Speaker A:I was watching this David Attenborough documentary with my son the other day, and it's just like this strange, like, amazing animals.
Speaker A:Like, it was.
Speaker A:I can't remember the name of it.
Speaker A:It was living in the mangroves in Asia.
Speaker A:It was so, so strange.
Speaker A:Jumping fish.
Speaker A:So everything that you.
Speaker A:So watching documentaries with David Attimore, that is kind of a medicine for me, I have discovered, just to see how amazing it is and how resilient.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:And I think that's where a lot of, like, the nature documentaries, they are.
Speaker B:They're slowly starting to change.
Speaker B:So whereas before it was always just like, and this species is extinct now, and this species is extinct or this is dangerous and so forth.
Speaker B:They also try to mix it up a bit between one.
Speaker B:Okay, this is the current situation and this really urgently that we change, but.
Speaker B:But also sharing, hey, if we give nature some room, if we give nature a helping hand, then actually nature can recover and we can actually, we can.
Speaker B:We can see it in our life.
Speaker B:We often talk about, like, generations and so forth and for the future generations, but no, we can see it in our life if we would.
Speaker B:If we would really be serious and really would say, like, okay, you know what?
Speaker B:Nature and biodiversity is the foundation of our life.
Speaker B:Let's make sure it's secured for us in our lifetime.
Speaker B:We make the resources available, and we don't even need that much.
Speaker B:We need less than 1% of global GDP.
Speaker B:Even though, like, all GDP is dependent on, like, nature is, like, we need one in order to really get, like, where we would need to go in order to kind of get into a stable direction again.
Speaker B:And just like, that's, that's, that's fine for me.
Speaker B:This investment is totally fine.
Speaker B:And we would see, I would promise you we would see differences in like five years.
Speaker B:You can already see massive improvements.
Speaker B:And just like, from there, it's just going to be.
Speaker B:It's just going to be exponential.
Speaker B:Of course they're going to be some ecosystems that take a bit longer than others.
Speaker B:But what, what we know by now, through science, when it comes to, when it comes to the oceans and when it comes to, yeah, through our ecosystems, then we know that they can recover actually quite fast.
Speaker B:And of course, trees, they need some time to grow.
Speaker B:Corals need some time to grow.
Speaker B:And so of course it's not going to be like a switch.
Speaker B:But you would be surprised, like, how, how fast if we create, like, the right environment for it.
Speaker A:Yes, true.
Speaker A:So one thing I talk a lot about on this podcast is careers and how people can use their career.
Speaker A:And you mentioned it, use their careers in order to have a positive impact.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And then, like, I think there's such a huge potential in people who feel this maybe the way that you felt, maybe the way that I felt, like cognitive dissonance, you know, it's not aligned anymore with who I think I am or want to be.
Speaker A:So for people who would like to go into this more nature positive career, what would your advice be?
Speaker A:What would the first step be?
Speaker B:Yeah, the first step.
Speaker B:I would calculate your dream salary and dream salary not in terms of like, what you would actually would really like to make, but the dream salary.
Speaker B:How much money do you need in order to survive so that you also not in risk of like, every month I'm gonna, like, if the washing machine breaks down, then I have to look again for another job.
Speaker B:No, but like, at least like a safe, A safe salary that you need in order to really have the basics covered.
Speaker B:Not everything that you wish for.
Speaker B:Not like four trips to exotic country per year.
Speaker B:No, but like, what do you really, really need?
Speaker B:Why do I call the stream salary?
Speaker B:Because a lot of people still are kind of under the misconception that more things are going to make them happier and so forth.
Speaker B:But what we know by, even by science by now is that quite often as soon as you pick something that is bigger than yourself, that makes that you work on that is not just about you.
Speaker B:That's actually where really purpose and happiness and so forth is unlocked.
Speaker B:So I see it a bit as a dream salary is like, okay, what do you need in order to make your dream come tr.
Speaker B:So that you become the person so that at the end of the life you can really say, of course I made mistakes.
Speaker B:So there were things that I would like maybe I would have changed or whatever.
Speaker B:But like, overall I think I had a really good life and I'm really happy and I can't say I should have done this or like I knew it, but I didn't speak up and so forth.
Speaker B:So for me, the dream salary, calculating that, that shifted immensely because I realized, okay, I need rent, I need food, I need insurance, I need some a bit like safety in order for, with my family and so forth.
Speaker B:But I realized it was less than half of my salary that I was making.
Speaker B:And that was really, really liberating.
Speaker B:Because before I was thinking, okay, how can I create an idea or how can I get a nature job with that kind of salary?
Speaker B:Because let's be honest, like if you work in a free economy that sometimes you get like really good salaries.
Speaker B:So, you know, and that just enabled me to say, like, okay, I need roughly this amount of money.
Speaker B:For me it was like, I live in France, so cost of living is a bit higher.
Speaker B: I calculated and it was like: Speaker B: And I was like, okay,: Speaker B:How realistic is it that I either can find a job in nature with that or how realistic is it that I can make that sort of money with my own idea?
Speaker B:And I realized, yes, of course there's a lot of risk.
Speaker B:But I realized this is, this is doable.
Speaker B:This is like definitely doable.
Speaker B:So first dream salary, because that's the, that gets the kind of conversation going and that gets the, the, the head especially out of the way, you know, because you're, you, you are having that reflection probably from your heart, but it's really important that you get the head aligned as well.
Speaker B:So, and the head is really worried about money and security and so forth.
Speaker B:And so as soon as you have that tackled, and again, not to say that your money, that it needs to be half of your salary or whatever, but like just, just be sure, like you calculate a bit and you were really reflective and you just like re evaluate what's really important for you.
Speaker B:So that's the number one.
Speaker B:The number two is that I would like to invite people is like, look at me.
Speaker B:Like I never studied ecology.
Speaker B:In the end, I, yes, I'm, I learn a lot about this and I read a lot about this and I did a safari guy training, but I'm not like a trained ecologist.
Speaker B:Like I didn't study or I didn't do a PhD or anything like this.
Speaker B:And I'm still trying and they're still doing something good for the natural world.
Speaker B:So if you are a baker, if you're a marketeering expert, if you're a lawyer, if you're a mom, no matter what your role right now is, it doesn't, you can be part of this.
Speaker B:Because in the end people need, we need nature and all fields of life, in art and legal, in like consumer goods and food and everything, in education and raising kids.
Speaker B:We need it everywhere.
Speaker B:So you can play a part in no matter where you want to go.
Speaker B:And you don't need to study ecology to be part of this because that still often really holds people back.
Speaker B:And also like sometimes from our own bubble, because people want sometimes that you, you studied this and so forth.
Speaker B:And I said like, but that person is not going to be in the field.
Speaker B:That person is not going to do the rewilding of the bison.
Speaker B:And that creates the ecosystem so that the bison can flourish.
Speaker B:The person is in charge of like promoting that we can do more of this work.
Speaker B:And so like why does the person need to study ecology?
Speaker B:No, like you can learn this stuff as much as you can learn like the hard skills.
Speaker B:So that's the second part is to, to not be shying away from being part of this and not thinking you have to study more.
Speaker B:And you need a degree in biology, ecology and so forth.
Speaker B:And then the third, I would say is we, we created even an entire course about this because I think sometimes it's a bit like challenging.
Speaker B:Okay, where can you really start?
Speaker B:Is like often still people think like there's only NGOs that are doing nature work.
Speaker B:But that's not true anymore either.
Speaker B:So now you have nature tech startups, you have nature legal firms, you have like, you have like indirect things where it's maybe not necessarily they're working for nature, but they're really removing a nature pressure point.
Speaker B:So just this morning, for example, I found again like a company that produces alternative fish protein.
Speaker B:So that immediately has a really huge impact on the natural world.
Speaker B:If we would reduce, if we Were let's say there wouldn't be any wild fishing anymore, that would be a huge pressure relief from the natural world.
Speaker B:So maybe you don't restore coral reefs but by producing something, by helping alternative protein to come into scale, you really going to improve the natural world.
Speaker B:And so like being more kind of reflective of like, okay, there's more ways how to help nature.
Speaker B:Then let's say I going to be in the field and I'm going to remove fences and I'm going to take and put a GPS track on an elephant.
Speaker B:That is really incredible.
Speaker B:But helping nature, it can happen in so many different ways in so many different industries and the negative and positive news at the same time.
Speaker B:It's literally everything that we do in our lives right now is mostly damaging nature.
Speaker B:So there's a huge opportunity to change every single part.
Speaker B:If it's fashion, if it's how we move, if it's how we eat, everything needs to change.
Speaker B:And so you can be part of this and no matter what kind of interest skills and so forth you have.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And it's like people say that any job can be a climate job.
Speaker A:It's kind of the same.
Speaker A:Any job can be a nature positive job.
Speaker A:Yes, totally true.
Speaker A:So one thing that we actually connected over this to do this episode now was about AI.
Speaker A:Actually you had this really interesting post about AI, how much capital is put into this space and how important it is that we use it in a way that puts purpose over profit and AI is here to stay.
Speaker A:I think we can agree on that.
Speaker A:But have you seen examples of how it can be used in ways that are nature positive and that gives you hope for the future of AI?
Speaker A:And of course also then how it can be used in a very negative way, if you have any thoughts about that.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, for sure, for sure.
Speaker B:Let's start first with maybe let's start with the negative way first to get that out of the picture because like I think so many people have a bit of a, not necessarily misconception because the impact is true, but I think a lack of visibility.
Speaker B:So the first one, what does AI currently damaged environment really hard.
Speaker B:It's by using a lot of fresh water that we need in order to cool the data centers, plus a lot of energy, energy that is not necessarily always coming from renewables.
Speaker B:So there's a pressure on the natural world and then plus the minerals and obviously all the everything that the resources in order to build data centers.
Speaker B:So just because you're using something as a software or digitally doesn't mean it doesn't have a nature impact.
Speaker B:It definitely has.
Speaker B:And so that's definitely already the really measurable negative impact on nature.
Speaker B:There's a second one that, and that's maybe a bit like fluffy, but for me this is as real as it gets.
Speaker B:Is that right now it's just empowered plenty of more people to do the millionaire route rather than the impact millionaire route.
Speaker B:So now what was the first use cases when ChatGPT was really going through the roof?
Speaker B:How to make as much money as quickly as possible through stealing art by creating Etsy prints and so forth.
Speaker B:That was like as soon as you googled AI, that usually what came up with like get rich schemes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so we are now having this tool that supercharges this extractive economy even more.
Speaker B:And so that's the second really, really negative way of how to use AI is like to just use it to just scale our destruction even more.
Speaker B:So that's number two and number three is obviously with all kind of technology, we, we not always have always the best track record for nature, at least from perspective.
Speaker B:Yes, maybe it made our life sometimes better, but not necessarily nature's life better.
Speaker B:There's almost like no examples of that.
Speaker B:And so for example, we, when we were whalers, we started to create boats with even more impact and to kill even more whales.
Speaker B:Or we started to have fishing boats that just by now they can just swap over the entire ocean floor and so forth.
Speaker B:And so the same goes obviously for, for AI is that you could come up with ways how we can destroy nature even faster really in a really practical way as well.
Speaker B:So these are the negative things.
Speaker B:That being said why I believe we really are especially people that are in the climate space, people are that in the social space, people that are in the environmental space.
Speaker B:We need to learn this because a, exactly as you said, it's not going to go anywhere.
Speaker B:That's just like again being pragmatic, this, this genie is out of the bottle, like getting it back.
Speaker B:It's just like it's even uncomparable with Internet or with social media just because the, you literally now get somebody in your pocket that is like the smartest human being.
Speaker B:And it's just like, it's, it's just like it creates like and it's just we're still at the start, we're still, we're still not really even far.
Speaker B:And so this is just like it's too tempting.
Speaker B:If you know this about human history is if people have this like power or opportunity of power, they're going to grasp it.
Speaker B:And so that's definitely going to.
Speaker B:The tools are here to stay.
Speaker B:So rather than educating and then optimizing the tools for how to get rich quick and how to, you know, make like all your posts written by AI and by writing entire books just by AI and so forth, rather than using it to progress your own agenda, how can we improve the products so that they actually tackle the really big challenges of our society?
Speaker B:How can we actually do all of these transitions?
Speaker B:How can we change humans, human minds, human hearts and so forth?
Speaker B:How can we create a new model that is maybe a capitalism 2.0, 3.0 that is actually serving people more and serving the natural world war?
Speaker B:So AI is really, really powerful and could potentially tackle a lot of those challenges and we could use those to feed it with real problems in the world rather than pseudo problems, rather than do you need another print or do you need another software company that solves like a minor issue just for some companies, or should we optimize it to tackle the really big heavy stuff that we haven't managed to figure out yet?
Speaker B:And so I think using it for the really heavy lifting, that's one.
Speaker B:The second one is I've been playing around now with it a lot to see like, okay, what's really realistic and I think we always need to look at it from a net impact.
Speaker B:So every prompt, everything is going to cost some resources now, but you are the person that puts in the prompt.
Speaker B:So if you think I can help you to drastically impact and increase your nature impact, then you can probably do a bit of math in your head.
Speaker B:Do you think your prompt is going to create a net positive impact or do you think it's going to have a net negative impact because it's going to take the resources and it does something that was, not was, it's okay, but it shouldn't have been done.
Speaker B:Give an example.
Speaker B:Using the prompts to do selfies of yourself and so forth.
Speaker B:Tons of fun, but not necessarily not positive impact.
Speaker B:Using it so that I don't know.
Speaker B:For example, you suck at communication and nobody ever understands what you're actually trying to do.
Speaker B:AI is really great at that.
Speaker B:It's going to create some communication so that people actually understand what you can do, so that you can scale your impact.
Speaker B:Because if people don't understand, not going to help you if you manage to.
Speaker B:Let's say I did this the other day, you are an NGO and you always wanted to track your impact and want to communicate that impact to your donors and so forth before like come NGOS, they needed to pay like 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 to get somebody to code all of that.
Speaker B:Now with one I, I, it was one prompt, it was like 30 seconds and it was not perfect, but I basically got an entire dashboard that was showing people like their nature impact and so forth.
Speaker B:And that's just like half an hour.
Speaker B:I was just like last week I was taking half an hour to do something.
Speaker B:I had like an idea of an habit app that helps me to build better habits.
Speaker B:And whenever I don't commit to my habit, whenever I don't do that positive habit, I actually have to give money to nature.
Speaker B:And it just does it automatically.
Speaker B:So whenever I don't do the habit, nature gets something.
Speaker B:Whenever I do the habits, then I get something.
Speaker B:I learned a positive habit, so to say yeah, and that again, that was just impossible.
Speaker B:It would have taken me weeks and resources and so forth to build this.
Speaker B:Now again, it took me half an hour to build that.
Speaker B:And do I think if I would bring that out to the world and so forth, would it create a positive net impact?
Speaker B:I think so.
Speaker B:And so I think it's a lot about this kind of reflecting before you prompt is that really needed?
Speaker B:And does the world, does the world is going to get better through this prompt or not?
Speaker B:If it the answer is no, then yes, reflect on it.
Speaker B:Maybe you shouldn't prompt it.
Speaker B:But if you think the answer is yes, then I would highly encourage you to learn more and try to get better at it.
Speaker B:And the third thing that you said about like use cases outside my own bubble and outside my own company.
Speaker B:So there is various ones.
Speaker B:So a friend of mine, he's working, his name is Gal, he's working on Nature Perspectives and Nature perspectives is basically creating simulated conversations with nature.
Speaker B:So he figured out to use AI so that you can have a talk with a pigeon, with a whale skeleton at the museum, with a cockroach with your houseplant.
Speaker B:But he created a way so that people can actually really have like conversations that hopefully reconnect them to nature.
Speaker B:So a really, really cool example.
Speaker B:And I think personally net positive there's other ways how to use AI in order to decode, for example, the language of whales, of ravens and so forth.
Speaker B:And so they have more nos now that are working on this because the idea is if we understand what animals are saying and what exactly they're talking about, we not necessarily need to communicate with them right away, but we can use it in order to just understand their world better so that we hopefully can create more empathy that hopefully then creates to really change, or there's some really pragmatic things.
Speaker B:Where before when you had cameras that were checking the data of, okay, what's even in that forest or in that ecosystem, now you have AI that is just taking a look at the pictures and can tell you, okay, what's in there.
Speaker B:Whereas before it took one person ages to go through all of this.
Speaker B:So there's really positive examples of that too.
Speaker A:Right, interesting.
Speaker A:I got a lot of ideas.
Speaker A:Now that is my problem.
Speaker A:Okay, so before we wrap up, I'm afraid we have to do that.
Speaker A:I could talk to you for ages, I think, but please give us the best way for people to join you on this journey and to become an impact millionaire.
Speaker A:What can they do and how can they engage with Wildia and your work?
Speaker B:So the first one, I would say even, like from a totally unselfish perspective, even before we come to Wildia, is like, just go outside for like five minutes.
Speaker B:Even if it's just like five minutes, but try to make time for.
Speaker B:We make so much time for other things in our life and just like making time for being in nature.
Speaker B:And even if it's just like, even if you can't do five minutes, then make three minutes, but just like have a breather, listen a bit to some birds and just like just being in nature.
Speaker B:And if you can only do five minutes, but go outside and look a bit around what's around you, because as I said a bit earlier, nature's still hanging on and that just itself is going to create some.
Speaker B:You're going to feel better physically, you're going to be feel better mentally, and maybe you're going to see something on a local level, on a global level that you find really interesting and that you would like to tackle.
Speaker B:So before that, before I come to wealthy, I think this is often like, really, really important for me because I think I'm a big fan of first principles and I think the first principle of, like, how can we build this wider world is first through reconnection and not true in terms of like, everybody, you need to hug a tree now.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Meet people where they are right now.
Speaker B:If that is five minutes going outside, then it's five minutes going outside and no other prompt.
Speaker B:Just like, just go outside and see what happens.
Speaker B:Maybe put your phone on flight mode as a second thing, but if you can't, just five minutes outside.
Speaker B:So that's the first thing that I would encourage people to do.
Speaker B:The second thing is I do my utmost to write a lot of help resources And a lot of guidance like online for free.
Speaker B:And so I try to, we have a newsletter we know while we are recording this on Wednesday we're going to do our first free webinar where that helps people how they can scale the nature impact.
Speaker B:I write as we met, LinkedIn posts and so forth.
Speaker B:So I'm really trying to do my uttermost that a lot of my thoughts and the first ideas and the first of like points actually for free.
Speaker B:Even our community that we built with Wildia there is certain bits that are for free and certain bits that are paid.
Speaker B:Because for me it's really like I don't, I never created this in order to be like financially rich, but more biodiversity rich.
Speaker B:And so I really try to find like the right angle where it's on one side, it can get people embarked and people can get excited about this while at the same time of course we need to find a financial model that can allow us to do all of this nature work.
Speaker B:And so yes, we need to charge for certain things.
Speaker B:But I always try to make this in a dialogue and always try to find pricing models that are really fair.
Speaker B:And so that's, I think that's like maybe the first point then if you're curious after this conversation, I think just checking out a lot of the free stuff that we are doing and that's like social media newsletter.
Speaker B:And if you go on our website you're going to find all of this.
Speaker B:So this is Wildia Earth.
Speaker B:And and then yeah, you're also going to see the other things.
Speaker B:And so like what we have in terms of paid work is we have this community where some bits are behind a subscription based model because we said like, okay, we really believe in this community but in order to really create a functioning and welcoming and a vibrant community, you need to put in work into this.
Speaker B:And as soon as we put a lot of work into this, that obviously also costs money.
Speaker B:And so we try to find like a way how this community is like very inclusive and really receptive and welcoming while at the same time being really as impactful as it can be.
Speaker B:And that's also, yeah, that's, that's something that is partially paid.
Speaker B:The second thing is, as we said is the boot camp.
Speaker B:So the boot camp that helps people in the 12 weeks, it's like a super small group.
Speaker B:So this, we're going to do it in September for the first time.
Speaker B:It's going to be 10 people.
Speaker B:So it's by default a bit more exclusive.
Speaker B:And that obviously then comes also with the price but we really believe we created something that creates a really positive return of investment as soon as possible.
Speaker B:So Even within the 12 weeks you should already see like a positive movements.
Speaker B:Maybe no matter what your model is, if whatever you sell or if you work on donation basis, you should see some impact.
Speaker B:And then the last thing that we also do is like we work on one to one basis.
Speaker B:So some people, they are not really community people, some people are not really bootcamp people.
Speaker B:Some people that really want to work one to one with my co founder who is Michelle, she's like focused on product and I'm more focused on let's say business development, strategy, marketing, sales and so forth.
Speaker B:Some people, they just want to work on one to one basis.
Speaker B:So we also do that.
Speaker B:But the way of thinking and I hope this came through in the entire conversation is I'm always trying to maximize for positive nature impact.
Speaker B:So a lot of our focus is really of like, okay, how can we find a financial model that allows us to scale our work while at the same time power and enable as many impact or people that want to become impact millionaires, so to say.
Speaker A:Sounds great.
Speaker A:I will put all the links in the information for the episode, of course.
Speaker A:And thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker A:It has been really interesting and finally I got a kind of a face behind the name that I've seen so many times.
Speaker A:So I'm really happy about that and I'll very excited to see the rest of the journey of Wildia and where you take it.
Speaker A:So good luck with that.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you so much.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Speaker B:And I'm always just like, yeah, it's a huge privilege to talk to your community, to your listeners and I hope the major thing that they took away is like nature is awesome, spends a bit of time in it and if you want to, you can make a difference no matter how small you think sometimes maybe you are.
Speaker A:So true.
Speaker A:Well, that was really, really inspiring.
Speaker A:Wildly inspiring I would say.
Speaker A:Did you get that?
Speaker A:So a huge thank you to Oliver D. For reminding us that we don't have to choose between making a living and making making a difference.
Speaker A:So if you're an ecopreneur or an aspiring one, go check out Wildia Earth and or connect with Oliver on LinkedIn.
Speaker A:I'll be back next week with more stories for the future and a birthday party.
Speaker A:Actually, Stories for the Future is turning five next week, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker A:Until then, stay curious, stay connected and maybe do as Oliver said, go outside for a bit and enjoy some nature.
Speaker A:I'll see you next week.