Bridging Divides with Diana McLain Smith

Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspiration to help you operate at your fullest potential. Integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. I'm your host, Ashish Kothari, the founder and CEO of Happiness Squad and author of the bestselling book Hardwired for Happiness. I will be your personal guide on your journey to explore the many facets of happiness, wisdom, well being and flourishing, from personal growth to building more positive environments at work. In each episode, we will share powerful insight, tips and stories from our guests who are leading experts, company executives, and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge. Whether you're looking to overcome life's challenges, to go from good to great, or to enhance your team's performance through flourishing, this podcast is the place for you to find more joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do. Join us every week as we rewire for Happiness together. Welcome to yet another episode of Happiness Squad. And today we are honored to host Diana McLean Smith, author of her new book, Remaking the Space Between How Citizens Can Work Together to Build a Better Future for All. Diana is a renowned thought leader who has led change efforts for 35 years in some of America's most iconic businesses and cutting edge, not for profits. A former partner at the Monitor Group and a former chief executive partner at New Profit, Diana developed a novel approach to conflict and change called Leading Through Relationships. In this new book, Remaking the Space Between Us, Diana invites us to see beyond the news headlines showing how polarization is more of a myth than a reality. She stresses the importance of coming together to tackle our most urgent problems. Now, in this episode, we covered a range of topics including the importance of self awareness, hope, empathy and conflict resolution in creating a better future, the power of collective action, and the role that citizens around the country are already playing in driving positive change. Stay till the end to hear practical strategies that you can implement right away. Harnessing the power of constructive conflicts to create more innovation, better outcomes, and deepen the relational fabric in your companies. Hi Diana, how are you? It's so lovely to have you on our podcast.

It's wonderful to be here, Ashish. I have to say, I'm happy to be here.

You know, look, I had a chance. Thank you for sending us a copy of your book. I'm going to actually hold it up here. I should have gotten it up and I have to tell you, I saw the book and I literally fell in love. What a beautiful title. Because this is so present. So Diana's book just came out, and it's called Remaking the Space Between Us. In a world where we seem to be more polarized, or at least we feel it is, there is such important work that needs to be done. And that's the subtitle, How Citizens Can Work Together to Build a Better Future for All. So I love it. That's the book we're going to explore together. But before we go there, I always ask this question to our guest, Diana, which is, what does happiness mean to you? And how has that definition changed over time?

Well, first, I love the question, and it required me to do some reflection I haven't done in a long time, and I always find that really valuable. So thank you for the question. It brought me back to when I was a child and my mom, who was an extraordinary woman, and I adore her even now that she's gone, and she struggled with alcoholism, and I think because of that, she always felt very guilty. So she would frequently pull me aside and say, are you happy? Okay. And I never knew how to answer the question because I knew in part that she was asking it for reassurance. And yet I didn't feel it would be truthful because I actually just didn't know how to answer the question. The other memory I had was there was a game my brothers and I used to play where it was this thing you would write on, and it would give you these three options and you would bet with one another. Which would you rather have? Fame, money, or happiness? And I could never figure out why anyone wouldn't just pick happiness. Because if what makes you happy is fame or money, you get that, okay? So I could never figure it out. So I always chose happiness, despite the fact I couldn't answer my mother. So that was as a child. And then, you know, I wandered off into the world, as we all do, when I was in college and I started working with kids in the communities of Boston. And I worked in two different communities. One was primarily black, the other primarily white. Both were working class communities, families who were really struggling at the time. This is back in the 1970s, and I was in Boston and it was in the middle of busing, so it was a very tumultuous time. And. And these schools were just awful. It didn't matter whether you bused someone here or there. They were not great schools. So these kids were up against a lot. And I found an enormous amount of meaning and purpose in helping these kids understand their own self worth and put them on a path where they could realize their potential. And that made me think of happiness as having a sense of meaning and a sense of purpose in life. And that has stood me in good stead my entire life. Because there are many things that happen in life that can knock us off our center, make us suffer. And if you have relationships and a sense of purpose, it allows you to make it through that adversity. And I'd say, you know, I learned that at my mom's feet because despite all her struggles, she had an extraordinary capacity to build relationships with people. So. And to really make you feel like you had a purpose in life. So that that has stood me in good stead. Now, today, I'd say I'm doing the same thing. I'm working with young people, trying to help them realize their potential. I'm trying to help our country realize its potential. We made a promise years ago with our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, and it's a struggle ever since to make good on those promises and to live into the pursuit of happiness and liberty and justice for all. So that is my abiding purpose now. And I will also say there's a wonderful quote I came across by John Patrick Shanley, who is a playwright. He wrote the film score for Doubt and also for Moonstruck and Moonstruck's one of my favorite movies. Talk about joy. But this is what he said. I have two dogs. I have a border collie and a mutt. And he said, I picture each day as if it were a happy dog looking at me. I may not be in the mood, but the dog always wants to play. Trust the dog.

How beautiful. And I always trust the dog. How beautiful. Wow, I love that quote. And so, so poignant what you just shared. You know, Diana, this notion of if we want to be. I think there is a problem with the word pursuit of happiness because we know from research when we pursue happiness, we are unhappy. Maybe that's the reason we are at an all time, you know, low in terms of unhappiness and loneliness in the US and we'll get to that question in just a minute. But truly, you know what? You highlighted two of the really critical ingredients that have shown up over thousands of years. The stoics talked about it. Eudaimania, living a virtuous life, living in service of another connections. The recent Howard research around relationships and the power of that for us to flourish and be happier and be satisfied with life, so, so, so powerful, you know, that those are kind of from your own lived experience as well, are kind of what you're tuning into. And you also so beautifully talked about the fact that this is not about not having suffering, but it's about really building these key practices that then allow us to withstand and overcome suffering. Bounce forward from it.

Exactly. And even, you know, if I can stay on this for a minute longer, one of my idols and many people's idols is Abraham Lincoln. And I've read many, many biographies of him. But recently I read John Meacham's book and There Was Light, which is an in depth study, not just of Lincoln, but of the decades leading up to the Civil War, when our country was manifesting many of the ills we see now and much of the unhappiness we see now. And so when I studied Lincoln, what struck me is how did this man who did have bouts of depression, how was he able to be such an extraordinary leader and in his second inaugural address, demonstrate incredible empathy for the South? I mean, this is just stunning. And so what I discovered is that he did have remarkable adversity of the youth, and he suffered mightily. But in the midst of that adversity, he also had extraordinary relationships. He had relationships with his stepmother. He had relationships with people in town. He had a gift of forming friendships. And I think it was those relationships that helped him make something out of the adversity. And then the last thing I'll say is he loved to read and he found meaning in what he read. So, you know, he had this constellation of forces going that I think forged this extraordinary character and I think can imitate it.

Absolutely. So you alluded to this a little bit, Diana. You know, around you just said, you know, what was happening then and now. So it is quite amazing. The recent Gallup report came out, the World Happiness Report. You know, the surgeon General's been talking about the epidemic of loneliness. In the Gallup report, we are 23rd in the world on happiness. We are actually, I think, number 53 or number 63, I don't exactly remember right now, but below 50s when it comes to young population happiness. And I'm curious, you know, as another practitioner in the field who speaks so much about connection, what you think are some of the underlying causes, what behind this decline that we are seeing consistently?

It's a very important question. It's not an easy question to answer simply because there's so many forces at play. And I'm sure I'm going to leave a whole bunch out. But let me say, the bias I have whenever I'm thinking about that question, it is always looking for causes that will provide a toehold, some way of transforming or altering the cause and pushing us forward to a better future. So that I'm always looking for, where are the leverage points? So let me start with where there are very few. I mean, we know that over the past few decades there's been a remarkable increase in globalization, in the migration of populations, in the rise of technology, in the rise of the Internet, 24 hour news, cable news. All these forces externally bombard us with, and oftentimes because of the news, leading with what bleeds.

Yep.

We're bombarded with just terrible things happening in the world constantly. And so that is just so very difficult. And one of the things I think that happens is it flips us into a very unhappy cycle, which is this. We get anxious, Understandably, all these things are happening. We don't see how we can affect it. And so we start to get on our iPhone all the time. And we go to the news and we go to our text, and there's something about getting on our iPhones that distracts us from the anxiety. Okay. And then the more we do that, the more anxious we get. And then the more anxious we get, the more we go to our iPhone.

Yeah. It's a self cycle that kind of feeds with a dopamine addiction that, you know, it creates for us.

They know, exactly. And so my advice is put down the iPhone, put down the iPad, and make eye contact with the people next to you. Stop being glued to these technologies and start to be glued to one another. Because unhappiness and loneliness are hand in glove. We're disconnected from people, and it is making us profoundly unhappy. So, you know, that is one of the things I think we all have an obligation to try to migrate.

I love that notion. You know, Diana, what I also love is I'm just reflecting on so often, you know, my wife and I will go out for dinner and, you know, you often find, you know, whole families sitting with their phones in their hands. I'm like, I don't know why they're sitting together in a restaurant, but all four are plugged in. And you notice they go. Interesting. Now, I also take my phone out many times, and my wife is always very. I love her. She's like, put your phone down. And we do. And if you don't even have phones on the desk. Because we know how much that affects. Even having a phone up there fundamentally affects the level of connection we feel. Because you're signaling something is more important than the other. Right.

And you know, just on that, the Reason I came to. Sorry to interrupt you, but the reason I came to this insight wasn't from seeing other people do it. It was watching myself. I mean, it was just like I have this drive and my husband makes fun of me. You know, it's like, put your iPhone. He told me to put my iPhone down. I tell him to put it down. Okay. It's just.

But we need to do that. We need to do that for ourselves. And then, you know, the other thing you started with, which is so true, which is we've got to take action, to disconnect in ways from. You know, if news constantly is focusing on the negative, it's like that is the only thing to report. There are so many good things that happen in the world all the time. Right. Even in the midst. Like, you know, for example, there was not a single story. I'm just. There's not a single story of humanitarian aid or told from the point of people who are moved to action right. In this. Israel, Gaza, the conflict. But the moment makes sense. And their brands, the moment the group from, you know, from uk, you know, got blown up accidentally. Now we are covering the news. Why we didn't cover any of the others. So in every point of suffering, why focus just on the suffering? Why not focus on all the goodness that is also pouring into that moment?

Exactly.

And if we can't have our news media do that, then I think that it's our. That we have to have the obligation to not let all of that get into us. Because, yes, when we take that in constant negativity, we do experience anxiety.

Yes. And, you know, you've just put your finger on why I wrote the book. It's because I wanted to set the record straight that even though the story in the headlines is how polarized we are, behind the headlines, I discovered that 87% of the population is not polarized. And then I came across a story about a town that responded to acts of hate by coming to the aid of the people who were the victims of it. And they started a movement called not in Our Town. And based on that, I said, my God, if they exist, there's got to be other places. I figured I'd find maybe a few thousand organizations across the. There are tens of thousands of groups across the nation, hundreds of thousands of people working to counter some of these forces. And you don't read about it in the press. So I want to give your listeners a present. Okay? Very important. Get your pens out. There's a group called Solutions Journalism Network. Solutions Journalism Network. And if you go on Google and Google them, it'll take you to their website. And they are doing two things. One, they are highlighting all the stories that get at just what you said, Ashish. All the things people are doing to counter the terrible things we hear about. Okay? The second thing they're doing is They've already trained 60,000 journalists around the globe to do solutions Journalism. They are trying to reinvent journalism. So I think what we're seeing right now is it's gotten so bad that there are now organizations and people and movements that are disrupting the status quo. Okay? Now, in the meantime, before we have a new status quo, it is on us to do two things. Go to Solutions Journalism Network, read their stories, support them, give them money so they can do their work. Okay? I think that's very important. And the other is do what I do. I unplug. I do not spend my time looking at the news. And I'm very discreet about the news I look at. So I go to solutions Journalism. I go to. I don't know if you're familiar with Substack newsletters, but Substack is a newsletter platform that is reinventing the business of news so that writers can have a direct relationship with readers. And there's some extraordinary people on Substack, like Timothy Snyder, Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Hubble. These are remarkable people. And I just launched a substack, what was it, maybe two months ago, in order to build on the stories in my book so that I could get out to people in the world. Some of these stories, not only that I came across then, but I'm continuing to come across now. So I think it falls on us to find different sources of news because they're out there and they need our support. We have to stop supporting this sick news that gets delivered to us and starts up.

And I think it's a movement that's building even before our conversation. Diana, I was at lunch three weeks ago with two of the folks who are at the local PBS radio network here.

Yes, PBS is a great example, too.

We were talking about. What they were talking about was actually rebuilding, finding spaces and bringing real dialogue. Again, not shouting at each other, telling, you're wrong and you're right. But how do we actually facilitate dialogues within communities of topics that in many ways seem to be divisive, but they actually are not. Because to your point, there is so much ground if we can choose to inquire and really go deeper underneath the issues of what are we solving for and what are we really worried about.

Exactly. And what are we hoping for? What are we concerned about as opposed to what's your position on immigration?

And look, I mean, if our community are not healthy, which is where I want to get to in the book, if our communities, the societies in which we live in, are not healthy, we don't feel safe, we don't feel that we belong, we can't flourish, we cannot flourish. Community and relationships are at the heart of flourishing. So let's get to that.

Absolutely.

So you know, in your book Remaking the Space Between Us, you talk about a world where people are seeking refuge with like minded people and they are distancing themselves from others less known. So tell me a little bit about. Really, if you look at the heart of it, tell me about the core message you wanted readers to take away because that wasn't it. You're talking about a world that is not polarized, but actually in the middle. So talk a little bit about that message and really the principles that you talk about in your book. We hope you're enjoying this episode. If you'd like to start building habits and integrating the hardwired for happiness practices into your life, come check out Rewire our program on the Happiness Squad website. Rewire contains 35 minute micro practices that can help you truly build habits for a happier, healthier life filled with more love and meaning. The program uses the science of habit formation and the power of community to support you in moving from knowing to doing to being. Now back to the episode.

I will and you know, everybody encourages me to have my elevator speech. So I'm going to try to distill this. And it's the thing about it that makes it so difficult is it's actually what I'm about to describe is lying in plain sight. But none of us see it. So let me, let me take it from the top. So the thing we see, we can observe is polarization and we see a rise in hate and we see a rise in inequities. Okay, Those are the things we see. These are all symptoms, but what are they a symptom of? And I think it's a symptom of the space between us and how you and I maintain that space. Okay, So I want to say what that space looks like. So. And by the way, from my point of view, this is the woof and warp of everyday life. We're so used to living this way that we don't even see it. It's just the way we live. So the root cause is since our founding. I mean, I'm not talking about today. I'm talking about since our founding, we as a people have always lived separate lives in groups divided along ideological and demographic lines, okay? That has been true since we were founded. And at different points across our history, we have gotten more and more insular within these groups and more and more divided across them. And those two things are very important to understand because people keep talking about how we have to bridge the distance. We'll never bridge the distance until we open up the space within groups because we're all colluding with each other, okay? We're all had the same belief system. We're all looking at the same news station. We're all living in the same neighborhood. There's a wonderful book, I highly recommend it. I just came across it by Debbie Irving called Waking Up White. You may have heard of it. It is definitely worth reading because she talks about how she never even understood herself as a white person. She just took it for granted as the standard. And then all of a sudden she realized that she had just been living in this bubble. Talk about self awareness. We need to become aware of where we live our lives and what that's doing to us. So to me that is the root cause. Now the big thing about this, that to me is so hopeful is that of all the forces driving polarization, the Internet, globalization, inequities, this is the one we can control. Yes, we can't get globalization to go away, we can't get technology to go away. But we can remake the space between us. That's something we can control. So this is by far the most fundamental root cause. It's been around the longest and it's the only one we can control.

The journey out there starts here, right? Journey starts from self inquiry.

It starts with us and the groups in which we live. I'm doing a conversation with my little community here, which is pretty darn divided by a demographic line. It's for old people, you know, at a certain economic income. And so I'm going to talk with them about this and I'm going to see what happens. So one thing I wanted to mention, there are two organizations. Again, I want to do your listeners a bit of a favor here. It's not that easy to break out of these spaces because we live in them.

We're not even aware because what else doesn't get in it? We're not even aware.

Exactly. So there's an organization called Citizen Connect and I can send you the links after the show if you'd like. But Citizen Connect is one and the other one is Listen First Project. And Citizen Connect has 500 or so organizations, any one of which, if you joined and you don't have to make it a full time job, but you can look and explore these organizations that offer you opportunities to connect with people. One such organization is called StoryCorps and they have a subdivision called One Step where they will match, if you get in touch with them, they will match you with somebody who is different from you and they'll structure a conversation for 30 minutes with that person. Okay. That's an easy first step. The other thing is I have a dog walker who I assume because she lived in the Northeast, she was a liberal and she tells me, no, she's a Republican. My 26 year tenured business manager voted for Trump. I did not. Okay. I make it a point of reaching across those divides to try to understand and get in their heads and empathize and help them do the same and connect around core values.

Those are all things we can take. You know, I love, I love what you're saying because it's about actions. We can take so many. You know, there are so many in the world right now, Diana. It's true in the US it's true with the younger population where people are losing hope, right? They're losing hope in the system, in the government, in the leaders. But I love the work of Jane Goodall, who he says, you know, don't lose hope. You can be the hope because you can take action. And if enough of us take action collectively, we start to change the system.

That is so. Jane Goodall is one of my heroes for that very reason. And for that reason, I see hope as a very important political act. It's not like I don't despair from time to time. It's not like I don't pull my hair out. Right? We all do. I mean, it's. There's some depressing things going on. We'd be insane if we didn't. And there are moments. In those moments, we have to choose to hope and to act as if we hope and eventually the hope will come back. And if it's not, is it a problem if I just make a point of saying some of the things I.

Want to hear about, the things that give you hope.

Okay, this is one thing I think people are despairing. They lose sight of what citizens can do. So I just want to read a list of what citizens have done in the past. Okay, so one. In World War II, the British created a flotilla of boats that rescued 300,000 soldiers. Stranded on the shores of Dunkirk. If they hadn't done that, World War II would have ended right there because that was the entire British army and the French and so on. Second, they pioneered a non violent mass resistance movement that freed India from British rule. Built an abolitionist movement in the US that ended slavery and extended the rights and protections of citizens to black men. Organized a non violent decades long civil rights movement that outlawed segregation and got voting rights passed a century later. Lobbied, lectured, wrote and protested as part of the suffrage movement that amended the U.S. constitution and and extended rights to vote to women. Launched a labor movement in Poland that precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union. Brought down a military dictatorship and restored democracy to Argentina. Ended legal apartheid in South Africa after decades of struggle. Fought to establish a democracy in America through a war of independence, to save it through a civil war and to defend it through two world wars. Mobilized in a day to resist Russia's invasion of Ukraine and inspiring a worldwide fight for democracy. Every single one of those changes that occurred globally was led by citizens.

Love that.

By citizens.

You know, I'll add one to that list, Diana, which is. Which is the work that Jane kicked off with Roots and Shoots in Africa. With Roots and Shoots Organization. Right. Which has now got over 10,000 chapters and is really giving the power back to kids to take actions that make a positive difference for the animals, for nature, for humans. Right. For the environments in which we live.

And all the stories in the book were stories of citizens.

I love that. So friends, get a copy of this book, Remaking the space between Us, how citizens can work together to build a better future for all. Because truly we can make that change. I mean, the stories you just highlighted, Diana, are like really momentous. You know, things that could have changed the tide of time. And it was the collective action of so many that came together and made it possible. And it's possible today. However, none of that would be possible unless we fundamentally start to become aware of our own lenses and learn to tune into others. So you say this beautifully.

Yes.

None of us see ourselves as others do because we all see ourselves from the inside out, not from the outside in as others see us. And you talk about empathy, so talk a little bit about how empathy as a superpower can help us deeper connections and really improve these interpersonal dynamics in our communities.

Absolutely. And if I could just stay for a moment on Self awareness is so very difficult because of seeing ourselves from the inside out and others seeing us from the outside in. So one thing is, it may be self awareness but it cannot be done alone. It has to be done in relation to others who will help us see things we don't see, and we can help them see things they don't see. Okay? And so this is a collaborative process of cultivating self awareness. It's not sitting alone in your room saying, who am I? You know, what are my beliefs? Because some of our beliefs are implicit biases. We don't even see them. Others see them. Okay? So it is a fundamentally interpersonal act. But you asked about empathy, and it is such a fundamental. And by the way, my brother also wrote a book about our problems today, and it's called Tribal Fear, and it's Fear, Empathy, and the Way Back or the Way out, but it's called Tribal Fear. But it's all about empathy being the key. And it's a wonderful book, so I highly recommend it to your listeners. So there's a wonderful quote in To Kill a Mockingbird when Atticus says to his daughter Scout, you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb in his skin and walk around in it. And that always has touched my heart. And, you know, so that is what you have to do to, you know, really empathize with someone. But I always worry if you leave it at that, you project your own assumptions onto your experience of walking in their shoes. Okay? So I always think two things are very important to cultivate empathy, and one is to observe. Much like, you know, in meditation, when you have intrusive thoughts and you're not supposed to judge yourself, you just observe them like a cloud going across the sky and let them go. You know, it's very important to observe the stereotypes we use to categorize people and turn them into flat characters. The other day I was driving along and a guy, you know, sped up and cut me off. And I went, what a jerk. And I caught myself and I said, what is a jerk? What's your definition of a jerk, Diana? Okay, Then it was, it's somebody who is selfish, only looking out for themselves. And then the next step is to start to reframe and say, well, maybe you've cut people off. Maybe something else was going on. You don't know. So just imagining other interpretations other than jerk. So stereotypes get in the way of our capacity to empathize. But the second thing is very important, which is getting in the habit of inquiring into people's experience, asking questions, you know, like, wow, you know, I saw that. I saw you, you know, the other day when you you seemed a little agitated. You interrupted John. What was going on? What was going on? What were you. What was going on at the time or anything? Anytime somebody does something, what's. How are you doing? How are you feeling? Really getting into the habit of asking for people's experience and really trying to help them describe it, not characterize it or judge it. Like, oh, I was just being a jerk, but what were you feeling? Okay. What was going on in your heart? And then the thing I ask people to do is to listen for the sense, not the nonsense, in what they hear. Then you can empathize. But until then, you're not sure if you're empathizing with their experience or you're imposing on them. Your experience. Does this make sense?

I love those three. All those three points that you made. Right. Number one, you talked about these stories we tell ourselves. I loved your explanation of, like, you're a jerk. What is a jerk? Right. Or you're smart or you're unkind. There's good and bad.

Right.

Light and dark are labels. Right. And, you know, it's just one thing that I always go back to is what's day and what's night? You know, for many of us, of course, day is when the sun comes out and night is when the sun goes down. But there's also deeper. Well, day is when we do things, when we move around, when we accomplish. Night is when we rest. Yes, right. Well, for most nocturnal animals, it's the quite opposite.

Yeah. Like my husband.

Right. But. But again, this notion of. I think we have beliefs, we have things through which we just take things for granted. It doesn't have to be that way. And I love that. I think the other piece, I also really, really enjoyed, you know, and I love. I think it's so practical, is don't just listen to the words and intentions, but go below the iceberg to what they're feeling, what they were thinking, what they were afraid of. Right. Because maybe there was something else or there might have been something else going on altogether. It had nothing to do with the two of us having, you know, nothing to do with me. Nothing.

Exactly.

Something else was bothering you. And so I love that, too, which is really get. You know, really go there. I love. I love those. I love those.

You know, it's so. I want to be empathic with people's efforts to do it, because we live in a culture where, especially in organizations, you know, we. We have this myth of rationality where feelings aren't appropriate. And so. And we rarely talk about our feelings with one another and we don't want to impose, or we feel like. Especially women, you know, might feel like, you know, they're looking too hysterical, or an African American man might be angry by something, you know, so there's so many sanctions against doing what we most need to do that. A good friend of mine has a good book coming out, and I highly recommend it. I'm recommending a lot of books here other than mine, but I. I really get mine, too. But anyway, there's a great book by a dear friend and a student of mine by the name of Jeff Wetzler, W E T Z L E R, called Ask. And it's about how you can benefit from the wisdom of others. Okay. And he really breaks down how you can reduce the barriers people can feel to tell you what they really are feeling. So at one point, he had a subtitle I actually liked the best, but his publisher, Kibashta, it was how to find out what you most need to know from the people least likely to tell you.

Wow. So true, though, right?

It is. So get that book. It's a great book. It's coming out in May.

I love it. I love it. And I also like your third point around, like, creating space, observing, like we do in mindfulness, because oftentimes when we don't stop and we are so busy, that's when these stereotypes get us. And we might try and empathize, but only empathize again from our side, rather than really stepping in and understanding, because only through asking can we really understand. You can't just say, well, I can imagine myself. No, you can't. You're still. There's a lens behind the lens. You've just got to know that.

Exactly. And listening, too. I mean, you know, we can listen and not really hear what somebody's saying because it's going through the filter of our beliefs, our stereotypes. Eddie Cloud, who's a wonderful African American historian, and he wrote a book called Begin Again, where it was during. I think it was just after Trump got reelected, and he was despairing because he couldn't figure out how the African American experience was once again, you know, being denigrated, and what were we going to do? And so he went back to James Baldwin, who went through a similar experience where the civil rights movement burst through the scene and brought all this hope. And then all of a sudden, Martin Luther King's assassinated, Malcolm's assassinated. And so he. He wrote this book about how do you hang on to hope in the face of these setbacks? And one of the things he talks about is history and how we read history. And he made an extraordinary point. He said, you know, whenever you read history, and this is the same of reading a person, okay, whenever you read history, you've got to ask yourself, why did I select these facts and not others? So when we're looking at somebody, why did I choose to focus on this aspect of the person and not on others? And then you also have to ask yourself, when I'm interpreting those facts, what does it say about me that I interpret them this way and not another way? And this goes all the way back full circle to self awareness. All of this helps build our self awareness as well as our connection with others.

I love that. So, you know, on this topic of awareness and on topic of empathy, the other thing you highlight is you advocate for using conflict as a catalyst to create new possibilities rather than just rehashing old positions or remaking old arguments. You know, this is at the heart of so much suffering at work. I see this all the time. You know, it's true out there in the world, but it's true at work. You have two leaders who come in and all they're doing is just talking about advocacy, advocacy, advocacy, advocacy. Nothing is actually being discussed. We're just replaying the same story. We're wasting so much time. So much of time that we don't have gets wasted in these unproductive dialogues. So I am curious, what would be some real practical advice or methods that you would say from your work, Diana, that leaders can use in truly transforming catalysts into opportunities for innovation and improvement?

Well, several things. I hope they're practical. The first one is to reframe how we think about conflict because we don't know how to handle it well. It is oftentimes destructive. So we assume it has to be destructive. But that destructiveness is a product of our own limitation. So I want to say we could reframe conflict as a potentially constructive force. And Mary Parker Follett, back at the beginning of the 1900s, was the first person to suggest that it could be a constructive force, not just a destructive force. And so I think that's number one. The second is whenever we're in a conflict, we tend to be dealing with an issue that is very complex, where the data are not easily accessible. It's often about a future state. So there is no data. We might have different values or interests around it. It's a very difficult topic. Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill used to get in conflicts. And John Meacham wrote A wonderful book called Winston and Franklin about their relationship. And he made an incredible point. It was an aside, but it was really fundamental. He said they directed their frustration at the situation, not in each other. They understood that the situation was inherently difficult and it would bring up frustration. And then when we get frustrated, we attribute the source of the frustration to the other person. And then we turn a substantive conflict into an interpersonal conflict. And that's when we get stuck. Okay, so that's the second thing. The third is no matter how much we might differ on the substance, all of us have been brought up in a culture where we are taught in a conflict, win, don't lose, push your view. It's either or. These fundamental cultural assumptions have got to go. Okay? And so I think it's worth thinking about how are we behaving in the conflict to contribute to a pattern that we don't like? Forget the other person. We're not getting anywhere. Okay. And so one example of a typical pattern is point counterpoint. And that point counterpoint pattern is a product of what you were just saying. Advocate, advocate, advocate, advocate. No inquiry, okay? No mutual learning. It's all designed to win. So I think it requires learning a different approach to conflict. And there a gazillion books since I first wrote about it with Chris Archer back in the 1970s, a gazillion book. Great books out there about how to do that. Countless seminars about how to do it. My husband and his co writers wrote Difficult Conversations, which is a great book about how to do this. And Getting to Yes is a great book about how to turn. And that's. My husband's the co author of that.

It's one of my favorite books.

They're gazillion.

It's a wonderful book.

Yes. He got P.S. with me. And the first thing we did once we were married was argue over whether or not to replace our refrigerator. And it was a sub zero refrigerator, but I keep calling it a zero sub refrigerator. But some story for another time. But, you know, I want to just one other thing is always look for the sense, not just the nonsense in what somebody's saying. Not because it's a nice thing to do, but because there lies leverage. That's where you can build and create something new. And that's what conflict can really allow us to do, is create something new. So.

That'S every one of them reframing the conflict as can be good rather than something to be avoided. You know, we use this work in my work. I often say, you know, here's how to have constructive conflicts. Conflicts can be constructive. They don't have to be destructive. I loved your notion of make it about the topic. In a world that is more complex, complexity frustrates us. It's not the other person. Right. You know, I do some work with the U.S. olympic Committee and I often say look at the heart of it where there are less resources that more to go around. It's not about holding in intention about all the different places. And people who want those resources recognize we have less resources. And so it is frustrating. You know, win, don't lose mindset is not going to get us too far in many of these situations. We can expand it and I love look for the sense, not the nonsense. Find those places where we can agree because they become leverage points to go over. You know, how do we find other places where we we don't agree. Right. But we've got to find that solid ground and it also then allows us to show that we are deeply listening versus not listening. Dinah, this has been an amazing conversation. I am so grateful for Amy to have connected us and for you to be here. Friends. In a world where so many are losing hope, in a world where loneliness is on the rise, in a world where we are unhappier, even though we are one of the most prosperous countries in the world, the journey, the actions that we need to take all start with us and this book remaking the space between us, how citizens can work together to build a better future for all. For me really offered so many amazing stories that were inspirational but more importantly, such practical advice on actions that we individually can start to take so that we can start to remake the space. We can start to create deeper connections. And through that, if enough of us unite, we change the world. We start by changing our country and kind of where we are kind of moving to. So Diana, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you, Ashish. This was terrific fun. I really appreciate it.

All the best with your book tour and we'll connect soon. Bye my friend. That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love and meaning. Please consider leaving us. Review and share the podcast with anyone in your professional or personal life who you feel will benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend support and spread positivity. Take care and remember, happiness is a choice that's available to you moment to moment in the here and now. Take care, care and see you next week.