Speaking About Listening — LBW 7.4

Welcome everybody to Living Between Worlds for April 15th, 2026. I'm Gil Friend. I'm CEO of Naturologic and an executive coach to purpose-driven founders and execs. And I'm delighted to have you here for the, gosh, the 4th session of our 7th year of these Conversations for Possibility. And today we're going to be speaking about listening. It seems obvious, you know, we all know what that is, right? What is there to say about listening? My ears receive sound waves, my brain processes them. But what if hearing isn't the same as listening? Or what if listening isn't the same as hearing? Have you ever been listening to someone and your mind is full of, what does this remind me of? 'Or I've already heard this before,' or 'Yeah, I agree with this. No, I don't agree with this,' or 'I'm getting ready to say what I'm about to say next in response to them,' none of which is actually listening to the speaker and what the speaker intends and what really matters to them and what possibility is waiting to emerge in the conversation. And so, you know, and unless this sounds abstract, consider the conversations that you're in, the conversations you have with your friends, with your family, at at work as a citizen of a very fragile democracy. So are you really listening? And what might happen if you did? And that's where we want to go today. That's what we want to explore with our special guest, Peter Jahalkovsky. Peter is an engineer and a physician, a longtime advisor to ultra-high net worth families, and author of the book Listening for Candor. So looking forward to a very rich and provocative conversation. Peter and Ken and I will talk together for probably 15 or 20 minutes, bring you all into the conversation, and then invite you into a couple of breakouts to give everybody a chance to participate more actively. And then we'll return together to discuss and harvest together before we roll out of here in a little bit, about 81 minutes. We'll go to the bottom of the second half hour. So thank you all very much for being here. Ken, over to you to start the conversation with Peter.

Thank you, Gil. Peter, welcome.

Hi.

You have been a guest, uh, you've actually, you've been a participant on these calls for a long time, but this is the first time we're actually getting a chance to talk to you. So really delighted to see you and have you with us. The topic is listening. The first question is, how did you get interested and involved in listening?

Boy, oh boy, good question. Um, I think it was way back when I first met Fernando Flores. I mean, I can hardly remember back that far, but I do recall that I had a little sports car, a little 280ZX, silver, back in the day before cell phones, 'cause it had a radio telephone in it, and the vanity license plate was listening. L-I-S-N-I-N-G, listening. So I must have been attached to listening in some way at that time. And what I can say is that, uh, what became most apparent to me in conversations with Fernando, uh, was that, uh, listening is far deeper and more relevant in conversations and in relationships than speaking. Yeah. Which, uh, I remember getting kind of caught by that, even though, uh, there was another aphorism of Fernando's, uh, that I always remember: talking is touching. And kind of in between those two, Uh, as I lived my life, I ended up in this challenging situation with these ultra-high net worth families, uh, rarely worth less than $500 million. Uh, so they're very weird families, but they're tangled and compressed by a power differential between generations. And so I needed to work with them to improve their ability to have important conversations without breaking relationship, without destroying trust, etc. Actually build trust.

Let's talk about that a little.

Yeah, great.

I'm very curious. You know, the byline for Liberty and Worlds has been with grace and power and dignity. So We've talked a lot about talking. I'm really curious, what can you tell us about listening when there's a big power differential? That seems to be a core point of interest that would be really useful for folks on this call to hear about.

Because ultra-high-net-worth families are not the only places where people have power differentials.

Like everywhere.

Yeah.

Power differentials are part of the social landscape, the social scape, whatever you call it. You're not going to do away with power differentials. And there's lots of different kinds of power differentials. Somebody may have a power on their side because they are willing to be emotionally demanding until you give up. They have power. Somebody may have power like authority. Authority of office. Somebody may have power because they are an expert in some relevant area, and you have to listen to their opinion because they actually do know what they're talking about and you don't. That kind of— there's many different kinds of power. Um, and in intimate relationships, there's lots of different kinds of power. You know, the silent treatment is power, etc. My wife has a certain kind of power because she cooks and I don't. That's a trivial kind of thing, but I have relative power because I use a chainsaw and cut firewood and she doesn't. You know, it is everywhere. Now, yeah, so power is interpersonal power differentials is what we're talking about. Interpersonal power differentials. And the power is present for you, and we're always aware of it. We know, uh, I mean, part of entering a conversation is having a sense of the relative capability/power of the other and their predisposition. Are they favorably incline toward me or not? Do I have to be careful, or might I be at risk in some way? When I get pulled over because I made a sloppy turn and didn't stop at the stop sign, I gotta kind of be— have my radar out and respond to that power differential by listening for how I can get out of there without getting a ticket, maybe only get a warning.

My driving instructor used to say, "Never argue with a man with a badge and a gun. Say yes, sir, no, sir." You know what? It served me very well. But along those lines, when we are in conversation with someone who has, for lack of a better term, power over us, they're in the superior position and we need to be respectful of that even if we don't necessarily respect the person. We have to respect the office and the power they have. What kind of listening is most important when we're in that situation? What have you learned about that that would be useful for folks to hear?

Well, in a conversation, as we participate, we become aware, if we're paying attention at all, that what is the other person going for? So for instance, you can be in a conversation with your teenage child, and you will realize that what they're going for is not to tell you where they're going after school, uh, the party on Friday. They are staying out of trouble, and they are guiding the conversation in a different direction. You can tell if you're paying attention. The problem is they're so darn good at it that sometimes you don't notice.

And they—

because they—

why?

Because they grow up under your power and they know you better than anyone. Kids know their parents, know how to play them, how to avoid them, how to— it's amazing. Now, uh, so there's one kind of conversation is a conversation where someone is trying to protect themselves from the other. And so they're listening carefully to what is it the other needs in order so I can get out of here without getting in any entanglement. There's another kind of conversation where you feel that someone, one of the participants, wants to dominate and win and control and get the other to do something. And that can be overt and it can be very, very sly. Really good salespeople are getting you to do something, and the moment you pick up on it, you start to dig in your heels. Finding your heels dug in is a good clue that someone's trying to get you to do something, or finding their heels dug in is a good clue that they think you're trying to get them to do something.

I wonder, is there an Aikido move in listening when you realize, hmm, this person's trying to do something I don't want to do? How can I listen to them in a way where we'll have a different outcome than me being controlled or influenced in a way that I don't want to be?

Well, there's, there's another, uh, kind of conversation that you— I think we're trying to get to that I call discovery, where the first one is pretense or protection, where I cover what I am at risk and I try to protect myself. The second one I talked about is certainty or domination, where that's the game being played, or avoid domination. And the third one that I am trying to advocate for is like a kind of co-discovery or discovery where you find what can you do together that would be beneficial to both. And there's a number of variants of that. Now, if you can get someone with much greater power than you to be aligned with you on where you're going together, then you are less at risk of them whimsically or inadvertently doing something that will damage you in your interest because they're— you're aligned. To do that, the question I— usually it's a question— is, you know, how do you see it? Because why? Because how do you see it elicits the sense of the other. Well, this is how I see it. Oh, and notice that your sense of things is oriented around what really matters, what's important, what you prefer, what you habitually do. But at the top of the list is what really matters, and then those others are lower down on the list. And if you can get aligned on what really matters, sometimes it's sufficient to get Oh, good. I agree. That's important too. Let's take care of that. So what's important may be all the alignment you need to reduce the potential risk of being in relationship with somebody with greater power.

It reminds me, I don't know if you're familiar with Monica Guzman's book, I Never Thought of It That Way. She's one of the founders of Braver Angels.

Isn't that great?

Yeah, she's talking about value stacks and how closely, uh, people who have very different political opinions, they share the same values overall, but their stacks are different. Some of them have the— something is a little, you know, they favor loyalty a little bit more than, than, you know, uh, liberation, or, or, um, they favor, uh, strong controls over, you know, people being able to do what they want. It doesn't mean they don't value it at all. But when you can recognize the difference and say, I get that, I hadn't thought of that before as being so important, it tends to open a door for a deeper conversation. Is that akin to what you're talking about here? Is that what you're also— you're discovering?

It's very similar. Yeah, I'm in that same game, uh, as I've come out of— I'm not talking to a bunch of people here who are ultra-high net worth people who are having this giant problem with their kids. I know that. Uh, on the other hand, I am talking to people who are living at this time in history when the, uh, kind of accepted notion of being human is that the object of the game is to get what you want, where the object of the game is to Uh, if you, if you have to let somebody else get what they want, you just gotta let them have enough of what they want so that you get what you want. That's what they call win-win, which to me is like a recipe for disaster here. Then, uh, settling into that, I had this insight when I'm working with these people that there's two kinds of capability that a social animal— we are all social animals— a social being— we are all social beings— two distinctly different kinds of capability need to be developed as you grow up. One is you got to be able to get something done. It may be that you become really good at tuning a motorcycle. It may be that you become really good at painting a house, uh, you got to be good at something. You got to develop the capability for getting something done. Why? That's because you got to participate in the social space, produce value some way. Um, the other kind of thing that has withered in the background, especially over the last 20, 30 years, uh, is, uh, you got to be good at Building a life together with others. And the two overlap, but they're not the same. You listen to the interests of others and you bring your own interests forward differently when it's about getting something done that you want because you want to get what you want, or are you building a future together with others? And those two distinct kinds of relationship overlap and intersect and grow separately over the course of time. And they produce different kinds of trust. Different kinds of trust. You have a very different kind of trust when you are in life together than when you are getting a project done.

Together.

Let's talk about trust for a minute. What's the relationship between listening and trust that you've discovered?

Well, like, the first cut is believability. Does this even make sense what they're saying? 'Do I believe this crap?' That kind of thing. That's the— 'Am I talking to someone who's lying, or am I talking to someone who's, uh, benightedly unknowing?' Right? There's that kind of thing. But I want to, uh, approach it slightly differently. Rather than immediately judging whether what someone says is true or false. I realized the other day that everything someone says makes sense to them in some way at that time, even if it's a lie. Highway Patrol stops you: Have you been drinking? Oh no, officer, I haven't had a drink at all. It makes sense to say that to someone who doesn't realize that they're blowing bourbon out the window. But I'm just trying to point out that everything— and so then the question in encountering another, and every encounter is a conversation, the question every conversation is, how do you make sense of their sense of things? Things. And remember that everything you say makes sense to you at that time too, in some way. So if you treat others with the kindness and dignity that you want to be treated, you grant that it's legitimate. I didn't say that there— it's true what they say, but it's legitimate for, for them to have that sense of things, no matter what their opinion is. And then the conversation is— the whole interaction, the engagement has a very different texture than if you're trying to either argue that you're right and they're wrong. That one doesn't go very well because you either get people that end up either being resentful that you're trying to force them to agree with you, or they quietly resent you and just fake it and go along. It's not a good thing. So to me, the big skill to develop is how do you make sense of the sense of others while allowing them to make sense of your sense of things. And this gets to be, uh, recursive, which, uh, at first I was kind of being a little defensive about it, but Gil pointed out that it is recursive. We're making sense of each other's sense of each other's sense of things. Now, the cool thing about that is if you can get a conversation If you can get a conversation like that and you have a— and you build a kind of alignment on what you're up to there, you can sometimes have like this incredible thing happen where there's the emergence of a new understanding, a new way that we might go forward together that neither of us had proposed. Why? Because it's built from a shared sensing. But everybody's sense is different than everybody else's sense, right? Like, I know— I don't know anybody with my particular background set of sensibilities. And that hasn't even yet touched— remember, because our sense of things is built out of our past experience. Like training and education, out of our awareness of what's going on, what do we see. Because you— oh, I didn't see that, that changes my whole sense of things, right? So your sense depends on your awareness, your experience, and your mood, and your intention. And all those are flexing all the time. I can change my intention. Suddenly that changes my sense of things. I become aware of that, oh, I didn't see that. Now I realize we better get it. You see what I mean? All of that is movement. And so then how do we have a conversation for developing a shared sense of things or enough resonance? Because you can never get 100% that boom, oh hey, we could do that. Yeah, that makes sense. And then you notice that we hardly ever make sense of things. Mostly things make sense to us.

Let's expand our sensing into Gil. I can see Gil's facial expressions, and I know him long, well, well enough to know that he wants to jump in here. So Gil, go ahead.

Sure. Thank you, guys. This is very rich. Peter, what you said about the reciprocal sensemaking, making sense of my sense of you and your sense of me and the back and forth between that. And it strikes me as such a contrast to the game we're usually in of I have assumptions about your assumptions about my assumptions about your assumptions. And that's a trap that, you know, that just doesn't help anything at all. But Shining light on that opens up the kind of possibility that you're talking about. I'm really struck, Ken, you mentioned the Monica Guzman book of "I Never Thought of It That Way." And I discovered long ago in my corporate strategy work that that was kind of, that was the core metric that I was going for. When somebody in a meeting would say that, I think, great, now we can start doing something interesting. And sometimes it's a client who says that and sometimes it's me or my team who says that. It's that opening. That there's something here that I'm acting as though I know, but I don't. And that's an invitation to curiosity, which is the, if anything, is the superpower that I have found in this kind of work. And it's listening, the curiosity and listening for care, which I think is adjacent, Peter, what you're talking about, listening for what somebody really cares about and being authentically curious about that and what matters to them and what's making sense to them in that moment. And I think you, for me, you touched the heart of the conversation we're looking for here is like what kind of possibility emerges, opens up in a conversation or opens up in a relationship, whether it's two people on a date or people on a political debate. We all have these different realms of conversation that we're in. And I'm intrigued by the what opens up. And so before we go to breakouts, —which I think we should do probably pretty soon—I wonder if you could offer us a couple of handholds on the face of the cliff. What are we listening for when we're listening about listening? How do I notice how I am, or how do I shift how I am in a conversation to move more in the direction that you're offering us here? Well, how about if I counteroffer?

Always good. Instead of giving you handholds, how about if you find out what's there? So I think, Ken, that first breakout exercise of like, if you can put people in threes and have them just join, you'll be asked to join a group, there'll be 3 of you there, might be 4, I guess. And simply have a conversation. And you'll find amazing things happen in every encounter that we normally— that pass below our recognition. But just take a few moments and have a conversation with two other people in this group. Can you put people in groups of three? So hey, you guys, everybody here has just been in a conversation. Fair enough? Yeah, because that was what your assignment was, and I, I know you did your assignment. Um, so now I, I have a question. That I hope and anticipate will take us in a fruitful direction. And that question is, what is a conversation? What is a conversation? Because it's certainly not a thing. You can't grab one and hold it in your hand. I can grab my phone and hold it. But I can't grab a conversation. What is a conversation? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Peter. Oh, hi Peter. Yeah, definitely, you got the right name too. Well, I'm sorry about that, but can't help it. Yeah, me neither. So, what I'm interested in is the distinction between a conversation and a discussion. And in my mind, a discussion has something like an agenda, and a conversation goes wherever the participants want to take it. And however, since we're also talking about listening, how listening does or does not enter into a conversation. Right, thank you, thank you. Yeah, I kind of in the rough way that I'm thinking of it, a discussion is a kind of conversation, but I'm still looking to see what are the entities, what constitutes a conversation. Monica.

Thank you, Peter. Going back to the beginning with Fernando Flores, what he said, like, talking is touching. And so for me, it's being seen, hopefully being seen and seeing the other person. For me, that's what a conversation is.

Thank you. Okay, cool, cool. And yet you can have a conversation when you're in the dark and you can't even see the other person.

Meaning more like a scene as a feeling, like it's the like, oh wow, someone can see in my brain, but they can't see in my brain, like, just the feeling of connection. That, like, what is connection, you know? Um, it's just this, um, this aura, this, this energy that, um, is between two or more people. Um, and even having a conversation with yourself, seeing yourself, you know.

So yeah, we're heading into territory that a friend of mine, Chauncey Bell, calls The Invisibles, because there's so much that's invisible that is nonetheless very meaningful in life. Yeah, you know, what is to be seen? What is to be heard? Quotes. Uh, what is to be recognized? There's no thing like that. Uh, uh, it's a happening, but happenings are not things. Yeah, Martha, Martha, Martha, please.

I would say that conversation is energy. So there's an energy exchange. And I would also say it's culture. So it's like your culture living through you. And it's also relationship. So it's about that relationship. So culture is relationship. So, you know, if there's a power differential, there's like, that's the relationship or You know, someone liking someone or not liking someone.

Right. Or that's an aspect of the relationship.

Like the power aspect. And yeah, and also I think context is the, is the conversation. Like, where are you? Like, what's the world you live in? Right? Like all of that. And I don't think necessarily being seen is a prerequisite for a conversation. I think conversation is happening all the time, and your response to it is, is, um, can be all over the place.

Yeah, when I started messing with this, I kind of gravitated toward a conversation being any encounter of two social beings who are mutually aware of each other.

Yeah. Love that.

And that could be as distant as two cars coming up to an intersection. You're aware of the other. One of them starts to go first, you let them go. That's it. You may not even wave. Or it could be you— somebody coming towards you on the sidewalk, and you don't say anything, but you're aware of the person, and you move to one side or the other to pass by. Those are all what I call conversations. And so I look at what are the elements that are needed. One clearly element that you need is you need to have two beings. Mm-hmm. Right. Now what's fascinating about two beings is it's not that just there are two beings out there, but there are two beings who are in that moment in some relation with each other. It may be an elaborate relationship, meeting up with an old friend, and you've got a world of historical references that you can share. It may be that you're meeting this person for the first time, but you still have a moment of, that's them, this is me, and this is how we are. So that little word, I think, is the most important word— is what's the we that you have at the moment? So there's whatever context or circumstance— whoa, I just knocked something down. Whatever context or circumstance in which we are situated at this moment. And notice that context and circumstance is understood, is appreciated, is sensed by each of you somewhat differently. So the context in which, or the circumstance in which I meet you is not the same circumstance in which you meet me. Isn't that fascinating? Now, and it has the full temporality because the circumstance is revealed by our past, and you have a different past than I have, and therefore you see the things differently than I see them. And Peter, I'm— Somebody was calling my name.

I'm going to jump in and just say in order to get to the next breakout room, and we have two other hands raised, let's focus up. Okay, I'll just kind of— Yeah, just because we have another longer breakout we want to do. So—

Okay, Lloyd, you're going to say something about what a conversation is. Yes. Well, I agree it's relationship and it's a connecting. But you're seeming to go on what I think is actually the basic definition of conversation is it's a verbal exchange between people, and you're implying that there's a lot beyond that. It may not be just between the people themselves, but the circumstances and the context and so on. Right. And it may not be verbal. Right, you're saying that, but— That's what I'm saying, and I'm insisting, and I'm insisting. You live and die in interactions in which you do not speak. I agree with that, but I don't know if I'd agree that that's a conversation. It is a connection between people. Exactly. Yeah. And what I'm trying to point to is all the essential elements of talking together, uh, are present even when you don't talk together. Uh, have you been— we've all been in foreign countries, most people have, where you don't speak the language and yet you can get things done, you can relate with people, and you don't have any kind of verbal exchange and yet you have a conversation. That's the kind of loose definition of conversation that I'm proposing. I'm not insisting that I'm right about that because you're right, there's a way in which you can say, well, a conversation is words exchange, uh, spoken here, verbal interaction. But there's so much more going on than the verbs that, that I want to loosen the, the sense of what we're going for in a conversation. And then we realize We have conversations, we have listening that is different with other kinds of beings. I have a different kind of interaction with my cat. I cannot ask the cat to make a promise. I can do that with people because people live with language where you can make promises. But cats can't make promises. Neither can horses.

Actually, cats can, they just don't want to. Peter, we gotta keep moving. We gotta keep moving. Okay. Let's go to Shel. Okay, let's go to Shel.

Yeah, Peter, I'm fascinated that you are so explicitly going beyond the verbal in your definition of a conversation. But I'm going to challenge you that the duality is also something that we might want to get beyond. We are having a conversation right now that while two people are interacting at any one moment because of the way Zoom is structured, it is a conversation among 40 people, um, not all of whom are actively participating. Some are participating as listeners. But like, I, you know, with your definition, I, I went to the No Kings rallies and I was having a conversation with many people on the basis of the signs they were carrying. It was not a spoken conversation. Yep. But it was definitely a conversation. I've also, I mean, in the breakout room that I was in, I didn't get a chance to really say much because Jane riffed off something Ron said and then 6 minutes went, and it was, but I felt very much appreciative of my ability to hear what she was saying and to be fascinated by it. Even if I couldn't respond and interact with her about it. But I wouldn't really say that that was a conversation, whereas conversations can also take place in writing. I have had on my Facebook feed a, like, 4-year argument with a guy I went to high school with who is a super-Trumper. Um, and I'm not really conversing with him. My audience, when I respond to his ridiculous statements, is the people who have not really given particular thought to what we're discussing or who are on the fence, that's who I'm talking to when I'm pretending to be talking to him.

Good. Yeah, I'm opening the possibility. I'm not trying to argue with you at all about that.

All right, I know we have a couple other hands up, and just because we're— we do have another breakout that's going to take a significantly longer time, we want to get to it. Um, I promise Nils and Paula will call on you when you— when we come back from the breakout. Um, Sorry to cut people off, but I got to be the agenda dog here and keep things moving.

Yeah, you're the agenda dog. Good. Hey, look, here's the idea I had here. I want to kind of set up the next thing. Is that what you want to do, Ken? Yeah, please.

Yeah, good. So in the chat so people can read it, but you can talk me through it, or do you want me to wait until you're done?

Yeah, wait until I go. So in listening, We can be listening for— listening as reloading what I'm going to say next. That's— Gil referred to that. You didn't use that term, but you talked about that. We can be listening for, are they going to close? Because I'm trying to sell. We can be listening for a lot of things. What I propose is an essential skill in building trust is listening for what I call candor. But I don't consider candor to be the kind of the blunt expression of how I feel about it, goddamn it, and I'm ready to fight about it. I consider real candor to be the revelation of what matters. And so if you're listening for candor, you're listening for a clue that this is what matters. So we want to put you in a little exercise where one person will be the interviewee, and then you'll rotate, and the other two people will ask, well, hey, what's on your mind these days? And then you're going to pursue that conversation, listening for what matters. And then you're going to come back and tell me what are the clues that they told you what mattered. Come on.

All right, we promised that when you came back that we would start with Niels and then move to Paula. And so if you'd like to speak after them, please raise your hand. It'll put you in the queue. Niels, please. I know you wanted to say something, and I don't know if you want to bring that in for later or you want to, you want to just talk about what occurred in your last breakout room. Peter, you want to frame this at all before we get going?

Yeah, yeah, I'm looking for two—

I'm hoping, uh, for two distinct kind of new ways of understanding. One is, how do you detect when someone shifts to not arguing about what's important, but revealing what matters? That's one. How do you notice that? I have some ideas on that. And, and I've been carrying on that conversation for a while. The other is— now I've forgotten. How do you ask? How do you inquire? How do you engage in a way that elicits that or solicits that, that has people settle into revealing as opposed to concealing what matters? So if you can speak to that, and your turn to contribute here.

Yes, I love to I love to, to answer your first question. I think the, the key there is actually to, to, uh, when you hear that people are continuing on what you've been talking about instead of just only reflecting on their own personal experience in the same field, because very often it's like people are separate universes where they only connect when they have something similar to share. But in a way, it's not necessary to share the same things that's already been talked about. You can continue the conversation by adding something to it instead of just saying, yeah, I've done that too. Oh, I've been there too. Oh yeah, that is important because I felt it myself. So, so, so to kind of feel like it's not only about having a statement from the other person that they are actually acknowledging that what you've said matters to them, they can further on the conversation by, by, by moving on without actually just saying that this is important because it's important to me. Right. That's the first thing.

Yeah. Now, now following that, Nils, you are very susceptible to your teenage kids because they can, they can, they can lead you around all over the place by bringing up new topics and carefully evade everything that really matters. I just want to point out. Yeah, who else?

Very good. And the second point I also want to make is that be aware that a lot of people are carrying a very strong filter where they only let the information that fits with what they already decided on passes through and block everything else, very often based on who they regard as being their own tribe. Nikki Heer, a psychologist from University of Auckland, has been writing a fantastic book about this on sustainable psychology. And, and that in a way makes it extremely important to build connections and notice that we are a part of the same tribe before you actually start sharing things. Because if not, if you don't do that, it's like fighting, uh, a grease fire with water. I mean, facts doesn't matter if, uh, people, uh, are, uh, looking at each other as opposite tribes. So we need to unite before we can collaborate.

Yes. Yes. Somebody else was, uh, on there.

We're gonna ask Paula and then Ron. So Paula, please, we said we'd call on you.

Oh, there's Paula.

You're muted, Paula.

Lower left. There you go.

There you go. Thanks. Hi, Gil Friend Friend.

Good to see you.

Um, what concerns me and I think about is how we create what's real based on thought, in words, in conversations. And sort of building on the previous comment about tribes, that, you know, a tribe has a similar idea of what reality consists of, and cultures have that. And that we're not really any of that, you know, as a human being, we're not necessarily our culture. You can change cultures and take on new values. You know, you change over time. And to me, it's like the way that we create our realities is based on conversations.

Yes, yes, yes. And if you're going to build a shared reality, you need to build it out of what matters.

Well, and hopefully what really is real, you know, not a mask or a set that, you know, we make in our world and live in, that we go beyond that to recognize what we really are and what other people really are. Yes.

Ron?

Yeah, this, I don't know if this is helpful or not, but I'm working with attempting to bring a seminary education together with management education, which Gil knows something about at Presidio and the San Francisco Theological Seminary. And so we're looking for ways to listen to each other. The faculty, they're pretty much skeptical of each other. Especially the seminary, skeptical of the business people. And one of the models we've been using is the monastery and say it's one of the oldest traditions in the Christian Catholic tradition of the monastic rule back to the 4th century. And we're saying that the vows at that time were stability, stabilitas, but the second one was conversatio morum, which is conversation as a way of life. And the third one was obidere, which is usually, you'll be obedient, but it's to listen. And so I just wanted to raise that and say that this is one of the oldest traditions we have to embody a way of running a monastery, which as we all know, is an enormously successful operation for centuries as a way of organizing together. But those were the foundations of it all. And obviously it was open to the spirit. And Shane, happy birthday to you. And you still owe me a note about the homeopathic as listening to the spirit, which is what we take to be the foundation of the monastic rule. So I just wanted to raise that if it's helpful.

Thanks, Ron. Hey, Maria. And then I've been persuaded to tell two stories that could be helpful here.

But Maria, it's good to see you. Hey, good to see you and everyone too. I like the fact when we started this session that you were asking about and talking about how we actually communicate beyond the words. And, and I think the fact that, um, you know, the words can only convey very little. We're so restricted by what we can say with our language, and what we communicate is so much more. And also that always when we communicate We have to listen beyond the words to find the whole complexity. So the words are like clues, and so we have to fill in based on our experiences. And so we use— we need to use all our senses and listen beyond the words. And in the Scandinavian languages, we have this word "in lejvelse," which is lost in the English. And many other languages since the word empathy came. But in Lyras, it's about living yourself into another person or a situation. And it's really like, what's it like to be Peter at this very moment? It's not just understanding the feelings, it's really what's it like if, if I was Peter? What's it like to be Peter? And that kind of listening, because when we do that, we can also open that kind of a shared space of meaning and our worlds can meet. And I think that's, that's, I mean, that's a capacity we seem to have lost, and it's especially important when it becomes difficult. And I think that's also what you're talking about, Peter, when you're talking about that listening for we as well. Yeah.

Well, then that gives me a lead to exactly one of the stories that Gil wanted me to tell is that sometime I was just— you know how things come across your screen? It came across my screen. I think it was from Eon, uh, it's a magazine, but it was a story, uh, about a tribe in Africa. It was very, very, very well documented. I guess it's a famous anthropological thing, but it's a tribe where they think argument is one of the stupidest things you could ever do. They do not argue, ever. And, and if you voice an opinion— people do voice opinions— but when you voice an opinion, it's a contribution to the conver— to the conversation of the whole. Not— and you don't get credit if everybody agrees with it, and you don't get blame if everybody thinks it's not useful. And I thought, oh my goodness, I can hardly voice an opinion and not want to take credit for it if everybody thinks it's a good idea, or be careful if I think they may not like it because I don't want it to be rejected. And so, that to me is kind of like that book, The Dawn of Everything. A little sign that it could be that we don't have to be bound by the culture that has eaten us in the last several hundred years, uh, and is taking us in a maybe not such a good direction right now. Uh, but he also wanted me to tell you another story about the woman who was, uh, at one moment in— out in the in the Pacific near Cook Island, which is in the middle of nowhere. And she was, by a weird set of circumstances, which you can sometimes look up on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, 'cause she actually went there and it was on video, where a humpback whale, which is not a small animal, they weigh about 50,000 pounds, picked her up on his nose and carried her to her boat and she realized that he had rescued her from a giant tiger shark. Now that— and so she was like blown away. How could this happen? A year later, that same whale came back, and the people there, uh, when he saw her boat, he came right over to her boat, and everybody said, you know, he's looking at you. So she got in the water and he held her on his fin right at water level where she could breathe for about 15 minutes and then brought her back to her boat. And, and, and, and she sat on the side of the boat with this huge eye a yard away. And then her account of it is, and then we went in for 20 minutes. What is it to go in for 20 minutes? It's one thing to look in somebody else's eye. What is it to look in the eye of a whale who is looking at you? Something is going on. I offer that as a slight glimpse past the already understanding that we usually use to close down possibilities. Possibility. This is something else. And I think we need to cultivate an openness to something else besides what we already know. And, uh, and I particularly like that story because, uh, it's, it's somehow to me is like falling in love. Hey, I did pretty good to get within, uh, 6 minutes, uh, within 4 minutes.

Beautiful story, you know, and it reminds me in past calls we have spoken about the Latin American notion of sente pensar, which is to think with the heart and feel with the mind, and also sente pensar con la tierra, which is to think with the heart and feel with the mind with the body of the earth, that the earth is alive. It is the source of all life, and it is very much in conversation with us now. Every day it's telling us all kinds kinds of things that most of us in the modern world are not paying attention to, and it will insist upon being paid attention to because if we violate the rules too much longer, we'll be taken out of the picture. So I invite you all to start to step into a conversation with the natural world. What does it look like, or what does it sense like, to be listening to the world around you, to the trees, to the grass, to the birds, to the grasshoppers, you know? It's really important that we start to make this a much more conscious effort. Uh, if you're familiar with Vanessa Andriotti, uh, and her book Hospicing Modernity and Outgrowing Modernity, she talks about the field of bio-intelligence, which goes from the smallest, uh, single-celled animals all the way up to colonies of all kinds of animals. So there is bio-intelligence surrounding us all the time that we are not not listening to that can inform us a lot about how to navigate through the messes we currently find ourselves in, which are mostly our own fault for not listening.

Jane, um, let me, uh, okay, um, I'm probably not the only one here who has seen many, many, um, AI video reels of people interacting with animals in improbable ways. Or, uh, improbable rescues. And some of it is authentic, uh, veterinary animal rescue work, and a lot of it is pure fantasy. And some of it portrays people interacting with animals in ways that really tell a lot of unfortunate lies about nature. But a lot of it is really, really well-based in an event like the story we just heard about the whale. I think it's expressing a tremendous human hunger to cultivate and re-establish a heartfelt loving connection with the other creatures of the world, even though at times we take their lives. So I really, um, I really applaud the funneling focus of this whole time we've spent together on that invitation to being with others with enough time to pass between us.

Thank you. Sometimes I think about who is the we Yeah. Who is the we that we really belong to? Like, is it just my family? Is it just my nation? Is it just my species? Or is the we that we belong to life, all of life?

There you go. Peter, you may have heard this before in other calls. This is a question that Ken Homer has been asking in conversations for years and observing that sometimes we, there we go, will use the word we in 5 different contexts in the same sentence. Yeah. And so it's worth, you know, it's worth kind of noting that. We're just about at time. I just want to say a couple of things by way of closure. First of all, thank you, Peter, to you especially and to everybody for a remarkable conversation. This is a conversation we've wanted to share with you guys for a couple of years. Peter and Ken and I have been sort of plotting to do this, and I hope it's been as valuable for you all as it has been for me. I'm really very moved by the story of the whale, both for what it is in itself and for the opening that it offers about conversations without words. Because clearly there's a conversation there. There is a turning together happening there between those two creatures of such different size and provenance, but there's not language. Language. Uh, I've been listening a lot, uh, lately to Alan Watts, the stand-up philosopher popular in the '60s, who's talking a lot in the recordings that I keep bumping into about the direct experience, about what happens before we have words that categorize and name and label what our experience is. What's the opportunity, the primary experience of encountering connection and whatever. I'll stumble with the words to describe the experience without words. But there's a hint there. And the story of the whales is a visceral, can feel it in my body clue of something that's possible. So our invitation to you is to bring the conversation we've had today with you out in the rest of your life and observe. What do you observe about listening? And what do you observe about your listening? And explore what might be possible with a different kind of listening. So thank you all for being with us today. We're back next month, always the third Wednesday of every month. Please invite others with you. We'd love to broaden the circle of these groups. We have some special guests lined up. We'll say more about those in the emails to come to you. But again, thank you all for being here.

It's been a pleasure. One quick thing we talked about in between sessions was intention and attention and setting an intention not just to listen to the other person, but to listen to yourself and your own listening. Are you tracking or did you get triggered into thinking and trying to argue or are you staying with what's what's important for them rather than judging. So, uh, it's, it's not an easy exercise, but it's very worthwhile.

We will close as always with the reminder that you can dance in a hurricane, but only if you're standing in the eye. You can dance in a hurricane, but only if you're standing in the ice.