Interview with The GAWDS

The Bali Chick is very passionate about animals and their well-being. I grew up with 2 cats and a dog. All of who I was lucky enough to see into their sweet animal oldie days. Animals are the epitome of unconditional love. They sense earthquakes, happiness and sadness and a plethora of other unseen emotions. Many are true heros and have saved lives, of both other animals and their human friends. Many do things more "human" and loving / thoughtful than more than half of us real humans know how to do. Did you know that if you give an orangutan a candy, it will often break it in half and give you back half of it?


Introducing GAWDS - The Global Animal Welfare Society and below an interview with CEO and my friend, Brad Anthony.


GAWDS is literally taking the world by storm with a GPS tracking system to help save animals in danger. You can text from your mobile device to report poachers, illegal hunters, or dangerous animals in community areas. Witnesses from Bosnia, Japan and Greece among others have already taken advantage of this simple animal-life-saving action. This WILL change the world and the future of so many of our four-legged friends. www.labs.globalanimalwelfare.org


Shopping GAWDS: With over 300 retail brands to shop from through the website, you are not only getting a sweet product, but supporting our furry friends. Everything from pet products and garden tools to fitness equipment and electronic toys. How cool is that?  www.globalanimalwelfare.org/therapy




GAWDS: "Inspiring change through collaboration, creativity and compassion. We're putting our own spin on social and digital activism for the new millennium. Community and capacity building with an awesome edge: we're committed to helping animal welfare, ecological and conservation groups, providing our supporters and the public with new solutions and tools to help animals worldwide."








Interview with Brad Anthony, CEO and Founder of GAWDS:


1.) Hi Brad, thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Before we get to the serious questions, let's warm up with some fun information about you. What can you tell me about animals and your childhood?


I was raised by my father's breeding pair of German Shepherds: Sabre and Sheena. I was their cub; and could walk around the yard or street and have them on either side of me at all times. No one could get near me - except my parents - not even my grandparents. I've always had real animals around me - on the contrary, I had make-believe human friends. However I did always want to hang out with the Snuffleupagus.

2.) Which animal are you most passionate about saving? 

It's a toss up. Tigers are on the top of my list for sure for many reasons; their primal symbolism and predatory simplicity. But Gorillas, Orangutans and Chimpanzees are certainly up there as well. For me it's easier to relate - for obvious reasons - to primate protection and feel that it has more potential for faster results as society grows to realize they're not just 99% genetically similar but that they feel pain and love, and form complex families and deep relationships directly comparable to those of naked apes like us.

3.) There are so many evil things happening to innocent animals around the world.  I.e. Sharkfin soup, seal situation, chinchilla fur, etc. What makes you the most angry? 

I'm a passionate person; my Scottish blood also comes with a fair share of rage and protectionism. Shark-fin soup makes me absolutely fucking furious; the viral demand in South-East Asia is so blatantly stupid and criminally short-sighted it's difficult not to lose hope for humanity. It's all about human greed and organized crime; and probably one of the best examples of such things. In comparison to war crimes aka crimes against humanity - shark-fin soup is a crime against nature and I hope one day to see people who blatantly destroy the world's ecosystems swinging from the gallows until they're dead.

4.) What do you expect to spend on marketing and PR campaigns similar to what other international organizations do?

Chi, sweat, blood, tears...but I promise you this; we will NEVER spend noteworthy amounts of our funds on marketing and PR as it goes entirely against my principles of authenticity. Marketing and PR are better left for people who don't believe in the shite they're selling. I will consistently spend my last dollars on helping an animal before wasting money on ad-space in a temporal publication or the side of a bus. 

5.) You seem to have the GAWDS business structure, goals, vision, focus and FUN in line. You're obviously a kickass leader. How often do you incorporate the TAO into your day-to-day business practice? 

My team is awesome and subject to their own form of natural selection - we truly are based in ecology. LOL I explained to everyone involved from the beginning that I run a results-based organization and people remained on the team only as long as they are producing results; anything else is dead weight and needs to be heaved overboard (hmm not unlike by-catch). I have very high standards - which I try not to ruthlessly impose on everyone else - but the ROWE management model was pretty much tailored for my style of standard operating procedures. Anyway, that's enough of the serious side.

Fun is very important - why do something if it's not fun and rewarding? The people on our team are treated as friends; not lowly employees or volunteers. We've thrown out the stale, unimaginative, uninspiring models of corporate governance and bureaucracy and implemented mandatory happy dances, eight hour work weeks and global net-commuting - subsequently we have team members everywhere on the planet except Antarctica, yet! Screw business as usual; happy team members who love what they do invariably provide better results in a fraction of the time than your average depressed employees in soul-sucking positions who work four to six times as many hours. The secret is simply - if you're not enjoying your life, change something, anything to increase your fun and satisfaction in THIS moment. You never know how many moments you have left to enjoy so get started.

Tao is, for the most part, about acceptance and "going with the flow" to use an appropriate water metaphor. That is it to say, taking the path of least resistance, which can be applied to everything we do. For myself, it manifests in not fighting against things that aren't working; being fast and flexible enough to change gears or speeds when part of one project stalls or goes sideways and another route becomes a more obvious or optimal path. It's also come up in team growth issues; I prefer to let people manage themselves as I didn't start on this path to be "in charge" of people, to be "a manager" per se.

I don't fret about the past and don't stress about the future; my role is simplified and made more effective by just being mindful of my personal and organizational goals; focusing on where we are in the moment and what we can do now to successfully cultivate more of our strategic objectives. My background in Taoist philosophy helps me immensely when acting in context of strategy or searching for much needed solutions to deeper obstacles like human greed, ego and rampant materialism.

6.) What are the deep, core issues that need addressing to create lasting change and provide immunity, safety and LOVE to animals around the world?

Our focus is primarily on the fundamental issues causing the problems, not the many secondary symptoms or manifestations of those issues. The later is what most groups preoccupy themselves with because they need million dollar budgets to sustain their bureaucracies and shiny ad campaigns. However, as a whole we're more concerned with affecting change and improvements, and finding authentic solutions for the underlying problems; as such:

• Increasing compassion for non-human animals and the clearly observable values in ecological protection and integrity;
• Increasing cooperation and coordination between thousands of concerned groups worldwide;
• Contributing to a new secular belief system; grounded in ecological, philosophical, technological design and use practices;
• Increasing government transparency and accountability;
• Challenging the stale and slothful status quo with new ideas;
• Inspiring an expressed zero-tolerance public policy for corruption;
• Increasing public engagement through convenient, cutting edge technology;
• Increasing global promotion of vegetarian values, information and resources. Anyone who is genuinely concerned with sustainability will realize sooner or later that meat consumption is entirely unsustainable, as well as unethical.
• Empowering the public to easily participate in and contribute to local and international improvements as new global citizens with international influence;
• Redefining “value” of nature, biodiversity and animals far beyond the current primitive monetary definition.
• Increasing the fun factor, rewards of, and obvious benefits to all in a non-profit culture;
• Increasing (dramatically) the penalties for crimes against nature; committed daily by immoral corporations worldwide.
• Increasing the world-wide celebrity of green power rangers, ninjas, nerds and animals committed to doing good and saving the world which so desperately needs more authentic heroes; fuck these overpaid socially-useless athletes, Hollywood stars and wannabee socialites – they don't accomplish anything except collect material wealth and get arrested for being idiots.

Driving all of this is the single most important principle that these changes MUST come from the bottom. Our governments and “leaders”, I use that term loosely; have failed to protect our populations and environments as they bicker in pointless political theater while the people and environment suffer the consequences; they've let corporations buy control of our policy to improve their own profits without improving our society - it's time for this to end permanently. We can't wait for simple-minded politicians and their corporate slave-masters to do what is needed. If we wait for a top-down solution; we'll all die unsatisfied with the results we yearned for and had the potential to create ourselves.

Change must come from the people - and much to government and corporate chagrin the movement has begun with the warm embrace of present day activism like Occupy Wall Street in the early 21^st century; the public is ready for change and it's an exciting time to give a shit about life, love, nature and to witness this much needed social apocalypse (which in its proper use means .We're on the precipice of unbelievable global change – it's coming. If you're not ready and prepared for it you might as well start learning to enjoy zombie stew.

Thanks for your time, Brad. Rock on. #tigerhug!!