Living Between Worlds 3.11—LISTENING to Strangers

Sam.

Welcome everybody. This is Living between worlds. On December 21, 2022, this is the our last conversation for this year. In these monthly conversations, which I began in the early days of COVID we explore the challenges of navigating this challenging time. The time of monsters, when, as Antonio Gramsci said, the old world is dying and the new one is not yet born. But as Arundhati Roy reminds us, we can hear her breathing. So the question I've invited you to explore together each month is how might we live in these times? With grace and dignity and power. And if it's been in doubt before, it's clear now. We're between old worlds and new worlds. We're moving, excuse me, moving from the fossil age to the renewable age, from a linear take make waste economy to circular, from the post war geopolitical economic order to a world of climate crisis and geopolitical instability and something that we don't yet know how to name. We're living between working inside the structures and norms of modern life and challenging them from outside, wherever outside is. Between working to help institutions adapt and working to reinvent or replace them. Between tinkering at the margins and committing to reinventing everything, between fear and hope, between resignation and ambition, between despair and courage. I come into these conversations with a premise, with an assumption, with an assertion that new worlds don't just happen. We speak new worlds into being. So we're here to speak together. Last month we talked about conversations with others, especially those who are different than ourselves, people with different views, people living in different worlds. We raised the question of when do we do battle and when do we build bridges and how do we become more skilled at both and at knowing when to move into which mode. So when we think about conversations with others, with strangers, we're all strangers. These days we've moved from the more or less national conversations in the US with Uncle Walter Cronkite and three national networks to the fragmented multi worlds of algorithm driven social media and the political and economic agendas of billionaire driven media platforms. We've seen it in the rapid now in the political politicization of esg, environmental, social and governance overlays onto business investment politicization, I think in flagrant violation of fiduciary duty to pensioners and other shareholders. Whenever we think about other and strangers indifference, I'm reminded of Gregory Bateson's frequent comment about the difference that makes a difference. There's a great difference, it seems to me, between the inevitable and important differences of opinion on complex matters and the willful manipulation of of populations to personal purpose. But you know, we all do it. And yet across all these differences, matters of great urgency require shared purpose and coordinated action. I was talking with this about a colleague recently who said I'm not interested in a conversation with Donald Trump or Lindsey Graham. And I responded, I'm not either, but I'm very interested in conversations with the people who voted for them. Let me ask how many of you have listened to or read Malcolm Gladwell talking about talking to strangers? Any hands? So a few. It's his new book. There's a a lot of YouTube on it. I gave you a clip in the newsletter this week to a 20 minute talk from it. In it, he builds a case, in typical Gladwellian fashion, for, for people's universally terrible capacity for discerning when someone is lying. We're just not good at that, he says, and builds a piece case for it. And he also argues for the adaptive advantage of defaulting to trust. Interesting provocation. Can't know for sure whether it's appropriate to trust somebody, trust them. It's the best bet in the long run. But the real challenge, it seems to me, may not be talking to strangers, as Gladwell's titled his book, but truly listening to them. Not to whether they're truthful or whether they're accurate or trustworthy or well informed, but listening for what they really care about and perhaps finding that it's not always so different, posturing notwithstanding, not always so different from what we each care about and perhaps finding opportunities to forge common purpose and coordinated action. So I want to ask you what this introduction provokes for you in your body right now, in your world. But before I do that, please listen to this. David Schoenbrunn, welcome. I have been observing of psychological phenomenon closely. I use the term Trump Derangement syndrome.

And by that I mean people that.

Had formerly been my progressive allies enter into splitting so that they literally cannot hear truths coming from the other side. And what this suggests to me is a degree of skepticism about the proposal that you've put forward. I've watched this group carefully as an outsider, and I have noticed a series of underlying assumptions that I no longer hold having to do with essentially trusting the vaccine propaganda that's been put out, being comfortable within the mainstream media context. And so I, I have noticed that progressives have been really dubious in, in terms of their interest in canceling others, in censoring others, in shouting down others. So this whole issue of listening is for me, it's very problematic. And I I read Matt Taibbi's.

On.

Malcolm Gladwell's debate with him in. In Ontario in which he did not dispose of himself. David, hang. I'm done. Let me interrupt you for a moment because there's. There's a lot of content that we could go down the road that you're opening up here, but I want to. I want to clarify two things. One, you said you disagreed with the proposition that I laid forward, and I don't know which proposition you're referring to, so that. First, I have another question for you. The. I. I am skeptical about. About people of. Of this political orientation to be able to take in content coming from a different perspective. Well, that's not disagreeing with anything I said. I'm skeptical of anybody's ability to do that, and that's part of the challenge that we're looking at here. So what does listening mean to you, David? It means that I. I had to fight hard against inner instincts that make me want to push back and shut down and. And keep myself apart. Got it. Thank you. Thanks. Helpful. Thank you. Heather Tischbein, welcome. You're on mute, Heather.

I'm a little sheepish about being on video because I'm still in my pajamas because I ran out of gas yesterday.

With the nobody would have known the fashion situation if you hadn't named it.

Okay, well, there you go. That'll teach me to speak up. Anyway, what. What listening is meaning to me today is I have to stop thinking and practice feeling what's. What's the. What's the larger context of the moment I'm in and the people that I'm with and the crucible of learning I've been in this last year is to have embedded myself in the Brown community where I live to try to launch an incubator farm. And I am being constantly asked to become better aware of the dominant culture of colonialism and whiteness that I bring unconsciously into the community with which I am working right now. And in order to hear those requests, especially around the instruction of letting the people of color lead has been an enormous challenge for me, you know, and allowing myself to actually see how other people see me and feel how other people feel me and begin to experience in the moment. The unconsciousness of the dominant culture inside of me has been so challenging and so rewarding and so exhausting. And I realize now that there comes a moment where my thinking actually just stops. I don't. I don't make it stop. It just stops. And I'm just feeling into all the energy that's in the conversation that the other people are bringing forward and asking me to experience in whatever way they're asking. So the depth and practice of, of allowing. Just continues to amaze me.

Thank you, Brent. New banks. Welcome. Mike is yours.

Thank you.

So I want to say, first of all, I might have to jump off at any moment. I'm expecting a call from a doctor.

So if I vanish unexpectedly, that's why.

You know, for me, the experience.

Really bifurcates around whether I feel like I'm.

Talking to somebody who is coming to the discussion in good faith.

And what I mean by that is.

A willingness to agree on basic physical facts and basic sort of standards of logic. You know, there's, there's room for disagreement on a lot of levels.

At the shallowest level, it can be.

A disagreement of interpretation. You both see the same things, you both value the same things, but you, you interpret them differently. At a deeper level, there can be a disagreement about values. Right. I value, I value women's liberation and the, the, you know, the, the, the fine. Finding equitable solutions to the, the historical disenfranchisement of brown and black communities. Other people simply don't value that. And you know, in, in that context, there's a different level of debate that goes on, including the debate about values.

But can you have a good faith conversation with somebody with very different values?

Yes, I think you can. The point at which I think good faith conversation becomes impossible is when there's no interest in agreeing on a common set of facts. And that can be, you know, that, that can get very complicated because in many cases our facts are given to us by these complex systems of knowledge and communication. But you know, if somebody is coming from a position of having, being willing to shape the facts in order to support their position, or is unwilling or in a lot of cases just incapable of exercising critical thinking, recognizing when. That they are contradicting their own position, for example. That's the point at which I find communication. That's where it really breaks down for me. I don't know how to bridge that gap. I don't know that it can be bridged. I certainly don't know how.

Thank you for that. Clear. And I'm struck by the difference in frame. I guess the simplest way to put it in how you were speaking and what Heather was describing, which was about good faith and not about facts, but about something else. So both of you are adding to the richness of this conversation for me. Thank you, Kirk. Welcome, Kirk. Mike is yours one Important part of listening for me is being willing to be changed. So I'm listening with respecting that this person has some perspective that I don't have. And as a result of hearing it, I change how I perceive something or I change my relationship with them. But listening for me is being willing to be changed. Thank you, Marilyn. Paul, glad you're here.

Following Heather's comment, I hadn't gotten to comb my hair yet today, but you probably didn't notice that either.

No, no reference point.

Yeah, yeah, you've seen me before. But anyway, I have a struggle about listening around climate issues. And I'll just share a quick conversation I had with a close, very close relative and his wife. And we were talking about climate change. And these are people who live in Boulder, Colorado and don't compost, even though there's curbside composting, who generally are progressive, very anti racist and support dialogues of all kinds, fly a lot, live in a big house and keep the air conditioning on. And I really tried to raise the climate issue like this is something we're all interested in, right? And no. And I found myself, I couldn't keep listening and I really tried, I breathed and I love these people. And we ended up, and I'm saying, okay, I'm trying to hear. So the climate issue just is not on their radar screen. We concluded with one of them saying, well, I'm really fighting for gun control and climate issues, just not that important. It's very important to me. I've had many conversations now and where I'm writing a book called it's hard to save the planet when you don't know what to do. And I'm out talking to people about how do you see climate change and what do you want to do and how come? And a lot of people say, well, I'm not, that's not my issue. And I'm so, I'm struggling with listening.

So.

I think I, in those circumstances, I love to, I love to listen and I'm very, in the beginning I was like so curious, like, how come this isn't important to you? Well, there are other things and I might have to give stuff up and if I really listen to the earth, then I might not have to fly. I might not be able to in good conscience fly everywhere I want to fly. I, and I wasn't there telling them not to do anything, but it turned, I turned into like the climate ogre very quickly.

So, so what's important to you is somehow in the way of hearing what's important to them. That's fair to say.

I, I heard to, you know, I, I really, I, I, up until to a certain point I, I learned what's important to them and they're quite well to do. They have a lot of money. They really could be helping. I think that was, it was grief for me because they really are in and they're, one of them is a leader in the American educational system. And this is, I don't know. I, how so you can see, you can see me sort of saying, throwing.

Up my hand saying.

I can feel, I can feel you, not just see you.

Yeah.

Good. Thanks, Marilyn. Thank you. Shell Horowitz, Greetings. Hi Gail, Jane and Fernando, go ahead.

Okay. So one thing that came up for me was a joke that I often say is that my right wing friends call me a communist dupe and my left wing friends call me a capitalist tool. And I have both listening. I have tried to be much better about listening the last 15 or 20 years and to put myself in places where I'm exposed to people with different viewpoints. So for example, I've gone to Braver Angels meetings, which is specifically set up to get Republicans and Democrats or Reds and Blues to speak with each other. I've also done things like Arab Jewish dialogue, dialogue groups years ago. And I work with allies in the Muslim community and sometimes I feel very marginalized by the local Christian community around here. To Marilyn's point, I want to say that maybe there are ways to bring about that discussion that they potentially, I mean, I wasn't there. I was not a fly on the wall. But I'm wondering if they were perceiving you as guilt tripping them and got defensive. And defensiveness, as we all know, is never very fruitful. We have to find ways around it that validating that the work they are doing on gun control, on education, whatever is important, but perhaps looking for intersections of what they can do and validating that they may not be ready to make lifestyle choices like giving up flying. I am somebody who is very, very committed on climate, but I still fly when that is the best way I can get to where I'm going, which it isn't always. I'm happy that like I did a speech in Washington D.C. and I got the conference organizers to pay for a train ticket down there, which was actually more expensive than flying from Massachusetts at that time. But it was better for the climate and better for my soul because train is a much more humane way to travel if you have the time. And it was door to door only two hours longer. So, you know, looking for the places where like, okay, maybe if you're in California and you're going between San Francisco and la, maybe train is viable for you. Because if you look at the time from when you leave your house to get your destination, it might not be that much more. Or maybe you could do things like have one vegetarian meal a week just to see what it's like. So just, just looking for the bridges.

Let me, let me pull you out of the techniques of climate action and back to the question of the conversations we have with each other.

Look for the bridges. That's basically. Look for the places where you have commonality can build it a little farther in one or the other direction.

Okay, thank you. We'll go to Jane Byrd and Fernando, and then we'll go to Breakouts. Jane, you're up.

Okay. I listen to the news and I actually listen. I listen from a perspective of looking for the emotional mood that the broadcast organization is projecting to the world. And when I listen to other people, I think as human beings, we all kind of listen for manipulation because we are as little human babies. Evolution adapts us to our families through a process of intense emotional manipulation that we are designed to provide. And we become master manipulators of one another. And what this watching the little film provoked for me and evoked was a sense that people are often not so much trying to convey thought to each other as trying to convey mood and feelings. And certain kinds of political stands or stances convey certain kinds of moods and feelings better than others. And they may not so much believe in the actual technical position they're taking as much as its existential meaning for them. So if you're dealing with someone who's a nihilist and for whom no action is effective, they may simply be trying to grow and live through projecting this nihilistic, rambunctious energy out into life in order to stand up straight in their bodies, in order to just be in their skin. And so I think it's rare when there's actually discussions where the thoughts and the logic of the thoughts really matter that much to people. I think there's a contest in the realm of feeling about your stance with existence. And I think that stems really from how well they're listening to themselves and how blocked or open they are to their own inner dialogues, their own conversations with God or their sense of source or. Or the absence of it. And this physician, psychiatrist, Gabor Mate, talks a lot about the impact of early traumas in infancy and, and in the womb and out of the womb. What those traumas do in families and what those traumas do in society amongst ourselves. So I think the trauma of being on a hair trigger about whether Putin's going to nuke the nuclear reactor in Ukraine, the traumas of watching the suffering of other people from this grotesque distance that allows us some sense of safety in our skin. We have this distance from it, and yet we're up so close through cameras to the human cost of it.

I'm it, but I still fly when that is the best way I can get to where I'm going, which it isn't always. I'm happy that, like, I did a speech in Washington, dc, and I got the conference organizers to pay for a train ticket down there, which was actually more expensive than flying from Massachusetts at that time. But it was better for the climate and better for my soul because. Because train is a much more humane way to travel if you have the time. And it was door to door only two hours longer. So looking for the places where like, okay, maybe if you're in California and you're going between San Francisco and la, maybe train is viable for you because if you look at the time from when you leave your house till you get to destination, it might not be that much more. Or maybe you could do things like have one vegetarian meal a week just to see what it's like. So just looking for the bridges.

Let me, let me pull you out of the techniques of climate action and back to the question of the conversations we have with each other.

Look for the bridges. That's basically look for the places where you have commonality can build it a little farther in one or the other direction.

Okay, thank you. We'll go to Jane Bird and Fernando and then we'll go to Breakouts. Jane, you're up.

Okay. I listen to the news and I actually listen. I listen from a perspective of looking.

For.

The emotional mood that the broadcast organization is projecting to the world. And when I listen to other people, I think as human beings, we all kind of listen for manipulation because we are as little human babies. Evolution adapts us to our families through a process of intense emotional manipulation that we are designed to provide. And we become master manipulators of one another. And what this watching the little film provoked for me and evoked was a sense that people are often not so much trying to convey thought to each other as trying to convey mood and feelings. And certain kinds of political stands or stances convey certain kinds of moods and feelings better than others. And they may not so Much believe in the actual technical position they're taking as much as its existential meaning for them. So if you're dealing with someone who's a nihilist and for whom no action is effective, they may simply be trying to grow and live through projecting this nihilistic, rambunctious energy out into life in order to stand up straight in their bodies, in order to just be in their skin. And so I think it's rare when there's actually discussions where the thoughts and the logic of the thoughts really matter that much to people. I think there's a contest in the realm of feeling about your stance with existence. And I think that stems really from how well they're listening to themselves and how blocked or open they are to their own inner dialogues, their own conversations with God or their sense of source or. Or the absence of it. And this physician, psychiatrist Gabriel Mate, talks a lot about the impact of early traumas in infancy and. And in the womb and out of the womb, what those traumas do in families and what those traumas do in society amongst ourselves. So I think the trauma of being on a hair trigger about whether Putin's going to nuke the nuclear reactor in Ukraine, the traumas of watching the suffering of other people from this grotesque distance that allows us some sense of safety in our skin. We have this distance from it, and yet we're up so close, through cameras, to the human cost of it that we're in quite a dilemma with our feelings, quite a dilemma. And people are acting out their feelings all over the place. And it looks like politics, but is it really? It may be family matters.

So.

The process of living between worlds and using conversation to advance our evolution. There are people with a great amount of skill as organizers, And there's a teacher of effective organizing named Jane McAlevy. I think she's currently holding a post at UC Berkeley, and I'm interested in getting some of her books and reading what this effective activist has to say about organizing in a workplace and listening to different people and dealing with the emotional content of other people's lives.

And.

How that dances with politics or doesn't, particularly with respect to union organizing, planning, union action, and things outside the ballot box.

Thank you. You brought up the topic of orienting to mood, and it's something we've spoken about before and will again. And I'll just note that we all live in a. We live in a mysterious tangle. We all live in interpretations and assessments that we make. We do that all the time. We can't, not as Human beings and those assessments that we make give rise to the moods that we live in. And the moods that we live in color and effect and filter the assessments that we make. And starting to. I've been doing a bunch of work this last year to just orient to that phenomenon, notice it, pay attention to it, listen to it, see how it affects me, how it affects other people, how it affects what kinds of conversations we can have together. So, Jane, thanks for bringing that forward. Fernando, is it Eloy? Is that how you pronounce your name?

Hello?

Yes. Yeah, it's Eloy. That's how. That's how you call it. First of all, hello to everybody. I'm new to this meeting. I was suggested by a friend that maybe some of you know, her name is Barbara Pyle. And she suggests me to attend to this meeting. And I'm finding the conversation actually interesting. And I've been listening. I've been trying to listen, which is, as you know, they're very difficult from hearing. And from my perspective, what I. The definition I found closer to what listening is to me was when someone said, I think it's. I read Kirk who said, that's the ability to be changed. I think he has a point there, but not necessarily. We don't necessarily need to be changed. What I think we need to do is, first of all, listening is not a dialogue. When. When you are listening, you are not. You are listening, you are not. You are not saying anything. You are not supposed to say anything. You are. It's the ability to. To be able to strip ourselves from our own convictions, from our own judgments, and try to understand where the other person comes from and what really matters to that person. It's about detachment. It's about like following a Native American saying that I read sometime in the book, which is before judging, someone walk on their mocha sands for seven moons. And I think most of us do not have that ability because when we are listening, we are not listening. We are pre judging. We are formulating thoughts based on our own convictions about what the other person is saying. And eventually, either our facial expression or something that we say, we will try to manipulate that talk. So just to circle back to the beginning, listening is not a dialogue, is the ability to actually hear the other person. And when we hear the other person, we may change, as Kirk said, or we may have something that is very important, which is food for thought, that may help us to change, adapt, evolve, or do something else. Great. Fernando, thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Ken, let me hand it over to you to take us into breakouts.

Okay. Hello, everybody. It's great to see you all here. Happy solstice. Solstice is sun standing still. So it's a moment where we can actually be out of time and we don't have an unlimited amount of time. But I'm going to ask you to do your best to metaphorically step into a timeless space for a timed conversation. So our first round, we're going to ask you the question of how are you listening to and responding to the concerns of others? I just put that in the chat. How are you listening to and responding to the concerns of others? Gonna have 17 minutes for this conversation. I'm gonna open the breakout rooms now. See you back here in a few minutes and then we'll have a second round. We'll come back to plenary here. So we're going to do one more round. And let me just grab the question for this round. We're going to up the ante here. How do you listen to and respond to concerns that you don't share? I hope you all had interesting conversations. There was certainly a lot of. A lot of challenge to this. We dove pretty deep in the two rooms I went into. So the floor is open. We'd love to hear thoughts, reactions, learnings, Anything you'd like to share with us about what it's been like to be in these last two conversations around these questions. Please use the reactions button to raise your hand and we'll call on you. Or just raise your hand and I'll call on you. Either one, Brad, please go ahead.

So one thing that came up for us in the second group is the. The way the question was phrased it, it kind of depends on the context and who you're talking to and what the purpose of the conversation is. So when I'm talking with my wife and I'm trying to convince her to go on a vacation, that's a different kind of listening and speaking and sharing. Then if I'm talking with a coaching client and I'm in what I would call coaching mode, where I don't speak, I try to just listen, versus if I'm with a coaching client and I go into consulting mode with their. Usually with their permission, I'll usually say something like, is it okay if I give you my opinion? Which is not really what coaching. Coaching is about asking questions and letting the client come up with it. But if I go into consulting mode, then I can ask maybe more provocative questions or I can just say, I think that's stupid. I Think what you're doing is nuts. It's completely out of context and it's not going to work. And here's three other reasons why. And here's what I think you should do.

So I guess, does that address their concern?

Well, if they've given me permission to share my opinion, then usually it does. I'd say I'm about 95% effective when I consult. Gil, you're on mute. You look like you're trying to speak and you're on mute.

I always forget that I'm, you know, we're muted when we come out back out of breakout spread. So what is, what's different between the coaching and consulting conversations you have with a client and the where are we going on vacation conversations you have with your wife? Are they different?

They're very different.

Why?

The purpose of the conversation is different. Usually the way that I listen and speak and ask questions is different. They have some overlap, but there's a lot more history with my wife of 33 years than there is with the brand new coaching client that I started a week ago. There's a lot more permission with a coaching client that I've known for years and have a shared background. For instance, we may have both taken the same kind of training. Maybe we did Werner Earhart or T. Harv Eker or Tony Robbins. We have a different way of speaking and listening based on the meanings of certain words in that context. So it can vary, it can jump all around depending on what, what the, who the person is and what the purpose of the call is for and.

What the shared history is. Thank you.

I have a question, and not just to Brad, but to everybody. Let me self disclose. I'm finding as I shift my listening from content to concern that I am vastly underdeveloped in my listening in that regard. I thought I was a very good listener. But as I start to listen for what is the concern underneath what this person is saying, I often get caught up into. Let me argue with you, Let me tell you why I'm right and you're wrong. Or let me offer something different and I'm not actually addressing their concern. And I don't know if I'm alone in that or if there's other people who are experiencing that. But when I shift to concerns, it is a very different kind of listening that I bring. Go ahead, Brad.

And this came up in both groups that I was in. There's a distinction, and I think I learned it from Werner Erhard where he talked about listening to somebody versus listening for something. And the listening to part. Yeah, we can. Yeah, go ahead, go. Yeah, I'm listening. Go ahead, say what you need to say. But I'm not really listening because I'm not listening for, as Jane stated very clearly, the emotions, the concerns, the upset, the frustration. And when you listen for that, you will hear it. When I was a coach for 40 years of my career, it almost was exclusively by telephone. No, zoom, zoom didn't exist. And the only input I had was the voice, the pitch, the tone, the velocity, the intensity, the inflection, the emotion that I could get from the voice. And sometime if I listened for that many times I would interrupt them and say, excuse me, it sounds like you mean this. Am I close? And they would go, oh my God, I didn't even realize. Yeah, that's really what I'm, that's what I really mean. So listening for something very different than listening to somebody, in my opinion.

Thanks, Brad. Joe.

Your, your reference just then came to listening for. Listening for the, to the concerns and actually not doing that and, and finding that you, that one is just wanting to respond to the thing that you don't agree with. I actually had an example of that just earlier today in fact. And I said it's, it's very fresh in my mind and, and I can remember, you know, my, my entire physiology changed. Like my body language changed, like I felt different internally. I felt my voice changing, I felt my tone changing.

And.

That I need to, I need to develop the maturity for that to then be a, a kind of warning sign to me to go, ah, okay, this is a bad space to be in and I need to find a way to shift myself out of that, to asking that question, as you said, Ken, is to dig deeper and go, okay, I disagree with this, but what is the underlying concern here? It's, you know, I'm sure many people on this call will know this. It's that, you know, it's the whole Toyota five wise thing.

Right?

It's like digging. Okay, I disagree with you on that, but why? How is it that you've arrived at that position?

Why? Why, why, why, why?

That's definitely something I need to get better at.

Thank you, George.

I have difficulty listening to others concerns which I don't do. You speak louder, George. You're barely audible. I have difficulty listening, listening to others concerns that I don't share. But let me show two examples. At one point I was at a meeting for a non profit and they were talking about funding and one of the people went through a long Disposition. And I said, okay, this is a good point for me because I need it to mirror back to that person what he just said. Did you mean this? Did you say this? This is what I heard. And he got totally pissed. Right? Don't tell me what I'm saying.

Right.

And I was just trying to. Trying to be sure that I got what his message was, but he got totally pissed. The other thing is I have a friend who's very hard of hearing. And I noticed that when I was talking to him, my voice got louder, which means it went up into my chest, means that I got angry. And then I looked at that and I said, oh, I'm having a physiological response into anger because my voice is louder. And it has nothing to do with him. It has to do with the fact that I have to talk louder in order for him to hear. And that triggers something in me. So there's two examples that I want to throw out there. And I'm going to try and work more on seeing to others whose concerns I don't care.

Thanks, George. Heather, before you go, let me just check. Jane said she might have to leave. Jane, did you want to say something before you go to your appointment?

Yes. What I got from these sessions is just how normal I am and how much I'm not alone. I get lonely, but I'm so not alone. Anyway, thank you for your.

You got a friend in Gil.

And. And that is. My toughest listening challenge is listening to Gill. Really. It's.

It.

You take so much for granted with a person you've lived with for almost 50 years that sometimes I want to speak to his unconscious or his subconscious, and sometimes I want to speak to his collective consciousness and sometimes his local Gill. And these get all muddled up sometimes, often. And. And my listening gets muddled. So it's. And yet my self expression persists. Somehow I can live with this person and not be suppressed. And that is a lovely, lovely thing.

Wonderful. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye.

All right, thank you. Jane, over to Heather.

Well, before I say what I was going to say, I want to thank Jane for saying into the room that she can communicate with Gil without feeling suppressed. I think there's something about that. That feeling of not being suppressive, feeling free of having freedom to speak. What's true for you and the trust that. That you can do that without incurring injury to self is really important. Gil asked me to say just something briefly about what I'm noticing about myself and the way I listen now that I. That I learned by osmosis. Probably having been raised in the silent meeting for worship tradition of quake.

I listened to other people. I think as human beings we all kind of listen for manipulation because we are as little human babies evolution.

Where the whole point of meeting for worship and business meeting for worship is to listen into what, for lack of a.

Better word, people adapts us to our families through a process of intense emotional manipulation.

Would say to listen for that still small voice of God in oneself and.

That we are designed to provide. And we become master manipulators of one another. And what this watching a little film provoked for me and evoked was a.

Sense that to try to orient oneself to what is God's will for the community.

People are often not so much.

So it's never about the individual. It's always about the collective trying to.

Convey thought to each other as trying to convey mood and feelings and certain kinds.

You learn very early that.

That the we in terms of political stands or stances.

Is. Is more important than the me.

And convey certain kinds of moods and feelings better than others. And they may not so much believe in. In the actual technical position they're taking as much as its existential meaning for them. So if you're dealing with someone who's a nihilist and for whom no action.

Is effective and you know there's practices that you're taught as children about what.

Being they may simply be trying to grow and live through projecting this nihilistic.

Rambunctious silent meeting for worship looks like. And when you know that it's God trying to speak through you and not your ego. I'm having one of those moments right now.

Energy out into life in order to stand up straight in their bodies in order to just be in their skin.

And so yeah, because how I always knew that as a kid was that whatever I felt I wanted to.

I think it's rare when. When there's actually discussions where. Where the thoughts and the logic of the thoughts really matter that much to people. I think there's a contest in the realm of feeling about your stance with existence.

Say I didn't want to say and saying it. And the thought of saying it made me sweat. And then.

And I think that stems really from how well they're listening to them.

I thought, okay, this, this must be, you know, whatever it is that I'm trying to say right now. I'm. I'm wishing I didn't want it, didn't have to say it. And I never spoke in silence selves.

And how blocked or open they are to their own inner dialogues, their own conversations with God or their sense of source or. Or the absence of it and the.

Meaning for worship until I was over 40 years old, that's how this physician.

Psychiatrist, Gabriel Mate, talks a lot about the impact of early traumas in infancy, in the womb, and out of the womb, what those traumas do in families and what those traumas do in society amongst ourselves. So I think the.

The, you know, how little I valued what I had to say or how much deep respect I had for making sure that what I was saying was more about the we than the me. And that's why, as I said in.

The chat, I say the trauma of being on a hair trigger about whether Putin's going to nuke the nuclear reactor in Ukraine, the traumas of watching the suffering of other people from this grotesque distance that a prayer now, before I.

Speak in any meeting I'm in, because.

I am, allows us some sense of safety in our skin. We have this distance from it, and yet we're up so close through cameras to the human cost of it that we're in quite a dilemma with our feelings, quite a dilemma. And people are acting out their feelings all over the place, and it looks like politics, but is it really? It may be family matters.

Imagine that wherever I am, I'm in a silent meeting for worship, where whatever contribution I have to make is to bring love into the room, because love is the informing, designing intelligence of the cosmos as far as.

So.

The process of living I can.

Understand from my direct experience and what.

I've been taught between worlds and using conversation to advance our evolution. There are people with a great amount of skill as organizers, And there's a teacher of effective organizing named Jane McAlevy.

And I oftentimes hear Leonard Cohen saying, there's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. So if I'm in a meeting where it feels like some light needs to be let in, I try to figure out how I can be a kind and gentle cracker and, And. And create just enough space for. For some light to get in. And to this day, I'm 73 years old. It still terrifies me to approach conversation in this way. But I'm getting better at.

I think. She's currently holding a post at UC Berkeley, and I'm interested in getting some of her books and reading what this effective activist has to say about organizing in a workplace and listening to different people and dealing with the emotional content of other people's lives and how that dances with politics or doesn't particularly with respect to union organizing planning union actions and things outside the ballot box.

James, thank you. You you brought up the topic of of orienting to mood and it's not.

At speaking while being terrified all at the same time because I never grew.

Up feeling we've spoken about before and will again and I'll just note that we all live in a we live in a mysterious tangle we all live in interpretations and assessments that we make we do that all the time we can't not as human beings and those assessments that we make give rise to the moods that we live in Feeling.

Safe to say things in my own family so I still and the moods.

That we live in color and affection filter the assessments that we make and starting to I've been doing a bunch.

Of work don't feel safe to speak what's true for me even though rationally.

I know there's this last year to just orient to that allow to notice pay attention to listen to nobody going.

To try to kill me. It still on some level feels like somebody out there is going to try.

See how it affects me how it affects other people how it affects what.

Kinds of try to kill me for what I'm about to say. It's the strangest experience conversations we can have together.

So Jay, thanks for bringing that forward. Fernando, is it Eloy? Is that how you pronounce your name?

Hello.

Yes. Yeah, it's Eloy. That's how that's how you call it. First of all hello to everybody. I'm new to this meeting. I was suggested by thank you Heather.

That was just let's take a moment.

In silence dear friends that maybe some of you know her name is Absorb.

What Heather said there.

Barbara Pyle and she suggested me to attend to this. Meeting and I'm finding the conversation actually interesting and I've been listening I've been trying to listen which is may we.

All be gentle crackers of bringing in the light.

Alan as you know very different they're very difficult from hearing and from my perspective what I the definition I found closer to what listening is to me was when someone said I think it's I I read Kirk who said that's the ability to to be please or.

Is.

Thank you thank you Heather for that reminder changed.

I think he has.

A point there Love is what there is and that is our mission but.

Not necessarily we don't necessarily need to be changed. What I think we need to do is first of all listening is not a dialogue when you are Listening, you are listening. You are not saying anything.

Creating a culture of peace and non violence.

You are not supposed to say anything. It's the ability to be able to strip ourselves from our own convictions, from our own judgments and try to understand where the other person comes from and what really matters to that person.

Passing on what good we have to offer. So I, I postponed. I was eager to say something, but.

It'S about detachment. It's about. It's about like following a native American saying that. I read some sometime in the book.

I wanted to. To hear what Heather had to say. So I waited for her to put her hand up till I.

Which is before judging someone walk on their mocha sands for seven moons.

Put mine up. But what I have on my mind.

About this and I think most of us do not have that ability because when we are listening, we are not listening. We are prejudging. We are formulating thoughts based on our own convictions about what the other person is saying. And eventually either our facial expression or something that we say will try to manipulate that. That.

That is a kind of I. I live in a world of friends. Haber means friends. And the Yiddish that my parents knew. So I'm obvious that's that talk.

So just to circle back to the beginning. Listening is not a dialogue. It's the ability to actually hear.

Very akin to Gil Friend who I've known for near 60 years. And there are. And I'm in the political community of the other person.

And when we hear the other person, we may change, as Kirk said. Or we may have. We may have something that is very important which is food for thought that may help us to change, adapt, evolve or do something else. Great. Fernando, thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Ken, let me hand it over to you to take us into breakouts, okay.

The radical new left movement all over the world. And there are people who are my friends and I agree, I disagree. But basically we are in the same cuirass. We're in the same brotherhood.

Everybody, it's great to see you all here. Happy solstice. Solstice is sun standing still. So it's a moment where we can actually be out of time.

We are persistors. And I could.

We don't have an unlimited amount of time, but I'm going to ask you to do your best to metaphorically step into a timeless space for a timed conversation. So our first round, we're going to ask you the question of how are you listening to and responding to the concerns of others? I just put that in the chat, how are you listening to and responding to the concerns of others? Going to have 17 minutes for this conversation. I'm going to open the breakout rooms now. See you back here in a few minutes and then we'll have a second round and we'll come back to plenary. There you go.

Be a difference. But I don't. I. There's no blame, there is a comradeship and then there are people with whom I have an agenda.

So we're going to do one more round and let me just grab the question for the where.

As an activist against the war system that is there to kill us all, we need to have a plan of action this round.

We're going to up the ante here. How do you listen to and respond to concerns that you don't share? I hope you all had interesting conversations. There was certainly a lot of a lot of challenge to this. We dove pretty deep in the two rooms I went into so the floor is open. We'd love to hear thoughts reaction and.

I have my thoughts on that that I've worked on and with some people. I want to put those forward in my words or actions learnings.

Anything you'd like to share with us about what it's been like to be in my art?

One contribution I have made is this.

Last two conversations around these questions. Please use the reactions button to raise your hand and we'll call on you.

There won't be any meeting for peace until there is a.

Or just raise your hand and I'll call on you. Either one. Brad, please go ahead.

So one thing that came up for us in the second group is the the way the question was phrased it it kind of depends on the context and who you're talking to and what the purpose of the conversation is. So when I'm talking with my wife and I'm trying to convince her to go on a vacation, that's a different kind of listening and speaking and sharing. Then if I'm talking with a coaching client and I'm in what I would call coaching mode where I don't speak, I try to just listen versus if I'm with a coaching client and I go into consulting mode with their usually with their permission, I'll usually say something like is it okay if I give you my opinion? Which is not really what coaching. Coaching is about asking questions and letting the client come up with it. But if I go into consulting mode, then I can ask maybe more provocative.

Questions able to host it. And as a woodworker, I made such a table and it brings forth to all of us what really are the questions that have to be on the table if we're going to have a conversation that moves from the war system to the peace system. So we have a beautiful table symbolic of the fundamental.

Or I can just say I think that's stupid. I think what you're doing is nuts.

It's questions of the world and that's by offering into the conversation. But that is also a challenge that.

In the movie completely out of context and it's not going to work. And here's three other reasons why and here's what I think you should do. So I know.

Does that address their concern?

We need to look more specifically on what is the process.

Well, if they've given me permission to share my opinion, then usually it does. I'd say I'm about 95% effective when I consult Gil, you're on mute. You look like you're trying to speak and you're on mute.

I always forget that I'm. You know, we're muted when we come out back out of breakout spread. So what is. What's different between the coaching and consulting conversations you have with a client and the where are we going on vacation conversations conversations you have with your wife.

That the anti war people want to put forward to the powers that are of the war. So those that I have an agenda and I will offend people or interrupt people sometime talk too long usually.

Are they different?

They're very different.

Why?

The purpose of the conversation is different usually.

But I can offend people.

The way that I listen and speak and ask questions is different. They have some overlap. There's a lot more history with my wife of 33 years than there is with the brand new coaching client that I started a week ago. There's a lot more permission with a coaching client that I've known for years and have a shared background. For instance, we may have both taken the same kind of training. Maybe we did Werner Erhart or T. Harv Eker or Tony Robbins. We have a different way and then.

We will work it out. But I defend for the purpose of moving a conversation toward some effective action in a world where the space of.

Speaking and listening based on the meanings of certain words in that context. So it can vary, it can jump all around depending on who the person is and what the purpose of the.

Call is for and what the shared history is. Thank you.

I have a question. And not just to Brad, but to.

Everybody between the worlds is not so big and the world to Come. Is much more terrifying than we were able to imagine at the end of the Port Huron.

Let me self disclose. I'm finding as I shift my listening from content to concern that I am vastly underdeveloped in my listening in that regard. I thought it was a very good listener. But as I start to listen for what is the concern underneath what this person is saying, I often get caught up into statement.

Back in 1962, if we did the. If we attempt the unimaginable the impossible is because we want to avoid the automatic.

Let me argue with you, let me tell you why I'm right and you're wrong or let me offer something different. And I'm not actually addressing their concern. And I don't know if I'm alone in that or if there's other people who are experiencing that. But when I shift to concerns, it is a very different kind of listening that I bring. Go ahead, Brad.

Imaginable. And so we do have it impossible in front of us to somehow heal this. This just unity in the human spirit and bring a lot of back on.

This came up in. In both groups that we. That I was in. There's a distinction and I think I learned it from Warner Erhard where he talked about listening to somebody versus listening for something. And the listening to part. Yeah, we can. Yeah, go ahead, go. Yeah, I'm listening. Go ahead, say what you need to say.

The table and I made a very nice table for all of us, but.

I'm not really listening because I'm not listening for as Jane.

I'll put a picture in the chat sometime. Thank you.

Thank you.

Alan stated very clearly the emotions, the concerns, the upset, the frustration. And when you listen for that, you.

Will hear folks, where we're at the end of time. If you'd like to hang out for a few minutes.

When I was a coach for 40 years of my career, it almost was a few minutes.

Gil and I had one more question for anybody who'd like to answer it, which is what are you looking forward to?

This is by telephone. No, zoom. Zoom didn't exist. And the only input I had was the voice, the pitch, the tone, the velocity, the intensity, the inflection, the emotion that I could get from the voice and something if I listened for that.

You in 2023. Oh no, Gil's going to say something. Go ahead, Bill.

Let me just.

Before we do this many times I would interrupt them and say, excuse me. It sounds like you mean this.

Want to comment on a couple of things in this last round that really struck me that maybe am I close?

And they would go, oh my God, I didn't even realize. Yeah, that's really what I'm. That's what I really mean. So listening for something very different than listening to somebody, in my opinion.

Thanks, Brad.

Joe valuable for you. Where is it? Listening to George reminded me that that. Your, your reference just then came to. To listening for. Listening for the, to the concerns and actually not doing that and, and finding that you, that one is just wanting to respond to the thing that you don't. Conversation and listening, which we take for granted is something that we're all born knowing how to do actually takes practice. Agree with. I actually had an example of that just earlier today in fact and I. And it actually happens in our bodies. We think it happens in our. It's very fresh in my mind and, and I can remember, you know, my, my entire physiology changed. Like my body language changed. Like I felt different internally. I felt my voice changing, I felt my tone change in our ears and our sound. But it happens in our bodies and every time we're speaking with each other, we're actually affecting each other's neurobiology and biochemistry changing.

And.

That I need to, I need to develop the maturity for that to then be a kind of warning sign to me to go, ah, okay, this is a bad space to be in and I need to find a way to shift myself out of it. And that can be something that just happens to us or it can be something that we're aware of and cultivate to asking that question, as you said, Ken, is to dig deeper and go, okay, they didn't train for George, you spoke to that. You know, when you speak loud it rises in your chest. I disagree with this. But what is the underlying concern here? It's, you know, I'm sure many people on this call will know this. It's that, you know, it's the whole Toyota five wise thing, right? It's like digging. Okay, I disagree with you on that, but why? How is it that you've arrived and there's anger that's associated with that, but with practice you can learn to speak loud without that happening. George and I share a practice of martial arts and we know something about cultivating different to that position. Why?

Why, why, why, why?

That's definitely something I need to get better at.

Thank you, George.

I have difficulty listening to others concerns which I don't. Can you speak louder, George? You're barely audible.

I have difficulty kinds of reactions in our body. Takes time, takes practice, takes work Takes mistakes.

But listening, listening to others concerns that.

I don't share can be done. And what's innate can shift. And I'm struck in the same vein by which.

Let me show two examples. At one point, I was at a meeting for a nonprofit and they were talking about funding and one of the people went through a long disposition and.

Joe said about curiosity about, you know, our tendency. I'll say. I'll say my tendency, maybe others of you share it. To hear somebody say something that I profoundly disagree.

I said, okay, this is a good point for me because I need it to mirror back to that person what he just said. Did you mean this? Did you say this? This is what I heard. And he got totally pissed.

Rewith and react. My immediate recourse is to debate. Right.

Don't tell me what I'm saying. Right.

And challenge and proof. And I have the opportunity. I'm discovering of.

And I was just trying to. Trying to be sure that I got what his message was, but he got totally pissed. The other thing is I have a friend who's very hard of hearing.

Curiosity of. I've, you know, I'm startled by what you said. I'm curious why you said that. I'm curious about what, in your experience has brought you to a perspective that.

And I noticed that when I was talking to him, my voice got louder, which means it went up into my chest, means that I got angry. And then I looked at that and I said, oh, I'm having a physiological.

Response so different than my own. Could we talk about that? And all of a sudden it's a.

Very different into anger because my voice is louder and it has nothing kind of conversation.

So thank you, both of those, for surfacing that I want to do with him.

It has to do with the fact that I have to talk louder in order for him to hear. And that triggers something in me.

I'm going to leave you with actually a couple of questions. And Ken, you have one. I want to throw another one into the mix and there's not time.

Two examples that I want to throw out there. And I'm going to try and work more on seeing to others whose concerns I don't care.

Thanks, George. Heather, before you go, let me just check. Jane said she might have to leave. Jane, did you want to say something before you go to your appointment?

Yes, I'm to talk about it here, but I'd invite you if you'd be willing to write to me.

What I got from these sessions is just how normal I am with your.

Thoughts on what are you grateful for as we close out this year and how much.

I'm not alone. I get lonely, but I'm so not alone. Anyway, thank you.

And what are you surprised to be grateful for? So if you're game, send me a.

Note for your companion.

I've got a friend in Gil.

And and that is my toughest listening challenge is listening to Gil really. You take so much for granted with a person you've lived with for almost.

And Ken over to you for sure.

I don't want to keep people positive.

Years that sometimes I want to speak to his unconscious or his subconscious and sometimes I want to speak to this time.

We were hoping we'd have enough time to ask what people were excited about.

For 2020 collective consciousness and sometimes just local 3.

But I think it's, it's time to go. I've got another call and I haven't eaten anything and I need to grab.

A quick bite and these get all muddled up sometimes often so that put.

That in email to us also I can share that out with.

With all of them and, and my listening gets muddled so it's. And yet my self expression persists somehow I can live with this person.

You tell me not to.

Well, no, I'm fine. I'm. I'm actually I. I want to say I'm grateful for this call and not.

Be suppressed and that is a lovely, lovely thing.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you, Gil.

Thank you, Jane.

Oh, I'm grateful for Gil's inviting me in to co host with him and to change the format.

Bye.

All right, thank you, Jane. Over to Heather into some breakout rooms. Here we go deeper and for all the people that I've met on this call that I've.

Well, before I say what I was going to say, I want to thank James.

Terrific conversations with and for everybody for showing up and I'm looking for saying.

Into the room that she can communicate with Gil without feeling suppressed. I think there's something about that. That feeling of not being suppressive, feeling free of having freedom to speak what's true for you and the trust that you can do that without incurring injury.

To forward to getting to know people better next year on these calls because a lot of you I have not.

Sat in small rooms with is really important. Gil asked me to say just something briefly about what I'm noticing about myself and the way I listen now I'm.

Sure you all have fascinating things to say and I'll learn from you. So I just want to extend my Gratitude and thanks to you all and which you.

That I. That I learned by osmosis, probably.

Happy Solstice, Hanukkah, Solsta, Chrisma, Kwanzaa. Just kind of get them all in.

Having been raised in the silent meeting for worship tradition of Quakerism, where.

The.

Whole point of meeting for worship and business meeting for worship is to listen into what, for lack of a better.

Word, people in there at once and.

Whatever you're celebrating, be well, be safe, stay healthy, and have a wonderful would.

Say to listen for that still small voice of God in oneself and dance in a hurricane to try to orient oneself to what is God's will for the community. So it's never about the individual, it's always about the collective. You learn very early that, that the we. Is, is more important than the me. And you know, there's practices that you're taught as children about what being in silent meeting for worship looks like and when you know that it's God trying to speak through you and not your ego. I'm having one of those moments right.

Now dancing a hurricane.

Because how I always knew that as a kid was that whatever I felt I wanted to see. If you're standing in the eye me say I didn't want to say and saying it, and the thought of saying it made me sweat. And then I thought, okay, this, this must be, you know, whatever it is that I'm trying to say right now, I'm. I'm wishing I didn't want it, didn't have to say it. And I never spoke in silent meaning for worship until I was over 40 years old. That's how, you know, how little I valued what I had to say or how much deep respect I had for making sure that what I was saying was more about the we than the me. And that's why, as I said in the chat, I say a prayer now before I speak in any meeting I'm in, because I imagine that wherever I am, I'm in a silent meeting for worship where whatever contribution I have to make is to bring love into the room, because love is the informing, designing intelligence of the cosmos, as far as I can understand from my direct experience and what I've been taught. And I oftentimes hear Leonard Cohen saying, there's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. So if I'm in a meeting where it feels like some light needs to be let in, I try to figure out how I can be a kind and gentle cracker and, and, and create just enough space for Some light to get in. And to this day I'm 73 years old. It still terrifies me to approach conversation in this way. But I'm getting better at speaking while being terrified all at the same time because I never grew up feeling safe to say things in my own family. So I still don't feel safe to speak what's true for me. Even though rationally I know there's nobody going to try to kill me, it still on some level feels like somebody out there is going to try to kill me for what I'm about to say. It's the strangest experience.

Thank you, Heather. That was just. Let's take a moment in silence to absorb what Heather said. There. We all be gentle crackers of bringing in the light. Alan, please. Floor is yours.

Thank you. Thank you Heather, for that reminder that love is what there is and that is our mission in creating a culture of peace and non violence and passing on what good we have to offer. So I, I postponed. I was eager to say something, but I wanted to hear what Heather had to say. So I waited for her to put her hand up till I put mine up. But what I have on my mind about this is a kind of I. I live in a world of friends. Haber means friends and the Yiddish that my parents knew. So I'm obviously very akin to Gil Friend who I've known for near 60 years. And there are, and I'm in the political community of the radical new left movement all over the world. And there are people who are my friends and I agree, I disagree but basically we are in the same cuirass, we're in the same brotherhood, we are persistors. And I can be a difference. But I don't. I. There's no blame, there is a comradeship and then there are people with whom I have an agenda where as an activist against the war system that is there to kill us all, we need to have a plan of action. And I have my thoughts on that that I've worked on and with some people, I want to put those forward in my words or in my art. One contribution I have made is that there won't be any meeting for peace until there is a table to host it. And as a woodworker I made such a table. And it brings forth to all of us what really are the questions that have to be on the table if we're going to have a conversation that moves from the war system to the peace system. So we have a beautiful table symbolic of the fundamental questions of the world. And that's my offering into the conversation. But that is also a challenge that in the movement we need to look more specifically on what is the process, the agenda that the anti war people want to put forward to the powers that are of the war. So those that I have an agenda and I will offend people or interrupt people sometime, talk too long usually, but I can offend people there and then we will work it out. But I offend for the purpose of moving a conversation toward some effective action in a world where the space between the worlds is not so big and the world to come is much more terrifying than we were able to imagine at the end of the Port Huron statement back in 1962. If we did the. If we attempt the unimaginable, the impossible is because we want to avoid the unimaginable. And so we do have an impossible in front of us to somehow heal this just unity in the human spirit and bring love back onto the table. And I made a very nice table for all of us. I'll put a picture in the chat sometime. Thank you.

Thank you, Alan. Folks, we're at the end of time. If you'd like to hang out for a few minutes. Gil and I had one more question for anybody who'd like to answer it, which is what are you looking forward to in 2023? Oh, no, Gil's going to say something. Go ahead, Gil.

Let me just. Before we do that, I just want to comment on a couple of things in this last round that really struck me that may be valuable for you. Where is it? Listening to George reminded me that conversation and listening, which we take for granted as something that we're all born knowing how to do, actually takes practice and it actually happens in our bodies. We think it happens in our mouths and our ears and our sound, but it happens in our bodies and. And every time we're speaking with each other, we're actually affecting each other's neurobiology and biochemistry. And that can be something that just happens to us or it can be something that we're aware of and cultivate and train for. George, you spoke to that. You know, when you speak loud, it rises in your chest and there's anger that's associated with that. But with practice, you can learn to speak loud without that happening. George and I share a practice of martial arts and we know something about cultivating different kinds of reactions in our body. It takes time. Time takes practice, takes work, takes mistakes, but can be done. And what's innate can shift. And I'm struck in the same vein, by what Joe said about curiosity, about, you know, our tendency, I'll say, I'll say my tendency, maybe others of you share it, to hear somebody say something that I profoundly disagree with and react. My immediate recourse is to debate and challenge and proof. And I have the opportunity, I'm discovering, of curiosity, of I've, you know, I'm startled by what you said. I'm curious why you said that. I'm curious about what, in your experience has brought you to a perspective that's so different than my own. Could we talk about that? And all of a sudden it's a very different kind of conversation. So thank you, both of those, for surfacing that I want to leave you with, actually a couple of questions. And Ken, you have one. I want to throw another one into the mix and there's not time to talk about it here, but I'd invite you if you'd be willing to write to me with your thoughts on what are you grateful for as we close out this year and what are you surprised to be grateful for? So if you're game, send me a note. And Ken over to you for I.

Don'T want to keep people past time. If we were hoping we'd have enough time to ask what people were excited about for 2023. But I think it's it's time to go. I've got another call and I haven't eaten anything and I need to grab a quick bite.

So that put that in email to us also. I can share that out with with all of them, unless you tell me not to.

Well, no, I'm fine. I'm actually, I want to say I'm grateful for this call. I'm grateful for Gil's inviting me in to co host with him and to change the format into some breakout rooms. Here we go deeper. And for all the people that I've met on this call, that I've had terrific conversations with and for everybody for showing up. And I'm looking forward to getting to know people better next year on these calls because a lot of you have not sat in small rooms with and I'm sure you all have fascinating things to say and I'll learn from you. So I just want to extend my gratitude and thanks to you all and wish you happy Solstice, Hanukkah, Solsta, Chrisma, Kwanzaa. Just kind of get them all in there at once. And whatever you're celebrating, be well, be safe, stay healthy and have a wonderful time.

You can dance in a hurricane.

Only.

If you're standing in the eye.