Want Change? Start with Yourself

Ideas for personal change. Number one, root out the judgmental thoughts that you have. Root them out. What does that mean? It means identify the judgments that you have about yourself and others. Get in there. Get aware right now. Right? Some of you all, when you talk about judgments, you know, you judge yourself too harshly. Some of you are awful to yourselves. And I say that with love, but you're awful to yourself. You talk down to yourself, you mess up, and it shuts you down for three days. Because what you say to yourself, our judgments shape the quality of our lives, and our being unaware of them doesn't work. Right. If you've judged your sibling in a certain way and you haven't explored that, that comes into that relationship with your sibling, and it can cause years or decades of strife. Whoever judged one of your siblings and that led to years of problems. Something they did, they did something when they were young, you grabbed that. You judged them. You identified them with your judgment. And that label, that identification with that label shaped your family's relationship for years. That's important stuff to be aware of. That's important stuff to be aware of. Well, so notice I said two things. Judgment of self and judgment of others. Personal change. Remember, the first gate of personal change is awareness. Awareness, being aware of our judgments of ourselves and others. How does that show up? It is the thing that you say that defines or explains. A judgment is something that you. It defines or explains, oh, well, that sibling, she's the one who. And then you define it. Give her a label. Oh, you know, that person on the team, every time they do this, they do it because these reasons, and you explain the reasons. Those are judgments. Definitions and explanations are judgments. How do you define yourself? There's judgments there, aren't there? For those who are in a significant relationship. You have a partner, lover, spouse, wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, other. What judgments have you made against them that aren't fair? I keep bringing up problems. It's hard to improve our lives unless we get super aware of the judgments we've made about other people. If we want to change society, too, we better get really aware of that. You know, we got to get really aware of these judgments about other people. And not just. We got to get really, really, really aware about judgments we've made about other people. You know, I came on here, y', all immediately some, you know, you judged my background. Is it good or bad? You judge my intention. Is it good or bad? You know, you judge a haircut man. But, you know, you got to figure out at some point that you. We Unconsciously, quickly. I like a shirt. I don't like a shirt. He's funny. He's not. He's this, he's that. It's so automatic. It's so automatic. But the fast, the better you get at slowing down that automaticity, the more conscious you become. Because stimulus response, most response is judgment. A lot of people understand that stimulus judgment is more accurate. So because right response is second, judgment is first. So it's really stimulus judgment, right? That's the process of information comes in. We interpret, we take our interpretations and we filter it now through our identity, right? If you all teach me, taught the thought ladder before, or the ladder of interpretation, information comes in, we interpret it as good or bad. We interpret it through our identity. What does it mean to me? Then we set an intention. Then we do or do not take initiative. That initiative loops back to the top of the ladder. Information comes in. This is the ladder of interpretation, or the thought ladder. If you already taught me that information comes in interpretation, which is judgment, identity, what does it mean to me? Judging the relevancy of me, of that through me, intention, okay, what do I want to do with said information? Initiative. I do this behavior in response, all those levels happen. Here's why. If that sounds overcomplicated, here's why it's hopeful. It means there's a lot of rungs in which to pause, contemplate, think, and imbue consciousness versus an immediate response. So I'm asking you examine your own mind, your own bias, your own interpretation ladder, your own judgments against yourself and with other people. The better we get as a society of not immediately judging people and examining our ladder of interpretation where it came from. The faster we will root out racism. But without that process, we don't have hope. We need people to look at their judgments and where they come from and how automatic those things come from with people unconsciously. And the more we slow down that ladder of interpretation, imbue consciousness into it, the more likely it is we won't knee jerk judge anybody based on the color of their skin, their background, their demographic, their life experience, and we'll remember that truth. We all walk difficult paths. That the human story is always a story of struggle and, and a story of progress. Some have it easier than others, but at the same rate, everyone has struggle and everybody hopes for progress. And once we realize that, we can slow down a little bit, listen, observe, seek out an understanding of the information other people have, seek out how they're interpreting things, seek out how identity plays a role, seek out their Intention, seek out their initiative. It's powerful. It's powerful. Getting away from knee jerk reactions against ourselves too. I mean, some of you all, you get so mad about how many you get so mad about yourself based on how many emails you posted or emailed, responded to. How many social. Oh, I didn't post my Instagram today. I'm a loser. I'm like, whoa, dude, the piece of information that you didn't put up something on social media leads to your identity being a loser. Let's revisit that ladder of inference here. Holy. Wait, not popular enough. Information interpretation, not good. Identity loser. Whoa. Let's you all. If I could give a gift, if I could give a gift, I would remind you of the complete magical quality of your existence. I would remind you how special and unique and valued and important that you are and important you are. I would remind you to recognize your blessings and. And I would remind you that you are stronger, more capable and more valuable than you probably give yourselves credit for. Can I get an amen on a Friday? At least one during this whole dang thing. I mean, if every one of us. This is what our. I always tell you when I bring my own personal values in versus just what we know from research. But here's my own personal value. If we all just sat down one on one with more people of more diversity and had conversations about the stuff they've been through in their life and where they're coming from, and we had the guts to have that conversation more, we would slow down the speed in which we judge others. Because everybody here, if I sat down at your dinner table after I bought all that food and I brought that good attitude and we had a real conversation and somewhere through eating that food or after the food, or maybe there was some wine, if there was some wine, I'd be talking the whole time. Oh, my gosh, get me on alcohol. Don't give me caffeine or alcohol. The kid never shuts up. Tell you what. But if we sat down and we broke some bread or for the keto people, we had some steak. Listen, if we had some steak or some bread or you don't like that. If we had some broccoli, we had some broccoli and a juice, okay? We have some broccoli and a juice, I promise you I'm gonna learn about your hardship. I'm gonna discover that you had pain. I'm gonna understand that you've been unfairly treated somewhere in your life. I'm gonna understand that you have family history, cultural history, and if we can each do that for one another, we slow down that judgment. And you've heard me teach this before, right? Remember two or three months ago, that hashtag I started judge less, feel better. I was teaching that in a personal development context for ourselves. Like, let's judge ourselves less. We'll feel better. I mean that culturally. Now, let's slow it down. Let's slow down the judgments. That's number one. Root out the judgment, understand it, and slow it down. I'm not telling you the outcome of that. I'm not telling you to judge anything right or wrong. I'm just saying slow it down. Be conscious, be aware. You got to study history. I know this is the most boring part of what I'm going to talk about for people, but I listen if you know anything about me, there's three things I read every single week for 20 years. I've never missed every single week. I read personal development, I read leadership or business, and I read history every week. There's always three books on the mantle. There's always three books somewhere around those types of topics. I read a book a week on those topics every week for. This is my 23rd year. I, more than anything, I'm a student of history. I know we have some history dorks here. I just think if we don't understand history, we're doomed to repeat it. And I think it's important that when things happen and we don't understand them, we always go, oh, there's history there. When I saw a lot of, you know, when I saw a lot of white influencing white influencers, friends, peers who said didn't. They didn't understand why people were so mad instead of me judging them. I just thought, you know, I hope they study more history. I didn't say they didn't study any history. I just thought, I hope they. I hope they'll study a little more history. Because everything that we see has historical context. And once we understand that, it doesn't mean we can predict the future. It just means we understand context, feelings, what's worked before, what hasn't worked before. You know, it's just like, hey, listen, this huge conversation and false dichotomy that happened online of our protests, good or bad, which was a misinterpretation of people not understanding because they were associating or judging the style, the values in which protests happen, right? I think we can all agree looting and breaking into and hurting someone's storefront that had nothing to do with a certain problem maybe is not a productive activity. Right. Especially if it's your storefront. If we can step into the Golden Rule a little bit, which is which? I always encourage people step into the Golden Rule here. Step into the Golden Rule. Step in the golden rule. But the only reason I bring that up is because we know from historical analysis of movements that something like violence against others or looting tends not to move the conversation forward in which policies get passed faster. That creates the regulation, the structure and the leadership for change. I'm not here to tell anyone how they should feel or act. I'm here to say, as a human, I hope no one is violent against me. I'm here to say, as a person who's owned a store, I hope no one breaks into my business and hurts it. I say as a hopefully leader in humanity, in some way, I hope we treat each other with kindness. We obviously that has not been the case. And if you didn't catch what I'm saying here, this isn't a conversation of just this move. We have people from around the world who are not in this exact movement that we are experiencing. Where I'm talking about in the United States, we have lots of countries around the world going, what is going on in America? They can't conceptualize what's happening. And I get that because remember the historical context, right? If we haven't studied the history, it's hard to understand. It's hard to know what worked and what didn't work. Right. I've urged all of my friends from every background, if you didn't read the lead up of the history from 1960 to, to 1965 with the Civil Rights Voting act in 65, 64, the legislation, 65 legislation. If you haven't read that, it's hard to understand how we're going to get systematic change right now. That's an important time in history that has some clues, doesn't have all the answers and it doesn't say we got it right. There's just clues. History is full of clues about what might work and what might not work. And so for those of you, this is a great time to study some history. This is a great time to study some history. And I know that's not the most exciting part of today's dialogue, but if you're really confused or you have been shocked or surprised on any angle of what is happening in America right now, history will inform you way more than social media posts. Okay, why is history important? Because historical analysis always gives context and multiple viewpoints if it's good writing. So I think it's important to like social media. It's like to try and understand something from a social media post. Super hard history. Much more broad, deep and multifaceted, which I think is important. All right, number three. This is really hard. This is really hard. The first part. Outcome. Use your voice. Use your voice. Share your feelings, your ideas. That's outcome. Now let's talk to the earlier training of movements. Outcome must also have values. So here would be what I would suggest from literally 100 years of communication theory on conflict management. It is undeniable. It is not my opinion. It is not black, it is not white. It is not from any country. It is global research on conflict management, negotiation and policy change. When you speak, when you seek to share your feelings or your ideas, if you can do that without generalizing, without accusing, without speaking for others, without assumptions and without condescension, then you are scientifically, scientifically more likely to get to a speedier resolution that you are both happy with than if you do not. This is the same research in marriages. It is the same research in hostage negotiation. It is the same research in policy change. It is the same research in congressional debate. It comes down to communicating well. When we hold a position, it just does. And it's even better when we can allow our position to be formed based on values, but the outcome and the how to have a little bit of flexibility, if you will. So what I say, let's talk through a few of these generalizations. I just had a conversation with my coaches yesterday, our certified high performance coaches. I love you all. I see some of you out here. What's up, chpc? These are the people that I certify in high performance coaching. Hi, y'. All. And I had a conversation. If you'd missed it, I talked about this for a little while and I think this is important. Generalizations poison progressive debate. When you say all black people are this, all police officers are this. All women are this all, you know, this demographic is this. It's so wrong that it immediately opens you up to a losing position and immediately closes off conversation. And let me just give a metaphor because I don't think this lands sometimes when I talk about it. Because again, I also know that some people think I'm talking about myself here in this debate. I'm not. I am talking about research and communication. That's hundreds of over hundreds of years or dozens of fields of study. So please don't think I'm taking anything personally here because this is not about me. I hope that you felt that entire way throughout Here I'm trying to make this about your life, your family, your leadership, how you're showing up. And I'm trying really hard to do that. Generalizations. Let me let. I don't think I'd do a good job of talking about this, because I try to do it sometimes. Like when I say all, you know, white people and black people, that's very contextual right now. All police officers. That's contextual right now. But let me give you a completely different type of metaphor and to show and illustrate how bad a generalization is in thinking, imagine if you were talking to a friend and you said, all cars, all cars are built this way. Immediately, that is an ignorant argument, because all you got to do is stand on the corner for a minute, watch a Tesla go by, watch a Honda Prius go by, watch a Ford F150 go by, and watch a Mercedes fancy van go by, and immediately you're like, you know what? They're not. Sorry. They're not. I had a friend yesterday who said, brendan, I have been a leader in this community here. I've never had this accusation, or I've never had that, or I've never been pulled over, or I've never had this. And all week I've been talking with community leaders of diverse standpoints. And what has come up is that the real frustration in the fight we're having so much right now is against generalizations, generalizations. That's a big part of the fight we're having right now. And I know how easy it is to react against that. Right? I mean, we're having debate in our country right now that it's so polarizing. I had a friend last night, huge community leader, runs a nonprofit that does over $40 million of real social impact in the world. He's black, his wife is white. And he said, you would think with what you're seeing in America right now, that it's forgotten about entirely interracial marriage. You would think the conversation in America right now forgot that there's other countries, forgot that there's other ethnicities, forgot other demographics. And he made the argument so well, because he said, no, it's really important right now. The focus must be Black lives Matter. So I just want to let you know that was communicated and that is clear. And I personally believe that if you haven't seen that great meme online of the House on Fire meme, which is that conversation between all lives matter versus black lives matter, the reason that is, if you haven't seen it, it's beautiful. Because it's saying, listen, this is the current specific. We're not saying all these other things don't matter. We're not generalizing that out. We're saying this is a specific problem and we're talking about the specific problem right now. We're not talking about these other specific problems. This is what we're highlighting right now, right? Just like, please remember when we were talking about COVID 19, you would have thought that no other diseases in the world existed. How many follow what I'm talking about? Because the focus right then, friends, the focus right then is on COVID 19. They're not saying AIDS research isn't important. They're not saying that cancer research isn't important. They're not saying that these other things, these other health maladies around the world are not important. They're just saying, hey, Covid is a real problem right now. That is how we might think about the generalizations that have been made right now in which we want to generalize everything. But sometimes there's a specific thing we should talk about right now. The specific context is black lives matter. It doesn't mean that all lives don't matter. It means we're working on a specific issue. And a lot of people have understood that. It doesn't make any other issue wrong. It doesn't exclude. It's called the exclusion fallacy. If you've ever studied debate the exclusion fallacy, it's where we pretend someone else's position isn't correct because it doesn't include everything else. Right? It'd be easy to say, brendan, it is so wrong what you did today in your little live guest there, Brendan, it's so wrong what you did because you didn't even talk about the horrors of cancer. You did a whole live cast for two hours and you never talked about people dying of cancer. You are a pac. Well, you're right, I didn't talk about it. But that would be the exclusion fallacy to make my arguments wrong because I also didn't cover every other topic under the sun. And I bring this up to you because another hook that you're going to get in your activism or your leadership when people say, well, what about all these other things? And your job is to help people, not try to take a problem and generalize everything, but be specific in what you're talking about. Specificity is what makes a debate become productive, agreeing on specifically what we are talking about. If we don't agree on specifically what we are talking about, then we start throwing in biases and Arguments from every other language, every other conversation, other issue. No one can address every issue in every conversation. Can I get an amen on a Friday? You know, it's like, you can't, you can't. I had another black leader where I was talking with yesterday who said that she had been hammered because she did an hour long broadcast kind of like this. And again, she's a person of color and she did not bring up economic disparity. So she was using examples and she didn't bring up what she was attacked for. She, she was doing a historical conversation. She did not bring up the poor people's campaign that Martin Luther King was seeking to initiate after the civil rights legislation. So if you haven't studied Martin Luther King's last two years of life, he had a major value pivot from just equality and he really decided his life's work was to take on poverty. My friend who brought this was having a conversation about that time. She was attacked viciously for not bringing up poverty in her conversation. So was she wrong? Now you could say yes or no, right? But the issue there is, you need to understand as leaders and this is really important. I hope you hear me here. And this goes to all diverse leaders here. You must always be prepared that when you make an argument, people will attack you for what you have excluded. That is you, you must realize this because once you realize it, you don't get angry and defensive and you can acknowledge it instead. And when you acknowledge what was left out and why it was left out, you can now de escalate, de escalate, de escalate that accusation. It's why it's so hard to speak up for any, any of us, black, white, any other demographic is really difficult, is because we know. And that's what my fear is. Everyone knows, no matter what they say, it's not enough. And the reason we are hearing what we are saying is not enough is because we didn't include a comprehensive analysis and discussion of every issue under the sun. But once you know that's going to come, you can breathe. I know how it feels. Trust me, I really know how it feels. So, you know, you do what you can in every I've, you know, for those who've ever attended our live events. You know, I try to have diversity on our stages when I'm not the person training, but I don't always have a woman, I don't always have a person of color. I don't always have a non American speaker. I don't. It just doesn't happen because I'm training to a specific curriculum and I have to explain that to the audiences. And it's difficult and you're not going to get it right every time. But what you need to know is you will be accused every time. And you know, that's what happened to my black friend yesterday of being attacked because she didn't, in other people's opinion, appropriately or comprehensively enough, discuss poverty and economic injustice. But she was specifically, she had one hour and she was going down this lane. And so here's what's important for you all to know that when you use your voice, please listen very closely on this one. This will help you so much when you go to use your voice. Know what lane you're going to play, what's the specific thing you're going to discuss. And now here's the magic move. You frame the conversation at the very beginning of your post or the very beginning of your video, and you let people know you aren't going to be able to take on everything that today's conversation. I'm going to take on this little piece. It means I probably won't get to discuss this, this, this, and this. And I'm going to stay here. When you do that, you diffuse that inherent part of people that wants to blame that you didn't cover everything. Raise your hand if you follow what I'm talking about here, because you saw me do that here at the very beginning of our discussion. I said, listen, I can really only talk about this and my experience. I wish I could have this person on or that person on. But I chose to do this because that's where our contract was. I'm not here to take a political stance. I'm not going to talk about this type of politics. I'm not going to go here because that's just not what I'm here for. So I'm going to stay in this lane. Here's what we're going to cover today. Oh, my gosh. You have to remember to do that. Leaders, you got to do that in your conversations with teams. You got to do that with your family. Because if you just bumble into an issue and you don't set the frame around what part of the issue you're going to take on, you, you're going to get pummeled in debate. So setting the frame helps avoid the impulse to generalization. And I know this will really help you in your communication. In negotiation. This is everything. When you go to negotiate a deal, the first part of that conversation has to be about What? You're not going to negotiate? Everyone follow. Oh, you want to. Hey, who. If you are, if you are. Some of you know, I had to do divorce mediation, and this was a pivotal three years of my life and it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do because I was, I was. What would I be? I'd be 20, 21 and 22 years old and I was doing court referred divorce mediation. So here I am, a 20 year old kid, I'm not even in a relationship. No one wants to date me. I'm completely failing in dating, but I've got to mediate a divorce. You know what I was taught to do in that situation at the very beginning of the mediation? You have to tell the couple in conflict with what you're not going to discuss today. And if you miss that part of mediation, you're done. That is going to go super nasty sideways. Oh, and some of you have been there before. So in other words, you have to talk about specifically what will be included and excluded in your argument. Great. Lawyers all know this. If you're talking to a jury, you'd better get that out real fast. It's called framing the debate. What's included? What's excluded? Because if you don't do that, they will attack you for both what you excluded and what you chose to include. Super smart. You got to be aware. Is this helpful, y'? All? This is like, oh my gosh, if you're going to talk to the kids about what's going on, you're like, okay, hey, kids, today, let's talk what we think about when a police officer overuses their power and attacks somebody. But let's not talk about presidential politics. Let's not talk about this topic. Let's just try to aim here and have a productive discussion here. And you know what? Maybe over here and then tomorrow over here, it is about that specific. Listen, specificity will change your life. Because, see, what you do is you generalize. So if I ask you, why aren't you healthier? It's easy to generalize. Well, I'm lazy. I'm lazy. I'm lacking self discipline. I. I am a fan of Netflix. I am an. I am. Oh, my goodness. You know what always follows after I am? A generalization. And those can be dangerous in our identity. So what are we after? Specificity. If you say, why aren't you healthy? Let's talk specifically about your diet right now. Guess what? We have a productive conversation for 10 minutes, then I say, okay, let's specifically talk about your Sleep. We talk about your sleep. Ooh, that's productive. Let's specifically talk about your workout. Oh, but if I go to you and I say, let's talk about your health, we won't have a productive hour. How many follow? So when you make things specific, you make them productive. Write it down. When you make things specific, you make them productive. You also protect yourself from that conversation of why didn't she or he do all this other stuff? Okay, so use your voice to share your feelings, your ideas without generalizations. Number two, without assumptions about other people's backgrounds. Be careful about assuming. You know, I had a great conversation with somebody who attacked me online, and I was open to what they said, and I shared some information about my background in that area. And they called me defensive. And I said, I'm sorry if it felt defensive. I was trying to explain that I have experience in this area and here's what it was. But it doesn't mean I know everything and I'm open to learning. And they had assumed that. That I didn't know anything about this topic. We were facing equality right now without having any understanding of what I've taught, trained, worked with nonprofit leaders for 20 years of my life. I haven't done enough, and I don't know enough, and I'm not done. But I'm also not ignorant to the situation at hand. I'm also widely networked and informed in the actual leaders of this movement. So, yeah, I'm a white guy, and I'm a scrawny white guy, and I'm annoying as hell, and I deserve all of the vitriol towards myself, but in this area, I'm actually pretty informed for a dumb white guy. And so I let that know. I explained that with grace and a plume, but still open. But this person made the wrong first move, which was assuming something about me. Without asking. Without asking. We had a prominent media personality, a person of color yesterday, who said, all of her friends are asking how they should deal with this. And she was making this joke. She said, I'm replying back. And she goes, just because I'm black, I don't know how to create social justice reform. And she was funny about it because she's like, what? Because that person is this. It's the same thing as we can't. Just because a person is of color doesn't mean they've read it. Everything about anything. In the civil rights movement, Just because a person is a police officer doesn't mean that they're quick to violence. Right. When we make Assumptions. Oh, we get in trouble. We get in trouble. If you're going to assume something about somebody, assume that they've struggled a lot, that they've had pain and hurt in their life, and they want a better life, that's a safe one. Anything outside those bounds is not what you lead with. I'm not here to say that we can't assume certain things structurally, historically. Nope, we can. But at an individual level. Here's my suggestion to you. Even if those you're, like, don't agree with me. No, we can assume these things about people. Brennan. Brennan, that's okay. Here's. I want you to hear what I'm saying. Don't lead with that argument. If you want a productive conversation that leads to shared outcomes, you can make the assumption. But if you lead with the argument of the assumption, it doesn't open the door for conversation. And if you want to sway someone's opinion or someone's actions on something, you got to sway the door open at the beginning of the conversation, not closed. You want to make a change in someone's thinking, you got to make sure that your thinking is open first. Super hard. That's super hard. Okay, next big idea. Accusations. Accusations. Be wary of accusing people of any specific intention or malice. Accusing people of intention or malice, Right? That's where you say to someone who you don't know and you did not observe or you don't have history with, accusing them of something is a slippery slope. It shuts the door of conversation. But it also, it's very dangerous because again, by the way, all accusations are built on assumptions. Always know that all accusations are built on a set of assumptions. All arguments are built on a set of assumptions. Not all assumptions are good. Not all assumptions are bad, but they're all dangerous. All assumptions are dangerous because there's always a lot of holes in them. And do you want to go out to sea with a ship with a lot of holes in it? Well, then don't ship your argument with a lot of assumptions in it. Ooh, that was like one of those quotables that goes on a fridge somewhere, you know what I'm saying? I don't even know what I just said there, but I heard the ship thing and there was holes in the ship, and then the ship became the argument in the next sentence. It was, like, metaphorical and very useful at the same time. I just want you to have a little fun at this and be wary of your accusations. You know, accusations are built on assumptions, and assumptions have a lot of holes in them. And it leaves you open to a lot of debate. And I think there's ways to be very productive without making accusations against anyone. And if there's accusations to be made, make them as statements of observable behavior. You all took conflict management, right? If you haven't studied conflict management, it's as simple as if your spouse walks in the door and, you know, they've been leaving the house a little bit of a mess, and you had to clean up that mess. And they come in the door and you say to them, you know what? You don't care about me. You don't care about this house. You're lazy. How do we share and spread love when we make these assumptions about other people? Instead, we make observable statements. I'm sorry. We make statements of observable behavior. Instead. We can say, you know, when I came home today, I noticed the vacuum cleaner was out. That's observable. I came home, vacuum is out. We didn't have to say, you're lazy. You don't care about me. You don't love. Those are all accusations and assumptions. Instead, we observed, we noted what was there. And that's really important, especially in times of crisis. Like a lot of the inability for some people to understand the black lives movement came from when, unfortunately, media or people portrayed what was happening with police brutality and sometimes wasn't specific describing observable and made inferences or made assumptions or accusations about. And they. They combine two very dangerous things, accusations with generalizations. Oh, when you do that, it closes. Productive debate. You know, it's why? And I got hammered for this. And I'll always share with you. I'm sharing a little bit out. My experience in this one is, you know, I came out day one, I said, all officers involved in the killing of George Floyd need to be arrested. And immediately I got people saying, how can you blame police? Why do you think all police are bad? I'm like, I didn't say all police are bad. Those men that killed that man, they should be charged. I could observe. They did this. That happened. Okay, let's start the conversation. Let's start the process, right? Let's start the process of examining what happened. And I recognize that even saying that creates feelings for people. But my effort was to try and be very specific and not trying to accuse all police of this, not trying to accuse George Floyd of that. Just saying in custody, that man died. That needs action. That's the law. If a person is killed in custody, that needs action. And so, wow, do I understand how that can create vitriol, because trust me, I saw it, I got it. And so in any wiggle room that I might leave that it might sound like an accusation or a generalization or assumption, I open myself up and I think it's really important for everyone to hear this. If you're going to make what you think is an accusation, just describe what is specifically there that others can observe. Don't assume intention, don't assume background. Don't accuse with generalization. Say what you see. Say what you see. Because now, without guessing all the stuff behind what we see, we can start the conversation with what we both observed, not what we both fear, not what we've been conditioned by. Everything. So again, we're coming back to specificity. And I want to let you know, if you want productive debate, accusing is be very careful. And again, this applies to your families. This applies to your spouse, this applies to your kids. If you're having conflict with your kids, listen to your judgments, your generalizations and your accusations against them. You want to forgive my language? Piss off a teenager, Start accusing of a bunch of stuff, and watch what happens with base impulse. They will light up. They will get ready to burn the house down. Those who have teenagers know exactly what I'm talking about. Once you man, you, you litter accusations on a teenager and you're peppering war. You got to understand this. So this applies to your families as well. Okay, last piece here. And I think this is important. And on this specific point, condescension, condescending. Be very aware. I would love for you, each and every one of you who posts on major issues of the world, to read your post three or four times and just ask if you're sounding condescension, condescending to any demographic or group, and I will share openly with you. I promise to share some things I've learned in this process. I think I've gotten this one wrong several times over the last years. And what I mean by that is it wasn't intentional. But sometimes for me, if I, you know, it's very difficult for those of you who have academic backgrounds or you conduct scientific research and had any of it collaborated or corroborated or peer reviewed, you know how important it is to share where you draw your research from, right? To share, like, what holds up, if you will, your evidence, your arguments. And in years past, because I come from that, I come from, you know, an academic research base. In years past, when I explained that to people, I genuinely did not understand the way that I was explaining. It sounded not only defensive that it could sound condescending, as in like, I know this, you didn't, you don't. And while my intention wouldn't be there, I've been busted on that in the past, even recently, and deserve to be because I just, I hit send too fast or I'd say it too fast. And you have to listen through that filter. And I'm learning to do that more. It's like, how do you. I faced this years ago, right when I started teaching business. How do I explain I know how to give some advice to a beginning business person and at the same time not say to them, hey, you might not know this because when you tell someone they don't know something, even if it's true, it sounds condescending. How many know what I'm talking about? It's like the slippery slope. And I want to let you know I don't know how to navigate that. A lot of times I might not have navigated it in this. I'm sure some of you feel like something I said today was condescending. And I just hope that you, you know my heart enough and my values, enough of inclusion and conversation. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard for me as a student of history not to get really upset when people do things that we know doesn't help. And when you tell someone they're doing something that doesn't help, that sounds condescending, even if it's fact based. How many know what I'm talking about? Oh, it's so hard. And I just want to show I don't know the answer, I don't have it right. And all I can ask you to be is just be aware of it.