124. Storytelling + Community Building in a Digital Age with Chris Burgess

Our guest on today's episode is Chris Burgess. I'm going to let you go ahead and read his bio just to see the vast experience, education that this awesome, awesome man possesses. But I want to tell you how he came into my world and what we're on the podcast to talk about today. So I actually got a cold email from Chris. He had listened to a couple of the podcast episodes here And he reached out to me regarding a special project called Dirt Road Radio. And even just— I mean, I won't ever forget it— even just the way that he communicated what he saw kind of in me as a person and then what the goals and vision of Dirt Road Radio are and that he saw some alignment or at least at a minimum that they wanted to meet me, I totally thought like, this can't be real. Like, these people can't be real. Lo and behold, I get on a Zoom call with them, and they're— not only are they real, but they're exactly the kind of people that I just think it's so special when we get to meet people like this. So Chris joins me today, and what we're really talking about is storytelling and how storytelling can bring us together. It really is such a unifying, connecting mechanism for the messy, chaotic nature of humans. This is one of my favorite conversations that I've recorded for this show in quite some time, to be honest. It's really, it's rich and it's meaningful. And what's so important about it for me is that growing small towns isn't about just population growth or even business growth. It's about the growth of humans. And so much of what Chris and I talk about in this episode is really what that evolution and transformation can look like. And, um, sometimes it's really slow. It's almost always kind of painful and a little sticky. But gosh, it's just so beautiful when you can reach down into the truth of like who you are, who you were meant to be, and start to have the courage to show up that way. Beautiful, beautiful things can unfold. And so Chris and I have quite a beautiful, lovely winding conversation about storytelling, about how information comes our way, how we can process it, filter it, and just get a little better maybe at critical thinking as well. This conversation has massive implications, not just for small towns and you, the listener that might live in a small town, but really for all of us. And I hope you enjoy listening to it just as much as I enjoyed creating this conversation with Chris. Well, hey Chris, welcome to the Growing Small Town Show.

Thank you so much.

Oh, I'm so excited to be— I get excited every time I get to talk to you.

I appreciate that.

Yeah. Why don't you start by telling the listeners just a bit about who you are, kind of what your scope of work is, and then we'll just kind of take it from there since it's gonna be a good long winding road with you, my friend, as always. And I love it. So fun.

Yeah. Long winding roads are kind of my thing. I am currently— I'm an Iowan for the last 20 years or so. I live in a smaller town next door to Iowa City. And Iowa, as you know, is quite a mix of rural urban. So there are pockets of urban and suburban corridors and population centers, and then there's a lot of small towns and rural areas in Iowa. So one of the things that I do, or at least I have done for fun, is play music in bands and make, you know, rock and roll, that kind of thing. And so I've traveled a lot throughout the Midwest and Iowa and came to really love the vibe. It's a Midwestern place, but it's a little different than where I grew up in Indiana. So I have been a teacher here since I came to Iowa to get my PhD at the University of Iowa here in Iowa City and have been teaching literature rhetoric, composition, public speaking, critical thinking, digital literacy, that sort of thing. So very much for the last 20 years tied into where adolescents start in their college journey. Mostly, uh, my students have been 16 to 18 years old. So I've gotten very comfortable with a world that looks like to a 16 or 18-year-old. And just in the last couple years after the pandemic, I started to have more connections with people my age and older and started to realize how many of the skills that I was teaching to adolescents were really needed in a lot more population areas than I was catching on to.

So, okay, so a couple things. I'm going to stop now. Can we go back to explain or expound on the vibe that you feel that you see in Iowa? Because again, you know, I'm in North Dakota. I wouldn't say that North Dakota has exactly— I don't know that we would exactly call even Fargo urban, but it certainly is the— if there is urban space in North Dakota, it's Fargo. Right. But sometimes at least I have felt that there's some parallels geographically and maybe even just in that there's a lot of rural in Iowa. Right.

It's a lot.

Yeah. So maybe share a little bit about you know, having come there, what was this difference that you saw? What is it about it that you love?

That's a great question. I think what I tell people is, because I grew up in a suburb and I lived in suburbs pretty much wherever I've been, or cities, but I've always been rural adjacent, which means that I love the fact that I don't have to go very far to get somewhere that isn't where everyone is. And I think in some ways, part of its personality— population density is an appealing concept to me because I don't like crowds. So it's nice to be able to go places and get somewhere that doesn't involve traffic jams and waiting in line for everything. And that's a part of it. But I think the other part of it is there is a groundedness. And I don't want to call it that salt of the earth thing because that's not really what I'm talking about. There is a sense of connection to place in the Midwest that people feel that is hard to replicate. And I've lived in a lot of places. I've lived overseas, I've lived in New York, I've lived in California a little bit. I've never really run— and people love where they're from, but in the Midwest, and especially the rural Midwest, people are— the Greek word is chthonic. They come from the earth. There, they are connected deeply to their place in their stories and in their relationships and in their ideas about how the world is. And I think that as much as that can present challenges, as you know, it's a kind of grounding in place that I think more people can benefit from. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so invested with, you know, some of the things that I've been working on with rural stories because rural stories are sort of a— they're like a holy grail these days. You can't find people listening and sharing stories about what's happening in rural America. It's either all about the, you know, big national issues, big national problems, or it's, you know, little tiny— I'm kind of losing the thread here, but I guess what I'm saying is that the groundedness of people in the rural Midwest really appeals to me because it's so unartificial. Yeah.

It's so traditional. I love that. So I wanna ask a couple more questions about that. Just again, from your experience. So first of all, you said it, you don't think that it's replicable, right? So it's, it doesn't seem like something, this groundedness doesn't seem like something that, okay, maybe the, the answer is it's actually not, it's not that it's not replicable, it's just not something that you've seen replicated. The question is just like, if it's such a valuable thing that you feel more people could benefit from it, What would replicating that, what would that potentially look like, do you think? I mean, because I think what's interesting about what you're pointing out is, and I wonder how much to agriculture actually plays a key role in this in the rural Midwest, because that connection to place, it's land. It's this true connection to land that I just don't know that it could even be replicated if it hadn't been something that— it's almost like in your blood or something. Does that make sense?

Oh, it does. It really does. It's not just a matter of a sort of mystical connection. It's about the dependence on the resources, right? Because rural areas function largely on extractive industries, and they have to do with resources. And so One of the things that I think, and pardon me if I get a little mystical, but one of the things that happens in the rural areas is people get out of balance with nature and that sets the whole chain off.

Yeah.

Right. Because the issues that people experience when they're close to the natural resources that we all need, not just to survive, but to thrive as a society.

Right.

We're not connecting those things to the people that are on the other end of the supply chain who don't have that connection.

Agreed.

We're letting that sort of, that story of domination and that story of the artificial relationship to nature run into rural areas where it doesn't belong and where it can really cause a lot of harm. I think Iowa is a good example. There's problems with water, there's problems with topsoil, there's problems. And a lot of the stories, I think they need to catch up with The connection to the land again, to the natural resources, to the water, to the air.

Well, and so what's interesting about this and kind of your passion for uncovering rural stories, and I don't know if that's the exact right word, right? But I think that's part of it. If there— the question of whether there's rural stories, that's not the question, right? Every person living, breathing, walking on the planet, they are a walking story every single day.

Yeah.

And I think, again, I have such a strong connection to your lens of this. And it's partly because I wrote a book in 2016 and I was young. I mean, on some respects I'm still young, but I don't feel that young anymore, Chris. I really don't. But when I wrote it, I think I was 35 when I was writing the book. And I said to my editor, how is this going to matter? I don't get how, like, who is going to care about this at all? And my favorite thing that she said to me was like, Rebecca, I don't live in a rural place or a small town, and I love everything about— I can feel myself in it. And she said, because stories just matter. They do. This whole discussion, that's what she said to me. And it stuck with me so much because it really is the fact that if you are living and breathing and you are having an experience on this planet, that is unique to you as well.

Yes.

It's a completely unique thing. And so I just don't think that we at all give our own experiences enough credit in the bigger picture of the narrative of what's happening.

Absolutely. Yeah. I might put you on the spot just a bit here because I have read your book. I have to admit that I didn't finish it, but I will. It's a story. It's an unadulterated That's not the right word. It's an unafraid story. It's a story of self and place. It's a story of how to be who you are, where you are. And my God, are there not enough of those stories? And I think your editor had the right idea. It's not a question of whose story is the one that's going to connect with everybody because they all do. It's a question of which stories are in front of people and do they have access to them. In some ways, I think for me, and I've told people this in kind of jest, but it's not that joking. I'm kind of trying to be like the Johnny Appleseed of storytelling, to just leave story orchards behind me wherever I travel. Because for the same reason that that book is the way that it is, it shares a sense of self and discovery that is not slick or packaged. Or processed. And people, when they hear stories like that, they are reminded that the truth of our lives is not something imposed upon us from outside. It's something that we struggle to bring out from inside into the world. And there's no better way to learn how to do that than to watch other people do it. Right?

Absolutely. Well, you just touched on another thing, like, as a speaker, right? Like, I do speaking that's part of how I make my living, right? I get asked to speak. I have seen so many speakers over the years, Chris, and I'm a really harsh critic of speakers. I hate to admit that. I just am. And I can absolutely tell the ones that have been to a seminar that taught them how to put together a compelling— and there's air quotes on this for our listeners, right? Right. A compelling, stage-worthy thing. And the longer I live and the messier my life gets, to be honest, like, the messier and the harder, you know, again, every single one of us, like, there's waves of difficulty, you know, there's peaks and there's valleys. Like, our lives just kind of ebb and flow. And the more I live, the longer I live, the more I just feel such a resistance to that kind of stage presence. Yeah, because it is, it's, it's packaged and it's slick. It feels— I've said before that, like, that awful taste of saccharin, like when you take a packet of Equal and you put it in your coffee, that tang of artificiality, that's what my soul is left with.

Yeah, that same, like, aftertaste of, "I've just been served artificial sweetener." That's such a great metaphor for it because you're right, it's not something you think about or plan for, but that moment it hits your tongue, you go, "Ew." Oh yeah.

Oh, this feels super fake. Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I, that's why I love your approach. Your approach is actually the antithesis of that.

I'm trying to peel away some of the veil for people and let them understand that storytelling is a perfect example. And especially storytelling in a speech, like for a sales pitch or for a graduation speech or a campaign speech. Those elements of storytelling that come through authentically are about practice and art and experience. They're not about steps or scripts or predetermined words. There is no script you can write that fits every situation you end up in.

Absolutely.

If you know your story—

Absolutely true. Yeah. Yeah.

If you know your story, and you can recreate it every time because a story is a living thing, right? A story is not— something that happens once and then you just go back to it over and over again. Stories get reborn every time we tell them, every time we think them, every time we go for the peanut butter out of the cupboard and we remember Grandma's recipe for, you know, peanut butter banana sandwiches. That's a story working on us. And those skills come out when we practice them, not when we memorize a script.

Absolutely. Well, and there's also something really special, again, as a speaker that aims to really have a conversation with every audience that I speak with. You know, like, the audience shapes the parts of my story that get said. Like, I know, you know, like, I know the whole story. I know what I'm there to speak about. But you get this sense of— and I get from a preparation and just like a stage presence standpoint, leaving yourself that open. Is extremely vulnerable. Oh yeah, it's extremely vulnerable to just like let a crowd help guide your way, right? Yeah, man, I feel like now that I know how to do that, it is such a gift, like, for me, and hopefully for the audience too. But it's— that's when you just know that like, that is connecting with people because people connect with things that are real.

That's right. Yes, they do. And I think it's important. I mean, you understand that audience is the most important factor in that situation because you have to remember that they're not there for you, right? You're the speaker. They're there for them, right? You're there for them.

Mm-hmm.

And when you're telling that story and you're thinking about them, the two most beautiful things that happen as a result of that situation, I think, are number one, the audience can feel inspired for a change rather than just inundated with information.

Right.

But the other thing that happens is the storyteller sees their own story differently for just a second. And then it becomes a living creature again. And it's not just a set of words. And they can live and tell it another day in another way with courage because they know it's not going to fall apart on them one day. That's kind of the worry when you leave yourself open, not only that you're going to be spotted, right, for who you are, but that your story might not have legs, that it might not make its own way in the world. But it will if you tell it authentically. It's just you have to try that out. It's a leap of faith.

It totally is. It totally is. It's the biggest trust fall kind of exercise, you know, like with the audience, you're basically— and it's funny, you're basically saying, I'm just going to fall backwards and you're going to catch me.

That's right.

But that's when that can happen. It's actual magic, you know, because people don't even have to see themselves in our story. To be impacted by the story. They don't, because they just have to see that you're willing to share a very human and raw experience that happened to you. And it also doesn't have to be, like, deep. And that was the thing with my book, too. I just said, I'm like, this story, I'm just like, it's really not that stupendous and special. Like, I disagree. Well, I mean, I had said this to my editor, you know, while I was like, it just feels extremely mundane.

Right. Right.

That's the other, I think, lie that kind of gets perpetuated about stories is that you have to have this dramatic moment of crisis. And so maybe can you walk us through a little bit? Because you— I'll just say again, so the audience knows that you and I came together cold, which is, again, some of my favorite people I've met. And that is another just complete reason to put your story out there, because the people that it really speaks to, they'll find you. And then you're gathering amazing people because of your willingness share, right? That's how you came into my world. You listened to some podcasts, right?

And I heard a couple of episodes and I was like, we got to meet this woman.

Yeah, it was so cool. And so that was because of this project that you're working on with a bunch of other awesome humans called Dirt Road Radio. Yes. So I just want to share with our audience real quickly that you had reached out to me and we talked about me potentially having a story to share. Yeah. And you had already read parts of my book, so you generally knew, like, who I am and what my storytelling style might be. You helped me not only write, but then create and craft, to me, something that I just can't wait until it's actually shared, you know?

Yeah.

And when that happens, whatever, it's, it's fine. But it's more about just the— I've shared it, by the way, with just a handful of my closest people that especially that have come into my life in the last 3 years, like since we took on Growing Small Towns and remodeled this building. And that process was so— it's weird how as a person that has never really followed any sort of process or story, like any sort of guideline to how to do it, you might think that having a structure will feel like it shackles you.

Right. Right. But it doesn't.

It didn't feel that way to me at all. And your process, I'm so proud of what we created together. And so I don't know if there's pieces of that that you want to share with the audience just to help them think differently, maybe about their own stories.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think all the people listening to this thing have awesome things to share, and I'd love to encourage everyone has awesome things to share.

And I always tell people, Number one, you don't have one story. You have a million stories. Every day that your coffee is late or your furnace shuts off in the middle of the night and you wake up freezing, that's a story. Everything is a story and how we make sense of the world. And I think, you know, your book is a really good example because I can understand how from a certain point of view and not having written a book before and not having made all the choices that you ended up making, you might have thought to yourself, well, nobody really wants to learn about someone who grew up in North Dakota and went to college and then found some friends and that kind of thing. But it's not true. And it's because, again, I think audiences are in it for themselves. And I don't mean in a selfish way. I mean, our understanding starts with us.

Yeah.

And so when people encounter just raw information about, for example, a crisis that you might have experienced at work, Yep. That they're gonna relate to as a person in a relationship with you of some sort. But if you tell a story about that same thing and you give it structure and you give it a character and develop a character in some way, and you give it some complication, an obstacle, a struggle, and you have motives and you have goals involved, all of a sudden something different happens in our brain and we tune in. And so, you know, on the one hand, I think people think, well, you know, my story is not really that important because it's not like Odysseus taking 10 years to find his way home from a war.

Exactly. Yeah.

But if you read Emily Wilson's Odyssey, which is just a few years old, is the first Odyssey translated by a woman academic, by the way. Fantastic. She makes it clear that that story is not the story of a man taking 10 years to get home from war. It's the story of a man struggling every day with the stuff that happens in his life that he doesn't want to deal with, or that he has to deal with, or that he's challenged by. So the archetypes of the big stories that make us sort of hold our breath and wait in anticipation for the next scene, those are really just different in degree. They're not different in kind. All of our stories are epic hero journeys. They are. We just have to see them that way.

Right. Oh, I love that so much. I love that so much. So, so the other thing I'm really interested to hear a bit more from you about is your digital literacy work.

Sure.

Because, you know, in kind of in your opening, you talked about the fact that you really have, feel like you have a pulse on that 16 to 18-year-old age. And by the way, like all of the companies in the world would love to have that pulse, I think right now, because, you know, it literally sometimes feels like we have not just generations that are different, but it's like entirely different worlds, you know what I mean? You know, in terms of especially the adoption of technology. So what can you share about that experience, if even if there's some quick tips? Because I think digital misinformation, I mean, it— I personally think it's one of the big reasons we are as divided and just unkind to each other. I think that, you know, that we've ever been. That's not my own opinion. Everybody feels that way. I think like so many people just say, so divided. And that's like way up here. If you get right down to it, we're actually not that divided when we're just right, you know, shoulder to shoulder with people. But I think digital literacy and misinformation is a huge part of that. So what can you share about, you your work with that? 'Cause I think it's fascinating.

I would start just by saying everyone needs to understand how the algorithms work because one of the reasons why we're so divided socially and culturally and politically is because we are divided individually from each other by a mathematical equation that keeps us separate in the online universe. It doesn't— the person sitting next to you at Denny's could literally have a completely different view of the world based on their Google search results than you do, because Google doesn't share the same information with both of you for very specific reasons that have a lot to do with where the— how lucrative it can be. Not necessarily to keep you in the dark about what other people know, but to feed you constantly information that reaffirms your view of the world. In other words, if you're not careful online, what ends up happening is you don't realize that you live in a mirror world that is showing you nothing but yourself to you. Yeah.

And an echo chamber on top of it. Right. A mirrored room that's just a constant echo where all you're getting back are the things that you think and feel.

That's right. Yeah. And it can be dangerous because partly because of human bias. Right. Our brains are full of tendencies that in some situations are useful, but in other situations can cause us trouble because we trust intuitions that we shouldn't sometimes. A lot of times overconfidence is a perfect example. The internet and social media is designed to make us overconfident. Overconfidence is blinding. It reduces our wariness, our awareness of the kind of information out there that we should not be trafficking in and sharing. And so that's one part of the problem is people need more awareness of how the online ecosystem works to control and share and shape and move information around. But the other part of it, I think, is the personal work that we have a duty to do as a country. And that is we need to get over ourselves and stop thinking of ourselves as the end-all be-all because it's the biases that cause us to want to live in the world that confirms our suspicions. Suspicions about how other people are rather than talking to other people.

Right. Yeah. I was actually going to ask you if you could tell me what you think the antidote is to this behavior. What is it? What do we need to adopt if we want to—

it's a good question.

If we want to be not overconfident and not just complete walking confirmation biases, because that's what this is, right? It's this. Literally saying, like, if I walk out on the street and I think that maybe I'll try not to pick something super polarizing, but like COVID restrictions. Okay, that's pretty damn polarizing. But, you know, the idea, like, all of these restrictions are thought control, mind control, the government trying to control us. It's fake. It's not real. It's not as bad as they're saying. Like, if that's— you go out into the world, you literally are just scanning every horizon for the things that validate and affirm and confirm that viewpoint.

That's right.

That's a human tendency, right?

It is. It is. Absolutely. It is because we're emotional creatures and our decision-making centers live at the part of our brains that feel but don't have access to language.

Right.

So a lot of what happens online with images, with data and statistics, with sentences that say things like don't trust the government or whatever the saying is. Those things are not information. Those are emotional appeals.

Right.

And they work at an emotional level. And so when you— I don't know if I'll get you in trouble for saying this, but this is a good example. A lot of people who won't wear a mask say that they don't do it because they don't want to be afraid. But the fact of the matter is they are afraid. What they're afraid of is how other people will judge them for doing it.

Correct.

So it's not a lack of fear. It's a misunderstanding of what fear is. And that's coming from the decontextualized sources online. And that is another problem that we have to worry about because the internet is a perfectly designed machine. If what you're trying to do is strip context from information so that it's easier to make bad information look like good information, the internet's very good at that. And so we have to constantly be aware that our biases are always active. We can't just snap our fingers and see around them, but we can grasp at the humility that reminds us we don't know all the things that we need to know. And it's not because we're stupid. It's because we haven't been given access to all the information, just that tiny sliver of it that's supposed to make us feel one way or the other.

Right. So then going back to the question of what's the antidote, it sounds there's obviously— it's not that there's a magic bullet here, Chris.

I totally get that.

But just thinking, like, how do we— because then again, like, I'm a parent, right? My oldest child is 14. We've got 14, 12, and 9. They are in— my oldest is the only one that even has a phone at this point, because I'm kind of— I don't even care. I'm like, I don't care if you're the nerdiest kid in your class because you don't have a phone. Not my problem. Like, I just— I want them to have and even 14, it's just too young for them to be making good decisions, right? They get fed something and this understanding of what is information and what is opinion, even those, like, and you said emotional appeal, like it's very, very hard to do that. So that's certainly part of it is having an awareness of the fact that if you feel something in your gut, whether it's even joy or anger and fear, The internet's working on you. It's doing exactly what it's been designed to do. Right. So there's that. But then what else? Like, when we get something in our face and it gives us this really strong emotion, and our first instinct is to share it, especially if it's something that incites anything on maybe the challenging spectrum of emotions. Most of the time, I feel like if you want to share something joyful, have at it.

You know what I mean? Absolutely. I'm with you.

That's not such an issue, but What's everything except for humor that punches down?

That makes people laugh.

Yeah, yeah, good way.

But yeah, I'm with you. Joy share, share joy, share, share courage, right? Don't share fear. Don't share hate. Don't share anger. The thing about it is anger is by far, like, not even close second, is by far the most viral emotion. And everybody makes money getting people to share things online, understands that very well. And so do the algorithms.

And isn't that just gross? I mean, when you really think about it, it's like— and there again, I think I've spent enough time thinking about these things that I just don't even— like, there's so much that I don't engage with purposefully. And again, I always pick on my dad. My dad or my husband, they get picked on my podcast. But my dad will say, like, Honey, you're not informed, right? Like, this intentional, like, I'm just opting out of all news. He'll be like, you can't do that. And I just constantly say, well, like, until my life is somehow negatively impacted because I'm opting out, you're going to have to have a stronger argument than that. Because I think what happens is we plug in so much to the media. And again, I don't even care what side of the spectrum you're on. It's not what matters. You plug into this and suddenly the beauty of your entire life is diminished by this stuff that's happening that likely honestly won't ever actually impact you.

That's right.

And so that's a weird thing too, right? So, like, and again, we're just kind of talking big generalities, but like, what can people do, especially if they have that immediate tendency to want to hit share? And it's—

yeah, absolutely.

What should they take a what should they stop and do?

Yeah, click restraint is hard because it's not something you can do just by, again, wishing to be better at it. Education, education is the key for sure. The more you know, the less likely you are to get caught off guard by something that happens to you online that you're not able to say, okay, something's not quite right here. That's part of it. Right. The harder thing to do, to be honest, is all of us have to admit to ourselves that we are totally susceptible to misinformation. And it has nothing to do with how smart we are, how educated we are. Propaganda works on your emotions, not on your brain. It works on your emotions. And all of us have emotions, and we don't have more or less educated emotions. We don't have more or less intelligent emotions. We have sometimes better regulation and worse regulation depending on the situation we're in. But we have to admit to ourselves when we want to share something that we want to share it because we want to enforce this relationship with this other person or to show them something they don't have, right? There are all kinds of ways that people like poke at each other or reach out for support and connection that don't have anything to do with the kind of information that we transfer. And that means that if you're feeling the urge to connect with people, don't wait for a really crazy, awful Facebook meme to do it. Just reach out. Make a meme, make a meme that has puppies in it and share that instead. Right. Just reject the feeling that you're being informed and being angry are the same thing because they're not.

No, no. I— that's so interesting. I think the other thing, and I would love your take on this too, I think the other kind of quality or characteristic or posture maybe to take on just more in general is curiosity.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, absolutely. So in your mind, what role does a more curious mind and heart— Yes. Because again, it's being curious even about yourselves. Like, ask yourself that question, right? Like, why? I do this all the time. I'll just be like, why am I feeling so triggered by this thing? Like, what's going on with me that I'm so pissed off about this thing right now, depending on if it's a person. I mean, that's just honestly a good EQ skill, to be honest. Like, that's emotional intelligence, like actually stopping and being like, whoa. You have to recognize it's happening to yourself first.

First thing that happens is the emotion. The second thing that happens is the awareness of the emotion, right? And so it's already taken place by the time it comes into our mind. And that's the place where we have to stop and be curious, as you say. To engage ourselves as an object of observation. And that's hard to do because our thoughts come through us and we feel like sometimes they come from us when they don't always. Sometimes you hear something on the radio every day going to work and you don't pay attention to it. And one day you're singing the jingle. Yeah. You know, because it's just in there. It's not your idea. Yeah. It's a song someone planted in there to make you buy a certain type of hot dog. But it's in there and it's shaping the way you think and feel. So being aware of ourselves, you're right. It's very important. And I think curiosity is extremely important too, because even though it can get you in trouble, it can show you where the fire exits are too. I mean, human beings need to know what's around them. They have that curiosity to control their environment and knowledge is, and like I said, I think education really is the key. Curiosity is born out of learning. And this might be a detour, but I'll say it.

No, go ahead.

One of the things I think we do culturally is we make this assumption about school that once it's over, we're done learning. And we all know that's not true, but we don't take an active approach toward how we continue to learn after school is over. And so a lot of times when I say something like education is key, people hear me say school is key, and that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying education, not school.

You're saying learning is key.

Learning is key. Yeah.

And learning comes from— oh my gosh, I mean, learning comes from living.

Yes.

Learning comes from trying, right? Learning comes from doing something you've never done before, you know? I mean, there's just— there's so many ways to learn. And more, I would say, more of the learning that happens outside of a formal education environment, it's like active experiential learning.

Absolutely. And Failing is a big source of learning. Yeah. And it— I think it's your orientation toward learning that makes it able to— what we forget sometimes, school does a really good job of showing us that learning isn't always pleasurable. But when you're doing it on your own because you're interested and you are curious about something that you don't know and you have a challenge that you need to overcome, learning is so pleasurable. It feels good to be able to solve a problem or to discover something we didn't know, or even if it's just to have our head, you know, kind of rewired by a 2-minute TikTok video all about, you know, dinosaur bones in Algeria. Who knows? Whatever it is, right? That learning is releasing chemicals in our brain. It's releasing hormones in our bodies. It's making us feel like we want more of that.

For me, that moment of, like, that actual light bulb moment, you know, where something goes off in my brain and maybe, maybe I've heard something a bunch of times, and either the way the person is delivering it or the method by which I'm hearing it, like, or I've just gotten to a place in my life where I'm ready to hear it and know it differently. Like, there's so many factors in this whole thing, but that feeling of feeling like, huh, that feeling, that's like living to me. And I constantly want to put myself in the way of those experiences. And so I'm absolutely— I mean, it's kind of maybe almost unfair. Extremely wired for not only this discussion, but for the encouragement of more of us to do this. Because I just think, yeah, I don't know, like, I love getting my paradigms challenged. I do. I love meeting people that operate outside of my typical paradigm. And then, you know, if there's a safety there, I can ask them questions and they're more than willing to talk, talk to me about that.

Yeah.

You know, But that's a good point to make.

There has to be a certain amount of safety, doesn't there?

There does, because it feels harder and harder to find that.

Yes. Yeah. We need a lot more bridge language rather than chasm language, right? Less binary.

Yeah. Say more. Say more about that.

Less binary thinking. It's again, it's a bias, but we want things to be a simple choice between A or B, and sometimes The road ahead is not in crisis. We don't have to choose A or B. We can negotiate over the new path that we're going to take. And especially because the rate at which culture changes now because of technology and because of just the size of the population and how many different people have the time and the resources to just pursue something completely to its end. You know, and you got people inventing new types of popcorn and you got other people finding gravitational waves in space. I mean, there's a lot going on, but when we run into people that have a different way of looking at the world, there is a certain amount of threat there.

Mm-hmm.

And whether or not that threat can be negotiated, I think almost always comes down to the language that we have. And for me, That means the stories that we are able to tell each other. And so part of my goal with, again, trying to do this sort of Johnny Appleseed storytelling thing is to help people not only to understand that everybody has a story or more than one story. Everybody can be a storyteller and is a storyteller in a way, maybe not always conscious of it, but like the phenomenon that you talk about is like at some point you're ready to hear it, even though it's been bombarding you as a fact forever. There's that day where you go, "Oh." Yeah. Right?

My favorite feeling. I love that. Yeah.

That feeling comes from all different sources. We just have to remember that one of the most important sources we get that feeling from is other people. It's really about those people, right? I think for me, the education, the openheartedness, the willingness to reflect, to be curious, to challenge and think critically. These skills, they seem like academic skills, but they open us up to a world in which we can fully be. And when you can fully be and create yourself as you move through the world, you live in whatever world you need to be in, in that situation, because it doesn't come at you like some outside force. Right? The world becomes more something you're in connection with, something that is changing with you as you change and learn and grow. If we turn that off, then the negative feelings take over. I'm pretty sure that's how we get into doom loops, is by saying, okay, no more information, no more worldviews that I'm not comfortable with, no more new stuff.

Right. Yeah, you get doom loop is a— stealing that, by the way. But that's— I feel a little bit like that's— we're all very susceptible to that.

Oh, yeah.

The continue. If you really think about the metaphor of a mirrored room and an echo chamber, at some point that in and of itself becomes a doom loop.

Yes.

You know, like if nothing new can get in and kind of shake up.

That's right.

You know, you just, you like stay on this one track. And you listen to this one perspective. And again, like, I think the hardest thing, Chris, for me is as, as I've opened myself up to these kinds of conversations, which, by the way, I mean, what a rich conversation. So funny, as we're having this, always in the back of my mind, I ask myself, like, what will the audience need right now? Like, as we're talking about these things, like, I think about the listener all the time. I have no idea how this is going to land for them, but I tend to also believe that if we're having a rich, engaging dialogue, that they'll hear that and that that will be compelling all on its own. So anyway, that was like a— that was an inside Rebecca chatter moment. But this whole idea of never getting off that track, never letting anything new in. The question that I have for you is about the labeling thoughts as dangerous.

Yeah.

Do you, A, do you think there is such a thing, like actually dangerous thinking?

Yeah.

And if so, what to you is the biggest threat to a movement of humanity in that direction?

That's a great question that fascinates me and it haunts me a little bit because I think about that. When I was younger, I was really concerned. This is back in the '80s and a lot of what was happening with the Satanic Panic of the '80s, and I went to a Christian Catholic high school, and there was a great deal of talk about which books were dangerous and which books were not dangerous. And someone pointed out for me, and I forget who it was, I read it somewhere, but someone pointed out for me that any book that is capable of degrading you and deteriorating your condition as a human being is capable clearly of lifting you up, right? So if there are no dangerous books, there are no books that can make us better. It can't be both. It's got to be one way or the other, right? It can't be that some books are bad and other books are good. Books are books, right? What makes them bad or good is what we do with them, right?

Right. And we're back in that hardcore right now.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

We're having this discussion all the time.

The problem with a dangerous idea is most people use the word dangerous idea. They're not talking about ideas. They're talking about people.

Yeah.

There are dangerous people and there are dangerous ideas, but ideas aren't dangerous on their own. There's no such thing as an idea that can hurt you by itself.

Correct. It's more about what does a person who holds that idea, what are they likely to do with it, right?

I think that it's not necessarily just the idea that makes having it dangerous, but the willingness of again, like that binary thinking, like, I must be right. I have to be right about this. I can't be wrong. Therefore, my actions are justified. That is a lack of critical thinking and an emotional override of our reason. It's not a, this is right in some cases, or it's right in this other case. It's always wrong to assume that we cannot be wrong. Yes, we can be. We can be. Yeah. Even when we're not. We have to remember what it's like to not be right sometimes.

And that's the biggest thing I've been challenged with the last 3 years as I've— I mean, for whatever reason, I look back on this sometimes and I'm like, okay, well, how did my openness to ideas shift this much? Like, I don't exactly know the answer to that, but I will say that I really dig it and I'm not afraid of it. There's certainly fallout for that, potentially, depending on where you live and what circles, just kind of, again, what the climate feels like, not just politically, but socially, all of it. Right. I think, and I would love your opinion on this because one of the things I feel like I struggle with the most is actually not judging those that choose a doom loop. Yeah. So they say, nope, I like my echo chamber. Screw you. I'm happy in here. Again, pick a side. It could be a devotee of Fox News. It could be a devotee of CNN. I think any strong kind of— and I don't even want to call it extreme, but if you're just saying, like, this is the only thing I— and these are the only people I talk to, right? That's that doom loop we're talking about.

Right.

I have tried really hard to try to meet, like, see them for where they're at somehow without the judgment. Because when I start then, like, assaulting them in my mind with my own judgments of them, that doesn't make me better.

That's right.

And it doesn't make me feel better. And it doesn't. That's not bridge language.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Right. So, you know, so what, like, again, if you're thinking about our listeners and you're thinking about people that might be And again, I don't know if it's that they're progressive. They may just be more open-minded and open-hearted than some of the people they do life with.

Yeah, boy, this is so difficult, isn't it? It's such a challenge because people are people.

People are people. Totally.

Yeah. You're right in the sense that we feel the pressure to judge people for some reasons and less pressure to judge them for other reasons. And that is a lot to do with the stories we tell ourselves. About ourselves and not about other people. So on the one hand, there's no rule that says you have to have an opinion or a moral judgment about everything, right? You can always tell yourself, like, oh, that's right. It doesn't matter if so-and-so is not nice. I don't have to make a decision about that.

Okay.

I don't have to have an opinion on that.

I hate to let you lose your train of thought, but can we, like, pause on that for just a second longer? Because I think that might be one of the critical pieces of this, too. Is that we just forget that we don't have to engage with—

That's right.

—everything.

That's right.

And it doesn't make you dumb or dim or anything if you choose to just say, yeah, I don't have a strong stance on that.

I think some of that comes from the ability, and to be honest with you, it's training. It's not a set of tips. That you can pull down. I mean, you have to work at it. Yeah, absolutely.

But it's critical thinking, right?

Because it's thinking about things with distinction and gradient and gradation and value rather than positive or negative, on or off, black or white, up or down. And that makes you able to see people in ways that are not good or bad, mad or sad, happy or angry. It's not all of a sudden going to reflect to you You know what I mean? When you see the world as full of gray, you see a little bit more finely. And again, I think it takes practice, but I think partly what you're talking about is, for me, how do you address those difficult social interactions? And I feel like not everybody, but most people, if you walk around glowing from the inside, they notice. They don't always. Sometimes it makes them mad, right? Totally. But everybody wants to know how you do it. And it shuts people down a little bit sometimes when they want to be really nasty just because they had a bad day. And here you are glowing. And, you know, how do you shit on that? Excuse me, but no, you're good.

Yeah, right. Yeah. I just think it's so interesting because that's— I think you just explained again kind of my growth, I think, over the last handful of years and just what I hope for. When I think about what do I hope for, for my community, it's actually a bit more of an embracing of the shades of gray and then just the complete acknowledgment that every single human is some mix of great stuff and super crappy stuff. Like, because we're just— we're humans and we're very, very nuanced. And so anytime I feel in myself this, like, judgment rearing up, which for me, judgment in me usually sounds like I want to label that— either label their behavior in some way and, like, apply an adjective to, like, what I'm seeing. And that's me. That's judgment. Yes. Because— and then again, I think the other piece of that is, okay, well, so Does that mean we have to just stay open to all these people even if they don't make us feel good? Of course not. We don't have to do that. We get to then make those choices about, on the whole, how this person presents themselves to me. Is it more beneficial for me? Is it less beneficial for me? Are there things I can do for this person? Is there kind of on the balance some betterment that comes from our relationship? Right? Otherwise, it's like it's okay to just keep people at a distance if you're able to do that.

I think so. Yeah. I mean, what you're talking about is kind of a personal calculus, right? There's a reasoned operation happening where you're weighing and judging. But the other part of it is just the freedom that comes from getting some practice at not making that judgment. Yeah.

You know, it's hard. Getting practice at being untriggered.

That's it. Well, or even just letting the trigger you know, happen and then realizing the barrel is empty. There's nothing happening in there.

Right. You feel flooded, maybe still, but there's nothing that actually gets expressed. Yeah, it really is. I've felt that a few times and where you go, God, like a year ago, this would have made me so upset. And it's really cool when you can experience those moments, you know? I think I had shared on a couple of podcasts ago with my friend Jeff, we were talking about how I was out east on the East Coast and I was going to be the speaker. And Jeff and I were both speaking the next day, and he's from the East Coast, and he witnessed just kind of a pretty good stripping down of me as a Midwesterner, like from North Dakota. Like, these people really kind of— a couple of them came at me really hard and in that moment, I had that awareness of like, I'm so glad that I have grown enough to handle this and still stand in front of them tomorrow and speak to them and have none of that, like, oh, am I good enough for this? And feeling that self-doubt. Though when you have those moments, my goodness, does it make all of the growth— and because growth is painful, right? I mean, we can say that, like, it's the only way to live and I probably beat that drum a little too much sometimes, but it's absolutely painful because every time you're confronted by something and you decide instead to do something about it, that's really hard work. It takes a lot of effort.

Wow. Absolutely. Yeah. I will tell you one little story. When I was first starting as a college teacher, I was a teaching assistant at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. And I was teaching a class called the Heroes and Villains of the Middle Ages, which was all about Heroes and Villains in Medieval Literature and History. And I was so excited about this class and it was so full of information. I wanted to change every mind in the room and I wanted to show them the archetypes and I wanted them to savor the language and to dive into these texts. And they were not engaged. And I pushed harder and they engaged less and I pushed harder and they engaged less. And I complained to my dad who was a lawyer and a man of very few words. And I went on and on. We were driving to Denny's, which is where he liked to go eat. And we're in the turn lane waiting for the traffic so he can turn into the Denny's parking lot. And I've got my hand out the window. I remember the scene as clearly as it happened yesterday. And I said, I don't know what to do to get them to do the work because if they do the work, they will get the reward. And he looked at me and he said, do you know, even the best gardener in the world cannot make a plant grow. And I went, oh yeah.

Go, damn it, Dad. Like, why do you have to be so smart?

He's true. It's right. You know, it's right. You can't make a plant grow, but you can give it the soil and the pH balance in the water and the fertilizer and the sunlight. And you can talk to it. And you can put it in a place where it can thrive.

Give it its best shot at ideal growing conditions.

That's right. And then what happens is it grows, right? People want to grow and it is hard and it does involve sacrifice and suffering. And intellectual growth is even more challenging, I think, in some ways in our culture because we don't value it the way that we should. Not necessarily that we don't value it enough. But not in the way that we should. I mean, if you think, for example, about how many people are self-conscious about whatever education level or intellectual capacity they have for things like information online and social media sharing and that sort of thing. And when they realize like, oh, it's not about smarts, it's not about being a good person in a sort of, you know, checking all the boxes kind of way. It's about being open to the world. Yeah. And being open to other people. And that kind of growth can be hard because people suck sometimes and they'll hurt you.

Oh, man. Isn't that the truth? For sure. Yeah. Well, and that's just— and that's, again, I think when you get to this point where you're like, oh, even the good ones, air quotes, are going to suck sometimes. And you just go, oh. And like, for me, I'm so, and by the way, like, thank you for this conversation. I have absolutely loved every moment of it and we'll wrap here shortly. Literally, I could just talk to you for days. It really again comes back to the fact that like we spend a lot of time and we spend a lot of money and resources trying to solve these really, really big problems, you know? Right. Like, and, and it really all just, you get right down to brass tacks. It's the fact that we're humans. And that we suck sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And then recognize that you are numbered among those humans. Therefore, you suck sometimes. You suck too. So it's just that humility is something that to just be able to say, like, I really sucked at that. Like, that was really— I didn't handle that well. And then where, again, where grace and forgiveness, all of those, like, really messy, complex human emotions. That's where it comes from. And when we're all— when you can take a step back and go, oh, we actually are all in this together, even though we said that, we said that all during COVID and we were not in any way, shape, form in it together. Right. That's right. We weren't. So I just think these are the kinds of things that do so much more to unify us. Yes. Than to separate us. That's right. And that, to me, if we can continue to do more of that, like, how do we not get better?

We have to. Yeah. If we do more, we will, I think. I suppose in some ways that's a good way to kind of wrap it up, in the sense that what I've been saying, if I could make it clear, is that all of those things that we talk about being values in our behavior are— they're incredibly important for our ability to see clearly. Humility is a good example. Humility is the opposite of arrogance. Arrogance is blindness. That's all it is. Arrogance is the inability to see what effects your actions have on other people, right? Humility is the ability to see what actions, how they affect other people, and on and on and on. So what it comes down to is the, the world is a really complicated place, and people are people, right? We know that part, but If you want the world around you to change, the quickest and most effective way to make it happen is to start at home. Change yourself. Change yourself and the world will change. If you become more of something, right? If you become funnier at dinner parties, or if you become— because you learn how to tell jokes, or you went to a Toastmasters class, or, you know, you, you're the guy everybody calls when the car isn't Driving the right way or whatever it is that your thing is, right? Yeah. Bring that thing to everything. Lean into it. Right? Be in the world. Yeah. And that, when you get the hang of it and you learn how much of that fear is unnecessary and how much of your vulnerability will be protected by other people around you and how you don't have to fight to survive every day and struggle against your community, then you can be open to the stories that don't go one way or the other, right? They're about life and understanding and community and friendship and all of the good things that we want. They come from practice, not from believing in the right things, right? They come from doing the things that make us good.

Yes, actions. Yeah, our beliefs don't make us. Great people. Our actions do. Obviously, our actions are born out of our beliefs. I guess there's a clear tie there. Yeah. But to stay open and, you know, man, if all people take away from this long conversation is just to be humble and to be curious, like, those are just two really critical skills that we need more and more of. You know, if you don't understand why someone's coming at you the way they are, just ask them why. Say, how can I understand? I say that a lot. I want to get it and I don't get it. I'm not you. I haven't lived what you've lived. So help me understand. Right. And again, that's not a silver bullet statement or question. But if you're with a person that actually also wants that bridge versus the divide or the chasm, they'll step up to that as long as the heart and the the intentions are good.

I think so. Yeah. Like I said, I think if people see you glowing from the inside, they're going to kind of ask why. They are. And sometimes they'll say something terrible to you because they feel threatened by you in some way. The response to that is just to say, "I'm sorry, bananas? Did you say bananas to me?" You know, or whatever. Don't gratify it by abandoning the bridge. That when the chasm shows up, remember that you have the tools to build the bridge. And also always remember that you can't cross the bridge for the other person. They have to cross it on their own. Right.

Oh, so valuable. So, Chris, anything that you, like, want to share with our audience in terms of resources, those kinds of things, we'll have them all in the show notes. We'll collect them from you. Okay. But I I actually just want to say that I appreciate your friendship. This again, you came into my world by way of me authentically producing something, right? That's something I just can't say to people enough. Like, you have no idea the treasures of humans that will find their way to you. That's right. If you fully step into who you are, you know, words don't work because we all have them. But I'm just so thankful that you listened, that you reached out, because I just know that I'm going to continue to be bettered by— Thank you for saying that. —having you in my life.

I'm grateful that we ran into each other at the time when we did because I was having trouble myself with the idea that I needed to expand my own community. And, you know, one of the things that I should have known all along because of all the reading I do is that when times get tough, You have to make new friends. You have to. So I did really great when I connected and, you know, made a cold call and said, hey, can we have a conversation about, you know, Rural America? Because although I felt like this woman's going to think we're just nuts, you did. And we are. And that's the part.

You're my kind of nuts. That's right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, I think you're right. If there's a lesson there, it's lean into it, right? Lean into it. Be who you are. That's not easy. It's hard to figure out. But the fear that gets in the way is that part of our brain not dealing well with what we know we have to do, which is to be what we were made to be.

Right. Right. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. For sure. I can't wait to have you back. Dirt Road Radio will be a fun thing to kind of keep our eyes on and watch. So for sure, this isn't the last time.

I would love— yeah, I would really like to have a chat about how people in your audience, the people that listen to your show, how they can be more self-actualized by telling their own stories and by finding those stories and seeing them for what they are, the amazing emergence, like I said, of that glow from the inside. So whenever I can do that, let me know. Part of my mission is to help people glow from the inside.

Love, love, love it. Okay. Thanks so much, Chris.

Thank you, Rebecca. Have a great day.

You too.