It should be kind of simple, right? I make documentaries about people who do good things in the world… I’m creating 100 documentaries about people who make a difference… I’m making films about impact makers.
All of that is true. But the more I’ve said it, the more I’ve felt that it’s not really enough. It’s describing what I do, but not why I keep doing it.
“100 documentaries about people doing good things” is a bit like describing all the ingredients on a pizza. It’s telling you what’s there, but it doesn’t stick.
So right now I’m rebuilding many of things surrounding the project. Not the films, but how I talk about them. How people get invited into them. How someone who just discovered this is going to understand what it is, why it exists and why it’s so important to me.
And doing this work, it became obvious I need a better name for this project.
So I’ve been looking deeply, trying to understand what it really is that makes me say “yes, this film is for me to make” when I’m considering an idea, usually one I’ve brought to myself.
And I noticed that the common denominator for the people I have made films about is not that they walk around just being very inspirational by nature.
What’s inspiring is that they choose to do something.
And choosing something usually means giving something else up.
They could easily have chosen not to. It would probably be much more comfortable. And that’s what we humans usually do. We wait for someone else to fix things. Someone with more money, power, time, knowledge or energy.
But these people didn’t wait. They are doing. It’s not always pretty, perfect and only sunshine. And that’s what I’m drawn to. The doing despite it being hard.
That’s a lot of text to explain that this is also where I realized my own story aligns with the stories I tell through the films. This project is not separate from my life, even if I’ve sometimes talked about it like that.
It’s not just a YouTube series, or a creative passion project. It’s my way of figuring out how I want to live my life, what I want to use my time on this spinning space ball for, and ultimately – what kind of human I want to be.
That sounds big and pretentious, but the day-to-day of this is not a very romantic look. 90% of the time I’m sitting in front of my computer editing, and sometimes spending way too much time obsessing over how a story is going to come together, doubting myself half way.
So the name I landed on is:
WHAT IF YOU DIDN’T
And just like everything else around this, it’s not a simple, perfect name. I know this.
It doesn’t explain everything in half a second. But I’m not a marketer, so I can get away with it being complex.
And the most important for a storyteller: It has tension in it. And curiosity. I think it’s the right question, because it’s there in all my films, and also very very present in my life.
What happens to me if I don’t follow the thing that keeps pulling at me? What happens if I don’t help, don’t build the thing, don’t tell the story, don’t change direction?
Not in a judgy way. More like a curious inquiry.
I think it’s hard coded into most humans to only see the risk: What if it goes wrong?
But like Sophie said in the sailing film I did a couple of years back “What happens if I succeed?” That question stayed with me because it flipped the usual fear upside down.
So that’s where the project is now, 3,5 years in. 11 documentaries and countless other YouTube videos later. It now has a name.
And the first place this new name shows up properly is in the next film.
Brazil film release June 16th
Soooo. I was in Brazil back in October, filming with Lykke Coffee farms. And the documentary from this trip is going to be released on June 16th. On YouTube.
And this is the first film that officially has the new “What If You Didn’t?” packaging. It doesn’t have its own philosophical title in the same way the previous films did.
Rather it simply asks the question “What if you didn’t accept that this is the only way?” (referring to the way we produce coffee, which is clear from the context after watching the intro of film).
Anyway.
It’s a deep dive into how we are beating the planet into submission in our attempts to fill an ever increasing demand for coffee. All while the planet is saying NO MORE.
The way this is done now will, from what many studies suggest, lead to coffee being luxury product for rich people in 2050, because it’s going to be too warm to grow it the way we do now.
It’s not all pitch black though. Because my story of course highlights the people doing it the other way. The way that works with nature instead of against it.
If you’re in Stockholm, feel free to join the release party at Underverket coworking, just sign up here so that I know you’re coming.
I hope you’ll watch it, enjoy it, and spread it. Here’s a trailer.
Thank you for being here
This newsletter is now the place where I’ll try to share openly the process, my constant messy middle of navigating this uncharted territory, my fears, my doubts and progress.
The fact that you are here, reading this right now means the world and more to me.
I honestly think making and watching these films is a way to educate ourselves and by doing that, we can change the current narrative of the world being in this very sad state.
If you have any questions, or anything you’d like me to cover, just leave a comment or hit reply. I’m here!
Have a nice day!
/Robin
Originally published on Substack on 9 June 2026. Subscribe there to get new posts by email.