now that sounds like a false modesty
right that’s like saying the trouble
with me is I’m a bit of a perfectionist
we don’t really say it’s a problem we
see it as a strength but is it in my
experience caring too much just a lot
perfectionism isn’t very helpful see I
found that often when I really care
about something I can all too easily get
in my own way and actually limit the
amount the good I can do now before I
get into the perils of caring too much
there are three things I’d like to share
about myself today number one I’m a
do-gooder 13 years ago the best mate Jim
you know I set up a charity in our spare
time called pasarán Africa and our goal
was simple we wanted to help build
schools in Africa and since 2005 we’ve
been involved in six school build
projects in Kenya in Ghana in the Gambia
and in Uganda and whilst hasn’t always
been plain sailing I’m really proud to
say that all these schools are still
running today it’s completely
independent of us okay number two I’m
scared shitless
now obviously I’m scared shitless right
now but I’m talking more in general I’ve
struggled with mental health and
particularly anxiety for most of my life
and this isn’t particularly enjoyable to
talk about because like a lot of people
I’ve always masked my feelings but
you’ll seem like a nice bunch and in the
spirit of do different I shout okay more
about chronic worrying shortly but first
number three I’m an artist this is me
early on in my career
don’t be fooled I was a little bugger
really I’ve been drawing for as long as
I can remember really and I think art
has always been a way for me to make
sense of my feelings that make sense of
the world my work is clearly influenced
by time I’ve spent in Africa but above
all I think it’s the human condition
that really drives my ideas why we are
the way we are what we all share is
human universals the beliefs we hold and
why we hold them and the mastery where
and why we wear them so what have I told
you these three things about myself well
it’s because I think they all contribute
to the way that I care for example I
think it’s growing up worrying all the
time that made me a do-gooder in the
first place I remember in the 80s where
and the Ethiopian famine was all over
the news and it really bothered me I
couldn’t get out of my head I worried
about it for weeks
I felt really anxious and I had this
huge sense of responsibility and I was
about seven or eight and I think people
around me just to make me feel better
told me I was a really caring person and
I liked that it made me feel better when
I was worrying so even at a young age I
think my over caring anxious identity
was beginning to take shape now has
anyone here ever felt like they’ve cared
too much maybe about something or
someone maybe it’s in a relationship and
you become fearful of losing that person
I wonder what that looks like as a set
of behaviors holding on too tight
pushing them away can be exhausting
right I’m productive or maybe just
unsustainable so be it really possible
to care too much I guess what I’m saying
is careful how you care now I’m no
expert in psychology or philosophy but I
am an expert on my own experiences I
also happen to be married to a therapist
lucky me
she’s one of the smartest people I know
and she’s really taught me a lot about
compassion and why it’s really no wonder
that we all struggle from time to time
so what does it mean to care well I’ve
learned it’s made up a fee
Ling’s thoughts and actions and I guess
what we hope is that these actions will
lead us to do some good or make some
positive change I remember the first
time I went to Africa and witnessed true
poverty and I was whacked with feelings
of sadness and anger and guilt and this
led to thoughts like what a dick I am to
worry so much something something’s got
to change I’ve got to do something the
world is so unfair and this led to
thoughts like sorry this led to actions
like setting up a charity okay so some
were good but at times have also been
guilty of getting on my high horse when
talking about charity and my artwork as
Jeff says struggled for a while to
becoming stifled by my own black and
white right and wrong gears but most
importantly at times it’s led me to
overworked and undervalued my own
interests becoming stifled by anxiety
and fear you see what caring it’s really
hard to manage our thoughts and feelings
and therefore all too easy to act in
ways which are paradoxical II uncaring
even if we don’t mean them to be so
however come to think like this well
let’s start with the charity no pasaran
Africa began pretty not curiously really
a friend of ours who works in
international development helps the very
school in the Robie that needed some
help you see all the kids there kept
getting infections through their feet
just because they didn’t have any shoes
and we thought hey this is terrible and
B it may be kind of cool if we could run
a marathon and try and raise enough
money to buy all the kids a pair of
shoes so that’s what we did and we loved
it and then later on that year we
actually visited the Tenderfoot school
in the Robie and we were blown away by
how well the schools run and what they
were doing there they were
infrastructure was great but they were
hopelessly oversubscribed when they
really needed was some more classrooms
so we came back to England all fired up
and started thinking some fundraising
ideas some of these were definitely more
productive than others this is one of
our early escapades we carried a rowing
machine to the top of the three highest
mountains in Britain
and then we rode the height of each
mountain at the top dressed as
superheroes designed by six-year-olds
like to meet bossman and Julio super
Julio now believe it or not that was
actually really enjoyable and we did
raise quite a bit of money but we
quickly realized that if the chat was
going to continue we needed to get more
people involved and that’s where the
heroes one comes in a superhero themed
fancy just fun run along Bryan seafront
the kind that looks like this and this
this is us at GM setting the world
record for the most superheroes in one
place
it was literally beaten a week later by
someone in America but we don’t talk
about I’ve also got their certificate
they sent it to me by mistake so they
have the moral victory but I have the
piece of paper and we also have a kids
race which looks like this or at least
it does today because just like this
charity heroes run didn’t happen
overnight
in 2005 the race looked a lot more like
this volunteers outnumbering runners 4
to 1 because we had no idea what we were
doing we were in our early 20s and we
had no experience in marketing or event
management and so as a result with about
20 minutes to go we had about 20 runners
that looks pretty miserable though it
was raining we kind of just wanted to go
home we felt pretty embarrassed and then
with ten minutes to go the Sun came out
and with it a kid you not on the horizon
came a whole army of superheroes led by
banana man marching through all this and
like so we we literally had about three
pens and fifty entry forms and we didn’t
have any float to take any money so it
was a bit of a shambles but against the
odds the first race ended up being a
real success and I distinctly remember
at the end of the race every sweaty
Spider Man coming up to me and putting
his arm around my shoulder and saying
see you next year there was clearly an
appetite for this event to continue and
we felt compelled to carry on and so we
did and we carried on raising quite a
bit of money in the charity grew and
grew so much so that a couple years
later we could actually fund the new
classrooms at Tenderfoot this is one
the six classrooms being built in 2007
this is how they look today and we were
also able to fund the work in kitchen at
the school and we even purchased the
neighboring land so that could be used
for playing fields so this was great the
charity was working and it quickly
became part of my identity it was a
perfect antidote to those feelings of
not being good enough and I think we
became victims of our own success in
many ways my wife Audrina and friends
mark and Nikki had now become part of
the team but the amount of work required
by me had grown exponentially you see I
still trying to be an artist during the
day which is not very easy and I was
slowly squeezing in more and more
charity work at night and I think rather
than recognize that this is what I was
doing I simply normalized the amount of
work I was doing so I became a little
bit resentful and frustrated at times
and this this is definitely spilt out
into the way that I was communicating
with our fund raisers you see I just
couldn’t believe that they weren’t
raising more money than they were and I
got really frustrated they didn’t care
about this as much as I did now the
slight mite despite my grumpy
frustrations we remain productive this
is the Dream Land school that we funded
in Ghana in 2012 I just spoke to the the
founder of the school last week at you
know just had their thousandth people
finish their primary education there
this is one of the classrooms at
Dreamlands and this is the Fresh Start
skill center that we funded in 2014 in
The Gambia with another great charity
called the Fresh Start Foundation so
yeah we were productive but the stress
of running charity is really beginning
to mount and I was literally developing
a super hero complex believing for no
good reason that I should be working
longer and harder than anyone else and
this was starting to affect my artwork
message to you see I felt like I had
something to say but most importantly I
had the moral high ground to shout it
from they said these two are from a
series of portraits I created of some of
the kids from our schools and directly
onto celebrity magazine covers and I
really wanted to highlight just how
ridiculous I thought all our interests
were particularly when compared to their
relative suffering
I was very righteous the frivolous West
is evil amen I win
except I wasn’t winning because guess
what people don’t really want artwork
that makes me feel terrible go figure
and in a similar vein there’s only so
many hard-hitting charity emergencies we
can all hear before we become shut down
to them so in short I became completely
run down and more anxious than ever so
something had to change I took some time
out and started seeing some interesting
parallels between myself my artwork and
the charity that wasn’t blessed with
amazing insights of introspection by the
way I had some it’s very helpful therapy
at a time and I realized that I cared a
lot but the way I was going about things
was unproductive and this was definitely
unsustainable and one of the main
reasons for that was my standards were
just too damn high but if the standards
I was putting on myself but also the
standards I was demanding of everyone
else and this really hit home for me
when one evening I was watching TV and a
couple of charity efforts came on back
to back and I cared but I didn’t take
any action yet there I was getting
really annoyed with all off fund raisers
for not raising enough money I was a bit
of a hypocrite so became curious about
what mechanisms in me led to giving but
also what what shut me down to it you
see I’ve met all the kids in our schools
and I’ve seen where they lived and I
just didn’t have that same connection
with these two these adverts are sitting
on TV and that’s just kind of obvious
right it’s just human nature
you see we’ve evolved in these really
small communities where we respond a lot
more positively to intimate one-to-one
interactions now this is described a lot
more eloquently by Peter Singer in a lot
of his writing but particularly for me
the book the life you can save which I
can’t recommend highly enough and he
actually outlines some of these barriers
to giving that we all experience now I
won’t go into that too much here but
suffice to say that I didn’t know
everything and I didn’t care the most
but most importantly that was kind of
alright like I maybe just keep myself a
bit of a break and so from there our
fundraising communications it became a
lot more open and less shaming and I
stopped thinking that everything rested
on me at least for a while and quite
frankly I became a little
less preachy and this new spirit of
curiosity was having a positive impact
on my artwork – you see I realized that
my art could be inspired by the charity
but didn’t have to be a campaign for the
charity and that was a big realization
for me because as an artist is so much
more enjoyable to observe the world in
your place in it rather than be pointing
your finger at it all the time and I
think this is you can see this in some
of my later work clearly influenced by
the charity and here is Ron but I think
these species these pieces speak a lot
more to stealing I was saying from my
childhood of feeling like I had to mask
my feelings and create these alter egos
in order to feel safe and because I’ve
been more open in my artwork people were
starting to respond to it a lot more
positively which was great because I
started getting a bit more success and I
could pay some down bills and so just
for a while I sort of carried on a
little bit more of an even keel now
things changed again in 2017 when we
realized that the heroes Run was no
longer sustainable
we’d had a fantastic run with it but the
reality was that the expenses were going
up the fundraising was going down but
most importantly in the amount of time I
had to do anything about it was less
than ever our team had shrunk – because
inevitably people’s professional lives
had taken over we began this in our
early 20s when we all had a lot of
airtime so now it was just my wife and I
running the charity and soberly and
objectively we thought maybe we’ve taken
this as far as we can and so it was time
to shut the charity down but I wasn’t
letting go see I felt really vulnerable
about the mask of the charity what if
I’m not good enough about it remember
that unhelpful relationship I spoke
about caring too much I was still
hanging on so I came really became
really hard on myself again I started
saying things like you just need to work
harder you can make this work you just
got to put more effort in and I became
really anxious again but what had I
learned about masks and compassion maybe
it’s about that about set out the right
time to show myself a bit of compassion
and was finally able to see the true
value in what we’d created and pass it
on
so in 2017 we gave the heroes one to
another great charity called rise UK a
charity with a brilliant fundraising
interest in infrastructure that can
really capitalize on the potential of
the race though I’m still helping them
with all the artwork and design and the
event set up because that’s quite easy
for me I’ve done it for 13 years and in
return I’m choosing five African aid
charities to have free places in the
race the simple equation is that for
about 10 percent of my effort probably a
five-fold increase in fundraising can
take place you see I’m not spending
hundreds of hours trying to run espera
to run a charity in my spare time I’m
spending that time being an artist
instead and because I’m getting more
success as an artist I can now use my
artwork to support other charities
charities that will run a lot more
effectively and efficiently than the one
I was working so hard to try and keep
going my do-gooding can reach a lot
further now that I’ve taken off my mask
now what i don’t–i leave you today is
the thought that anything I think that
I’ve done that’s been good it’s just
been to leave yet my anxiety because I
think that I’d be doing myself a
disservice but what I do want to view
live today is one simple idea now you’ve
probably heard me say these phrases a
couple of times already today
productivity and sustainability and
there’s nothing new here we often think
of these in terms of business where the
red area can work for or profit or
long-term success but what I invite you
today do today is think of these terms
in the context of the Weibull care being
mindful of our thoughts and feelings
which are really complicated and embrace
the caring sweet spot we all care we
care a lot caring is important let’s
take it seriously what I’ve described
today has been my meandering fumbling
journey towards becoming more careful
how I care now when I care about
something and all those thoughts and
feelings are rushing around in my head
before I act I try I don’t always
succeed but I try it’s asked myself just
a couple
questions first is what I’m about to do
going to be productive is it going to be
sustainable am I going to hit the caring
sweet spot if I can answer yes to those
questions I can be fairly confident that
my do-gooding can be its goodest
hopefully this can help you guys too
thanks for listening [Applause]