Episode 101: Stay Woke!

And hello everyone. Welcome to episode 101 of the Weekly Yes! And podcast. I'm your host, Travis Thomas, the creator of the Weekly Yap and the creator of Live Yes! And. Thank you for joining me today. This podcast is also in conjunction with our friends at Inspired to Give. Check them out at inspiredtogive.org. They highlight wonderful people who are doing inspiring work, who are inspired to take action in many issues and ideas all across the world that affects us globally, as well as in your own community. So make sure you check out inspiredtogive.org. And today's podcast is about sort of inspired action. But before we jump into episode 101, Stay Woke, I want to give a shout out to our friends at OM Guatemala Retreats. These are yoga retreats happening in Guatemala in July, August, and September. My wife and I, I know we would love to jump on one of these retreats and visit our friend and our friends in Guatemala. But check them out at www.omguatemala.com. July 8th through the 14th is their first retreat. August 19th through the 25th is their second retreat, and then September 2nd through 8th is their third retreat. And so make sure you check them out. Mention Live Yes And. I don't know if that'll get you anything, but it just makes me feel good. Yeah, mention Travis at Live Yes And. All right, episode 101. Stay woke, people. Stay woke. And of course, the more I say woke, the more, uh, the relevance and hipness of that word is going to have by the end of this podcast because it's me. Gray-haired, once was hip. Man, probably not. Probably was never really hip. Travis Thomas talking about staying woke. But that is what we are talking about here today. And so for those of you who aren't as hip as my 44-year-old self, let me tell you what woke means. Let me tell you what it means when the young people and the hip-hop artists are talking about being woke. I'm going to the source for this. That's right. The Urban Dictionary, urbandictionary.com. Here's your definition for woke. Although an incorrect tense of awake, a reference to how people should be aware in current affairs. All right, here's their example. While you are obsessing with the Kardashians, there are millions of homeless in the world. Stay woke. Here's another definition. A state of perceived intellectual superiority one gains by reading the Huffington Post. Their definite— their example is, Ali is so woke. At brunch, she explained how wearing anything other than Chuck Taylors or Toms is really a microaggression. Yeah, you got it. And one more definition of woke: getting woke is like being in The Matrix and taking the red pill. You get a sudden understanding of what's really going on and find out you were wrong about much of what you understood to be truth. Yeah, their example. I understood the extra burden it puts on you, but I still feel everyone needs to get woke. So there you have it. Being woke means aware, knowing what's going on in your world and in your community. Isn't that what Inspired to Give is all about? So today we are talking about being woke. So I like to look at April. There's some momentum when you look at April, and if you look at what has been going on in our country, if not our world, February is Black History Month, right? So again, it brings a specific awareness to what we're thinking about culturally. March, National Women's History Month. And again, this year we have the MeToo movement and everything that's going on in women's rights. And again, that movement, you've got the March for Our Lives that is happening, that awareness that's coming to the forefront. April is all about spring, rebirth, reawakening. So in our country right now, whether it's politically, socially, spiritually, environmentally, there is a ton of awareness taking place. MeToo movement, March for Our Lives, Black Lives Matter, and on and on and on. And you can look at this, and whether it's— we haven't seen movements like this probably since the 1960s. There is a real consciousness that is happening in our world, in our country, that people are demanding to have a clear sense of things. And so that is kind of the theme for Inspired to Give all of April. That's what this podcast is about. So for you, what does it mean to be woke? What does woke look like to you right now? And I think as I've been doing a lot more talks the last few months, as I was in Flint for the March for Our Lives event in Flint, I was in Flint to See the documentary When Elephants Fight and to bring some awareness, some global awareness to what's going on in the Congo. And then any issues, right? For me, spirituality and my own spiritual— I hate using the word evolution because it makes it sound like, oh, I'm better than I was. But just sort of how about my spiritual journey? There's a sense of wokeness, right? To being conscious, just to having a greater sense of consciousness about the world we live in. I look at the fact that I'm a vegetarian now because I feel like I have a greater sense of making decisions that are better for me. I'm going to individualize all this. When I say something is better, I'm saying I feel that it's better for me, right? Knowing what we know about food, where does food come from? What about the source of the food? Everything from preservatives to the chemicals to everything. Right. We tend to want to make more conscious decisions that hopefully lead to better results in our individual life and better results in the world. I think there's a greater awareness now that people have about food. There's a greater awareness people have about where do their products come from. And for me, I don't think I'll ever achieve this level of sort of perfection as far as making perfect choices, but we can make more informed, more aware choices. And I think that's what sort of being woke is all about. These kids from Parkland, the awareness that they are bringing to gun rights and the awareness they are bringing to just our society in general, our violence, our— it's bringing a greater level of consciousness to things. And so then we can either resist that, we can resist that consciousness, or we can try to invalidate it with sort of our facts and with our news, or we can be open to it. And so I'm fascinated by all the factors that sort of unconsciously and subconsciously surround us that inspire our actions and beliefs. So I find myself reading in that realm all of the time. Malcolm Gladwell's books are fantastic for that. I read a ton on psychology and sociology and all of these factors that go into— we believe that We make decisions completely rationally, completely consciously of all the factors that are involved. And we just don't always appreciate these subtle, some of the manipulative, and some of the not so subtle factors that go into our consciousness and why we make decisions. I've been addicted to Derren Brown on YouTube. Derren Brown has a psychology background, but he really is all about Social influence, mental influence, and he does a lot of very entertaining shows in the UK around these ideas. They're all on YouTube now, right, or Netflix, and they're fascinating, right? 2 that I would recommend is one on Netflix which is called Push, where he sets up a scenario. Can you take a normal nonviolent person off the street and turn them into a murderer in 80 minutes without them knowing it? And one I just watched with the kids is The Apocalypse, where they take this young man and convince him that there's been an apocalypse and the influence that they put on him to actually take action in a positive way. To be woke, right? Isn't that what we're talking about? And so for me, when I think about this idea of being open to being more conscious, And how do we do that? And for me, it goes back to a couple of core ideas that I want to talk about. And these core ideas, again, are topics that I find myself talking more and more about in my work for Live Yes And, because my work is really, right, all about dealing with what we have and responding in a way that's powerful and positive, right? It's really kind of responding in a more conscious way To live our life more consciously based on purpose, based on authenticity and collaboration, but to live more conscious of that mindset. And that's kind of the work that I do. So a lot of, a lot of my focus is on building that skill set and those qualities that help us show up in relationships, in conversations, and show up in every aspect of our life more conscious, more intentional, more awake, more woke. So I think a couple of things that we need to do in order to achieve that or be better at that is, are we being open? Are we open? Are we receptive to new ideas, to new opinions, new perspectives, new beliefs? Are we open to hearing someone else's perspective? Right? You look at how we receive our news and everything. Most of us receive our news from in a biased vacuum. And so it's constantly reaffirming what we already believe. But few of us are consciously seeking information from those that we have disagreed with in the past. So are we really being open to the complete picture, to all of the information, to taking it all in? Because we can't raise our level of consciousness if we are not being open to other perspectives and ideas. And this idea that I'm big on right now, which is we need to stop seeing things, whether it's political, whether it's religious, whether it's social issues as sides, that there are sides. And to me, Living Yes And is all about being able to see that there are no sides. There's opinions, and there's differences, and there's diversity, but there's not sides. One opinion on one issue doesn't make you something on all issues, and vice versa. And so instead of coming at this from a closed-off perspective of being on a side, Can we come at life and issues from an open-minded perspective of, this is my opinion and my perspective, but I'm still open to hearing what other people have to say. And when we do that, we foster respect, value, safety, trust, right? We build relationships and conversations around trust. So this quality of empathy, of being willing to understand someone else's perspective. To walk in their shoes and see that you know what? Maybe if I had those same influences in my life, I would think the same way they do. Maybe not, but are we empathically open to open to hearing someone else's perspective? I came across a wonderful podcast recently, a lot of fun, called Conversations with People That Hate Me. So Dylan Marron, M-A-R-R-O-N, is a huge YouTube YouTuber. Does a lot of social activism, talks about a lot of social causes, has a huge following on YouTube. And of course, whenever you're talking about social issues and you're talking about anything passionately, as much of a following you're gonna have, you're gonna have a ton of people that do not like your message. There's gonna be a ton of vitriol, there's gonna be a ton of hate. So what he decided to do, and I love it, and truth be told, complete transparency, I listened to one episode of this podcast. Right. But the one I loved, I listened— when I loved, I listened— the one I listened to, I loved. And his podcast, Conversations with People That Hate Me, he goes into his comments section, finds people that have written some really horrible things about him, reaches out to them and asks them if they are open to having a conversation via Skype that he can record for his podcast. And the one that I listened to, this was a guy who really disagreed with some of his videos. And called him a piece of shit. I won't say it just to keep my podcast clean, right? Called him a piece of shit and had some really, really insulting words for him. So he got this guy on Skype, and what I loved about it is the purpose of his podcast is not to have a debate, not to convince the other person that they're wrong, or really to come to any conclusion. It's about having a really a civil and healthy conversation with someone that has a differing opinion and perspective than you have. And it was a really cool episode to listen to because immediately, when the first 30 seconds, this guy apologizes for insulting him. And then they end up having like a 30-minute conversation that is super respectful and very eye-opening. And again, it erases this idea that there are literal boxes or lines that we live in, or sides that we— That we live in. And I just highly recommend it because I think it's— it is the exact mindset that we need right now, not only in our country but in our world. And again, raising consciousness. When you have a conversation with someone, you help raise consciousness. When you have a debate with someone, there is no consciousness changing because there's no willingness or openness to hear that other person's perspective. So we think about that with politics. We think about that with every aspect of your life, and you look at the routines, the habits, the beliefs that you have, whether it's your health, your nutrition, your spirituality, your politics— are we willing to be open to new ideas and perspective? Because if we're not, we surely can't raise our consciousness. And if we don't, people, we will surely never be woke. That's right, we just can't be woke. Unless we're open-minded. So think about it for a second. In your relationships in your life— think of your personal relationships, think of your work relationships, think of your social circles, think of your politics, think of your community— in what ways have you closed yourself off? Have you closed your thinking off to even entertaining someone's perspective, someone's differing ideas on certain topics? Where have you closed yourself off? Because we all do it. So for you, where have you closed yourself off of? And today, what would it look like just to be open to another perspective? That could be a fun challenge to have, and that is my challenge to you all today, because you can't get woke if you stay in your comfort zone. All right, so there you have it, everyone. Episode 101, Stay Woke. If you like the weekly Yes Am podcast and you want to leave me a comment or a rating on iTunes, my ego greatly appreciates that. If you want to share it with others, my ego appreciates that as well. And also make sure you check out my website, liveyesand.com, and go to inspiredtogive.org, the website, or you can find us on Facebook and Instagram and jump in, get involved. We would love to hear from you and hear your inspiration as well. So there you have it, everybody. Have an awesome, awesome Yes And day. That's episode 101. Stay woke. Love you, Juju. Love you, too.