Polycrisis, Progress, and the Wellbeing Economy — with Gaya Herrington

What happens when the story of “more is always better” stops working—economically, socially, and spiritually? In this episode of The Space In Between, Leigh Morgan sits down with wellbeing economist and global influencer Gaya Herrington to explore why a 'growth-at-all-costs' mindset and economic system is colliding with real-world limits, and what a healthier paradigm could look like—one centered on human and ecological wellbeing, not just GDP.  Leigh and Gaya discuss how to actually do this at a time of polarization and polycrisis in the US and abroad. Together, they unpack how leaders - and indeed, everyone - can hold complexity without despair, build agency in unsettled times, and bridge divides by talking about what people actually long for: stability, dignity, belonging, and a future that feels livable. Gaya's insights will inspire and help all of us identify ways to center wellbeing in all aspects of our lives. 

👉🏼 The Space In Between is growing! Please leave a review, share with a friend, and check out our website www,spaceinbetween.com.  For inquiries about working with Leigh, check out www.imaginal-leadership.com.  

Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to the. Space in between podcast. I'm your host Lee Morgan. Again, this podcast is for listeners who are fed up. Up with the hyperpolarized nature of the world today. And who crave. Craves spaces where current events can be discussed in construct. enlightening and delightful ways. Let's get.

Leigh Morgan 0:28

Hello friend. Thanks for joining the space. In between today, we are gonna have a conversation that sits smack dab at the intersection of something many of us feel, but don't always have the words for, and that is this dominant western societal assumption about achievement, which is often linked to success or what progress looks like. Many of us have been told that more is better, that growth is always good, and that if the economic numbers are up, things must be working. And yet increasingly folks are questioning these narratives. I know I am. That's happening in part because while the stock market has had a great year more people are food insecure. We also know that many people feel more anxious, more divided, more isolated from each other than ever before. And that's true even when basic needs are met. On this episode, we're going to slow things down and sit in this tension. We're not gonna point fingers. We're not gonna condemn entire economic systems. Rather, we will ask a more human question, what happens when an old economic story stops serving our wellbeing and what might want to take its place? I'm really glad to explore this with my brilliant and kind guest, Gaia Harrington. Gaia is an economist who has spent years studying the reality and consequences of economic growth and what it might mean to design economies that actually center human and planetary wellbeing. I'm gonna put a link to her fantastic Ted talk on this topic. And she brings a lot of clarity and humility to conversations that are too often oversimplified and politicized So, Gaia, I'm so excited you're here. Welcome to the space in between.

Gaya Herrington-1 2:38

Oh, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you, Lee.

Leigh Morgan 2:42

Well listen, I'm gonna start where I start with all my guests and just ask, when you think about growth and economics and this notion of wellbeing, you, you really light up in person. And then in, in your many forms and TED Talks, where does that passion come from?

Gaya Herrington-1 3:00

You know, I can put it this, this in a, way, a pessimistic way or optimistic way. the negative way is it comes from my privilege and the optimistic way is it comes from this, this need this, um, not a physical, but a, a more spiritual, emotional need that I think all human beings have. Almost all of us are innately, we're born with this desire to leave the world a little bit better than we found is to, to feel that we are connected. That there's a higher purpose that, uh, that. Daily tasks are contributing to that. And you can't get to there, when your basic needs like food, shelter, security, are not met. So that's why I do recognize this comes from a place of privilege, but it also think that we are all born with this. And one of the many ways that poverty, robs us of our dignity is also that it's not just the basic needs. It's not just our, bodily health, it's also our mental health where we're deprived of being able to look and contribute to something bigger than ourselves.

Leigh Morgan 4:05

You are so clear headed about. This notion of service and helping the world, and you just articulated that. Is this a, a value that came from your family or your upbringing? I'm just curious, where does that wellspring come from?

Gaya Herrington-1 4:21

probably yes. Uh, again, I do think that we are born with it, but of course it also has to be nurtured. I, I was born, I'm a dual citizen. I'm a naturalized American. but I was born in the Netherlands, so, uh, two, uh, middle class parents were also hippies in the sixties, so it's probably there. Also, you know, I had this very Arian upbringing where they were like, we were all made, uh, the joint decisions, the children with the parents sitting at the dinner table, like, what are we gonna do now? So I guess that is all in it. but at the same time, I, I really do think that we all have this, if you look at, findings of anthropologists or if you go back in time, uh, most of the time actually humans have. together in communities and, larger societies on very equalitarian principles. So you talked about this, this, old story of growth. in the longer, perspective, it's actually very recent. So for most of human history, growth was considered, or the pursuit of everlasting growth, I should say. It's not anti-growth, but this pursuit of growth at all other costs, if, if necessary, is extremely recent. We have all grown up with it, that's true, but it's really on the large scale of, since the the homogeneous has been in existence, it's an absolute blip.

Leigh Morgan 5:43

Okay. That's a great tee up to actually ask you to set the table, if you will, about your research and your, findings, about economic growth. Because most of us, like me, we aren't economic experts. We don't have that historical perspective, which you were just referencing.

Gaya Herrington-1 6:01

Oh, we're not taught that in economics classes are we?

Leigh Morgan 6:04

Exactly. You know, when and when I say our culture, we are here living in the US reading this podcast. It's also true. There are many subcultures all around the world, and as you and I have talked about, many indigenous cultures actually do not start from a mindset that growth is always good. But we're really talking to, folks today the US or in western culture. So tell us a little bit about economic growth and what a different approach of centering on wellbeing could look and feel like.

Gaya Herrington-1 6:34

Hmm. Yes. Yeah. So I also very much started from within that, the dominant paradigm. So let's be clear that, uh, you mentioned I studied econometrics. So for example, what we call economics classes today, was taught those there are really only one school of economics. They don't tell you that. They said this is the only form of economics. This is not true. It's one class. It's called neoclassical economics. And, um, in that, there, there, there underlying stories. For example, we all know this because most of us, even if you do psychology or whatever, you have this one-on-one economics 1 0 1 mandatory class, and they teach you that a good. Economic model to represent humans is the homo economicus, right? We are aware of that person, the calculating man, selfish, maximizing, never satisfied. So that doesn't describe us very well, but that's where all the models are based on. So that's the, the dominant paradigm from that economics school. And I was very much trained in that. After that, I went to work in the financial sector for many years. I have worked at the Dutch Central Bank. I was the national representative, um, in the basal, uh, commission for banking supervision. So I, I very much come from there. And so I, I also used to think that growth is always good. It's, you know, it's a proxy, it's an imperfect indicator of progress. I've come to realize that this is just inherently flawed and more and more people. Are coming to that conclusion. So when I came to the US I went back to school to study ano to get another master's in sustainability. And for that I wrote my thesis on the limits to growth,

Leigh Morgan 8:14

Okay.

Gaya Herrington-1 8:15

I should introduce. Unfortunately, even though it was a best seller at the time, it was 1972. It was a bestseller. It was discussed at the federal level. Uh, this was done by a group of MIT scientists who

Leigh Morgan 8:29

Okay. I miss that best seller, although I was young, very, very young in.

Gaya Herrington-1 8:34

You know, one of the authors, Dennis Meadows, he's, he's still alive. And, and he, once said, you know, I just, the book just came out, people came up to me after he is done thousands of events and interviews. And he said afterwards people would come up to me and say, your book changed my life. And he said, and then. a decade later, people come up to me and they said, your book changed my parents' life. And he said, and now these days people are like, oh, you wrote a book. So it's been, it's been very effectively buried. And I, and I will tell you why I think that was the case, but it was initially a bestseller it just said, it's used a new modeling technique from MIT called System Dynamics. They, uh, they use that to create its first of its kind world model. And, in class neoclassical economics, most variables are very static. Um, they don't move a whole lot. of them are exogenous, meaning you don't influence, you have no influence on them. In the, in the formula and in system dynamics. All variables interact. it's, it, it allows you to model complex systems such as I think our society or the economy. And so they let it run with global, population, global industrial output, a whole bunch of variables. And then they concluded that if the business as usual scenario, which ran on historical averages only, so no additional assumptions, you would see a peak in in welfare and, and industrial output setting in around now, um, reaching about now and then a steep decline setting in. And they call that collapse.

Leigh Morgan 10:07

Can I check one thing? I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm really curious Is, is what you're saying that we're kind of at the peak of this. There was some prediction in the early seventies that there would be a decline coming and we're now in the middle of that or the beginning of it.

Gaya Herrington-1 10:24

This is, that is what I'm saying. Yes. That is what that trajectory, that is what that scenario said. so I should point out that collapse doesn't mean the end of civilization.

Leigh Morgan 10:34

Okay. That's an important point.

Gaya Herrington-1 10:36

Yes.'cause collapse sometimes people, it's, it's a, it's a dramatic term

Leigh Morgan 10:41

Yes, it is.

Gaya Herrington-1 10:42

Um, but it is a steep decline from a previous speak that's just

Leigh Morgan 10:45

Okay.

Gaya Herrington-1 10:46

and it's, so, it's still very much undesirable. I also think, that it's unavoidable at this point, and I don't like saying that, but what I did, my research was I took several of those scenarios, including the business as usual scenario. There were more scenarios of course with, with additional assumptions. And, I plotted empirical data. To those global variables to see which ones were most closely aligned with, uh, where we are. And, uh, the, the business as usual was most closely aligned. So that was the conclusion of the book. It was called The Limits to Growth. And he said their growth will halt one way or another because we live on an abundant, yet finite planet. And so the choice is not whether we can keep growing forever or not. We can't, the question is, will the end of growth come by design or by disaster? So business as usual would be disaster was also in there, there were scenarios there where where we had additional assumption on human behavior, notably they limit, they set a cap to how much industrial output they were they were gonna take on, and all those resources that were freed up from that cap. were redirected to natural protection and, uh, human services like healthcare and education. And in that, the declines were avoided, but we're not most closely, aligned with that scenario.

Leigh Morgan 12:08

So just to repeat as a global community, which is anticipating. Some scarcity of resources and that we might start thinking about distributing resources or taking action to mitigate things like climate change or the hoarding of wealth by fewer and fewer people, which is one of our realities now where we're living in a time where income inequality has never been higher. Fewer people have more money than ever before. Am I sniffing down the right track here?

Gaya Herrington-1 12:51

Spot on. Thank you for that segue.

Leigh Morgan 12:54

I'll be your, I'll be your PR person.

Gaya Herrington-1 12:56

because this is, yes, let's do that. so this this is precisely what I wanted to come back to of why I think, uh, limits to growth has buried. You mentioned resource scarcity. Yes. I wanna point out that, that was actually what, how it was discredited at the time. They said, oh,

Leigh Morgan 13:12

Oh,

Gaya Herrington-1 13:13

scarcity, really. And then, um, we got technologies that made certain, resources more, available. And they

Leigh Morgan 13:20

okay.

Gaya Herrington-1 13:20

was actually used to discredit it. And what is often missed about the limits to growth is the s. limits to growth. Yes, of course we can innovate ourselves out of one constraint. Humans are very innovative. But what happens typically in enclosed complex system, the unintended consequences, what are called externalities in neoclassical economics, which is, could not be a thing in a closed system. but those typically, the externalities or consequences of the efforts of trying to innovate out of one constraint lead to a new constraint. If you read those books, actually, Then they said, listen, it's not that collapse will come from completely having no resources left or being 100% polluted in the waters. happens is that these new limits from the efforts of getting out of another limit come over time. That's what the model shows us. They come faster and faster, and the effort to get out of the new constraint will become more and more costly. And ultimately what we will run out of is our ability to cope. And that's what this crisis is. This sense of, my God, they have nothing Makes sense. Like I don't even, what is happening right now? the stark contradictions of so much suffering and at the same time so much opulence. this PO crisis is humanity running out of its ability to cope.

Leigh Morgan 14:44

Okay, I'm gonna say what you just said, which I think it's really profound that this poly crisis we find ourselves in, it's accelerating. It's very complicated. And the poly part, the multiple crises. that we're experiencing. I think for me and for my friend who's listening right now, we all would say, holy crap so much. You, you, you wake up, wake up

Gaya Herrington-1 15:11

yeah.

Leigh Morgan 15:12

every day and there's some new thing of some new thing, and what, what, what? And, and I think that's accurate regardless of where my one might identify, um, on the political spectrum or the many different identities that we have. So you just describing an acceleration of the poly crises and over time, less and less capacity as societies and in our economies and probably in communities to cope. Well, because again, it's faster.

Gaya Herrington-1 15:42

Right.

Leigh Morgan 15:43

That's

Gaya Herrington-1 15:43

I've started to work more, more with Ologists who study how collapse happens and stuff

Leigh Morgan 15:49

Collapse.

Gaya Herrington-1 15:49

reasons.

Leigh Morgan 15:50

That is a new word.

Gaya Herrington-1 15:52

Yes. Uh, for obvious reasons. And also that's also just describing what you're describing. This sense is very common in collapsed where you're up the peak and then this little thing just before,'cause you're going down, but not that far yet. Right. It's, about to accelerate, but you're not here yet. And this is a very common sense of like, we are clearly losing control. I mean, it's all here yet, I wanna very briefly touch on what you said about the inequality, because that is a very important aspect here. And I think this, uh, logical, uh, sequence is, is very important to follow, which is, you talk about limits, you're talking about ecological limits, planetary boundaries, right? The planet is finite. You're talking about na nature. ultimately we, it's in the environmental realm. And so initially that's why it was a bestseller. And people at, uh, in, in high places were also interested. They're like, wow, we don't want ecosystem collapse. Nobody wants that. But then they realize a few months later, I think that, oh, but wait a minute. If our abundant planet is in the end finite, that means if we wanna eradicate poverty, if we wanna have a livelihoods guaranteed for every single one on the planet, then we have to divide what we already have more equally.

Leigh Morgan 17:13

Okay.

Gaya Herrington-1 17:14

And that I think goes to the heart of wealth inequality. It's totally possible to meet everybody's needs on this

Leigh Morgan 17:21

Yeah. Yeah.

Gaya Herrington-1 17:22

but it would have to be, we would have to see a massive redistribution of resources, and I think that's why it was so

Leigh Morgan 17:29

Got it.

Gaya Herrington-1 17:30

so viciously at the time.

Leigh Morgan 17:31

Yeah. Got it. That is, so that's a really helpful framing and context Okay, so, wellbeing economy, which you are so passionate about, and. For me in our conversations, it puts me in a place of, hopefulness amidst this sense of what the hell you know of, you know, this, this collapse. Tell us a little bit about what the wellbeing economy is and why it's important and relevant for all of us.

Gaya Herrington-1 18:14

So wellbeing economy is where the ultimate goal of the economy is human and ecological wellbeing. So meeting human needs, physical and emotional and spiritual. and well with it, staying within planetary boundaries. And ideally regenerating the ecosystem around you. So it's not this, basically that's what it comes down to. But what it is, uh, business, government, um, nonprofits and citizens in their daily tasks, they all work towards this goal of improving human and ecological wellbeing. And they can, still have growth. Uh, businesses can still be profitable. the ultimate goal is different. So for example, what that means is that a business is still, is profit making instead of pro profit maximizing, which is a key difference. So if it contributes to wellbeing, they can make a profit of it. but if it doesn't, they won't do it. and the same with a government. The government is of course, also very much locked into GDP growth right now and the argument is we can't pay for our social services without GDP growth. Uh, which is true. All of our systems are designed around growth right now, but that is ultimately a design choice. that was a design choice. Right now, everything is built around it. So our, our infrastructure up to almost our physical infrastructure is now there. And that's also why I think at this point, collapse is no longer avoidable, but the systems are crumbling. And so we need a new vision for how we are gonna do it better after collapse.'cause again, it's, it's not the end of civilization.

Leigh Morgan 19:53

Yeah, thank.

Gaya Herrington-1 19:54

and that's what this wellbeing economy is, a way to design better after collapse.

Leigh Morgan 19:59

So, and just to clarify, GDP is gross domestic product, which is a metric commonly used to assess whether a nation state most often, although you can measure the GDP for the European Union or regions as well. It's a metric that has to do with, purchase and sale of goods. And how robust that is. Yeah.

Gaya Herrington-1 20:24

Yeah. So it's really, so it measures quantity.

Leigh Morgan 20:26

Quantity. Okay.

Gaya Herrington-1 20:28

if we have a lot of, a lot of floods or, or fires like in California, after that, we have to rebuild. So it's good for GDP in that sense.'cause the, the, the more products are sold, but it's obviously not good for

Leigh Morgan 20:39

Uh.

Gaya Herrington-1 20:39

So it measures qu quantity, not quality. That's, there are many things that are wrong about it. It measures throughput, but not, uh, how much wealth you accumulate. So if you think that our natural resources are also national wealth, which I think it is, clean air, clean waters, uh, all those things, um, then it doesn't take that into account, um, it's a meme cliche of Yeah, uh, of a standing forest is worth nothing. And, having it cut down is measured in GDP. And that goes for a lot of stuff. Our health, for example, healthy people they don't contribute to GDP at all. If you're sick, you're, you know, you're much more valuable to the gross domestic product. So it just goes to show that it's a bad measure and I'm not the only one who's saying that. Many people have said said that, including the one who came up with it. Kuznets is the one who came up with it? Yes. And he said, okay, so this is useful maybe now,'cause it was after the second World War and he said, for rebuild, this might be a good proxy. Not for welfare, to be clear, but we could use that for now maybe to see how we're doing in the rebuild. said it's not a good measure for wellbeing and we just ran with it anyway.

Leigh Morgan 21:47

So here we are. And even in my introductory remarks talked about the stories we grew up with of GDP is kind of the measure of a country or society's success. So the, the more money that's produced, the more jobs that can be measured. And what, what I also wanna say that is so core to, the podcast is what we're not saying is that GDP as a measure of economic activity in and of itself is bad. What I'm hearing you say is it's a metric that has become a dominant metric. About what's good or bad and what we should aspire to. And it is inherently limited because it was never meant to be a measure or a proxy of things like your words, physical, emotional, or spiritual health. And

Gaya Herrington-1 22:44

exactly.

Leigh Morgan 22:45

of our lives, we're sitting there thinking, how was my life? We're probably not saying I wish I made more money or sold more things. We're probably gonna, in fact, we actually know this from people. Uh, it's been studied in research, it's connections, it's wellbeing, it's our sense of, uh, spirituality, whatever shape that takes, to a person. It's how did we live our lives? And yet, GDP is the dominant thing that we say, well, they're a poor country. And so they're bad. And you and I know we spent time with indigenous peoples in, in their territories, and I'll say the vast diversity of indigenous peoples, vast

Gaya Herrington-1 23:30

Mm-hmm.

Leigh Morgan 23:31

of views and worldviews, et cetera. Even within that, there are experiences we've had where it's just not a starting point of how much money you could make.

Gaya Herrington-1 23:41

Lucky in that

Leigh Morgan 23:42

yeah.

Gaya Herrington-1 23:42

feel here in the

Leigh Morgan 23:43

Mm-hmm.

Gaya Herrington-1 23:46

is in Vancouver, and, and, Oregon and parts of Northern California. We are very lucky that we can still pull from that wisdom because obviously when I said, well, we've been doing this for a long time, right? Today, these notions of the regenerative or indeed indigenous economy is best preserved in those communities. And we're very lucky. I, I was born in the Netherlands. So in some ways we're, we are definitely further along in circularity. For example, amsterdam's doing a lot in, in it. Um, and at the same time I'm like, yeah, the narrative of, uh, humans not as the apex predator, but, but the humans as A very special, unique accelerator and, and servant of life, that's best preserved in indigenous communities.

Leigh Morgan 24:31

So what would you say to critics who would say, oh, this is all touchy feely stuff, and, unrealistic because we, we are a global community. We rely on trade and, and massive scales. And if we were just to turn that off and go to this wellbeing economy, you know, there's some, there's people like,

Gaya Herrington-1 24:54

so trade, trade is something different. We've had trade long before this growth, this growth imperative. but no, thank you for that question.'cause you're right, that is what you often hear this, ridiculous notion that, oh, so we're gonna go back to living in caves. No, literally nobody's saying that. Okay. It was, it, it's just such a strong man argument. Of course, in the wellbeing economy, we're gonna have a lot of technology. We're gonna have, we're gonna have better use of it. You, you're probably aware that right now AI is being used to create thousands of deep fake pornography of women and children every day. Uh, I don't think that's the best use. Okay. Uh, in general, this whole video swap is very energy intense. We all know this. Um. I think we could have much better use just deploying it only for optimizing, energy flows from renewable sources

Leigh Morgan 25:42

Right.

Gaya Herrington-1 25:43

ones. That's also an application. That's a good application. We should keep that. The other part is, actually way more wasteful and it has negative societal value. The thing is, it's technology is a tool, so it will be used for the overall goal of the economy. Right now it's mostly used for growth, but in a wellbeing economy it would be deployed towards, um, again, wellbeing.

Leigh Morgan 26:07

So the key here is to optimize profit in ways that that improves our wellbeings, emotional, spiritual, and physical wellbeing. That's the key here. And we do see some examples of some comp, many companies. Who, who you know, who are really trying to say our goods and services are here and designed to be additive to society in a way so that that's not a new concept. There are lots of companies out there, there's some big ones, there's some small ones. Is it accurate that your invitation for us is to be much more intentional everywhere in our business models, but also in our policy frameworks where we might offer incentives for more companies to develop good services, products that are explicitly enabling wellbeing and, and you might say then so much of the health sector, right? And I'm a part of that, people sign up every day to go to work for organizations that are helping people. So how do you make sense of that?

Gaya Herrington-1 27:16

yes, you, you should do that. but it, starts at a very deeply personal level. it's a good segue. I think we need to talk,'cause I hear this a lot. People are like, okay, so those are some massive global systemic issues you're talking about. because it's a very difficult message of, being part of a system. The old, domination paradigm. about control, right? We can control this planet, we can innovate it with new technologies. The bees are dying. We can invent robot pollinators. That's not dystopian at all. this other, uh, narrative it needs to start within yourself first.'cause we've all in, we've all grown up in this harmful, dominant narrative of that we're selfish and we're bad people. We can't be trusted. So the best thing we can hope for is the market or technology to save us. And it's, it's not who we are. So you have to first start with this new narrative that, I think describes us much better in which we are nature. we can be selfish if our basic needs are not met. But once they are, very playful and curious, and we have a strong desire to contribute to this web of life that we all feel part of. So you heal from that old narrative, and then you see how you can build out that new narrative. your everyday decision. you do have to be aware there's a lot of greenwashing going on, so you can say like, oh yeah, only buy from green companies. And they're like, I'm a green company. A good way to tell is typically if they're employee owned. I'm not saying they're, never, been any bad employee owned companies, but typically those are a lot better. They're community rooted, et cetera. They're profit making, not profit maximizing. You have several of those. About 20% of, uh, companies in the US are, profit making, not profit, maximizing cooperative banks, credit unions, same thing.

Leigh Morgan 29:08

Yep.

Gaya Herrington-1 29:08

And then the last thing I wanna say is those are still. Things at the consumer level. And so I do wanna add a level to that because we're mostly treated these days as consumers, which is very disparaging because you're treated only for how much money you have. So another thing is that we become citizens again. So you connect with your local community, where you live, maybe also if you're in a multinationals or a company, people around you talk about this new narrative and see how you could implement that where you are and where you work.

Leigh Morgan 29:40

This notion of narrative is important because it, it gets to the stories and mental models that. We all have that help us make sense of the world. And we're kind of deconstructing in this conversation, long held assumptions about gross domestic product as a dominant, the dominant, the most important proxy for a country or society's wellbeing. Right? And we even talk about, you know, that wealth where there's more money that's a proxy for wellbeing. And, and you're saying no, it's, it actually was never meant to be that way. It's not the way it is, but there are ways to begin moving, giving your business to cooperatively owned places, and being attentive in our own minds. You know, noticing where we're not contributing to the wellbeing economy ourselves.

Gaya Herrington-1 30:35

Yeah, that's, that's correct. And One notion, for example, is this concept of enough that I talk about in my TED talk, right? And I think that also has this personal aspect. If you talk about consumerism, there's a clear distinction between needs and wants actually. But in our growth is economy. This, this is very purposefully blurred. Why? Because one clear difference between needs and wants is needs can be satisfied. That is not useful for a growth this economy, right? It's very good news if you wanna stay within planetary boundaries because you don't need an endless amount of resources to have everybody's needs met. If the goal is growth, oh yeah, that, okay, so now we have to fabricate all the time. And that's ma mainly what's now happening in marketing, right? Is this ad telling me I'm good enough?'cause that's the story of the new narrative. That that's a part of it. Like enough, enough for everybody. So no one below the social foundation, but also at some point it's enough and we don't have to ask more. I think that is key in this current economy, in a, in an economy where you can never have enough, it's easy to feel like you never are enough. Right. And I think that's a very, very widely carried sense. So one of the small ways you can do it every day is like, is this signaling to me that I'm not good enough.'cause in that case I probably don't really need it it's a fabricated one and not a real need.

Leigh Morgan 32:10

I wanna ask you a personal question about. Moments in your life where you realized you were either out of alignment with that or you had a sense of like, wow, this is a, a dominant narrative that I have about myself was there some moments that stand out for you personally?

Gaya Herrington-1 32:30

It is really a journey are almost, we, all of us have grown up in this, uh, paradigm that maybe in the grand scheme of things yeah, in historical perspective is new. But we have grown up in it. We're so, we are always surrounded in it. So we have internalized it. So it's an ongoing journey. I think you have to realize that. I think I'm coming, becoming better at it.'cause I'm seeing it every day when it, where this, oh, this is a domination mindset narrative. So the short answer to your question is like, no, there's not a concrete thing that made me go, aha. It's really been, much more of a slow pro, uh, more of a yoga process, if that makes

Leigh Morgan 33:08

Ah.

Gaya Herrington-1 33:08

a massage progress where I went into like the, small little blockades in my, mental map. I pressed on it and then I let it go. And over time it released a tension and the blockade there and I was like, oh, huh. Yeah, I don't really need that. I think that is one of the key insights where another key difference between needs and wants, for example, is when needs are unsatisfied, the result is suffering But you know, you don't have to

Leigh Morgan 33:34

Yeah.

Gaya Herrington-1 33:35

that far for it to be a real impact. Wants are very different. It is almost, I think it's therapeutic to just sit there and, and reflect on a wand at that one time where you'd thought you really wanted that thing and it was gonna make a difference in your life, and then you didn't get it and you cried over it and you were so angry then you look back and you're like, huh, don't think I would've made any difference today. That's typ that's very common for once. So I think that's, a way to put it. But, I was speaking at the European Economic Forum in November, last November And, before me, there was a man on the stage. He was, in a suit, uh, relatively heavy built, relatively older, white man. And he was just sitting there and he said, we have to get back to business'cause Europe doesn't dominate in the world anymore. Um, and I thought that was such a

Leigh Morgan 34:27

Wow.

Gaya Herrington-1 34:28

picture of the domination mindsets, and the, the neocolonialism. I would say that some people still bring in Europe or the US.

Leigh Morgan 34:36

I'm sure you were a refreshing counterbalance to that on a stage and this notion of needs and wants again, where basic needs are not met, that that is suffering. And we actually had, I know this from the Gates Foundation up to 2020s, a pretty remarkable, reduction in extreme poverty. Or, um, this amazingly successful Global Vaccine Alliance, uh, push to get kids basic vaccinations, which saved, has saved tens, tens of millions of lives. So that's an example of where basic needs were met in a new way. And so we had, less infant mortality, et cetera, et So That's a good thing. we, we want needs met, but where you get through that door, then it's tricky.'cause then all of a sudden we get these messages. Yes. Because then we have, then we have the narratives about growth of have more, have a bigger house or have a better car or get paid more money. And that becomes.

Gaya Herrington-1 35:45

So there's, um, are just a phenomenal person in setting me up, right? For all the key points I wanna make. So first of all, the Gates Foundation focuses, um, on, exclusively on, uh, I think on the, in the global south. So they don't work in Europe or anything.

Leigh Morgan 36:02

Okay.

Gaya Herrington-1 36:03

um, what you typically do see in, in poorer countries is that yes, there's a stronger correlation between income, whether it's per capita or, uh, at the national level. So GDP. There is more of a correlation at the, when you're at low material levels, the correlation between income and yes, wellbeing. the reasons that you just described is quite strong. It's not always there still. But it is certainly true. We're not arguing that we should, uh, that we shouldn't have growth in the global south. Of course not because again, human suffering. The pathway towards the wellbeing economy for will look very different for different countries and even communities. So in the us um, where we have enough stuff to satisfy our needs, we have in intolerable, um, so far as I'm concerned, inexcusable, immoral inequality in the us. So there is still a lot of poverty,

Leigh Morgan 36:57

I agree.

Gaya Herrington-1 36:57

are, uh, as on a national level, uh, affluent. So for us, the trick is it's not to grow, but to distribute what we have more equally, and guarantee safeguard livelihoods in that collapse. So

Leigh Morgan 37:11

Yeah.

Gaya Herrington-1 37:11

degrowth in that sense these days is very similar to collapse resilience. It didn't used to be that because degrowth is also still hoping we could avoid a collapse. now that I think it's unavoidable, uh, degrowth and, uh, other what collapse ologists, uh, call collapse resilience is, is basically the same. And so again, what the Gates Foundation would focus on we wouldn't be. that kind of growth,

Leigh Morgan 37:38

Yes. Thank you.

Gaya Herrington-1 37:38

having people having their meats net, of course not. it's just that, it's very interesting because one of the things that techno optimists, argue for is oh no, we see decoupling. Uh, and it's like, okay, listen. First of all, you're talking about carbon decoupling. This is a very important aspect of sustainability because it goes to climate change, but it's far from the only

Leigh Morgan 38:00

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm just struck by, you just gave an example of kind of in a climate space, there's a lot of nuance to the, this discussion isn't there? Right., And so again, that's what the space in between, that's why we're, we're here. There's not, not a black and white view. And you just gave us a really helpful example of, well wait a minute. In low wealth settings where there tends to be more literal scarcity of food, shelter, access to healthcare, you can have a really big positive impact on health and wellbeing where you can introduce, per capita income that can go on.'cause there's more resources and you might actually have money as a government to build a more robust healthcare system.

Gaya Herrington-1 38:42

Yeah.

Leigh Morgan 38:42

and yet you're saying, in higher wealth settings, um, we have a different set of dynamics, where I think many of us seduced to saying, well, because it, because over there when, when per capita income goes up, that's holds true for us also. And yet I'll give an example, uh, that I've shared on the podcast before. The Edelman Trust, barometer comes out every year. It's a big PR firm and they measure levels of trust. Societies and levels of trust in societies is actually directly correlated with sense of health and wellbeing. Okay. And so we're seeing dramatic reduction in levels of trust in high wealth countries. That's where it's declining the most. There's trust is declining faster and and the most in high wealth settings. And yeah.

Gaya Herrington-1 39:36

you're right, we could certainly talk about Decarb decoupling. So also, I wanna go to where you see in the west and what you mentioned earlier, uh, is, uh. Almost complete decoupling happiness or wellbeing from GDP growth. So, GDP growth has been steadily increasing and, since the seventies. If you look at a broader measure of it, such as by Herman Daley, uh, a former, a Senior World Bank economist was at a, uh, university of Maryland. Uh, He constructed an addition to the GDP. So not just throughput, but also the, the things that you mentioned and, the GPI, the genuine progress indicator that has been steadily decreasing since the seventies. So we see a proper decoupling of happiness from, um, not of, um, environmental impact, but from GDP, and this is what you mentioned. So at the beginning you have a strong correlation and then you have these diminishing returns,

Leigh Morgan 40:35

Okay.

Gaya Herrington-1 40:35

normal. Um, again. Economic laws are not different from human laws on that'cause It is a human construct. We know that sometimes growth is good, and sometimes it's, it's bad. This is not a hard concept. Diminishing returns, like the first cake is great and that the second not so great anymore. Uh, this all makes total sense. But for some reason we act like this is not the case in, uh, economics even though it's there. So Easterling was one of the first economists who pointed it out. He said, So you have a very tight correlation and then you have this inflection point and then it almost flattens. Now that inflection point, I think is where we move from satisfying needs with our stuff to wants. That's why it's

Leigh Morgan 41:15

I see that's why it's happening. So that's helpful and I love this notion of a genuine progress indicator. I'm gonna get the link and we'll put that in the show notes. We're gonna begin wrapping up and, I wanna ask you something pretty provocative. So. We live in unsettled times. We talked about that. There's lots of polarization. There's a caustic tone and tenor to our politics, not just in the US but world order is being upset as we talk about it, of the, in the United States threatening its allies things that are literally unheard of flying in and matching presidents even as horrible as they are, like that, that's an upset of established ones

Gaya Herrington-1 41:57

meddling in Latin American, uh, governing. That's

Leigh Morgan 42:00

a lot.

Gaya Herrington-1 42:01

very un, very heard of,

Leigh Morgan 42:02

And we can talk for an hour about all this stuff that's happening. The, the meta theme is there's a lot of polarization, there's a lot of fracture, and you have offered a, a, a critique and criticism of growth at all costs. You've offered this compelling, vision for a wellbeing economy and given us a number of examples of where that can be manifest as you think about your work, because you, have people in front of you on the stage saying, why aren't we growing more? You're out there rallying saying, we, we can do this. People. What advice would you give to listeners? Let's say you have the guy, a magic wand, right? What would be your one wish for listeners that you'd leave them with to say, we can do this. You can do this. You, me, anyone listening to this podcast, what's the one wish you would? You would give,

Gaya Herrington-1 42:59

I'm torn between two answers.

Leigh Morgan 43:02

you can give two. You can have two wishes.

Gaya Herrington-1 43:04

and give both of them. Yeah, I'm just gonna be greedy. first one would be the inner one. And I, I would for wish for everybody to feel that they are enough. I think it really comes from embracing that enoughness. a lot of the stuff that we see, like the violence and just the meanness of people also comes from this notion that ultimately you're not worthy as you are of, of love. I think the second one is to say, uh, from that place, please. with people. The vast majority of people. A small percentage of population is born a sociopath. They genuinely don't care about impacts to others. Most of us do. If you look at surveys, most people agree with post growth, policies. they subscribe to these underlying values of, oh yeah, we're in it together, et cetera. So, uh, yet it's not happening., And that's because we're not connected enough. So, like I said, connecting your communities, one great things that us, us has over Europe. Europe is absolutely ahead in many ways when it comes to this post growth thinking. but one real leg up that us, US has is that we still have this indigenous wisdom and we have very active what is called bio regionalism movements, which, which encompass everything we just discussed. So if you, if you're like, okay, connect how, up your, your bio region and that,'cause they're all over the us.

Leigh Morgan 44:29

I love it. Each of us can can be thoughtful and reflective around what does enough mean to us? At a really deeply personal level. And, you know, there's a spiritual teacher, a guy by the name of Michael Beckwith that I've become aware of, and, and he often talks about literally just saying three times a day, I have enough. Now you're gonna say it if that's accurate and true for you and your family, right? So if that's true, oh, what a, an amazing thing to actually have enough. And just to repeat that over and over again, Because the stories we tell ourselves that we speak to ourselves and others, that actually influences how we think and how we feel.

Gaya Herrington-1 45:14

You don't just have enough. You are enough.

Leigh Morgan 45:17

That's right. I am enough at a personal level. And then it is also a nice contradiction, to also say, and I have enough if it's true, because then it provides a stark relief to the wants which you have spoken so eloquently about. And then I love again, the other wish, which is connection with others. Fundamentally, we are kind, generous people. I really believe, despite the noise, despite the caustic rhetoric, despite the, the scapegoating and stereotyping, there, there's way more kindness. There's way more love, there's way more generosity in the world. And Making time to notice that by connecting with others, I think is a powerful, powerful anecdote, my friend. So I am grateful for you spending time today in the space in between. I appreciate your work in the world and highlighting there's another way of being, which is about wellbeing and human connection that really matters. So thank you for dropping some serious wisdom here today.

Gaya Herrington-1 46:20

It was, it was such a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Lee.

Leigh Morgan 46:23

It was a lot of fun. I can't wait to see you again. Thanks for being on the space in between. Bye for now.

46:30

I hope you. Enjoyed this episode of the space in between podcast. If. If you did, please hit the like button and leave a review. Wherever you listen to the show. And check out the space. Space in between.com website, where you can also leave me a message.