A short transcript excerpt from a YouTube conversation (Vishen Lakhiani and another speaker) discussing Donald Trump’s public persona and how to judge whether a leader embodies higher or lower consciousness. The speakers use a Native American ‘dog vs. wolf’ parable to argue that leaders who ‘feed the wolf’ encourage racism, misogyny, and divisiveness, while those who ‘feed the dog’ foster altruism and constructive responses.
Chapters
Foreign.
Let's talk about Donald Trump. Where, what, what is going on with that man's consciousness? He seems so convinced about what he needs to do in the world, what he can fix. He seems to be the type of person that we're talking about, the type of person who believes that it's all going to come out right, that the universe is on his side. But what's going on there? How do we tell? Because surely you can use this both ways. You can be doing good in the world and believing the universe is in your sight, or you can be Trump and believing the universe in your sight. But how do we tell what is light, what is darkness? How do we tell what is higher consciousness? What is lower consciousness? What is your reading on that type of person?
That has two parts to it. One is how do I evaluate Donald Trump personally? And the second is what is his role in the world Right now? My evaluation of Donald Trump, frankly, is not very positive. I do not see that he is a person who raises the better feelings in others. In other words, what happens is any person who is in a position of power, any person who has a megaphone and can reach thousands of millions of others, I think has an obligation to bring out the better side of that person. Let me give you a story, and this is a very powerful story, comes from the Native American tradition, and there are many versions of it, but I like the version I'm about to share with you. So there was this young brave who was about to become an adult in the tribe, and as part of the rite of passage, he was having an interview with the medicine man. And the medicine man told me, here is this dog, kind, loving, trustworthy, intelligent. And here is this wolf, malevolent, vicious, cruel, ready to strike at and kill anything. And the dog and the wolf are both in you. And the dog and the wolf are fighting. So the brave asks, who's going to win? And the medicine man says, whichever one you feed. Now think about that. In each of us there are altruistic let's help our fellow men. Let's make the world a better place. Let's all live together and take care of each other impulses. And in each of us there are, let me grab everything that I can for myself, and the devil take the hindmost impulses. We all have both of those. It is our obligation. Don't make the mistake. By the way of thinking, you're only going to feed the dog, you're not going to feed the wolf. That ain't going to happen. The best you can Hope is that you're going to feed the dog a little bit more than you feed the wolf. But it is your duty to selectively identify and feed the dog in yourself. It is also your duty to selectively identify and feed the dog. Everyone you meet, supposing you're working in a company and you go off to the water cooler and you've had a rough day, and you mention it to a colleague and he says, he's had a rough day, and you say you think you've had a rough day, and you top his roughness with your rough day. Ness, you've just fed the wolf in both of you, and you don't even recognize you've done that because, hey, it kind of feels good. But supposing instead you took a different tactic and said, yes, you know, this is terrible and this is happening in the place we work. Is there anything that the two of us can do collectively to make this a better place and see that it doesn't happen again? And if you do that, you just fed the dog in both of you. Every time, every place, every interaction you have, ask yourself the question, am I feeding the dog or am I feeding the wolf? A colleague tells you about problems that she's having in a marriage, and you say, yeah, yeah, your spouse shouldn't have done anything. You know, he or she, bastard or a bitch, you're feeding the wolf, but instead you go down. Is there any possible different construction that can be done? You know, maybe he was really trying best and it didn't work out. Every interaction you have, try and ask yourself this question, am I feeding the dog or am I feeding the wolf? If you look at Donald Trump's public appear, public utterances, he's feeding the wolf big time. He is bringing out the worst in people. He is making it okay to be racist, to be misogynistic, to, you know, run down other people based on color, based on ethnicity, based on sex. So I don't think it bodes well as for us as a society. But then we come down to, you know, his role in all of this. And who knows, maybe it's a benevolent universe that has said, hey, you know, there is a lot of this feeling already bubbling up and let us bring it up so that there is a massive catharsis. And unfortunately, maybe this massive catharsis will be accompanied by a great deal of turmoil, but on the other side of it, we will put it to rest for good. I don't know. I don't know how it plays out, but I am willing to be cautiously optimistic in saying, hey, this happened for a reason. Always. As Mahatma Gandhi said, there are tyrants in the world. And for a time, it will appear as though these tyrants are invincible and there's nothing you can do about it. But sooner or later, they will be consigned to the dust heap of history.
I love that. And so when electing a political leader, when choosing anyone, whether it's a CEO or a political leader, we want to ensure that this person is the one feeding the dog and not feeding the wolf.
And this to the extent they are capable of.
Yes, to the extent they are capable of. And this is a way we can identify higher consciousness versus lower consciousness. Thank you. Thank you. That was beautifully said.
