[00:00:00] Speaker A: No blueprint, no business plan. I had no idea what I was doing. I was just thinking, these weird people, they have something and we should connect that because that will solve something.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Our guest today is Perry Knopper, the founder of the Octopus movement which embodies resilience and the power of non linear thinking to solve complex global challenges. His journey from homelessness to leading a global movement reflects a deep belief in the potential of unconventional minds. Welcome to the show, Perry.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Richard. So much fun to be here.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Excited to have you. I mean you have a really incredible story and incredible journey. We're really looking forward to unpack that. Now before we get into your story, I'm just curious, whereabouts are you recording from today?
[00:00:52] Speaker A: I'm in the Netherlands. I'm in the southern part of the Netherlands, close to Eindhoven and we have one of the most amazing companies here in the Netherlands. In Eindhoven it's asml and it's one of the biggest companies in the world manufacturing awesome machines to create computer chips. It's incredible. It's a wonderful organization company. It's amazing how they grow. It's awesome. So it vibrates here in the city, it's all about that company. It's really cool.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Got it. So huge aspect of the industry that brings people to the, to the city that you're located. That's really, really cool. Love to hear isml.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Check it out. Yeah, it's very cool.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and so, you know, I'm curious because you know, introducing you, thinking about this thing called the Octopus move. We're going to talk a little bit more of that as we go throughout the day. But I really like to start unpacking, you know, kind of where your journey began. I mean you, you had this period of time where you experienced homelessness. Not everyone's gone through that Challeng.
What exactly led up to that situation for you? Because I know that was a game changing aspect of really what brings you almost to me today and to the movement that you've created. It really stemmed from this experience.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: That's why I said I'm happy to be here. Four years ago I was homeless and nobody wanted to talk to me. And I was, don't talk to him, he's homeless. And here we are giving interviews all over the world.
What started it is that it's being different. Maybe it started when I was a little kid, little boy. I was always the different one, the weird one. I was always doing things differently. And it sounds cool now, but it wasn't that cool. And it was difficult sometimes as well. And I've tried my best to fit in. I've tried my best. I tried my. Oh, my God, did I try to do my best and to really do the things that were expected of me. And four years ago, I thought, no, no, I'm not doing it anymore. There were some events that led up to that, but the main thing was my curiosity for homelessness. I have no idea, Richard, where that came from. But the bottom line was, every time I saw someone being homeless in the street, there was always this inner voice saying, curiosity, what happened here? Why are you there? What's going on? And I think for most people that feel that way, they start serving soup around Christmas, and they do something for the homelessness, for the homeless people. And I didn't do that. I just had that idea of what is that? And four years ago, things happened in my life. Some things didn't happen very well. I took some wrong decisions, and then all of a sudden, I was in this crossroad where I had to take a decision. Am I going to fight everything, or am I going to just let everything go? And I choose to let just everything go.
And that resulted. Resulted in giving away everything within a day. That goes fast for all the entrepreneurs listening. You know, we're all fighting hard, working hard to get things done.
If the result is giving away everything, that's. That's easy. So within a day, everything was gone.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: And I was homeless. And it changed my life. But I had. I. I didn't become homeless to change my life, you know, because it sounds that way now. Like, oh, yeah, he's looking for his purpose by becoming homeless. No, things happened that were not positive. I have three kids. Becoming home homeless with three kids, it's not a lot of fun. I have an ex wife. She wanted to kill me. Not really, of course, but she was looking at me. Really, Perry, Seriously. My parents were looking at me like, no, we're not doing this. My friends, the rest of the family, they were all looking at me like, this is wrong. This is really wrong. You cannot do this. But I had this urge to figure this out, and my curiosity was, what is this? What happens when you let everything go? What happens if you don't get any mail in your mailbox anymore? Any letters, any, you know, payments that you have to do, any responsibility when you get homeless? Everything is gone. And so I gave away my two cars, everything in the house, my bank account, everything was gone. I really didn't have any money. Nothing. And it's interesting to go there. It's very interesting. And I'm not saying people make sure you get homeless, because it's an interesting lesson, but I had that curiosity. And don't forget what I said in the beginning. I was weird. I am weird. I'm interested in other things than normal people do. And I like chaos. I like problems. I like to dive into something and just see what happens.
Because you cannot oversee what happens when you become homeless. You know, you have to dive into this and just figure it out, and that's what happens.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: Crazy for seven months and, you know, giving everything away, indicating that it does go fast. I'm not surprised.
And it sounds like really, you didn't. There wasn't really a plan, and there wasn't much of a plan on what to do when it transpires. So you. It was. You're gonna do, and you're just gonna jump in and it's gonna happen. And there was a liberation. Like, the way you talk about it, Perry, it's almost like there was a component of being liberated, you know, like, say, the mailbox. You didn't have to worry about checking that there wasn't bills coming at you, no bill collectors, all these kind of things. You didn't have to worry about tackling email like most entrepreneurs do. To some degree, those kind of things were.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Were.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Were problems, I guess, were. Were away from you, but new problems and challenges, of course, arose. And so trying to do this with three kids and, you know, I'm not sure the ages of your kids at the time, but, you know, how did you find your way through that? It doesn't sound like there was a lot of support, obviously. I mean, I can imagine why. It's not a. Certainly not a common decision. So what. What. Where were you able to find support? Where were you able to find some inspiration and some motivation to move through this. This experience?
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Well, one thing, because it was my own decision, I always knew that I was going to be fine. So the homelessness wasn't a result of failing. It was a decision. So that in every circumstances, I was. I saw myself knowing I'm going to be fine. But then I saw other people being homeless. Like, I had to go to the government and to apply for all kinds of things, and they all denied, and they. They didn't want to do anything for me. And I saw these other people, and this is what I was thinking. This is my choice. But the people that are standing here, this is not their choice. Not at all. So where. Where's the support?
Well, the support is here, the support is inside of you. And maybe it sounds a bit woo woo, but the duality, the beauty of, of disconnecting of everything, that it removes the duality almost, right? Because we always look at things and we create comparison, especially as an entrepreneur. Oh, that entrepreneur is doing better. Or that product is cooler than mine.
That duality is constantly there. I need more clients, I need more money, I need more this, my marketing needs to be better. There is that constant duality of everything.
And when you remove everything, it's gone. The duality is gone. And because it was my own decision, I was in the duality of not becoming homeless anymore. It was my decision. So it was a fact for me and not the result of something else. And that was the support. And I figured out very well, not very fast. I think after a few months, I realized nothing really changed.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Hmm.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Here. But everything changed there around me. So I would go to the, to the government to apply for something. And they really looked at me like a pariah, like a horrible person worth zero, nothing. And I applied for a temporary address so I can receive mail there. And they denied. And I know in the Netherlands that was against the law to do that. So I addressed her about that not being a smarty person, but, you know, just these are the facts. And she looked at me and she called security and they removed me. You're. You're worth nothing because you're homeless, but inside, you know, nothing really changes. And that really triggered me. That was. Although there was a lot of hardship because I couldn't see the kids, my ex wife was stopping me from seeing the kids because she didn't want my kids to see what was going on with me.
So I cried a lot during the night because I really missed my kids. And I thought that was horrible. But there was this other part of me knowing I need to do this. And I had no idea where I was going. There wasn't a bigger plan of when I. When I know what this is, I can talk about it, right? This, this was just happening. And there was nothing else. And the support was a few people around me.
Three, maybe three people around me that didn't drop me. The rest gone.
Even my own parents, and I love them dearly, but they also were like, you know, get a job, Perry. Get your life back together. You know, what are you doing?
I could feel that I was going into the right direction, but I couldn't explain this to anyone. And the outside world really changed. They saw me as a loser, but the thinking and the Feeling here stayed the same. So your thoughts, they don't.
They don't become something else because you're in that situation. Maybe you become frustrated or angry because nobody wants to help you, okay? But that beyond that, you're still the same human being.
And that changed everything for me.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Well, this is absolutely fascinating. We're going to pack more of your incredible story and the return to a home. I suspect when we get back after these incredible messages.
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We are back with Perry Noper talking about his incredible journey and going through an experience of being homeless and really satisfying a curiosity that he just couldn't shake for some reason. Now, Perry, you know, during the break, we talked a little bit about having this capacity and this realization almost of unmasking oneself and having an opportunity finally, for the first time in your life, to just actually be you and be yourself that you didn't like not trying to put on a face for someone else. Can you expand on that a little bit more for our viewers?
[00:13:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. There were no expectations. You know, the only expectations that were there was judging me. It's when people look at you, they. They look at you with their knowledge. So they look at a homeless person and they, they register that in their thinking. Like, or he's addicted or he's in trouble or is mental, mental disease. Or, you know, you get these labels immediately.
I'm sharing this because this triggered me so much. I have labels, different labels. I have neurodiversity. I have dyslexia, adhd, and I'm on the spectrum with autism. And that's by weirdness. Right. And having dyslexia, for instance, when you're not good in reading and writing and at school, you're making these mistakes constantly. Your teachers are addressing that every time. So since I was a little kid, you know, the red pencil was there always. Every time I got something back, there was red pencil all over it. Because with my dyslexia, I was making mistakes. And they're real mistakes, of course. But it didn't mean that I was not able to learn or not to understand. But if I would write something down, I would make mistakes. So I really thought I wasn't very clever, you know, if that's constantly coming back. So what do you do? You create a mask and you pretend to be someone else. And I think the homelessness was, for me, without knowing that in advance, that was the big thing in my life, to remove everything, including the mask, because there were no expectations. What do you expect from homeless person?
Nothing. Yeah, that's the beauty of it. You don't expect anything. Maybe not to be showered or stinky or smelly, or maybe an alcoholic, but there are not a lot of expectations. So I could remove my mask and I could really start looking at myself. And I remember this so well. I was standing in the living room of a girlfriend of mine, and I was saying to her, you know, I think I understand it now. I get it. And she said, what do you get? Tell me, you know, exciting, cool. Tell me more. I said, I can't. I can't explain it, but it's crystal clear.
And she said, that's really weird, Perry. I said, well, you haven't seen anything yet. You know, this is. But I could feel that something clicked. And that something clicked for me was I have a nonlinear brain and I live in a linear world. And I've tried my best to be as linear as possible.
And guess what? I'm not. You know, Otherwise you also don't decide to become homeless. So in these seven months, what? A lot of things can happen in seven months, right? It's. It's unbelievable. So you remove your mask, you find out everything stays the same, yet everybody looks at you differently. You discover your own neurodiversity again, like, oh, yeah, I hit that in the draw of my desk. You know, this lecture is not there. Let's pretend it's not there. Because everybody has an opinion about it and they see, Perry, this is also something. How do you know who you are? Who's Richard? You only know who you are of what people are telling you. Because if you remove that, if you remove what people are telling you, what's there, there's nothing. That's you. Doesn't mean you're nothing, but it means it's really you. You. And I've heard my entire life. And I'm not a victim at all. But it's hardship. And when you hear your entire life, you cannot read and write. It's not very good for your self esteem. Now I write. I published a book. I love it. I love reading and writing. They killed it. I see now how I can do it. I love it, you know, it's. That period of seven months was so important to me, and I had no idea. And my curiosity triggered that. I'm a curious misfit. I'm weird in a way. I don't fit the mold, and I'm curious. I always want to know. I'm so curious. I want to know everything.
And sincerely, in my fate, I was like, okay, this was four years ago. I'm now 49.
So I was thinking, before I get too old to do this kind of thing, I need to do it now. And I already had a very interesting life. We were expats. I lived in China, I lived in Belgium, created a TV show in China, was on China radio, learned Chinese, all kinds of cool things. But it wasn't enough for me. This was the most important thing I had to do in my life, really, because it discovered who I really am. And if you understand who you really are. This sounds like a commercial. That's not what I mean. But if you really understand who you are and you can remove your mask and you're not moving towards the expectations of others, you can be your true self.
That's awesome. That's really important.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: It's so interesting to hear you share that. It makes me think of my experience, understanding, and getting my Colby A index for the first time. And that was about 11 years ago. And the Colby index, if you're not familiar, it identifies your natural, instinctual way of doing things, of being. And for me, it was very revolutionary. And it's like, oh, right, there's nothing wrong with me.
I'm not broken. I'm actually exactly the way I'm supposed to be. And these things that I've been doing that the world has been telling me I should stop doing are actually I should be doubling down and doing them way more because I'm really good at it. And if I just put my energy on that, like, I can amplify my capacity, my ability, my energy.
It just was really liberating for me to know how my natural, instinctual gifts can provide value, not just to myself, but to others and not shy away from them, but to actually put more attention on them. So similarly, I found, like, I didn't go homeless in the process, but I was able to start to see some of those trends and recognize them now. And so that continued and constant awareness has helped me and certainly a lot of my clients and the people I love to serve. What I'm curious about in this process, once you started to get to some measure of discovery, there was kind of some, aha. Moments that took place here for you. How far was it or how long was it before you started to, I guess, ramp yourself back up and move, move out? You know, when was the decision to kind of transition, okay, I'm no longer going to be homeless. I'm now going to move forward with something. How did that start to materialize?
[00:20:44] Speaker A: I never did that.
I need to explain that I'm not homeless anymore, but it's. I didn't want to leave that place. I didn't want to leave the freedom of where I was. I wanted to be in a house because I want to have my kids with me, and I wanted to have security, to be safe, to work and to be with my family. That was very important. But if you ask it that way, it sounds like, okay, this was it. And now I'm going back to where I came from, and that never happened. And that's the linear versus nonlinear thinking.
I stayed there. I didn't want to go back. And that's also why I created the global movement and the nonprofit, and I didn't want to go back where it felt for me as a very linear way of working. And expectations. I need to go back into these expectations in these boxes, and I didn't want to go there. And I solved that for myself to take the decision. I don't want to be an entrepreneur anymore. I want to be an artist. I want to be an artist. I love art. I've always been active in art. And I wanted to be an. An artist because you cannot define exactly in a linear way what an artist is. And I thought this is. This is the best space where I could be is to become an artist. Because there are. No. It's the same space almost as the homelessness. Maybe that's a quote. You know, being homeless or an artist is the same thing. It's not. Everybody understands you. There is no clear segmentation of what it actually is. You know, there are books written about the philosophy of the meaning of artists. What. What makes an art. What makes an artist an artist. It's difficult to wrap your head around it. And I think that I have a fascination for that because that allows. Allows me to do so much more than just to do the one thing that everybody sees in their observation. When you say what you are, does that make sense?
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. It sounds like, you know, it's. You know, you've gone back to certain aspects of life that are, you know, call them creature comforts, but you haven't. You've. You haven't gone back to anything else. You've. You've. You pivoted and changed the way that you want to run and operate your life to be very intentional about being unintentional.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: And I want to embrace that for myself, but more important, for others as well.
So how I see the world, how I see other people, is that I really see them, and I'm not observing them because I don't want to be one of these people that were looking at me when I was homeless. I don't want that.
And that works very well with the octopus movement. That's why the octopus movement is there. You know, there are no expectations. There is no judgment. There is no observation. It's just, it is what it is. And I like to see the things as they are without observing them too much.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Fascinating. Well, I'm excited to unpack a little bit more about what the movement is. In fact, we're going to dive deeper into that when we come back after the this commercial break.
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[email protected] we are back with Perry talking about the incredible movement that he's created. A global movement. It's called the Octopus movement. Now that is a very interesting name. I know everyone has an image that comes up when they think of an octopus. I certainly do myself. And so I'm curious to hear a little bit about not only the naming choice, the thought process behind that, the symbolism probably goes down to your artist roots a little bit there, but also what really inspired you to cause this creation of a movement to begin in the first place.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: It. It started after these seven months. I was in a house that I rented from someone, and, you know, everything came together all of a sudden. As fast as everything disappeared, as fast as everything came back as well. This is also interesting. All of a sudden, I have a. At a house. The kids were back. They were sitting on the couch. So Happy, you know, like we're back at, yeah, dad, you did a good job. And then I was thinking, what am I going to do now?
Oh, dear. What happened in these seven months? What am I going to do now? And I remember one thought that I had immediately is I had this strong feeling of, now I can do whatever I want to do. I've been there, down there. You know, it's. Everything was gone. There was nothing. So now I don't have anything to lose anymore in my life. That opens up a whole new space. I can tell you that. That was cool. And then I was thinking, what am I going to do now? And I was already interviewing weird people. That's my hobby. I like to connect with weird people that don't fit in the box, that are slightly different. You know, what's going on, why? What's happening in your life? How do you see things? I find it curious. I'm so curious about the thoughts of people that are slightly different. So I thought, okay, I have nothing to lose. I can do whatever I want to do now. I want to create a global movement. I want to create the opportunity to create awareness of people that are slightly different. Because I think we're missing out on an opportunity. If we're not doing that, that's all right. No blueprint, no business plan. I had no idea what I was doing. I was just thinking, these weird people, they have something, and we. And we should connect that because that will solve something. That was all. And then I was thinking, okay, yeah, I can't call this the weirdo movement or the weird movement or whatnot. And I was thinking about all these interviews, and look at this. I still have. I just saw them.
So I was interviewing people, and I wrote all these cards. I still have all these cards with all these conversations and wrote down the names of what's happening. And I was looking at these cards, and I thought, they're all curious misfits. All of them.
It's all the same. And they're all saying, if the world would understand me a little bit better, I would have so much more opportunity to do cool things.
They were all saying that. And. And then I thought, okay, so I need to have a symbol for a curious misfit. And I remember I was in Clubhouse, because this was just after Covid, and we were in Clubhouse, a lot of multipotentialites, polymaths. Jack of all generalists. You know, people that were in all different places at the same time, said, okay, guys, I have a question for you. What's the Symbol of a curious misfit. And then Christine in London said, I always send an octopus emoji to people when I enjoyed the conversation I had with them. And she did that with me as well. We had a pre intake and then an interview, and she sent me by phone the octopus. I was like, why am I getting the octopus? You know, I asked my kids, guys, does this mean anything? You know, no, dad, you're safe, okay?
And I remember she doing that. And I thought it was really cool. And then someone else, Hayley in South Africa said, oh, talking about the octopus. Have you seen my octopus teacher? It's a beautiful documentary. It's on Netflix. It won an Oscar. Check it out, please.
And it's this filmmaker that goes back to South Africa, to his house. He's in a burnout, you know, mask. He's in that mask. He's in that linear world, yet the same story as me. He didn't become homeless. He started swimming every day in the ocean, very cold underwater, and he ran into an octopus. He had the same story I had. I became homeless. He started swimming every day. Slightly different, but yet it was the same thing. And then I was looking at that octopus. Three hearts, nine brains. Eight. Eight arms. Weird. DNA can escape. Everything can change color.
Very long time ago, they had shells and bones. Did you know that? They removed that in order to have more freedom. Oh, that was very interesting. Recently I found out there were first octopuses and then trees and plants. They were there before the vegetation on planet like this octopus is. I feel like an octopus, you know, I feel like I have eight arms sometimes and doing so many different things. And the thinking goes very fast. I love to learn. And the three hearts, you know, I'm a sensitive person. I can feel things. It's the octopus movement. And that's how it started with just the people I interviewed send them a message. Starting a movement. I think it's important to create awareness on people like you. Are you in? Are you joining me? And that's the start of the octopus movement. In March, it will be four years. So we're now just over three and a half years.
[00:31:28] Speaker B: Amazing. And so talk to us a little bit about the linear versus the non linear thinking world. And you know, I think everyone has a pretty good idea what the linear world is, but maybe not anyone has the same context of what the non linear person stuck in that world is.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, I have so many things to unpack. Let me keep it as clear and fast as possible.
Nonlinear is not the opposite of linear. That's Myth number one. Of course, nonlinear people would expect. Okay, if I know linear, then this is nonlinear. There's no duality in nonlinear. I have to explain that. So there is no two year old that is a linear thinker. Let's start there. So we're all non linear thinkers. That's how we're born. And we live in a linear world where we have systems where we organize things, which is very good. I'm not against linear thinking, don't get me wrong, I'm not. But everything around us is organized in that system of linearity.
Our brain is trained to do that as well.
But if, if you have neurodiversity or you're slightly different, then you have heard constantly in your life that you're doing something wrong.
Sorry. The result for that is that you go into your own mental state and. And you are asking what's wrong with me?
Research have shown that people that are questioning their own mental state and they're curious about their own mental state develop the possibility to allow chaos in their life.
So a linear thinker is not very accustomed to looking at their own mental state and like to control everything. They want to know what's happening next week, next month. Let's create a system so we're sure that repeats itself and we're in control of everything. That's a very good thing because that's how we achieve our results. Right? That's also how we manage an organization. We do that in a linear way. I get that.
Nonlinear thinking for me is allowing the chaos. Nonlinear thinking for me is the beauty between thoughts that I need to explain. Everybody has thoughts. Most of the thoughts are conditioned and are in a linear way.
Someone also said, I forgot his name, that 98% of our thoughts are the same every day. So if you go with your management team to a creative session on Friday afternoon, because you have to design something else or you have to create a solution, forget about it. Because these guys are thinking the same thing every day for 98% you're not going to make it with them. You know, that's linear thinking. So nonlinear thinking is the beauty between thoughts. Nonlinear thinking is not thinking. It's allowing the chaos to be there. It's. It's looking at a flower without seeing that it's a flower looking at a flower without giving it the Nabel label red rose scent and these kind of things.
So people that are a bit different are more towards nonlinear thinking than people that are very much in control and have everything very well organized. That's why a Lot of creative people in the creative industry are very non linear. They thrive in the beauty between thoughts because that's where the creativity lies. That makes sense, right? The creativity is not in the structure of thinking. It doesn't work that way.
And that's a nonlinear thinker. And this is very important for me because sometimes people ask me, have you created a neurodiversity movement?
No, because this is not about neurodiversity. This is about nonlinear thinking. This is about all of us. Right? We're all nonlinear thinkers. Everybody has space between their thinking. And why I'm so passionate about this is that in the world everything has become so linear that I think we need to rebalance things out again and refigure things out to go forward. And now with development of AI, this is a very linear system. This is very intelligent, very interesting, and I find AI very interesting. In combination with human intelligence, these two things can work very well together.
And that's for me, nonlinear thinking.
And that's what it's about with the octopus movement. So creating space to have that.
[00:36:51] Speaker B: Fascinating. It's very interesting that you're bridging AI into it a little bit. I have some of my own thoughts on that. I think I'll. I'll dive into when we come back from our next commercial break. But really, really impressive what you've built, Perry. I can't wait to learn a little bit more about the movement and how you're having these incredible creative conversations with entrepreneurs and other creatives that are joining. So we'll get to that right after these messages.
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We are back with Perry talking about what the octopus movement really has been been up to and what exactly nonlinear thinking is or the thinkers that are finding themselves gravitating to this movement. And so you've created something that's really starting to span the globe and it's taking on a bit of a life of its own and almost morphing into something. And you know, there's been space like you talked about. You created space for yourself through this homelessness experience and now you're creating space for Others who are of this non linear thinking minded individuals to get together almost and have meetings and discussions. And it's starting to create a degree of focus almost of its own nature. It's like it's developing, say a life of its own towards trying to solve and put that thinking on global issues, global problems. How can we make an impact by using these creative thought processes to think differently about a way to solution some of these larger problems? Am I on track there?
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Yeah, we need different thinking, that's for sure. Today, in today's world, we need different thinking to move forward. And when I started the octopus movement, someone said to me, oh, you're creating a global community of nonlinear thinkers. And I thought, this doesn't resonate with me. Community is, I love language. Community wasn't the word I was looking for.
Again, there's duality in the words. Community, because when you're in a community, it also means that you can be outside of the community. And that's not what I wanted. And so I was, I was, you know, thinking and being in the space between thoughts and just let it go and try to solve this problem for myself. And I was, I was watching a documentary of Paul Stamets about fungi. Love that. And he was talking about the mycelium. And I, I jumped up off the couch, it was like, this is it, this. We've created the human mycelium rather than a community.
What I want to say with that is, you know, when I talk about the human mycelium, it's there. We're not creating anything. So the connection between humans is there and it's, it's for those that are listening. Mycelium, what is that? It's the network underground that connects everything together, trees together. And they, they, they help each other. And, and there is fungi and there is nutrition and sharing and developing and that's how the forest stays healthy. And I think the human mycelium is also the place to look at, to keep humanity healthy. And we're not, you know, we're not healthy at all. In my opinion. There's, and we are, but there's so much mental health issues in the world and there's conflict, there's stress, there's so much going on. And, and that's the human mycelium of the octopus movement. We're making these connections step by step, person by person. And working together, that network comes into action. And what we've created with this network is a think tank. I remember the first year I was thinking, I'm creating a think tank. I'm bringing in all these nonlinear thinkers. Let's solve some things. I had no clue what I was doing. It was a lot of fun and it was cozy and nice. Nothing happened. And I had to rethink and I had to bring linear thinking. I had to bring a design of linear thinking into the space of nonlinear thinkers and work together. And I've created a new system in a simplified, faster design thinking method specifically for nonlinear thinkers. And it resulted in give us 50 minutes. 50 minutes with 40 nonlinear thinkers from all over the world and we solve everything. It goes so fast. I use a digital whiteboard, I play music, I have questions, I explain what's going on. People are on a time pressure to answer the questions. It's a lot of fun. And within 50 minutes we have like 3, 400 ideas to solve something.
And sometimes when I'm in a meeting, I'm invited to come into a meeting of a company and sit there and I keep thinking, you know, give me that hour. We would have solved it already instead of talking and talking about in that linear system. So our think tank within the octopus movement is so important to us. We always say we're global human mycelium of nonlinear thinkers, solving the unsolvable for a sustainable future. Now, solving the unsolvable is, I think, hilarious because something can only be unsolvable from a linear perspective. And we're a bunch of nonlinear thinkers. So of course everything is solvable in the space of nonlinear thinking.
That's what we do. And this is. You were talking about that. I've created space for nonlinear thinkers, but I've created space for people. But I've also created space for the world where we want to solve some of the big issues. Of course, homelessness, but also hunger, climate change, education, well being and leadership. We're addressing these six areas where I think that the people that don't fit in the box can make a difference there. So we're doing it both. We're doing it for the people to create a space where they can be themselves and where they can thrive and learn. We're not selling any courses, we're not selling anything. We're a nonprofit. We're bringing everything together. We're having fun and we're developing everything. And on the other hand, we're also doing something for the world. We're creating white papers in how do we solve the hunger in the world. And now I'm very proud to say this, it all started with bringing the nonlinear thinkers together in one space. Now we're also working with classrooms. So we're bringing kids into the equation as well. Kids from 3 to 8, 9 years old go into a special space that we partner with a startup in Silicon Valley where we've created this beautiful solution where these brilliant young minds can go nuts. NASA did research in the space during the space race. They were looking for the most brilliant creative brains, minds and they figured out that 98% from the 3 to 5 year olds were creatively brilliant and only 2% of the adults with an average age of 31 were creatively brilliant. So I thought it's nice that we have nonlinear thinkers, but we need to have the real nonlinear thinkers and those are the kids. And we're now working on a special program for teenagers with virtual reality and bringing them together in think tanks.
That's what's happening in the octopus movement. And we do that for ourselves, for the world, and we do that for organizations, education. When there's a problem, bring it to us. We're now working for NASA. They had a few questions. So I'm very proud to say that we have a partnership with them and that we're working together.
This is what it was about for me. I started with we're missing out on an opportunity if we don't see the people that don't fit perfectly in the box. It worked.
It's the case. These people have brilliant ideas and we're connecting this all together. And now we're also bringing a new app into the market next week is Tell Tom. And Tell Tom is an app where people can complain about anything. And we're connecting the complaints about life into the think tanks that we're already doing. Because I think the complaint is maybe more interesting than the idea. The idea is just a thought, it's just time, wherein the frustration is now and is an actual fact. And I think there lies a very interesting opportunity there to see within all the frustration where the results are, where the solutions are. And with my dyslexia, give me a data sheet and I go nuts. I love to see connections that others don't see.
[00:46:32] Speaker B: The data alone from having a complaint engine and seeing where people are, what's going on with them, the trends amongst those, those complaints, where are they similar? Where are they dissimilar? What's grouped together, what's on the fringe of the group, what becomes the easiest domino, what's the first domino around that complaint that can be solved, that can spiral amongst the other ones that are on the outer fringe. Maybe it doesn't solve 100%, maybe it gets to 80%. So I can see instantly the value of having that. And people do seem to love to complain. Not that I want to incentivize them to do it, but they're going to do it anyway. So if you can capture that raw data, it's fine, bring it on. You have all those, you have all these problems and now you have people who have a dedication and a mindset in a group environment. They don't even know what problem is they're coming to look at yet. But you've got, doesn't matter. Pick one from the board. Which one do we want to grab?
[00:47:26] Speaker A: What's happening in the world. And we can dive into that, and we allow people to dive into that. So people that are not being seen, they're now on a chair in the think tank and, and, and creating a lot of value. You know, they're co authors of, of the white papers. They're involved. It's, yeah, it's, this is it for me. This is why I wanted to do this. And I see beautiful people that are sometimes very weird, that are sometimes, you know, difficult.
That's the beauty. That's what I've learned in being homeless is I'm not looking at them that way. I'm not. I can only see them as how fascinating. What are you thinking, you know, and what other thoughts do you have? And that you're maybe severely on the spectrum and you behave completely different from all the other people and you're not, you know, going according to any of the unwritten rules. I don't care. You're, you're, you're human. I want to know what you think. I want to know what moves you. And that's what we do in the Octopus move. And then we have all these events and we have podcasts and we have a book club and a film, film and art, and, and we're publishing a book and we're creating eight steps to Nonlinear Thinking and oh my God. And we're doing so many other things. And we co create with a lot of nonlinear thinkers. We have a test on our website where people can fill in the test and you're linked to one of the founding members, which is also a lot of fun. We have founding members, we have ambassadors. We have over eight and a half thousand members now in the movement in 96 countries now, I think, or even more, I don't know exactly. And it's growing, growing. And the thing that I'm most proud of is that we don't have any rules.
We don't.
And I see this when I see other communities. They start with the rules, and I think we start with the human mycelium, that we're all connected and that we work together and sometimes something goes wrong and it solves itself. And I don't want to be woo woo here, but it's that simple. I love systems and I use systems and have all my databases and of all my calendar sheets and everything is organized. But there's also something in life that you just have to let go and see what happens, and especially with the connection with people and think about how to create something.
In my opinion, you have to start with the nonlinear thinking. You have to start with the human intelligence and see what develops and then create the system and not the other way around. And I see too many times that it's the other way around, which is fine. It doesn't work for me.
[00:50:34] Speaker B: Well, I absolutely love it. Perry, thanks for what you've created again. Almost 9,000 members, almost 100 countries, expanding, helping bring people together in a way where they can solve problems differently than how people have been looking at problems in the past. What an incredible vision and experience that you share with us today about your journey. And for those of you watching, stay tuned next week as we continue to uncover the incredible journeys of amazing entrepreneurs and visionaries who are building the world of tomorrow.
