Episode 84: Conflicted Leadership

One day when the glory comes, it will be ours. It will be ours. Oh, one day when the glory comes. And hello everyone. Welcome to episode 84 of the Weekly Yes Sam Podcast. I'm your host, Travis Thomas, the host and creator of the Weekly Yap, and I am coming to you today from the Toyota Prius. Sound studio, also known as my car, uh, which, uh, we're getting a little rain down here in Florida still, some tropical storms and different, uh, just different fronts moving through. So if you hear the ping and, uh, the pang, the ping and the pang on the car, that is some pretty heavy raindrops coming down on us right now. But, um, today's my anniversary. Yes, 21 years with, uh, Miss Hollister. And she's taking a nap up in the bedroom where my closet for the real studio is today. So I'm being a respectful, loving husband for doing this in the Prius. But it's been a couple of weeks since the last Weekly Yap, and I wanted to sort of just get back on things. To let you know that we do have— I've got 3 or 4 interviews lined up for the rest of this month. So the next Weekly Yap will probably be an interview again. But this is— so this is another solo cast. And I've been on the road for the last few weeks. down in Phoenix working with the Chicago Cubs Instructional League players and coaches again. Such a fantastic group of people. Such a fantastic culture there. So go Cubs as the MLB postseason begins. And then I was out in Colorado at the Lynx School in Buena Vista, Colorado. That's right, Buena Vista, even though it's spelled Buena. Buena Vista, Colorado, working with the Lynx School students and staff and had a blast there in the mountains. Right there where the Collegiate Peaks are in Colorado. So I had a ton of fun doing that. Now I'm back home for a week, then off to Michigan to work with the Karim Foundation next week and trying to, trying to get that regular routine back on as far as the YAP and everything else. And so, so that's where we are today. So the whole idea for today's podcast, which is entitled Conflicted Leadership, really came about with my wife and I when we were in Colorado last week. And obviously, You had the NFL protests that have been going on for the last couple weeks, the big one happening a few weeks ago with teams standing unified, players taking a knee, owners coming out and standing unified, even Jerry Jones taking a knee, even though it wasn't really the protest knee, but it was him still taking a knee of solidarity and unity amongst players. And that was obviously in response to President Trump and him calling a bunch of the— anyone who would kneel a bunch of SOBs, right? So, you had that going on. And so, I was thinking about this idea of conflicted leadership and wanted to talk about that today. And then, the Las Vegas tragedy happened. And although it felt like maybe that's 2 different podcasts, I wanted to talk to it as one because I still feel like in our country and from a leadership standpoint, What we don't have is this sense of conflicted leadership. When I say conflicted leadership, I mean that as a positive and I will talk about that here as we jump in. So I think the first idea came— I mean there's no surprise here that I did not vote for Trump. Now this is not meant to be a political discussion, but more of a leadership discussion. As I get into this, as I talk about Las Vegas, I'm not talking politics. I'm talking character. I'm talking leadership skills. and how we need a much higher sense of leadership if we are going to tackle some of these bigger problems that we have. So please, please don't think that I'm standing on a political soapbox. I'm not. I'm simply talking about things from a leadership standpoint, whether you're conservative, liberal, anywhere in between. So I'm talking leadership, not politics. But I was thinking about this idea of what great leaders do. You know, great leaders inspire action. Right. Great leaders inspire hope. That was the whole thing from Reagan to Carter, right? For the first time in Carter's administration, the American people did not feel that the next 4 years would be better. So Reagan sort of took over on this idea of that he could create progress based on hope, based on whether you agree with that or not, right? So he came in on this message of hope. So great leaders inspire hope. Great leaders unify through finding connection points By expressing empathy. And great leaders know how to disarm emotional situations, right? Because they are constantly navigating difficult emotional situations. And so they have the ability not to get sucked in emotionally like someone with a lesser skill or quality would. And that's why road rage happens. That's why conflicts happen. And that's why things escalate. Great leaders know how to sort of stand in the fire but not get burned by the fire, to be able to navigate that fire. All this to say, if you look at the way Trump has responded to many of these situations from a leadership standpoint, Trump supporters love the brashness and the arrogance and the force in which he speaks. But from a leadership standpoint, you have to look at, does that have good long-term effects? Does it even have good short-term effects? This whole idea of North Korea. And the missile crisis, and the words that, again, he— Trump's not going to back down from anyone. In fact, he's going to double down on his statements, and how the language that he has used actually has us and other countries going, what, was that a declaration of war? Not exactly the kind of words that you want expressed from someone who has the potential, the ability to escalate things to a very scary level. And I think anyone in the United States right now, you look at the North Korea situation, you're like, there is a very healthy reason to be concerned right now, the way that the two sides are talking. And are we talking in a way that is going to lead to resolution? Or are we talking in a way that's going to escalate the conflict? I don't care who you are, how tough you are, you know, a nuclear missile coming over to our land is not going to be good for anybody, right? So this idea of how do we disarm this conflict and find, again, find negotiation? find peace, find resolution in a way that is productive and healthy. And then obviously with the whole NFL and again being at a rally and getting so charged by the audience, again an emotional charge, that he went off script and did this whole, anyone who would kneel, those SOBs, they should be kicked or fired, which led to again the whole NFL owners, including many of those who are huge Trump supporters, and players, many of which who are not, coming together in unity to stand with each other against Those offensive remarks, right? So this whole idea of, again, allowing yourself to get to— basically, he's constantly kicking the bee's nest. And, and I know probably from personality standpoint, he likes that. It keeps him in the news. But when you look at— we are the ones as the citizens of this country who have to live with one another. And it's not exactly creating an atmosphere of people wanting to come together and talk as much as it is. It's just heightening. Mm-hmm. The divisiveness. It's heightening the differences that we have in opinion, and it's just heightening that to a level of tension and aggression where, again, nothing good is going to come from that. And then you have the recent visit to Puerto Rico and his comments to the Puerto Rican mayor. And again, just Not that level of empathy or sympathy or compassion that other leaders have been able to share in the past, whether you have agreed with them as people or not. And so, I look at this idea of conflicted leadership. And what I mean by conflicted leadership is we need leaders who don't pretend to have all the answers. Think about that for a second. We need coaches. We need managers. We need spouses. We need teachers. We need presidents and politicians who don't pretend to know all the answers because guess what? They don't have them. None of us do. So we're not electing people who should have the answers. What we're doing is that we're electing people who we feel can facilitate discussions and facilitate collaboration and facilitate hope, action, connection, empathy, where solutions are found. But we're not going to get that in a leader. So what we need is we need leaders who are conflicted with the situations that they are confronted with. We need leaders who can say, I don't have all the answers, but together we will figure this out. We need leaders who have the ability to say, I don't know, or I'm sorry, or I need help. That's what real leadership is. Leadership is not pretending to have all the answers, because when you pretend to have all the answers, right? A, You're setting yourself up for tremendous fail, and B, why would anyone pretend to have all of the answers? And so again, whether it's Trump or whether it's anyone else who stands up and with such brazen arrogance pretends to have all of the answers and just brushes aside any disagreements, it sets us up for tremendous conflict. It also sets us up again. It just keeps reinforcing that there are 2 sides here when there are not. There are not 2 sides to these politics. There are not 2 sides to any of these issues. Taking a knee does not make you anti-patriot, anti-police, anti-military. There's not 2 sides to this. There are many, many sides to all of these conflicts, and we keep turning it into a 2-side issue. which it is not. Great leaders have the ability to recognize the complexity of all of the different sides and create a conversation and a dialogue where we can address all of these sides without further widening the, the gap between the people who feel like they are in opposition with one another. Which only leads us to Las Vegas. And so, you know, I, I, I was heartbroken. I was You know, in tears, devastated from the news in Las Vegas, to see that there's been another mass shooting, to see the tragedy of this. And immediately we go to our go-tos, right? We go to, I'm either anti-gun or I'm pro-gun. We need more gun policy. We need less gun policy. It's not about gun policy. It's about this. We immediately turn this into politics. Where there is absolutely practical steps that we need to take. There are absolutely practical steps that we need to take legally to make this more difficult. Yes. So it turns into a political situation, but the answer and the solution is not political. Again, this is back to conflicted leadership. This is, we need to have dialogue from multiple angles, talking about multiple issues. This isn't just a gun control— Issue. Issue. It's bigger than that. And so when we look at what are the bigger questions of why, why is this going on in America? Why is this an American thing? And guess what? This is an American thing, right? 40% of Americans say they own a gun or live in a household with one. All right, this is a 2017 survey, this article from From the BBC, 40% of Americans own a gun or live in a household with one. You're like, okay, all right, that's— I don't know how to put that into context. Well, let's look at that in context. All right, there were 11,000 deaths as a result of murder or manslaughter involving a firearm in 2016. So let's look at an international comparison of gun-related killings as a percentage of all homicides. Right. So an international comparison of gun-related killings as a percentage of all homicides. The US leads 64%. 64% of all homicides are gun-related. Canada, less than half of that— actually, more than half of that, 30.5%. Australia, 13%. than England and Wales combined, 4.5%. Look at that for a second. These are 4— well, 5 countries, Wales. These are 4 and 5 countries that are first-world countries that have a lot in common with our values, with American values, with American culture. They see— they have the same TV shows. They have the same commercial influences. We're at 64%. Australia is at 13%. England and Wales, 4.5. So what is going on in the American psyche that— why America? What is it about our beliefs, our values, our principles that lead to this violence? Look at this stat. These are the top 10 civilian gun-owning countries. So based on for every 100 residents, right? For every 100 residents, this is how many people own guns. In the United States, nearly 90%, just under 90. So nearly just under 90 of every 100 residents in the US, right? Gun owning firearms per 100 residents. Second to us at almost 90, second to us is at about 55, Yemen. And then comes Switzerland at about 45, Finland at about 44. We are nearly 90. The closest one to us is at 55, and it's Yemen. And so, we, again, we have to be able to look at things from a cultural standpoint, not a legislative or legal standpoint. Those are the places where you create laws and rules that support our culture. And so, the bigger question is, why do we have a culture where violence is so prevalent? And why do we have a culture that has such a desire and a need to feel that we need guns, that we need firearms? And I'm not judging anyone who has one or wants one or enjoys shooting it, but we have to look at what is it about our culture That supports that? What is it about our culture that has caused so much anger, frustration, and a total sense of helplessness where gun violence is such a prevalent response, where suicide is such a prevalent response, and our desire, right, our desire to want to own firearms— fire, that was my Michigan accent there for a second— firearms. And to make them so prevalent. So when I think about flawed leadership, I don't need someone standing in front of me, whether it's a president, whether it's a Democrat, whether it's the NRA, whether it is anybody standing in front of me telling me this is what we need to do. What we need to do again is have this sense of conflicted leadership where this isn't a political issue. This isn't about politics. This isn't about who you voted for. This is about us as a culture coming together and asking bigger questions. What is it about our society? What picture have we painted? What idea have we painted as far as what happiness looks like, as far as what success looks like in our country, as far as what, um, is important to us? Because we know that since the '70s, even though our level of income Has more than doubled as far as what we are capable of consuming. So what we are capable of having is more than doubled. Our level of happiness on a happiness and satisfaction scale has stayed the same, if not dropped. So what we are putting our attention on is what we really need to take a look at: how we are constantly comparing ourselves to everyone and everything. We have created a culture where it is the haves and the have-nots, and that we are chasing these ideals that not only are seldom attainable, they're not sustainable, and at the end of the day, they're unfulfilling. Yet, we continue to promote them and feel that if I only had that, that is where my happiness would come from. And as a result, We create more divide between us and our fellow man. We are more isolated more than ever because of our technology. And instead of looking inward for answers and solutions and happiness, we are bombarded with every stimulation that says happiness is outside of us. And if we can't achieve that level of external happiness or extrinsic goals, then we're not good enough. And therefore, I'm not worthy. Therefore, I need more stimulation. I need more excess. I need more— which again, we are a society of consumption, of consumerism. So it's all about more. It's all about getting more. If I don't have enough, then we get— we're overly medicated. We're overly— You know, look at the mental health issues connected to these shootings as well. And so, there's not enough of us going inside into our own thoughts, inside into our own beliefs, inside into our own sense of what is right and what is healthy and what is pure and what my life is about and what my connection is to humanity in general. We need to have our own sense of conflicted leadership by looking internally for answers instead of continually looking externally and politically and legislatively for others to answer these conflicts for us. This is the demand. I think about the 1980 US hockey team where Herb Brooks intentionally demonized himself so much and separated himself from the team that it forced the team to come together as one because they were so divided. It forced them to come together as one with one common enemy, and that was Herb. And the end result was, it could have blown up in his face, but the end result was he created such a sense of team and unity amongst that group that once they got up, once they got into the competition, they were truly all playing for each other as one team. I don't know, maybe that's what Trump is doing in all of this. I would love to give him that credit. But at the end of the day, we all need to find The commonality in ourselves and in our culture that brings us together beyond our differences for that one common sense of good. And hopefully, that's a greater sense of good for everyone, where no one is left out, where no one has felt isolated, where no one feels less than, and no one pretends to have all the answers, right? Because if someone is pretending to have all the answers, That's the quick sign that we're heading down the wrong path. So that's the conversation I wanted to have today. We need to come together. We need to yes and each other. We need to yes and our differences. We need to yes and each other's solutions. But we need to say yes and to having a dialogue that includes lots of different perspectives, lots of different opinions, all coming from a common goal of wanting to help, wanting to improve. And wanting to make sure that this tragedy is the last tragedy that we have to see on this scale. That's it, everyone. Again, if you ever enjoy the weekly YAP, please share it with others. Go to iTunes and write a review or rating, and feel free to leave me a comment. I appreciate it. You can always reach me at www.liveyesand.com. I appreciate it, guys. Have a wonderful, wonderful Yes And day. Bye. Love you, Juju. Hands to the heavens, no man, no weapon formed against. Yes, glory is destined. Everyday women.