Malcolm Stern: 0:47

Welcome to my podcast, Slay Your Dragons With Compassion, which I'm doing in conjunction with my friends at online events. It's a great pleasure today to welcome a dear friend from not that far back actually probably 15 years or so and Sangeeta has got an amazing story to tell, in fact, many amazing stories to tell. She's an incredibly powerful author and PR agent, and all sorts of other things as well, which you'll find out as we go. She was also chair of the governors of Alternatives, which was a series that I started at St James's Church. So, sangeeta, welcome, and look forward to catching up with you a little bit on this podcast and seeing what's making you tick these days.

Sangeeta Waldron: 1:34

I'm so happy to be here, Malcolm, and I'm really looking forward to the conversation with you. And yes, when I was thinking about doing this, I consider us old friends now. Time has really flown very quickly.

Malcolm Stern: 1:49

But yes old friends. Old friends and you've been a really good friend and I've always found that there's an incredible source of wisdom around you, and I know that a lot of that will have come from your mother, who we've talked about in the past as well. Although I never met her, I felt very touched by her and there were lots of exchanges we had around your mother, so presumably your mother has been a major influence in your life. Maybe we could start there.

Sangeeta Waldron: 2:18

Yes, and I used to tell my mum all about you and she would always ask me and I used to speak to her regularly on the phone how is Malcolm? That was always part of the the phone. How is Malcolm? That was always part, you know part of the conversation. How is Malcolm? And, strangely, malcolm. Tomorrow, the 23rd of January, is her fifth year death anniversary gosh five years.

Malcolm Stern: 2:43

Yes yeah.

Sangeeta Waldron: 2:44

So five years has flown and yesterday somebody asked me what sort of traits did you have as a child that determined you to become the woman you are today? I was thinking about this and, yes, it has been my mom who's been probably my biggest role model, for different reasons, but when I was very young, even before I could write or read, she always believed I would write a book. That was the thing you know. She always used to say to me, even as I can remember as far as being the age of 10, one day you're going to write. So she had something in her that she recognized in me before I even saw it. And my mother would always talk about compassion. And I used to get being young. You kind of roll your eyes, but I really understood the term compassion when I started to work with you, because I know that's one of your things you talk about a lot and that resonated with me when you used to talk about it. I used to think well, my mum used to talk about it. So along the way, I somehow joined those two dots together.

Sangeeta Waldron: 4:02

But she was herself very compassionate and she dedicated her life to serving others, and she was doing things in a government hospital in India which in the 90s was like a Victorian hospital the old cast iron beds, very dark, very dingy, not pleasant.

Sangeeta Waldron: 4:29

But she would go in and go and see all those patients and she would take me with her and at that time I was about 16, 17. And we would go around meeting all the patients, talking to them, finding out what they needed. And she didn't have, you know, pots of money, but she she had a pension and she would use that money to buy their medicines. And also in Indian hospitals you have to provide your own food. So she would cook the food that they needed to eat and I would go and deliver all these food packages. And we lived in the Himalayas. So it it wasn't, you know, a sort of a quick sprint on a bus or anything. You'd have to walk backwards and forwards a couple of miles. So she introduced me to lots of different things early on in my life and those experiences have shaped me. I've never forgotten them.

Malcolm Stern: 5:33

That's amazing, because I've been really impressed with your books and what you've come out with. You're tackling major subjects like climate change and well, tell us some of the other subjects that you're exploring in your writing. I know your latest book has been exploring world leaders, or exploring people who make a difference in the world yes.

Sangeeta Waldron: 6:00

So I think, with everything that's going on right now and we've had the um we're back with trump 2.0 um, I think the book is actually even more timely when we're talking about the climate crisis. Um, and this is one of our biggest challenges right now. For humanity, doesn't matter who you are, where you are, how rich you are. Um, as the la fires have shown us, when climate disasters strike, they knock at everyone's door, and I think we're also in this age of information overload. We also don't know what we're reading. Can we trust what we're reading?

Sangeeta Waldron: 6:42

So this book I've written to help inform people, to make their own choices and make their own decisions, but also to connect us with nature. Nature is so powerful, it's good for our well-being, and so I've taken different themes that we can all sort of relate to as people. So, from food to the ocean, to communities, to whether we are working as business leaders or whether we are employees in a company. So I've taken these different themes and explored them with the idea of the climate crisis and legacy, and it's a question I ask all the different people I interview in the book, which is 36 different kinds of global change makers what legacy do they want to leave, and what I've discovered is legacy is no longer what we should be thinking about when we're in our 50s, 60s and later parts of our years, but sadly, now our legacy begins right from the moment we can make informed decisions, because those choices we make have a long-term impact for the planet and for future generations so as young, as you know, as 14, 15, we need to be thinking about.

Sangeeta Waldron: 8:04

What are we choosing?

Malcolm Stern: 8:07

and you've become a passionate sort of advocate for the world and for for um our way forward as human beings, and you do get to introduce some very interesting people. You're also endorsed by some some quite powerful people as well. Your your latest book is called you can see it behind you on the shelf there yeah.

Sangeeta Waldron: 8:26

What will your legacy be? Conversations, yes, conversations with global change makers about the climate crisis and and what's what sort of you know led you to this passion.

Malcolm Stern: 8:38

So do you see that you have a? It's almost like you have a, some work to do in the world that you are going to take on with every ounce of your being.

Sangeeta Waldron: 8:48

I always have, malcolm. You know, when I was again, when I was growing up here in this country, I joined Greenpeace when they were looking for junior reporters at that time and I and I've always have, and I think and growing up in India, when I was in my teens, my mother introducing me to be a doer, you know, to try and change things, and I used to she used to send me, you know little errands to people's houses and she'd think I'd be back in a moment and then I'd be gone for two hours and she'd come and find me giving people lectures on how they needed to change their thinking on the environment with animals. So I think I've always been passionate about things and I've always wanted things to be fair in the world. But I think as I've got older, and I think as we get older, we somehow have more power, more wisdom, so we can put all those pieces together. They're kind of like a puzzle, aren't they?

Sangeeta Waldron: 9:54

And then they come together and then you feel you have your voice and you have a bit more wisdom to share with others.

Malcolm Stern: 10:04

I think that's right. I think we overlook the sort of the wisdom of the elders. I think we live in such a youth focused society and I know for myself now, as I'm reaching my mid 70s, that I feel which feels weird even to say that but I know that I feel like the gift that I've had from that is I've actually I've matured. That's going to say like a fine wine, but I feel like there's something in me that's actually sort of I'm no longer sort of hungry for the personal goals I had when.

Malcolm Stern: 10:33

I was younger, but I'm hungrier for the goals of humanity.

Malcolm Stern: 10:38

I'm hungrier to make a contribution towards whatever I can do with my life. Unfortunately, I have groups that do make a difference in people's lives, and your books are very much. They make a difference in people's lives and your books are very much. They make a difference in people's lives and I can see there's a real passion there. And also I'm very aware of your husband, steve, as well, who's also a passionate man, and I went into his organization, did a little bit of work for them at one point in time and I saw that the way he was looked up to and the fairness with which he operated and I think that's something I've seen in you and also in Steve, and also in your son Rory as well that there's a sense of fairness and decency that I think we're starting to role model what it is we want to see in life. And obviously that's help coming through your, your mum, um, and it's obviously help coming through your marriage and and what what's, where do your books go forward for? From from here?

Sangeeta Waldron: 11:41

that's a really good question, malcolm. I think I do believe books have their own energy and they will find their way. I mean, I think we're just the medium, aren't we? We are the mechanism, we write them and we kind of give birth to them. They're like children, I absolutely agree with that.

Malcolm Stern: 12:01

Yes.

Sangeeta Waldron: 12:01

And then they go off into the world and we will look out for them. We will do as much as we can, but I think they will find the right reader. I do, I really do believe that the right readers will find the book, um, and that book will mean something to someone in that moment. And books live forever. They don't. They have a, they have a, a journey, and so I feel I've done. I've done my best. You know, I've done my best writing this. It's taken me over a year and a half and I believe the book will find its own way and.

Sangeeta Waldron: 12:41

I will just keep nurturing it, looking out for it, um, but yes, that's, that's the relationship, so it's a. I'm not attached to it, if that makes sense.

Malcolm Stern: 12:55

No, no, it absolutely makes sense. I've read it and I see the passion with which you've written it as well, and the direction, and there's a sort of like a it's almost like a sort of a clarity that you have that this is the direction we're travelling, and then you get your, your points of view backed up by people who have real substance out in the world as well. How many have you written now?

Sangeeta Waldron: 13:17

how many. I always thought I might just write one, but this is my third book that's great.

Malcolm Stern: 13:22

That's great, and and obviously there's a passion for it as well, and your work has been very much about PR for a long time, and has this taken over from that, or is this in conjunction with that?

Sangeeta Waldron: 13:38

In conjunction, because I wrote this book while I was doing everything else, and so it's while I was working. While you're running the home, I was working while you're running the home.

Malcolm Stern: 13:56

So it had to fit in with my lifestyle and just day-to-day, because you don't write books for money. That's well, unless you're sort of Stephen King or sort of, um, exactly a major seller. But but there's something else and I, you know, I know, when I wrote my book um, my third book actually, slay your Dragons With Compassion um, I, I wrote my book, my third book actually Slay your Dragons With Compassion. I wrote it because my heart was begging for it to be written and it did feel like I gave birth to something and I'm really proud of that. It's almost like it feels like it came through me and I got out of the way and allowed the narrative to be what the narrative was meant to be, and I see something of that in the writing that you've done as well.

Sangeeta Waldron: 14:33

Exactly that process and I always remember, with my first book, a publisher approached me and said and I've always wanted to write, I've always wanted to write a book.

Sangeeta Waldron: 14:48

And they approached me in 2019 and said would you like to write this book for us? And I said no at that time. Very strangely, I said no because I just didn't think I was ready and then, two months later, I felt ready and then I emailed them and said look, I'm now, I feel ready to do it and I think books, you have to feel ready to write them.

Malcolm Stern: 15:12

That's really good, because I've tried. Since Slay your Dragons, I've tried to write a few other books. They're just not there.

Malcolm Stern: 15:19

And eventually I went actually, I think I'm much more interested in podcasts, which is what I'm doing now. So actually I'm doing what I enjoy doing in books, which is hearing people's stories and having those stories unravel some of the truths in the world. Now, you mentioned earlier that we are living through very troubled times and also where our planet is in. I don't know if the planet's in trouble, but I think we as a species are in some trouble and I wonder what your personal viewpoint is on where we are as humanity at this point in time it's a really good question and I think there are big challenges ahead for us with the climate crisis, with artificial intelligence, um, and just with the will of the world.

Sangeeta Waldron: 16:11

Right now, we are not cohesive as a species, we're not working together, um, as a species, we've are sabotaging ourselves and while we're doing that, we're also destroying the planet. I also read somewhere that and this was some research, and I read this research a couple of years ago that if the bees disappeared on this planet, we would not survive as a species. We would be. We would just die instantly. You know, it'd be a gradual process, but we wouldn't survive without the bees. If we disappeared as a species from this planet, everything else else would thrive, and that was it really resonated with me, and I think we've got big challenges, but I also believe there is hope, there is good in the world and what.

Sangeeta Waldron: 17:24

Through the process of writing this book and speaking to people, I felt inspired after every conversation, from the scientists to the business leaders, the political leaders. There is a will, there are people trying to find the solutions and the solutions are. There. Need to be better at joining the dots, working together and understanding that what's happening in China, if it's a climate disaster or whatever it might be, then it will impact us at some point. We are and I think that's one thing the pandemic has shown us we are interlinked. Yeah, we are. That's one thing the pandemic has shown us.

Sangeeta Waldron: 18:08

We are interlinked, yeah, we are interlinked and we can't be thinking in silos.

Malcolm Stern: 18:13

Yes, and I think that's very true. I was just wondering before, when you were talking about the various challenges that are facing humanity and you talked about artificial intelligence. I wonder whether you're on your next book. I'm just throwing you an idea because it came to me as you spoke. Might be about that, because I think there's so little understanding of that, and I think there's there's room for a compassionate sort of careful examination of the benefits and the challenges that are there, and and I think what I found about your your latest book was how readable it is. So, although you're tackling big subjects, it's not gobbledygook that you have to be a scientist to be able to read, and I'm just wondering about something like that that actually feels like you set up a call with your books for people to take note of what's happening.

Sangeeta Waldron: 19:03

Yes. So I mean that's a really good observation, because I don't do complicated and it has to be simple for me to understand. If I don't understand it, how would anyone else? You know my readers understand. First of all, and I think you're right, ai is so complex. It is giving us solutions to big medical issues that we've not conquered till now, and it holds some of the keys on that. We're using ai all the time through our phones, through through this, what we're doing right now, um, but I think where the dangers are is if the human in us is removed and that AI takes over, and if AI starts to do all our creative processes for us, I think we'll miss out. And also, what does that mean next for the generations that are coming? What jobs will they have? What place in society will they hold? So I think there is, I think we need. I think maybe what we should be talking about with ai and maybe that is another book is about ethical ai. How do we put the ethics into artificial intelligence? It's a complex subject.

Malcolm Stern: 20:34

Well, I think it's how we put the ethics back into life as well, because when we look at our leaders, you know the great leaders that have gone before and you see sort of you know people like Abraham Lincoln. Although he was a slaveholder, there was a lot of wisdom in our leaders. The Dalai Lama is a wise leader, and I'm just wondering about ethics. Ethics seem to have gone down the tubes to some degree in our world and it's quite hard to sustain an ethical stance in the face of so much sort of obfuscation around us as well.

Sangeeta Waldron: 21:07

Yes, I think that's been eroded. It is, and since the advent of social media, we've lost our own ethics. We've lost our own sense of humanity, of how we deal with people online or how we respond, react, and I think the summer riots of 2024 showed us how we respond and react and that we don't really have a lot of ethics.

Malcolm Stern: 21:41

There's sort of a sense of old fashioned thinking that we're in service to life and actually we come through to this life, we live our one wild and precious life and we give what we can to improve the condition in as small a way as we can or in as big a way as we can with who we are, to improve the conditions around us. And I think there's something that we've lost, which is around service. So I was listening to a podcast recently about great leaders and George Washington voluntarily surrendered his office as president after two terms, which has set the model for the American system that you haven't got a dictator, because he wasn't selfish, because he actually sort of said that's what it should be, that's the maximum it should be, and I think there is something about that. Where are those great leaders these days? Where are the great speakers these days? Even, where is the great music these days?

Sangeeta Waldron: 22:48

I agree, I mean. There's so many things I want to say on that. First of all, on, service was one of the biggest values my mother believed in. Serve all, love all you know. That was her motto. And I was thinking the other day where are all the big, great songwriters of our generation? I mean this contemporary now? There aren't many really, and I was thinking back to the 60s and 70s when we had great songwriters and you had Bob Dylan, you had Leonard Cohen yes yeah, you just had some of those greats and now you don't really have that.

Sangeeta Waldron: 23:36

And what's? Why is that? You know, and we have pop culture, but that's exactly what it is. That they are one minute wonders? They're not. I'm not sure whether there'll be lyrics that will endure for the next 30 years.

Malcolm Stern: 23:53

I'm pretty sure that won't yeah, so it's almost like the ways of bringing through wisdom through art have been extraordinary. When we look back, it looked like a great literature. I mean, I was highly influenced by the writings of Herman Hesse, for example, and Aldous Huxley and people who were visionaries and it's quite hard and you had visionary arts. You had people like Magritte and Dali, who were extraordinary artists as well, and then the visionary songwriters Dylan Lennon, mccartney, leonard Cohen all of those which were writing words that will actually live on. Sometimes I'll hear one of those songs and you can hear the beauty and the depth in it. But I'm wondering if we're becoming a more shallow world. We're becoming more sort of it's almost we're becoming more like robots. So we'll be. We're losing some of our humanity as we reach towards AI and we're losing some of our own humanity.

Sangeeta Waldron: 24:54

Yeah, and I explore that in the book. There's a chapter there on arts and music, and when we're connected, I mean this is what a lot of our indigenous communities, they built their stories around art, music, the sounds of nature we have. I don't think we spend enough time in nature, we don't appreciate the sounds of nature, and I think our experiences and nature inspire us to write those songs or write those words or whatever that piece of art might be. And I think that you know a lot of us now spend time indoors. We are either online streaming or, you know, young people are playing video game, whatever it might be. We're no longer sort of really experiencing the outside, and when we are outside, people are on their phones.

Sangeeta Waldron: 25:52

So, there is a disconnect and again, as we further our relationship with AI, that's going to be another disconnect, another challenge. So you're right. So where?

Malcolm Stern: 26:11

will all these moments of inspiration come from? And I think nature is absolutely it. I remember a few months ago and I was feeling quite down and I sort of just went out on my own. Luckily, I live quite near beautiful countryside. I went out on my own to this lovely walk, which is past streams and forests, and after a while I realized that I'd been uplifted. Nothing had happened other than I'd allowed myself to be immersed in nature, and I think the denaturing of our world is is a really sad state of affairs. As we get more material possessions now, we get less happiness and we get less satisfaction from who we are and what's around us as well oh, 100%.

Sangeeta Waldron: 26:53

You know, nature saved me. I always say nature saved me and when I was growing up in india um, I was 16 every day one thing I would do is just walk. So we lived in the himalayas, so I was very lucky I could literally walk out our door and walk out into the forest.

Sangeeta Waldron: 27:13

And I would go for that walk every day because that walk would save me it would just um, it's where I felt my best and you didn't have to do anything, you just walked and um, some of your best thinking is when you're walking anyway. But now what I've started to do and since the I guess that's one of the positives for me since the pandemic is during the pandemic you're allowed your one hour outside, and I continue that. So every day I make sure I just go for a walk just to connect with nature. You don't get flashes of, I don't know, you're not touched by anything, but I think it does touch you somewhere within your soul. You feel that connection. It's just good for you.

Malcolm Stern: 28:06

I think it's true, and I'm just thinking about I was thinking about your son and my son and my daughter as well and, um, and thinking of the, the next generation coming through, are very different to us in many ways. I mean, your son feels like he's he must be about 18 now, something like that.

Sangeeta Waldron: 28:21

Oh my God, he's going to be 18 next month.

Malcolm Stern: 28:26

And it feels like he's 18 going on 80. When I've spoken to Rory I've sort of felt this immense wisdom. It's almost like they're born with, with some wisdom, and my hope is that that actually the next generation will actually be the salvation of of us as human beings. It would be such a shame for all of this extraordinariness that we've managed to create as human beings to come to nothing and, as you say, if we disappeared off the planet, the planet would be would do very well without us. We're like a dangerous parasite right now.

Sangeeta Waldron: 28:59

Yeah, we are almost like dinosaurs, I think. But yes, I do think when I see Rory and I see his generation and his friends. They think differently, they do differently. They've also grown up with technology being part of their lives um and I think they have some.

Sangeeta Waldron: 29:22

Some of them have a better understanding than us. Um, and rory is very wise. You know he he doesn't post on social media and he'll say to me, why are you posting all the time? And he's got a very different outlook. So, yes, he is sort of 18 going on 80. And um, but I try to see the world through his eyes as well, so I know how maybe I can make things a little bit better or leave things a little bit better in how I found them.

Malcolm Stern: 30:02

I think I was just thinking I was struck when we met that you were chair of Alternatives, which I was obviously a founder of and also a trustee of, and there was something about you that was utterly this is meant in a good way this word is normally so badly ruthless about making sure that it wasn't going to just dribble away and fall apart that actually you did everything you needed to do to pull it back on track when it was sort of had lost touch with something, and I think you have that immense capacity within organisations I don't know if that's also what you're doing with your work to help things turn around, to take difficult decisions, to have clarity of thinking.

Sangeeta Waldron: 30:49

Let me start by saying I always, always loved alternatives. Before I even met you, I I was a big and I still am a big lover, big supporter of alternatives. So being on that board was a huge privilege for me, it was an honor and I held it very, you know, with great sort of value and I wanted to do the right thing. But I think it goes back to what I said originally, which is about just things being fair, and I wanted to do the right thing for the organisation and I could see lots of things needed tying up, dusting down and just being put back in order, and you can't do that, um, trying to please people, because then you're, it just won't work.

Sangeeta Waldron: 31:41

And so, yes, they were tough decisions, but I, I knew what I had to do, it had to be right and I think that's and one thing you, after that whole process, you said to me, and it really stayed with me and I'd never sort of thought of it before or recognized it in myself before. But and it's while you say the word ruthless you said to me you have a lot of integrity and that meant a lot to me because, yes, I, that's a principle I like to hold myself to is that I will always do the right thing. As much as you know I can, I will make the right choices for myself, my family, my community, my clients.

Malcolm Stern: 32:30

Um, so yes, that it was a bit like being Solomon, you know, with the sword you had to just cut through yes, yeah, and be fair, and I think that that word integrity is really that's a really important word if we are to survive as a species. I think that that there's the necessity to have for us to find integrity, to not have weasel words, but to actually to care, to be in service to to life, to help life evolve into the direction it is taking us, whether we like it or not it's.

Sangeeta Waldron: 33:07

You know, there's a lot that's happening beyond our ken as well it's not always easy, and it's hard yeah, but I always remember, um, when I was working in south africa, when the uh, when a cop used to be called the earth summit, which was round in the 2000s, I was in South Africa and I had the privilege to work with shamans. And I asked this shaman what piece of advice would he give me going forward in life? And I must have been in my, in my 30s. And he said to me always stand in your truth. He said it's very hard to stand in your truth, but if you can do that, you'll always be, you know, on the right path. And I took that literally. So I've always tried to stand in my truth.

Malcolm Stern: 34:00

And you're right. You're trying because it's a practice, and I think we are undergoing a series of practices to become better humans. That's what I see things happening. Yeah, we're coming close. Nothing is perfect either. Nothing is perfect exactly, nor was it ever meant to be, but we are in an extraordinary university of life somewhere here on planet Earth. I'm not quite sure where we've come from or where we're going, but I know that I would like to or how we graduate.

Malcolm Stern: 34:29

Or how we graduate exactly exactly. So we're coming close. I know that I would like or how we graduate, or how we graduate exactly exactly, um, so we're coming close to the end of our podcast. I mean, I could talk to you for hours and we often have we do, we'll have lunch sometime, but, um, um, but we're coming close to, and I always ask the same question at the end, which is and I like to come spontaneously as well which is what's the particular dragon you've had to slay, what's the challenge you've had to overcome to most be who you are?

Sangeeta Waldron: 34:53

Well, I think there are many dragons I've had to slay and in this moment I would say my. Sometimes I'm filled with self-doubt, even though I feel my purpose and I want to speak my truth, you do feel. I have felt at times my own self-doubt. Am I good enough? You know that imposter syndrome. Am I good enough? Yeah, just, am I good enough?

Malcolm Stern: 35:26

which, by the way, I think is very healthy. And I noticed, with alternatives, when we had speakers who seemed to know all the answers. I wasn't really interested in what they had to say because they already had their set thing, they weren't being affected by the interactions. And I think that self-examination, that self-question, not sort of self-deprecation to the level where we don't do anything because we don't believe in ourselves, but I think the constant recognition that actually we are being called to be bigger than we are and and as I say, as I said to you then, and I say to you now I think integrity runs through your DNA.

Sangeeta Waldron: 36:02

Oh, thank you. Yeah, you've given me lots of amazing terms that um and I have. You called me, um, an earth warrior the other day. Or you said in one of your emails, a warrior and I, and that really struck a chord with me and I thought I'm going to start to own that I want to be a warrior. I'm, I'm, I'm the biggest chicken going, but I thought I really want to earn warrior and I'm going to step up and be a warrior. So thank you for recognizing that fantastic, that's great lovely.

Malcolm Stern: 36:37

Thank you so much. Thank you. It's been lovely dialoguing with you and we will catch up soon as well. It'll be great.

Sangeeta Waldron: 36:43

I'm looking forward to it.