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About this episode

In this episode of 9×90™, Adi Soozin sits down with David Gershon, architect of the Peace Moonshot 2030, and her godmother Stephanie Urchick Past President of Rotary International, to unpack the mechanics of “Social Change 2.0” and global transformation.

Together, they reveal how leveraging tipping point science—specifically mobilizing 40 million people to achieve systemic coherence—can fundamentally shift the global paradigm.

By merging Rotary’s massive grassroots network of 46,000 clubs with a $30 million mezzanine investment strategy, they aim to engineer a culture of cooperation worldwide.

For the empire builders and industry titans watching, this conversation highlights why “culture eats strategy for breakfast” and why establishing peace zones is the ultimate prerequisite for securing healthy investor returns on long-term infrastructure projects and driving sustainable macroeconomic change.

A special thank you to our sponsor, ⁠National Energy Holdings⁠ . For the empire builders and developers looking to execute on this exact strategy, ⁠National Energy Holdings⁠ is the premier firm engineering, constructing, and operating energy infrastructure for commercial real estate. By utilizing highly profitable 80/20 revenue-share models over 25-year terms, they navigate the technical complexities so you can instantly transform your existing physical footprint into a high-yield energy asset without the standard operational friction.

About these guests

Stephanie Urchick

• Leading a 121-Year Global Empire: As the Immediate Past President of Rotary International, she has architected the strategic vision for a massive global organization operating in over 200 countries with 46,000 clubs. She wields unparalleled grassroots mobilization power to execute large-scale, international initiatives where traditional bureaucratic entities often fail.
• Executing High-Stakes Macro-Infrastructure in Hostile Markets: She doesn’t just manage charity; she guides massive capital deployments in highly volatile environments. From relaunching a nationwide clean water initiative in a gang-controlled nation to establishing “Peace Hubs” and agribusiness infrastructure in conflict-ridden Colombia alongside the World Food Program, she proves that securing geopolitical stability is the ultimate prerequisite for long-term infrastructure ROI.
• Pioneering Geopolitical Rebuilding: Her influence extends into some of the most complex political landscapes of our time. She was a key figure in orchestrating the rebirth of Rotary in post-Communist Poland and actively coordinates institutional partnerships and humanitarian capital across Ukraine, Albania, and Kosovo, cementing her legacy as a master of systemic global rebuilding.

David Gershon

• Architecting the 1986 Global Ceasefire (The Earth Run): At the height of the Cold War, he engineered a geopolitical miracle. Partnering with UNICEF and ABC Television, he launched a 62-country global torch relay that engaged 1 billion people and united 45 world leaders—including Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Astoundingly, wherever his torch traveled, active wars temporarily ceased, proving that planetary behavioral change can be manufactured at an unprecedented scale.
• Mastering the Science of Systemic Tipping Points: As the CEO of the Empowerment Institute and author of Social Change 2.0, he operates at the highest levels of complex systems science. He is currently executing the “Peace Moonshot 2030,” a calculated maneuver to hit the exact mathematical resonance point for planetary coherence: mobilizing 40 million people (0.5% of the population) across 10,000 cities to fundamentally alter the global socioeconomic operating system.
• Merging Transformational Culture with Institutional Capital: Operating seamlessly across the UN General Assembly, the World Economic Forum in Davos, and elite corporate boardrooms, he is raising a $30 million mezzanine investment to fuse social transformation with infrastructure security. He is actively demonstrating to private equity and legacy families that “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” and that establishing localized “Peace Zones” is the ultimate derisking strategy for multi-billion-dollar global investments.

Connect with thesi guests

Connect with David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-gershon-1968a2/

Connect with President Urchick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/surchick

Documents mentioned during the episode

Peace Moonshot Overview (1 page)

https://canva.link/klb7yop326e6f00

Slide deck (15 slides)

https://canva.link/7e24hdnxsrq1qw2

Philanthropic Investment Opportunity (45 pages)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xtm8os5syr3rs8a4tk1x6/Peace-Moonshot_-A-Global-Blueprint-for-Catalyzing-a-Culture-of-Peace-1.pdf?rlkey=uvmawcfg09l2xdige1kcbi8xm&st=308r27sm&dl=0

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Show Notes Generated by Gemini

These show notes were generated by AI

• Rotary International and Historical Challenges: President Urchick provided an overview of Rotary, which has operated for 121 years with a focus on creating community impact. She noted that following COVID-19, societal changes including increased mistrust and isolation necessitated a shift in approach. President Urchick detailed a past Haiti water project that faced significant setbacks due to gang violence and political instability, leading to the realization that peace and a stable environment are essential prerequisites for successful humanitarian work (00:00:00).
• Pathways to Peace and Prosperity in Colombia: President Urchick highlighted a successful Rotary Foundation program in Colombia, which focused on creating peace hubs in four conflict-ridden areas. The project trained thousands in conflict resolution and over 700 people in entrepreneurship, provided seed money for micro-businesses, and established one-stop service windows for social welfare access. By prioritizing the establishment of these peace hubs first, the initiative successfully mitigated local conflict, allowing for effective humanitarian aid, including agribusiness training, to proceed (00:02:28).
• Haiti National Water Sanitation and Hygiene Initiative Update: President Urchick explained that following the initial difficulties in Haiti, Rotary applied the lessons learned from the Colombia model to relaunch the Haiti project. By incorporating conflict resolution initiatives and increasing involvement from community leaders and stakeholders, the current project has achieved a much more stable start, with the long-term goal of providing clean water to the entire country (00:03:36).
• Introduction of the Peace Moonshot 2030: David Gershon introduced the “Peace Moonshot 2030” initiative, describing it as an audacious effort to transform global polarities and create a culture of peace. The project aims to enable more effective investment in infrastructure and positive action by fostering a culture of cooperation and connectivity. He emphasized that even if the project falls short of its ultimate goal, achieving a significant portion would fundamentally change the world (00:06:33).
• Historical Context of Moonshot Initiatives: David Gershon detailed his background in large-scale social initiatives, specifically the 1986 “Earth Run,” an 86-day peace torch relay during the height of the Cold War. The initiative partnered with UNICEF and ABC television, engaging 62 countries and 45 world leaders, and effectively demonstrated that symbolic acts of peace could lead to temporary cessations of war, proving that significant global transformation was possible (00:07:54).
• Core Competencies for Large-Scale Transformation: David Gershon identified four areas of competence required for his work: behavioral change, community empowerment, large system transformation, and the science of tipping points. He explained that his current approach leverages these competencies to build a scalable model for peace across 96 countries and over 1,000 cities (00:10:52).
• Rotary International Partnership: David Gershon and President Urchick discussed the partnership between Rotary and the Peace Moonshot initiative, which began gaining momentum at the Rotary convention in Calgary. They noted that this collaboration is a “marriage made in heaven,” as it combines Rotary’s extensive grassroots network of 46,000 clubs with the Peace Moonshot’s strategic framework for scaling peace efforts beyond previous limitations (00:12:05).
• Rotary’s Grassroots Structure and Impact: President Urchick emphasized that Rotary is not a top-down organization but relies on grassroots action, citing the global polio eradication effort as a prime example of localized work leading to global change. She noted that the Peace Moonshot initiative helps strengthen Rotary’s impact by providing a foundational “peace environment” necessary for all seven of Rotary’s areas of focus to succeed (00:15:19).
• Scaling Strategy and Tipping Point Science: David Gershon described the scaling strategy, which relies on “tipping point” science. He posited that achieving 0.5% coherence in a system—approximately 40 million people engaged in peace actions—can shift an entire system. This is being executed through three layers: individual behavioral change (the “Peace Game” app), community-level empowerment (Peace Zones), and global awareness (Peace Aid) (00:19:34).
• Peace Aid and Global Awareness: David Gershon outlined “Peace Aid,” a global music event model designed to raise awareness and bring people together, similar to the 1985 “Live Aid” concert. The initiative utilizes digital technology, specifically a digital peace torch that concertgoers can pass to “befriend the other,” creating a sustained, ongoing network rather than a one-time event (00:21:48).
• Launch Opportunities and UN General Assembly: Adi Soozin, David Gershon, and President Urchick discussed coordinating with the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September. David Gershon noted that the UN serves as a powerful platform for launching such visions, and he intends to leverage the 40th anniversary of his first UN launch to introduce the current initiative, with Rotary’s deep historical ties to the UN providing additional institutional credibility (00:24:09).
• Resource and Scaling Requirements: David Gershon clarified that while he has reached the “proof of concept” stage with minimal initial funding, he is currently seeking $30 million in mezzanine investment to scale the initiative. This funding will support expanding the team to approximately 30–40 people and building out the necessary technology and infrastructure to achieve his goals by 2030 (00:32:44) (00:43:42).
• Documentation and Accessibility: Adi Soozin and David Gershon confirmed that key documentation, including a 45-page prospectus, a 15-slide presentation, and a “one-pager” summary of the Peace Moonshot, will be hosted on the website 9×90.co/rotary-moonshot to ensure transparency and accessibility for potential investors and participants (00:33:45).
• Call for Engagement and “Kick the Tires” Gatherings: David Gershon invited the audience to participate in smaller, interactive gatherings to “kick the tires,” ask difficult questions, and determine their level of commitment to the initiative. He emphasized that this is an active, ongoing project rather than a theoretical idea, and he is seeking early adopters and visionaries to help lead the charge (00:36:01) (00:39:55).
• Operational Timeline and Future Events: Adi Soozin proposed an online event for December 1st to launch broader participation, noting that this timing aligns with when she would be back from major speaking engagements and international travel. President Urchick confirmed that this timeline fits within her calendar (00:40:48).
• Funding and Network Goals: David Gershon and Adi Soozin discussed the funding target, noting that the goal is to raise the necessary capital within 90 days. They highlighted that while capital is essential, the value of the network involved is equally important for scaling the initiative faster (00:43:42).
• Climate, Energy, and Systemic Change: David Gershon addressed the intersection of his work with climate and energy, referencing previous experience with the “Cool City Challenge.” He explained that polarization in the climate and energy space has often hindered progress, and that a culture of peace is necessary to improve collaborative capabilities for these sectors to succeed (00:46:27) (00:49:50).
• Energy Infrastructure Stabilization: Adi Soozin discussed the role of private equity in energy infrastructure, expressing concern over potential rate spikes. She advocated for alternatives, such as the work of National Energy Holdings, which focuses on alternative energy infrastructure in commercial real estate to stabilize costs. David Gershon expressed support for this strategy, suggesting that it could be strengthened by integrating “peace zone” capacity-building to foster the collaboration needed for such infrastructure projects to survive and thrive (00:48:39).
• Organizational Culture and Strategy: President Urchick and David Gershon agreed that organizational culture is the primary driver of success, noting that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” They emphasized that creating a culture of peace and cooperation is a critical prerequisite for business and infrastructure projects to achieve their intended ROI and avoid the pitfalls of toxic or polarizing environments (00:50:56).
• Proposed E-Club for Legacy Families: Adi Soozin and President Urchick discussed the possibility of forming a Rotary E-Club focused on legacy families and industry titans. This club would act as a hub for Rotarians to collaborate on large-scale infrastructure investments, utilizing their respective networks to support impactful projects on the ground (00:52:00).
• Integration of Social and Economic Change: David Gershon advocated for “Second Order Change,” or “Social Change 2.0,” which involves integrating social and cultural transformation with business investment strategies. He argued that one cannot successfully build sustainable infrastructure without simultaneously addressing the social and relational conditions of the community in which the infrastructure is being built (00:53:00).
• Vision for Global Improvement: Adi Soozin shared her personal vision for the world, which includes universal access to clean running water and modern healthcare, and the expansion of medical education for women in emerging nations to reduce unnecessary mortality rates. She identified corruption and greed as significant barriers to achieving these goals, underscoring the need for the collaborative, peaceful environment that the Peace Moonshot aims to create (00:57:13).
• Education and Corruption: Adi Soozin explains that corruption rates are lower when individuals receive education through the university level, as they study the prisoner’s dilemma and understand that stealing from others is equivalent to stealing from themselves. Adi Soozin notes that corruption is more common when education ends between the fourth and eighth grades. David Gershon acknowledges that while it is possible to change human beings, it is necessary to identify the correct methodology to achieve this change (00:59:14).
• Vision for a Kinder World: President Urchick shares a desire for a “kinder” world, noting that while society is not yet close to this ideal, it is currently on the right path. President Urchick emphasizes the importance of people choosing the path of kindness, as this decision can lead to other positive outcomes (00:59:14). David Gershon expresses support for this vision and appreciation for working with those, such as Adi Soozin, who have the capacity to create impact at scale (01:00:28).
• Communication and Connection Strategy: President Urchick advises the audience to reach out to Adi Soozin regarding the topics discussed, specifically mentioning the Moonshot project and Rotary. Adi Soozin proposes embedding David Gershon’s LinkedIn profile into the interview page to help facilitate these connections. David Gershon confirms his agreement with this approach (01:00:28).
• Rotary Moonshot E-Club Launch Timeline: Adi Soozin and David Gershon discuss the launch of the Rotary Moonshot E-Club. David Gershon sets a goal to have the Moonshot project launched within 90 days (01:00:28).
• Resources and Conclusion: Adi Soozin directs listeners to “9×90.co rotary moonshot” to view all relevant documentation and to locate David Gershon’s LinkedIn information (01:00:28).

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Transcript

This transcription was generated by Gemini & edited by ChatGPT

00:00:00

Adi Soozin: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of 9×90. Today we have two very special guests with us. We have my godmother, the immediate past president of Rotary International and her dear friend David joining us to talk about an amazing project that they are working on that is bringing peace to the entire planet. And if you’re wondering if that could be done and if it’s possible, they’re going to break that down for you today and tell you how you can get involved. Now I’m going to hand the microphone over to my godmother and she will she will take you through this magic of

Stephanie Urchick: Well, thank you Adi. It certainly is a pleasure to be with you today.

Adi Soozin: rotary.

Stephanie Urchick: We want to talk a little bit today first about Rotary itself um so that listeners understand uh what our organization is about. You know, Rotary is an old organization. For 121 years, Rotarians around the globe have been looking at communities and and trying to create lasting change and impact for people. And you know, for the first 100 years, that was a fairly okay way to to proceed and and we were making headway.

00:01:12

Stephanie Urchick: But then something happened. society changed and COVID happened and we find that there’s much more mistrust and much more self isolation and and things that get in the way of helping humanity. I want to share two quick stories with you. Both really have a happy ending, but the first one was a learning experience for Rotary. D, I don’t know if you were in Rotary in 2018, but that was the year that our action group for water and sanitation and hygiene started a project in Haiti. And the project was to bring clean water to the entire country. Massive, massive project. And it got off to a great start with the help of Rotarians and and the project was underway. But then roadblocks roadblocks happened and among them the worst was the gang violence gang violence and political instability. So what happened was more than a million people in the country were displaced from where they actually lived and so that became a nightmare in terms of trying to manage the project and local supply chains were broken and and so actually Rotary had to step back.

00:02:28

Stephanie Urchick: I’m going to come back to that story. But what we learned from that story was how important peace is. Peace and tranquility and you know the right kind of environment and trust are necessary to do the work of Rotary. So now I want to tell you a story about um another project. When I was serving as president of Rotary International in 2425, we awarded a grant through our Rotary Foundation to a Roger. project in Colombia. It was called a program of scale and the correct name of it is pathways to peace and prosperity in Colombia. Now, it’s a project that runs for five years. So, we don’t know what the total investment costs are going to be because there are collaborators and investors from all over, but initially it was backed by some funding from the Rotary Foundation, several million, and then some funding from the World Food Program. So the goals of the program really they wanted to build peace hubs in four conflict areas. So they trained thousands of people in conflict resolution.

00:03:36

Stephanie Urchick: They also trained over 700 people to become entrepreneurs and and gave them some seed money so that they could um uh start micro businesses. They set up a onestop service window in all of these communities so that residents could could find it easy to to apply and register for social welfare programs and other benefits. And then the local Rotary clubs partnered with the World Food Program and other groups to provide seed and training in agra business harvesting and whatnot. Now that project has been going for a year, but the reason it’s been successful is because from the beginning, Rotary realized how important creating peace hubs were going to be so that the conflict would stop so that we didn’t have the gang violence and the job of of providing food in these four communities could happen. Now, let me go back to the first story. The good news is that last year Rotary awarded another grant and they awarded it to the same group. That group now the project is the Haiti National Water Sanitation and Hygiene Initiative. And so they’ve incorporated more peaceful um initiatives and solutions, conflict resolution, uh you know, doing more things, getting uh stakeholders involved so there’s more input from community leaders, and so it’s off to a much better start.

00:05:19

Stephanie Urchick: And at some point in the not too distant future, the entire country of Haiti will have clean water. So what does that mean? It means that there’s, you know, opportunities for collaboration uh in all of the seven areas of focus that Rotary works in. basic education and literacy, uh disease prevention and treatment, uh uh community and economic development, water and sanitation, all of our seven areas of focus, environment. But what we’ve learned in the last 20 years again is that it’s so important to have the correct environment for these things to take hold and to build upon. So several years ago I met David Gerson just as I was coming into my presidency and unfortunately Adi I was being president and it was a little difficult to wrap my hands around you know what this this whole initiative is about but David’s here to share with us more about peace moonshot 2030 what it means how Rotary is involved and what opportunities are there for us.

David Gershon: Stephanie, thank you. And I love the work that you guys do.

00:06:33

David Gershon: And of course, I now am part of that team.

Stephanie Urchick: David.

David Gershon: So, yay, Rotary. Um, and Adi, thank you for this great opportunity gathering all these amazing people who want to do good in the world. Um so let me begin with a question. Um what if we could create peace on our planet? Just what if that could happen? What if the polarities that we face in all of our communities, the us and them energy could be transformed? What if we could create the capacity for cultures of peace that could enable all good works, all positive action, all investments in infrastructure to be more effective and more successful because we now have a culture that allows for greater cooperation and more cohes cohesion and more connectivity so that when projects go on there’s capacity to actually have them be sustain and not have them go off the rails as Stephanie identified in these other projects. So, so that’s a little bit of of the of the whatifs that we are attempting to answer. Uh, a moonshot by its nature is audacious.

00:07:54

David Gershon: It is a big idea. The chances of success aren’t seen as easy by almost anybody if you call it a moonshot. And therefore, we fully stepped into moonshot. It’s a big big big idea. If we can pull it off, we have different world. If we fall short and get 80% there, we have a different world. So that’s what we’re going for. Now, let me tell you my a little history of my work in moonshots and then I want to talk about Rotary’s history in Moonshots because this is a partnership of Moonshot people, Moonshot teams. So in 1986, it was the height of the Cold War. I don’t know where you were in the world, but you were probably not quite in this world yet. Having a good time somewhere hopefully. Um

Adi Soozin: I I was an afterthought.

David Gershon: thought,

Adi Soozin: Not yet created.

David Gershon: right? Um, so, uh, but it was the height of the Cold War and there was a notion out then at that time called nuclear assured destruction.

00:08:59

David Gershon: That was our best thinking. If we buil built enough nuclear armaments in each of the countries that were the antagonist, Russian America, uh we could save ourselves from destruction. So the best case was let’s create enough fear in the world so that no one does the bad things. And if you were in high school at that time, uh you likely didn’t think you would get to the end of your high school term because that’s the fear that was so prevalent in the world at that moment in time. Stephanie knows it well. Um, and so I had an idea and I had created this idea based on three things before that. In 1976, I’d organized a torch relay around America called the bicesentennial torch relay. And I discovered the power of this mythic act of passing fire across country.

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: And we were received by the leaders of the states and the president. Several years later, the Olympics asked me to organize the Olympic torch relay and I was honored to have that opportunity.

00:10:01

David Gershon: Uh along the way, I realized though that there was a bigger game that I had to play, which is to pass a torch of peace around the world to bring the world together in the spirit of cooperation to show that we could become a different planet if we learned how to work together better. It was a big idea. It was a moonshot. No one thought it was possible. We went for it. We got UNICEF as a partner. We got ABC television as a partner and for 86 days there was peace on the earth. Wherever the torch went, war stopped. The world was united as one. ABC partnered with all the other media around the world and a billion people. 20% of the planet witnessed this torch going around the world at that moment in time. And 62 countries, 45 leaders of the world including Gorbachoff and Reagan, the antagonists became collaborators. And magic happened and miracles happened. things that no one could ever imagine happened.

00:10:52

David Gershon: We stopped wars wherever the torch went. When the torch was extinguished, I realized there was the possibility to do the impossible. And I realized my bigger job was to see if I could take it to the next level. But I wasn’t ready yet. I had a lot of learning to do. And I had to master four areas of competence. I had to master behavioral change. Symbolic events can bring people together, but it won’t sustain change. So, I had to master how do you get people to change over time? I had to master uh community empowerment. How do you get communities to now change based on bringing the collective power of people together? I had to master large system transformation. How does one transform a city, a country, a planet, um a organization at scale? And I had to master the science of tipping points. how large change happens with small coherent groups of people. that can start to create the capacity for change based on a whole body of knowledge on you’re you have a science background uh systems.

00:12:05

David Gershon: So fast forward some 30 something years 2010 and I realized the time has now come to see if we could pull those things together and pull off this moonshot. We called the peace moonshot. We set out to do that. Six years later, we now have this idea which I will tell you about in a moment. It’s across 96 countries. We have 1,30 cities engaged across the planet. Uh and about 100,000 peace actions have been taken all across the world. And the IT is what we call a peace game. seven practices that people apply that teach the art of creating peace in one’s life in one’s community and the world and it has been quite successful and then peace moonshot and peace zones where you scale that across community we’ve been doing that across Africa and lots of different places in the world so we have the ingredients we have proof of concept and we meet Rotary about a year ago well a little over a year ago two years ago but fully got activated about a year ago at your convention, Stephanie, where we tested out this idea across Rotary in Calgary.

00:13:20

David Gershon: And lo and behold, it was a was a marriage made in heaven, so to speak, because we have two these two moonshot groups, like Rotary’s doing this moonshot on Folio, and I’ve done a moonshot, and now we’re doing new moonshot, and Rotary needs to figure out how to do peace uh beyond where it had gotten to. So that’s the story that we are building. You’ve got something fun to show us in a moment.

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: So a big share share with us if you wish and I can then

Adi Soozin: Um, so this happened before I was born.

David Gershon: finish.

Adi Soozin: My grandfather was with uh the Rotary leadership when he was an international director and a little bit before that when they decided to convince world leaders to work together to eradicate polio.

David Gershon: There you go.

Adi Soozin: He was like, “You can keep me out of the history books, but I’ll take the trophy.”

David Gershon: That’s that’s very touching actually. That’s be so you have you have a lineage and karma I might

Adi Soozin: So, uh, yeah.

00:14:18

David Gershon: add. Um or dharma as they say. So that’s where we are.

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: Um there’s a big story here. It takes time to unpack, but I want to jump have Stephanie jump back in and add any thoughts about why Rotary showing up, how it’s showing up, where we’re going next, what our challenges are, what our opportunities are, and and Adi, I would invite you to ask questions, you know, because it’s the first time you’re hearing about this. So, you might have any number of questions that would be helpful for the people listening and watching.

Stephanie Urchick: What? Thanks, David. What makes rotary? work is the fact that it’s not a top- down organization. Things happen at the grassroots level. The whole polio campaign happened because um somebody went to the Philippines and started immunizing a group of children in one community. That’s how it started, you know. So it’s it’s not something that’s you know we you know Rotary International says you have to do this.

00:15:19

Stephanie Urchick: It it happens the other way around. So what’s David David’s talking about is the fact that so many groups and clubs and districts have bought into this whole concept because they realize how important it is for us to create the environment that’s necessary for peace to flourish and then we can do the humanitarian work that we want. And you know we have 46,000 Rotary clubs around the world. We’re in over 200 countries, 222 I believe at this point. And so, you know, there’s our biggest asset are are people are the boots on the ground. You know, the people who make the difference in Rotary. So, that’s what’s so compelling about, you know, working with David and working with the Moonshot because it helps us do the work of Rotary in a more impactful way. We all want to leave a legacy in Rotary and, you know, this helps us get there, if you will. It’s kind of like the foundation, the foundation piece that needs to be there before we move in any of the other directions of our areas of focus.

00:16:25

Stephanie Urchick: You know, most people think about Rotary, if they think about Rotary at all, they think, “Oh, the the group that does the chicken barbecues and the pancake breakfast and then they help the community.” But when you get involved with Rotary, you you figure out that there’s so much more. There’s opportunities for collaboration and networking and there’s teamwork and communication skills and you know international travel if you want it and worldwide friendships. I can’t open a device any day without having hundreds hundreds of messages from around the world and that’s because of my rotary family. And that’s the other thing you build friendships. I I always talk about my family of Rotary because it becomes so important to me for you know working with people. So this initiative is just going to put all of those things together and make what we do in Rotary stronger. You know the current president of Rotary has a theme that he messaged to the world when he took office and that was create lasting impact. And that’s what we’re talking about today.

00:17:36

Stephanie Urchick: How do we create that lasting

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: Hey,

Adi Soozin: I think something that’s interesting is uh if you’re born into a family where your parents are industry titans,

Stephanie Urchick: impact?

Adi Soozin: you have this pressure on you from a young age to do something to prove that you you live up to to you fill their shoes. You live up to their standards of like they did this for the world. What are you going to do that’s next like for the next generation? So, we’ve spoken uh Stephanie and I I had a call this weekend and we were speaking about how um we could use specific investors would like to invest in energy infrastructure and how we could actually partner with Rotary so that we could stabilize um the macro economy of the United States. partnering Rotary with uh the billions in investment into critical energy infrastructure across our own countries. So it’s not just going into developing nations, it’s also in developed nations where we’re able to say, “Hey, this is what I’m good at.” And then you go to the Queen Mother and you say,

00:18:38

Adi Soozin: “How do we fit this into Rotary?” And because she’s seen like the whole chessboard, she could tell you where you fit. Um, so I know some of you listening are thinking, okay, I don’t want to build energy infrastructure, but I would love to do something that uh that lives up to the the prestigious reputation that my parents or grandparents have built. What can I contribute to? And David has built this. You built an application

David Gershon: So the peace game is an app. Yes. Uh and we have other types of technology but basically it is a tech app that we use and we now have it uh available in every language in the world.

Adi Soozin: Okay. So, David has built this application and you’re able to participate. You’re going to have a peace day where people are passing a virtual torch. Is that

David Gershon: Well,

Adi Soozin: correct?

David Gershon: that’s a second. So, if I may just unpack a little bit more there,

Adi Soozin: Yeah. Go for it.

00:19:34

David Gershon: but yes, I I like where you’re going. I don’t want to disail derail where you’re going, but let me just add a couple more elements. So, there’s three layers to scaling an idea like this. One is behavioral change. You got to get a lot of people involved and I’ll talk about the tipping point science in a moment.

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: The second is you’ve got to get a lot of communities involved and I’ll talk about our tipping points around communities. And the third is you’ve got to get global awareness of something like this so that people planetwide understand what this is. So the peace game is the behavioral change element and we’ve done really well there. We’ve learned how to do that. The peace zone is where you scale it. So let me go and share tipping points for a moment. So you see the the science and the strategy here a bit more. So in the body of work called complex systems there’s something uh around the notion of building coherent systems.

00:20:34

David Gershon: So this may get a little technical for a moment but I can make it simple. So all that is to say small groups of coherence can create a large shift in a system. And so that number is 1/ half of 1% of coherence in a community or in our planet. If you get coherence in a small number, you can shift the whole system. So that’s 40 million people and that’s our goal. 40 million people practicing these peace actions across the world is our first tipping point. The second tipping point is distribution. The UN and um European Union have done research uh that has defined the planet into 10,000 cities approximately or urban areas. So that’s our distribution model. We want to get these 40 million people distributed across 10,000 locations across the planet. And we want to start to infuse those locations with this culture of peace through the practices of the game and through the knowledge of how to build a peace zone which brings the community together. Uh uh that allows it to start transcending its differences and working better together.

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00:21:48

David Gershon: More cooperative capabilities as Stephanie was telling about Rotary needs. The third element is global awareness and to that end we’ve partnered with um another person who’s put together a two billion person event called live aid in 1985 and we’re creating something called peace aid this year we begin we will be doing it every year and the idea of peace aid is to get music as a way to bring people together across the world and raise awareness of this moon raise awareness that we have this power and agency to make

Adi Soozin: like in the

David Gershon: change like like a re re redo

Adi Soozin: 60s.

Stephanie Urchick: Yes.

David Gershon: right a difference flower children live again um we haven’t stopped

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: living some of us but in any event that’s peace aid right that was actually

Stephanie Urchick: Yeah.

David Gershon: the when was that that was 80s but 60 vibes if you will um so we’re bringing music together and so that’s now getting distributed Rotary again is helping distribute this across its network because Rotary you know has the best network I’m aware of across the planet.

00:22:55

Adi Soozin: Oh

David Gershon: Just an email this morning from Africa wanting to do P8.

Adi Soozin: yeah.

David Gershon: So the thing about the the the events is that at every event the musicians are invited to create uh an experience for its audience lighting a digital peace torch and inviting their audience to befriend the other. And so our goal is to create a global unit of moment, but not just a one-off moment like live aid, but an ongoing sustainable moment where the back end becomes peace game, peace zones, peace moonshot. So that’s where the digital peace torch fits in and the befriend the other action fits in. So that’s the scaling architecture. Um, individual change, community change, collective change at the scale of the whole planet.

Adi Soozin: Are you kicking this off at the UN General Assembly in September?

David Gershon: not in the general assembly as such, but on peace aid weekend. As you may know, a every year, every international every general assembly, there’s an international day of peace which is December 21st. Uh we find that the best time to celebrate that is the weekend.

00:24:09

David Gershon: So on September 19th, which is uh peace weekend, we’ll be doing this around the

Adi Soozin: Okay.

David Gershon: world.

Adi Soozin: Because a lot of the family offices are they we all fly to all the legacy families. We fly to uh um New York City every September for the UN General Assembly with all of our mentors and advisors, the foreign ministers who are telling giving us advice on where we should be focused and what we should be doing that that year. And then we see all those same adviserss and friends uh at Davos World Economic Forum in January.

David Gershon: So let let’s talk about those opportunities. I was in Davos two years ago. I spoke of moonshot launched the moonshot there.

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: It was very wellreceived I would add. Uh because people as you know in Davos have one question in mind impact right? I want to have impact. Yeah.

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: If you’re not doing that, don’t come to Davos. So, I had an interesting meeting, just to the aside,

00:25:05

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: with a woman who was the PR person for the World Economic Forum. She was sitting across from a sitting at a table with me at a closing event in the main hall. And she um was asking me what I did. I said, “Well, we’re doing a peace moonshot.” She said, “A peace moonshot? My god, all I get to talk about is AI.” um was this this really as powerful an idea as as as I think it is? I don’t know. You’ll see. Let me tell you about it. So she said, I want to be your PR person the next time you come to Davos because I think this is what Davos has been looking for.

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: Davos looking for an idea big enough to hold that aspirational energy of the people that go there. So that’s one point. The second point I want to make is one of the things that happened when we partnered with UNICEF was they brought all the leaders together.

00:26:02

David Gershon: That’s how we got all these world leaders involved. And so we launched this at the general assembly um in 1986. We came back to the general assembly. We had this huge responsiveness from all the countries of the world. So we have a history and a lineage of bringing this a moonshot into the general assembly. So I’d love to think creatively with you and others on how we might be part of something that you do this September and the Peace event can sort of be an anchor, but it could be, you know, a a moment to launch this larger vision into the world because that’s a great moment where the world comes together at the at the UN and just in New York City at large.

Adi Soozin: We actually

Stephanie Urchick: Oh, I was going to say this is just an aside.

Adi Soozin: good.

Stephanie Urchick: Since you brought up the United Nations, I just wanted to make note that Rotary and the United Nations have a very deep historical relationship that dates back to the founding of the UN in 1945 because there were dozens of Rotarians who helped to draft the charter that exist today and Rotary’s seven areas of focus directly align

00:27:06

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Stephanie Urchick: with the 17 sustainable development goals. So there is a very close relationship um between the UN and Rotary and and how we use our grassroots community action to make things happen.

Adi Soozin: Growing up, we used to have to go to the UN all the time when I was a child because we lived right next to New York. We lived right outside New York City. And my grandfather, one of his duties after he was stepped down from being international director, he finished his time uh was to go to every single Rotary event at the UN. And so people were like, “Wow, you’ve been in there?” And I was like, I go in there every month. I pretty much live there. It is cool the first 80 times you

David Gershon: I mean,

Adi Soozin: go.

David Gershon: I think the UN is a powerful platform. What we found because we we partnered with the United Nations for this experience was

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: they need something that allows them to use their brand but doesn’t get caught in the bureaucracy and we became that vehicle to help them do what they couldn’t do and we couldn’t do what they had done which is to bring all the leadership of the world together.

00:28:17

David Gershon: So, it’s great. And now that Rotary’s part, I mean, the thing is that I that I love about this is that Rotary has the kind of institutional credibility, but it’s not Well, I shouldn’t say it this way. Stephanie could talk about all the bureaucratic constraints of Rotary.

Adi Soozin: I hide behind her when they start talking about

David Gershon: And that said,

Adi Soozin: them.

David Gershon: in the unlike the UN which is just in bureaucratic constraint land, Rotary has the grassroots and that’s what we’ve tapped into. And so whether or not there’s constraints at certain levels of Rotary, which there has to be in any large institution, empowering the individuals, the million plus individuals is is really the power. But it’s not just Rotary, by the way. We already have 70 partners. I mean, Rotary is the kind of anchor, but we’re building partnerships all over the world. And the kind of people that are listening in on this, I mean, you know, we’re looking for people for every country in the world. I mean, every country, not not just every continent, but every country.

00:29:23

David Gershon: I mean, the moonshot means the planet. It’s not just a term. So anyone in any place, any city, any part of the world that’s listening in, any part of the infrastructure of the world, be they political infrastructure or business infrastructure or uh social infrastructure, we need you. Uh one aside, when Kennedy in 1961 said, “We’re going to put a man on the moon and get him back by 1969.” And so they gave the country you know that time frame eight years.

Adi Soozin: Eight years. And

David Gershon: What NASA discovered was, you may or may not know this, the moonshot lore, was that they had about maybe a third, 25% to a third of what they needed to succeed and they had to find the rest of it in the world. And that’s kind of where we are with our moonshot. That’s kind of where we we see ourselves. Between us and Rotary, we probably have about that. But it’s everyone listening into this call and everyone they know that’s the rest of the that’s how we get a moonshot to create peace on our

00:30:32

Adi Soozin: So, let’s walk through the mechanics of the moonshot.

David Gershon: planet.

Adi Soozin: Um, there will be an unveiling of a legacy family international investment summit at UNGA this year. Um, I’m working on that with one of my adopted uncles. Um, and this seems like it’d be a great thing to couple with that. So, let’s say we’re all in the meeting, we’re all in this room. We download this application, the Moonshot application, because it’s an app, right?

David Gershon: called the peace game.

Adi Soozin: Peace game. And then where do we go from there?

David Gershon: Yes,

Adi Soozin: Do we just take our phones throughout the day and pass the torch to everyone we meet around Manhattan?

David Gershon: we’re going to invent it. So the here’s an interesting thing about the digital peace torch which is of course built on the first earth run peace torch. It was initially based on a concert. Um so musicians would invite people in their concerts to light the torch and then pass it to one another and then we’re connected through the technology to people all over the world and you’ll meet someone from another country that pass you the torch and so on and befriend the people.

00:31:37

David Gershon: However, people said this digital peace torch doesn’t need to be only limited to a concert

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: setting. It could be liberated. So, we could liberate it all across New York City that day.

Adi Soozin: Heat.

David Gershon: We could liberated it all across the United Nations that day. Doesn’t have to only be in a concert setting. So, we could invent what that looks like. Um we had someone another Rotarian who did a test of this at a concert in Michigan uh couple weeks ago and she said I’ve now been going to concerts for like decades and they’ve never had such a powerful experience of a connectivity because normally it’s a passive experience. So what I would say Adi is that you me and Stephanie could invent something that would be profound and connected with this UN. I mean I’ll tell you another interesting story. We launched this at the UN General Assembly of the Secretary General 40 years ago September 16th. So this is the 40th anniversary. So what better way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of this torch of peace going around the world than relaunch it at the United Nations 40 years

00:32:44

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: later. That would be extraordinary and very very symmetrical so to speak.

Adi Soozin: And right now you’re raising capital for the application to be built, right? So that it can

David Gershon: has been built and out in the world for six years.

Adi Soozin: Okay.

David Gershon: We’re raising capital to scale the moonshot. We’ve already got all the proofs of concept. You know, in investment speak, you might call this a mezzanine investment. Um because we’ve already got all the stuff on the ground. Now we’re ready to go to scale. We need the scaling resources to get the leadership across the world, build the technology to the next level um and and build all of the uh other types of social infrastructure. We have to people all over the world engaged if we’re going to get this to the moonshot level. So that’s what the first 30 million does. And again, more resources, we can scale faster.

Adi Soozin: And how how large is your team that’s working on this with

00:33:45

David Gershon: Right now, it’s a small team. Um, we we’ve been able to get this done with about a couple of million dollars.

Adi Soozin: Oh,

David Gershon: Um, but we have a plan, a 45page perspectus that lays out all the details of how we build out the next layer of the team, which will be probably about 30 to 40 people.

Adi Soozin: and we can embed that document into the web page of this interview.

David Gershon: We could we could if you wish to.

Adi Soozin: Okay.

David Gershon: Yeah, we can embed that and we can embed what we’ve created as a slide presentation, 15 slides that really tell the story succinctly because that’s quite a read, you know, it’s it’s quite a lot of depth for the people that want that. And then we have a one-pager, you know,

Adi Soozin: Yeah, I love one long

David Gershon: the uh the art of the whole moonshot is on one page.

Adi Soozin: features.

David Gershon: So yeah, all that can be made available for sure.

Adi Soozin: you could Stephanie and I are in this um commercial real estate capital WhatsApp community together with alumni from the top 20 business schools and some months I’ll get like 600 pitch decks and she can tell you how many times I tell people one page means one page when I print it should not be eight pages and you’re calling it a one pager I love one pagers

00:34:56

David Gershon: Well, one pagers really is a discipline, right? Um the of one pagers and so we have distilled a moonshot into one page.

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

David Gershon: Uh and it literally is a page.

Adi Soozin: So we can for everyone that’s listening if you’ll go to 9×90.co coary moonshot rotary hyphen moonshot. That’s the web page, the URL that this interview will be on. And then on that page, you’ll have the one pager, the deck, and the 45page prospectus to be able to download as a PDF form to your phone.

David Gershon: Yay. Yay. Um, so I love that. Um, so we have the UN, uh, opportunity. We have this getting out in the world. Um, let me throw out an idea and talk about this a little bit. So Stephanie and I, you know, Stephanie, two days ago, David, are you free on this day? And if not, make yourself free. I said,

Adi Soozin: The queen has spoken.

David Gershon: So like two days notice and here we are having

00:36:01

Adi Soozin: You will attend

David Gershon: this extraordinary conversation with you and the community that you’ve built over these however long you’ve been doing this.

Adi Soozin: since I was born. I was born into community.

David Gershon: Um born so yes since your whole life. So, I want to just offer a thought for you and for this community that you’ve gathered. Rarely does something come along that could literally change the world. I mean, there’s a lot of people that use that hyper hyperbole, but this is for real. And we’ve been at this for decades. And Rotary’s been at this for 120 years. So there is something here of extraordinary power and yes I can say a few things uh you know in an hour and Stephanie can say a few things in an hour but what really is required is to have a real conversation where people gather and we talk and you ask questions and then we see who are the early adopters who say yes to this the visionaries um in your community that say yes I’m here to actually leave a legacy uh really the ultimate legacy change the trajectory of humanity on this planet.

00:37:17

David Gershon: Yes, let’s do infrastructure projects. Yes, let’s do all these other important things. But peace on earth, that’s the big that’s the big anchilada. So, I want to invite into this conversation the thought of another gathering that you might host if people are so inspired where we can really kick the tires. They can ask the questions. We can see who’s showing up. We can then discern what networks they represent. But this could be the moment when the moonshot really finds its capacity to lift off. So, I want to put that into the conversation.

Stephanie Urchick: Let me jump in and just um remind people that this is not an idea.

Adi Soozin: Oops.

Stephanie Urchick: This is not an idea. This is already in action and we have the results. So this is about scaling this initiative up and the reason we want to scale it up is because without peace doesn’t matter if you’re in the Rotary community or this community you know whoever is interested in making the world better any effort that you want uh or or put out there to improve health or education or infrastructures and in communities isn’t going to work if there’s conflict and and division because it destroys infrastructure, it displaces family, it deepens poverty and it keeps things from happening.

00:38:44

Stephanie Urchick: So that’s why this is such a critical piece for all of us as we’re thinking about changing the world. This is really the stable, you know, it creates a stable condition that we need for long-term development and long-term impact. And that’s what we really want to

David Gershon: Let me add one more thought and then Adi you may you were about to say something.

Stephanie Urchick: see.

David Gershon: So 2030 isn’t the endgame. Actually 2030 is a milestone. What the endgame looks like when you have a culture of peace is that all the good works that are out there now have more potential to get traction because there’s more cohesion in communities. There’s greater cooperation. People are more relable to relate to one another. And peace at the end of the day isn’t about treaties. It’s about relationships. It’s relational. When you teach the practices that enable those relationships and you can scale those relationships um for peace, you have a moonshot. It’s not actually very sophisticated or shall we say this sophisticated in that we drill down to what actually enables this change to happen is people changing how they relate to one another.

00:39:55

David Gershon: One of our favorite actions that has been the most popular is befriend the other. Who do you other in your life? That’s the action. you have to now reach out to the people you would other because they have a different worldview or they have a different skin color or they have a different cultural background. So these are transformational actions and at some point you know I can walk people through the app. That’s the kind of thing we would do at the smaller gathering. I’d walk them through the app, help them see the research we’ve done so they see the depth and breadth of what we’ve done help them understand the decades of work that we’ve done before this on behavioral change, community empowerment. So if one is serious, one can kick the tires and see what’s there. But even when you kick the tires, that’s not going to tell the whole story. The whole story is a moonshot. Who wants to be part of the moonshot of our time for humanity? That’s the question that we are looking to find.

00:40:48

David Gershon: The people who say yes to that

Adi Soozin: So realistically,

David Gershon: question.

Adi Soozin: when we go to UNGA in September, we should all be downloading this peace app. Uh I think December 1st is going to be the best time for us to have an online event where people can uh join us online from around the world. We would do it at noon Eastern Standard Time. So it’s 9:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. Um midnight in the Asia-Pacific region. It’s late in the afternoon in Europe. Um that seems like it’ll be the best date. Stephanie, does that work with your calendar as well?

Stephanie Urchick: It absolutely

Adi Soozin: Okay. If the grandmother’s there,

David Gershon: So we are you saying

Stephanie Urchick: does.

Adi Soozin: what else is there?

David Gershon: AI that would be that would be

Adi Soozin: December 1st, you were asking when we could do an online event.

David Gershon: credible. Yes. September 1st and so

Adi Soozin: December. December 1st.

Stephanie Urchick: December December

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

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00:41:38

David Gershon: and why December?

Adi Soozin: So, we have the UNGA in September. In October, I have to be in Singapore and then Miami and then France.

David Gershon: Yeah.

Adi Soozin: So I will be a zombie. November we have um the US national security uh meetings. and um some other speaking engagements. So December is the first time that we have open between the all the other private equity

David Gershon: Fair enough.

Stephanie Urchick: and I’ll be home recuperating.

Adi Soozin: events.

Stephanie Urchick: from my knee surgery. So, it’s a great time for

David Gershon: Well, I a question just so I mean time you know is closing in on

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Stephanie Urchick: me.

David Gershon: 2030. I’m wondering is there any ways that we might start conversations before that with people that have interest aside from the larger

Adi Soozin: Oh no,

David Gershon: gathering?

Adi Soozin: conversation should definitely start sooner rather than later. So realistically what’ll happen is we’ll publish this episode by the end of this week if probably either tonight or tomorrow. Um because then I have to go to California to walk a job site for an energy project and then uh next week I’m traveling and speaking in meetings in New York.

00:42:47

Adi Soozin: Um so this this will launch this episode will launch this week. Um and then we could do wi when we’re meeting and speaking just at the different events realistically we’ll start sharing the application in different places we’ll start sharing the link to this episode and interview in different places so it’ll get its organic reach um the UNGA is September 20th to the 30th in New York City. So that’s when we’ll be in places where we can share the application. If you want to host an event during UN General Assembly in Manhattan, uh we can discuss that with some of the other uh people.

David Gershon: That would be that would be a great way to do it because people are gathered and then we could have a deeper dive for those that gather there.

Adi Soozin: Okay.

David Gershon: Um we’d like to keep this moving along because our goal is to start raising this money by next year by early January. So therefore, you know, because next year, so let me just explain the four years. So next year is building the infrastructure.

00:43:42

David Gershon: So we need the resources in place. We have a lot of meetings we’re having now. Um, so we spend the year 20 27 building all the infrastructure, getting all the staff in place, and then the moonshot push is 28 to 30 to December 31st. So therefore, this fall is an important window for us to raise that money, the minimum money we’re trying to raise. So that’s why I want to just put time in the equation here.

Adi Soozin: So most people who come on the show see that they’re funded within 90 days. That’s that’s the power of the network and the audience.

David Gershon: 90 days would just be about right.

Adi Soozin: My my father uh my godfather also say this. Um I if a project isn’t funded within 90 days, it’s dead. It’s it’s a it’s been passed by everyone. So yeah, that’s

David Gershon: Okay. So then our goal would be so in 90 days that would be great.

Stephanie Urchick: There you

David Gershon: That is our funding.

Adi Soozin: why

00:44:37

David Gershon: Um and then we can build that.

Stephanie Urchick: go.

David Gershon: And so the other thing I want to invite people is not just the funding but it’s the network. I mean money is just a a puzzle piece in a larger mosaic of capacity. And that network is as valuable as the money because we can scale faster if we have access to the networks that have gathered around here. Um, and and I and I love questions. I love the hardest questions because we we pardon.

Adi Soozin: So I should start asking

David Gershon: Not that you need to ask them, but to say in these gatherings,

Adi Soozin: them.

David Gershon: I invite people to ask the qu. I mean, we’re asking a big thing of people to think to accept an idea like this. We have answers. We don’t have a lot of We don’t have all the answers. It’s a moonshot. We do have some. Um, and I would love people to go on the journey with us. And okay, this is what we know.

00:45:27

David Gershon: This is what we don’t know. Here’s what we are. Here’s what we’re not. Here’s what works. Here’s what we don’t know yet. But the more people embrace the journey of the moonshot, the stronger it’ll get. And the more questions we get asked of us, the harder we’ll work to get the answers if we don’t have them.

Adi Soozin: Um, okay. So, let let’s segue a little bit uh into we’ll we’ll have we’ll have the events coming up. Um, we’ll get this podcast episode out. You’ll get me the documents that we’ll put onto the website. Um, let’s segue a little bit into discussing your experience in the climate and energy space. All right, because we have 11 minutes left and we had a sponsor we need to

David Gershon: It’s to do that. So after the first Earth run,

Adi Soozin: thank

David Gershon: I asked the question, what’s the greatest need on the planet? And what became very clear, this was in 1987. The Britlin report had just come out, so a little history lesson for those that may not be familiar.

00:46:27

David Gershon: uh the prime minister of Norway and it was uh the beginning of the notion called sustainable development and what she said was the greatest cause of the deterioration of the global ecosystem were unsustainable patterns of consumption and production particularly in the developed world. And so I said, “Okay, I just did a moonshot. Let me take that one on. Why not change the developing change the patterns of consumption and and and and production in the developed world, which is where most of the energy was being consumed and carbon was being emitted. So I spent many decades learning. This is where I’ve learned the science of behavioral chain or this where I mastered all these things that I talked about. That’s where a lot of my learning ground was. It was my ultimate destiny. It’s to create peace on the planet. But we worked in 200 cities. Um we had major impact on carbon reduction. The same methodology we’ve been using here. Um and it was very successful. We called it um the cool city challenge which was to get cities to actually take on reducing their carbon footprint by 25%.

00:47:34

David Gershon: So I can’t say we succeeded at the level I would have wished. The issue was way more complicated but we did make great progress. Some of that progress is in some of the research we’ve done, all the all all the science of behavioral change that studied all of our work. But yeah, I know that space quite well and um it’s it’s very important space and and one of I loves about the moonshot, by the way, is that we can help that space go to another level when we create these new cultures because that space is stuck a lot because of all the conflicts going on in these communities and and it hasn’t known really how to tell the story as well as it needs to.

Adi Soozin: So highlighting what you said about um there being basically global systemic

David Gershon: So,

Adi Soozin: issues when there’s overconumption or improper improperly accounted for consumption within the developed nations. Um, something that is kind of interesting right now is we have these large private equity funds that notoriously come in, buy up an entire market and spike rates by 40%.

00:48:39

Adi Soozin: Now looking at the energy infrastructure in this country and if they increase energy costs by 40%, well that increases the expenses of every company by 40%. which just is going to put us into a total spiral with our economy seeing inflation go out of control. And so you have these smaller energy companies like National Energy Holdings who sponsored the episode today going and saying look if you have a commercial real estate building and uh we we can put alternative energy infrastructure on this to not only stabilize your cost so they’re only increasing at a standard rate of 3% per year instead of 30% in a few years. Um what what do you what do you think based on your experience? Do you think that they have a shot at stabilizing the US macro economy with that or what would you see that should be done different or that should be added to that

David Gershon: I love that plan, by the way.

Adi Soozin: plan?

David Gershon: Um, and someone had to figure out how to get into that niche because right now we just have a dumb energy policy in this country and we don’t have a strategy.

00:49:50

David Gershon: So, I love that strategy very much. um uh not to have not that all world roads lead to the moonshot but I do want to say that one of the things that will enable it to be stronger is how to build collaborative capabilities that don’t exist right now because to the starting point it’s coming right back to where Stephanie started this conversation what gets in the way and the reason I had to back away from the climate work was just it was such a polarizing space and there was so much us and them so we have to change a culture if we’re going to be able to get this to really get the traction that it requires. That said, you know, it’d be fun to weave in how we can collaborate in terms of some of the places that they want to do this with building peace zones, for example, um or you know, regions that they want to do this because then we get the back end. And one one side story, uh, a number of large businesses started coming to us way back after Davos and they said, “David, we’re not necessarily philanthropically oriented. We’re just straight up business,

00:50:56

David Gershon: you know, investments. But what we see here is if you get this right, you’re going to make our business investment work better. You don’t get this right,

Adi Soozin: Yes.

David Gershon: we’re going to be struggling in ways that, you know, we’re not going to get the ROI that we’re looking for. So let us figure out how to support what you’re doing and therefore let that help us do what we’re doing better. So there’s a very practical side to it for those that are looking necessarily for the philanthropic side but who want to make these kinds of investments in doing getting the world better. But the infra the cultures are not supporting that and and you’ll run into all kinds of problems without that and

Stephanie Urchick: I I come from the world of organizational development.

Adi Soozin: So,

David Gershon: do

Stephanie Urchick: That was my background in in studies. And we had a saying that was so on target. We would always say culture eats strategy for breakfast. You can have all the strategy in the world, but if you don’t, if you have a culture that’s toxic, that’s polarizing, that you’re not going to get anywhere.

00:52:00

Stephanie Urchick: So, David’s spot on. This is about culture

David Gershon: Well, and at the end of the day, Adi Adi,

Stephanie Urchick: change.

David Gershon: we we need to figure out how to support that part of your portfolio, that part of your community that are trying to do these kinds of investments. And to me, when you get that synergized with what we’re building, the cultural changes at the scale of community or a region or a country or a planet, everything works better, including the economics. So that gets really interesting. That’s another side part of the conversation I’d like to have with

Adi Soozin: So, uh,

David Gershon: folks.

Adi Soozin: Stephanie and I were actually speaking about starting an e-club in her district. It could be a moonshot alternative energy e

Stephanie Urchick: It could be.

Adi Soozin: club.

Stephanie Urchick: It could be. So, and the beauty of an E-Club is that you can be anywhere in the world and and join a group of your Rotary family in an

Adi Soozin: Yeah. Um,

Stephanie Urchick: E-Club.

Adi Soozin: and we were looking at just making it purely focused on legacy families and industry titans.

00:53:00

Adi Soozin: So, our Rotary Club meetings would be, okay, we have a few hundred million to invest into critical infrastructure. Where are our Rotarians in our club right now that they could help support that on the ground?

David Gershon: So let me add a third part to that. So what are the systems conditions required for success besides the resources and the distribution capability that Rotary brings. Uh and system so my book I told you I’d written several books.

Stephanie Urchick: Yes.

David Gershon: So one of them is called social change 2.0 a blueprint for reinventing our world. And this is all about second order change. Second order change is transformative social change versus incremental change. And you have to do this if you’re going to get any business to succeed in terms of creating the kinds of transformative changes required. They’ve got to figure out this piece that Stephanie’s talked about. So, I’d love as part of this larger conversation because this is where we start to get a a whole subset of conversations going. What are you trying to accomplish and what culture do you need to succeed and how can the peace zone and the peace moonshot assist you?

00:54:10

David Gershon: So then we’re starting to do not just positive change but also economic change that enables the kinds of things that the world needs to be more effective. we one has to think social change at the same time as uh a business investment because otherwise it’s really hard to get the kind of traction that these big ideas deserve.

Adi Soozin: My yeah, one of my adviserss used to say there’s no point in building a an empty castle.

David Gershon: So

Adi Soozin: An empty castle is worthless. An empty kingdom is worthless. If you have to build something where you you keep the people in mind and you want them to want to

Stephanie Urchick: Yeah.

Adi Soozin: live there and in order to do that

David Gershon: If you want to connect the dots, I mean, you got to get people to support.

Adi Soozin: test

David Gershon: It’s a big thing. I mean, the moonshot’s a big thing. I would say this is a whole track. I’d love to work on this track with you and and others aside from the larger we got to get the basic thing built, but I’d love to work on what’s the infrastructure you’re trying to build.

00:55:14

David Gershon: What’s the project you’re trying to create? What are what’s in the way? How can the culture of peace, how can a capacity building uh for a community or a region enable you based on getting greater cooperation. Now, it’s a long game, right? It doesn’t happen overnight, but that’s another subset of this larger vision that we’re putting into the world and and it’s an exciting one for me. I have a background in corporations. I’ve done a lot of decades of corporate consulting, so I know that world well. I can speak many languages. That’s one of the languages I I speak very fluently.

Adi Soozin: Wait, what other languages do you

David Gershon: When large city, I speak large city,

Adi Soozin: speak?

David Gershon: I speak corporate, I speak peace. Uh pardon No, I don’t I only speak one actual language, but I speak cultural languages in terms of change strategies. I speak NGO speak. I know all these different cultures I’ve had, you know,

Adi Soozin: Okay.

David Gershon: but factual languages, I’m pretty limited to just English

00:56:19

Adi Soozin: Okay. One one of my friends every time I try to learn a new language,

David Gershon: sadly.

Adi Soozin: he’s like he’ll he’ll switch to that language like flawlessly. I’m like, “How many languages do you speak?” And he was like, “When you catch up, you’ll figure it out.

David Gershon: And how many do you

Adi Soozin: Um, before COVID, I actually was proficient in several.

David Gershon: speak?

Adi Soozin: Uh, unfortunately, I lost many of them during COVID, and I just haven’t dedicated the time to get them back. So, uh, my Italian’s okay, my Spanish is okay, my Hebrew is a little bit rusty, and then at home we, um, before my father-in-law passed, we used to speak Latino. It’s a a mix of Bulgarian and Hebrew. But it it’s interesting because if you speak Latino, then you can understand like several different languages. Like you can understand Bulgarian. I didn’t realize that Latino made it so I could understand Turkish.

Stephanie Urchick: Wow.

Adi Soozin: Yeah. But

David Gershon: But I have a final question for you.

00:57:13

Stephanie Urchick: Wow.

David Gershon: I think we’re running towards the end of our time.

Adi Soozin: yeah.

David Gershon: I know theoretically you’re asking questions, but I’m doing my empowerment work, I’m always inviting people to to dream a bit. So, let me invite you to dream and let me invite your your audience to dream. So, what is your dream for the world? Tell me what uh when I was working with all these leaders of the world, that would be the question I’d always ask them like what is your dream for peace on earth? And what’s your dream for the world, Adi? What gets you motivated to to do all the things you do?

Adi Soozin: I would love to see clean running water and modern health care in every major city around the world. And I would love to see nursing schools for women going through kindergarten all the way through nursing school or medical school for uh not just women empowerment. Oh, we taught our women how to read. I like you you when you look at um the results when you have female doctors in all these emerging nations, you have far fewer deaths from unnecessary and illogical reasons.

00:58:17

Adi Soozin: So that’s one thing I would love to see. It takes a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of collaboration to to get that done. So, you’ll notice the mentors that I bring in all all braided together. But that’s I I think if I could have that done by the time I’m 80, I’ll say that was a life

David Gershon: Okay.

Adi Soozin: well-lived.

David Gershon: Well, I’m raising I’m raising it up one level. I love I love this.

Adi Soozin: Okay.

David Gershon: So, what does humanity need to look like for for you to feel that you’ve done your best? What does humanity look like aside from these particular issues that you’ve decided to invest in and do your best to help further?

Adi Soozin: The biggest problem that we run into when we’re trying to do this in specific countries is that uh there’s a lot of corruption and greed and people are just worried about putting 50 million in their pocket and they don’t care that there’s no hospital, no school, and no vertical farm, no energy infrastructure.

00:59:14

Adi Soozin: Like I’m like, you could have changed that entire village and you could have had everyone feasting instead of just yourself.

David Gershon: So yes, we have to change human people, human human beings and and and that’s doable, but we have to know how for sure.

Adi Soozin: What we’ve noticed is that when uh an emerging market has education through college, through university, there’s less corruption because they’ve studied the prisoner’s dilemma. And when they end their education between fourth and eighth

Stephanie Urchick: Yeah.

Adi Soozin: grade, there’s more corruption because they never got to the point where they studied things like the prisoner’s dilemma to understand that when they’re stealing from others, they’re stealing from themselves.

David Gershon: the golden rule in a certain sense. Uh, Adi taught us that recently. Stephanie, what’s your dream for the

Stephanie Urchick: Um, it needs to be kinder.

David Gershon: world?

Stephanie Urchick: It just needs to be kinder. you know, if we can get to a world that um you know, there’s so many things that you can choose to be, but I want people to choose to be kind because when people choose that particular path, then so many other great things can happen.

01:00:28

Stephanie Urchick: And we’re not we’re not there. We’re not even close to that right now.

David Gershon: This is true. That’s going to take a little bit, but we’re on our path. At least you and I are on a path. So, um, I’m so delighted to meet you, Adi, and see someone who has the capacity to create impact at scale. Um, who has a dream for a better world. uh who’s gathered people that have a dream for a better world. So, I look forward to creating that world with you and whoever else is

Stephanie Urchick: Adi, we thank you so much for having us uh chat with you today.

David Gershon: inspired.

Stephanie Urchick: It’s been an absolutely fabulous uh hour. And just want to remind folks that if they’re interested in anything that we talked about today, they should reach out to you. They should reach out to you about Moonshot. They should reach out to you about Rotary or anything else that we covered.

David Gershon: Sure.

Stephanie Urchick: and uh I know that you know how to get uh connections made and you’ll you’ll you’ll get that to the right people. Thank

Adi Soozin: And I think uh David, we can also embed your LinkedIn into the interview page as well.

Stephanie Urchick: you.

David Gershon: You bet. You bet.

Adi Soozin: Excellent.

David Gershon: Yeah,

Adi Soozin: And we look forward to you launching the Rotary Moonshot E-

David Gershon: that’d be great.

Adi Soozin: Club.

David Gershon: And we look forward to getting uh the Moonshot launched in 90 days thanks to your

Adi Soozin: Yes. Yes. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in. Remember, you can go to 9×90.co coco um rotary moonshot in order to see all the documents and to uh see where you can reach out to David on LinkedIn as well. Thank you everyone for tuning in and I’ll see you back online next time.

David Gershon: Thank

Stephanie Urchick: Wow.

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