Remarkable People Behind the Podcast: How to Challenge Your Thinking

Hello. It's Guy Kawasaki, and that's Peg Fitzpatrick. Jeff C. Is a little under the weather, so he's just going to be the man behind the scenes. I am in. I'm in Watsonville, California now. I moved because we got evicted from our old house.

No, did not.

So this is my new magical. I'm in a barn, actually. This is my barn dominium. Well, it's my. It's my man barn. That. That would be a more accurate. It is a man barn.

So I thought it was a whole family place. Is it all yours? Did you take the whole thing over?

Well, I traded off. What happened is I. I swapped. I was gonna have an office in the house, and then I said, okay, you guys can take the office, I'll take the barn. And now I'm. I'm a little hesitant. You know, we have a place where you can watch TV in the barn, and I'm a little hesitant to make the TV too good, because then people will come down here and watch. And I don't want them to come here. I want them. I want this to be my barn. And I even put my apple. I stole my apple at Apple. In. In the old days, in front of your cube, it would be your name with the apple logo. There's a little plastic thing, right? And I had the foresight of taking it with me in 1987, and I have it to this day. So I put it on the front door of the barn so people understand. This is Guy's barn.

I'm writing. Go away.

That's right. I'm podcasting. Go away. You see the lights on. Go away.

Right. And that works really well at your other house in your office. Right, Exactly.

Well, this. This house, I put a lock on the barn door. That's a combination lock. I haven't told anybody the combination.

I could guess it.

No, you'd be wrong.

You'd be wrong.

It's. It's not that. It's not that.

We've moved on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, I've got. No, no, no, no, no. And I wanted to announce that we have a new episode of the Remarkable People podcast today. It's Dr. Jack. Dr. And Reverend Jackie Lewis from New York. And, man, what a powerhouse, huh? Pig.

I mean, yeah, A really great perspective. That's. I feel like her voice is really relevant right now. Especially relevant with her experience, life experiences and education combination.

Yeah, yeah, she. Man, I. My. My squad cast was melting in the. What she was saying. She is so powerful. She braces. She basically addressed poverty Prejudice, racism, lack of equal economic opportunity. And one of the stronger things she said in an episode full of strong things was that she thinks that in the next 20 or 30 years, this is kind of the last gasp of white nationalism slash racism. And boy, I tell you, it sure looks. Looks like to me, it's going very strong right now. And she said her interpretation is this is the last desperate throws of racism.

I hope she's right, too. It doesn't seem like that to me either, to be honest.

It sure doesn't.

But I.

No pun intended. But maybe it's darkest before the dawn, or maybe it's whitest before the dawn. And. And, you know, I mean, if you just look at it demographically, the trend is not the white racist, friend. I mean, the. The numbers just don't work out. I don't know. You know, I don't know how you. That would be like saying, you know, somehow we're going to change this. I don't know. I don't know how they can possibly change it.

So more interracial marriages are changing it every day, right?

That's right. I'm an interracial marriage, and I haven't caught a wall in kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm doing my share.

I think that's. I think that is the biggest way that it's changing. Maybe, you know, like, individual people are like, they're changed. Their hearts are changing, and then they're, like, not looking. They're looking at the person that they love and not thinking, oh, I shouldn't marry this person because of X. Yeah.

Well, and then I think it. You know, whether you. Whether you like it or not. But one of the ramifications of an interracial marriage is, guess what? You're now exposed to most people. More people of the other race, because when you marry somebody, it's not just the person. Right. It's the whole family. So now you're exposed to a whole bunch of people, and maybe you'll discover that people are more similar than they are different, which is kind of what I figured out. So.

Yeah. And. And Beth gets to go to Hawaii more.

And I get to go to Modesto.

There you go. Is she from right in California?

She was born in Minneapolis. Not Minneapolis. She was born in Minnesota. And as a kid, we moved to Modesto. And Modesto, I took her out of the valley and brought her to the coast.

Yeah, but she's definitely Scandinavian.

Yeah. Yeah, she is. So what's our icebreaker question? When is the last time you change your opinion? Shit. I changed my opinion this morning.

Well, I. The reason that I think that one's relevant is because what Jackie talks about, if you. If you have an open mind. Mind you can learn and will that change people's opinions about racism? Is what I. You know what. Where I was going with that. Like, you know, are you reading something that's going to change your opinion or listening to a podcast that's going to change your opinion? So it'd be great to know listeners of the watchers of the show. Like, if you listen to the podcast, is there something particularly that helped change your mind for the better? That after listening to this podcast, it would be great to know that. Yeah, yeah.

Exposure to other people. Definitely, you know, travel in that sense. I mean.

Yes, definitely travel.

Well, have you ever been to Turkey?

No. Okay.

Well, you and I definitely. We crossed South America together.

Yeah.

Not on. Not on a motorcycle. Like, chicken bar.

I was with you, McGregor. I don't know what you're talking about.

But, I mean, I definitely got a whole different perspective on South America after our travels through South America.

Here's my naivete. Or by being naive. We were in Mexico City, Mexico, and we had a driver and another guy, and I was like, oh, that's so nice that this other guy comes around. The driver. Like, I didn't even realize he was the bodyguard because it wasn't safe. Way to go, Peggy. But it's like, in my world, I've never had to, you know, work. Not people that would typically have a bodyguard following us around when we were going to a speaking engagement. So that was different.

Well, I was. I don't think you were with me because I was speaking in. God, which country? I don't know. Colombia, maybe. And there was like, I had a police escort.

I don't.

You know, and I didn't ask for it. It's not like it's in my rider that I have to have a police escort. Like, you know, what are you gonna do, kidnap me? And ask for what password? So we can get into your social media account? And.

No, I think they probably ask for money. Columbia was. Columbia was the place where we asked if it was safe to walk around, and they said, just be back before dark. And then there was, like, the police walked around with, like, rifles, remember?

Well, but I mean, people walk around in Wisconsin with rifles, so.

They do now?

Yeah. Yeah. It's okay now, I guess, huh?

Right. Who knew that? I didn't. I had no idea that the Midwest was like that. The people are so friendly. But I guess Minnesota Has a lot of racial issues, as we found out.

Yeah. So. Yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't know. I. I just. And then we had that. That school shooting yesterday. Right. But that was in. That was in Michigan. I. I read someplace there have been 28 school shootings this year in America. Like, how can that be?

Kids aren't even in school.

I know. They are.

Right, I know. I'm just kidding. Like, for the whole year they haven't been, though. That's horrible. I didn't see that in Michigan. And I actually went to school in Michigan, so I will look that up and see where that was.

It was a high school in Michigan outside Detroit, so.

Oh, no, now I gotta. I'll be looking that up. That's where I was. But out way in a suburb outside. So. Who inspires your. Go ahead if you're gonna say something else.

No, you know, I was. Speaking of Michigan, I just saw a movie called Malice in the Palace. Have you heard of this movie?

No. Okay.

Yeah. It's not a funny movie. Malice in the palace is. There was a game between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons. And after the game, things got ugly and somebody threw a beer at Ron Artest. And Ron Artest went into the stands and attacked this guy. And it became a full scale kind of riot. And people were.

What year was this? This sounds really familiar to me.

2004. So then, you know, Ron Art has got suspended for the rest of the year. Jermaine o' Neill got suspended for about a month. Steve Jackson. Jackson got suspended for about a month. And, you know, nobody was affected on the Pistons in terms of suspension. And it was like. If you see the whole thing, it wasn't a bunch of basketball players who went rogue and started attacking the crowd. I mean, there's definitely another side to this.

Yeah, I remember when that came out and I used to go to the Palace. I worked at Merrill lynch, and Merrill lynch used to get tickets for everything. They had, like, box seats. And so I would go see stuff there all the time. And then also the Friday, the TJF Fridays, that was closest to there, we would go after work there, and the players. The Pistons would come in.

So Jermaine o', Neal, if you watch this movie, he really got screwed in the whole process.

Yeah.

And it's.

Detroit is kind of. Detroit is a. Interesting place.

But I don't think it was Detroit so much as it was just racist.

It wasn't. It. It was the fans, though, wasn't it? The fans Throwing beer.

Yeah. And I, I have to say we're really going down a hole here. But I have to say, if you watch Malice in the palace, it kind of makes you understand how January 6th could happen. I mean, it's just the crowd, I, I don't know what takes over this crowd mentality.

I mean, it's just, well, I mean, you know, you studied psychology, so I'm sure you did study that. When, when one person does it, it gives other people permission. And then once, you know, people think they're not going to get caught because there's so many people, and they just get caught up in it and they do things. But I mean, the January six thing, that was, like, pretty premeditated. It was like, hey, let's all meet there on this day. And there was lots of chatter about it beforehand and, you know, the experts didn't take it seriously enough because nothing like that has happened in our country for, since basically the beginning of our country. Because back in the, in the revolutionary days when the Red Coats were still here, they would do that stuff. There's a story I remember reading where the people in Boston were so angry with a politician that they went and they tore his house apart. Like, literally took everything and tore that, tore the house apart. And he was like, I gotta go back to England. I don't even have a house anymore. So, so, yeah, we used to be really radical back in the day, and now we've kind of mellowed out. And now this is, I, I, I don't know, though. I mean, it's been going on, Stuff like that's been going on forever. And in the 1960s, when all the racial things were going on, Detroit was definitely a city that was in turmoil. In Chicago and New York, all the, you know, la. Yeah. And, and not enough good came from that to fix any of it. You know, it's kind of like women's rights. It's like all this stuff happened for women's rights and then nothing happened.

Yeah. Yeah. Got a lot of work to do.

I, Yep. So that our question was, who inspires your think So I will say, going along from my last comment, Gloria Steinem is a total thought leader and I love what, what she says. I have a book of hers that's a, it's a book of essays and it's called the Truth Will Set you Free. But first it will piss you off.

No kidding, huh? I mean, in a sense, more. We're just, we just, we're everywhere. I mean, that's why I think we need to have our kids study the history of slavery and racism in America. Because if you. If you try to white, no pun intended, if you try to whitewash that, you're not going to learn from it because.

But the problem is our. All of our history books are. Our social studies books are wrong. It's the version that they wanted us to know. We knew nothing about a lot of things until smartphones came out, and then people could record things that were happening and it couldn't be denied anymore. So that's pretty bad thing to have to happen.

Our history books may be wrong, but now we want to even go beyond and not have anything about it in the history books. Right. They want to learn.

You want to just take it out.

They came over from the Mayflower. Everybody was honky dory, loved it. And, you know, they rescued all the brown and black people and made them Christians, and life goes on.

Right. We'll forget about the chickenpox or the measles. Whichever thing, whatever we brought over, I think it was the. One of those.

Well, I think. I think people are getting the message that if they're a white nationalist, they probably won't enjoy this episode.

No, but, but, Jackie. So who inspires your thinking in those. In those areas of, like, activism and people watching? Who inspires your thinking as far as, you know, how to move forward on these issues?

Jane Goodall.

Jane Goodall is really. She's been ahead of the curve on the planet.

She's way ahead of the curve on the planet. So, Jeff, throw up some. Oh, you know. So speaking. We just got to plug the podcast. It's remarkable people@remarkablepeople.com and if you whip out your smartphone camera, you can just. There he is. You just put your camera on that and off you will go to remarkable people. So did you, did you see the. Oh, and yes, we have a community at Circle, so. So there's a remarkable people community. And I don't. I'm not too active in it because of the Seth Godin theory that the person, you know, who is the creator of the podcast in this case should not be too active because it gets too dominated. But I, I am using it, or we are using it to surface issues with the podcast as well as to solicit questions.

So what do you mean surface issues? There are no issues. We discuss the podcast and ask advice, ask people's, you know, what they thought about the podcast and things. What do you mean about issues?

Well, issues like. Let's see. Well, some people are just. There was a discussion about when music plays over someone speaking. Right. So some people think that's terrible. Some people think that's great. Me, I love it. It's like, I'm all about npr.

Yeah. I. That's what I. I love that about it, too. NPR does it. We do it. I think it's. I think it signifies, like, this is an important section. If you were kind of like, you know, like, it's kind of like a little tap, tap, tap. Hey, this part's. You know, they're going to say something really great right now.

So. So if you want to learn about racism and perhaps how to deal with racism, maybe even end racism, this is the episode for you. Because Jackie Lewis has an extremely strong perspective on. This is very, very inspiring. Very inspiring episode. So what else? Who challenges my opinion? My wife.

That's what I was gonna say. My husband. Yep.

Every day. Twice a day.

Only two. I think every. I think people always have topics. I don't know if you guys do that are like, you know, we've had a couple issues that were just things that were, like, not. We were not able to discuss. We did not agree on, like, guns in the household. I'm a definite no, never.

So do you have guns in your household?

Nope. I have so far won that battle. Not that I know. You know, it's funny, though. In our old house, there was, like, one that was hidden up in, like, a panel somewhere from when we bought the house.

I hope you remember to remove it when you moved.

Yeah, Rich took it out. Okay.

Put it in his Ford 150.

No, no. But I mean, you know, there's people who feel like that's a safety issue, like, I need to protect my house by having kids in the house. I was like, no way. It's just not a good idea. Because, you know, when I was growing up, my best friend's dad was a police officer. And I remember him sitting us down and giving us a very stern, scary lecture about never touching guns. And we didn't. We were pretty naughty. I think it's the one thing that. That shout out to you, Todd Barron. It's probably the one thing we never did. There was.

There was a story this week where some guy took his daughter hunting, and then after hunting, he accidentally discharged the rifle and killed his daughter in the car.

Yeah. And there's been store. I mean, horrible stories about someone having one in their purse and the kid getting it. And it's like, what? No, it's just. It's. There's too much risk for me. So Anyway, I, you know, it is in our constitution that people do have the right to bear arms. I'm not just disputing that, but I just don't want one in my house. So I'm just saying, like, those are things. Sometimes you can have long, long term meaning years, discussions.

I don't have discussions. Whatever my wife says goes. It's just, it's.

I don't know. Really? You never challenge anything?

Hardly ever.

Yeah, I can't.

Like, I bought a set of cheap dishes for this house because she has this beautiful Annie Glass stuff and, you know, handmade pottery and like every time I eat, I'm eating like cornflakes and I'm like worried that I'm gonna break this dis plate. So I went, I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and bought 12 settings of, you know, it's a bowl, a small plate and a big plate. And I bought 12 sets or, you know, 12 places. I'm embarrassed to tell you. There's probably 12 places. So 36 pieces total for about 40 bucks.

Wow. Good deal. And was she like, I don't want you to use that and no.

Well, I think she's figured out that it's better to put those 12 plates at risk or 36 plates at risk than the Annie Glass, you know? Do you know who Annie Glass is?

No, I don't. I have to look it up.

Oh, check out any glass. She's in Bergdorf and, you know, everywhere. And she has a factory in Watsonville.

So cool.

We go to the factory.

Nice. Yep, Very nice. Yeah, you don't want to break those. So are you open to new ways of thinking? Yes. Yeah. But I think, I think this podcast is really just all the things that Jackie said. Like if I think everybody should listen to it and see what your opinions are on things, you know, sometimes. Sometimes just knowing, you know, you feel something is right or wrong. You know, there's a lot of stuff in our country that we have found no solution for. Racism, school shootings, like crazy stuff. You know, we have. Someone has to figure out a solution to these things. And it could be you, so could be our kids. It could be the next. Hopefully the next generation comes up with ways to, you know, make these things non existent. But if we don't have open thinking, we're never going to change any of this stupid things that we do. We meaning America?

Well, I mean, it's open thinking and it's learning from history.

Right?

So. And you can't learn from history if you don't learn history. So I don't, you know, true.

I was, I was thinking when Jack Dorsey quit, you know, was like, all of a sudden out as CEO, I'm like, does that have to do with. Is this going to be a legal thing? Coming with, like, things that weren't blocked or were blocked or, like, because he's trying to, like, separate himself from choices that they didn't make or. I don't.

Listen, I don't, you know, I don't know him personally. I'm just outside looking in, and it's hard enough to be CEO of one company. I don't know how you could think you could be CEO of two companies. And, and these are not, you know, this is not like, you know, Ace Hardware and a plumbing supply store. This is, you know, this is Twitter and Square. These are big, big stuff. So I don't know how you could think there's a little bit of arrogance there to even think you could do that. Like, that would be, like, started.

He started both of them, right?

Yeah. So what?

I mean, we should have just. I, I think the weird thing was that it was like, all of a sudden, he was just out. It was an overnight thing. It wasn't like.

We don't know. I mean, we don't know if it's overnight. For all we know, they've been planning it for six months and they just announced it. Right. I don't know.

True, true. Somebody said something, but now it's gone.

Hey, so you know what else is interesting, man? I've been reading. There's a lot of text, a lot of posts and articles about how Clubhouse is, like, in the toilet now. Huh? I mean, they're. I haven't used it for months and months.

I'm not surprised. No, I, I, I gave it a whirl, and I just, I just did not see the value. And there was just so much pimping and, you know, and, and all the things where you're like, okay, and go to my Instagram account. You're like, on one thing, and then you got to go to your Instagram account, send me a message. And it just all seemed like too much of a hassle for me. And I didn't see the ROI on it.

Yeah.

For disappearing conversations. So. Well, I'm just saying. I didn't. That being said, I also, I didn't see. I will say that I was wrong about TikTok saying that I didn't think that there was great business value there, but influencers and brands have really found a way to, to go viral on there and make business sales from it. So I didn't see how it was going to happen, but it did. So TikTok, I was not 100% on, but I always said it was fun and I didn't bother to. But it's. It's just another platform to go to, but it is where the kids are, so. Yep, the utes are there.

For sure. I think we've had changes. Not necessarily good. I think it's so bifurcated right now. Yeah, I. It's hard, you know, it's hard for me to really understand race relations because I'm from Hawaii, so. And Hawaii, don't get me wrong, it's not like Hawaii. Everybody's completing everybody's sentences. But, you know, you definitely. You are exposed to every race in Hawaii, for sure. So. And. And I was fortunate that when I was in Hawaii, if anything, Japanese Americans were dominant. So it's. It's, you know, the. The Japanese American experience in Hawaii versus Japanese American experience in, for example, California is very different.

Right.

So.

But did you see any differences when you went from Hawaii to going to Stanford or were there enough. Was there diversity there when you went?

Well, the difference between a Japanese American from Hawaii and a Japanese American from California going to Stanford, because I met many of them, it's completely different perspective. I mean, I. It. I. For a while, I just did not understand where they're coming from and how they were so pissed off about stuff because, you know, like, I didn't even know about the. The relocation camps, because in Hawaii. Well, there was one, but, you know, that was, like, just not part of my upbringing or George Take was, you know, committed to one, and I never had that experience, so.

Right. Yeah.

All righty.

The mainland America.

Loved on Big Island.

I think she means lived on Big.

Oh, okay. Talk about your love life.

Yikes. So. So anyway, regardless of what your current perspectives are, this is a great podcast to listen to with Dr. Jackie Lewis to kind of open your eyes to maybe things that you haven't thought about before. As far as the black American perspective in the United States, I think. What do you think?

Yeah, it's. I think it's one of the most powerful episodes we've had.

And next week, we have Dori Clark. We have December. We have lots of really powerful women on the podcast, so that'll be awesome.

We only have women in December.

We only have women in December.

Seriously. We have Dory. We have Maxine Bedot.

Yeah.

Who is going to tell you why you should buy fewer jeans.

And I loved her book so much.

Yeah.

Was her interview good? Was it good? I'm sorry, who was the last person?

It's hilarious. I'm gonna sneeze one second. I'm going to mute while I snee.

Okay. Okay. So, yeah, Maxine Bada wrote a book called Unraveled, which is about the. The life cycle of jeans and how cotton and denim is produced. So it's a very. It's going to be really. I haven't heard the interview yet, but I did read her book, and I loved it, so.

Well, we go into nudism quite a bit. Because. Because I think her book is a good argument for why you should wear less clothes.

That would be a Hawaiian perspective, too.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And then we also have Nicole. I don't know how you pronounce your name yet. I don't know. I know I haven't recorded, but I haven't listened to that tape yet. But she is one of the few women opera directors. So we're talking about opera, women in opera, what it's like to be a musician and an opera director. And we got.

We went down the skipped one. Oh, we. After Maxine, we have Catherine Price.

Oh, right. The happiness.

Yeah. Yep. That had fun. Yep. And she wrote a book on, like, how to break up with your cell phone. But the one that we're talking about is the power of fun. How to feel alive again. And then Nicole. Nicole Paymont after that. So a very full month.

When do we have a man again?

Not till January, unless you count you. You're there every week.

Oh, so Dave Evans is interested. He I recorded already because he talks about entrepreneurship and tech. Tech entrepreneurship. And he was in the Lisa division of Apple. And then he now teaches what may be the most popular course at Stanford, which is how to design your life.

Oh, yeah. Awesome. Yeah, awesome. That'll be great. So lots of great reasons to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast.

Okay. And I have two equip. I have two equipment things I'm going to try.

Okay.

So I don't have them yet. So one is an XLR Kill Switch. Now, you might ask, why would you want an XLR Kill Switch? And the reason why I want an xlr. XLR Kill Switch is because when I record an interview, typically Squadcast is recording both of us. And so there are many times where. If. Where I might laugh over somebody or I might, you know, I might. Or I don't know what. I'll sneeze or something. Right. It would be just nice to be able to press a button to kill my side so that when we edit, I don't have to silence my side for the laugh or the hiccup or the whatever. Now I use a Rodecaster Pro so I could reach over and press this one button. But I'm always afraid I want to press the wrong button. So I gotta. I ordered an XLR kill switch just for that purpose. And then I watched. I don't know who it was. I spent hours every day watching YouTube for how you. How YouTube. YouTube creators optimize their studio. And so I saw this one where what he did is very clever. So he got a teleprompter and what he did is he used a monitor. But I figured out how you can do with an iPad because an iPad can now be your screen. And so I am going to put an iPad in the teleprompter and then drag the window of, for example, this conversation into the teleprompter. So right now I have a computer screen and I have a camera. So I have to discipline myself to look at the camera. But in the next, probably by next Wednesday, I will be looking into the camera because this side by side window we're in will be in a teleprompter window in front of the camera. If you can follow all that. So it's much easier to maintain eye contact. Now we have been trying this plexi. Plexigam. Right, Right. But so that, what that does is it hangs the camera down in front of the window, but the camera is definitely blocking the window. You can't see what's behind the camera. But with this teleprompter, using the iPad for the second window, dragging the window into the teleprompter screen on the iPad, seriously, you truly are going to be staring right into the camera and people are going to think I'm so engaged.

Awesome. I just have to get my mic set up properly that you sent me.

Oh yeah, Peggy's going xlr. Man, the world, the earth is shaking. Peg is going from USB mic xlr.

I'll be singing soon. It's supposed to be great for vocal quality for my. For my record. I'm gonna write. Me and Taylor have been busy. Just kidding. Just remember, no ability to write music.

You got your start on remarkable people. Just remember that when you're at the end.

But I, I was. I'm only kidding. I have zero ability to write music.

Everybody has the ability to write music.

You think so?

Some people are better. Wow.

I think that's a hard skill.

I'm a Carol Dweck in a growth mindset kind of guy. I mean, I took up surfing at 60.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Maybe I could write the lyrics. It's possible. I could write half of the song. The lyric part.

Just think of it as a tweet.

Right. But longer. What's the hook?

Okay. Well, bye, everybody. Remember Remarkable People and the Remarkable People community. And we'll see you next week. Thanks.

Bye.