The TED Interview
Exercising your generosity like a muscle with John M. Sweeney
May 9, 2024
[00:00:00] Chris Anderson:
Hello everyone. As I think you know by now, this series is trying to find great examples of how infectious generosity can work, how it can spark ripple effects, and how it can begin with anyone. I've come to believe that this is the most essential idea we're spreading. So much so that I've spent the last three years writing a book about it, books called Infectious Generosity, and thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor, I'm excited to be able to offer it to listeners to The TED interview.
The book will deepen your engagement with this podcast. You can get it either as Ebook or audiobook by heading over to ted.com/generosity now that onto today's guest, someone whose life was profoundly impacted by the discovery of an age old tradition rooted in generosity. John Sweeney is the visionary behind the suspended coffees movement, which has spread kindness among strangers around the world.
And remarkably, he felt moved to spread kindness despite, or maybe even partly because of experiencing cruelty in his youth. I can't wait to introduce you to him.
John, welcome to The TED Interview.
[00:01:30] John Sweeney:
Thank you, Chris. Hi everyone.
[00:01:32] Chris Anderson:
So John, I think we should go back and hear a story of your childhood. 'cause I think it, it, it informs a lot of what's to come. Tell us where you grow up and what it was like.
[00:01:43] John Sweeney:
So I grew up in a little village in Ireland. Very small, very enclosed.
Came from a working class background. My mom was local bus driver. My dad was, was a laborer for a builder. And yeah, I went to the local school and basically for the first part of my young life, I discovered the opposite kindness. I discovered meanness. Bullying, the hard trauma, all of these things. And that stems from, I think my first real memory of it was from being about 8, 8, 9 years of age in inside, in class.
And just, I remember I started to kind of get in trouble. I'd moved into this new teacher's class, she was the vice principal. And I just remember the feeling, do you know the feeling when somebody doesn't like you? And pretty quickly that kind of turned to to violence. Really.
[00:02:29] Chris Anderson:
To violence.
[00:02:20] John Sweeney:
Yeah.
[00:02:31] Chris Anderson:
So she saw you as, as just badly behaved or something?
Or what? What was underlying this?
[00:02:37] John Sweeney:
Honestly, my ADHD just wanted me to be liked, wanted me to talk to people, and I think from a young age, that's what I wanted to do. So it got me, I suppose, singled out maybe for the want of a better description. I think the first real memory I have of, of her actually really physically hurting me was when a a, a pencil my classmate had lost and they had none.
We were supposed to write something down, so I, I literally gave one, I had a spare one in my bag. I gave a, I'm pretty sure it was a pencil to the girl sitting next to me and she saw it and she came down and she just started shouting all these things. I don't remember what she said, but I just remember the feeling of being hit and, and just like, it was almost like I was almost like I wasn't there. I didn't feel it.
[00:03:17] Chris Anderson:
So Right. You, you were right there in the classroom and she was watching.
[00:03:19] John Sweeney:
I was, I was right there in classroom in front of everyone. Yeah.
[00:03:21] Chris Anderson:
And she injured you.
[00:03:22] John Sweeney:
Yeah. So when I went home that evening, I, you know, I explained to my mom and dad, look, this happened.
And my dad wouldn't really been overly in tune with his emotions. So he didn't, I don't remember him saying whole pile. My mom was just like, look, John, you know, it's okay. Hopefully it won't happen again. Back then, you, you wouldn't speak up to a teacher or you wouldn't, you wouldn't kind of go in and approach them over something like this.
So I think really my mom was quite afraid. She just said, look, hopefully it was a once off and, and it won't happen again. And unfortunately it did happen many more times. In In.
[00:03:53] Chris Anderson:
With the same teacher?
[00:03:53] John Sweeney:
Yeah. With the same teacher.
[00:03:54] Chris Anderson:
Wow.
And it got, it got worse in a way. I mean, you know, I've been interested in infectious generosity, but I.
Lots of things can go infectious in a social species like humans. You started to suffer from other people at that school.
[00:04:06] John Sweeney:
Yeah, yeah. But when I went into, say, fifth and sixth class, which would've been her husband, he would've started to do the same thing to me. I went home one day with a black guy, he punched me into the face.
So unfortunately at this point I was in fifth class and other kids kind of, I think they realized, you know, that this fella can be a target. And I just started to be picked on and name called and all this. And whatever. And then on one particular occasion there was, I think there was two or three of 'em held my hands behind my back while one of 'em punched me into the throat.
I got an asthma attack, got rushed home.
[00:04:38] Chris Anderson:
It's, it's so, it's so shocking. Like it just seems so bizarre.
[00:04:41] John Sweeney:
Yeah. My mom was like, do you know what? That's it. You're not going back to school. But I remember local parish priest just saying to me, John, are you okay? Like, this isn't right. Like, and honestly, Chris, I think apart and my family, he was the only.
Other person, whoever told me that it was wrong and that I was a good person and I deserve justice. And he said something needs to be done. So he said to my mother, go speak to the solicitor. And we bought a legal case against the school word got out then that we were suing the school. So it was small little village.
Pretty much everyone said we were bringing great shame and the village that we were disgrace that you know, what we were doing was just for money. I was completely ostracized by my peers, by even my own family. Remember going. In a car wants to match. And my friend's parents like said something to him and he said, look John, you can't come with us.
They said that if we crash you'd sue them. So that went on for for years and I just remember feeling so excluded. So on the day that the court case actually happened. The evidence was, was so overwhelmingly in our favor about that, you know, there was lack of supervision and that I was bullied in the school or negligent first person in the history of the Irish State to win a, a court case against the Department of Education.
We, we won.
[00:05:45] Chris Anderson:
Wow. Wow.
[00:05:45] John Sweeney:
And look, there was a settlement made. It was the only little bit of justice I ever got. But again, it came at a huge cost. I was, I was ostracized. Nobody would speak to me. So I quickly realized school wasn't for me. I wanted to get outta there.
[00:05:57] Chris Anderson:
So you left school and. Became a plumber, I think.
[00:06:01] John Sweeney:
Yeah.
[00:06:01] Chris Anderson:
Talk to us about that.
[00:06:02] John Sweeney:
I went and I thought, it'll make you happy. You live happily ever after. Stick with it. And I thought all my dreams have come true if I become a plumber, but I, unfortunately, it became a really bad one, so I just, I did for years flooded so many people's houses, lost more money than I made, but people liked me, so they never sued me.
Uh, it was pretty much the gist of it. I knew I hated it. Like it was, it wasn't for me at all. It was great with people, and I wasn't good with, with, with tools and.
[00:06:27] Chris Anderson:
So tell us what happened, I guess about just over 10 years ago.
[00:06:30] John Sweeney:
Yeah.
[00:06:30] Chris Anderson:
Yeah.
[00:06:31] John Sweeney:
So I was at a point in my life where the plumbing was kind of gone.
I was actually unemployed at the time and I was quite stressed about it and going through a difficult enough time, young kids struggling to feed them, struggling pay the bills, and I lied awake many a night, and on one particular night it was three o'clock in the morning. And I remember reading a story about this old tradition that originated out of Naples in Italy.
Uh, Caffè sospeso, sorry, excuse my pronunciation. Um, and yeah, I thought it was the most incredible story I ever heard in my life.
[00:06:58] Chris Anderson:
And what was that tradition?
[00:06:59] John Sweeney:
Just basically you could buy a coffee for somebody as a gesture of kindness and leave it in the cafe. And they could go and redeem it. It could be for anyone.
And just basically it was like giving a coffee to someone without any expectation of empty and return. I was like, yeah, I'll have some of that. Uh, I loved it. And um, I just remember it was like three o'clock in the morning and I was like, oh my God, this is incredible. Like, I have to, I have to do something.
I have to literally do something about this. So I did what any normal human being would do. A three o'clock in the morning, I got up and I set up a Facebook page.
[00:07:28] Chris Anderson:
And so what was the Facebook page?
[00:07:29] John Sweeney:
Uh, Suspended Coffees. So the idea was I'd get a few people to like it and maybe get a cafe or two onboard.
That was my grand plan. My grand vision just started messaging loads of big pages on Facebook and stuff. And I was like, hey, do you know I'm just this guy from Cork, but I heard about this movement and here's the story I read about it. Do you know it's incredible. I've set up a Facebook page with a goal of getting people to like it and getting cafes involved.
Will you spread the word? And some big pages, actually, some really big pages shared it. And I think I went to bed that night. I woke up the next morning. There was maybe 60,000 people had liked the page.
[00:08:03] Chris Anderson:
So how astonishing did that feel? I mean, most of us, I guess, are on some form of social media. Most of us spend a lot of time with interacting with a few dozen people.
Maybe suddenly this happens. What's going on in your head?
[00:08:17] John Sweeney:
It really felt like that I created this community that, you know, this. I'd always dreamed of being a part of, people were kind, they wanted to listen to me, and they wanted to do good in the world.
[00:08:27] Chris Anderson:
So that's a lot of people were they messaging in and
[00:08:29] John Sweeney:
Oh my.
[00:08:29] Chris Anderson:
Giving suggestions on, on what to do and how to do this, et cetera?
[00:08:32] John Sweeney:
Yeah, like the first few weeks, there was thousands, thousands of messages. I was completely overwhelmed, completely outta my depth. There was huge media attention as well at the time. Absolutely worked. There would've been people messaging me saying like, Hey, I, I got a suspended coffee. I've been very cynical.
I'm not a nice person. But it's made this weird feeling within me that I can't explain what do I do now? And I'm like.
[00:08:54] Chris Anderson:
Oh, so you got messages from the recipients of the coffee?
[00:08:56] John Sweeney:
Oh yeah. Everyone, I got 'em from everyone. But a lot of 'em was from people who, who received the coffee
[00:09:01] Chris Anderson:
And so, so literally the gift of one cup of coffee.
Was an anti cynicism. Antied out.
[00:09:07] John Sweeney:
Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:08] Chris Anderson:
As it were.
[00:09:08] John Sweeney:
Yeah, absolutely. It was spreading just all over the world and there was little pop-up things coming and just for the first time in my life I saw that there was a real, a real community of people who believed in the power of kindness. And when you see some of the stories when they went viral.
Honestly Chris, it was like, oh my god, you know, people are good, they're just stressed and you know, the world is tough, but like inherently they, they want kindness and they wanna give and receive it.
[00:09:31] Chris Anderson:
Tell, tell us another couple of those stories.
[00:09:34] John Sweeney:
Yeah, so, oh my God, there was so many, but I remember this, this one guy barista from, I think it was Australia, got in touch with me and he said, you know, just like when he was very kind of skeptical person or whatever, but some guy kind of come in one day and he said, look, do you know.
Can I get a coffee? And he was like, oh, I haven't got, you know, money on me, you know, my wallet, blah, blah, blah. He had a big, big kind of story, man was like, he'd heard about Spending Coffees and he wasn't doing it at the time, but he was like, there you go, there's a cup of coffee. Do you know? And you man said, look, I'll pay you back.
Thanks so much. He was there. No, just pay it forward. And the cafe was actually quiet at the time, so he ended up sitting down with him and it turns out that the, the gentleman was actually quite a well-to-do gentleman, but he'd went home early from work and he, and he saw that his wife was cheating on him.
And he'd said to the barista like that, you know, he thought his world was over, that he didn't even know if his life was worth living. Like he didn't know what he was gonna do. And the barista just sat and talked to him like, and just listened. He didn't give him any advice or anything, but he just listened.
And the guy said, look, do you know, thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me. And, um, he went away about his day and obviously the barista felt great, you know, 'cause he was there for someone in their hour of need. And he was thinking like, you know, people say don't give it to the well to do because they'll never give it back.
And, but he was like, you know. I, I did the right thing. I shared kindness and I think it was a couple of weeks later, there was a check came in, a post from, from this gentleman for a thousand dollars and he said, give them to whoever you think deserves them. And he literally gave a thousand dollars to the cafe and just it, it rippled out in so many other different ways as a result of that.
[00:11:06] Chris Anderson:
So it's interesting. So it's, it's really not the financial value of the coffee so much as just the feeling that. There's a human connection.
[00:11:47] John Sweeney:
Yeah.
[00:11:15] Chris Anderson:
The way, if I understand it works in most cafes is people just can pay. For an extra coffee and they'll, they'll keep a record of that.
[00:11:24] John Sweeney:
Yeah.
[00:11:24] Chris Anderson:
And it's given out either what at random to someone else, or if someone asks for it or there's no set way in which the coffee is actually received.
Some people might think that it's a sort of, it's a. Cheap way of satisfying your generosity, conscience. You know, you're not actually engaging with anyone as the giver. You are just there at the till and you just double the amount. And for, for a lot of the people who do that, that's easy to do. And, and there's no personal connection.
And yet you've seen beautiful, personal connections come out of it. What would you say about people on the giving side? Is there any merit to that criticism of you're just, you know, writing a check rather than really doing the generous thing? The more generous thing would be to sit and talk with someone and offer someone individually a coffee.
[00:12:11] John Sweeney:
Yeah. And look, that's not realistic for people sometimes, but, but what I would say about why anyone should do it is like you're literally exercising the most important muscle in your body, which is your kindness and your generosity muscle. And I think once you start to do things selflessly without any expectation of, of reward or, or return, honestly, that becomes slightly addictive.
Like I would say absolutely do it. Like there's no gesture too small.
[00:12:36] Chris Anderson:
So you talk about exercising the muscle, and I think this is a deep truth, that generosity is like a muscle. The more you do it, that muscle strengthens.
[00:12:43] John Sweeney:
Absolutely.
[00:12:43] Chris Anderson:
But there's almost, there's two aspects to that. One is that just the act of giving itself just becomes more of a habit, if you like.
The other is that you notice. A sort of a little glow, a little hit of dopamine or whatever it is that just makes you feel, oh, I, I like this feeling.
[00:13:00] John Sweeney:
Look like we're in a world where you don't want to always feel great about yourself, where you don't always feel wonderful, and if, if you can do this one little thing, it's something that.
I think the more you practice, the more you, you start to receive and, and benefit.
[00:13:12] Chris Anderson:
Well, it certainly seems like this experience of setting this up had a, an effect on you.
[00:13:16] John Sweeney:
So, yeah. On one particular occasion at this point, there was a strong association with people living in the street. People experience homelessness with Suspended Coffees.
And my thing was like, yeah, absolutely they can benefit from it, but do you know, it's not just for people living on the street. So I would've had a local cafe in Cork who rather than give you outspend the coffees, they collected loads of money and they would've given it to local, uh. Homeless shelter and stuff.
And it was close enough to Christmas, and I remember walking through Clark City and I saw this, this young lady sitting on the ground. She looked cold, she looked lonely, she looked sick. My wife's brother's partner had died from cancer just a couple weeks beforehand. And it just reminded me so much of her and I just remember thinking like, oh my God, is she okay?
So I went over and I just said, hey, are you all right? Can she kind of just looked up at me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, look, can I get you something to eat, something to drink? Is there anything I can do? And she was like, oh, I'd love something to eat or something warm to drink. So I went and I got her something to eat and I got her a warm drink and I gave it to her and she was her look, thanks so much.
And I said, look, can, can I sit down with you? Can I sit down next to you? And she looked really shocked. And um, she was very, I'd love that. And I sat down and look, I said, look. I don't know your story. Do, do you wanna share a little bit with me? And she told me her name. Said, look, I'm living in the streets last couple of months.
But she was struggling to get access to medication. She wasn't from Ireland originally. She fell in really hard times. She had three kids and she was telling me a story about them, about how they were living in care and that they were crying every day because obviously their mom wasn't there, but also because they didn't think Santa Claus was gonna find him that Christmas. And, um, said that felt like her biggest failure as, as a human being. That, you know, she took the magic of Christmas for her kids. And I said, look, you didn't take that away from them. You obviously fell in hard times. I didn't want to know any of the story. It wasn't my business of of what happened.
I just wanted her to know that I was kind of there for her. And, and I said, look, I have no idea what tomorrow's gonna bring, but I see you. And I said, you're a person of value. And I said that to her because she had told me that like, just people walk past. I said, does anyone notice you? And she was there.
No, nobody knows. You only if they want to look at me with disrespect, but nobody ever talks. I said, well, you met the right person today. I said, I love talking. She literally cried. She hugged me, I gave her a kiss in the cheek and she just kept saying thank you. And honestly, I left her. I felt like the biggest fraud in the world.
Like, 'cause I couldn't help her. Like I told the story to my kids and um, I just explained to them that like, do you know. It's important to be kind to people. It's important to see people and to tell people about it. And as I said, like my kids back then loved me,
[00:15:39] Chris Anderson:
Wait, wait, wait.
[00:15:39] John Sweeney:
Thought I was the coolest dad in the world.
[00:15:40] Chris Anderson:
Your kids back then loved you.
[00:15:42] John Sweeney:
Yeah, they still love me. They don't think I'm so cool anymore. Really.
[00:15:46] Chris Anderson:
Okay. We need to work on that John. Okay go on.
[00:15:48] John Sweeney:
I’m joking, joking. They're good. They're good. But, uh, like, and I told him the story and I saw that, you know, they really got the message. So my oldest boy at the time, Josh, he would've went and told his best friend Isaac, my dad did this in Cork.
And, and his mom was somebody who was, who was a good friend of ours. And she would've came around and said, John, what story? Tell me what happened. And I told her the story and, and that was it. I explained where the lady kind of was, and this was maybe a week or two before Christmas Day. And Imelda went up to Cork with her son Isaac, and they were shopping and Isaac had brought money to buy presents for his friends and and family. And they came across this young lady and Imelda went up to and said, look, do you know, can I buy you a drink? Can I buy you some food? And Isaac was like, have you kids? And she was there. Yeah, I have three kids. It's two, three and, and five or whatever it was at the time.
And they left to go get the food and Isaac turned his mom. He said, ma'am, that's John's friend. And I was like, yeah, I really think it is. And nah. Isaac goes, look, I have 50 euros. I wanna buy that lady's kids, um, Christmas present, 'cause I want Santa Claus to come to them. And Isaac Quinton, he bought age appropriate gifts for the young lady's kids, got them all wrapped up and everything.
And Mel got the food. They came back to, the lady, gave her the food and the drink. And then Isaac said, I want to give these to your kids and just tell them it's from Santa Claus. And the lady cried. She cried her eyes out and Melissa said it was the biggest experience of gratitude that she'd ever seen in her life.
And I said, you. If nobody hears about this, who's gonna be inspired to do anything? So I shared about it on social media. A story went super viral. All the radio stations picked it up. All the national media show about this boy, this young boy who wanted to share the gift of Christmas with a stranger's kids, and so many amazing things happened from us.
There was groups, farms where people went out to feed people living in the streets. There was people who went out and brought clothes and kept them to people on the streets, and it was the first real big media push from a positive light of people who are less fortunate, perhaps In Cork, that I, I ever remember, and everybody wanted to talk about it.
And I think that Christmas, I don't know the amount of acts of kindness and generosity that happened as a result of just me telling that story were incredible.
[00:17:55] Chris Anderson:
I mean, talk about infectious generosity. It's so wild that an experience that just starts with a man looking at a woman who's in trouble and in need and deciding not to walk on by and just to actually have a conversation to see her.
You gave her a great gift. Your son's friend gave her kids an even greater gift. She gave us all a gift by the fact that she told her story and that these ripples started to happen. People are skeptical who I speak to sometimes. That is it really right to tell these stories? If most people go around thinking the world is ugly and getting uglier.
Whereas if you read a story like this, you know, it may be just changes a bit how you think about other humans. What, why does that matter?
[00:18:46] John Sweeney:
I think personally it, it matters because there's so much negativity and there's so much unkindness in the world, right? And nobody's afraid to tell you about that. But if we start spreading this message, it'll ripple out in so many different ways.
Like the amount of people, Chris, who've messaged me from. Let's say India, for example. There was a lady got in touch with me a couple of months ago who said she watched my TEDx Talk. She set up a whole charity and foundation dedicated to kindness in, in India that, you know, supports people. There's people who might die on on the roadways in India.
Nobody claims the bodies and a charity was set up. Where a guy collects the people, buries them, gives them a respectful burial because he wants them to have that. And she's like, your story has spread this far. And it, it's such a simple thing, kindness. It's something that can change entire communities all over the world.
And like, who wouldn't want to live in a world that's, you know, a little bit kinder?
[00:19:53] Chris Anderson:
It is so interesting with ripple effects. I mean, you never know in advance what the ripple effect will be. When you gave that TEDx Talk, by the way, just Google, John Sweeney TEDx Talk, it's so worth watching. You didn't go into that thinking, oh, I'm going to, change something in India, but people are inspired by other people's kindness, ripple spread and the fact that it can spread across the planet.
This is the thing that, and because we're connected, it so changes the possibilities and therefore the obligations, like we have to do what we can to share stories like this because you never know. You never know what little butterfly flap will end up causing a hurricane. Suspended Coffees itself. What kind of scale did that get to in the end. 'cause you actually set up a, like a charity to
[00:20:36] John Sweeney:
No, no. It was kept completely a social movement. No, never set it up as, as an actual charitable organization. I wanted it to be about kindness. No strings attached.
[00:20:44] Chris Anderson:
You you just wanted to make it easy for cafes to adopt this idea.
[00:20:48] John Sweeney:
Yeah, it, it was actually a TED Talk that really inspired me to not make it a charity. I think it was Dan Pal.
[00:20:53] Chris Anderson:
Dan Pallotta.
[00:20:54] John Sweeney:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry if I pronounce his name wrong. I watched his talk about the way we think about charity is dead wrong and it kind of inspired me that like this was something bigger, that it needed to be a movement.
And even though maybe, look, I had know, I'd no background in in anything. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but I think what I knew was that if it was a movement, people would support it a bit more and they would want to get involved more. And there was no strings attached. So like we gave everything to the cafes for free, all the literature, all the decals, any support they wanted to give it all to them. And just the only rule that I kind of had was that you had to give it to anyone who, who asked for it or give it out randomly. Some cafes had little marbles, little boards. Um, there was a guy in Philly ended up doing Suspended Pizzas and there was just so many amazing cool things happened as, as a result of it.
[00:21:47] Chris Anderson:
So several thousand cafes in the end?
[00:21:43] John Sweeney:
Yeah, so we had over 2000 cafes in 54 different countries. We did a big research piece as well where I think it was a couple of million coffees suspended from ju, just the cafes that we were dealing with directly. And honestly, Chris, there was probably. 15, 20,000 cafes doing it.
They didn't have to be part of our movement to do it.
[00:22:00] Chris Anderson:
Right. They could just do it.
[00:22:01] John Sweeney:
Yeah. They could download stuff off the website. We never even know. Do you know? I was happy to, to gift that.
[00:22:06] Chris Anderson:
And now the pandemic made lots of things hard in including people gathering in cafes, et cetera. And um, so when I think after the surge of growth from what you were telling me, it's, you know, things have flattened out now.
It's not, you're not betting your whole future on the continued growth of this one movement. What, what are you passionate about now, John, and what future do you see for Suspended Coffees, and then what else are you working on and thinking about?
[00:22:30] John Sweeney:
Yeah, so with Suspended Coffees even now, like there's no real push behind Covid really.
You know, the interaction with the cafe, you know, it was, it was very difficult. So I am very passionate about spreading the word about kindness and even going out myself and, and doing kind acts and, and seeing if it can inspire people, whether it's working with communities or businesses or whomever, but.
During kind of the pandemic, I set up another group on Facebook called Human Kind Acts of Kindness, and I asked people to share their stories about acts of kindness, because I said, if you tell the stories of acts of kindness, more and more people are going to be inspired to be kind. I think over the pandemic that grew to like maybe over 300,000 people.
[00:23:07] Chris Anderson:
Wow.
[00:23:08] John Sweeney:
And just.
[00:23:09] Chris Anderson:
It's almost like a sister page to the Kindness Pandemic.
[00:23:13] John Sweeney:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:23:14] Chris Anderson:
Catherine Barrett set up. Yeah. Interesting.
[00:23:16] John Sweeney:
Yeah, and I realized that Suspended Coffees was great and was wonderful, and it had a huge impact. Realized it wasn't exactly, maybe Suspended Coffees is what was great.
It was the act of kindness.
[00:23:27] Chris Anderson:
You were involved in an experiment on Guernsey a few years ago. Tell me what happened there.
[00:23:31] John Sweeney:
That was absolutely cool. That's where I did my TEDx Talk. And Mark Quinn, the guy who put together a whole event, he invited myself and Orly Wahba over and Orly Wahba, as some of you may know, has a whole kindness movement called Life Vest Inside, but she also created.
[00:23:44] Chris Anderson:
Life Vest Inside.
[00:23:49] John Sweeney:
Yeah, an incredible, um, video called Kindness Boomerang. And it was about how one act of kindness can lead to another. So. Mark if I did a sport over during a big TEDx event and TEDx youth event, and he said, look, John, there's no grand plan here. I just wanna make kindness and generosity go viral. But then he said, look, I'm sending out 60,000 kindness cards to every home in the island, Gorny, small island.
So it was the perfect place to do, uh, a social experiment. And he said. It's hitting their house on this date. Now I want you to put it in action.
[00:24:17] Chris Anderson:
What, what, what were these cards?
[00:23:19] John Sweeney:
Ju Just literally a card that said something about like, you know, we're doing the world's boldness, kindness experiment. Do a random act of kindness or pay it forward.
It was effectively that, and there was a whole. Booklet of cards and Joe went in everybody's post box. You could tear off a card and give it to someone with an act of kindness or generosity. It was kind of a way to measure to see if we had an impact. And I went into a supermarket and Mark gave me some money.
He said, look, Joe, buy whatever you think you need. I bought loads of chocolates. I bought flowers. I went outside the supermarket and I started giving chocolates to people. I started giving flowers. Put things on people's windscreens in their cars. Then we got in the car and I said to Mark, you, let's, let's do a little bit of drive by kindness.
And at this point you, we had a Facebook group which was starting to kind of talk about who's after leaving this in my car. Somebody left this in my car. This Irish guy approached me and gave me flowers and like card saying, I, Matt, or like, what's going on? And we were reading it while we were going along and Mark was driving.
I was like, Mark. Stop. And I'd hand out flowers and I'd say, do you know, have a wonderful day, or, or, I was giving kind of gifts to people and was calling it Joy by Kindness. It was brilliant. It was great crack. And um, in Renee, we got pulled over by the, by the police in, uh, in Guernsey. And you're there. Oh, so this is the Irish guy that we're getting reports of that you're going around the place.
Annoying people and upsetting 'em and all. I said, oh no, I'm in trouble here. He was I’m only joking, mate. You could just see he, he loved it, like, and it started to spread just chatter on the group. It spread like wildfire.
[00:25:46] Chris Anderson:
To what extent can we picture a future where a gift economy starts to take over a little bit more?
Can you picture what it might take for something like this to. Gain further traction. What's, what's the key here? Is it just for more people to try it or for more people to discover that there really are beautiful ripple effects that can happen?
[00:26:06] John Sweeney:
Yeah. It reminds me of a person who shared an act of kindness with me.
Sadly, he's, he's not around anymore, but Darren Robson was a guy who got in touch with me at the early stages, and he said to me, John. You're a pioneer of the gifting economy. And I remember like after I, he left, I remember googling what's pioneer? What's a gifting economy? And I was like, this is mad. But he flew me over to, to London, right?
Gifted me a coaching accreditation. Right. Took a couple of weeks or whatever. I remember like the day that I passed my coaching qualification, I was on the 16th floor of Citibank. It was the first time in my life that somebody really showed me, they believed in me, flew me over, let me stay in his house.
And I remember when I got that piece of paper to say, John, you've qualified. I remember, because I never qualified in anything in my life. I remember I cried my eyes out, Chris, like, I mean, I bawled like a baby. And I remember just thinking like, this is a gifting economy. He's gifted this to me. So now it's up to me to go and to ripple out exactly what he's done to believe in me and to do that with others.
But I think. Creating an economy where like people give to others with no expectation of anything, but because they believe in humanity and they believe in people. That's the world you want to be a part of, and I think it could be the most valuable or the most beneficial economy that we could ever actually have or ever create.
[00:27:26] Chris Anderson:
So you are continuing on this journey, however best you can, how can people stay in touch with you, John, and, and be part of this journey?
[00:27:34] John Sweeney:
Yeah, just, um, find me on Twitter and on LinkedIn or, or on Facebook, uh, John M. Sweeney. Just obviously look, I can be emailed as well. You'll find me through, through any of those things.
[00:27:45] Chris Anderson:
For a guy who's told. You weren't academic material and couldn't go to college. I think you have just finished a college course. Have you?
[00:27:51] John Sweeney:
Very close it. So I, I was told I was, I was tech stupid. I'd never amount to anything my whole life. And, uh, so I, I went back to university at University College Cork and I did a one year just sort on on mental health in the community.
And now I'm about to complete a two year diploma in youth and community and, uh, yeah, I've got a higher merit in in all my assignments. Um, my lecturers love me. Uh, my classmates seem to love me, which is a completely different experience from my childhood.
[00:28:17] Chris Anderson:
I mean, look, if the world was looking for someone qualified to talk about youth and community, it's hard to imagine someone more qualified than you by Sure. Some book learning, but your life, John, your life, amazing. It's really a delight and honor to have you on this podcast and to have got to write about you in the book. Thank you so much, John Sweeney.
[00:28:38] John Sweeney:
Pleasure as mine. Thank you, Chris.
[00:28:39] Chris Anderson:
Thank you. Well, that's all for today. A reminder that if you'd like to dig deeper into this conversation about the power of generosity, please consider. Reading my book, Infectious Generosity or listening to it, which you can do for free at ted.com/generosity. Next week, we are speaking with Elizabeth Dunn, an inspiring social psychologist and researcher who has examined how time, money, and technology shape human happiness.
I'm especially excited about this episode because it's recorded live at the TED Conference. You won't just hear questions from me. But from some of the incredible attendees who come to Ted. One other thing you might like to do is to check out our Generosity AI. It's called TIGG, the Infectious Generosity Guru.
You can find [email protected]. TIGG will help you brainstorm your own acts of infectious generosity. It's, it's really, really fun to play with. The TED Interview is part of the TED Audio Collective, a collection of podcasts dedicated to sparking curiosity and sharing ideas that matter. This episode was produced by Jess Shane.
Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Grace Rubenstein, Banban Cheng, Michelle Quint, Roxanne Hai Lash, and Daniella Balarezo. The show is mixed by Sarah Bruguiere. If you like this show, do please share it with someone. This is your own active infectious generosity, so thank you for doing that, and thank you so much for listening.