Episode 255: How Curiosity + Conservation Can Save the Planet | Dr. Tierney Thys | NatGeo Explorer & Filmmaker
Dr. Tierney Thys is a marine biologist, National Geographic Explorer, TED speaker, and co-founder of Around the World in 80 Fabrics. In this episode of the Powerful Ladies Podcast, she joins Kara to explore how curiosity can change your life, and possibly the world. They discuss biodiversity, mental health, fast fashion, and why protecting the planet starts with getting outside. From her work on giant ocean sunfish to her mission to shift how we think about textiles, Tierney reveals how she balances big ideas with practical action, and why she believes the key to climate optimism lies at the intersection of science, creativity, and community.
This episode is for anyone wondering what they can do to make a difference.
“I don’t know how anyone can be bored on this planet. There’s so much to learn and so many interesting questions to be asked.”
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Chapters:
(00:01:35) Meet Dr. Tierney Thys: Marine Biologist & Explorer
(00:05:22) Giant Sunfish, Sea Turtles, and a Life of Curiosity
(00:08:41) Around the World in 80 Fabrics and Textile Storytelling
(00:13:20) Fast Fashion’s Environmental Impact and Alternatives
(00:17:33) Building Climate Optimism Through Connection
(00:22:10) Nature Imagery and the Science of Mental Health
(00:26:45) Why Cities Need More Access to Wild Spaces
(00:31:18) How Curiosity Leads to Conservation
(00:36:06) Lessons from Global Travel and Indigenous Practices
(00:40:12) Empowering the Next Generation Through Education
(00:45:00) Living More Sustainably and Shopping with Intention
(00:50:14) How to Get Involved and Support Planetary Wellbeing
Follow along using the Transcript
I feel we're only here as humans because of the good graces of all that's come before us. We need to give back all that we take from Mother Earth. And we can do that beautifully, and we can enrich our soils and make things even more biodiverse.
That's Tierney Thys. I'm Kara Duffy and this is The Powerful Ladies podcast. Welcome to The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Thank you for having me.
I was so excited to get to meet you very briefly at Mountain Film Fest, where my colleague Kendra and I got to sit through a really great conversation between yourself and Carol Dunham and nah I'm always gonna say her name wrong. Melanie Karney.
Thank you. Yes. You have to hear it a couple times for it to sink in and I ha but it was such a powerful conversation. You guys each had your own short and then a great conversation about how life doesn't always go your way. And immediately, Kendra and I were like, we have to talk to them.
Like they, not only did you leave great impressions at Mountain Film, but when you look at everything you're doing. I'm a busy person and I'm like, how does she do it? Like you are at level 500 of the things you're involved in, the impacts you're making. So I'm really excited to get into, all those spaces today.
But let's just start by telling everyone your name, where you are in the world today, and what you consider yourself up to right now.
Oh, that's, that is challenging 'cause I'm, as you mentioned, there's a lot of projects that I'm up to. But I am coming to you from Carmel, California on the west Coast in Monterey Bay.
And my name is Tierney Thys. And what am I up to? A lot of my time is, dedicated to a new non well a nonprofit that I co-founded with Carol Dunham, who's also been on your podcast. Yes. Called Around the World in 80 Fabrics. And this nonprofit is really dedicated to elevating the voices of makers and communities dedicated to creating non petroleum natural sustainable fibers and clothing.
And I came into that work. Rather circuitously 'cause my training is a marine biologist. I've always been captivated by the natural world and did my doctoral work in biomechanics and fish swimming and love marine biology and marine conservation, but kept seeing my study sites fill up with plastic and my study animals filling up with plastic.
And then this epiphany that our clothing. 60% petroleum was jarring. I opened my closet and I'm like, oh, there's an oil spill in my closet. And and I just was curious how did that happen? And what could we do to lessen our footprint that has been brought about by fashion. And as a marine conservationist, I just found that fashion brought me to audiences that were totally unconverted.
Yeah. And and I like to call it the Trojan horse of every environmental issue i'm not a fashionista, but I could see it as a vehicle for touching on so many things that are important to humanity. Whether it's the health of our soil or social justice for fair wage for workers, or carbon sequestration biodiversity.
Yeah. So I it's intellectually fascinating, the world of textiles. It's socially empowering and I think it's such an exciting, optimistic time. Our nonprofits, it's educational and we have interns and they leave, they come in. So depressed and paralyzed by what's wrong with the world, and they leave excited and empowered.
So that's a nice tangible result. Yeah. Yeah. I feel that's really one of the most important is showing that. That there is hope that we can take these restless, creative minds, 8 billion minds of ours. And we can forge a beautiful future for ourselves. And that is possible. 'cause we see it with maker community and maker community regardless of culture or geography or, creed, color, everything. We see it across the globe. So I think it's a universal desire to, to live a healthy life and we can be united in that front.
And I think what's so unique too is that there's room. So like I, my background was working in footwear and apparel for 20 years and struggling with the guilt of we're just making more stuff.
How do we we tried so many times to be pushing through sustainability and there are layers of it and. The brands have been trying for a long time, probably the wrong way, so I'm glad things are starting to change with how they are. But hearing you talk about that and biomechanics, I'm like, yep, we could talk about biomechanics all day if you wanted to, but there's this desire to.
Save the planet and save us ultimately, not really the planet. The planet will probably be fine. Yeah. But to do what's right for all the collective communities and spaces that are impacted, but also have this self-expression and beautiful component. Yeah. And when we were talking to Carol about around the world in 80 fabrics, there was this, there's so much beauty and artistic and creativity that doesn't have to get lost because we're doing.
The right thing or the conscious thing. So I think that's a new balance that, as you said, the Trojan horse. How do we sacrifice nothing while lifting up everything else?
Yeah. Yeah. It's I think, it's like the triple bottom line. So Yeah. You have to have a moral the, a moral part of that bottom dollar.
Because that's really where deep happiness will come from when you're not, it's not just money. It's, the, what's your larger purpose and I have additional projects, research, primary research projects that look at that from different aspects as well.
So yeah, I'm. Ae of biodiversity. Oh, that's a little poem.
And I feel we're only here as humans because of the good graces of all that's come before us. Yeah. And we really I love Robin Kimler and braiding sweetgrass and these reciprocity. We need to give back all that we take from Mother Earth. And we can do that beautifully and we can enrich our soils and make things even more biodiverse.
We have all those tools, so
And I think that's the part that gets frustrating for so many is that we have solutions.
We have solutions.
So like then the conversation becomes, and I think also not, from a, this being the Powerful Ladies podcast there a lot of women are very pragmatic of if it's broken, let's fix it now because we have other things to do.
Yeah, there's so many things that have to be fixed and managed and done. And there's like, how do we do it now? Like, why aren't we just handling this? 'cause hey, by the way, there's gonna be a long line of the next thing coming. We know it.
So I think that's an interesting place as well of like why is it taking so long?
Why is it so slow to fix these things that we have answers for?
Yeah. I think that's there's a lot of personal interest involved. And that's why I think it often gets discouraging, especially for college. Students, how can they even make any, how can they make any headway?
And that's why I, it's just jump in and start the work and start small and don't, you don't have to, wanna save the entire planet, save all of humanity in one go. There are certainly some solutions that, that, are more s silver bullets than others. But for instance, getting rid of harmful subsidies when it comes to overfishing.
But but I think you just have to start. In your community and then work outwards. So I, with the, around the world native fabrics, I, I started, I was mentoring a middle school team to how to tackle plastics, and we decided we would just make a quilt out of non petroleum fabrics.
And that little school project then turned in, it got bigger and bigger. But it was just, it just started small. Is that.
Sorry. Is that how your life has been? Because to brag about you a little bit, you have been a TED speaker, you are a National Geographic explorer, you're a filmmaker.
I also read that you are scuba dive certified, a pilot. Like you're just checking off a lot of fun things to do. And have some of those been like big intentional plans of yours, or have they all started small in a, oh, I don't know how I got here, but this is cool.
Yeah. I've never been one to say.
Okay. In five years, I'm gonna be here. In 10 years, I'm gonna be there. And I've always been open when I see a door open and there's something very interesting in there. One must explore and see what's in there. Yeah. You've gotta go see what's in there. And so I never would've thought I was be running a nonprofit in textiles.
No. It just, it was just had to be done. We, when we put together that quilt the middle schoolers, I was like, there must be a website or someplace where all the amazing biodiversity from the dawn of humanity that we have used to clothe ourselves. There must be a place where it's all housed and there wasn't.
And so I guess we had to make that. So I do have the benefit and the luxury of being able to go around the world to all sorts of places through National Geographic and leading tours for them, which I've been doing for many years. And then I could take advantage and just see all this.
All these different cultures and all these different ingen ingenious ways of creating fibers from stems from seeds. From algae mushrooms. From mushrooms. From mushrooms, exactly. So just it's, I don't know how anyone could be bored on this planet. There's just so much to learn and there's so many interesting questions to be asked.
I get upset when I'm like, oh, I won't live in all the places I wanna live in. It is impossible. I know. And like trial, like there's, I get upset about the fact that I can't see and do it all. If we go back to 8-year-old, you. Would she be surprised with how your life is unfolded or would she be like, yes, this is exactly what we had planned?
At eight, let's see, I was living in California. I moved to Vermont when I was 10 and that's where my memories really kick into gear because we lived right on the Appalachian Trail. Very cool. And at the age when I was little in Oakland, California, I couldn't explore on my own kind of urban.
When I moved to Vermont, the Appalachian Trail, I could just disappear for hours on my own, on my bike or with my dog. And I just loved that. I loved free ranging. Being out in the wild, gardening jumping in the river. Way finding through the forest, and there's just something so deeply enriching with being in the outdoors and in this.
Life that's been going for 4 billion years. And to me that was just, there's so many questions and relationships and who's eating whom and who's cozy up to whom. And it was just so much fun to be outside in that, that vibrant life. And so I think that really all I wanted to do was study that.
In truth. And so I I wanted to be a biologist. From really my earliest memories and while I was in Vermont, I remembered growing up in California with this beautiful ocean, which I jump into every day. I love that, even though it was very cold here in California. And that's just, I just wanted to study biology life.
How do things work and where do we fit into that grand scheme of species? And what can we do to lessen our footprint? Stepping all over everybody else.
Yeah. My minor was in urban anthropology and Oh,
interesting.
From the, like, why we live where we live and why do certain cultures make it or not.
And the question that I've always been really curious about, which ties directly into why this podcast exists, is why do some people succeed against the odds versus others don't. And I think that there are so many examples of, we're given very similar opportunities sometimes, and it's who takes which one and why.
And I'm such a I'm such a curious person. I hear that in you. Has your curiosity opened doors for you that like. Is it curiosity? Is it liking the risk? Is it liking novelty? What's that core motivator for you that keeps you wondering, like what's over there?
Yeah. I guess it's really when I have a question and I wanna answer it.
I kind figure out how to answer it. And sometimes that requires doing your own primary research. So I was working on this crazy big fish for 30 years. I've been obsessed with the giant Ocean sunfish, which is, it's it's shaped like this. It's a funny looking fish. I think I probably have some stuffed, oh yes, I have a stuffed animal that's this and Sunfish.
So cute. And I just went, I'm like, why are you shaped like this? You get to be 6,000 pounds, but why lose your tail and go into the open ocean? So that just drove me. And then that led to another question, and then another research project I'm involved in was when we go outside or when we just look at nature imagery, being a filmmaker, we, capture beautiful scenes and just looking at beautiful scenes.
You'd ah, even looking at a screensaver of a beautiful green meadow or waterfall. And I was interested in what's going on in our brains that create that physiological response to a digital image. So that led me to doing a research project ongoing with Stanford University and Nick Sve in neuro neuroeconomics and neuro imaging.
Tapping into the power of functional magnetic resonance imagery to see what's going on in our brain when we look at something. That's beautiful in nature. And then when we want, when you ask what would you pay to conserve it? So where do those, how can you, how harness those different how can you tweak imagery to generate the most stewardship?
That's so interesting. The last book I read last year was The Nature Fix. Which is talking all about forest bathing and is it, do we need to be in nature and for how long to get the benefits versus will an image do it? But I love that idea of adding the stewardship component to it.
Yeah. The conversation. One of the workshops I had at Mountain Film about Enchantment, I don't know if you got to sit in that one, but it was the idea of how we've lost enchantment. But when you have it, and you know how magical. The fishes or the tree is in and like having gratitude for the fact that this magical things exist.
Like we just assume like of course it should exist. It's a tree. And I'm like, yeah, but we don't know when another planet, another, the desert would like a tree would be magical. So
yeah,
coming back to that enchantment component, like you can't not want to protect it when it, the magic of it existing is as magical as you existing.
In that
same space, are you, from the research you're doing, are you like, is it leading to more stewardship? If people just look at nature photos, are they more inclined to become environmentalists?
There's really fascinating research in that realm. We used the nature imagery in various different ways.
Like with Na Ed Carney, who was on that panel with me, who is an absolutely phenomenal person. You should probably put her on your podcast. She's on the list. Oh, she's amazing. I adore Nini. And she, she gave a Ted talk I recommended her for the TED stage and she gave a TED talk on the power of nature.
And wouldn't it be great if we could put nature where nature's not, especially in solitary confinement prisons. And, a prison officer heard her talk and contacted her and said, I wanna do it. And so we then we had another research project up in in Oregon at the Snake River Correctional Institution, where we were putting nature imagery into solitary confinement prisons.
Wow. And then it had a huge effect, lowered discipline referrals, which are very violent often. And costly. And we interviewed the inmates and they would flash back on those scenes and they could help self-regulate. And it, I mean it really got a lot of media attention and it started to spread with more and more.
It's just Time Magazine called it one of their top. 25 inventions of 2014, which is pathetic 'cause it's so not rocket science, but it's just a tiny bit of human compassion, so we see it in terms of being able to self-regulate in a severely nature deprived environment.
There's also studies that have been done in the UK and in Utah that have shown when you watch nature imagery, it actually affects your future discounting. So it actually increases your ability your patience and your delayed gratification and, yeah. So we feel and that's, if we could think more long-term, then that's, for me, that's a silver bullet because it's this short-term thinking, this myopia and our election cycles that promote short-term thinking and short term gain.
That's a problem. So anything that can slow us down, get us on planetary time. Yeah. Is really a beneficial thing. So with the nature imagery, I was really interested in getting that as recognized in terms of our mental sanity. It's not just cleaning our air and cleaning our water and giving us food from our crops.
It's actually part and parcel. It is absolutely critical to our sanity.
Yeah.
To have green space and blue space. So
after reading the book, I started putting my forest essential oils in when I'm sleeping, and it really has made such a difference in. Wake up feeling rested when I wake up.
Yeah.
Cypress and cedar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fighting sides. The trees put out these fight sides and these, and and they boost your immune system, your natural T cells yeah. Yeah. There's good science behind it. And we just need to recognize that I think, the measure of a successful urban environment should be.
In the capacity to have nature preschools, yep. Where the youngsters could be outside in nature the entire time in some park or in some,
and then it's working. Yeah. It's working in the Nordics, it's working in Vermont and parts of California,
it, yeah, there's, I'm really, maybe in my next decade I'll take, I'll work more on the educational part, but I moved so much growing up and I saw.
The impact of different size schools and different locations of schools and different access, like I saw it live happening to me and my classmates and being someone who has always been an entrepreneur, whether I worked in a corporate space or not, and knowing what skills you need to be able to go to a foreign country or make new connections like figure things out.
So much of that's not taught, let alone. Civics or finance or emotional health anymore. And I do think it's gonna be really interesting how we choose as a society to use those hours we have with kids in school. Yeah. Who do we really wanna be creating?
Yes. We want people doing, be able to read and do math and science and.
How are we conditioning them to actually apply it in a compassionate, useful, reciprocal way? And do we all agree?
I think it will be interesting. I think Robin Kimler, she says isn't the purpose of education to learn the nature of our own gifts and how to use them for good in the world?
I love that idea because then you're you're really a gardener as an educator. Yeah. You're gardening them and nurturing them.
Which, so much more powerful than here's a bunch of memorization.
Yeah. Yeah. And not just instructing from the top down, you're nurturing from the bottom up.
Kindergarten, that's what it's, that's what it translates to Child garden. Yeah. So
when I'm not with, on the powerful lady side of the business, I'm a business coach and consultant. And I spend so much of my time helping people unlearn. The things that have removed them from their gifts.
'cause the easiest way to have the fun and freedom and actually double your revenue is when you're in alignment with just who you are. Authentically. Yeah. And I look at your life path and career path, and I really see how great it is. Like when you can just keep saying yes. And was saying yes, something that you were taught was it who you are intuitively.
Did you see someone else saying yes to all these fun things you thought, Ooh, they got the, they have the answer.
I think it's, I think it's perhaps it's, I always felt like I, if I could find some way to help. Some if there was something I was interested in, then I'd find some way to help.
What can I add to it? I'm not gonna be a parasite. I wanna I wanna cata, maybe I bring people together or maybe I do this part of the work and we collaborate. I love collaborating and that's so it was always, that's really interesting. Maybe I could help out in this way and we could work together and then.
Oh, that's so interesting. Let's work together on that and I can do this part for it. So I think it's maybe having the confidence to feel like there's something I could offer. And then be, and then just learn about it. 'cause that's how you learn about it, is if you're, you team up and you try to progress on a question, yeah, it does. I hope it I do sometimes look back and I'm like, wow. It, my path goes all over the place. But it's really driven by this desire to protect biodiversity. And all the, I just love all the critters that we get to share the planet with. Yeah. They're endlessly fascinating.
And we have, we owe them everything. They get left outta the equation. I see. I see people wanting to go to Mars and wanting to go off the planet and that's all well and good, but it takes resources to do that. And where do those resources come from? The fact that we're powered up on this computer and and this phone, then, all, everything that drives our society. Our crude oil, our gas, our coal that came from life. Marine plankton for the most part when it comes to crude oil. And then so we run off marine plankton. That decayed and transmogrified over hundreds of millions of years and nobody really appreciates that.
They just, yeah. They're soil, but it was life. It was life that gave us that. So I think we often forget the non-human part of our existence at our peril. Because we are nothing without our non-human compatriots.
Yeah. There's not a plankton sustainability club to make sure we have.
Crude oil a hundred million years from now.
Hopefully we won't, because unfortunately that's a Faustian bargain because there are other things that we can use now. If only we had photosynthetic skin, then we'd really, we'd be set,
what do you think is the solution to exposing most people to how dependent they are on the world around them?
I think, this is why I got into this nature imagery because it's very tangible. When you are, when you're, when you go outside, you suddenly are like, everyone just involuntarily, they breathe, the sigh of relief, their heart rate goes down, their cortisol levels. Maybe even out.
Yeah, let's take it out. If you're having a fight, let's take it outside. Let's step outside for a second and, so I think this recognition that we need nature to be sane, I think that's a very powerful message. Especially as we carene to towards being increasingly urban. And erecting more and more walls between ourselves and the natural world and making the natural world like even better than reality with these virtual headsets.
And I think that's all well and good when you can't get outside. But we need to recognize that being outside is critical to our health and having our outsides be healthy. So I think I think that's really part I important is to, in our urban designs in our schools, to keep incorporating the outdoors the microbiome of the outdoors. And the biodiversity of our crop land, creating whole ecosystems instead of monocultures. Yeah. We see that with aquaculture, inter trophic, multi multispecies aquaculture. We see this creation of multiple species where you can harvest at every trophic level and you create a whole ecosystem.
And we see this with polyculture. Yeah. With multiple crops growing together and cover crops and crops that bring in pollinators. So we know what to do. And we have enough food to feed the world, but we need to figure out this thing, the all our vices.
We have a lot of cognitive biases and it's tribalism, and it's tendencies to just say us and against them. And so I am. I encourage everyone who wants to go into conservation. I encourage them to also minor in psychology and cognitive science. Yeah.
Oh yeah. 'cause you're selling to people.
You're selling to people and people are very complicated.
They're very complicated and they have complicated lives and they carry a lot of baggage. And and you have to learn how to communicate your messages that resonate with their values. And find common ground. Yeah,
no I think it's so interesting to see there's, of course, social media's helping to make it look bigger than I think participation may actually be.
But there's so much conversation about biohacking and being present and doing personal development, which we all need to do so we can listen to the actual things that are happening and deal with ourselves and get outta our own way. And, but so much of it is for, it's still for personal selfish components.
The last podcast that we recorded, we were talking a lot about being a, like a service based leader. How, was service, being of service did it, it sounds like what you've shared so far that it just came naturally to you, like you couldn't imagine not protecting and saving these things.
Was that something that you grew up with having a perspective of, or, was it just by the simple fact of seeing it not being done, that you again had to step into that space 'cause you saw it?
Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of, another braiding sweetgrass leadership should be rooted in service, wisdom and generosity, not power and authority.
Yeah. If only, yeah. If only success was measured in generosity as opposed to bank accounts, so much better off. So in my upbringing, I, my, my family's always been like huge animal lovers. And I think. In I went to Brown University and there was such strong social conscience with my brown colleagues.
I would just see them doing these incredible projects at scale and it was quite inspirational and I see that a lot in many, many liberal arts colleges now. My daughter's heading off to Middlebury. Yeah. And I've been so excited to see all the training the training material that, that's been coming in.
And you mentioned unlearning. Early in the podcast. And they have a whole unlearning part of their freshman seminar. That's so
interesting.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's definitely being recognized. That this is, this is an issue, this is a problem. This is a huge part of our educational upbringing.
I think in the past church had that role. And as we become more and more secular, less and less, less and less people go to church. That, that community service engagement needs to be cultivated and nurtured. I know in my kids' school they have their re their community service hours, so I think that's good.
I didn't have that when I was in high school. Did you? No. Only
got in trouble.
Yeah. Yeah, we got in trouble and and then maybe you had to do community service then, but we never had that as part of our. Part of what we had to do, I did volunteer in, in high school, just 'cause I thought it would be fun.
But it wasn't required. So I think that's, I think that's a good addition. We need more of that.
It's such a great way to see that no matter how old you are, what skills you have, you can be a contribution just for existing
Yes.
And showing up.
Yeah. And how we what's our gift to the world? How can we do good in the world? And it's just, it feels good to do that. Yeah. It just feels good to do that. Yeah.
When I think it ties back to what you were saying about how leadership is so often led by power and ego, because people don't know what their gift is.
They don't know how powerful they are and what they're capable of doing. So they're filling that hole by taking. Versus, yeah. This leads into a question I ask every guest, which is, what do the words powerful and ladies mean to you? And do their definitions change when they're next to each other?
Power's a loaded term, and I think powerful ladies is frightening a frightening term to many, it's especially insecure men. But I, and I, but I think what makes someone truly powerful in my book is their ability to elevate others. They're not just this person on the pedestal. I really have a problem with our narrative, the hero's journey, and because it's always like we have the one person who's gonna save us all, and then they go through this formulaic transformation, they get the muse, and then they save us. And I think we have to shift that narrative too. The one person or the people that lift each other up and they're not doing it to put themselves on a pedestal.
And it really frightens me. The, the leaders that we are. That could potentially take the helm. I don't wanna get into politics right now, but but I see antithetical, candidates and that really worries me because it's a terrible role model and it validates terrible behavior and role models.
They imprint on our youngsters. And they imprint on everybody. They valid. When you see horrible behavior, glamorized it, be it in Hollywood or in the White House, it is so dangerous. So
I think it, it's really interesting that you brought the Hero's Journey because I use it regularly for working with my clients and I'm not using it.
And what I, how I use it is reminding them that they are not the hero, they are the Yoda character. They are the guide.
And but it's really interesting to think about it from the perspective that you just shared of like how it's one person, because again, I'm, 'cause I'm coming from the space of that service.
How do we use that story for the service component?
Yeah.
Like you are the Dumbledore, you are the Yoda in the story. You are not the main character because we can't be, if we want to serve people and nobody wants to buy in a strictly business communication sense. Most people don't care what you've done or who you are.
No one ever asks me my background, which is hilarious 'cause they're paying me to give them advice. They just wanna know how I can, how you can help them.
That's
the only question that people are usually asking, and so often we think we have to. Prove ourselves to other people before there'll be a yes to us.
And it's the opposite.
Because people are totally self-absorbed. Yes. They just wanna talk about themselves for the most part. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. It's so funny you say that. 'cause you c you have to have a certain amount of street cred. And then they don't care. Then it's all then it's all about them.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny it reminds me, I met a fellow named John Francis. He's known as the Planet Walker because he was walking across the Golden Gate and there was a terrible oil spill. It was one of the bridges in the Bay Area, I think it was a golden gate. And there was a a shipwreck, a crash underneath and a oil spill.
And he vowed to go off fossil fuels and everyone got so upset at him. That's ridiculous. And he would retort, but it wouldn't. Make any difference. And so he took a 17 year vow of silence. And in doing that, he realized that when you're speaking to someone, you're only listening with half of your half of what they're saying because you're already preparing your retort.
Yep. And by taking the valve of silence, he said, I was really li I would listen to people. Everything they had to say. And I flash on that because I do that too. I'm like, oh, and then I haven't heard half of what you just said. And so I think it's something to keep, keep reminding ourselves that you don't always have to just jump right back with a, with an answer. Yeah. And just let it sit. Listen.
It's so true. It's the, it's 75% of negotiation is listening. It's, it shows up everywhere. Like present listening isn't happening. Yeah. Which is, I really wonder if we just focus on present listening, like how quickly could we make whatever impact we want to, because.
There's so much tied of loneliness back to not being heard. So there's, it's just being normal, like going back to being just a human, like what does the human need? We've jumped over all that to like, humans don't need a car in actuality. But everyone. Think they need one.
Yeah. And they need to have 17 things going on at once. Which I'm certainly that's certainly been my case. And because these make it so easy, yeah. And just work 25 hours a day. So we, that's, we need to constantly like Reground. Like you said, take a little rest, smell your forest oils, go outside, take a breath of fresh air and just reground yourself outside and get it back into that time zone. So yeah, we have our work cut out for us because we're just accelerating as a society. Yeah.
Yeah. We really do. You have been to a lot of countries, I believe, over 70. What are some key takeaways that traveling to so much of the planet has given you insight in?
Or two?
That we have so many things in common, much more so than our differences and. The US is not a number one in so many ways. So it's funny, I, we go on these, we do these trips where we circle the planet in about a month. And and it's always interesting to me the guests, I'm like. We have better wifi in Cambodia than we have in lots of places in the US or, the airport in Morocco was so much more efficient than many of the airports here.
So this realization that, knock the US off, its off ITSs pedestal. I think that's really important. And that there's, there, there's ingenious. Human ingenuity everywhere on the planet. Even in the places where there are so little resources. So it's, and we're all, we have just connections through our architecture, through our foods, through our, through our wildlife, through our, the migrations of birds that, bring resources across the planet. We're this, like Buckminster, full, fuller, talks about tene. We're just this, networked.
Living systems and we all rely on each other. You push on one part of the planet and you will feel those repercussions on the other side. We are a global species and certainly our supply chains, it's at large in our supply chains and COVID made that very apparent.
We do bear responsibility to the home address of many of the things that seem distant. That soy sauce on our shelf that we get at the market, that's, that took two years to ferment in Japan and then the plastic came from somewhere else. It, we are these global creatures and and it's challenging 'cause we evolved as tribal. So this is our biggest, this is our biggest challenge, is how to be a good global species. Recognize the common humanity and see if we can work together for the common good. But we have a long way to go. But I am excited because now with all this ai.
And with all fake news we are, and social media preying on our vices, all the algorithms designed to, hook us. We are becoming more cognizant of our of our frailty. Of our weaknesses, of our vulnerabilities. So like in my kids' school, they're taught how to recognize fake news.
So great. And then we have to be taught, we're taught, oh, that's chat GPT speaking. That's not you actually writing that essay. So we can identify what makes us uniquely human that cannot be distilled into an algorithm. And that's exciting. And how do we augment that with all our technology instead of have it degrade us and dissolve us, dissolve our human.
Yeah. So we have our challenges, but I am optimistic because I see, in our fibers and our cultures and weaving is such a good metaphor. I just see when we weave these threads together, we become so much stronger.
Yeah. Yeah. What are you excited about for around the world in 80 fabrics this year?
Oh gosh, so much. We're launching a bunch of expeditions that guests can come on. Very cool. To Mongolia, to Bhutan, to Africa. So a lot of we wanna take people to meet our makers. To meet your makers. And to get their hands in. And how do you make these fibers and fabrics? And so that's very exciting.
We also are in the phase of quilting now. It started as a quilt, it was inspired by a quilt. And now our phase is that we've collected hundreds of fabrics from different cultures all over the world, and we're taking them and we're making thematic mini quilts like Indigos of the world and Cottons of the world, where each swatch tells a story and has a face behind love That.
And then when you put them together in a quilt, that metaphor is it's like a process of mending where we stitch each other together and we see how we compliment each other and how we strengthen each other. And then when you look back on it, we're this beautiful mosaic, this beautiful mix united by a common theme.
And so that's what we're aiming towards for this year, is to make the quilts, to launch the expeditions to do a display at future fabrics in London at the end of June, which is a great expo. Anyone interested in materials to go to future fabrics? Yeah. Those are some of our big.
Our big tasks. Yeah,
we ask everyone on the podcast where you put yourself on the powerful Lady scale. If zero is average, everyday human, and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine, where would you put yourself today and on an average day?
I don't know how to answer that. How do I, you're asking me to compare myself to other powerful ladies or just
what number would you give yourself?
Yeah. Are you, where are you, where would you rank yourself on a one to 10 scale? Whatever your comparisons you want them to be or not be.
Oh. Oh. I don't know. That's a difficult thing to ask. I guess I, if I took. All the powerful ladies that you've chosen and my team at around the world in 80 fabrics, pretty, and Leslie and Carol and we were all together.
We'd, I'd put us all up at 11 'cause we're all together. That's there. I cheated.
Yeah. The power of powerful ladies together, right?
Yes. We're all woven together and then we're doing pretty well. All of us together and my family and, all of us together. Then we get. High numbers.
If we're just by ourselves and it's not very fun and not a lot less productive.
Exactly.
Yeah. We've
also been asking everyone, what do you need? What do you want? What do you manifesting? This is a powerful, connected giving community. So what would you like, how can we help you?
Oh if people wanna donate to around the world native fabrics we use every penny towards good. Yeah and we're a tiny nonprofit, so we're always in need of funding really hand to mouth, so that would be terrific. And if people are interested in coming on trips with us. We would love to take you around the globe to discover that.
Yeah, I think and I would really just in, I would hope people listening would be inspired to go outside more and maybe get a mask and snorkel and put their head under water. 'cause it's a wonderful world underwater. And it needs help, needs our help really. And to be conscious about what we buy and what we eat. We make such an impact with our consumer choices. Yeah. We've all got too much stuff. I've got too much stuff in my closet so I do ask people, what I would love is for people to really, before they buy clothing, to ask themselves, do I need it? What is it made from?
Is it made from a bunch of petroleum? Do can I get it secondhand? What am I how long am I gonna wear it? Is it something that's gonna last? We can take care of our clothing better how was it made? Who made it then you probably, after you ask yourself all those questions, you probably won't buy it.
But then you look at the end of the month, you're like, woo, I didn't spend all that money on needless clothing that just clogs my closet. We can
donate to around the world in 80 fabrics.
Yes, exactly. I have the extra money I was gonna spend on some little silly Instagram shot, and now I can donate to a good cause.
'cause there's so many good causes. Yeah.
Yeah. There are for everyone who wants to support you, follow, you go on those trips, where can they find, follow and connect with you?
Oh, at around the world. 80 fabrics.com. Yeah. And then join our Instagram. That'd be great 'cause we do put a lot of effort into the Instagram and tell the maker stories.
And the late breaking, we were just at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Which seems like a weird place for a group like us. But we were partnered with Panasonic and we had these beautiful reception curtains that were dyed 12 shades of indigo and and natural wa kati wahaca cotton, and then this crazy bio-fabricated spy fabric with wat indigo.
So it was all this technology and then you could come into that space and say. This is, this is connecting you to the soil. Love that. And to the plants. So that was so we do all sorts of interesting collaborations and partnerships. And then you can be part of that if you join Instagram our Instagram feed and and then join our newsletter and,
yeah.
I love
it. Thank you so much for all the work that you do and the space you hold for the planet and all of its creatures and all of its people. It, it feels, fills up my cup knowing that there are people like you doing incredible things and that you were generous of to give your time to myself and the powerful ladies community today.
So thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for your time. And yeah, I'm really excited to hear everyone's feedback and for more people to join and support around the world in 80 fabrics.
Oh, it would be great. It'd be great. And thank you so much. It's quite an honor to join the cadre of people that you've interviewed so far.
Very fun talking to you.
All the links to connect with tyranny around the world in 80 fabrics and everything else she's up to are in her show notes at. The powerful ladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening, and leave us a rating and review. Join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies, and if you're looking to connect directly with me, visit kara duffy.com or Kara under Duffy on Instagram.
I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
