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[electronic music starts][Emily] Welcome to the Riveo Impact Lab, the podcast in which we explore what it means for small businesses to have real impact in an evolving world.
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On this podcast, we engage our curiosity around topics like sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and the ethical outcomes of our decisions, all from a small business perspective.
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Hi everyone, I'm Emily.
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[Elin] And I'm Elin.
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Today, we are excited to share this episode with you.
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As a reminder, we release episodes on the second Thursday of every month so you can catch us wherever you get your podcasts on YouTube, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.
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And you can support us by listening, sharing or leaving us a review.
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[Emily] Yeah.
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Today's episode is really exciting.
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So I had the opportunity to speak with Mick Ebeling, the founder and CEO of Not Impossible Labs.
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In their own words, “Not Impossible is an innovation studio that produces content, technology, programming, activations, and partnerships that demonstrate the capacity of mankind to make the impossible, not impossible.” Mick is actually a highly sought-after speaker, so we were really lucky to get some time with him.
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And he's also the world's only three-time recipient of TIME Magazine's Best Inventions of the Year.
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He has a lot of accolades, a lot of awards, but this particular one really caught my attention and I thought was really interesting.
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He's just gained so much recognition for his humanitarian work.
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And Elin, you actually were the one who got in touch with Mick and the team at Not Impossible.
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How did you originally come across their team?
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[Elin] Yeah.
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I was at a conference and saw Mick speak, and from the moment he started telling his story, I was just enraptured by the whole thing.
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He has a background in video production and storytelling, and they really use that to promote their cause.
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But their cause is so interesting because they take these problems that the world has that everyone says are impossible, like, say, world hunger or, you know, something like that, and they approach those problems in an innovative way that is so interesting and makes a huge impact.
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So I just loved it.
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I wanted to get him on our podcast, and we are, like you said, very fortunate that we were able to do that.
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[Emily] Yeah.
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I'm really glad that you connected us to Mick and his team, because he has a lot of really interesting perspectives to share based on the work that he's done and the work that he's continuing to do.
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And I think in the times that we're living in, we really all could use a bit of inspiration and motivation on solving these, you know, quote, unquote,“impossible problems.” And this episode is sure to provide that inspiration to everyone, so.
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With all that being said, please enjoy our conversation with Mick Ebeling.
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[electronic music][electronic music concludes][Emily] Wonderful.
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I am excited to welcome author, speaker, innovator, philanthropist, humanitarian, and founder of Not Impossible Labs, Mick Ebeling, to the Riveo Impact Lab podcast.
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Welcome, Mick.
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[Mick] Thank you so much.
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Nice to be here.
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Thanks for having me.
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[Emily] Yeah. Of course.
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You know, I was thinking about how to start this conversation as I was looking through, like your body of work.
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And it's a little bit difficult to know the best place to start because both you and Not Impossible have such a wide reach.
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But let's just start at sort of the core of what it is that you're doing with Not Impossible.
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So if you were just newly introducing yourself to someone, telling them what Not Impossible Labs does, how would you express what that is?
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[Mick] I would say—I always use the like, if I met you at a party and you said, “Oh, what do you do,” I would say that we are a innovation studio.
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And the things that we innovate, the things that we create, the things that we make are things that help to solve social issues, that address things that we see as problematic.
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We call them absurdities in society.
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And then people would say, “Well, what does that mean?” And, and then I would say, you know, the best way to define who we are and what we do is to talk about the things that we've made.
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So we, I would say, we created a low-cost ocular recognition device for a paralyzed artist to draw again for the first time, using only their eyes.
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And we did it for less than 100 bucks, made of cheap sunglasses, coat hangers, duct ties—or duct tape, zip ties.
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And that was our first kind of aha moment when we did that, and we saw how wildly successful it was because we didn't do it intentionally.
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We did it as just a side project.
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As you know, it's kind of a little, little goof on the thing, on the side.
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And it went so big that it made us want to keep doing it more.
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And so we then went out and created the world's first 3D printing prosthetic lab in a refugee camp.
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We've created, you know—and then that's usually at the, at the time of the party where people go, “Whoa, oh my gosh, that's crazy!” And I was like, yeah, I know.
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And it wasn't intentional.
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It was completely serendipitous.
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There wasn't, you know—it took, it took a couple times before we realized,“Wow, we’re actually pretty good at this.
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We should keep doing this.” And that's, that was essentially what led to the birth of Not Impossible Labs.
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[Emily] That's an incredible story.
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And I can imagine it's the kind of party story people actually enjoy hearing, because there's so many cool facets of that.
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And I did watch the video, about the, the person that was able to then do the graffiti art again with just his eyes.
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I mean, that is incredible.
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I had no idea it was only $100.
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That's a really interesting part of that story.
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But that is, that is so cool.
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And you, you mentioned this briefly.
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But I've seen that you've talked about addressing societal absurdities, and that is a really interesting phrase.
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So can you talk a little bit more about what you mean by “absurdity” in this context?
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[Mick] Yeah.
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I think that adults have a really, like, high propensity to try to create things that are over, overly complicated when they're describing things.
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Absurdities are things that you see when you look at the world, when you look at your towns, you look at life and you're like,“That's ridiculous.
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That's—why does that, why does the world work that way?” And for us that, many times, is when you see things—and then going back to the examples that you, that we just stated, you know, the Eyewriter was a reaction to the absurdity that there was an artist who lived 13 miles from where I'm sitting right now in downtown Los Angeles(which, by the way, has a GNP greater than most developing nations.
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Los Angeles does.) And this guy couldn't talk to his father and brother because they didn't have the right amount of money, have the right amount of insurance. Yet there was other people in the same hospital with total paralysis, and they were able to communicate.
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That's absurd.
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That doesn't make any sense.
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Doesn’t, it doesn't, it's not right that a father and a son can't talk to their brother, to their son, because they didn't make the right amount of money, they didn't have right amount of insurance.
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That's, that's stupid.
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That's absurd.
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So that for us is what we do is when we see things in the world and we say, “That, no.
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What?
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That doesn't make sense”—You know, we have a project that we're working on right now that is a reaction to the fact that there's 50 million people in this country, in the United States, who don't have food security.
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They don't have two, three meals a day.
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Yet those people are not homeless.
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They're, they're working multiple jobs.
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They're living multiple families to a household.
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They're trying.
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They're grinding.
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They're out there. They're trying to get it done.
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And they can't feed their families, and they can't, they can't feed themselves.
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Like that's absurd.
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That's ridiculous.
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Like that, it's a little bit of like inciting a little bit of disgust and anger in you when you kind of make that, you put that realization together and you say,“I'm not going to, I'm not going to sit by and just let that happen.”[Emily] Mmm. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me because I think, you know, most of us have felt that when we see something like what you're describing, like, these kids that are—and adults—that are experiencing this food insecurity, and you feel that disgust and that anger, but then it sort of stops there.
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So with Not Impossible, you are taking that next step and saying, we're not just going to leave it at that feeling, but actually move and do something about it.
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So not everybody takes that step.
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So I'm kind of curious what it is about the idea of closing that gap between what people need and the seeming, you know, “impossibility” of having those needs met that sort of captured your heart and attention and got you invested in the work of it?
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[Mick] I don't, I just feel like it's like, it's a hard thing to, like, pinpoint.
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I believe that there's people who do shit and there's people who comment on shit, or they, they’re pundits and there's doers.
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And I feel like there's too many people in this world who love to comment and love to talk about and be pundits, and there's not enough people in the world who actually do things.
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And, and I'm talking specifically around things that they see that they don't think are right.
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And so that, that is, I think, just how I'm wired.
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You know, I, I grew up in a family of doers.
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We, my mom and dad.
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You know, my brother and I would kind of sneak out in the middle of the night and look down the hall to the living room, and there was a bunch of people there, and we're like, “What is this going on?” And they were, they were, they had started nonprofits.
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My, my mom and dad started the—I grew up in Tempe, Arizona, and they started, the state's first abuse women's clinic, abuse clinic there.
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And they got involved with different things.
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And so it was a matter of doing things.
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And my dad, my dad had a saying that we grew up with that, when we would go, every year— So I grew up right smack dab in the middle of middle class, like there's, there was no, we didn't always have.
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We, I played basketball.
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That was like my sport.
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I never had the nicest basketball shoes, but I always had basketball shoes, right?
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And we didn't take the nicest vacations, but we always took a vacation and we'd always go camping.
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And whenever we would go camping at the end of the camping trip—we'd go to the same campgrounds, hopefully usually get the same campsite, and at the end of the trip, my dad would have my brother and I go around and pick up all the trash in the campground, and my brother and I would always protest and say,“That's not our trash.
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We didn't, we, we threw our trash away.” And there's cigarette butts.
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My family didn't smoke.
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There was just bottle caps and things like that.
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And we didn't, we didn't litter.
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And my dad, my dad's comment was,“You know, if everybody left the campsite cleaner than when they found it, you wouldn't have a campsite that had trash at all.” And that was something that as a kid, it didn't resonate.
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My brother and I were just pissed off that we had to pick up trash.
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But later on in life, we reflected back and realized, wow, that was a really valuable lesson, is that if everyone leaves the “campsite,” quote, “campsite” cleaner than when they found it, the, the campsite, AKA the world, would be a lot better place.
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So I think that's something that was just ingrained in us really early.
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[Emily] That's amazing.
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And I, I have two boys myself.
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And so these are like the type of lessons that I'm looking to take in.
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So I can figure out how to impart that on them so that they become the kind of people as adults that do something.
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[Mick] Sure.
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[Emily] You sort of, you sort of touched on this really.
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But just taking a step back, like, I wonder if you do come across adults in your work that ask, “Well, why is it my responsibility to fix the problems in the world,” and how would you respond to that?
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I mean, like I said, you kind of did touch on it there, but kind of in short, what is it that you think we owe to our fellow human beings?
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[Mick] If someone asked me,“It's not my responsibility.
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Why should I do it,” I probably wouldn't be in a conversation with them in the first place. Right?
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So I've never encountered that.
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I feel, I feel like the life that we live, every person's life that we have is a blessed life.
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And we are, humans are very unique in the animal kingdom, in that we are comparative.
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We have the mental ability, and I won't call it an advantage, but the mental ability to compare ourselves to other members of our species.
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And for better or for worse, if we really do that and we don't just compare up where we're looking at what we see in the news or social media and wish that we had that, but also compared, you know, to people who are less fortunate and looked at their lives, then I think we would all realize that there's always going to be someone who has it worse than us.
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And my, there was a story that happened to me.
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My dad was, my dad also had cancer.
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And, he was towards the end, but he went to visit his uncle and he took us with him, and his uncle had diabetes and is, and it was passing— he was getting close to the end of his battle with diabetes, and he had had an amputation. And it was, it had progressed pretty, pretty far.
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And when we got there, my Uncle Jim, like as we walked in the door was like heaving in, in a bucket, you know, as apparently that's what happens, right?
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And he's heaving and he.
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And he sees us coming in and he kind of wipes his mouth off and puts the bucket down and, and he's laying in a hospital bed in his bedroom.
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And he said, “Oh my God, it's so good to see you.” And he just lit up like a, like a, like a Christmas tree.
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And we were like, “Oh my—” It was so weird.
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It had that, the room had that smell and, and watching what he did right when we came in the door, it was just very graphic and it was also, like all the senses were activated.
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And, my dad came in and was like, “Hey, Jim.
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Da, da, da, da.” And, you know, he said, “You know, Jim, I'm just really, really sorry.” And I remember so vividly—I can see his face.
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He said, “’Sorry’?
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What are you sorry for?
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Don't be sorry.” He's like, “Listen, if everybody took the cross that they bore, and they threw it out in the middle of the street where everybody else could see it, they would run out and grab their cross before someone else could grab theirs, because they would realize that everyone else's was worse.” And this was a guy who passed probably a month or two after him saying this.
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And that always hit me with the fact that as comparative beings, we are so, I guess nonsensical in that we don't compare both ways.
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And so we do the things, we compare up in ways that make us feel bad, as opposed to look down and realize how blessed we are.
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So I feel like it's our duty to take the blessing of our life and just, just try to make someone's life a little bit better.
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Because if nothing else, you know, there's a, there's a, a chemical that releases in our body that when that happens, when we do something kind for another person, it is actually stimulating us.
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It actually gives us this euphoric feeling that, that actually helps our health and it helps who we are as people.
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So in a way, kind of a secondary way, it's actually good for us.
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It's good for us, and it's you know—I, I wrote about this once that, I took kind of a it was more of, of a semantical, you know, pursuit of the fact that if you do things that are “selfish,” quote “selfish,” which is typically a bad word, you would do things that are good for you, do things that are just solely good for you.
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Well, doing good for other people then could be classified as selfish.
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So to live a quote,“selfish” life and doing good for other people is actually the most conventionally altruistic thing you can do.
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But in my, you know, little semantical fun, it's the most selfish thing that you could do.
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[Emily] That, that really resonates with me, because the times when I am the most sort of, like, classically self-focused are the times I feel sort of the worst, and the times that I am putting my energy into other people and I'm helping people, that I'm volunteering or whatever that is, I feel very light.
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And there's like a lot of, just like positive emotion and, and things that I get from that.
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So I can attest to that 100%.
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[Mick] We don’t have— as humans, we lack perspective, right?
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We, as fish in our little you know, fishbowl, we only see what we see in our fishbowl and we don't get a chance to have that.
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Besides having, you know, news feeds and things that we see on our phones and devices, you don't really have that perspective.
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And it seems, that seems false and so foreign that we don't have the ability to have—sometimes that for a lot of people it might resonate, but for a lot of people it doesn't really deeply resonate when they see what's going on in fill-in-the-blank.
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Sudan or Gaza, or, or where, you— We, without that perspective, you don't have the ability to live your life within this feeling, this, this little bubble of feeling like, “Wow, I really won the lottery.
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You know, I really, really won the lottery.” And I will tell you, you know, my team that's here with me right now and, on Veterans Day, we always go to the VA, which is down the street from us here in Los Angeles.
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And to a person, every homeless vet that we met, we walked up and we were like, “What, what do you need?
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Just tell us what you need and we'll get it,” to a person, every person was like, “I'm good.
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There's, there's someone else over here, though, that you should help.” They were all homeless.
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They were all homeless.
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We had to like, we basically had to threaten them and say,“Listen, we're going to go get you something and you're not going to have a choice in what you get.
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So you better just vote now or you're going to get whatever we give you.” And they would laugh.
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And, and we still had to kind of extract it.
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Right?
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And I think that that perspective is something that is, it's something that I think I'm very lucky that I get to see on the regular is watch the, the, the truly altruistic and truly giving nature of people who would fall under that category of being, you know, you know, living in unfortunate circumstances.
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Yet their unfortunate circumstances have caused them to be more giving and more benevolent than people who have far greater means.
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[Emily] 100%. Yeah.
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And they're not kind of caught up in a, any sort of like greed cycle.
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It's like they're already thinking about what it's like for them and what it's like for somebody else in their position, which is, which is very heartening to hear, you know, the, the inherent good in humanity.
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And it's so cool that you get to see that.
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And I think that you, you know, you have so many interesting stories and examples and ways that you can illuminate other people to these ideas.
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So, you know, at Riveo Creative, we are a video marketing company.
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And so we talk a lot about storytelling and the power of storytelling.
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Can you talk about the power of storytelling for you, and how that intersects with the work that you do?
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[Emily] Sure.
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I mean, for us, our mission statement is “change the world through technology and story.” So the work that we do, from an innovation standpoint, is, is, I think it's remarkable.
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We do some amazing stuff.
00:20:06.288 --> 00:20:11.792
But if a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound?
00:20:09.750 --> 00:20:11.792
The answer is no.
00:20:11.792 --> 00:20:13.336
You have to hear it, right?
00:20:13.336 --> 00:20:15.756
You know—by the way, we can get in a whole debate on that, right?
00:20:15.756 --> 00:20:21.761
But it's a matter of the person who receives that sound, what they actually do, or what the, how they process it.
00:20:21.761 --> 00:20:29.894
And for us, the stories that we tell, I believe are more impactful than the actual things that we have created.
00:20:29.894 --> 00:20:30.979
The Eyewriter.
00:20:30.979 --> 00:20:33.731
This this thing is so schlocky.
00:20:33.731 --> 00:20:43.325
I mean, it's duct tape and zip ties and a busted ass camera and, you know, it's, it's just—and cheap sunglasses.
00:20:43.659 --> 00:20:46.702
There's, and no—this the Daniel arm.
00:20:46.702 --> 00:20:49.748
And like, I'm looking at some of the things on the shelf behind us.
00:20:49.748 --> 00:20:51.040
It's not that special.
00:20:51.040 --> 00:20:54.502
There's people making a heck of a lot more special things.
00:20:54.544 --> 00:21:09.726
But for the fact that we tell a powerful stories about it, and those stories, then you hear those stories or see those stories or experience those stories, and it makes you want to actually take and go do something with it, that's where the power comes from.
00:21:09.726 --> 00:21:18.317
Like truly, Not Impossible at the end of the day, is a storytelling company about the innovations that we make.
00:21:19.111 --> 00:21:20.778
[Emily] Absolutely.
00:21:19.111 --> 00:21:20.778
Well said.
00:21:20.778 --> 00:21:28.077
And what is, what is, you know, what's the story of an initiative that you're particularly proud of and focused on right now?
00:21:28.619 --> 00:21:30.579
[Mick] You said you have kids?
00:21:30.579 --> 00:21:31.455
[Emily] I do, yes.
00:21:31.455 --> 00:21:33.125
[Mick] Yeah.
00:21:31.455 --> 00:21:33.125
Which one's your favorite?
00:21:33.125 --> 00:21:36.252
[Emily laughs][Emily] I have, I’ll plead the fifth on that.
00:21:36.252 --> 00:21:39.047
I have a 13 year old and a, and a eight year old.
00:21:39.047 --> 00:21:40.882
[Mick] Oh, I know the answer to that question then.
00:21:40.882 --> 00:21:48.597
It, and it depends on the day, but I'm guessing that, I'm guessing it— You know, this is the end of the year where you get your Spotify report of, like, what you've listened to for the year.
00:21:48.597 --> 00:21:56.605
I know in your year, where, where it has ranked and days of favorites, but we're not going to say that on live, on live podcast.
00:21:56.605 --> 00:21:57.898
[Emily] Thank you.
00:21:57.898 --> 00:22:01.486
[Mick] I mean, there's a lot of things that we're working on that we're really, really passionate about.
00:22:01.486 --> 00:22:21.631
I think right now, one of the things that, that I'm, it's very prevalent right now is, is an issue that we launched during, or we double clicked and really put a lot of effort into to, you know, fortify and the launch of it is, in during the pandemic, which is a company called Hunger Not Impossible, which has evolved into a company called Bento.
00:22:21.631 --> 00:22:27.762
And Bento is based on the absurdity that there are 50 million people in this country who are food insecure.
00:22:27.762 --> 00:22:29.306
I kind of talked about it before.
00:22:29.306 --> 00:22:35.061
And those people are people who are not begging on the street.
00:22:35.061 --> 00:22:37.480
They are, those people are driving hard.
00:22:37.480 --> 00:22:39.482
They're, they're, they're working hard.
00:22:39.482 --> 00:22:40.192
They're grinding.
00:22:40.192 --> 00:22:48.115
They're trying to get ahead in life, but they can't because they are limited in terms of how much money they're able to make because they're chased.
00:22:48.115 --> 00:22:50.035
It's like this never-ending cycle.
00:22:50.035 --> 00:22:53.954
And so they, and then they end up eating crap food.
00:22:53.954 --> 00:22:55.957
And that crap food makes them unhealthy.
00:22:55.957 --> 00:22:59.669
And it's just this constant, never-ending cycle that's hard to escape from.
00:22:59.669 --> 00:23:02.672
And so Bento was launched during the pandemic.
00:23:02.713 --> 00:23:21.148
And the basis of it is super, super simple, is that every single food product that you or I have access to right now has a digital signature, either through DoorDash or Grubhub or Uber Eats, or through Albertsons or Kroger or, you know, Walmart.
00:23:21.148 --> 00:23:24.193
There's, there's a digital signature to that.
00:23:24.193 --> 00:23:54.766
And we said, “Well, what if we were to take those digital signatures, bring them in-house, leverage the brand of Not Impossible so we got access to those digital signatures and those, those UPC codes, and then create a way for people who are food insecure to be able to create a digital transaction where they were able to pick food that was curated for them for their particular situation.” So let's say that they were kosher, gluten free, lactose intolerant, you know, and I don't know, pescatarian.
00:23:55.142 --> 00:23:59.145
Like that's a really, really difficult dinner guest to invite to your house.
00:23:59.145 --> 00:24:05.277
But that's just, algorithmically, those are just nodes within the decisioning process.
00:24:05.277 --> 00:24:22.669
And so we made it so that someone could go through and actually select food that was curated around their particular situation, and that the transaction happened on the back end, the financial transaction, happened on the back end through a company that was quote “sponsored them” or was responsible so.
00:24:22.669 --> 00:24:27.840
During the pandemic, we had charities like Boys and Girls Club and, and, you know, YMCA and, and things like that.
00:24:27.840 --> 00:24:40.936
Later on, we evolved to working with healthcare systems, you know, and big healthcare systems have a vested interest in making sure—especially, we're looking at people who were on Medicaid—on keeping those people healthy.
00:24:40.936 --> 00:24:59.873
And what we've, what I'm really proud of is that we've taken this concept of creating easy, simple and dignified access to food, and we've actually figured out a flywheel where the feeding of somebody isn't, you know, bleeding heart liberal.
00:24:59.998 --> 00:25:15.012
It is actually, it's this perfect representation of stimulating the local economies because we draw on the food from local grocery stores, and where it’s taking care of our most, you know, our most desperate and most unfortunate people who need that.
00:25:15.012 --> 00:25:45.961
And what that does is it elevates them from this layer of panic, this layer of instability, to now they have a platform of stability to feed their family and actually think about, “Okay, I'm going to get a better job,” or ”I'm going to go to school,” or, “And I can actually think about more than 24 hour periods, about just making sure that I get food.” And that to me, I think is—you know, we, last, last quarter, we were averaging about 40,000 grocery orders per month delivered to doorsteps of people that needed it.
00:25:45.961 --> 00:25:52.174
And the beautiful thing about that is not only was it changing people's health, we watched A1C levels drop.
00:25:52.174 --> 00:26:06.272
We watched different, you know, different kind of factors that we can measure around people's health, we watched those things get better, but it also stimulated the local economy, which, by the way, employed a lot of those same people.
00:26:06.272 --> 00:26:08.567
So you created this wonderful flywheel.
00:26:08.567 --> 00:26:34.134
And for us, that's, that's really about one of the core functionalities that we develop when we're working on projects for ourself or if we're working for other entities, is this, this concept called frictionless innovation, of how do you create solutions where you're not asking the system to adapt or change their behavior or to change the way that they operate, but instead you're asking them to just continue to behave the way that they always behave.
00:26:34.134 --> 00:26:45.686
So one of the beautiful things about Bento is that the people who pick the groceries, the people who deliver the groceries, have no idea that they're delivering it to people who are food insecure.
00:26:45.686 --> 00:26:47.271
It's just another order.
00:26:47.271 --> 00:26:52.277
So they haven't had to change any behavior whatsoever at all in, in doing the good that we're doing.
00:26:52.902 --> 00:26:54.112
[Emily] That's incredible.
00:26:54.112 --> 00:27:07.584
And I—you know, it's funny that this is the initiative that we're talking about because as I was like preparing for this episode and, and looking into everything that Not Impossible Labs does, I was thinking, “Okay, what's the, what's something that I feel like is an impossible problem?
00:27:07.584 --> 00:27:14.173
And how would I even go about thinking about how to solve this?” And food insecurity was one of the top things, of course, that came up in my mind.
00:27:14.173 --> 00:27:24.183
And I'm like, “I, I wouldn't even know where to start.” But that's something that you're like, “Yeah, we see that problem and we found out something to do about it.” And that's really amazing.
00:27:24.183 --> 00:27:32.275
[Mick] Well and part of the, I mean, look, like, I'm going to jump headfirst off this pedestal that you're putting me on right now.
00:27:32.275 --> 00:27:44.913
The way that we get to these conclusions is by through this principle that we call “help one, help many,” in that, we don't, we didn't start by trying to serve 40,000 grocery orders per month.
00:27:44.913 --> 00:27:54.923
We started by working with a couple kids in the local Venice area, with a group called Safe Place for Youth, and we had a theory of what might work, and we tested it and it worked.
00:27:54.923 --> 00:27:56.965
And then it just kind of grew and grew and grew from there.
00:27:56.965 --> 00:28:08.103
But our whole thing is if you start by helping one person and solving a problem, that absurdity for that one person, and then telling the story of that one person, that can lead you to being able to do it at scale.
00:28:08.103 --> 00:28:22.951
But in the end, and this is something that I, you, I, I say all the time, if everybody in this world, if half the people in this world decided tomorrow to help one person, the whole world would be helped, right?
00:28:22.951 --> 00:28:33.711
And so it's really about starting small, I think for the, for the regular person that doesn't have an unlimited bank account, that doesn't have unlimited resources.
00:28:33.711 --> 00:28:48.058
I think we can start small and in doing so, that gives us the ability to, to do more because we start to believe in ourself and we are, we also start to see the impact that, just by helping a few people, one person really makes in their life.
00:28:48.058 --> 00:28:48.893
[Emily] Yeah.
00:28:48.893 --> 00:29:01.698
And that's actually gets into something I was going to ask you about which is, you know, some of our, a lot of our audience are small business owners or entrepreneurs or people that want to use their business to get into the world of social good.
00:29:01.698 --> 00:29:08.121
But seeing the scale at which you're able to do these things now might feel intimidating.
00:29:08.121 --> 00:29:14.794
But, you know, like you said, a key part of that philosophy is you can change humanity by changing just one life.
00:29:14.794 --> 00:29:29.683
How do you think that philosophy or that way of helping people, might apply to, like, a small business, for example, who has a little bit more resources than an individual person but doesn't quite know where to start?
00:29:30.602 --> 00:29:44.073
[Mick] I mean, you have to start with what really moves you and what you're passionate about, because so many times people will start down a path and it gets tough, and then they pull up and they don't want to do it.
00:29:44.073 --> 00:29:47.951
So sticking with something that you're very passionate about, I think is really important.
00:29:47.951 --> 00:30:21.361
And I would say having, you know, being a, a son to a small business owners, or to two small business owners and ourself kind of doing this throughout the year, having different sizes of businesses, I think it's just about focus and about really understanding what it is you, 1, that drives your own internal happiness because that can, that can be the thing that you really, really lean on when times get tough, when things get hard, when you lose an account or all of a sudden your code doesn't work the way you thought it would, or whatever it might be.
00:30:21.361 --> 00:30:27.241
It, if you have a passion around what you're doing, it gives you the ability to carry on.
00:30:28.409 --> 00:30:53.268
And then being able to see, back to the “help one, help many” thing, being able to study what works in those smaller groups so that—or in smaller either entities or initiatives or deployments, that you can actually see what works and then figure out how and if you might be able to scale it bigger, so I mean, my advice with anyone who is in a small business is like, you know, keep on keeping on.
00:30:53.268 --> 00:30:55.811
It's, it's, it's never going to be easy.
00:30:55.811 --> 00:31:01.859
But if it's fun and not easy, then it makes it a whole lot easier to, to carry on.
00:31:02.151 --> 00:31:04.028
[Emily] Absolutely. I think that's great advice.
00:31:04.028 --> 00:31:09.366
So that's the kind of advice you get for, you know, even things just like working out, do something that you enjoy because it's hard.
00:31:09.366 --> 00:31:10.410
It's going to be hard.
00:31:10.410 --> 00:31:15.123
But if you're doing something fun, you will keep doing it and you will keep going back to it, so.
00:31:15.123 --> 00:31:16.833
That's great advice.
00:31:16.833 --> 00:31:33.599
And when you're working in the realm of something like making the impossible possible, which is essentially what Not Impossible Labs is doing, how do you set a clear course for the future of the company, and what does that future look like to you at this point?
00:31:36.227 --> 00:31:45.153
[Mick] I mean, our course is very, we're very myopic in terms of we see what we need to do and we go do it for that particular project.
00:31:45.153 --> 00:31:49.365
And, you know, we're we were born out of production.
00:31:49.365 --> 00:32:00.000
So it's wired in us to have a production, have a deadline, work towards that deadline, complete, go have some beers to celebrate it and wake up the next day and start on the next project.
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:10.219
So we're very much a project-driven company, which I think is really fun because you get a chance to see completion, you get a chance to start and complete something.
00:32:10.219 --> 00:32:22.815
And in terms of the strategy of the company, you know, we have things and ideas of things that we're going to continue to do and how we're going to continue to evolve and grow as Not Impossible Labs.
00:32:23.191 --> 00:32:38.705
And if we keep our head down and make sure that everything that we tackle, we give, you know, which is not always successful, but we put everything we can into 1, trying to achieve it, and 2, trying to tell that story powerfully, then that in and of itself is a strategy that allows us to continue on.
00:32:39.790 --> 00:32:41.375
[Emily] Yeah.
00:32:39.790 --> 00:32:41.375
Beautiful.
00:32:41.375 --> 00:32:56.098
And, and if you're thinking like, you know, decades from now, you're looking back on the company or looking back on all of this investment that you've put here, what to you will have made it all worth it?
00:32:59.769 --> 00:33:02.771
[Mick] It's kind of already worth it.
00:33:02.771 --> 00:33:06.150
You know, I don't think I need ten years to look back and do it.
00:33:06.150 --> 00:33:10.654
I think that the legacy of what we've done is, is already there.
00:33:10.654 --> 00:33:25.086
If all of a sudden there's like a,[knocks on desk] a knock at the door and it's God and he or she says that they want their keycard back because we got, they actually, you know, we got the wrong hotel room and we're in a different room, I'd be like, “Well, I knew it, I knew it.
00:33:25.086 --> 00:33:27.296
We, I knew this life wasn't supposed to be mine.
00:33:27.296 --> 00:33:29.715
It's supposed to be someone else's,” so.
00:33:29.715 --> 00:33:33.344
I think I feel really good about what we've created thus far.
00:33:33.344 --> 00:33:39.851
Ten years from now, I would, I would say, you know, my one wish would be that we're continuing on.
00:33:39.851 --> 00:33:43.563
I don't want Not Impossible to be the Mick Ebeling story.
00:33:43.563 --> 00:33:45.355
I want it to be the Not Impossible story.
00:33:45.355 --> 00:34:04.333
So building something that has the ability to carry on beyond who, you know, who I am and beyond, you know, and carry on the legacy of what we love to do, which is to go out and create technology for the sake of humanity, that's something that I really want to see happen.
00:34:04.333 --> 00:34:09.963
[Emily] Well you are definitely already doing that work that is worth it and to be proud of.
00:34:09.963 --> 00:34:11.048
We can, you know, it's very clear.
00:34:11.048 --> 00:34:13.842
And you are all very powerful storytellers.
00:34:13.842 --> 00:34:18.514
You know, just watching the, the films that you've created that tell these stories.
00:34:18.514 --> 00:34:22.809
And it's because also you're telling the people are powerful people.
00:34:22.809 --> 00:34:25.103
And earlier you used the word dignified.
00:34:25.103 --> 00:34:44.456
And I think that's another piece of this is that it is very clear that you see the people that you're helping with a lot of dignity, and that that's part of this experience is seeing the dignity in humanity and helping them from that perspective, and not from a, you know,“better than” perspective.
00:34:44.456 --> 00:34:51.338
It's from a “lifting someone up” because of their inherent value and worth as a human being, which is really beautiful.
00:34:51.338 --> 00:34:55.842
I just have one more question for you, and then I'll ask where people can find you.
00:34:55.842 --> 00:35:00.889
But we ask all of our guests at the Riveo Impact Lab, what does the word impact mean to you?
00:35:02.099 --> 00:35:06.144
[Mick] Hmm.
00:35:02.099 --> 00:35:12.485
Impact conventionally has to do with what you do to others.
00:35:12.485 --> 00:35:24.288
It impacts others, which I think is great, that people think about the impact that this is going to have on an industry, on a society, on a, on a disease, on a whatever it might be.
00:35:24.288 --> 00:35:27.291
There's an impact that happens to something.
00:35:27.291 --> 00:35:39.762
I think that what I've learned over the course of Not Impossible is that the things that we deploy and the things that we have created, the things that we have released, have impact on other people.
00:35:39.762 --> 00:35:49.396
But it kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier, the impact that it has on us is the same, if not greater, in my opinion, and there's no way to measure that.
00:35:49.396 --> 00:36:04.327
But I feel like the impact is about doing the things that you love and doing the things that you love in a way that somehow could contribute to other people.
00:36:04.369 --> 00:36:10.083
But therein lies that flywheel where you're doing it and you're doing it for yourself, but you're doing it for other people.
00:36:10.083 --> 00:36:12.043
What, you're doing it for yourself, and you're doing it for other people.
00:36:12.043 --> 00:36:22.929
And I think that that, that, to me, I think is probably the best way to, in my opinion, put on the spot right now, that would be the way I would describe impact.
00:36:22.929 --> 00:36:27.351
[Emily] I think that is a beautiful way to wrap up this discussion and what we've talked about.
00:36:27.351 --> 00:36:32.648
And that frictionless, impact yourself, impact others—it all comes back to that.
00:36:32.648 --> 00:36:36.527
So thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
00:36:36.527 --> 00:36:40.322
Where can people find you and follow the work that you and Not Impossible is doing?
00:36:40.322 --> 00:36:53.210
[Mick] So you can go to notimpossible.com and see all the things that we're working on and then follow us on, on all the social media channels and stations and, and highways and byways.
00:36:53.210 --> 00:36:54.170
We're everywhere.
00:36:54.170 --> 00:37:01.385
So on IG and LinkedIn and anything else, it's@notimpossiblelabs.
00:37:01.552 --> 00:37:06.139
[Emily] Perfect. Well, we will direct everyone to follow you all as they should.
00:37:06.139 --> 00:37:07.307
You're doing incredible work.
00:37:07.307 --> 00:37:09.976
And I'm excited to see where you all go next.
00:37:09.976 --> 00:37:11.811
Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
00:37:11.811 --> 00:37:14.565
[Mick] Thanks so much.
00:37:11.811 --> 00:37:14.565
Thanks for having me.
00:37:14.565 --> 00:37:30.414
[electronic music][electronic music concludes][Emily] Our Make an Impact Tip of the Month— a human problem that feels completely unacceptable to you, and take one small step to change it.
00:37:30.414 --> 00:37:37.463
For example, if food insecurity seems absurd, start by connecting with local groups serving meals to neighbors in need.
00:37:37.463 --> 00:37:42.677
[electronic music] Thanks for listening and make sure to do good in the world this month.
00:37:42.677 --> 00:37:48.724
If you have questions you'd like us to address on the podcast, you can reach us at info@riveocreative.com.
00:37:49.057 --> 00:37:53.938
Subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss out on any of our incredible upcoming guests.
00:37:53.938 --> 00:37:56.815
We'll see you soon at the Riveo Impact Lab.
00:37:56.815 --> 00:38:03.780
[electronic music][electronic music concludes]
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:13.804
[electronic music starts][Emily] Welcome to the Riveo Impact Lab, the podcast in which we explore what it means for small businesses to have real impact in an evolving world.
00:00:13.804 --> 00:00:25.149
On this podcast, we engage our curiosity around topics like sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and the ethical outcomes of our decisions, all from a small business perspective.
00:00:25.149 --> 00:00:26.900
Hi everyone, I'm Emily.
00:00:26.900 --> 00:00:27.861
[Elin] And I'm Elin.
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Today, we are excited to share this episode with you.
00:00:31.448 --> 00:00:41.624
As a reminder, we release episodes on the second Thursday of every month so you can catch us wherever you get your podcasts on YouTube, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.
00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:46.337
And you can support us by listening, sharing or leaving us a review.
00:00:46.337 --> 00:00:47.338
[Emily] Yeah.
00:00:47.338 --> 00:00:49.716
Today's episode is really exciting.
00:00:49.716 --> 00:00:55.304
So I had the opportunity to speak with Mick Ebeling, the founder and CEO of Not Impossible Labs.
00:00:55.637 --> 00:01:15.325
In their own words, “Not Impossible is an innovation studio that produces content, technology, programming, activations, and partnerships that demonstrate the capacity of mankind to make the impossible, not impossible.” Mick is actually a highly sought-after speaker, so we were really lucky to get some time with him.
00:01:15.325 --> 00:01:21.121
And he's also the world's only three-time recipient of TIME Magazine's Best Inventions of the Year.
00:01:21.414 --> 00:01:27.337
He has a lot of accolades, a lot of awards, but this particular one really caught my attention and I thought was really interesting.
00:01:27.337 --> 00:01:31.174
He's just gained so much recognition for his humanitarian work.
00:01:31.174 --> 00:01:35.719
And Elin, you actually were the one who got in touch with Mick and the team at Not Impossible.
00:01:35.719 --> 00:01:38.472
How did you originally come across their team?
00:01:38.472 --> 00:01:39.182
[Elin] Yeah.
00:01:39.182 --> 00:01:47.272
I was at a conference and saw Mick speak, and from the moment he started telling his story, I was just enraptured by the whole thing.
00:01:47.272 --> 00:01:53.112
He has a background in video production and storytelling, and they really use that to promote their cause.
00:01:53.112 --> 00:02:12.132
But their cause is so interesting because they take these problems that the world has that everyone says are impossible, like, say, world hunger or, you know, something like that, and they approach those problems in an innovative way that is so interesting and makes a huge impact.
00:02:12.173 --> 00:02:13.133
So I just loved it.
00:02:13.133 --> 00:02:19.514
I wanted to get him on our podcast, and we are, like you said, very fortunate that we were able to do that.
00:02:19.514 --> 00:02:19.973
[Emily] Yeah.
00:02:19.973 --> 00:02:30.150
I'm really glad that you connected us to Mick and his team, because he has a lot of really interesting perspectives to share based on the work that he's done and the work that he's continuing to do.
00:02:30.150 --> 00:02:43.204
And I think in the times that we're living in, we really all could use a bit of inspiration and motivation on solving these, you know, quote, unquote,“impossible problems.” And this episode is sure to provide that inspiration to everyone, so.
00:02:43.204 --> 00:02:48.042
With all that being said, please enjoy our conversation with Mick Ebeling.
00:02:48.042 --> 00:02:56.342
[electronic music][electronic music concludes][Emily] Wonderful.
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I am excited to welcome author, speaker, innovator, philanthropist, humanitarian, and founder of Not Impossible Labs, Mick Ebeling, to the Riveo Impact Lab podcast.
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Welcome, Mick.
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[Mick] Thank you so much.
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Nice to be here.
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Thanks for having me.
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[Emily] Yeah. Of course.
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You know, I was thinking about how to start this conversation as I was looking through, like your body of work.
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And it's a little bit difficult to know the best place to start because both you and Not Impossible have such a wide reach.
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But let's just start at sort of the core of what it is that you're doing with Not Impossible.
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So if you were just newly introducing yourself to someone, telling them what Not Impossible Labs does, how would you express what that is?
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[Mick] I would say—I always use the like, if I met you at a party and you said, “Oh, what do you do,” I would say that we are a innovation studio.
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And the things that we innovate, the things that we create, the things that we make are things that help to solve social issues, that address things that we see as problematic.
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We call them absurdities in society.
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And then people would say, “Well, what does that mean?” And, and then I would say, you know, the best way to define who we are and what we do is to talk about the things that we've made.
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So we, I would say, we created a low-cost ocular recognition device for a paralyzed artist to draw again for the first time, using only their eyes.
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And we did it for less than 100 bucks, made of cheap sunglasses, coat hangers, duct ties—or duct tape, zip ties.
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And that was our first kind of aha moment when we did that, and we saw how wildly successful it was because we didn't do it intentionally.
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We did it as just a side project.
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As you know, it's kind of a little, little goof on the thing, on the side.
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And it went so big that it made us want to keep doing it more.
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And so we then went out and created the world's first 3D printing prosthetic lab in a refugee camp.
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We've created, you know—and then that's usually at the, at the time of the party where people go, “Whoa, oh my gosh, that's crazy!” And I was like, yeah, I know.
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And it wasn't intentional.
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It was completely serendipitous.
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There wasn't, you know—it took, it took a couple times before we realized,“Wow, we’re actually pretty good at this.
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We should keep doing this.” And that's, that was essentially what led to the birth of Not Impossible Labs.
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[Emily] That's an incredible story.
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And I can imagine it's the kind of party story people actually enjoy hearing, because there's so many cool facets of that.
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And I did watch the video, about the, the person that was able to then do the graffiti art again with just his eyes.
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I mean, that is incredible.
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I had no idea it was only $100.
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That's a really interesting part of that story.
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But that is, that is so cool.
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And you, you mentioned this briefly.
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But I've seen that you've talked about addressing societal absurdities, and that is a really interesting phrase.
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So can you talk a little bit more about what you mean by “absurdity” in this context?
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[Mick] Yeah.
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I think that adults have a really, like, high propensity to try to create things that are over, overly complicated when they're describing things.
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Absurdities are things that you see when you look at the world, when you look at your towns, you look at life and you're like,“That's ridiculous.
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That's—why does that, why does the world work that way?” And for us that, many times, is when you see things—and then going back to the examples that you, that we just stated, you know, the Eyewriter was a reaction to the absurdity that there was an artist who lived 13 miles from where I'm sitting right now in downtown Los Angeles(which, by the way, has a GNP greater than most developing nations.
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Los Angeles does.) And this guy couldn't talk to his father and brother because they didn't have the right amount of money, have the right amount of insurance. Yet there was other people in the same hospital with total paralysis, and they were able to communicate.
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That's absurd.
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That doesn't make any sense.
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Doesn’t, it doesn't, it's not right that a father and a son can't talk to their brother, to their son, because they didn't make the right amount of money, they didn't have right amount of insurance.
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That's, that's stupid.
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That's absurd.
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So that for us is what we do is when we see things in the world and we say, “That, no.
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What?
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That doesn't make sense”—You know, we have a project that we're working on right now that is a reaction to the fact that there's 50 million people in this country, in the United States, who don't have food security.
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They don't have two, three meals a day.
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Yet those people are not homeless.
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They're, they're working multiple jobs.
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They're living multiple families to a household.
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They're trying.
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They're grinding.
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They're out there. They're trying to get it done.
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And they can't feed their families, and they can't, they can't feed themselves.
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Like that's absurd.
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That's ridiculous.
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Like that, it's a little bit of like inciting a little bit of disgust and anger in you when you kind of make that, you put that realization together and you say,“I'm not going to, I'm not going to sit by and just let that happen.”[Emily] Mmm. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me because I think, you know, most of us have felt that when we see something like what you're describing, like, these kids that are—and adults—that are experiencing this food insecurity, and you feel that disgust and that anger, but then it sort of stops there.
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So with Not Impossible, you are taking that next step and saying, we're not just going to leave it at that feeling, but actually move and do something about it.
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So not everybody takes that step.
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So I'm kind of curious what it is about the idea of closing that gap between what people need and the seeming, you know, “impossibility” of having those needs met that sort of captured your heart and attention and got you invested in the work of it?
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[Mick] I don't, I just feel like it's like, it's a hard thing to, like, pinpoint.
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I believe that there's people who do shit and there's people who comment on shit, or they, they’re pundits and there's doers.
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And I feel like there's too many people in this world who love to comment and love to talk about and be pundits, and there's not enough people in the world who actually do things.
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And, and I'm talking specifically around things that they see that they don't think are right.
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And so that, that is, I think, just how I'm wired.
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You know, I, I grew up in a family of doers.
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We, my mom and dad.
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You know, my brother and I would kind of sneak out in the middle of the night and look down the hall to the living room, and there was a bunch of people there, and we're like, “What is this going on?” And they were, they were, they had started nonprofits.
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My, my mom and dad started the—I grew up in Tempe, Arizona, and they started, the state's first abuse women's clinic, abuse clinic there.
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And they got involved with different things.
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And so it was a matter of doing things.
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And my dad, my dad had a saying that we grew up with that, when we would go, every year— So I grew up right smack dab in the middle of middle class, like there's, there was no, we didn't always have.
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We, I played basketball.
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That was like my sport.
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I never had the nicest basketball shoes, but I always had basketball shoes, right?
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And we didn't take the nicest vacations, but we always took a vacation and we'd always go camping.
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And whenever we would go camping at the end of the camping trip—we'd go to the same campgrounds, hopefully usually get the same campsite, and at the end of the trip, my dad would have my brother and I go around and pick up all the trash in the campground, and my brother and I would always protest and say,“That's not our trash.
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We didn't, we, we threw our trash away.” And there's cigarette butts.
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My family didn't smoke.
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There was just bottle caps and things like that.
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And we didn't, we didn't litter.
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And my dad, my dad's comment was,“You know, if everybody left the campsite cleaner than when they found it, you wouldn't have a campsite that had trash at all.” And that was something that as a kid, it didn't resonate.
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My brother and I were just pissed off that we had to pick up trash.
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But later on in life, we reflected back and realized, wow, that was a really valuable lesson, is that if everyone leaves the “campsite,” quote, “campsite” cleaner than when they found it, the, the campsite, AKA the world, would be a lot better place.
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So I think that's something that was just ingrained in us really early.
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[Emily] That's amazing.
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And I, I have two boys myself.
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And so these are like the type of lessons that I'm looking to take in.
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So I can figure out how to impart that on them so that they become the kind of people as adults that do something.
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[Mick] Sure.
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[Emily] You sort of, you sort of touched on this really.
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But just taking a step back, like, I wonder if you do come across adults in your work that ask, “Well, why is it my responsibility to fix the problems in the world,” and how would you respond to that?
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I mean, like I said, you kind of did touch on it there, but kind of in short, what is it that you think we owe to our fellow human beings?
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[Mick] If someone asked me,“It's not my responsibility.
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Why should I do it,” I probably wouldn't be in a conversation with them in the first place. Right?
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So I've never encountered that.
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I feel, I feel like the life that we live, every person's life that we have is a blessed life.
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And we are, humans are very unique in the animal kingdom, in that we are comparative.
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We have the mental ability, and I won't call it an advantage, but the mental ability to compare ourselves to other members of our species.
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And for better or for worse, if we really do that and we don't just compare up where we're looking at what we see in the news or social media and wish that we had that, but also compared, you know, to people who are less fortunate and looked at their lives, then I think we would all realize that there's always going to be someone who has it worse than us.
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And my, there was a story that happened to me.
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My dad was, my dad also had cancer.
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And, he was towards the end, but he went to visit his uncle and he took us with him, and his uncle had diabetes and is, and it was passing— he was getting close to the end of his battle with diabetes, and he had had an amputation. And it was, it had progressed pretty, pretty far.
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And when we got there, my Uncle Jim, like as we walked in the door was like heaving in, in a bucket, you know, as apparently that's what happens, right?
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And he's heaving and he.
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And he sees us coming in and he kind of wipes his mouth off and puts the bucket down and, and he's laying in a hospital bed in his bedroom.
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And he said, “Oh my God, it's so good to see you.” And he just lit up like a, like a, like a Christmas tree.
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And we were like, “Oh my—” It was so weird.
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It had that, the room had that smell and, and watching what he did right when we came in the door, it was just very graphic and it was also, like all the senses were activated.
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And, my dad came in and was like, “Hey, Jim.
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Da, da, da, da.” And, you know, he said, “You know, Jim, I'm just really, really sorry.” And I remember so vividly—I can see his face.
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He said, “’Sorry’?
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What are you sorry for?
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Don't be sorry.” He's like, “Listen, if everybody took the cross that they bore, and they threw it out in the middle of the street where everybody else could see it, they would run out and grab their cross before someone else could grab theirs, because they would realize that everyone else's was worse.” And this was a guy who passed probably a month or two after him saying this.
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And that always hit me with the fact that as comparative beings, we are so, I guess nonsensical in that we don't compare both ways.
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And so we do the things, we compare up in ways that make us feel bad, as opposed to look down and realize how blessed we are.
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So I feel like it's our duty to take the blessing of our life and just, just try to make someone's life a little bit better.
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Because if nothing else, you know, there's a, there's a, a chemical that releases in our body that when that happens, when we do something kind for another person, it is actually stimulating us.
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It actually gives us this euphoric feeling that, that actually helps our health and it helps who we are as people.
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So in a way, kind of a secondary way, it's actually good for us.
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It's good for us, and it's you know—I, I wrote about this once that, I took kind of a it was more of, of a semantical, you know, pursuit of the fact that if you do things that are “selfish,” quote “selfish,” which is typically a bad word, you would do things that are good for you, do things that are just solely good for you.
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Well, doing good for other people then could be classified as selfish.
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So to live a quote,“selfish” life and doing good for other people is actually the most conventionally altruistic thing you can do.
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But in my, you know, little semantical fun, it's the most selfish thing that you could do.
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[Emily] That, that really resonates with me, because the times when I am the most sort of, like, classically self-focused are the times I feel sort of the worst, and the times that I am putting my energy into other people and I'm helping people, that I'm volunteering or whatever that is, I feel very light.
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And there's like a lot of, just like positive emotion and, and things that I get from that.
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So I can attest to that 100%.
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[Mick] We don’t have— as humans, we lack perspective, right?
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We, as fish in our little you know, fishbowl, we only see what we see in our fishbowl and we don't get a chance to have that.
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Besides having, you know, news feeds and things that we see on our phones and devices, you don't really have that perspective.
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And it seems, that seems false and so foreign that we don't have the ability to have—sometimes that for a lot of people it might resonate, but for a lot of people it doesn't really deeply resonate when they see what's going on in fill-in-the-blank.
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Sudan or Gaza, or, or where, you— We, without that perspective, you don't have the ability to live your life within this feeling, this, this little bubble of feeling like, “Wow, I really won the lottery.
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You know, I really, really won the lottery.” And I will tell you, you know, my team that's here with me right now and, on Veterans Day, we always go to the VA, which is down the street from us here in Los Angeles.
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And to a person, every homeless vet that we met, we walked up and we were like, “What, what do you need?
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Just tell us what you need and we'll get it,” to a person, every person was like, “I'm good.
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There's, there's someone else over here, though, that you should help.” They were all homeless.
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They were all homeless.
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We had to like, we basically had to threaten them and say,“Listen, we're going to go get you something and you're not going to have a choice in what you get.
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So you better just vote now or you're going to get whatever we give you.” And they would laugh.
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And, and we still had to kind of extract it.
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Right?
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And I think that that perspective is something that is, it's something that I think I'm very lucky that I get to see on the regular is watch the, the, the truly altruistic and truly giving nature of people who would fall under that category of being, you know, you know, living in unfortunate circumstances.
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Yet their unfortunate circumstances have caused them to be more giving and more benevolent than people who have far greater means.
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[Emily] 100%. Yeah.
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And they're not kind of caught up in a, any sort of like greed cycle.
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It's like they're already thinking about what it's like for them and what it's like for somebody else in their position, which is, which is very heartening to hear, you know, the, the inherent good in humanity.
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And it's so cool that you get to see that.
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And I think that you, you know, you have so many interesting stories and examples and ways that you can illuminate other people to these ideas.
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So, you know, at Riveo Creative, we are a video marketing company.
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And so we talk a lot about storytelling and the power of storytelling.
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Can you talk about the power of storytelling for you, and how that intersects with the work that you do?
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[Emily] Sure.
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I mean, for us, our mission statement is “change the world through technology and story.” So the work that we do, from an innovation standpoint, is, is, I think it's remarkable.
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We do some amazing stuff.
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But if a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound?
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The answer is no.
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You have to hear it, right?
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You know—by the way, we can get in a whole debate on that, right?
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But it's a matter of the person who receives that sound, what they actually do, or what the, how they process it.
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And for us, the stories that we tell, I believe are more impactful than the actual things that we have created.
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The Eyewriter.
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This this thing is so schlocky.
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I mean, it's duct tape and zip ties and a busted ass camera and, you know, it's, it's just—and cheap sunglasses.
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There's, and no—this the Daniel arm.
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And like, I'm looking at some of the things on the shelf behind us.
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It's not that special.
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There's people making a heck of a lot more special things.
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But for the fact that we tell a powerful stories about it, and those stories, then you hear those stories or see those stories or experience those stories, and it makes you want to actually take and go do something with it, that's where the power comes from.
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Like truly, Not Impossible at the end of the day, is a storytelling company about the innovations that we make.
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[Emily] Absolutely.
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Well said.
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And what is, what is, you know, what's the story of an initiative that you're particularly proud of and focused on right now?
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[Mick] You said you have kids?
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[Emily] I do, yes.
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[Mick] Yeah.
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Which one's your favorite?
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[Emily laughs][Emily] I have, I’ll plead the fifth on that.
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I have a 13 year old and a, and a eight year old.
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[Mick] Oh, I know the answer to that question then.
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It, and it depends on the day, but I'm guessing that, I'm guessing it— You know, this is the end of the year where you get your Spotify report of, like, what you've listened to for the year.
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I know in your year, where, where it has ranked and days of favorites, but we're not going to say that on live, on live podcast.
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[Emily] Thank you.
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[Mick] I mean, there's a lot of things that we're working on that we're really, really passionate about.
00:22:01.486 --> 00:22:21.631
I think right now, one of the things that, that I'm, it's very prevalent right now is, is an issue that we launched during, or we double clicked and really put a lot of effort into to, you know, fortify and the launch of it is, in during the pandemic, which is a company called Hunger Not Impossible, which has evolved into a company called Bento.
00:22:21.631 --> 00:22:27.762
And Bento is based on the absurdity that there are 50 million people in this country who are food insecure.
00:22:27.762 --> 00:22:29.306
I kind of talked about it before.
00:22:29.306 --> 00:22:35.061
And those people are people who are not begging on the street.
00:22:35.061 --> 00:22:37.480
They are, those people are driving hard.
00:22:37.480 --> 00:22:39.482
They're, they're, they're working hard.
00:22:39.482 --> 00:22:40.192
They're grinding.
00:22:40.192 --> 00:22:48.115
They're trying to get ahead in life, but they can't because they are limited in terms of how much money they're able to make because they're chased.
00:22:48.115 --> 00:22:50.035
It's like this never-ending cycle.
00:22:50.035 --> 00:22:53.954
And so they, and then they end up eating crap food.
00:22:53.954 --> 00:22:55.957
And that crap food makes them unhealthy.
00:22:55.957 --> 00:22:59.669
And it's just this constant, never-ending cycle that's hard to escape from.
00:22:59.669 --> 00:23:02.672
And so Bento was launched during the pandemic.
00:23:02.713 --> 00:23:21.148
And the basis of it is super, super simple, is that every single food product that you or I have access to right now has a digital signature, either through DoorDash or Grubhub or Uber Eats, or through Albertsons or Kroger or, you know, Walmart.
00:23:21.148 --> 00:23:24.193
There's, there's a digital signature to that.
00:23:24.193 --> 00:23:54.766
And we said, “Well, what if we were to take those digital signatures, bring them in-house, leverage the brand of Not Impossible so we got access to those digital signatures and those, those UPC codes, and then create a way for people who are food insecure to be able to create a digital transaction where they were able to pick food that was curated for them for their particular situation.” So let's say that they were kosher, gluten free, lactose intolerant, you know, and I don't know, pescatarian.
00:23:55.142 --> 00:23:59.145
Like that's a really, really difficult dinner guest to invite to your house.
00:23:59.145 --> 00:24:05.277
But that's just, algorithmically, those are just nodes within the decisioning process.
00:24:05.277 --> 00:24:22.669
And so we made it so that someone could go through and actually select food that was curated around their particular situation, and that the transaction happened on the back end, the financial transaction, happened on the back end through a company that was quote “sponsored them” or was responsible so.
00:24:22.669 --> 00:24:27.840
During the pandemic, we had charities like Boys and Girls Club and, and, you know, YMCA and, and things like that.
00:24:27.840 --> 00:24:40.936
Later on, we evolved to working with healthcare systems, you know, and big healthcare systems have a vested interest in making sure—especially, we're looking at people who were on Medicaid—on keeping those people healthy.
00:24:40.936 --> 00:24:59.873
And what we've, what I'm really proud of is that we've taken this concept of creating easy, simple and dignified access to food, and we've actually figured out a flywheel where the feeding of somebody isn't, you know, bleeding heart liberal.
00:24:59.998 --> 00:25:15.012
It is actually, it's this perfect representation of stimulating the local economies because we draw on the food from local grocery stores, and where it’s taking care of our most, you know, our most desperate and most unfortunate people who need that.
00:25:15.012 --> 00:25:45.961
And what that does is it elevates them from this layer of panic, this layer of instability, to now they have a platform of stability to feed their family and actually think about, “Okay, I'm going to get a better job,” or ”I'm going to go to school,” or, “And I can actually think about more than 24 hour periods, about just making sure that I get food.” And that to me, I think is—you know, we, last, last quarter, we were averaging about 40,000 grocery orders per month delivered to doorsteps of people that needed it.
00:25:45.961 --> 00:25:52.174
And the beautiful thing about that is not only was it changing people's health, we watched A1C levels drop.
00:25:52.174 --> 00:26:06.272
We watched different, you know, different kind of factors that we can measure around people's health, we watched those things get better, but it also stimulated the local economy, which, by the way, employed a lot of those same people.
00:26:06.272 --> 00:26:08.567
So you created this wonderful flywheel.
00:26:08.567 --> 00:26:34.134
And for us, that's, that's really about one of the core functionalities that we develop when we're working on projects for ourself or if we're working for other entities, is this, this concept called frictionless innovation, of how do you create solutions where you're not asking the system to adapt or change their behavior or to change the way that they operate, but instead you're asking them to just continue to behave the way that they always behave.
00:26:34.134 --> 00:26:45.686
So one of the beautiful things about Bento is that the people who pick the groceries, the people who deliver the groceries, have no idea that they're delivering it to people who are food insecure.
00:26:45.686 --> 00:26:47.271
It's just another order.
00:26:47.271 --> 00:26:52.277
So they haven't had to change any behavior whatsoever at all in, in doing the good that we're doing.
00:26:52.902 --> 00:26:54.112
[Emily] That's incredible.
00:26:54.112 --> 00:27:07.584
And I—you know, it's funny that this is the initiative that we're talking about because as I was like preparing for this episode and, and looking into everything that Not Impossible Labs does, I was thinking, “Okay, what's the, what's something that I feel like is an impossible problem?
00:27:07.584 --> 00:27:14.173
And how would I even go about thinking about how to solve this?” And food insecurity was one of the top things, of course, that came up in my mind.
00:27:14.173 --> 00:27:24.183
And I'm like, “I, I wouldn't even know where to start.” But that's something that you're like, “Yeah, we see that problem and we found out something to do about it.” And that's really amazing.
00:27:24.183 --> 00:27:32.275
[Mick] Well and part of the, I mean, look, like, I'm going to jump headfirst off this pedestal that you're putting me on right now.
00:27:32.275 --> 00:27:44.913
The way that we get to these conclusions is by through this principle that we call “help one, help many,” in that, we don't, we didn't start by trying to serve 40,000 grocery orders per month.
00:27:44.913 --> 00:27:54.923
We started by working with a couple kids in the local Venice area, with a group called Safe Place for Youth, and we had a theory of what might work, and we tested it and it worked.
00:27:54.923 --> 00:27:56.965
And then it just kind of grew and grew and grew from there.
00:27:56.965 --> 00:28:08.103
But our whole thing is if you start by helping one person and solving a problem, that absurdity for that one person, and then telling the story of that one person, that can lead you to being able to do it at scale.
00:28:08.103 --> 00:28:22.951
But in the end, and this is something that I, you, I, I say all the time, if everybody in this world, if half the people in this world decided tomorrow to help one person, the whole world would be helped, right?
00:28:22.951 --> 00:28:33.711
And so it's really about starting small, I think for the, for the regular person that doesn't have an unlimited bank account, that doesn't have unlimited resources.
00:28:33.711 --> 00:28:48.058
I think we can start small and in doing so, that gives us the ability to, to do more because we start to believe in ourself and we are, we also start to see the impact that, just by helping a few people, one person really makes in their life.
00:28:48.058 --> 00:28:48.893
[Emily] Yeah.
00:28:48.893 --> 00:29:01.698
And that's actually gets into something I was going to ask you about which is, you know, some of our, a lot of our audience are small business owners or entrepreneurs or people that want to use their business to get into the world of social good.
00:29:01.698 --> 00:29:08.121
But seeing the scale at which you're able to do these things now might feel intimidating.
00:29:08.121 --> 00:29:14.794
But, you know, like you said, a key part of that philosophy is you can change humanity by changing just one life.
00:29:14.794 --> 00:29:29.683
How do you think that philosophy or that way of helping people, might apply to, like, a small business, for example, who has a little bit more resources than an individual person but doesn't quite know where to start?
00:29:30.602 --> 00:29:44.073
[Mick] I mean, you have to start with what really moves you and what you're passionate about, because so many times people will start down a path and it gets tough, and then they pull up and they don't want to do it.
00:29:44.073 --> 00:29:47.951
So sticking with something that you're very passionate about, I think is really important.
00:29:47.951 --> 00:30:21.361
And I would say having, you know, being a, a son to a small business owners, or to two small business owners and ourself kind of doing this throughout the year, having different sizes of businesses, I think it's just about focus and about really understanding what it is you, 1, that drives your own internal happiness because that can, that can be the thing that you really, really lean on when times get tough, when things get hard, when you lose an account or all of a sudden your code doesn't work the way you thought it would, or whatever it might be.
00:30:21.361 --> 00:30:27.241
It, if you have a passion around what you're doing, it gives you the ability to carry on.
00:30:28.409 --> 00:30:53.268
And then being able to see, back to the “help one, help many” thing, being able to study what works in those smaller groups so that—or in smaller either entities or initiatives or deployments, that you can actually see what works and then figure out how and if you might be able to scale it bigger, so I mean, my advice with anyone who is in a small business is like, you know, keep on keeping on.
00:30:53.268 --> 00:30:55.811
It's, it's, it's never going to be easy.
00:30:55.811 --> 00:31:01.859
But if it's fun and not easy, then it makes it a whole lot easier to, to carry on.
00:31:02.151 --> 00:31:04.028
[Emily] Absolutely. I think that's great advice.
00:31:04.028 --> 00:31:09.366
So that's the kind of advice you get for, you know, even things just like working out, do something that you enjoy because it's hard.
00:31:09.366 --> 00:31:10.410
It's going to be hard.
00:31:10.410 --> 00:31:15.123
But if you're doing something fun, you will keep doing it and you will keep going back to it, so.
00:31:15.123 --> 00:31:16.833
That's great advice.
00:31:16.833 --> 00:31:33.599
And when you're working in the realm of something like making the impossible possible, which is essentially what Not Impossible Labs is doing, how do you set a clear course for the future of the company, and what does that future look like to you at this point?
00:31:36.227 --> 00:31:45.153
[Mick] I mean, our course is very, we're very myopic in terms of we see what we need to do and we go do it for that particular project.
00:31:45.153 --> 00:31:49.365
And, you know, we're we were born out of production.
00:31:49.365 --> 00:32:00.000
So it's wired in us to have a production, have a deadline, work towards that deadline, complete, go have some beers to celebrate it and wake up the next day and start on the next project.
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:10.219
So we're very much a project-driven company, which I think is really fun because you get a chance to see completion, you get a chance to start and complete something.
00:32:10.219 --> 00:32:22.815
And in terms of the strategy of the company, you know, we have things and ideas of things that we're going to continue to do and how we're going to continue to evolve and grow as Not Impossible Labs.
00:32:23.191 --> 00:32:38.705
And if we keep our head down and make sure that everything that we tackle, we give, you know, which is not always successful, but we put everything we can into 1, trying to achieve it, and 2, trying to tell that story powerfully, then that in and of itself is a strategy that allows us to continue on.
00:32:39.790 --> 00:32:41.375
[Emily] Yeah.
00:32:39.790 --> 00:32:41.375
Beautiful.
00:32:41.375 --> 00:32:56.098
And, and if you're thinking like, you know, decades from now, you're looking back on the company or looking back on all of this investment that you've put here, what to you will have made it all worth it?
00:32:59.769 --> 00:33:02.771
[Mick] It's kind of already worth it.
00:33:02.771 --> 00:33:06.150
You know, I don't think I need ten years to look back and do it.
00:33:06.150 --> 00:33:10.654
I think that the legacy of what we've done is, is already there.
00:33:10.654 --> 00:33:25.086
If all of a sudden there's like a,[knocks on desk] a knock at the door and it's God and he or she says that they want their keycard back because we got, they actually, you know, we got the wrong hotel room and we're in a different room, I'd be like, “Well, I knew it, I knew it.
00:33:25.086 --> 00:33:27.296
We, I knew this life wasn't supposed to be mine.
00:33:27.296 --> 00:33:29.715
It's supposed to be someone else's,” so.
00:33:29.715 --> 00:33:33.344
I think I feel really good about what we've created thus far.
00:33:33.344 --> 00:33:39.851
Ten years from now, I would, I would say, you know, my one wish would be that we're continuing on.
00:33:39.851 --> 00:33:43.563
I don't want Not Impossible to be the Mick Ebeling story.
00:33:43.563 --> 00:33:45.355
I want it to be the Not Impossible story.
00:33:45.355 --> 00:34:04.333
So building something that has the ability to carry on beyond who, you know, who I am and beyond, you know, and carry on the legacy of what we love to do, which is to go out and create technology for the sake of humanity, that's something that I really want to see happen.
00:34:04.333 --> 00:34:09.963
[Emily] Well you are definitely already doing that work that is worth it and to be proud of.
00:34:09.963 --> 00:34:11.048
We can, you know, it's very clear.
00:34:11.048 --> 00:34:13.842
And you are all very powerful storytellers.
00:34:13.842 --> 00:34:18.514
You know, just watching the, the films that you've created that tell these stories.
00:34:18.514 --> 00:34:22.809
And it's because also you're telling the people are powerful people.
00:34:22.809 --> 00:34:25.103
And earlier you used the word dignified.
00:34:25.103 --> 00:34:44.456
And I think that's another piece of this is that it is very clear that you see the people that you're helping with a lot of dignity, and that that's part of this experience is seeing the dignity in humanity and helping them from that perspective, and not from a, you know,“better than” perspective.
00:34:44.456 --> 00:34:51.338
It's from a “lifting someone up” because of their inherent value and worth as a human being, which is really beautiful.
00:34:51.338 --> 00:34:55.842
I just have one more question for you, and then I'll ask where people can find you.
00:34:55.842 --> 00:35:00.889
But we ask all of our guests at the Riveo Impact Lab, what does the word impact mean to you?
00:35:02.099 --> 00:35:06.144
[Mick] Hmm.
00:35:02.099 --> 00:35:12.485
Impact conventionally has to do with what you do to others.
00:35:12.485 --> 00:35:24.288
It impacts others, which I think is great, that people think about the impact that this is going to have on an industry, on a society, on a, on a disease, on a whatever it might be.
00:35:24.288 --> 00:35:27.291
There's an impact that happens to something.
00:35:27.291 --> 00:35:39.762
I think that what I've learned over the course of Not Impossible is that the things that we deploy and the things that we have created, the things that we have released, have impact on other people.
00:35:39.762 --> 00:35:49.396
But it kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier, the impact that it has on us is the same, if not greater, in my opinion, and there's no way to measure that.
00:35:49.396 --> 00:36:04.327
But I feel like the impact is about doing the things that you love and doing the things that you love in a way that somehow could contribute to other people.
00:36:04.369 --> 00:36:10.083
But therein lies that flywheel where you're doing it and you're doing it for yourself, but you're doing it for other people.
00:36:10.083 --> 00:36:12.043
What, you're doing it for yourself, and you're doing it for other people.
00:36:12.043 --> 00:36:22.929
And I think that that, that, to me, I think is probably the best way to, in my opinion, put on the spot right now, that would be the way I would describe impact.
00:36:22.929 --> 00:36:27.351
[Emily] I think that is a beautiful way to wrap up this discussion and what we've talked about.
00:36:27.351 --> 00:36:32.648
And that frictionless, impact yourself, impact others—it all comes back to that.
00:36:32.648 --> 00:36:36.527
So thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
00:36:36.527 --> 00:36:40.322
Where can people find you and follow the work that you and Not Impossible is doing?
00:36:40.322 --> 00:36:53.210
[Mick] So you can go to notimpossible.com and see all the things that we're working on and then follow us on, on all the social media channels and stations and, and highways and byways.
00:36:53.210 --> 00:36:54.170
We're everywhere.
00:36:54.170 --> 00:37:01.385
So on IG and LinkedIn and anything else, it's@notimpossiblelabs.
00:37:01.552 --> 00:37:06.139
[Emily] Perfect. Well, we will direct everyone to follow you all as they should.
00:37:06.139 --> 00:37:07.307
You're doing incredible work.
00:37:07.307 --> 00:37:09.976
And I'm excited to see where you all go next.
00:37:09.976 --> 00:37:11.811
Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
00:37:11.811 --> 00:37:14.565
[Mick] Thanks so much.
00:37:11.811 --> 00:37:14.565
Thanks for having me.
00:37:14.565 --> 00:37:30.414
[electronic music][electronic music concludes][Emily] Our Make an Impact Tip of the Month— a human problem that feels completely unacceptable to you, and take one small step to change it.
00:37:30.414 --> 00:37:37.463
For example, if food insecurity seems absurd, start by connecting with local groups serving meals to neighbors in need.
00:37:37.463 --> 00:37:42.677
[electronic music] Thanks for listening and make sure to do good in the world this month.
00:37:42.677 --> 00:37:48.724
If you have questions you'd like us to address on the podcast, you can reach us at info@riveocreative.com.
00:37:49.057 --> 00:37:53.938
Subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss out on any of our incredible upcoming guests.
00:37:53.938 --> 00:37:56.815
We'll see you soon at the Riveo Impact Lab.
00:37:56.815 --> 00:38:03.780
[electronic music][electronic music concludes]
