Excellent, excellent. Well, ladies and gentlemen, good evening, thanks for joining tonight, this webinar that is on a topic that is very close to my heart. And I would like to say, probably more relevant than ever, given the fact that we live in a very dynamic timeframe. The video that I showed at the opening of this webinar, I had commissioned two years ago, basically to convey the same message. And that is that the world is changing fast. And in my view, we are at the end of the industrial age, as we have known it. And that means that we will have to see unprecedented change to address some of the key challenges that society is facing as a consequence of the phenomenal development that we have gone through. But little did I know when we made this video, because this was all before the COVID-19 outbreak. And I think if anything has become clear ever since, is that the world is probably in need of a change in leadership, leadership that takes responsibility for addressing the key challenges society is facing. And that is a topic that is intriguing me and that I would like to share with you some views on and hopefully have a discussion on in the context of this webinar. Ladies and gentlemen, I told you in the opening that it is my strong conviction that we are at the end of the industrial age as we know it. And the industrial revolution that started 200 years ago has created a tremendous amount of financial and economic wealth. And that has already addressed quite some challenges in society, many people have raised out of poverty. It is also undisputed that the growth that we have seen has also resulted in big challenges of an ecological nature of a social nature, and probably also of an economic nature. One of the things that we have seen growing is the global population. And I was born in 1967. And at that time, we had 3.4 billion people on the planet. So in my lifetime, the population on our planet has doubled because today we are close to 8 billion people on the planet. The global population keeps growing. At the start of the industrial age, we had less than a billion inhabitants of the planet. And the expectation is by 2050, we will have more than 10 billion people living on planet Earth. That's only one of the things that have been growing exponentially over the last decades. And the interesting thing is when you realize it, that growth has probably been realized not always in conjunction and in harmony with all the stakeholders and inhabitants on the planet. But very often, this growth that we also see in economic terms has been realized at the expense of all the resources. You see here some facts and figures and in the middle you see a cartoon that is pretty provoking and I do that on purpose because today we will be talking about responsible leadership and I will focus my presentation on corporate leadership, leadership in the business world. We see that there is an enormous amount of wealth created in financial and economic terms over the last 200 years, but it has resulted in quite some trouble. There's more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than we have seen in any time in history. In 2018 alone, 120,000 square kilometers of tropical forest were lost, deforestation is a big issue. We see that average wildlife populations have been reduced by 60% in just over 40 years. These are just some facts and figures about the issues that we see in an ecological perspective in terms of climate. And I know that making the link directly between business world, business community, the economy and the ecological situation we are at is a provocative one. But hopefully in the context of my presentation I will be able to answer some of the questions around this. I've seen that some of you are raising your hands. I would like to propose that I finish early and that we have sufficient time for what will hopefully be a lively debate. So what we have seen unprecedented economic growth, growth is the birth word, growth in terms of the global population, growth in terms of economic wealth, but also big issues, big societal challenges. People sitting in the middle, if those people represent the business world, I think the point that I would like to make is that the people in the middle need to become part of the solution. And that is, for me, pretty much core to the notion of responsible leadership. If you talk about the challenges that society is facing, and here you see a handful of those challenges, global warming, air pollution, access to clean water and energy, access to healthcare, poverty, inequality, but also pandemic diseases. When this slide was made, COVID was not even there. But what this picture shows is that the situation is complex and there are many, many interdependencies. And if the current COVID crisis shows one thing in my view, is that this interdependency is there, the complexity is there, but what we also see is that there are many underlying weaknesses flaws in the system. Flaws that in my view we need to address. And my hope is that the current COVID crisis is a wake up call for humanity at large, and more specifically for the business world, so that we can take ownership for the solutions for addressing the issues that we see in the world around us in a responsible manner. Because the issues we see, amongst others, due to the outbreak of the COVID pandemic show locally, but only for a very short period of time. Before we know it, we see an impact that we have never seen before, and we are able to basically put society on hold. I hope you realize that neither the world wars that we have experienced the recent times, nor the nuclear disasters in Fukushima, or the bomb on Hiroshima, or any natural disaster has ever in our lifetimes been able to force humanity to really slow down and basically make a side step. That is quite intriguing, because there are challenges that arguably are as impactful or even more impactful when it comes to the survival of the human race, like the climate crisis, that we have not been able to use as an energy source behind interventions to, for instance, slow down air travel. What we have seen is that some of the challenges we see in the world around us are huge, and there is no one stakeholder that can remediate those challenges. If we learn from the COVID crisis a clear thing over the last couple of months is that the state is back, the market is no longer the regulating mechanism for all of the issues that we face. But even states, governments, or multinational organizations or multilateral organizations cannot solve those issues without collaboration. Back in 2015, United Nations formulated the Sustainable Development Goals, and we can be happy to have those goals because, as a matter of fact, they constitute a kind of compass for the world, a kind of compass for humanity, if you want. These 17 goals need to be realized by 2030 in order for humanity to prosper. And you can see them here on the screen, they vary from fighting poverty, reducing inequality, but also making sure that employment is decent, that there is sustainable economic growth, that there is access to health care, that there is nobody behind when it comes to providing good quality health care to the masses, but that there is also clean and affordable energy. So the Sustainable Development Goals, as formulated by the United Nations, provide a very powerful compass for people in leadership positions to take their responsibility. Now interestingly enough, and I made this point before, business has a very big role to play. We would be naive if we would assume that applying the same paradigms that brought us the issues that we are currently being confronted with will also be the paradigms that help us to solve those issues. And when we come to the business world, we rely heavily on economic paradigms and economic notions. And one of those notions is value creation. The point that I want to make is that value creation so far has been mainly defined on the short term by businesses and in economic terms, or more specifically in financial terms. When we talk about value creation, we predominantly talk about the creation of monetary value, financial value, and we try to do that as businesses on a relatively short term. One of the notions that need to be reconsidered is this notion of value creation, because in my view, value creation needs to be defined over multiple axes. And the business needs to be assessed not only based upon its ability to generate short term return for its shareholders, but also to the extent that it contributes to the creation of ecological value and social value. And next to the value creation over multiple axes, I think it is important to also look at the time horizon. We measure currently businesses by their quarterly performance, and there has been quite some debate already that probably we need a longer time frame because if we want to address the big challenges of today, and we want to make progress towards sustainable development goals, we need time. And we should not only hold ourselves accountable for the progress that we make in a quarter. So that is on the notion of value creation, from short term to long term, from a mono dimension, basically economic value and financial value, to multi-dimensional value creation, ecological and also social. But too much focus in my view has been put on growth as the leading doctrine. As we keep growing, I've shown you the numbers of the global population that has been skyrocketing from less than a billion in 70-50 when the Industrial Revolution started to 10 billion in 2030. Economic growth has been the mantra. But during recent speeches, I've made the point that if you look at nature, many things that just keep growing, and especially if they keep growing in an uncontrolled fashion, turn malicious. So we shouldn't be next to focus on growth and value creation, also look at value distribution. Because arguably there is enough in terms of resources to provide all people on the planet, even if the global population grows to 10 billion, a decent life. We need to really put up those concepts for discussion and we for as business people, leaders in the business community and economists to really think differently about value creation and about value distribution. We need to go back to the notion of values. And in my view, and that's a very personal view, many of the issues that we as a humanity are being confronted with and that we see in society as big, wicked issues are also at the root. A consequence of a crisis of values that we have. Now, let me give you a simple example. The world billionaires have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people who make up 60% of the planet's population. And if those people would pay just half a percent of extra tax on their wealth over the next 10 years, we would be able to really address issues in childcare in education and in health and create 117 million jobs in the process. These are numbers that were published by Oxford Novip. What we often see though is that business people and leaders in responsible positions use economic paradigms to justify the inequality that is there. See it as a logical consequence of the fact that we have a capitalist system that focuses on shareholder value creation. And as a consequence, we end up in a situation that we are at, but rather than finding justification for those inequalities and for those issues, we probably should have the guts to put those very concepts up for debate. And I know this is a provocative statement, but I make this statement on purpose because I would like to trigger you to have a meaningful debate with each other, with the people around you and hopefully also with me in the context of this webinar. This ain't right, no matter how you look at it. And the fact that we are currently seeing that there is hundreds of billions of state money being invested in the public sector and in the private sector. Whilst we will know at the same time that the star companies of today, based upon their tax regimes, avoid paying taxes to the tune of approximately 500 billion. But that's an enormous amount of money that we as a world and as a society desperately need to drive the transition that we want to see. So a strong plea on taking another look at value creation. Don't think about economic growth as growth that can take place at the infinitum. Think about value distribution and think about value creation in a multi dimensional fashion. You would have expected probably these type of statements from politicians from people working in non governmental organizations, but not from somebody who currently is professor of practice at the School of Economics and Management, but who just closed off a career of 30 years at a big multinational being Royal Phillips at the last nine years as member of the Executive Committee. The point that I want to make is that also in the corporate world, the thinking about these type of concept is really changing. We see more and more that a new concept for businesses is arising. And we take inspiration from the famous Harvard professor, Michael Porter, who has developed this notion of creation of shared value where you meet societal needs, but you do it in such a way that it makes good business sense. And if it makes good business sense and it constitutes an opportunity, then you will mobilize an energy source be a corporate enterprise behind addressing those issues that is second to none. There was different thinking about these type of concepts in the business world and some of you will know that many companies have been engaged in philanthropy, where you make donations to work courses and you engage in volunteer activities and in the development of that practice we moved on to corporate social responsibility where there is more focus on compliance with ethical standards, community standards, good corporate citizenship, sustainability. But if I'm honest, much of what happens under the umbrella of corporate social responsibility in philanthropy is basically for companies to mitigate risks to ensure that they have the license to operate and to manage and protect their reputations. It is in a certain way obligation driven. What if creating shared value, if mobilizing the company resources could be used also to create shared value and do that in a way that it safeguards the long term survival of your company and your business and constitute your business opportunities. That is what is new in responsible leadership that embraces the notion of creating shared value. It is not only obligation driven. It is also because it constitutes a phenomenal opportunity. When you think about that continuum from charity to, let's say, creating shared value, you also see that you have different players on that continuum. On the left hand side of this slide, you see the charities, the foundations, the non governmental organizations that really put creating of societal value first. And at the right hand side of this continuum, you see the traditional businesses as we all know them with their strong focus on creation of financial value and I might add, on the short term. But you see many new players arising along the continuum, trying to occupy the sweet spot of creating shared value. Social enterprises, purpose driven businesses, impact ventures, sustainable businesses. And the essence of those new forms of entrepreneurship is that they embrace the process of developing, but also implementing innovative and sustainable solutions that address the big challenges that society is facing today, but that are often neglected. And they do that at a for profit with a for profit motive. This translates into social innovation. It's technical innovation. It's business model innovation. It's go to market innovation. It's marketing innovation. But the good news is that if those social entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs, because you increasingly also see them in big multinational corporations, if they succeed, you create traction vis-à-vis the sustainable development tools. Let me give you a couple of examples. And I start with a very small startup company. It's called Interface. And they observed that many consumers bought carpet when they moved into an apartment or into a house. They buy the carpet and when they move out or when they redecorate the carpet is being taken out. It's being brought to waste and they buy new carpet. It's an enormous amount of waste that is generated in this business and they develop the new business model. They developed carpet as a service. So they provide comfort rather than selling carpets. They embrace the notion of cradle to cradle recycling and to end recycling. And in the meantime, this small startup that started as an initiative of a couple of students has grown into an enterprise of a billion US dollar in sales. And in the meantime, they have also provided 1600 jobs in their company. A good example of a business innovation and business model innovation where you combine doing well with doing good. This is a small startup that happened to be successful in scaling. But some of those smallest startups also team up with bigger companies like Grameen and Danone. Grameen is a very small enterprise that brings low cost fortified yoghurt to malnourished children in Bangladesh, but they couldn't do that alone. So they teamed up with Danone and they happened to have a leader, Frangibault, who said, well, for me, the goal of my company is bring health through food to as many people as possible. And if I do that well, my business will prosper as well. He teamed up with Grameen and sourced the milk from local micro farmers, set up a distribution system of door to door delivery by local agents, local community workers. And they have established a franchise that has given access to nutritious food to hundreds of thousands of children in Bangladesh. And in the meantime, they have created thousands of jobs. So where the first example was a small startup, the second one is a small startup teaming up with a giant. But we also see that those giants are reinventing themselves. We don't have a lot of time to go too deep into Unilever, but I can assure you that Unilever, next to companies like DSM and also Philips, that I will come to talk about, have really made a deliberate choice to align their strategies, their business models and their policies to addressing those big, wicked issues that society is facing, not out of charity or corporate social responsibility motives alone, not only because of the obligation they feel as good corporate citizens, but also because of the opportunity it constitutes. And Unilever has, for instance, made a very strong commitment towards SDG3, which is about water and sanitation for all people. I already referred to Philips, and that is the company that I worked for. And I would like to give you an example on how Philips is trying to operationalize this notion of responsible leadership and acting with purpose. First of all, it formulated its main objective in non-financial terms. The highest goal that the company has publicly stated is to improve the lives of three billion people a year by providing good quality healthcare to the masses. It is not only looking at its shareholders. As a matter of fact, business decisions are being taken by using this compass where you look at multiple stakeholders, starting with the underserved, customers, but also the environment and our employees. And we don't only look at the positive effects of our decisions, but we take the cost of our decisions into account as well when we make business decisions. You see that here in this pie chart in the green areas which are the benefits, but also the red areas that are the cost. It is, in my view, quite unresponsible for big corporations, for instance, to not pay a price for, for instance, the CO2 emissions they are accountable for. It's a price of doing business, but it is a cost for society and not for the shareholders. Many companies, I can assure you, not only the small ones, not only the social enterprises, but also the big corporates like Philips, like Unilever, like the SM, are changing in this direction. What is really different now? Because weren't companies also responsible citizens in the past and weren't they socially engaged? Yes, for sure. But as said, mainly out of an obligation driven motive and perspective, mainly because they felt that it constituted their license to operate and being part of society made them almost go in the direction of also taking care of society at large. But the new notion is that innovating your business, reinventing yourself, reinventing the concepts, the economic concept below value creation or beyond value creation constitutes a business opportunity that is phenomenal. And this report was issued in 2018 by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, which is a group led by 35 CEOs and civil society leaders. And they said that if businesses go in this direction where they align their strategies more with the Sustainable Development Goals and they innovate the way they think about value creation, there is a 12 trillion opportunity and there is an opportunity to create hundreds of millions of new jobs. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is also a notion that gives me hope because if business people and if the economist see an opportunity to prosper and secure the long term survival of their companies in the world that is changing that rapidly as evidenced by the movie that we showed before the presentation, then there is hope that we can tap into the phenomenal amount of resources and capabilities that those businesses have. But it requires responsible leaders, leaders that really take their responsibility seriously. So the key message is that that I've been trying to convey in my short presentation is that in my view we are coming to the end of the industrial age as we know it. We see that an enormous amount of economic financial wealth has been accumulated over the last 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, but we also see that there are big complex interdependent problems of an economic nature of a social nature of ecological nature that have been accumulated and they might become irreversible if you continue to apply the same concepts and theories that arguably might have contributed to those problems in the first place. I think that the COVID crisis is a wake up call in that sense, because it really clearly shows the underlying vulnerabilities, dependencies and weaknesses in society. In my view, the positive power of COVID could be that it could act as a catalyst or an accelerator to the transition that we need to a new era, but we need responsible leaders in the public sector and in the private sector that don't only look at short term economic value creation, but also long term ecological and social value creation that don't only look at growth as a goal in itself, but also in the distribution of wealth and value. And therewith, make the society a bit more fair, because if you want it to be fair, you need to share. Now the good news is that this is not only something that people in business and leaders need to do because somebody tells them to, or that they are being forced because of situations that we are experiencing in recent times like a health pandemic. It's also an opportunity. It's also an opportunity if you innovate your business model, and you take the responsibility for the innovation of your business model, applying those new concepts. You have a phenomenal opportunity to develop sustainable business that benefits multitude of stakeholders, and therewith, I believe you have the best guarantees for ensuring the long term competitive staying power of your company in a world that is changing fast. And if that is not good enough, then I would like to close off with a quote from Albert Einstein, who said, those who have the privilege to know also have the duty to act. And I think, if anything, we should be more aware that this is the time to act. With that, I would like to close off my presentation and open it up for any questions that you might have. Thank you. Thank you very much for your very inspiring and challenging presentation, I would say. Many questions are coming in at the moment, so you have challenged us with this. So, let me first start with the first question that already came in after about 20 minutes by Derek Young. So, Derek Young, I'm going to ask you, are you, Derek, can you maybe close your question yourself? Derek Young, can you unmute? Yes, I was on mute. Go ahead. Welcome. Thank you for the inspiring presentation. You already referred to him afterwards to Paul Polman. I just finished his book and I was happy to hear many of those aspects are echoed in your presentation. This is a good practice, I think, in a global company like your neighbor, but is he a role model now as you can see as a big global CEO, or did he really miss some crucial elements in his leadership? I know Paul Polman very well and he's been a source of inspiration for me as well. I think, and I also read the book with a lot of interest. But what I think is that if you want to change something that has been persistent for decades, then you will be at first the one that is shouting in the desert, as they say in the Netherlands, the Hoepen in the Wustijn. And you will be faced with a lot of opposition. And people will say that you're foolish, that you don't get it, that this is not the way it works. And then you need to do it at opposition. And I think that in a sense people like Paul Polman, not only Paul Polman, also people like Fekke Siebersma, the former CEO of DSM, who's currently doing a stellar job as the COVID government, they are paving the path, I would say, for more corporate leaders and business leaders to follow their suit. I don't think that I'm in a position to comment on the specific personal leadership style of Paul Polman. I know that he is very passionate about this, and he is also very determined to change things. As a matter of fact, since he retired, he is dedicating his entire time and a big chunk of his fortune to drive the system change in the business world. Thank you, Ronald. Thank you. A second question is coming from our colleague, Frederik Knuts. Frederik, are you online still? You might be on mute, Frederik. Sorry, I would hope that I finally have found the mute button by now. Keep struggling with it. So, I don't know, it seems to me that a lot of companies undertake this shift from going from a shareholder value to a stakeholder value approach. But from the fact that there's a burning platform, really. For example, you need to have a whole tea thing, they realize at some point if they continue like that, there would be no more earth really to grow their tea, and that's what started the whole process. So, do you think that it's things like that, the real burning platform, or is it like intrinsically motivated new generation that's coming in? What's your view on that? This is a great question, Frederik, and I think there is not one answer to it. Party is a burning platform, but let's be honest. We have seen and I saw a chat popping up about how many wake-up calls do we need. I mean, how many times did we hear about air pollution? I mean, more people died in the last three months from air pollution than people dying from COVID. And we know that, for instance, the airline industry and big industry is contributing to that. But we have never been able to make an intervention to slow that down. As a matter of fact, relying upon the market as a regulating mechanism using the old economic doctrines, we have seen that ticket prices have been dropping. And despite the fact that we need to get away from the fossil industry, the IMF is subsidizing the fossil industry with five trillion US dollars a year. So point being, there is not only a burning platform has been there. I think now it is more acute due to COVID. But it is also the opportunity that people see, arguably, and that is a point that I've been trying to make. And to a certain extent, it is generational. My own personal view, though, is another provocative statement, probably, that we also should not overestimate that. I think that very often the way we talk about millennials and generation X, Y and Z is as if they are a different species. And if I go back in my own, let's say, life, I see also many similarities between what people are after today versus what we were after 30, 40 years ago. So it might be partly generational. It is partly the burning platform. We are with our back against the walls. It's also partly the opportunity that people see and that these leaders are feeling attracted to. So maybe finally, it's sort of perfect storm. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Frédéric. So we've got another question here from Thierreukers. Are you still on board? Yes, I'm definitely still on board. Thank you. Hi, everybody. It's Tom Reukers, but I can see yes. So no, I commented and posed the question at the same time. So I commented that I believe in general it's a good start for organizations to embrace as Ronald also showed the sustainability development goals. But at the same time, I have a question on that. Is there data available demonstrating that companies who have embraced those goals, that they perform better on stakeholder value and perhaps shareholder value compared to companies who didn't embrace those. And the short answer is yes. But there is a question that is underlying the question that is, if you say, do they perform better than my challenge to you would be defined perform. One of the things that I see and I've been trying to elucidate that based upon that purpose compass that I showed is that also management accounting will be changing quite drastically over the next couple of years as a matter of fact that Tilburg University. We are doing some work on that with Bart Deering also from the School of Economics, but then in the accounting department, where you see that the performance of a business is being evaluated, and not only by looking at the pnl in the balance sheet, but at all the factors as well My feeling is that we will see more and more of that. What I also see is that many shareholders and big investors, institutional investors but also financial analysts are as a matter of fact putting pressure on corporations to start reporting their performance in a multi dimensional fashion, which I think is a good thing. You might have read the letter that Larry think the head of BlackRock, which is one of the biggest, let's say asset management companies in the world, sends to CEOs of a company she invests in or as company investing where he basically actively calls upon them to embrace the stakeholder model rather than the shareholder model. I mean this goes back to the fact that the Anglo American model, the neoliberal model is slowly but surely making place for a revival of the Rhineland model that we used to have in Europe in the early days. So we will see more and more of that, we need to redefine the performance, but there is evidence, there is data as well, and I can share that via the organizing committee separately, and that as a matter of fact those companies perform better as well. A long answer to a complex question. Thank you. Okay, okay, for you, Tom, yeah, well, there's many questions coming in, Ronaldo. So there's about 10 minutes left. So I'm going to ask quickly to Yolanda. Berikov, you also posed a question. Are you still online? Yes. Fine. Yeah. Okay, welcome. So the question is about the era you refer to as the end of the industrial era. What errors are are next ahead of us. Personally, I believe the information era, but we are. Yeah. The key is that the way this is being talked about very often is that we are entering before we are basically in the midst of the force industrial revolution where the first one was the steam engine, and the second one was the mass production. The industrialization mass production and consumption of goods. The third one was the computer era and the fourth industrial revolution is one where a lot of things come together. Bioengineering, big data, smart algorithms, digitization in the broader sense. Well, technology, and all of, and the revolutions we see in healthcare technology, the genomics, all of that coming together at the same point in time. So that is what is being referred to as the force industrial revolution, a society that is incredibly complex, but also offers a lot of opportunity to address those wicked issues. And only if we abandon some of the old paradigms in thinking about how you run a corporation as a leader. And that's the point I've been trying to make a lot of things coming together at the same time. It's kind of perfect storm. Okay. Yeah, okay. Thanks. Well, don't we have free papers. Are you still online? Yeah, I'm still online. Hello, Ronald. Thank you. Interesting speech you're painting a giving a hopeful perspective. We're slowly but surely to a certain direction.  Do we have an alternative? I mean, my point is, if we this is almost a bit of a philosophical debate, but I think that we need to have the guts to abandon those old paradigms. And I don't know whether it's too little too late. We also have strong belief in the resilience of people in their ingenuity in the in the in the persistence to achieve goals. Yeah, as a matter of fact, I think that this is this COVID crisis that we are all seeing is also giving me hope in in the strangest shapes and forms. Despite the fact that people are working remotely there seems to be more community sense. As recently as today, we get signals that there might be a medicine. It's the famous Oxford medicine and the test results are hopeful. I mean, we talk about a couple of months that we are able to make those statements where normally in the pharmaceutical industry you talk about years. So is it too little too late? I hope not. Because as some people say there is no planet B. So, but but we will need to see sustainable behavioral change. And we need leaders to initiate that change and role model that change and go as fast as they as they humanly can. And I hope it's not too late. Thank you, Ronald. Thanks if I can. So when it comes to leadership, there's a question from Patricia. Patricia, are you still there? Please unmute. Yes. Thanks Patricia. Thank you and thanks for this very interesting presentation. And my question is about the the leadership which in this presentation you focus on the leadership at a strategic level. And I'm interested in what your personal view is on the way we can spread these ideas throughout the whole organizations. Yeah. That's, I mean, I realize that when I have 30 minutes to make a pitch on a complex topic, that you cannot do justice to, let's say, the notion of leadership in its broader sense. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to set up a new course at the University on responsible leadership and that will be multiple, let's say classes and lectures over a longer periods of time where we go into all those into all those elements. I think it starts with leadership. I think that is that is for sure. Leadership behavior very often of people in a responsible position gets copied. The good behavior the bad behavior also the ugly behavior. So leadership in that sense is important value based leadership is important. And that that have the courage and the guts to challenge existing paradigms and face the adversity and opposition that is important. And how does that percolate into the organization. Look at companies like Unilever DSM, but also Phillips, you will see that as a matter of fact, one of the main reasons that people want to work for those companies and stay there is is the purpose is the fact that those companies trying to do the right thing are aware of the fact that they might have adverse effects based upon decision they take, but they put that on the table and try to mitigate that. I think that is increasingly probably something generational where being purposeful and responsible is a magnet for talent and talent will at the end of the day define the success of your organization. So I see that leaders have a key role to play there, and that we talked tonight about about corporate leaders. I saw a pop up of a chat where my opinion was asked about some of the political leaders we have in the world around us today. I don't want to go too deep into politics but I think by comparing and contrasting people will eventually do the right thing. That is my hope. We could also assume that they will do the wrong thing. But that is a very doom and gloom perspective. So leaders have a very important role and their gentleness, their authenticity is very easily recognized and is very easily followed. If it's not genuine or not authentic, it fires back tremendously and there are also examples of that, but that's for one of those lectures that is in the making. Okay, thank you very much. So Ronald, you already referred to some of the political leaders and Leynard de Jong asked a question about Donald Trump. But I think you dealt really a little bit with that question of Leynard. Leynard, can we go on to the next person that asked the question, is that okay to you? Because I think that Ronald already answered some of it. Yes, that's a good idea. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, so then I go to Brent. Brent, are you still online? Yes, I'm still here. Hello everyone. Hi, and welcome. Hello Ronald. Well, hey, my question is about the aspect of value creation. In some cases, shared value and traditional value creation depends on the month and the market. And so it would be possible for an organization to operate 50-50, let's say 50-50, maybe 30-70, in the old and new way of value creation. Because some people want still cheap products and other ones, one more products are made responsible, for instance. My question is, should we not be looking at the cost side or supply side of this whole question, and by starting internalizing costs and making companies really accountable for the true cost of business, so to say? Yeah, the simple answer to that question is that I wholeheartedly agree. So that's one of the paradigm shifts that we need to make. And I realize that I've not been clear, but there is what you do in that purpose compass, where you add the cost of doing business. Whether it ends up in your P&L or not, I mean, is a matter of time. But if you use it as a factor to base your decisions upon, you come to different outcomes. And I am pretty much convinced that over time, laws, regulations, but also demands from the financial world will result in a different way of taking those factors into account that so far have been considered externalities. I mean, the point, this is the very essence. My statement would be, and again, a bit black and white, that the wealth accumulated over the last 200 years was very often at the expense of resources, natural resources, ecological resources, also human resources, and not in harmony with those resources.  So you need to make sure that you price that in. I'm very much in favor of that rent. Okay. Maybe if I can ask one follow up question. And I'm looking at here, John, he is the boss today. Yeah, you know, we got three minutes left. So that's, that's going to be the final question. And before you post that question, would you be available or would you be open to answering questions by email because there's about seven additional questions. How would you like to go about that? Yeah, no, that is fine. So maybe we can agree that Renske sends me those questions. I answer them. Seven is fine. 15 is also not an issue. 70 would be a bit too much. I guess to digest that for sure I will do my best to answer them all in a short period of time. Okay, Brent, so we'll go ahead with final question of tonight. All right, thank you. The question is, who would be responsible for setting the standards would it be the market in the government with government agencies, maybe on the continental level, or a combination of them and why. Yeah. I think you will see a mixed model in some cases the biggest and the most powerful form of regulation self regulation. Again, and that is that is also not always happening. So, I think that we, I literally said the state is back that is what we have seen in the COVID crisis, and not only from let's say a negative connotation but also with a I think a positive connotation. So the state will have a role to play, but all the stakeholders as well, and the very essence I think of leadership in the new world is this collaboration, this collaboration between various people that at the end of the day make up society. So, it will be a combination where self regulation is proven to be powerful and they're where government needs to help to get that going and provide guidance that is very much needed as well. All right, thanks. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, Ronald, because we're coming. Yeah, this 829 so we promise to keep this one hour. So, like, like I just proposed, if you would have any additional questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to Ronald. You will find Ronald's email address on the presentation that will be sent to you tomorrow by our relations department. That's one thing. I was going to ask you one more question, Ronald, but you're not going to be able to pose tonight, but we'll talk about it because I was just wondering what is the role of academia of our university or universities in this respect, but you don't have to answer that tonight. Well, but this is like giving me the opportunity to make a statement that I've been wanting to make for a long time. A lot of the thinking will have to be substantiated and it will have to be, let's say, be rooted in research and new models will have to be concentrated. So, my, and that is why I want to embrace this at Tilburg University as a, as a new, let's say, theme, because Tilburg is very strong in economics, we know that it's very strong in humanities as well. And it is for me a bit frustrating as a professor at this university to see that many other universities are really very active in this field, developing new concepts, testing new concepts, doing a lot of research. And I think there is a lot done in Tilburg, but it is very compartmentalized. And I think we need to bring it together. And I want to, let's say, invest my energy in doing just that. Thank you very much. So dear, dear alumni, before closing the session, I'm going to ask you to just stay a little while online, because we're going to end with a short video of Frédéric Knut, who posted one of the first questions tonight on the right of Alumni Relations. But after the presentation, the short video, then the session will be closed. So let me wish you a very nice evening. Thanks again, Ronald, for your very inspiring presentation. Hope to see you next week again. Bye bye now. Good evening. I really hope you enjoyed today's contents, today's webinar. It was offered to you by TS School for Business and Society in cooperation with the professional learning program of Tilburg University. And I hope it was exciting and that you learned something. And that's what we are as a university. We're supposed to learn you something and inspire you. And my name is Frédéric Knut. I just wanted to tell you a little bit about our students. I'm director of Alumni Relations. I'm also director of the Tilburg University Fund. And there is something that's concerning me. And I wanted to share that concern with you. A lot of our students, especially international students, are having a really hard time. Many of them lost their jobs in bars and restaurants. So they have no access to funds. Many of them have lost the support of their parents because their parents became unemployed. So they struggle financially. And we all know if you struggle financially, it's really hard to concentrate on your studies. And that's why the Tilburg University Fund has decided to allocate funds to help these students. And today I would like to ask you for your support. If you enjoyed this webinar today, I'm really hoping that you would like to show your appreciation by donating to the fund to help our students. We'll be taking the liberty to send you a SMS, a ticket with a request for a donation. And obviously, if you don't like this, please delete it. No obligations. But if you share my concern for our students, then please consider donating. And that would not only make me very happy, but obviously it would really help our students and make them happy. And make them able to concentrate on studies and finish this year successfully. Thank you so much. Hope to see you again next webinar. And have a nice evening.


So last week on the program, we talked about how Donald Trump is going to be trying to cause as much chaos as possible before leaving office The reason I don't know To me I view this as basically his middle finger to Americans for rejecting him because even though publicly He refuses to admit that he lost the selection deep down. He knows the reality He knows that his time is limited So we discussed how he is trying to make Biden's time at Renegotiating a nuclear deal with Iran more difficult by imposing sanctions on Iran But this week we learned something much more startling that Donald Trump was literally talked out of bombing Iran's nuclear facilities and if he actually followed through on this The damage that this would have caused would have been unthinkable So as the New York Times reports President Trump asked senior advisers in an oval office meeting on Thursday Whether he had options to take action against Iran's main nuclear site in the coming weeks The meeting occurred a day after international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country's stockpile of nuclear material For current and former US official said on Monday a range of senior advisers Dissuaded the president from moving ahead with the military strike the advisers including Vice-president Mike Pence secretary of state Mike Pompeo Christopher C. Miller the acting defense secretary and general Mark A. Milley The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Warned that a strike against Iran's facilities could easily escalate into a broader conflict in the last weeks of mr. Trump's presidency any strike whether by missile or cyber Would almost certainly be focused on in the towns where the international atomic energy agency reported on Wednesday That Iran's uranium stockpile was now 12 times larger than permitted under the nuclear Accord that mr. Trump abandoned in 2018 the agency also noted that Iran had not allowed it access to another suspected site Where there was evidence of past nuclear activity mr. Trump asked his top national security aides what options were available and how to respond officials said after mr Pompeo and general Milley described the potential risks of military escalation Officials left the meeting believing a missile attack inside Iran was off the table According to administration officials with knowledge of the meeting mr. Trump might still be looking at ways to strike Iranian assets and allies including militias in a rock official said a smaller group of National security aides had met late Wednesday to discuss Iran the day before the meeting with the president So this is terrifying you have a lame duck president Escalating tensions with Iran and had he bombed that nuclear facility that is an act of war make no mistake about it That is an act of war. So what he's doing is characterized as attempting to start a war with Iran or at least Trying to figure out if that's an option something that's on the table now Thankfully Mike Pence and Pompeo and individuals around him talked him out of that But think about how crazy this is when you have Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence be the grown-ups in the room There's an issue with that Now in the same week that we learned about this We also learned that Donald Trump is going to be drawing down some forces in Iraq and Afghanistan The Hill reports President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to pull 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq by mid-January Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller announced Tuesday the Defense Department will cut the number of troops in Afghanistan from 4,500 to 2,500 and the number of forces in Iraq from 3,000 to 2,500 by January 15th days before Trump is set to leave office I am formally announcing that we will implement President Trump's orders to continue our repositioning of forces from Afghanistan and Iraq Miller told reporters at the Pentagon Miller also said that Trump's decision is based on continuous engagement with his national security cabinet For the past several months including ongoing discussions with me and my colleagues across the United States government So I hear this and I think He has no foreign policy his foreign policy Strategy quote-unquote strategy is completely incoherent when it comes to some countries like Iran He is extremely neo conservative and hawkish But when it comes to North Korea for whatever reason we thought that he would end up trying to go to war with him at the Beginning of his presidency, but he tried to negotiate a peace deal with them Which ironically looked a lot like the deal that the Obama administration struck with Iran, which he didn't like but I mean This man is a maniac this man is a maniac and He is driven by self-aggrandizement not by national security or you know the country's interests and To this you know you might think well Mike shouldn't we give him credit for drawing down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan I mean, it's not 100% withdrawal, but it's something right no you get zero credit for this You are literally doing this at the last minute of your presidency and not to mention You're not even bringing 100% of troops home if you genuinely wanted credit for bringing home the troops You do that immediately after you take office So that way you prove to people that we don't need to permanently occupy these countries and Be there even longer than we already have I mean what has it been like 20 years now that we've been in Iraq and Afghanistan There is no excuse no valid reason why we should remain in these countries at this point It's a full-blown occupation. It's a never-ending war and you bringing home some troops You get no credit for that. Sorry because after you increased drone strikes by 400 plus percent by escalating Continuously with Iran putting us at the brink of war with Iran this January when you assassinated one of their top military generals You don't get credit like on one hand He wants to be viewed like he wants his legacy to be non-interventionist, you know more Intelligent when it comes to foreign policy than his predecessors who initiated new wars but at the same time he's been ramping up tensions with Iran and Even though he probably tore up the Iran nuclear agreement because of partisan reasons because Obama did it and Obama bad I mean still that is an escalation So, you know, he wants to be a neoconservative and a libertarian non-interventionist Simultaneously and what this looks like when you step back and look at his administration is It's all just incoherent. He doesn't really have a vision when it comes to foreign policy You know, even if we believed him when he is, you know talking about bringing the troops home And if he genuinely wanted to do that his actions indicate that he doesn't want to do that And you know, it's why he said enough to where people who support him can justify either narrative Like if you are a neocon Republican there's enough there there to where you can say alright, this guy represents me I mean remember before he was elected He was talking about assassinating the families of ISIS and also if you're a libertarian There's enough there there to where you could say well look he is less Interventionist than other, you know, people running for president There's just nothing but an incoherent policy and really what I'm more fixated on is the fact that he almost started a war with Iran last week like It's insane So how many more stories are we going to get with this lame duck president potentially being talked out of doing really horrible things? Like what else is he going to do? We're getting two stories with regard to Iran. So what's next? What is he going to do to do damage and sabotage, you know, Biden's presidency before he even comes to power What more can we expect? It's just unnerving and this is what we are going to have to deal with until he's out of office


So, why is it so important to know? Well, it's important to know, because sugar, especially sugar in processed foods, encourages you to do what? Eat more. Hey, you're listening to the number one fitness, health, and entertainment podcast, This Is Mind Pump. Now, in today's episode, we talk about a tough subject. Sugar. Sugar causes a lot of people to overeat. It can cause health problems when it's over consumed. And they even, some people even say that there's such a thing as sugar addiction. In fact, my co-host Adam says he's been addicted to sugar since he was a kid. So, in this episode, we tackle sugar, and we give you strategies on how you can reduce and maybe even eliminate your sugar addiction or your sugar habit for better health, fat loss, and better muscle gain. Now, before the episode starts, I want to let you know that this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Legion. Legion makes some of the best performance enhancing supplements out there, including protein powders and a pre-workout supplement that they just did with us. We actually collaborated together and made a bubblegum flavored pulse pre-workout drink, which includes beta-alanine, betaine, it's got citrulline, and of course, caffeine, and others, alpha-GPCs in there as well.  This is really saving my butt right now. I have a newborn at home, not getting much sleep, so my workouts just don't happen unless I have a little bit of Legion's pulse pre-workout.  Also, don't leave just yet, Cyber Monday is here, huge, deep discounts on all of our fitness programs. You can get 65% off all of our fitness programs. Every single one, even our newest maps programs are all 65% off with the code CyberMaps. That's the word Cyber, and then M-A-P-S. You also can get 50% off all of our bundles. Bundles are where we combine multiple maps programs together, already discount them, usually 30% off, take an additional 50% off with the code C-M-Bundles. That's the letter C, the letter M-Bundles. Again, so the code for 65% off individual programs, CyberMaps, the code for the bundles, C-M-Bundles, you can get all of them at mapsfitnessproducts.com. Hi, my name is Adam Schaefer, and I'm a sugar addict. I've been battling with sugar for the last 25 years, and I've ruined some of my most important relationships, family, friends, people that I love, have all stopped talking to me. Oh man. Welcome, Adam. We accept you. We accept you. You may be wondering why we brought you here today. Yeah. You've been great. That was real. You've been a great friend for the following reasons, and here's how you've damaged our relationship. Here's what'll happen if you don't. I got a message from my brother-in-law actually today. We're sitting here getting ready to plan for Thanksgiving week right here and record a single topic episode, and he just happened to send me this message, like, hey, have you guys ever done an episode on sugar addiction and whether you should cut it cold turkey or tapering off, and thought, man, this is actually really good timing with what's going on, right? Holiday season, right? And I don't know if we've done a topic like that specific, and that's very near and dear to me. I know. Sugar is one of the big three, right? There's three components to food that they'll label in the hyperpalatable category. It's more complex than this, but it's sugar, fat, and salt. When you put those in foods, they have some special- They enhance things. Properties, but sugar in particular for some people can be really tough, and you've talked about this a lot. Yeah, Sal, correct me too if I'm wrong. I heard some crazy stat, like, 80% of all foods in the grocery store have, like, sugar infused into something like that. It's a ridiculous stat. Okay, processed foods just- Yeah, it's in everything. Added sugar like crazy. In fact, I can't remember what it was. I think it was a documentary where somebody was trying to go and buy foods that are not typically known as high-sugar foods like candy and stuff like that, and then at the end of it, he added up the sugar content, and it was still through the roof. Normal products like ketchup and stuff like that, bread. Toothpaste. Toothpaste, yeah, sugar. It's an easy thing to add, and it does- And there's so many different names now for it. People think you go look at the label and say sugar. It's like, no, it's like some crazy- They sneak it in with some alcohol, you know, verbiage. Dehydrated coconut syrup, you know, organic. Oh, it's just good or whatever. It's supposed to be good, right? Yeah, exactly, but it's all- Monk fruit? Yeah, no, monk food's not sugar. That's something different. Oh, see, I don't know. Yeah. It changes every day. That's a better version. That's where you are. Yeah, that's an actual fruit that's got like a sweet or a plant that's got a sweet flavor to it, but sugar is, I mean, corn syrup. It could be dehydrated, cane juice or whatever. It could be, of course, regular sugar, and it does have some interesting effects on people. It actually, so here's a crazy story. I talked about this on the podcast after my son was born. So when he was born, they wanted to do a quick blood test on him because the way he was born, they wanted to make sure he had enough blood oxygen. They wanted to test them out. And, you know, taking blood from a newborn is very difficult, like to find a vein and do all that. Right. And it's heartbreaking. Very. As a parent. To watch. Did you have to see something like that, too? Oh, yeah. And Courtney actually had to step in because they kept missing the vein. And so she's a pediatric nurse by trade. And so she just kind of was like, hey, I can do it. And she did it first one. Dude, I almost stepped in and dropped it. So were you screaming? Off topic, though, but did they let that happen? Like because your wife is a nurse and she's got a baby there, like, or is that like not? Yeah, they don't normally wouldn't do that. But like, I think somebody there knew her, you know, from Valley Med. It was, it was at Kaiser. So anyways, they let it happen because they knew her. Well, here's the crazy thing. So they're doing this to my son. And before they did, they got a pacifier and then they had this syringe with like some something on it. And they said, oh, don't worry. It's just sucrose. It's called sweet something. I don't remember what it's called, but it's called, it's just a little sucrose. And they put it on the little bit of the pacifier, put it in his mouth. And while they're doing this, he's not crying at all. And I'm thinking, is there a painkiller in this? Like, what are they, are they giving a medicine or something? And yeah, and I went and researched it and no, it was literally sugar. And it, for infants, it changes their pain, how they perceive pain. It does have some pretty powerful effects in the body. Sugar is not very easily found in nature. It's actually relatively rare. So how, you know, the places you would find sugar would be like fruit, honey. It usually indicates something safe to eat. It does. Sweetness means safe, typically, right? But, you know, fruit, unless you plant, you know, fruit, like with agriculture, you don't find a whole lot of fruit just naturally growing. And natural fruit, before we started breeding it, was very low in sugar in comparison to current fruit. And an actual sugar cane is like bamboo.  I remember I read a stat along time. I don't know if I've shared on the podcast a long time ago, but I think it's like the, what is in a soda can, right? As far as sugar is equivalent to like eight feet of like sugar cane. Yeah. And what that would take to chew that. Yeah. It would never happen. You'd have tons of fiber. It just wouldn't happen. And then honey, honey is a very concentrated form of sugar, but it's harder to find naturally and it's guarded by bees, right? So sugar was relatively hard to find. But when you did find it, it was safe and it was a good source of energy. So we developed this like strong craving and, you know, around sugar. And nowadays sugar is so readily available, so easy.  So much of our sugar comes from corn syrup. So it's everywhere. And there are some, some definite consequences, one of them being this kind of sugar habit or some people would even say addiction. In fact, if you look up sugar addiction, you'll actually find addiction facilities that deal with drug addiction that also deal with other addictions. Sugar is one of them. Well, I think the first step is, you know, like any other addiction is admitting or realizing that you even have an addiction to it. Yeah. How did you do that? How did you, how did you differentiate between, oh, I just like this, but between that and this isn't a nothing really. So many bowls of ice cream did it take. Yeah. Well, so I didn't think I did, right? So you were snorting it off the table. No, what I think, and I can't be alone here, right? So because I was athletic and moving around a lot and I did a lot of different like sports and activity and I was weight training and I was already a hard gainer, I justified the amount of consumption that I was having of sugar because I wasn't getting fat. And so because I wasn't getting fat, I'm like, it's, it's plenty healthy for me. And it does, and who cares? I'm burning it off. I'm not addicted. I never, I never even questioned if it was addiction. It was like, I like sugar. I like candy. I like ice cream. I'm not getting fat because I move all this. So I don't have a problem. And I'm sure it's very similar to alcoholics who can get by their day and perform and be great at work still, but are still drinking eight beers a night. Like just because you're getting by doesn't necessarily mean you're not addicted to it. So that's the relationship I had with it for 20 plus years. Do you remember, was there a moment where you're like, this might be an issue? So to be completely honest, it wasn't really, there's probably moments where I become a little more aware, a little more aware of it, as far as my habits and when I was starting to really dive into my diet. But it really wasn't until I completely kicked everything to compete, which wasn't that long ago. So it wasn't until- You're in your 30s. Yeah. So it wasn't until my 30s when I eliminated it, and it was the eliminating of it and realizing how good I felt without it and then allowing it to be reintroduced. And I talk about this with other things, right? To me, you kind of have to do that. Get rid of something, introduce it, get rid of something, reintroduce it before the light bulb really goes off of what's going on to where you can assess like what's going on with how you feel with your body and all that other stuff. What's interesting about sugar to me, in particular, sweet foods to me in particular, is how quickly your perception of sweetness starts to change and adapt based off of how much sugar you eat.  Powerful. Yeah, like my kids never had soda growing up and then as they got a little older, with birthday parties, they'd have a little bit of soda. And a couple times I gave them a whole can just to see what would happen. And my kids would only drink a quarter of it and then give it back to me. And I realized that they had hit their limit because they had had lots of sugar up into that point. Now, if they had sugar all the time or they had soft drinks all the time, gradually start to want more and more. I noticed this with myself. If I have a lot of sugar, sweet foods, especially naturally sweetened foods, start to taste less sweet over time. And I start to, it's like my tolerance for sweetness goes up, which is kind of a classic hallmark of an addictive property, like drugs, right? Like you take your first hit of a drug or whatever and it does everything. And then the next time you might need a little bit more, caffeine does the same thing. I definitely noticed this a lot with sugar. Yeah, it loses its potency. I've noticed the same thing with my kids too. And it's a pure reflection of the size of the portions that people eat. It's pretty alarming to me when you go to a soft serve place or an ice cream place and you see the actual cups that they offer.  But it's a process of starting with the small and working your way up to that. And you don't even realize it takes that to just have the same experience. Well, you're reminding me of the first epiphany, right? Which, and it's a little embarrassing that I went almost 30 years. So this was probably around 27, 28 of kind of starting to pay attention of how much sugar and pulling it out. I honestly, I swear to God, dude, I didn't know that fruit tasted the way fruit tastes until like almost 30.  They really were bland to me. I didn't like fruit. Fruit was lame to me. It didn't taste good at all. And I think it's just because of how much sugar that I was eating for so long that, and the amount, when you get to think too, like I was consuming not only regular, you know, candy and ice cream and artificial sweeteners were in there.  You know, I'd bite into it and be like, I didn't like it at all. It wasn't until I completely got off of everything for a while. And then I remember, I'll never forget biting into my first apple after I hadn't had any sugar, any processed sugar for a long time.  And I, honestly, like, I thought it was- You thought it was a special apple? Yeah, I thought it was a special apple every time. And you're like, where did you get this apple? You know, it's amazing. We got to get the same apple again. Is this a hostess apple? Yeah, seriously. It was like, it was just the most amazing thing ever. And I, you know, I know I can't be alone in this. Like there's got to be people out there that don't enjoy fruit that much.  Dude, think of it this way. If you're a sugar eater, right, or you like to eat a lot of sugar, have a teaspoon of honey.  Because in nature, honey is one of the most concentrated forms of sugar. It is almost pure sugar.  And this is where the big problems come into play. Because here's the truth, okay? A lot of sugar and a lower calorie diet, with that otherwise you work out and you've got decent macros. If your sugar's high, you still may cause some problems. You may cause some problems with insulin resistance and that kind of stuff. But the problems become massive when your calories go up. So if your calories are high and you're inactive and you eat a lot of sugar, now sugar becomes inflammatory, becomes pro-cancer, and it causes a lot of problems. So why is it so important to know? Well, it's important to know because sugar, especially sugar in processed foods, encourages you to do what? Eat more. So it's actually quite rare. It's not common because I get this argument all the time with people in the fitness space who's like, well, in the context of low calories and high protein, it doesn't make that big a difference. I say, find me one person in the real world, not somebody that counts and measures everything every single day. A normal person in the real world who eats a high protein, low calorie, high sugar diet doesn't work that way. It's always high calorie, high sugar. People are going to always argue to keep things that they really enjoy and like, this isn't going to affect me that much.  That's actually a good point. It does make a big difference when it comes to tooth health. In fact, there was a study that showed that people could heal cavities. Actually, there were several studies. Yeah, reverse it. They could reverse cavities by changing their diet.  And I found that I was getting a lot of gingivitis type symptoms and all this inflammation in my mouth.  And so I just had stopped, I just lost interest in eating candy at that point. Well, there is an example, Sal, though, like a low calorie and high sugar. And that's the diet, you know, soda community and the people that are doing all the artificial sweeteners. Talk about how I think that can be dangerous.  Like, you know, how dare you do that? And they advocate for diet cokes and artificial sweeteners because there's no proof that it's- There's no sugar in those, therefore. Yeah, therefore, because it's low calorie. Therefore, it's okay. Because that was, again, another, you know, phase of me getting away from so much sugar was, okay, the first was, oh, wow, realizing how much of it I was consuming, now switching over to the diet coke and all the artificial sweeteners. And it still didn't solve the whole fruit thing and real sugar thing. In fact, artificial sweeteners are even stronger than like cane sugar. It feels like it's more sweet. The sweet signal is definitely higher. It's, I don't know how many thousands of times higher and when you look at equivalent sides, so like a teaspoon of sugar versus a teaspoon of, let's say, sucralose. Sucralose is, I don't know, how many hundreds or thousands of times sweeter. Now, here's the deal with artificial sweeteners. In a calorie-controlled, macro-controlled environment, if you cut out sugar, replace with artificial sweeteners, you do lower your calories, okay? This does happen. In the real world, though, this never happens. In fact, every study that's done on artificial sweeteners, that does not have people in a lab with everything that's controlled. In other words, they live a regular life and they say, okay, cut out your sugary soda, replace it with artificial sweeteners, and just do everything else normal, and then we'll come see you in six months and see what happened. None of them lose weight. None of them lose weight because artificial sweeteners encourage people to overeat just like the regular sugar does. It's that sweet flavor. Now, that does have different effects in the body, and we can argue as to whether or not sugar has better effects or worse effects than artificial sweeteners. Some people say artificial sweeteners are benign. I disagree. I think you perceive it. Therefore, it's not benign, just the fact that you perceive the sweetness can't possibly mean it's benign. There's something going on with artificial sweeteners. But at the end of the day, again, replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners, you still get the sweet flavor. You're not going to change your behaviors. Yeah, the behaviors don't change. The behaviors don't change, so you don't lose any weight. You don't actually lower calories. You actually increase calories by eating other things to replace the sugar. And then here's the other part, and this is one of the big issues that I have with artificial sweeteners. If you're at least somewhat health-oriented, okay, if you're at least somewhat aware of the calories and stuff and sugar that's in your food, you don't even have to be a fitness fanatic. Just somebody who's kind of a little bit aware. Sugary sodas or sugary foods have a natural barrier that you can see, and that natural barrier is calories, right?  I'll just have one soda. Well, you have an artificially sweetened soda with no sugar whatsoever in it. That barrier is gone, and so it turns into five, six, seven.  And I've seen this happen time and time again with people in the fitness space. So it's not a good substitute, really isn't, unless everything's perfectly controlled, in which case I would say you're probably not leading the best relationship long term, at least with food anyway. Okay, so let's pretend that we've all become aware, right? We've come aware, whether it be artificial sweeteners or regular sugar, we're eating too much of it, it's a problem. Where do we go from here? And that's the question that my brother-in-law was reaching for. He's like, do I just cut cold turkey and just turn it all off and eat all whole foods and get rid of all the sugar, processed and artificial? Or is there a, is it a better way to slowly wing off? What is your guys' opinion? There's, see now, here's a funny thing. It really depends on the person because there's two approaches here and you can do this with any substance. Caffeine could be sugar. So for example, if I go off caffeine cold turkey, I know I'm gonna have a shitty week. But then after that week is up, I'm back to normal, I feel okay. Or I can say to myself, I don't wanna have a shitty week, I don't wanna go through that pain. So I'm gonna slowly gradually reduce it and now it's gonna take me five weeks to come off of caffeine. It's the same thing with sugar. There's some clients I've had who are really good with the cold turkey, cutting it out, and they know they're gonna, it's gonna have cravings for the next week. But I've had other clients who are like, I don't wanna deal with those cravings, in which case I tell them to cut their sugar intake by a quarter every week. So it's usually a four week process. I think even with the cold turkey approach, it's a very short term strategy in terms of like, people like keeping that up for very long. And I do think it does work on some people. I mean, for myself, I fasted and had went through sort of an elimination diet personally and then reintroducing it made it less desirable for me. But I just don't think that that's the common person. I think that the other strategy actually to keep it in there but start lowering the actual volume of sugar, I think is a better approach. So I really think it depends on the personality, right? So, and if you're the type of person who is, you have a lot of self-discipline and you almost like relish in the challenge of things and like, you got, oh, it's hard. I'm going to push through this. I've got five days and I'll be good or whatever. I don't care that I'm miserable. I know that's one more day down, another day to go. They have that kind of mentality towards anything. They tend to do really good with the cold turkey. If you don't have that personality, it's because no matter what the five days, if you were to do like a five day or seven day type of cleanse from it where you go cold turkey, it's going to be harder.  Now it's longer and it takes more consistency stretching it out slowly over four weeks, but it'll be less painful. But some people are okay with that. It's the same people who like to push, don't mind to be really sore, like whatever, get through it, push through it. I don't care if I throw up from training so hard. Like if you have that kind of mentality, then maybe the cold turkey, I think would work really well for you. And I think too, if you have like a true addiction, you know, like that's going to be something that you're constantly in the back of your mind. Like you're thinking about it. It's almost like you're taking it away from you and like you're tyrannically like saying, no, I can't have this. And so that becomes a thing that you're going to carry with you, which inevitably might lead into like a binge situation. Correct. That's why I was going to say what's more important than picking the cold turkey versus a slow approach is how you're taking that approach in sense of what's your relationship with the approach. So is it that you're restricting yourself? So are you saying yourself, I'm fat, I'm ugly, I can't believe I'm eating so much sugar. That's it.  Or are you saying to yourself, you know what, I need to take care of myself better. I'm going to do this because I want to take care of myself. Very different approach. One feels restrictive. The other feels empowering. One makes you say, I can't have any more sugar. The other one makes you say, I don't want any more sugar. And then the second part that I think is equally as important is the after. It's the after. How do I now maintain, let's say I do the cold turkey approach or even the slow approach afterwards. Now, how do I maintain this? Because at some point, it's going to come back at some point. I'm going to lose my motivation or my resolve. At some point, I'm going to go to a birthday party or whatever. I might find myself in a situation where I'm starting to have a little bit too much sugar again. That's an important thing to focus on. So that's why I like the slow approach better, because unless the cold turkey, like if you were planning on getting rid of sugar and then never introducing it into your diet ever again, then okay. But that's not most people. Most people are thinking they're going to do that and then eventually, sure, I'll let it intermittently into my diet. So the slow approach trains you kind of that. So if you think about the slow approach, obviously, you go week one is extreme, you're still having a lot and you're slowly tapering down. Probably where you're going to land long term is actually the last week or so, where it's still kind of in the diet every once in a while, but it's not as prevalent as it was at the week one of winging off. So to me, I like the slow approach because it kind of gets you used to what, oh, when I'm almost completely off, this is what it'll probably look like when I reintroduce it, I'll still be able to have it every once in a while. It's just not an everyday thing for me. Yeah, I think that one of the easier ways to do that, because that's me too, Adam, I'll do the same thing, would be to take out the most obvious offenders first. So soda, right? That's a very easy, big sugar bomb you could drop. Candy, right? Cake, pastries, you can reduce those first because of those more common offenders and they're just the big blocks or the big rocks, I should say. And then later on, start to move down the path. But go ahead. Well, I just, speaking of that, to me, and I know that we had laid out five steps and I don't think they're in the best order, I think really the first step is what you just alluded to right now, which is removing it from your house. Totally. Right away, you remove a barrier. Yeah, you remove the barrier. Oh, you make a barrier, you put a barrier. Yeah, right, exactly. So because that's one of the things when you're trying to, if it's easily accessible to you and you're also trying to discipline yourself to get it out of your life, boy, it's really hard when all you got to do is walk down to the cupboard and just grab it real quick. But if I have to get in my car and go drive to get it, I'm less likely to go after it. Totally, a recovering alcoholic that works in a bar probably not going to be a good idea, right? Not the greatest environment. So when you get the sugar out of the house, this is what you say to yourself. This is also very important, this is what you have to say to yourself. I'm not telling myself I can't have sugar. I'm just saying I don't want to have it in the house. If I really want to have sugar bad enough, I'll get in the car, I'll drive to the grocery store, and then I'll buy a single serving of sugar. I'll buy a single soda or a single candy. You're not making a Costco run. That's right. And now this is actually quite effective because typically for most people, these cravings or whatever tend to hit.  And then you gotta think to yourself, do I really want to go put my shoes on, get out of my sweatpants, drive the car, get to the grocery store, wait in line, buy it and then bring it all the way home? Do I really want to do that? And oftentimes, not every, sometimes you'll do it. Sometimes you'll actually get up and do it. But oftentimes you'll say to yourself, nah, it's not worth it. I'm too lazy to do that.  You're in your flannel sweatpants and slippers. Yeah, every time. Three gallons of ice cream. Hey, man. Yeah. It's a weak moment. One time I went to the grocery store. Because that's what I do. I don't have sure. My wife's pregnant. That's what I say. That's a good excuse. Actually, so that's what I do, right? I don't have that stuff in my house specifically for that. But if I want to have it bad enough, I go to the grocery store and I'll never forget one time, Jessica and I were like hanging out. And she's like, yeah, do you want something sweet? And I'm like, all right, I gotta go to the store. I'm like, fine, I'll go do that. I'll go buy some candy for us. And she's like, hey, can you pick me up some tampons too? So I say, yeah, no problem. Chocolate and tampons. And I bring it up to the register. And the guy looks at me and he's like, oh boy. Oh, I see what's happening. Yeah.  Yeah, two plus two. I get it. You're getting the wrong idea. But no, get it out of the house. Because when you put barriers in between you and the thing that you really want, that's an impulse, it actually reduces the impulsivity of it. And it creates a barrier. It allows you to think about what you're doing. And it slowly trains it out of it being an impulse. So I feel like that's step one. And then step two, what you do allow in the house are things that would replace it. So this is where I like these types of substitutes. I mean, for example, we work with a sponsor like Magic Spoon where you have a, gives me that feeling of maybe I'm going to get, feel like I would be eating a bowl of ice cream, but it's a lot better for me. This is what I like to have. The substitutes are allowed to be in the house, but I'm also trying to manage that relationship. Totally. I like to have like, what is it, seltzer water or bubbly water? I don't know, carbonated. Right, with some lime. Yeah, lime, salt. If you put a little bit of salt and lime in that, for whatever reason, it kills that sugar craving for me. It's also helped my clients. Here's another thing you can do. You can get these carbonated waters that are, they have like the essence of fruit or whatever. Infused. Yeah, it's like, it's got nothing in it, right? But it tastes like it was thinking of strawberry or whatever. The fruit farted on it. Exactly. So what you do is you buy liquid stevia. Stevia is a, it's a sweetener, but there's no sugar in it, and it's natural.  Put like a drop of that in that carbonated water that tastes kind of like strawberry, and it does taste like you're having something with a little bit of sugar. Now I wouldn't recommend it all the time, because then you'll run into similar problems like artificial sweeteners, but it is a good substitute, definitely is. Well, I've even done like the carbonated water with like regular juice. So if you have a major sweet tooth.  Yeah, you just cut it in half.  Yeah, I think there's a scale like that. So yeah, if you want to dilute it a bit, I think that's a good first step.  So there's like ways to kind of find products that also provide, you know, way less sugar, but also gives you that kind of sweet taste too. One thing I learned from Doug is, so when we, before COVID happened, right, we would travel a few times a year, at least we'd do live events or do podcasts and stuff out of state. Doug would always travel, because whenever we would get two hotel rooms, and it was always, it's always Doug and I in a room, and then the two snoring guys in the other room, right? The polar bears, polar bear club. But yeah, Doug would, no matter where we were, he would pull out a bar of very, very dark chocolate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like 98% cacao type stuff, right? It's just, it's, no, what is it, Doug? 85. Oh, 85. 85, 85. So it's really low in sugar, and it's got dark chocolate, which has its own health problems.  It would be very low. I've done this with clients as well. Really dark chocolate can be one of those things that kind of helps with that craving, get in the way. Water, just water in general, drink a lot of water. Being hydrated helps so much, because I've been cravings a lot of times will like come up, especially when you're dehydrated. Yes, fruit, and then of course fruit, right? Berries are wonderful. They're, they taste good. They're high in fiber, and for fruit, they're relatively low in sugar. You can eat a whole bowl of berries, and not be too bad at all. And the fiber in the fruit helps it improve, or it gives it more of a satiety effect.   So yeah, there's a lot of things out there that you can use as replacements. And again, the idea and the relationship, it's like, I remember when we first started working with Magic Spoon, people were like, you guys are advocating for cereal, and it's like, listen, there's a way for you to utilize this as a tool, and it's not something that we're advocating. Somebody has four bowls of this every day, and you replace like whole foods. No, never would we say that. But here's a great example of like, a nice transition for somebody who eats a ton of processed sugar all the time to start to wing them off of that and actually get to the place where they're not having to deal with it. Right, here's another one, and this one is just in general, will reduce your food intake in general. And that is to prioritize protein intake. Okay, so if you're hitting your protein, if you are 120 pounds and you're hitting 110 grams of protein a day, which is considered the high protein end of a diet for building muscle, it's good for building muscle, it's good for burning body fat. For most people, that works best. 110 grams of protein, 120 pound person, your appetite is going to be limited. When you hit that first- You're satisfied.  I weigh, you know, two out of them. These days, I don't know what I weigh, 215 or something like that. I hit 200 grams of protein a day. I'm full. It really, in studies, show this. Protein is extremely satiety producing. It reduces people's caloric intake tremendously. And protein also burns more calories per gram than fats or carbs. So hit that first, make that a priority. So literally that's the first thing you need to hit, and you can even make this deal with yourself. If I hit my protein target, then I'll allow myself- I was just going to say that I had a lot of success with this, especially during the competing days, where if I had this craving, where I really wanted sugar, maybe I haven't had in a while, and I don't like that relationship of, no, I can't have. Like, yes, I can. If I can balance this out or figure it out. And so I would make this deal with myself that, okay, if I get my 35 more grams of protein, which I need to hit my target, you can go have this thing.  It goes away completely. So I love that, like telling yourself, yeah, you can if you want, but first get what you need, and your body needs, and then see how you feel. So one of two things ends up happening almost every time for me. Either one, I don't even want it, and I pass on it, or two, if I do, the amount that I indulge in is like significantly nice. Well, it naturally weens it out without having to feel like you're punishing yourself. Right. I think the more we can move away from that mentality, the more successful and long-term this will be in your lifestyle. Well, think of it this way. I'll just give you a little scenario. Let's say you want some gummy bears, or gummy ones, that's my favorite, right? That's my favorite candy, gummy candies, right? Organic gummies. Yeah, but they gotta be organic. They gotta be organic. I want to be a healthy candy. But let's say I want to have gummy bears, really bad.  Okay, now think of that in your head.  You're probably not going to want too much candy.  Now the next thing, this one we've talked about many, many times, very important. This is important, especially in this category, which is to avoid just heavily processed foods in general. Here's the funny thing. Heavily processed foods, I said earlier in this episode, sugar, salt, and fat. What are the three things that they add to almost all processed foods to improve their palatability? All those. Yeah, talking about sodium, for example.  Here's the truth.  You can add all the salt you want on your food, you're not going to eat a lot of sodium.  Just look at the back of a can of soup or processed whatever, and you'll see even stuff that you don't even think had. Anything in a box or a can, basically. Yeah, just tons of sodium. Same thing with sugar, same thing with, typically with unhealthy fats and processed oils.  Now I do want to make a note on, what or at least what this looks like for me. So it doesn't, I don't go from cold turkey on this either because you know that a lot of this has got sugar already in it. This is part of the coming off process of going from, you go from no sugar and no processed food all at once going to be really difficult. So I look at like the greatest offenders. We've talked, we alluded already to like the soda thing. That soda thing would always be one of the issues that I always had. I was allowing that in the diet. So it's like, okay, I'm just going to limit that. And whatever number a week I was having, I'm going to cut it in half and then eventually a quarter and then eventually none. So same thing goes for processed foods. If you're somebody who's eating a ton of bars and you eat a lot of stuff in wrappers and packages and then all of a sudden decide you're going to get off this sugar thing and you're going to go completely cold turkey, I would look at one or two of the biggest offenders in that category and slowly and go from, whatever you do in a week to cutting it in half to cutting in a quarter to eventually none the same way. So even though it's not just, because you think sugar and we automatically think of like sugar cane or artificial sweeteners, but a lot of that is hidden in these processed foods. And so that is part of the process of coming off the sugar is also winging off that. Well, and it's actually interesting too. I've had clients and also even Courtney that like I've seen this before too where we make this like, we're definitely trying to limit our sugar intake but also that tends to open up like more chips and more like nuts and more things with salt and things and sort of like, turns our focus more on like getting those kind of snacky foods which then adds up and then the calories are still there and everything else. So in terms of like always having to have like these certain things available and snack on, like that's something that we need to address behaviorally as well. Yeah, just get rid of the, most of the processed foods, get rid of those and you can do them slowly like Adam said. You know, you brought up hidden sugars. I went to, we made burgers a couple of weeks ago with the kids and I had to get ketchup. So I'm in the ketchup aisle and I see low sugar or reduced sugar ketchup. And I think reduced sugar ketchup. Well, I don't know, ketchup had a lot of sugar. So I bought it. It tasted so weird. I did not realize how much sugar they put in ketchup. When I had reduced sugar ketchup, it tasted like tomato. Tomato paste. It was really strange. And you're right. Look at the back of processed foods and you would be surprised at the foods that you don't even think are sweet or would have sugar. How did the, have those added sugar? So get rid of those. I also think that's part of why this is so difficult for some people is they don't realize they're getting all that sugar there plus their Coke and ice cream. Right. And so the salad dressing, they're like, I mean salads, it's good. And then you try and get rid of all that all at once. It's just, it's so much.  And again, I like to look at one or two offenders cut in half, cut in quarter, then completely. And I like to do that for like a week. So week one, I'm going for, you know, what I was, whatever it was that I was doing and I'm doing that now half of that then after that a quarter of that and then eventually none of that. So you like to go like a hundred grams, let's just hypothetical, a hundred grams of sugar down to 50, then from 50 down to like 25. Yeah. Oh, I see. And the, what I'm counting too, so I'm not counting fruit like right. I'm, I'm counting any, like through my processed foods or ice cream or sugar or sodas. Like that's the sugar I'm counting and paying attention to. I'm not paying attention to fruit because eventually I want fruit to be in my diet on a regular basis and my main source of sugar. So that's the goal is to, I'm not going to limit, I'm not counting the sugar that's coming from fruit because that's what's going to stay in my diet. I'm looking at all other sources of sugar that are in my diet that I want to start to get down and I do. I go half, quarter, none. Yeah. See, I do something similar. I'll go, if it was a hundred grams of sugar, I'd go 175, 50, 25, zero. So I would, I would do even. Yeah. You're even slower. Yeah. In three weeks time, I'm definitely. You're going on three. Yeah. See, they're, they're both very, very similar. You know what's funny? You brought up fruit. I got to say this. Dried fruit, be careful. Dried fruit is not the same as fresh fruit. It's not the same. You could eat, I could eat. It's a lot easier to consume. Oh, I could eat 10 mangoes in five minutes if they're dried mango slices. Well, they also add sugar to that. Even if you don't. Yeah. They don't like sprinkle the sugar on top. They do, but let's say they don't because I've even done this. Well, I'll buy the dried fruit, no added sugar. But it doesn't matter because it's dehydrated and it's shrunk down. I will literally eat five, I'll eat five or six mangoes in one sitting. I'll never do that with, with fresh fruit. Yeah. Not the real one. No. So be careful with the dried fruit as well. And then we talked about artificial sweeteners. I don't think that's a good strategy. The only population that I could say artificial sweeteners might help are people who are pre-contest. Yeah, bodybuilders. Bodybuilders, physique competitors, bikini competitors, people who everything is measured and dialed in and they're measuring. And even them I say, you know what, stay away from those because the rebound post-contest is going to be kind of nasty. But for the average person, artificial sweeteners don't help. Well, you were the one who got me doing this and it actually made a big difference. So back when I was, you know, trying to kick the Diet Coke, you made a comment about, you know, why don't you just allow yourself to have a regular Coke or a regular drink with sugar in it so you count it. And I actually found it was easier to do that than to, because when you have Diet Coke and it's zero calorie, right? That's as many as you want. Right. So then you end up having one. Feels free. Yeah, real quick, I'm having one with every meal. So I'm drinking two, three in a day and the cravings that I have for sugar are higher than they'd ever be. So when I went over to drinking the little Hanson root beers that I like that have like, I want to say 20 something or 30 grams of sugar in it, because I know I'm getting sugar, I count it and I'm aware of it. And I also noticed that because it's not artificial sugar, it doesn't, the cravings aren't as bad for it as from the Diet Coke. Isn't that weird? You know what I, you know what's funny? People who are addicted to or who say they're addicted to sugar-free sodas, it's hard, in my experience, it was harder to get my clients to stop drinking those than clients who drink regular soda. Yeah. This is 100% true. If I had a client who came to me and said, hey, Sal, I love having a soda every single day or two sodas every day, that was easier to work with than the person who says, oh, I have a couple, a few Diet Cokes every day. The Diet sodas were so hard for people to kick and I think it's because they're so much stronger in the way that they hit the brain. 100%. And it's very, very strange, isn't it? Right. One thing that I do with soda, because Jessica and I will have one, rarely, but if we do, this is what I do, I go to the grocery store, I buy one soda for both of us. One. And we split it. And that's it. And then we're done. And if I want more, I got to drive all the way back to the grocery store. There's that barrier thing again. Look, Mind Pump is recorded on videos as well as audio. Come check us out on YouTube, Mind Pump podcast. You can also find all of us on social media. That's Instagram. And now also on Parler, you can find Justin at Mind Pump, Justin, me at Mind Pump Sal, Adam at Mind Pump, Adam, and Doug, the producer at Mind Pump, Doug. Hold on to the memories. No, that's not any better. Come on. Really? I'm sorry. Come on. Is it that bad? It's so bad. That was so bad. Is that why my mom... I feel like there's dogs barking. My mom would never let me sing. I'd sing in church.  No, she didn't.  Just listen. Did she really?