A 2019 Interview with Brett Bond
Who is your favorite Disney character?
Elizabeth from Pirates of the Caribbean.
What is your favorite Disney movie?
Lion King.
What is your favorite food?
Tuna Sashimi.
What is your favorite animal?
Orcas.
What is your favorite color?
Maroon.
What is your favorite drink?
Water.
What is your favorite tv show?
I, Claudius.
What’s your top three favorite places you’ve ever traveled?
Iceland, Greece, Japan.
If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
Jackson, WY.
What does your average day look like?
6am - Wake up. 7am to 3:30pm - Work. 4pm - Gym. 6pm to 10 or so. - Drawing/ Reading/ Friends/ Tennis/ TV/ Errands. 10 or 11pm - Sleep. Weekends - Hiking, Camping, Road Trips, &/or friends stuff..
What do you spend a ridiculous amount of money on?
Chipotle, Travel, Dates.
If you only had two extra hours per day outside of work, what would you spend it on?
Walking.
What has become more important for you in the last few years?
Self Care.
What has become less important for you in the last few years?
I don’t know.
What would you do/have/be if you had $10 million dollars?
A disaster relief non-profit founder.
What can you do that will be remembered in 200-400 years?
Poetry.
What assets do you have (not financial)?
Gear, books, cars.
When you think of the word successful, who comes to mind?
Jesus, Matsuo Basho, David Hume, H.D. Thoreau, John Muir, Mahatma Gandhi. Anyone who leads a life according to their ideals/ dreams.
What is something you believe that other people think is insane?
I believe to an absolute/ radical degree that everything in reality is both predefined & understandable..
What is the book (or books) that you’ve gifted and/or discussed/referenced the most?
“Walden, Leaves of Grass, Narrow Road to the Interior.”
What is your favorite documentary or movie?
The Cave of Forgotten Dreams/ It's a Wonderful Life.
What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last couple years?
Casio Watch.
What are your morning rituals? What do the first 60minutes of your day look like?
Changes cyclically, but generally - No snooze button, take a cold shower, lots of coffee. No breakfast.
What obsessions do you explore on the evenings or weekends?
Really variable, but generally related to social data analytics, history, geography, & personal travel. Or art - drawing, poetry, pastels.
What topic would you speak about if you were asked to give a ted talk on something outside your main area of expertise?
The ethics of exploring space.
Do you have a quote you live your life by or think about often?
“You reap what you sow. / We no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth & forgotten heaven. / Staring out is staring in. / You can't cancel quidditch. / The more you know, the less you need. / That which is falling should also be pushed. / Give me six hours to chop down a tree & I will spend the first four sharpening my Ax. / There are a thousand ways to kneel & kiss the ground.”
What is the worst advice you see or hear being dispensed in the world?
Material Wealth/ Self > Experiential Wealth/ Experience.
If you could have one gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say?
You reap what you sow.
What is something weird or unsettling that happens to you on a regular basis?
Strange physical warmth that comes out of nowhere & lasts for an hour or two & makes me sweat/ feel spacey.
What have you changed your mind about in the last few years, why?
That what you do for others should be predominant to what you do for yourself. After a few years of doing humanitarian work, I realized I'd been living in a state of chronic stress & exhaustion because I hadn't been prioritizing my mental & physical health. That fatigue had a big impact on my quality of living & on the quality of my relationships with others & myself.
What do you believe is true, even though you can’t prove it?
That reality as it truly is unchanging, eternal, & limitless, & all perceived distinctions exist in the process of conception.
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? or, do you have a favorite failure of yours?
Ι worked on a disaster relief program in South Carolina under two ineffective managers. Their management ultimately led to the 1 year early closure of the program, which meant about 30 families that I knew were forsworn the housing we might have provided. I should have taken an active role in correcting their management errors, but instead tried to mentor them passively & manage expectations/ console my frustrated peers. I put efforts to unify the team above taking responsibility for the operational success of the program. This mistake led me to pursue management in the disaster relief world & in many ways defined the next few years of my life.
What advice would you give to your 20-, 25-, or 30-year-old self? and please place where you were at the time, and what you were doing?
Keep being you.
What is the best or most worthwhile investment you’ve made? could be an investment of money, time, energy, or other resource. How did you decide to make the investment?
The practice of long, daily walks in late childhood/ early adulthood. A deep love for nature.
If you were teaching a ninth grade class, what would you teach?
Environmental Science.
What do you think financially successful people who are generally unhappy in common?
They use their professional life as an escape from issues in other areas of their life, & as a means of justifying their inadequacies elsewhere.
They've been promoted to a position they don't derive motivation or satisfaction from.
They have a fundamentally competitive worldview.
If you had to choose three herbs or spices to cook with for the next year, what would they be?
Salt, Garlic, Crushed Red Pepper.
Do you meditate?
Yes.
What is the best or most worthwhile investment you’ve made?
Getting to know others.
Who are three people or sources you’ve learned from- or followed closely- in the last year?
I've been focused on reading books recommended by friends & family. About half of the books I've read in the last few months were recommends from Eric, Amy, Seth, & Beth.
What is the worst advice you see or hear given in your tradE?
Per nonprofit relief work- That it's all about the output. There is a big shift toward metric data analytics in defining operations efficacy, which in cases is great, but in others I see as cause for concern in that it encourages the commoditization of org goals/ outputs, so of the multiple compass points you see drive these org structures, the quantitative is becoming more significant than others, for instance, degree of impact, alignment with values, etc. (EG, in the Caribbean, a few different orgs started focusing on refurbishing damaged baseball fields when many or even most community members were living in uninhabitable homes. You could spend 100K refurbishing 6 houses, with let's say 28 beneficiaries, or you could spend that same 100K refurbishing a park & count everyone in the community where that park is as a beneficiary, so let's say 2,000 people. This is an increasingly common practice with NGOs as funders prioritize data in their funding decisions..
If you were a billionaire and you could give 2-3 books to every graduating high schooler, what would they be?
The Secret Pilgrim, Walden, To Kill a Mockingbird.
What are some of the choices you’ve made that made you who you are?
No answer given.
What’s the best lessons your father ever taught you?
Respect, patience, light-heartedness. That your mistakes are the most valuable things you'll ever be given the opportunity to own.
What’s the best lessons your mother ever taught you?
Inquisitiveness, drive. That learning is a key to the universe.
What are you waiting for?
Someday I hope to go on a multi-year walking trip. Maybe from Alaska to Patagonia, across Africa, Eurasia, etc.
If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things together financially?
Find a new job, relying on credit to manage transition.
What do you owe your community?
Everything that I am.
Is there anything you would die for?
For love. For any cause that promotes the ascendancy of love in the world.
What is your idea of happiness?
Paying proper attention.
What is your idea of wealthy?
Having everything you need.
How do you ideally see yourself at the age of 75?
Honestly not sure if I've ever imagined making it to 75.
What do you always have with you when you leave the house?
I actually always bring a backpack with a pretty specific set of items in it almost everywhere I go - whichever book I'm reading, note/ sketchbook, mini-whiteboard, running shorts, spare socks, first aid & trauma kit, water bottle, powerbank, string, matches, condoms, ChapStick, headlamp, ear plugs, travel towel, etc..
If you could automatically learn another language or two, what would they be?
Farsi, Mandarin.