← How To Fail With Elizabeth Day
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- [00:00]
Jane Goodall
Foreign.
- [00:11]
Elizabeth Day
Hello, it's Elizabeth here and apologies for the quality of this audio. I'm on book tour at the moment and so this little introduction is brought to you by the medium of voicenote. But it was important to me and to all of us to reshare this episode with the legendary Jane Goodall, who very sadly passed away this week. We wanted to reshare this conversation because it was such a meaningful one for me and such a mind expanding one for anyone who listens. Jane's message about the resilience of hope is needed today more than ever and we must continue to spread her message and her work even in the aftermath of her passing. So I really hope that you get a lot from listening or perhaps re listening to this episode. In it we talk about what she learned from chimpanzees about failure. We talk about the quality of hope and how necessary it is. We also delve into her own perceived failures in correspondence, that's right, letter writing and in motherhood. She really was the most fantastic woman and taught me so much over the course of this chat. Thank you so so much for listening and thank you to Jane Goodall for all the work that she left us with. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Squarespace is here to support entrepreneurship and help turn your passion into a business. It does so with cutting edge design, seamless checkout for customers, with simple but packed powerful payment tools. It helps you turn leads into clients, allowing you to grow and communicate with your audience. Their customers include the Dusty Knuckle Bakery and Cafe in East London. And if you know, you know their bread is amazing. They're a Squarespace customer and a brilliant example of how to do it right. Their training program provides young people who've been excluded by society with the basic skills for work and life. Go check them out. Head to squarespace.com fail10 for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code FAIL10. That's FAIL10 to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
- [02:40]
Jonathan Van Ness
It's Jonathan Van Ness from Getting Better. With Jonathan Van Ness, it's easy to feel hopeless, but we don't have to stay there. I'm all about finding places where we can turn that energy into hope and into action. One of those places is Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Americans United or AU is this quiet but mighty force working every day to preserve freedom without favor and equality without exception. I am so obsessed with that tagline. And let me tell you something, honey, that wall between church and state, paper thin. It's got a leak, honey. It's one of the last safeguards protecting so many of our rights. So right now, from bodily autonomy to LGBTQ + rights to the future of public schools, to me, this is about creating a world where everyone gets to live as themselves. As long as you're not harming anyone else. Now is not the time to curl up and hide. It's the time to link arms and stand together for a better future. Join Americans United for Separation of Church and State and their growing movement. Because church, state separation protects us all. Learn more and join the fight@au.org better. Let's go. Americans United.
- [03:48]
Elizabeth Day
Jane Goodall is a scientist, conservationist and humanitarian whose groundbreaking discoveries have shaped our understanding of what it is to be human. Her 60 year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Tanzania, which she undertook at first with no formal training, challenged and overturned much of the conventional scientific thinking. At the time, Dr. Goodall's work was pioneering in both our understanding of ourselves and in opening the doors for other women in Science. In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, a global community conservation organization. Her tireless work over the years, she is now 88, has won her a legion of admirers, including David Attenborough, Leonardo DiCaprio, Prince Harry and Greta Thunberg, who calls Goodall a true hero. But her start in life was far removed from the forests of Tanzania. She was born in Hampstead, North London, to a businessman father and a novelist mother, and grew up in Bournemouth. As a child, Goodall's father gave her a stuffed chimpanzee as an alternative to a teddy bear. Goodall credits her love of animals to her early affection for this soft toy, whom she called Jubilee. Now Goodall is a UN messenger of peace, a dame, the author of numerous books, including ones for children, and was named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2019. Her latest publication is an investigation into the necessity of hope. Called simply the Book of Hope, it was an instant New York Times bestseller. In it, Dr. Goodall draws on the wisdom of a lifetime dedicated to nature to teach us how to find strength in the face of the climate crisis and to explain why she still has hope for the natural world and for humanity. Because, as she puts it, hope is a human survival trait without which we perish. Jane Goodall, welcome to how to Fail. Well, thank you, thank you for having hope in our technology because there have been some failures in the run ups, this recording. And now here we are finally on zoom. And it is such an honor for me to be talking to you. I wanted to start by asking whether we are born with hope or is it something that we can acquire?
- [06:22]
Jane Goodall
I think we can probably acquire it, but I think people are born. You know, there is an innate optimism or an innate pessimism, but I think the experiences we go through in life can change that. But we might have to work on it. I, fortunately, was born, I think, as an optimist, which is different from hope, by the way, but it's a help. And I had an amazing family. And I must say, at this point, I was born loving animals long before Jubilee came to my life.
- [06:56]
Elizabeth Day
Do you still have Jubilee?
- [06:58]
Jane Goodall
Jubilee right now is in Los Angeles. He's part of an exhibition put on by the National Geographic called Becoming Jane. And at first I said, you can't have Jubilee. I mean, he's too precious. I've still got. And they said, oh, Jane, please. He has a bulletproof glass case and he is hand carried from one destination to another.
- [07:21]
Elizabeth Day
I love that. I had a childhood teddy bear who I was given on the occasion of my fourth birthday called Thomas, who is still very much with me. And I, like you, have a lifelong love of animals. So tell me about the difference between hope and optimism. What is the difference?
- [07:41]
Jane Goodall
I think optimism can be. Oh, I just hope it'll be okay.
- [07:46]
Elizabeth Day
Yes.
- [07:47]
Jane Goodall
And hope is when it is tied in with action. So the way I see our human race at the moment is as though we're at the mouth of a very, very long and very dark tunnel. And right at the end of that tunnel is a little tiny pinprick of light, a little star. That's hopeless. But there's no use sitting at one end of the tunnel and saying, I hope that star will come. We've got to, as the Bible says, gird our loins, whatever that means. I love it. We've got to gird our loins and crawl under, climb over, work our way around the tremendous obstacles that lie between us and that star, like climate change, loss of biodiversity, poverty, pandemics, war. It's tough. But as we go, we try and draw other people with us. And so that we end up with a great mass of humanity working towards that star.
- [08:44]
Elizabeth Day
You speak as lyrically as you write. It is a joy to listen to you. So I'm getting the sense that hope, there is an active intention behind it. It needs to be something that is a verb, rather than just a noun. And in your wonderful book, you talk about four main reasons for human intellect, the resilience of nature, the power of young people, and the indomitable human spirit. I'm very interested in the last one, the human spirit. Tell us a bit about why you believe, from what you've witnessed, it is indomitable.
- [09:20]
Jane Goodall
I have met people who have tackled tasks that seem utterly impossible and people who've overcome really daunting physical disabilities. And most people would just give up at that point. But these incredible people battle on. And I'll give you one example, and that's a young man called Chris Kock. I write about him in the book. I've met him several times. He was born without arms and legs. He's got little tiny stumps of arms. And he's got one, it looks like a flipper. I suppose it's the remains of a foot or something coming out of his thigh. And with that flipper, he goes around the world on a skateboard with those little stumps, one of which has a tiny, maybe remnant thumb on the smooth surface. He can get out cell phone, he can send messages. He's driven one of these really expensive tractors. And this man is so full of life. And when you look into his eyes, I've never seen such an alive, vibrant personality. So that's the indomitable human spirit encouraged by his family that's so important. I have a wonderful mother. She encouraged my spirit of curiosity. She encouraged my love of animals. And I'm not sure without her if I'd have done what I've done.
- [10:50]
Elizabeth Day
Well, tell us a bit more about your mother, because I know that she came with you, didn't she, on your first ever trip to observe chimpanzees? Tell us when that was and how it came about.
- [11:03]
Jane Goodall
Okay. Well, When I was 10 years old, my dream was I'll grow up, go to Africa, live with wild animals and write books about them. Everybody laughed. I mean, we're now going back nearly 80 years, and the only person who didn't laugh was Mum, who said, if you really want to do something like this, you're going to have to work awfully hard, take advantage of every opportunity, and if you don't give up, maybe find a way. So eventually, I got an invitation to Africa from a school friend. I saved up money working as a waitress. I hadn't been to university because we couldn't afford it. I'd done a secretarial course, but I couldn't save up money in London, so I worked as this Very hard work being a waitress back then and got out to Kenya. And that was in 1957. I was 23 and stayed with my friend. That's when I met Dr. Louis Leakey, my mentor. And he, amazingly, saw something in me and offered me this amazing opportunity to go and study chimps. Nobody done it. It took him a year to get the money. And then the next stumbling block, the British authorities said, we don't take responsibility for this ridiculous idea. In the end, they said, all right, but she can't come alone. So who volunteered? That same amazing mother. So that's how it happened.
- [12:26]
Elizabeth Day
And Dr. Louis Leakey, he thought, if I'm right, that your lack of scientific formal training at that stage was, if anything, a boon to what he wanted you to do. He appreciated your qualities as someone who came with a fresh mindset. Is that right?
- [12:44]
Jane Goodall
Is that absolutely right? Because the thinking, as I later discovered at the scientific community was very reductionist. I was actually told the difference between us and all the other animals is one of kind. In other words, there's a sharp line dividing us from them. We were separate, we were special, we were on a pinnacle. And I think probably religion had something to do with that. And it was the chimpanzees who helped to break down that line, break down that barrier.
- [13:16]
Elizabeth Day
Do you think, as well as religion, potentially, that kind of thinking could also have been influenced by the fact that science was very male dominated and dare I say it, there might be a trait of male arrogance that might have gone into that feeling of exceptionalism.
- [13:31]
Jane Goodall
I think you're probably right. Again, I was lucky being a woman. Louis Leakey thought that women might be more patient in the field. And that's probably true because, you know, throughout evolution, the job of the human female was to be a mother and look after the children. And you've got to be patient to do that when you have a large family. So not having the scientific training, people say, well, suppose you've been to college. Would you have thought differently about animals? Would you have declined to give them names and given them numbers, which was what I was told I should have done? Would you not have dared to speak about personality, mind and emotion? Well, I don't think so, because when I was a child growing up, I had an amazing teacher and he taught me absolutely that we're not the only beings on the planet with personality, mind and emotion. And that was my dog, Rusty. You can't share your life in a meaningful way with a dog, a cat, a horse, a rabbit, a guinea pig, a pig, I don't care what it is a bird and not know that, of course, we're not alone.
- [14:42]
Elizabeth Day
We might get interrupted during this recording by my cat, Huxley. And I cannot tell you how much I agree with that statement. So I hope he comes and meets you.
- [14:52]
Jane Goodall
I hope he does. Yes.
- [14:53]
Elizabeth Day
He doesn't like to be left out. He always likes to know what's going on. So if he hears my voice, he'll generally come. But you mentioned there that you named the chimps that you were studying and just tell us why you made that decision. Did it just come naturally to you because you saw these chimps very much as an extension of your family unit. In a way, you were there with your mother already.
- [15:17]
Jane Goodall
Yes. Mom stayed about four months. I didn't decide to name the chimps. I just automatically did it. I named all the animals in my life. My guinea pigs and hamsters and turtles and a grass snake. I named them all. Why wouldn't I name the chimps as I got to know them? It was just second nature.
- [15:36]
Elizabeth Day
What's the first thing you remember when you started observing these chimpanzees?
- [15:44]
Jane Goodall
The fact that every time they saw me, they disappeared into the forest. They're very shy. I only had money for six months and after four months I still hadn't managed to get close. I could watch them through my binoculars. But that wasn't what I needed to do to get to know them. I had to gain their trust. Some people have said, well, didn't you feel like giving up? I could never give up. I just couldn't do it. I wouldn't forgive myself if I gave up. And I knew with time that I could gain that trust. But did I have the time? Luckily, one of them, the first one to begin to lose his fear. I named him David Graybeard. Graybeard, because he had a white hair on his chin. David, I don't know. Anyway, he was David Graybeard and I saw him using and making tools to fish for termites. That changed everything. Sadly. Mum had just left. She would have been so excited because at that time, science thought humans and only humans used and made tools. So Leakey was able to get further funding from National Geographic. They sent a filmmaker, Hugo Van Loewyck, whom I eventually married to film the behavior of the chimps and actually my behavior too. If you see the early footage, there's more footage of Jane than there is of the chimps.
- [17:07]
Elizabeth Day
You're expressing that very modestly because it really did change everything about how we saw humans, how we saw Chimpanzees, and it made you famous. And I wonder how you feel about that fame. We were talking before we started recording about the fact that you have done three or so interviews like this every day for a very, very long time. How does that feel? And how do you cope with the amount of energy it must take?
- [17:36]
Jane Goodall
Well, that's about three questions in one. But when the fame first hit me, you know, people had read the Geographic and they saw me, and I was horrified. And I put dark glasses on, I let my hair loose. They still recognized me. And I'll never forget when it began. And the journalists started coming and asking questions, and I basically, very shy. And then I'm not sure at what point, but at some point I thought, well, this has happened. I didn't want it to happen. It just happened, so I better make use of it. So I started going around with little brochures and information about our programs and handing them to the people who wanted a signature or more recently, a selfie. And it's helped us to grow our organizations. But then, how do I feel about now? Well, before the pandemic, I was traveling about 300 days a year around the world. I mean, I was on the road for about 300 days. And I came back here, home, where I am now. In between, it's the house where I grew up. And at first I was really frustrated. I couldn't take my message out. And then, with a wonderful group from the Jane Goodall Institute, we created Virtual Jane. And I've never been as busy or exhausted in my whole life. So since Virtual Jane was created, I've given interviews, I've given podcasts like this. Virtual lectures are the hardest because you don't get the audience feedback. You're giving a lecture to a little green camera spot. But if you don't put the same energy and enthusiasm into it, you may as well not do it. That's what my mother taught me. Also, if you're going to do something, give it your all. And the bright side of this, I've reached literally millions more people, I'm told, in many more countries. So I guess you could say it's been worth it, but it has been and is exhausting.
- [19:36]
Elizabeth Day
We're very grateful for it. I hope you know that. I hope you know the importance of your work for many, many generations of people. I wanted to ask what will sound like a very ignorant question. What's the life expectancy of a chimpanzee in captivity?
- [19:52]
Jane Goodall
They've lived to 70 years in the wild. It's pretty old if you get to 60 and most of them 45 to 50, because their teeth get worn down by the grit in their foods, they get internal parasites. There are seasons when there isn't much food, so their life is tougher than when they're in captivity.
- [20:18]
Elizabeth Day
So David Greybeard is no longer with us?
- [20:20]
Jane Goodall
No, David died. He was quite young. There was an epidemic of something like flu. We know now that chimps can catch all known human diseases and that's why they were used in medical research. When I first saw video footage of our closest relatives, highly social beings in five foot tall by five foot cages alone, I thought it was terrible. But I knew I had to go and see it with my own eyes to talk about it, to explain how wrong this is. Why they let me into the labs, I don't know. But they did. And that was the beginning of a long, long fight where other people joined. But eventually all those chimpanzees in the US, over 400 of them have been retired into sanctuaries.
- [21:12]
Elizabeth Day
Did you grieve David Greybeard's death?
- [21:16]
Jane Goodall
Not the same way as others, because we didn't know he died. We never found a body. So it was just a gradual coming to terms. When old Flo died and there was her body lying in the river when Melissa, we watched her slowly dying up in a nest, that was the real grief.
- [21:36]
Elizabeth Day
And how do you process that grief? How do you live with it? Are there rituals that you follow?
- [21:43]
Jane Goodall
No, not really. I mean, I think my worst grief over an animal death was losing Rusty. That was terrible. You process it the same way as you do with a human. And some people can cope better than others. And I think I cope pretty well. I think one thing I have which is a real boon, and again, it's a gift, like communication is a gift, is that I can live in the moment. I'm very good at pushing other things out so that I can focus on what I'm doing right now. So right now I'm focusing on talking to you. And there are problems around me at the moment, but they're out of my Ken.
- [22:23]
Elizabeth Day
This podcast is all about failure and what we mean by it. How do chimpanzees deal with failure? Do they categorize it as such, do you think?
- [22:33]
Jane Goodall
No, I don't think so. I mean, if something goes wrong, they just work to put it right. But there are two different ways that males cope with failure to rise in the hierarchy, which is very important to a young male. And some of them will get attacked by their superiors and that's it. One bad attack and they stop trying. Others, they get one bad attack, another one, another one, and they never stop and they win. They get up to the top. So it's a question like the setbacks I've had in my life. I think I'm like one of those dolls with weighted bottoms. You hit them over and they bounce up. And that's because I'm obstinate and I'm not going to give up. I refuse. I'll spend the last of my days fighting corruption, fighting climate change, fighting loss of biodiversity, fighting poverty.
- [23:35]
Jonathan Van Ness
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- [24:42]
Elizabeth Day
I asked guests on this podcast to come up with three instances of failure in their life. How easy or difficult did you find that task?
- [24:51]
Jane Goodall
Well, I spent a lot of time talking to my very close associate Mary Lewis, who's known me for over 30 years. And we tried to think. You seem to be failing, but if you don't give in and you overcome that failure, you can't really call it a failure. Maybe my first real failure was leaving my primary school and all my classmates, except the one who I thought of as a very, very stupid girl, moved into higher class in the next school and I didn't. Well, it turns out that the headmistress of the primary school, for some reason, I don't know why, she didn't like me, I really can't imagine. But you know, mom went to talk to her so I was left down. All my friends were up in the higher form, big failure but into that class came a French girl whose parents had sent her to this school as a boarder. She became my best, best, best friend. And it was she who invited me to Kenya. How I met Louis Leakey.
- [25:57]
Elizabeth Day
That's incredible.
- [25:58]
Jane Goodall
Yeah. So another what you might say failure. I didn't go to university because we couldn't afford it. My friends mostly did. And we had just enough money for a secretarial training. Boring shorthand typing, the old fashioned manual typewriters which most people listening wouldn't even have even seen, let alone use. And I got a job in London. It was actually a fun job with documentary films and not much to do with secretarial, but anyway, I had that training. Then when I heard about Louis Leakey out in Kenya, somebody said, if you're interested in animals, you should meet him. He was curator of the Natural History Museum. I think he was impressed by how much I knew about African animals because I read every single thing I could. Well, guess what? Two days before I met him, his long term secretary had suddenly had to leave. He needed a secretary. And there I was. So I was now in this world full of amazing people who could answer all my questions. So it was magic.
- [27:01]
Elizabeth Day
Do you believe in fate?
- [27:03]
Jane Goodall
Well, I certainly believe that opportunities come and we're free to choose or reject. But sometimes the right choice and wondering, you know, why out of all the people on this flight, why am I sitting next to this person? Have a go, talk to them. And that has led to some extraordinary events in my life.
- [27:26]
Elizabeth Day
Let's get onto the first failure that you've chosen to discuss, which is that you're very bad at languages. Which is interesting actually, because you've forged so much of what you do through the power of connection. But I suppose the power of connection lies beyond language in many ways. But tell us why you were so lousy at languages.
- [27:47]
Jane Goodall
I don't know, I just couldn't do them. I think maybe a tiny bit. I pop this thing. I forget its scientific name, but it's known as face blindness. So I might meet you in two days time and walk past you. It's not as bad as some people who after 10 years don't know their own secretary. But it's a disease. It's some funny thing in the brain. There's nothing much you can do about it. Except, you know, if I knew I was going to meet you in two days, I'd look for something on your face. I can't quite see what that would be.
- [28:20]
Elizabeth Day
I need a gray beard.
- [28:23]
Jane Goodall
Yes. And I think that that has had something to do with language, and I think it's somehow tied in with dyslexia. I don't know. I mean, there's so much we don't know about the brain. I mean, I really tried. I really tried with French, and I just didn't work. And I got fairly good at Kiswahili and Tanzania, but never fluent, and so it's just something I can't do.
- [28:46]
Elizabeth Day
When you were talking about face blindness, does that extend to your own family? So your son or your husband's?
- [28:53]
Jane Goodall
Oh, no, no, no, no, it doesn't. But my sister has it. Whereas Mum. She could recognize somebody. She'd only seen them for 10 minutes. It's very funny.
- [29:04]
Elizabeth Day
Fascinating. So if you were to see me tomorrow, would you have any sense of. You wouldn't know my name, but would you remember that we'd done this podcast interview? You just couldn't connect it to me?
- [29:16]
Jane Goodall
Yes, I would remember your name. Right. Quite good at names. But, you know, if I study your face, I'm now studying your face, by the way.
- [29:24]
Elizabeth Day
Oh, thank you. I honestly feel rather honored. I feel like one of those Tanzanian chimpanzees.
- [29:31]
Jane Goodall
Right.
- [29:33]
Elizabeth Day
Well, I'm very good at faces, but terrible at names. So together we could be the perfect human.
- [29:38]
Jane Goodall
That's right, Absolutely.
- [29:40]
Elizabeth Day
I'm interested that we have started talking about school and failure at school, because you are now in your late 80s, but I do think that failure at school stays with us in many ways throughout our lives. It feels very, very formative. Was school a happy place for you, or how did you feel about it?
- [29:59]
Jane Goodall
Well, I was actually really good. I mean, I always came either second or third in exams. Number one, she was what we called a swat. Nobody liked her much, but she always came first. And then Chloe, my friend, and I shared second and third together. You know, one second, one third. So actually, I did really well at school. That first failure was an advantage, it turned out, and I passed all my exams. I got what in those days was called matriculation exemption. We don't have that anymore. Was before A levels and things. We had school certificate and higher certificate, and I did super well in all of them, so I certainly qualified for university. But you had to be good at languages to get a scholarship. I wasn't sure, but, you know, it all worked out for the best. Even that.
- [30:52]
Elizabeth Day
At the time, though, did you feel resentful about that, that you couldn't go to university because you were bad at languages?
- [30:58]
Jane Goodall
No, not at all. I didn't want to go to university. I never wanted to be a scientist. I wanted to be a naturalist. I wanted to be out in the field with animals.
- [31:08]
Elizabeth Day
What's the difference between a scientist and a naturalist?
- [31:11]
Jane Goodall
Well, I think a scientist goes to prove a theory and a naturalist has an open mind and is ready to learn from the wonder of the natural world.
- [31:22]
Elizabeth Day
You talked about your mother earlier and how influential she was. And I hadn't realised until it came to do the research for this interview that she wrote that she was a writer. How influential do you think she was in terms of teaching you about the power of storytelling?
- [31:39]
Jane Goodall
Well, she wasn't. I mean, she's always described as an authoress. She did two books, one that Louis Leakey wanted her to do and one which was a novel based on my life. She wasn't really in order. I mean, those were the two. But storytelling is, I think, our Welsh blood and, you know, storytelling has just always been. And then before the days of television and before the days of social media, we sat around and we talked and we told stories and we laughed and we had fun. Oh, most of that's gone from most families now. It's really a tragedy, you know, that's a failure of society, that we no longer have those close family bonds. We no longer have the power of imagination. I fell in love with Tarzan when I read Tarzan of the Apes. And so just after the war, when films came back to England, Mum saved up and took me to see one of the early Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films. And after 10 minutes or so, I burst into loud tears. She had to take me out. She said, what's the problem? I said, but that wasn't Tarzan. So before all this television came, you had your own picture. Your imagination created it. Now for children, it's all out there.
- [32:59]
Elizabeth Day
Is imagination a uniquely human thing, or do other species have it?
- [33:04]
Jane Goodall
I think chimpanzees do. There are certain stories, anecdotes. Scientists hate anecdotes. I think you learn more from anecdotes than almost anything else because you get an idea of what an animal is capable of and why is it not scientific? Just because you only see it once, it's still a fact.
- [33:23]
Elizabeth Day
Yes, I love that. What about friendships? Because I know that that's quite an undervalued area of study in science. But what evidence is there of friendships in chimpanzees and indeed other species that you've observed?
- [33:41]
Jane Goodall
I would say friendship is really, really important. It's a useful trait because if you're good friends, you help each other, and that's always important. So these smart male chimpanzees will actually choose. We call them an ally. They spend a lot of time grooming each other, they travel together. But if you have an ally, then you're much more likely to climb the hierarchy because you don't tackle a higher ranking male unless your ally is there and then you attack him together. But it's friendship, and we see it in so many other animals. I mean, dogs can be friends, you know. There was one dog and for two weeks the owners couldn't think why he kept taking his food and running off with it. And his friend, another dog, had fallen into a sort of pit. And eventually they followed him and rescued this dog. He'd been feeding the dog his friend. And dogs can grieve when their friend dies and stop eating because it sounds.
- [34:44]
Elizabeth Day
With the dog example, that's a friendship that has evolved into a friendship of choice. Whereas the chimpanzee example, it feels like an alliance of necessity. So do you think there are different gradations of friendship?
- [34:57]
Jane Goodall
Yeah, there are chimpanzees who travel around together for no obvious reason. You could call them friends. In fact, one of the most lovely friendships that I ever observed was between a young chimpanzee who had a rather sad life. Her mother was a loner. Her older brother was off with the males, so she was very lonely little infant. And she made this extraordinary friendship with a young baboon. So when her mother was anywhere near the baboon troop, she and this baboon would leave the she, her mother and the baboon, the troupe, and they'd play and they'd groom each other. It was charming. And no other word for that except friendship.
- [35:38]
Elizabeth Day
Do you have good friends?
- [35:40]
Jane Goodall
Oh, fantastic friends. That's what I've missed during the pandemic. I consume with them and it's not the same.
- [35:47]
Elizabeth Day
Let's get onto your second failure, which is your failure to convince your boards of the value of your Roots and Shoots program for many years. Okay, so first of all, tell us what Roots and Shoots is.
- [36:03]
Jane Goodall
Back in the late 1980s when I was traveling around giving lectures, I kept meeting young people who even back then had lost hope. And they were angry, they were depressed, or they were just apathetic. And I talked to them and they more or less said the same. This is in all the different countries around the world. Well, our future's being compromised and there's nothing we can do about it. So we have compromised the future of our young people. In fact, for years and years and years, We've been stealing it as we destroy their future, as we destroy the natural world. But was it too late? Was there nothing they could do that I didn't agree with? So Roots and shoots began with 12 high school students who were in Tanzania and they were concerned about why wasn't the government doing something about illegal dynamite fishing that was destroying the coral reefs. Why wasn't the government prosecuting poachers in the national parks? Why was the nobody worrying about street children with no homes? Why was it allowed for people to throw stones at stray dogs? They had all these different worries, all 12 of them. So I told them to get their friends together and we had a meeting. And from this Roots and Shoots was born with the main message. Every single one of us makes an impact every single day and we get to choose. And because I'd learned about the interconnection of everything in the rainforest, we decided every group would choose between them three projects and they would choose. They weren't told. A project helped people, a project help animals, A project helped the environment. And that program is now in 65 countries and growing. It's got hundreds and thousands of young people from kindergarten, university, everything in between. More and more adults wanting to form groups like the staff of a big corporation. And it's my greatest hope for the future because they choose their projects, they're passionate about them, they roll up their sleeves and they take action. It's all about taking action to make the world a better place.
- [38:12]
Elizabeth Day
So why on earth didn't your boards get behind it from the off?
- [38:16]
Jane Goodall
Oh, because it's nothing to do. We're here to save chimpanzees, right? It was just so narrow minded. It was like if I had a meeting with someone who was trying to make life better for. One example was cows. She was passionate about cows and anti dairy farming. And I wasn't meant to be at that meeting, but I was. And I was sitting next to her and I said something that I'd just given a talk to, Compassion in World Farming. And she said, oh, I thought you only cared about chimpanzees. And she wrote out a check for $15,000. So I said to my board, I said, will you see? Because I cared about cows. Here's this money. Are you grateful? It was the same with Roots and Shoots. It wasn't about chimpanzees.
- [39:04]
Elizabeth Day
How did you convince them?
- [39:06]
Jane Goodall
Gradually we got the right people aboard and you know, right now every single one of 24 Jane Goodall Institutes around the world. Roots and Shoots is a major program everywhere, and it's gained so much support around the world. Everybody, you know, loves it.
- [39:25]
Elizabeth Day
I have to say, I looked at the website for Roots and Shoots, and it's very impressive and so easy to use and so quick. And it has lots of free resources for anyone who wants to get involved and do something that they are passionate about. For you, Jane, is it satisfying proving people wrong?
- [39:47]
Jane Goodall
Depends who the person is. I mean, there are some people that I think it's wonderful to prove them wrong, even though they weren't always accepted. I'm thinking of a certain president of a certain country whose name I will not say.
- [40:00]
Elizabeth Day
Good for you. But in terms of showing the boards who didn't think that Roots and Shoots was a goer, is it satisfying now, the success of that initiative?
- [40:14]
Jane Goodall
I'm very, very happy about the success, but those board members have long since.
- [40:18]
Elizabeth Day
Vanished, so got rid of them.
- [40:20]
Jane Goodall
Yeah. Big bomb. And we now have a fabulous team. I mean, the biggest JGI is us. That's where so much money comes from. And it's where I spent an awful lot of time in the Geographics there and so on. Disney. Roots and Shoots is so important to the whole organization.
- [40:39]
Elizabeth Day
Do you feel that what you do is a mission that you have been given by some greater power?
- [40:47]
Jane Goodall
So I have to feel that, because when I look back over my life, you know, these opportunities that came, I could have gone a different way, but I didn't. And looking back, it almost seems as though one thing led to another, led to another, led to another in this pattern where now, through Roots and Shoots, we are changing the world.
- [41:08]
Elizabeth Day
Will you tell us about your experience in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris?
- [41:13]
Jane Goodall
Yeah, that was amazing. It was going through a difficult time in my life, and I'd always wanted to go into Notre Dame. I think reading Victor Hugo's the Hunchback of Notre Dame. And I went by myself, and it was quite early in the morning, and as I went in, the sun just shone through that beautiful rose window, which luckily didn't get hurt in the recent fire. And as I was marveling at this light coming through and illuminating this beautiful old cathedral, the organ suddenly burst into Bach. Toccata and Fugue in G Minor There was actually a wedding I discovered later. But anyway, you couldn't see it. It was just the music. And it just came over me, the amazing people and the skill that had gone into building this extraordinary cathedral with none of the modern technology that builders have and the numbers of people who'd been involved in creating Bach, because it's somebody Marrying somebody, marrying somebody, marrying somebody. And if they hadn't, Bach wouldn't have existed. And at that same moment of the sound and the beauty coming together, there was me. So I felt at that point, this cannot be chance. There has to be something behind all of this. There's so many scientists today, top scientists, who have all agreed there is intelligence behind the creation of the universe.
- [42:47]
Elizabeth Day
Well, I recently read an article on panpsychism, which I hadn't come across before, which is the idea that you can understand matter through being rather than doing. Because the issue with physics is that it only understands matter through what it does. So you can only apply that retrospectively. But if you think that everything on this earth has some sort of consciousness or instinct, then its role here is to be the best version of itself, the most you est you that you can be. And it really appealed to me, that idea that we all exist at levels of consciousness, and then somewhere at the highest point, there's a level of consciousness and we can give it any name we want. We can call it God, or we can call it a higher power. But I love this idea that science and spirituality are hopefully merging.
- [43:37]
Jane Goodall
Yeah, they are. I think they actually are. Because it's less likely now that if you talk about the spiritual connection in the forest, it's less likely that you'll immediately be branded as a tree hugger, which used to be the case. So things are changing and this is a whole new realm. I think what's important to me is that science will never, never understand everything. They never will. And there's that air of mystery, and we go on learning and we go on finding out new things. But, you know, there's another phrase in the Bible now. We see through a glass darkly, then face to face. So hopefully one day all will be explained. The wonder and the magic and the mystery.
- [44:24]
Elizabeth Day
Has that belief in something greater given you a sense of. Of peace with life and also with life ending?
- [44:33]
Jane Goodall
Oh, yes, absolutely. In fact, two answers to that. One, if I'm really, really tired and I've just got to face a huge auditorium of people, I just stop thinking about the lecture and open my mind. And those are the best lectures I've ever given sometimes, and that's frightening. I've actually been out there and heard my voice speaking to quickly stop that. That's one. And then two is, you know, when we die, well, either there's nothing which is fine, or there's something. I happen to believe there's something from various experiences I've had and I can't think of a more exciting adventure than finding out what that something is.
- [45:13]
Elizabeth Day
May I ask you what those experiences are that you've had?
- [45:17]
Jane Goodall
Well, after my second husband, Eric, died and I was in Gombe by myself, sort of being out in the forest, coming to terms with grief. Derek came to me in a dream, perhaps, I don't know. But it was so vivid. And he was happy and he was telling me things, and I knew it was really important. I had to write this down. So I was reaching out for the light to write down what he'd been telling me. And everything went. It was like fainting, you know, that roaring in your ears. So I couldn't write anything down. And then finally it went away. And I thought, I can still remember some of what he said. And again, when I tried to write it down, that roaring. And I spoke to a medium about it. My grandmother had been to her when her husband died and she wasn't working anymore. But I told her what that happened, and she said, oh, Jane, if it happens again, don't try to move, she said. My husband came and I got out of bed to write it down, and I went into a coma. And luckily somebody found me in the morning. And I said, what do you think it was? She said, well, I think that they're speaking from a different level of existence, a different plane. And if you try and do something about it, your spirit is. I don't know. She explained it probably a bit better than that. Some connection that you don't make till you're dead.
- [46:46]
Elizabeth Day
Yes. Some portal. How astonishing. And this was your second husband, Derek, who. I'm so sorry, who died of cancer less than five years after you married him. It must have been awful.
- [47:01]
Jane Goodall
It was.
- [47:02]
Elizabeth Day
I'm glad you had that connection with him, that extraordinary experience. I mean, I hope I'm not overstepping. It just. It shows the magnitude of your love, that it could cross these earthly boundaries.
- [47:14]
Jane Goodall
Yeah. There was another strange thing. Just after he died, I had this very strong feeling. His spirit is still around, but it doesn't see the world the way we do. But there were things he loved, like the ocean. And so I would think, well, if I really concentrate and take this into myself, he will see it through my eyes. It was a strange feeling. I've never heard anybody else talking like that.
- [47:37]
Elizabeth Day
How beautiful. Has Rusty ever come to you?
- [47:41]
Jane Goodall
No.
- [47:43]
Elizabeth Day
Well, I hope he's waiting for you somewhere, Jane.
- [47:45]
Jane Goodall
Oh, I'm sure he is. I'm quite sure. And David Greybeard. Yes.
- [47:59]
Elizabeth Day
Your final failure. It's quite a Step change after what we've been talking about. Because your final failure is your failure to keep up with correspondence, which I think will be so highly relatable to so many people. But you, Jane, must get thousands of emails and requests. And how do you manage that? Have you just made a decision now that you can't answer everything and you have to be okay with that?
- [48:24]
Jane Goodall
Well, some of the stuff is answered by my institutes. They used to write, so, you know, with Love from Jane. I said, don't you dare do that. That is absolutely unacceptable. I will not have anybody writing something and putting my name to it.
- [48:40]
Elizabeth Day
Oh, I thought you objected to the with love.
- [48:43]
Jane Goodall
No, no, no. I'm happy with the love. With love. It's the name.
- [48:46]
Elizabeth Day
Yes.
- [48:47]
Jane Goodall
It's got to be from me to be genuine. I don't like something that's not genuine, so that doesn't happen anymore. But they aren't. So they normal stuff. And they send me the sort of special letters, and I try to answer the special letters. I've got thousands of unanswered ancient emails, but it takes so long to delete them. Yes, there's a photograph. So you want to save the photograph? You know, I don't know. I do worry about it, but I know that that's silly because I cannot do it all. So I try to do the most important ones, and then what happens is I put them aside because I really want to think about them, and then they get lost in the deluge that comes afterwards. So it's a failure. I can't organize my correspondence, but hopefully.
- [49:32]
Elizabeth Day
People listening to this. If you have had an email or letter that has gone unreplied from Jane Goodall, you will know that it's actually very meaningful. It's a very meaningful one that she's put aside to think about. But do you feel guilt over that?
- [49:45]
Jane Goodall
When I discover an email that I should have answered that was really important, yes, of course I feel guilt.
- [49:53]
Elizabeth Day
Do you ever feel misplaced guilt that you feel like you've done something wrong, even though you probably haven't expect so.
- [50:00]
Jane Goodall
I can't think of an example, but I must have.
- [50:03]
Elizabeth Day
It's one of those human emotions that again, I wonder if other animals experience that sense of internalized shame that you haven't called your mother or you haven't made the most of your life opportunities? Do you think other animals have that?
- [50:19]
Jane Goodall
Well, dogs do, but whether that's because we've taught them, I don't know. But my sister had a dog called Crispin, and he was A lurcher. So he was a thief, but he knew that stealing was wrong. So normally if he'd been left alone in the house for a while and Judy came back, he'd all be bouncing out, wagging his tail and all the rest of it. If he didn't appear, Judy knew that he'd done something wrong and she went. And what he would do, the food he'd stolen, he would put on a chair and lie on it. He never ate it.
- [50:53]
Elizabeth Day
What a character.
- [50:54]
Jane Goodall
I know he couldn't resist stealing it though. You know, none of our dogs have heard being beaten, but just scolded. But they don't like that.
- [51:06]
Elizabeth Day
We live in an age of 24 hour communication and a lot of social media and a lot of living our lives for external approbation. What do you think of all of that in terms of what it does to us?
- [51:24]
Jane Goodall
Well, I think it's terrible for children. They're children who, you know, they're out in a beautiful place and they're not looking, they're not listening to the birds, they're not looking at the flowers and the trees. They're texting with their friends. And I've seen a little child of three and he was being pushed along in one of these little chairs and he was in this beautiful place and the light was glorious and he was just looking at videos. That's a real tragedy and very dangerous because we need nature.
- [51:56]
Elizabeth Day
And have you ever fallen into that trap yourself? I mean, you mentioned that we all have been forced to live much more online through the pandemic. But do you ever feel that you're being sort of sucked into some sort of addictive screen time that is not good for you or are you very boundaried about it?
- [52:14]
Jane Goodall
Yeah, I mean, I don't have a cell phone. I've refused because I won't be doing all this texting all the time and whatsapping and I don't do any of that. I do have a Facebook page and a blog, but I don't do them. They're done for me. So the only time I'm on the screen like this is when I'm doing an interview or dealing with my emails.
- [52:35]
Elizabeth Day
You don't have a cell phone?
- [52:37]
Jane Goodall
No, I've got one of the very old clamshell ones. I don't even know its number, but I take it when I'm traveling so that if I get stuck at an airport I can call somebody.
- [52:50]
Elizabeth Day
Honestly, I love hearing that. We've spoken about your career and I'm also very aware that you're a mother and a grandmother. Do you think you are a good mother and grandmother?
- [53:02]
Jane Goodall
Not really. Although my grandchildren say I'm a wonderful grandmother because I help them start projects and they're very grateful. And my granddaughter got her university fees, but I haven't been able to spend that much time with them. I think I was a jolly good mother to my son because for the first three years of his life, I was never away even one single night. He was always with me and we did things together.
- [53:27]
Elizabeth Day
And do you think that's the secret to good parenting?
- [53:30]
Jane Goodall
I think the key thing is when a child is small, between up to two or three, what's really important is that there's a tiny circle. Could be just one person. Better to be two or three who are always there for them, who are supporting them, who they can rely on. Then the other thing is to support the child. Like my mother support supported me. And I see so many mothers who, well, we don't want our child to do this. She wants to do that. But we think it's better she support the child in what the child wants. And if it wants something really stupid, be pretty sure that that child will grow out of it and try and turn in a more sensible direction. But that's what gives a child confidence to be supported. And my mother and my grandmother and my mom's sister, they were all really supportive.
- [54:20]
Elizabeth Day
I mentioned in the introduction that you have many, many admirers, some of whom are very, very famous. Who is the most impressive famous person you've ever met?
- [54:32]
Jane Goodall
Oh, goodness. I wouldn't call him a friend, but somebody that I was on hugging terms with was President Gorbachev.
- [54:42]
Elizabeth Day
Really?
- [54:43]
Jane Goodall
Yes. I only met him three times, but he knew who I was. And I just have such respect for the way that he changed the Soviet Union. He's very upset now, by the way. Oh, I've met lots and lots of famous people. Leonardo DiCaprio is passionate about the environment. He is really passionate about the environment and he is a real friend.
- [55:04]
Elizabeth Day
So you answer his emails?
- [55:06]
Jane Goodall
I answer his emails. He doesn't always answer mine immediately, but when he's not acting, when he's not on a set, I get them by returning his answers. So, yeah.
- [55:17]
Elizabeth Day
How lovely. And are you ever intimidated by anyone?
- [55:22]
Jane Goodall
I was intimidated in the early days, meeting scientists who were working in labs with chimps and treating them cruelly and that sort of thing. It was very intimidating. And that's where I was glad to get a PhD. So as I never did an undergraduate, when I wrote the Chimpanzees of Gombe, Patterns of behavior. Great big book of the first 15 years of research. I had to teach myself all that I would have learned as an undergraduate. So then I felt able to face these people in the labs, but there again, not attacking them, not telling them how cruel they are, but showing them pictures and talking about the way they behave in the wild. And you can see they haven't thought like that. You can see their eyes turning in. And I truly think people have to change from within. And it's no good attacking the brain because they're not going to listen. They don't want you to be seen to be challenging them. But if you tell a story that reaches the heart, that's different. And I was talking to a CEO the other day of a big international corporation, and he said, jane, for the last eight years, I've really been working to make my corporation ethical along the supply chain where I get the products from the communities there, treating everyone fairly, the way we treat our customers in the main office, for three reasons. One, I've seen the writing on the wall. I see that we're using up natural resources too fast and it can't go on because they're finite. Secondly, consumer pressure. People are beginning to understand the harm that certain products have inflicted on the environment. Food is cheap. Why? Because of unfair wages or because of cruelty to animals. So consumer pressure is making business change because they don't want to buy those products anymore. But he said the thing that really tipped me over was my little girl, 8 years old, coming back from school one day and saying, daddy, they tell me that what you're doing is harming the environment. That's not true, is it, Daddy? Because it's my planet.
- [57:25]
Elizabeth Day
The power of young people to change the world. It's astonishing. If there is someone listening to this podcast right now who is feeling hopeless, what one thing would you like to say to them, or would you like them to know?
- [57:40]
Jane Goodall
I would like them to know, first of all, that although they may feel helpless and hopeless in the face of the huge problems that the world is facing, well, what you do may not seem important, but do it and get some people to help you do it. Maybe it's clearing up litter, maybe it's raising money for the blind. Maybe whatever. Whatever is your passion. And when you work at that, you'll find you've made a difference and that'll make you feel good. And when you feel good, you want to feel better, so you do more. And we're told, think globally, act locally. But no, because if you think globally, you get depressed. But act locally, feel good about it, know that other people all around the world are doing the same thing, and then you dare think globally. But to mention Ukraine. I grew up in World War II, and I would say it was almost a year that Britain was the only European country that had been neither defeated nor capitulated. And it was hopeless. I mean, England wasn't prepared for war. We didn't have a good army, we didn't have a good navy. We had brave young men flying those little planes, getting killed by the score, including my uncle. But we had Churchill. And Churchill may not have made always the right decisions, but what he did was to rouse the indomitable spirit of the humans in Britain, so that the spirit was, we will not give in. We will not be defeated. That's exactly the same in Ukraine now. And in fact, the current president and the previous president both quoted Churchill, it's.
- [59:15]
Elizabeth Day
Very impressive when you get those individuals who can rouse the rest of us. And for me, you are one of them, Jane Goodall. You really, really are. Can I end by asking you? You're going to turn 90 in two years. Are you going to have a big party?
- [59:32]
Jane Goodall
Well, I'm absolutely positive, Covid permitting, that I will be given a big party, whether I like it or not. And probably not just one.
- [59:43]
Elizabeth Day
Well, there is so much to celebrate, and I know how busy you are, and I'm so grateful that you have made the time to talk to me today. It's an overused word, but you are an insp. And can I just ask, will you get Jubilee back after he's been on? Oh, good.
- [59:59]
Jane Goodall
Thank you. Oh, yes. Eventually, I will.
- [60:01]
Elizabeth Day
Good. That's made me relieved. Dr. Jane Goodall, thank you so much for coming on how to Fail.
- [60:07]
Jane Goodall
Well, it was a pleasure. Thank you, Elizabeth.