256: Saner Arguments—Discourse vs. Debate with Bob Gower

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Welcome back everybody. I am super excited and thrilled to be here today with one of my dearest friends, Bob Gower. Bob is a returning Pivot podcast guest. He was previously on the show with his wife Alex about their new book Radical Alignment. How to have game changing conversations that will transform your business and your life. That was episode 204. If you want to go peruse the archives. My fun backdrop story to Bob and how I met Bob was that we were attending. I didn't live in New York City yet. I think this was 2010 and one of my Internet friends, which was somewhat radical at that time that you would just have an Internet friend that you've never met, was throwing a party in Manhattan. I went to this party and being the introvert that I am, I just kind of zoomed in on one person who was interesting enough, I'm not the type to circulate a room and that ended up being the one and only Bob Gower. And I think we just geeked out about I don't even know what for three hours of, to me, riveting conversation. And we've been friends ever since. So with that friendiversary story, because it's our ten year friendiversary. Bob, welcome back to the show.

Is it our ten year friendiversary?

Really? Yes, I think so. And that party could have even been in 2009, in which case, oh my God, is our 11 year friend iversary. Isn't that wild?

How time flies. That's insane. That's insane. And now we have so many friends in common. You know, it's funny, you tell this story from time to time and I'm like, oh, that was where we met. But you know, now we just. It feels like we have so many different kind of points of contact that I forget that it was so random, our initial point of contact.

I do, too. And that our circles were not really overlapping at that time, but that now they completely do across all things, you know?

Right.

Books, blogs, podcasts. I adore Alex. So Alexandra Jamison is Bob's wife. I attended their wedding. I mean, oh, there's many friendsgivings, many brunches. A lot of these have been friendsgiving.

That should be next week. It should be. You should be coming over next week. Oh, my gosh. I miss it so much. I miss it so much.

Me, too. Well, at least we're here doing this podcast, right? It really pales in comparison to friends.

This is my social life now.

I know. Yeah, mine too. Hey, I. I gotta admit, I mean, for a long time, my social life is just hosting the podcast. That's my. See, that's another introvert strategy if you're. You know, I. I saw it through Rebecca's Instagram, which you linked to in one of your articles that we're gonna talk about today. The most hilarious quote, that empaths get confused because it's a meme that empaths get confused because they love and care so deeply about people, and yet they don't ever want to be around them.

But I don't think you have that problem because you're very social.

Oh, I can be. But I also can be extremely shy. And one of my strategies has always been to get a job at a party. So to be the bartender, to be the welcomer, to have something, to give me some reason to talk to people. Once I have a reason to talk to people, I'm fine. But. But I can be a complete wallflower. And I do the same strategy you do. I zoom into one person, and hopefully they're fascinating. And even if they're not fascinating, I usually try to find something that's fascinating about that person and kind of get to know them and broaden my horizons a little bit.

Well, that's. The real art of conversation is. My dad told me when he was 16, he got a job bagging groceries, and he was very shy. So in order to overcome his shyness at that time in his life, he would pretend he was Johnny Carson and interview. Not interview, but ask questions of every single person that came through. And he said that at the start, they would look at him like he was crazy. Why is this guy trying to talk to me? And that by the time he was carrying their groceries to their car. They didn't want to stop talking.

Yeah.

Still like that to this day. I don't know if you've met my dad.

I have, actually. I met him at your book launch party. I met your dad.

So remember, he circulated the room the whole time.

Right.

He probably had more deep conversations than I was able to at the.

Well, that's classic Dale Carnegie too. Right. Is to, you know, if you want to be interesting, ask interesting questions, you know, like if you want to be a good conversationalist, talk to people. And it's something. And it's a strategy I've used, you know, throughout my life. Yeah. Because, you know, and I also don't want to share too much about myself often, so it's also a good way.

A deflection strategy. I know that one well.

Yeah. I feel a little. I'm a little shy in the beginning about sharing too much about myself, which is kind of funny once you get to know me because my, my life has been so weird and. And I can be so open to people that I'm comfortable with.

Yeah. And you are very transparent and you're willing to take risks as well in terms of putting yourself out there, which I, I really admire. And on the topic of conversation, part of what sparked us having this one today was that you sent me a link to your fantastic article, Rules of Five Steps to Better Arguments. And you had sent this to me pre election and it outlined the difference between discourse and debate. And I thought to myself, because you and I love going on walk and talks as well. That's one of our many activities when I'm not brunching with you and Alex. And we talk about a lot of hot topics, a lot of things that are quite controversial. We talk about the different media that maybe we've listened to or articles that we've read. And it always strikes me that you and I are able to reach and I want us to actually define for listeners the difference between discourse and debate. But that so many of us have probably had quite fraught conversations this year during a stressful time. A lot going on politically, economically, socially, justicely. You know, there is a lot going on and I think it can get quite heated and it can be quite stressful when there's these obvious differences that we have across the political aisles. But what if there's tough conversations happening in your own home or your own friendship circles or your family? We're approaching the holidays coming up. I just thought you've outlined such a beautiful way to think about this and that's really what I'm excited to dialogue with you today. Like, no agenda, just to dig into some of this.

Cool. Well, I'm really glad the article spoke to you. It was an article actually written for myself in many ways, really trying to capture the way I was beginning to think about discourse or the way I was beginning to think about conversation. And it was really driven by an experience I had a couple of years ago where I read.

A book which is now super hot and I think is still probably one of the best sellers and still quite controversial, which is Robin Diangelo's White Fragility. And when I read White Fragility, my experience of it was as a middle aged white male, which I guess we always have to, you know, qualify things these days. But was that it all made perfect sense to me. You know, like, I read it and I was like, oh, yeah, this, I, I agree with the points she's making. It aligns with my worldview rather comfortably. It's something I'm always trying to do better on my own sort of internalized sense of, you know, my own internalized racism or my own attempt to be a good actor in the world. And then I posted something on my Facebook about it, and it wasn't anything really about white fragility. It was just a list of.

Bullet points that she has in the book, which is sort of like, this is what the power structure looks like. This is the racial makeup of the people who make laws in this country, the racial and gender makeup of the people who decide what gets on tv, who decide what gets on the radio, who again, decide what laws get made. And it was just a very interesting and very stark list because of course it comes out, you know, very heavily white and very heavily male. And as I looked at that, I was like, oh, my gosh, if you think this is the result of a meritocracy, then that's kind of a white supremacist stance. And I don't mean it in the inflammatory way. I just mean that you're saying that if this power structure is the way it is because these people earned it and nobody else did, then you're saying that these people are better at earning that than other people are. And if those people are all white, then essentially we're saying that white people are better at earning these things than people of other races or people of other genders, that white males are kind of better at leading, better at deciding what gets on tv, better at making laws. And to me, that seemed like a fairly almost benign argument, even Though I know it's inflammatory, and maybe it even sounds inflammatory to you. I'm not really sure, but it was just sort of like. It's just sort of a one for one, like, power structure is white. If the power structure is the result of a meritocracy, then white people are better at holding power. Right. That's the, you know. Which to me is like, oh, that's the essence of white supremacy. Rather than, you know, Richard Spencer or the, you know, the KKK waving flags. So I posted that on Facebook, and maybe your listeners, and maybe even you are like, of course you got in trouble when you posted that on Facebook. But I got in a lot of trouble with progressives and even people who I agree with politically who are just like, you can't talk about race. Race is. This is terrible. And then other people on my feed said, oh, you're just being white, fragile. And it just turned into this. To other people, my feet turned into this whole. Do people swear on your podcast?

You know.

It turned into a show. It turned into a certain kind of show. Let's just say that.

Oh, that'd be fine.

I try to not surprise anyone that has kids around, you know, but.

That'S the title of another article about the plot nature of Facebook. Yes.

Yeah. So I hope this story is not too, you know, not too long winded, but the end result of it was that I lost a lot of sleep, and it really upset me, and I felt like I'd offended people who I cared about. And I felt like I had, you know, like I'd gotten kind of prickly.

And mean a little bit, even to some people, and dismissive. And then I felt like people were really dismissive to me. And then I sat back and I was like, well, wait a minute. Why am I doing this? You know? What's the impact? Because I think at the end of the day, as a communicator, I know you're a writer. I'm a writer.

It really. And even, you know, I'm a parent as well. And so, you know, and even when it comes to words, we, you know, coach our son. We're like, okay, think about who you're talking to and what impact you want to make on them. You know, it's really that simple. At the end of the day, writing is that simple. Speaking is that simple. Podcasting is that simple. Who am I speaking to and why? And am I speaking in a language that they can hear or a language that they can't hear? And I suddenly realized that the medium in Many ways was part of the problem for me that had I been in the same room with these people, the conversation would have been very different. Had I had more experience of some of these people, the conversation might have been very different. And also at the end of the day, whether or not I destroyed this person in this debate, you know, I'm using the kind of the language of the Internet today that even if I destroyed them, even if I won this debate, it wouldn't make any difference.

In the things that I care about, right? In the way the world works in creating more equity, creating more inclusion, creating a more just and sustainable society. And so I really started. So I pulled back and I've actually deleted my Facebook account, I've deleted my Twitter account. I'm only on Instagram right now, where I don't actually enter into debate, and on LinkedIn where I may post things where there's some debate, but it's always professional. So the distinction I began to make for myself is between discourse, where I'm talking to somebody and really trying to learn from them. And hopefully they're trying to learn from me too, right? So it's a discourse. We're testing ideas. It's like what I feel like you and I do when we do our walk and talks, and that there's this other mode that's really common these days, both from pundits on TV and on social media, which I think of as debate, which is really where you're not actually trying to convince the other person or trying to learn from the other person. You're just trying to make them look like an idiot or make yourself look smart. And you may be speaking to the audience, you may be speaking to the people who are listening to the debate, but. But to me, like, that's a different style. I don't know. I'm sorry, I feel like I just went on and on and on with this story.

But there's so much gold in here, because this is one of the things I love about you, is that first of all, that you posted that on Facebook, you got a reaction you weren't necessarily expecting because to you it was like a math proof. Look at the numbers, look at who holds power. Therefore our system cannot possibly reflect who actually lives here. And to you, that was just not that controversial. And then to get there response that you got, which I've had the same thing recently happen, I posted what I thought was the most benign thing in a private Facebook group. Got a reaction I just didn't see coming. And I think there's more and more talk now of, just because of the nature of Facebook and the algorithm, you don't know what state people are in when they're reading whatever you've posted. And that happened to you early on. The fact that you even lost sleep over the reaction and ensuing discussion shows what you're talking about here with discourse, because you entered into a discourse with yourself then saying what happened there? And what would I do differently? Is it the medium that's part of the problem, as you said? And so I just love the inquiry that that sparked because I, I would have lost sleep over it too, especially when there's disharmony among not even strangers on the Internet. If I, if I worry that my own friends or my family or I've offended someone I care about, it's quite concerning.

And so the fact that you kind of did this deep inquiry and then where you ended up with the story, which is that you shut down your Facebook account and you're now more intentional. What I see you post on LinkedIn, the article we're talking about rules of engagement and of course I'll link to it in the show notes, is posted on LinkedIn. It's very deep and thoughtful. So therefore there again you're trying to invite discourse, whereas why I think this is so important. It's like you said, debate almost puts the other person on the defensive and it doesn't build bridges. I mean, and this is something that, that I have been kind of concerned about in the last few years as well, that I think for so many people there's a desire to create change, but how we go about that change is important, otherwise it just won't work. And when we're just like conversational rams totally butting heads and trying to be right, it doesn't do anything. You're just then talking into an echo chamber.

And so I just love you. Starting out by defining discourse is actually an effort to kind of end up or at least having an open mind and trying to learn from the other person. Whereas debate is, I'm going to keep pressing my arguments until.

I prove that I'm right, as if there is a right or a wrong.

Yeah, it's really interesting because I think I was also became really aware of my own, let's call it potential hypocrisy with it because a lot of what I'm arguing for and in the work that I do, I care really a lot about, let's call it diversifying the power structure of society.

And I care about it for a couple of reasons. One is, I think it's the right thing to do. I do think.

That equal access to power, equal access to media.

Maybe even just a small example, I was watching a movie last night, this documentary about artists, and there was a young woman who's an actress, and she's black and she's queer, and she talks about how, you know, like, she. When she was a young girl, she just didn't see her stories represented in the media. You know, she was still entertained by the other stories. But maybe on the Cosby show, maybe here and there, she would see little glimpses of her experience, but she really wouldn't see her experience. So I think, okay, that's just important. That's just sort of being fair and being nice. But further than that, you know, I also work with teams that are focused on innovation, focused on problem solving. And I know that when you have more different kinds of thinking at the table, you tend to make better decisions, you tend to make better stuff. You tend to solve problems in more interesting ways and in ways that are more useful to more people. And so this idea of sort of equity, inclusion, sustainability, access, all of these things really matter to me, and it's really what I've spent my life working on. But then when I got into this debate, I found myself wanting to just shut down contrary ideas rather than really engage with them.

And I make this point often to the teams that I work with that just diversifying teams isn't enough, because most teams operate in ways that assume homogeneity in terms of background, in terms of thought, in terms of ways of discourse. And when you have a homogenous group of people, they tend to have less conflict just because they're like, oh, yeah, of course we see the world the same way, so we have less conflict. And so when you introduce diversity, and whether that's cognitive diversity in the sense of having somebody who's an artist and somebody who's a scientist at the table, or whether it's background or identity diversity in terms of where someone comes from or the life experience that they've had based on their gender, based on their race, based on their religion, based on where they grew up, their class, that you, by definition, are introducing conflict into the conversation. And so I do really, really believe that we do need to come up with a better way to talk to each other.

And I have to be honest, I think I'm part of the problem, like, a lot of the time, and I'm really trying not to be.

Yeah, well, I think you said something in the. In the article that I wanted to bring up, which is that there are cases, you said, there are, there are times when calling out, you said, I believe it is our duty to aggressively at times counter speech that is causing harm. And so I think, especially this year, there's been such a call for people to use their voice in any manner of ways. Where I've seen this get problematic is that some people feel so strongly about an issue and there's a lot of them that were on election ballots, not, not just the president, but all manner of things. And that when people get very entrenched in their views, they believe that they're right without a shadow of a doubt and that the other side is causing harm. And that in fact the, the notion of harm is some. Is subjective sometimes in that you and I, you and me, Bob, we might agree on what's harmful, any manner of, of aggressions, microaggressions, anywhere along a certain spectrum, but not everybody agrees. And so then I see that this creates some of the combative tension because people are, are wondering, when do I speak up? When do I speak up more aggressively than not? You know, just recently I shared in a Pivot List newsletter just my joy at the election results. I thought, this can't be so controversial. I, I don't want to, I don't want to. You know, we talk, you talk about right speech and the action, and that's important to me too. Like, I really try not to spend my energy disparaging. That's doesn't fit my ethos. But yet it was still controversial. There were a reply came in saying, kind of, how dare you? This election hasn't been called yet. Well, to me it has, you know what I mean? But that somehow in today's day and age.

I don't know what to say. It's not a fact, although the facts seem clear to me. And so this duty to counter speech that's causing harm, I think sometimes creates a lot of the arguments because people think that they're doing right by their community or their causes that they care about.

Yeah, I'm really reminded of. There's a philosopher who, weirdly, I don't agree with on a lot of things, but whose work I really respect. Named Brian. I think it's Bryan Singer, an advisor on the Good Place. And even actually Michael Schur, who's the creator of the Good Place, wrote the introduction to his last book. So I heard him interviewed. I heard Singer interviewed. What he talks about is that being a good person is actually not very easy. So he posits his sort of classic thought experiment. This is a little bit of diversion, but I think it's going to lead back someplace interesting. But his thought experiment is that if you're like, see somebody drowning, you're walking past a pond and you see somebody drowning, and you're the only person who can save them, but you're wearing your really nice shoes and you don't jump in because you don't want to mess up your shoes. You know, clearly that's an immoral act. But when you also, like, go shopping for really nice shoes, that essentially you're making the same choice. Because that money literally could save somebody's life in the third World by buying a mosquito net or by buying a vaccine or by buying, you know, like, there are very clear ways that that money could actually save lives that would otherwise be lost. And so when we decide to buy a luxury good, we are, in a sense, deciding that that luxury good is more valuable than somebody else's life. And I think, you know, we're looking at the world, obviously, through a capitalist lens here in some ways. But, yeah, I mean, the point that Singer, I think, was trying to make is that being a good person is really hard. And I think, kind of to your point, there's another meme we'll just speak in memes briefly, but that I saw this meme yesterday or something they said, just because someone gets angry when you say no doesn't mean you should have said yes. Right, right.

You know, which is that we're not responsible for other people's reactions to our actions. Yeah, always.

Right. And. Yeah. And so then the question is, like, when it comes to. And this is where I think that it gets really kind of difficult to tease apart sometimes when it comes to your newsletter or when it comes to my work, you know, I think about this when I write pieces or when I'm kind of, you know, trying to figure out what my next book is going to be right now, or when I'm, you know, I'm giving a talk in a few weeks to some people in Brazil, some HR people at a big corporation. And I'm trying to kind of think what I really want to say. But when I'm thinking about those sorts of things.

The question is sort of like, well, what's true? That's one thing. And then the other question is, what's helpful?

Which aren't always the same. Like, just because something is true doesn't mean it's helpful. Just because something expresses, like, my authentic, let's say I am happy over the results of the election, which, by the way, I am.

And I do believe it's decisive at this stage that.

It may not be really useful for me to go around and tell everybody that I'm happy, depending upon who I want to connect with and what kind of relationships I want to have with people who may be feeling really disappointed right now.

And it also maybe isn't helpful for me, as I know us east coast liberal elites are prone to, and I'm just going to say, speak for myself, but that I will sometimes.

Be really reductive in terms of how I think about people who supported the other side. And I might use terms like racist or class, like these sort of inflammatory terms that again, may be somewhat technically true. There may be some sort of unacknowledged or unconscious or even conscious sort of racial, race based anxiety at present, but that's not the whole story, you know. And I think when we begin to reduce people to like single traits, we can get into real trouble. And that's, I think that's why it's just so hard for me sometimes and why in many ways I've withdrawn from a lot of really public discourse and debate, both really, because I want to be more thoughtful about how I communicate. And writing really allows me to do that. Right. Like taking a time to really write this piece that was my. It was like all the things that I wanted to say in the debate before in some ways.

But wasn't clear enough in the moment to say, and the medium.

Wasn'T supporting that.

And what you're saying, there is something so important about creating some space. And you know, you and Alex are so great about your radical alignment framework and how to get aligned even prior to what could be a tense situation or an exciting situation like a vacation that we talked about in episode 204. And so I think sometimes what happens is that these issues are. They're so hot. We get so attached to our identity, our belief system, you know, our, our own definition and compass of justice and morality. Like really deep stuff can get triggered and once it's triggered, we're boom, right on the defensive. And so I love your method of like pulling out of that kind of instant, instantaneous reactionary media. And the headlines are meant to inspire that. The clickbait stuff's meant to inspire that. As you said, the medium sometimes precipitates that. And.

That'S what I find. That's what I have found challenging. And I've found, felt this on all sides of the political spectrum. I know horseshoe has been used and discredited. That's the thing. Sometimes I find it hard to speak because in my head, it's like all sides of an issue, you know, which is fine. That's fine to have a difficult time, you know, knowing or knowing the right thing to say. But.

The righteousness, I think, that enters. It's. It's. It's as if even if something starts out as a discourse, there can sometimes be the quickly a righteousness or the right way to even have this discourse, or the right language or the white right way to respond and on all sides. And that ultimately, I think, shuts things down as well, because it just doesn't allow room for people to be messy and be figuring it out. And that's. I.

That.

I think that's also part of the problem with the short form kind of social media element of things is that there is no, there's not the same context or nuance. But I'm also curious about how you handle this when you're in person. So let's say you and I are on a walk and talk and we realize, oh my gosh, we are really in disagreement about some fundamental thing that is like, core to each of our identity. Haven't you had these moments? It doesn't have to be with me. I'm just using an example. But where you look at someone and you're like, oh, my God, I don't even know if I can be your friend anymore. If this is how you think. And sometimes it's happening for people within their family. And I will say, I heard at different points in the. In the year and in the past, people have said, then you gotta cut them off. Like, you need to be so firm. You cut them off. And yet what you're describing is also a little more nuanced than that. So how do you. When you notice yourself getting triggered like that where you look at someone, you go, if this is truly what you believe, I don't even know if we can be friends. And is there a way that you talk yourself back from the brink? And what allowances do you make that allow you to. Either we agree to disagree, and then you still remain friends versus when you've cut it off. And let's not use the most extreme examples like those, I think, are the easier cases.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

How's that for a ramble?

No, no, it may. It may. Are you kidding? It makes. It makes perfect sense. And it's something that I work, that I fret about a lot, frankly, and actually just I had kind of an insight, so I'm going to share with you. So I have an old friend.

Somebody he's not somebody who I've done, let's say we've never really intertwined families, we haven't known each other well. We met after a talk a few years ago and he doesn't live in New York, but when he comes to New York we would go get drunk and have good conversations. And we always had these kinds of intellectual alignments, were like, oh, we should try to do something together, we should try to work together. And throughout the course of this.

The pandemic, he and I started meeting really regularly and really trying to work on something together. And we operate in very, very different domains. And so what we were going to try to build together. And he's quite a contrarian too. Like he's somebody who really, he's a scientist and he really sometimes just likes to throw out radical ideas that are completely the opposite of what you're saying. I'm saying.

So anyway, through the course we started meeting weekly, which was much more often than we'd ever met. And then throughout this sort of the Black Lives Matter, the George Floyd protest started coming up as well as the pandemic was more and more in the news. And he started expressing some ideas just in this very offhand way that I found very kind of off putting, let's just say, that were really kind of contrary. But he's also not white. He also comes from a country where he's experienced a lot of.

Racism aimed at him in his life.

And so I tried to approach it with a lot of humility. And then I found it very, very difficult, frankly.

We kept coming back and kept talking more and more, but at the end of the day I was like, these topics really probably just aren't good for us to talk about. And as a matter of fact, what I realized recently was that.

Had we just remained sort of like drinking friends, like if someone throws out an idea, like I'll counter the idea, we can talk, we can banter around, but nothing's really on the line. But the fact that we were talking about working together and that we were going to be in the front of the room together kind of, and we need, you know, in that case I feel like we sort of need to align or at least, you know, have some sense of alignment. I'm going to cut this story short, but it's been somewhat painful for me. We haven't actually spoken recently. We sort of just hit pause on the project and then we haven't come back together again. But there's a part of me which feels like.

I don't know that we should have gone that deeply into the project together, because I don't want to have to resolve every difference of opinion with every person in my life. I just don't think that that's constructive or, you know, but there are people, like, if I'm building something with them, it's not that we have to agree on everything. As a matter of fact, we should probably disagree on some things, but we do need to have some sense of alignment. Am I making any sense at all? Like, I feel like I'm actually still a little bit fuzzy about this, and so it's probably coming across.

That's why we're having this discourse. Does this count as discourse, or is it just a wandering ramble?

That's for the listener to decide.

Yes, listeners, you can decide for yourself. What I love what you said. There's something really crucial, which is that I don't want to resolve every ideological issue with every person in my life. And what you're describing is a friendship that was potentially tipping into some kind of business partnership, in which case your reputation is more intertwined. I still think it's. It can be challenging, this idea of resolution. I'm pretty sure it was the Gottmans. I know you cite the Four Horsemen. We should talk about those if we. If you want. But I think it was the Gottmans who said, all in all relationships, let's look at intimate relationships. There may be 30% that you will never agree on, whether it's a lifestyle or an issue, who knows what. But there's this common core of disagreement. And the research said that the couples that are the most successful learn what that is early on, and they learn when they're in one of those argument pit hall pitfalls. What am I trying to say? Potholes.

Pit holes in one of those argument potholes. And they stop. They don't even try to resolve that piece of it. They just say, oh, here we are again. We're in that familiar trap. And I will say that, probably similar to you, I love some of the many of the contrarians in my life. I love the rebels, the contrarians, the questioners. I love people that are not always just willing to accept the status quo. It is important to me that I have these types of people in my life. I'm curious about them. I love hearing what they're exploring. And I have. There's so much I respect and what that inherently will come with is some percentage that's totally out there as far as I'm concerned, which. Which is their prerogative, you know what I mean? So I think sometimes it's interesting to note that.

We find these contrarians exciting. You know, they're kind of exciting to talk with and think, well, what are you thinking? How do you think about this? What have you discovered? And yet it's just inherently going to come with stuff that's going to make the listener uncomfortable as well, because they're saying what goes against the mainstream, basically. Again, not. Not that we're accepting this to the point of causing harm. I'm saying it's probably different than your example that you're giving, but there's certainly going to be more room for landmines with those types of people or thinkers and just your intention to not necessarily feel responsible to resolve it. Every time I have to remind myself the same thing.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think my specific concern with this guy was that he was going to say something in the room that might damage my reputation, but also might damage the level of discourse that I was trying to generate in the room. If we were leading a workshop together. And I felt like there was a degree of unconsciousness to some of the biases. We all have unconscious bias, which is, I think, which is why we need other people. Because we need other people to kind of show us where those things are. And I'll also say that this guy also recommended a book to me, which I'm reading right now and kind of deeply involved in. And it's really opening my eyes to some of the way that he sees the world that was being, you know, the way he was expressing it. Because I think sometimes when we're close to people also, that we tend to. And especially online. Right. That we are expressing things. You know, you used the word nuance a while ago. We're expressing things in this shorthand that almost has no nuance to it. You know, as soon as. And as you say, like, if people don't agree with a statement.

That we. A statement that we make, like, you know, I think a controversial one that I'm still questioning and have interesting thoughts about is defund the police. Right. So that was a big thing that came out recently. And if you were like, wait a minute, shouldn't we have some police? And are we talking about defunding all the way and police reform? I believe in. I probably believe that they need less money, especially in, I think, the New York City, like the police in New York City is the I was. Chris Voss in his book said it's the seventh largest standing army in the world.

We might be able to get by with a little less funding and direct some of that funding towards mental health care and all of these things. But all of that nuance gets lost in the completely abolish the police department as we know it. Which I also think, which can be.

So many different ways.

Yeah. But on the other side, I have some friends who are activists who can make a pretty cogent argument for, you know, completely abolishing the police force and building a new thing from the ground up, you know, and completely rethinking the way, you know, and I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. I don't know anything about that kind of policy. I don't think about it. And I think maybe we're getting on something else here. But one of the things that I've learned the hard way or that I've learned now that I'm off social media, is I really don't need to have an opinion about a lot of different things. You know, there's so much not to have an opinion.

Yeah. Or at least stated fixed opinion. Yes, yes.

Stay in our lanes, you know, and at the same time I think there is also this other thing which I find somewhat problematic, which is.

You know, my training, you know, my degree is in business as a sort of a social force. Right. So we called it sustainable business or sustainable systems 15 years ago when I got the MBA. But the idea is that business can be a source of creating a better world, which I still think it's a valid idea.

But one of the things that you get at really quickly when you start thinking about these things is that everything really is connected to everything else. You know, like who we are privately really is who we are publicly, you know, like. And that the political stance of the owners of businesses does matter to me sometimes.

I guess what I'm trying to address is that the idea that, oh, it's just business. And I see, and I've seen this happen a little bit in the wellness space, which I think is really, really interesting. Kind of what's been happening there recently in terms of.

The way politics has been entering that space and right wing politics has been entering that space to a certain degree. But there are people like, oh, we're only here to talk about X. So if you want to talk about race or if you want to talk about.

Equity and inclusion, that really isn't what we're talking about here. We're talking about creating and I'm thinking of some specific people where we're talking only about creating like a wellness business or a business that's an empowerment business. And I'm like, well.

But I do think it matters how welcoming we are. Like if we are about empowerment, if we're about wellness specifically, and if we're about, then it matters what our vision of the world is. Am I making any sense at all? I feel like maybe I've wronged it.

That makes sense. And I think this is one I have found confusing as well, because. And.

I've been following various threads of this. Not as closely as you, I don't think, but I think there are certain, let's say, forum owners, and I don't even think I'm talking about the same one you are right now, but where they're like, I am not equipped to facilitate every conversation.

So by staying in my lane, you know, this is what this group has formed to discuss that they can, can stay within what they are equipped and skilled to facilitate. Whereas, and so I do see how it gets confusing for the person who's in charge of a certain forum or community, however you want to say, say it. Not that they should have like blind ignorance about all other issues, but that they probably don't want to facilitate every.

Extended conversation. I think what you're saying is finding the, the middle path, you know, the middle, the middle way and not, not shutting it out completely. But I think it also is quite challenging because everyone in the community will want, if not demand, a different level of engagement with certain topics.

That's. I don't think it is so clear cut. Exactly.

Yeah.

Allow what to. What is included in this community, what isn't, you know, in terms of discussion topics. Because that's a lot for. I think there's, I've seen this year, there's so much.

I don't know. The standards seem quite high on what everyone should be saying and how and if it's said. You know, a lot of the corporations who've put out statements this year, oh, well, these were good, these weren't. These were authentic, these weren't. And obviously some are very clear cut and easy to see through. We all get to decide that for ourselves.

But at what point is someone's best effort. Okay, at what point is it not acceptable? You know, it gets kind of. Yeah, again, fraught.

Yeah, it really, it really is. And I think.

It'S funny, I was actually just listening to a podcast, breaking some of this stuff down.

Just before this. So a lot of it's really fresh on my mind, but.

Kind of going back to my point about homogenous spaces having less conflict and diverse spaces having more conflict. And I know that that's probably somewhat inflammatory of a statement, but I think it's pretty obvious and pretty true. At least it's very true in my experience, right. That when you introduce diverg ideas, you have to reconcile those ideas in some way. And so we have to kind of not exactly wrestle with each other, but we have to entertain ideas that are maybe less than comfortable for us. Right. The idea that.

Cognitive dissonance is a part of growth. Right. That I hear something that doesn't quite jive with my experience or that makes me feel a little bad or that attacks my ego in some ways, and I either.

Fight against it or.

Rationalize our own behavior, or we take it in and maybe we change something based on it. Either we change the way our view of ourselves, we change our behavior, we change our view of the world, which is a much more challenging thing for the human brain to do. And what I think I'm seeing in a lot of the conversation around sort of cancel culture right now is. And I sit, I don't want to say in the middle because I don't know whether that's a safe place to sit or the right place to sit, you know, between. I think there's a lot of places where there's just not middle ground, you know, either.

You know, for example, I don't know, something extreme like outlawing gay sex completely. Right. Or, you know, or abusing people based on their identity, based on their, you know, something like that. Like, I can't really sit in the middle on that. I have to be like, no, no, I'm against that thing. Right. And so. But I think what happens sometimes is that we are hearing things, that these spaces have been really homogenous for a long time.

And maybe through no fault of the individual. It's almost like the frog on the water metaphor. Right. Things have gotten. People have gotten more and more complacent. And so suddenly when more diverse voices come in and say, hey, we are not being heard. And I'm speaking kind of from experience here, because when I started really doing my own research or my own awakening around race, and, you know, I'm from Philadelphia and I worked with inner city kids back in the 70s, or I'm not that old, sorry, back in the 80s, but, you know, like, I've been around sort of like race issues for a long time, but I also had all of these blinders on Right. Like. And realizing, like, how sort of difficult it can be to have those blinders sort of taken away. But then what you're talking about, I think in some ways is the other side of that, which is we're going to ideologically retrain people to think the way to have the experience that I'm describing that I had for myself. So I hope I'm being clear here, because what I'm saying is that I believe that.

This inquiry I'm calling an awakening. I'm not comfortable with that word, but I'm going to stick with it for now. Where I suddenly started seeing things that I had previously been unable to see. The deep inequities in our society, my complacency, even my participation in those inequities at times. And that's a painful. It's a painful experience. James Baldwin talks about how it attacks your sense of who you are, your sense of the world, and it's really, really painful. And in a recent article I wrote about this. Exactly. But at the same time, I can't give that experience to somebody else. If I start trying to go around saying, well, you need to have this experience now to another person, that seems problematic. Right. And I think that way does lie some of the things that the right wing is maybe concerned about. When they raise the specter of communism and they start talking about, you know, the. The re. Education camps in the communist block countries and that kind of thing. I think it does, you know, it does come out of that impulse. I hope I'm not getting myself in too much trouble here.

Whoever knows, who can know? Well, like you said, we can't necessarily. See, what I find so interesting is that every statement, maybe this is the postmodern era, every statement has its alternative. Like when we went, when I was in orientation at Union, they said, intent is irrelevant. It's the impact that your actions have that matters. And as. As might matter in terms of have you caused harm or not, which was counter to anything I had ever previously kind of thought around. Well, my intention does matter, because if I'm intending to hurt you, that's very different than my best intention was to be kind, and I still did the wrong thing. Okay. And you talk about in your article the difference between calling out and calling in. So there's a school of thought that intention is irrelevant, it's just the impact. And then there's another school of thought that's like the Golden Rule. Treat people as you'd want to be treated. And. And that your intention does factor in to the outcome, it may not be everything. You, you. As we talked about, we can't be responsible for how people respond to every single thing we write and say and do. Otherwise I would never create anything again because the effect that that has on me, I find it quite paralyzing to try to empathize and anticipate every single kind of possible way that I could create harm in all the unexpected ways. And obviously, I think we all want to do our best. That's why you and I are even here having this conversation. That's why you wrote your article. But at a certain point we've got to hit publish, we've got to keep moving, we've got to lean on that. Our intention is good or our intention is to build bridges while having all the self awareness and deep digging. And as you said, the, the awakening, like being willing to have the painful experience of seeing things differently.

Yeah.

And I think, and also I, I really resist. No, it's okay. I was just going to say I really resist thought control. I don't care who it's coming from, but when someone tells me how I need to think and speak, I'm immediately going to resist that. That's just not going to work for me. And so sometimes I think people have the best intentions and then they'll say, well, this is what you need to do now or how you need to speak or how you need to be. And I just don't think that that's going to work. Like, even if they, whoever sang that is with the best intention or thinks that that's correct, it's not, at least from my personal experience, that's not going to motivate me. I'm just going to stop.

Not going to work. I'll just say that.

Yeah, yeah, no, I completely understand that.

Yeah. I mean, I think the way I'm thinking about all of this now is really kind of twofold because I think you bring up some interesting things. On the one hand, the way people speak to me or.

Have asked me to speak or the way that I'll sometimes see people speak online about the way people who wear my identity, what we should do, you know, and how we should behave and how we should feel about ourselves and those kinds of things. There are times when I'll read some of those things and they really. It really hurts. Or you know, like, it really like takes me back a step and there are times where I'll, where I will tune people out. I'll be like, okay, this is not the person who's speaking to the way I listen. But here's somebody else who's operating in the same space who does speak in a way that maybe I can hear. And sometimes you'll hear the same thing said in two or three different ways, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, wait a minute, now I get what that guy was saying or what that person was saying.

But there are also times where there are people who I know and love.

Who are speaking in ways that I. And asking me to speak in ways. Or there's a lot of anger. Let's just say there's a lot of anger being expressed and a lot of shoulds coming from that person. And then I think about that person's life experience and also how little I know what it's like to be them. And I try to give them a lot of generosity and leeway because having both grown up with a bit of childhood trauma myself, and also. And it's a discussion for another day, but I'm pretty open about it. I was part of what's called a high demand group, what you would sort of commonly call a cult, for two years. And there was a fair bit of abuse and sort of trauma there and on the other side of it and recovery for myself, I know that. And there have been times in my life where if people are judging me based on my behavior and the way I used words in those moments, in these sort of less than calm moments for me where I was speaking out of my trauma, that I don't want them, you know, I want them to hear my words in a different way. And so I try to extend that sense of generosity to as many people as I can. Obviously, I have limits, you know, but there are, you know, I try to extend that sense of generosity. And then on the other side of it, I really do my best to be somewhat ruthless with myself. I have a morning journaling practice where I write. I got it from, you know, the Artist's Way, from Julia Cameron's work, where, you know, you write 750 words in the morning. And the goal really is to just be. Be as really brutally honest about what you feel, what you know, what you understand what's going, you know, what is up for you at that moment. And I really do my best to try to be as intellectually honest and as intellectually humble as I can myself. So it's sort of an interesting combo of extending generosity to other people that I don't necessarily extend towards myself where I've seen others get tripped up or where I think others get Tripped up sometimes. And I've seen this happen in. There are a couple of people I could name who are very big profile people. I feel like Sam Harris does this sometimes. I feel like Jonathan Haidt does this sometimes. Is they are almost like lecturing other people about the way they should discourse.

All the time rather than looking at their own kinds of discourse. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. So I think it's important to be sort of like harder on ourselves than we are on others because I think, because at the end of the day, it's a rather stoic way of looking at the world, I guess. But it's like at the end of the day, we're the only people who we can really alter, whose behavior we can really alter. And if we're really just trying to alter other people's behaviors or alter the discourse landscape by arguing and by tweeting, I don't know that we're doing a lot of good. I think maybe we're creating friction where it's not really helpful and not really necessary.

Yeah, and thank you for sharing your experience and kind of your history a little bit too. Because I also think that if you, if you've ever been in a relationship as I have, where you've been gaslit or manipulated or a really askew power dynamic.

I can say in my case, I didn't have a well enough developed muscle of discernment or boundaries of not being thought controlled. And in fact, this notion of being harder on myself, I was so hard on myself, I didn't just exit the relationship. Like, I actually think some of the.

A lot of the spiritual reading and practices that I had done had me going. It's on me. What can I do? How can I see this differently? How can I be more compassionate? And it kind of kept me stuck in situations and relationships that weren't good for me because I wasn't questioning, I was taking someone else's truth as my own. And that's why I think I get so sensitive around this. And this actually brings us, zooms us all the way back out. Is this discourse or debate as how you've defined it? Which is why it's so brilliant that in discourse we can have a sense that with the other person, especially one to one, the goal is to align. And if not to align, it's to at least be open minded and to learn with an open heart and a spirit of generosity, as you said, and a spirit of self inquiry versus debate, you know, trying to be right. And I just think, I think that's part of my resistance to what I see. What a lot that's come up in this conversation is. This is why I resist thought control. Because I've. I've been on the side of the spectrum where I was too porous, if that makes sense, with my boundaries and my, my truth. So, so it's so subjective, you know, what is truth? There is no truth. And yet at the same time, I think our own inner truth and intuition, it needs to be educated, we need to be willing to examine it. And yet there still has to be some kind of inner compass that we each develop for ourselves that is.

Can be strong when needed and doesn't just get blown with the wind because of whomever and whatever wants you to say. Does that make any sense?

It makes perfect sense. So. And I'll go even a little bit kind of deeper into my personal experience. So when I was. After I left the high demand group, I found myself in a 12 step fellowship called Al Anon, which is for people who are attracted to people who are in addictive cycles. You often come from families that have addiction as part of them, which I do. And one of the things that people who share this particular frame on the world, let's just take it as true for now, is that boundaries are really important. And setting boundaries, which I think what you're talking about a little bit at least, is something that I've had to learn. One of the phrases they always say there is that detachment is the thing you need to do. You need to detach from the person and not identify with this sort of toxic or codependent or gaslighting relationship. And the ideal is to detach with love, to be like, hey, I don't see the world the way you do. But you know what? That's okay. We can still love each other and that's fine, that's an ideal. But the detachment is still the goal. So in program, what they'll say is if you need to detach with an axe, that's the phrase they use, detach with an axe. If you just need to get pissed off with somebody and say, get away from me and I am never talking to you again, or something like that, if that's what you need for your own peace of mind, then I think that's really valuable.

And I think when it comes down to the sort of the public discourse, this was probably in many ways, and I hadn't really thought about it in this way until now, but one of the things I began to really think about a lot was what Is it that my, you know, our words really do have power in the world and. But the power is limited. Right. And the power, you know, it's not we don't have infinite power, but we do. I think it, you know, which is why I come back to the Buddhist idea of like, right speech. Like right speech is speech which doesn't harm or doesn't do unnecessary harm, we could say. And right speech would also be speech that hopefully helps create a better world. And I think you and I perhaps share a vision, broadly speaking, of what that better world looks like. And so what I'm trying to do now, I think, is engage with people in a way where I feel like engaging with this person just is about something important. And even if this person is somebody who I dislike completely and who's wildly off the mark, it's still, hey, it's about something important. So I'm going to engage with this person, or there's somebody that I love a lot and just I can't imagine my life without them because of my family history or my life history. And so, and so I'm not going to poke the bear too much with those kinds of relationships any more than is necessary. But I'm also generally going to look for people with whom at least our intent in the world is mostly aligned. And maybe our impact is a little bit different to kind of go back to the thing that came from the seminary for you, but that we are trying to create.

We do operate from a sort of a central moral. Similar moral view of the world.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's. This is what I find fascinating in these times. I love everything you just said and of not poking the bear, you know, choose when you're going to poke the bear and which bears and that there are certain relationships that actually preserving the relationship is more important than poking all the bears, all the issue bears that one could poke and then why would.

You want to do that?

And then ourselves with people who share the same intent. And then this other piece that I find fascinating, maybe this is a future article, is because we're just on the other side of this election. There are millions of people that think their intent and way to save the world is just completely different. And so for me, part of what helps me not get so triggered when I'm in conversations where I can't fathom what someone is saying to me or where they're getting their information is that I just think, well, this is a window into another perspective. And it would be exactly as you were saying with the example with certain high profile podcasters or thought leaders that if I say my worldview is correct and the only way I'm just engaging in that thing, I hate that thing I don't want, which is righteousness and this is the only way. Now, I may still end up there in my own heart, but at the very least, isn't every person entitled to their own sort of like journey.

Again, not creating harm in the world, ideally speaking, that I think we can't allow. There are going to be boundaries that we draw. But I find it interesting to listen and think what is it about their experience? And I've. I don't similar to you, but I've uncovered parts of people's stories where I think, okay, it makes complete sense that this conspiracy theory or this part of the universe is resonating with you, given your history, that I can't possibly understand from my place of privilege or my position from being born in America, you know, it doesn't matter whatever the, whatever my worldview. And so I do find it so interesting about how do we discourse.

Across the. Not just the aisles, such a cheesy phrase. But. But like how do we listen generously and with curiosity and not enter that debate from that triggered place with the people who they think their worldview is, you know, is correct and it's yet so fundamentally different from the one you and I, Bob, I know for sure, you know, that you and I share and are aligned on many aspects of it. And this is what creates those. You talked about it, the liberal bubble or these bubbles that we have where it can be so fascinating when the bubble gets popped, when you're like, I thought everybody thought like me. Well, no, they don't.

Yeah. Yeah. I really think at the end of the day, I remember thinking this back. I think it was either in the 2000 or 2004 election when I first became aware of kind of polarization in this country and kind of where it was going, I was like, I don't think we need further polarization. I think what we actually.

I did not walk my talk. I moved to New York City and not out, but I was thinking we really need to move to red counties and make friends, hang out with people and barbecue or something.

That I do think at the end of the day that there's so much more that aligns us than doesn't align us. There's so much more that unites us than doesn't. But it can be so we can get so wrapped up in especially because we live in a winner's take all political system and also this increasingly insular and weird sort of social media environment which really amplifies polarization.

Yeah. Not too much increasing income inequality and the myth of meritocracy that we have in our capitalist, hyper capitalist culture. At least here in the States.

Right. Late stage capitalism is a brutal place to live.

Have you seen the Reddit. There's a late stage capitalism series of memes on Reddit.

I have not, but I will look it up as soon as I leave here because I love those Reddit channels.

But yeah, but I, you know, and also I think something that's very comforting for me, which is maybe oddly comforting in a way, but is that, you know, this world was a pretty messed up place before I got here and I'm, you know, entirely sure it will be a messed up place after I leave. And at the end of the day, it's not up to me to fix everything or to control everybody around me or to control the world, but it is up to me to be the best person that I can be and to do the best with what I have in order to leave the world a better place. Or at least not even, not even think about the future. Just to be a decent person to the people around me today. You know, the people who are in front of me today, the people who, you know.

I don't want to get too religious here, but who God brings in front of me today. Right. To be with those people in a way that I can respect myself, you know, tomorrow. And if I get too focused on outcome, if I get too focused on making things right, I think I'm really missing the point.

I love that. That's so, so beautifully said. And thank you for bringing us back to that place of sanity. We can't save the world. We can't fix everything. We can't turn every conversation from a debate into a discourse we can focus on. And I just love your mission to just show up. And you so do live this way, to be the best version of yourself, to learn and grow, to be kind to the people that God puts in front of you. I mean, wow. Just. What a beautiful place to end this. Thank you so, so much, Papa. This is, as always, a delight to bat ideas around with you. And if you're still here listening and you survived all of our rabbit hole.

Thank you for being here. I mean, you can see that this is not about having any answers. It's. And I think that's. Hopefully we've lived some percentage of your message, Bob, of just exploring exploring ideas.

I hope we've been interesting to at least one or two people and they've stuck around. So thank you so much Jenny. This has been wonderful.

Thanks again, Bob. And thanks everyone for listening.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated, twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter at Jenny Blake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.