Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody, welcome to Shop Talk number thirty eight. Welcome in.
That's kind of weak.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Can you do than that?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Yeah? Welcome in? There we go, Welcome into the shop. Today,
we're going to talk about a note that Evan Feinberg
wrote to us and.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Oh he wrote it LinkedIn for all of the world
to see, not just us. I'm sorry, okay, if you're
not to read it's right there.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I thought he wrote it on LinkedIn to us. No, No,
reached out to us through LinkedIn.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
You would just do that.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, okay, So whatever Evan Feinberg wrote on Now, who's
Evan Feinberg. V Feinberg is the chairman of the Stand
Together Foundation. And I'm really not going to go into
a commercial for Stand Together, but google stand Together and
you'll know who they are. Incredible work and very connected
(00:55):
to a number of our past and future guests. So
Evan Einberg, the chairman of the Stanberg Founders Stand Together Foundation,
wrote something that I'm going to read to you and
then comment on for Shop Talk number thirty eight. Right
after these brief messages from our general.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Sponsors, everybody, welcome back, Evan Feinberg wrote this Merriam Webster's
(01:41):
twenty twenty four Word of the Year is drum roll,
drum roll.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Thanks. My finger is Polarization feels pretty on the nose.
We're all feeling it, he says. It feels like we've
got to figure out how we can get along with
each other a whole lot better. But I don't think
it's as easy as just being nicer to one another.
We've got a diverse country that often disagrees with one
(02:09):
another vehemently. I do think there's a shortcut, though. I'm
reminded of a conversation I once had with Van Jones,
who is a real leader in uniting people across lines
of difference. He said something to the effect of, let's
get people doing something together, like serving kids. We can
fight like cats and dogs or twenty three hours out
(02:31):
of day, but could we reserve just one hour to
go serve some kids together. His belief was that if
you really profound things would happen if we did that. One,
we'd help a lot of kids. Two, we'd realize we
agree on at least something helping kids. Three we'd get
to know one another and realize that we agree on
(02:51):
a bunch more issues. That's been our experience working with
Van on issues like criminal justice form or combating anti semitism.
Even if we don't agree on every issue, for when
we do disagree, we'd start to do so more agreeably
because we'd see each other as good people who disagree
on some stuff. So here's my thought for a New
(03:13):
Year's resolution, to make sure that polarization isn't the word
of the year next year, Can we resolve to get
out and serve together. If you need some ideas for
you to do that, let me know there are platforms
out there, light Points of Light, Vomo and just serve.
The important thing is that you start serving with people
across lines of differences, So get out of your comfort zone.
(03:40):
Pretty good letter from Evan, but it sounds like he's
been listening to the podcast. I'm a little worried he's
plagiarized in army and normal folks in this letter.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
He's a pretty smart guy too. You can come to
the same conclusion.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I don't think he's plagiarizing. That's a joke. I can't
help but read that and wonder if we need to
try to get Van Jones on the show's idea. I
think that's supporting is really interesting for supporting greatness, especially
because there are a number of I've listened to him.
There's a few things he and I definitely agree on.
(04:13):
There's a number of things he and I definitely disagree on.
But I think it would be an interesting contrast in
belief sets who ultimately clearly have an ultimate focus on
the same thing.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
And not to get into politics, but if you just
to pay him credit, like he's an honest broker. I mean,
if you like, after that Biden Trump debate where Biden
just lost it, yep, I mean Van came on right
after that immediately like we.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Got a problem.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
This is falling apart and basically people have not been
telling you the truth about him.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
And but see, that's why that's a guy I think
that you can and.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
We're not getting to other Republicans or but an honest.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Broker, I still think that's a guy you can if
you're a publican disagree with and at least respect, or
if you're Democrat, respect and listen to and not just
follow the herd on. I mean, I think that's a
unique guy. All Right, Will you reach out to Van
Jones or Evan Weinberg or somebody and we need to
(05:13):
interview Van Jones after reading this.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, let's get back to the subject at hand.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Well, it really is part of the subject hand candidly
is that you know, I'd love to sit down with
Van Jones. And I have friends in LA that are agnostic.
I have friends in LA that are Jewish, gay, married
people with children. I have friends in New York who
(05:44):
are agnostic and actually form born Jews with very liberal
belief sets. And when I say these people are friends,
I mean these are friends. I would go. I would
go to the wall for these folks.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And as usually say, you haven't said a yeah, but
I mean you're a white Southern Christian business owner. The
contrast between you know them and you right, And.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
There's probably some things we see on politically, but there's
certainly others we don't. And I would go to back
for these folks. And here's why, because I have broken
bread with them. I've sat in their living rooms, they've
sat in mine. We've had glasses of wine, We've had
(06:34):
real talks about stuff that is germane to their belief set.
And that is foundational to mind that we simply are
opposites on. But here's the deal. We approach those conversations
from foundation of respect and appreciation and friendship. And therefore,
(06:59):
when we have those conversations, they are real and they
are unadultered, but they are civil, and they always have
this backdrop behind them of even though I don't agree
with you or like what you have to say, I
love you, and therefore I don't take it personally and
(07:20):
I don't want to incite a riot over this disagreement
because I know what the basic fundamental of all of
this conversation. You're a good person who I love, and
therefore you can have those conversations in a civil, non
threatening way. Agree to disagree, respect one another's opinions, but
(07:41):
do all do so from a foundation of respect and love.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I think one interesting point about you met those people?
I think if I'm guessing the people through Undefeated and
other immedia stuff and your.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Book and speeches.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, but what I love about its point is you
know you met him through that, But say the average
American out out there, how are they going to meet
those people?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Right? So that's a that's a perfect segue Merriam Webster's
twenty twenty four Worthy Years Polarization. And so first, before
we talk about how we meet him. I think the
real question is how do we get so polarized? And
I really believe that we are separating more and more,
(08:30):
polarizing more and more into where we live and to
how we vote, and to how we worship and to
how we love, and then we solidify those positions by
what we read, by the news station we watch, by
the social media channels that we soak up. And Alex
(08:55):
did some great research on this, and I'm going to
butcher it interrupt me on this when I mess it up.
But Pew Research said that somewhere around eighty percent of
us know that when we watch CNN or cn or CNBC,
or on the other side, watch Fox or Newsmax, we
(09:15):
know that the news we're getting as slanted toward a
political viewpoint. And then another even larger percentage, maybe ninety
percent or so, know that when they get news off
social media that it is often not factual, sometimes blatantly incorrect,
but at least slanted and more of an opinion. And
(09:41):
so you combine that with the fact that we it
doesn't matter if it's a Republican or a Democrat. We
have less than a forty two percent approval rating in
the White House of every president after two years in
office for the first time in history. We have below
a fifty percent approval rating of the Supreme Court. We
have an underfitient approval rating of Congress. In fact, sometimes
(10:04):
it's in the twenties slow thirties. So we don't approve
of leadership. We know the content we're getting is either
on a scale from at least slanted to all the
way incorrect. We know that the information we're given to
us is likely tainted towards one political viewpoint or another,
(10:26):
and we don't like what's going on in our country. Yet
the same research says that for about two point three
hours a day, the average American is either reading this stuff,
listening to it, or engaging in it on social media.
So on the one hand, we don't believe it and
(10:47):
we don't approve of any of it. But on the
other hand, we're noundating ourselves with the very content and
the very narratives that we don't agree with or like.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Another stat I was looking at it up on my phone,
six percent say they have low confidence in the wisdom
of the American people when it comes to making political decisions.
So it's like seventy six percent of the public doesn't
trust themselves. Well, you shot the other people or everybody else.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
But I mean, if it's seventy six percent, they're actually
saying I don't trust these other people, and these other
people don't trust Seventy six percent don't even trust one
another on their own political decisions. And it's because they're
fed so much content villainizing someone who doesn't think, worship, love, vote, act,
(11:37):
or live like them. So Mary Welbster's twenty twenty four
ward of year's polarization, Well, hell, I guess so. Our
entire society is built on it at this point, and
that's destructive. I think that is a greater threat to
(11:58):
our republic than China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran combined,
because they can attack us all they want. They can't
take us down, but we could take ourselves down if
we don't get arms around it. So back to Alex's
really good question and point, which is, okay, now that
we understand polarization of where it comes from. Sure, I've
(12:22):
been over to overcome a lot of that because of
some really extraordinary things that in my life. But how's
the common person do it? Well? I think Van's got it.
I don't care what you look like, how you vote,
how you worship, or what you do in your life,
Because if you're serving a community of people or an
(12:46):
organization who is in need and not as blessed as you,
if you are putting your time, your effort, your resource,
and your money into helping elevate some people who aren't
as blessed as you, I can celebrate that. And I
don't care who you are, I don't care what you
look like. You go. I can do that, and if
(13:07):
I'm doing the same thing, you can celebrate me.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
And the other half of the point is if we're
doing it together, like imagine with Sleeping Heavenly Peace, you're
building a bed with somebody else who's different, like you're
actually spending four hours together doing this, getting to know
the other person, you suddenly don't hate them.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
You don't hate them because you have this common ground
and you recognize they care about some things just like
I do. Now, you may vote differently, you may worship differently,
you may have disagreements, but you're not going to see
that person anymore as an enemy. You're not going to
see that person. You're not going to be able to
(13:46):
hate a person who you work with and care about.
It reminds me when I was coaching at Manassas. I
found out my first year that I had players in
four different games. Red, blue, black, and green were the
(14:08):
colors bandanas or T shirts or whatever yours is.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
White, Big Daddy Snowflake, Well.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Had white, Big Day Snowflake. Actually mine was blue gold.
Nassa's colors were blue and gold, and so I just
couldn't get my arms around how you can fight and
work eleven guys on a field and bleed and getting
pain together for one common goal of winning a football
(14:36):
game at practices from three thirty six and on Friday nights,
but then on Saturdays and Sundays go to your neighborhoods
and actually possibly have fights and then turn around and
come back. It just didn't work, And so I came
up with a rule, which was, if you're going to
(14:57):
be parts football team, you can only win one set
of colors, and that's blue and gold. Meani, you couldn't
wear navy blue, red, green, and black. Meaning to be
part of the football team, you've got to drop your
gang affiliation because this team, this is your gang, this
is and this is going to be a positive experience,
and it was painful. There some kids that couldn't get
(15:21):
out and had to quit football, and there were other
kids that had to take some pretty tough medicine to get.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Out in beatings, to get out of the gang couple.
There's a I mean, like there's some of the stories
I've told the people, Like a lot of them ended
up joining just to like protect their siblings, Like their
sibling will get beat up by one gang, and they're like, well,
if you want this to stop, you've got to join
our gang. And I mean that's why, like a lot
of them are joining. So it's hard to make them,
to ask them to leave a gang.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
It is very hard, but there's no future in that.
And so some decisions you make or you know, tough
but hopefully long term have positive benefits at any rate.
The point is, how in the world could we develop
a cohesive unit pulling in the same direction, you know,
(16:12):
working on teamwork and everything else. If you were so
polar opposed to one another that you would fight, you
couldn't fight one day and join it. So you had
to wear those colors and that was the rule. But
the point is, to some degree, that's the same thing
we're saying about our society. We cannot stand on opposite
(16:33):
side of the street and hate one another when we
don't even when we truly don't even know one another,
and hate one another without tearing our team, our country apart.
We can't. You know, the whole united we stand thing
is is at risk. So how do we break down
(16:56):
the polarization? How to reunite? About being nice to each other.
It's not about saying the right things. It's about breaking bread,
it's about having conversations, it's about face to face interaction.
It's about all of those things. And where better to
gain that introduction and that experience and that exposure one
(17:20):
another than around a common goal of serving folks who
aren't as blessed as you, Because you will ultimately always
have an enormous and emotion when you employ your efforts
into such cause, and if you share that emotion with
another person, you're going to see them differently, And then
(17:42):
the political and religious and socioeconomic differences you have at
those people will not be nearly a start, and all
of a sudden, the polarization becomes just quaint differences among
people who can share a common bond that to me
(18:04):
feels like it can fix a lot of what else
is amen? Brother, Preach, Preach So shop Talk number thirty eight.
Evan Feinberg, the chairman of the Stand Together Foundation, says
his goal is in twenty twenty five that Merriam Webster's
worthy year will be something other than polarization, and an
army in Normal Folks and the folks in shop Talk
(18:27):
are working hard to make his goal come true. Guys,
if you like the show, please rate it, review it,
join the army at normal folks dot us.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
If you actually just on their mind, I shouldn't say
that what I just bought normal folks dot com. But
I don't think I've redirected it yet.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
No, it's normal folks dot Us, I know.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
But I also got the dot com the other day.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Well that's fine, But I like normal folks dot us
because it's US.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah and US double meaning yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Oh, okay, anyway, do all that stuff if you have.
If you have ideas for shop Talks, email me anytime
at Bill at normal folks dot Us. I will respond,
hopefully I have something to add, and we'll make shop
talk out of it. Thanks to our producer Ironlight Labs.
We'll see you next week. We're leaving the shop.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Go bye bye bye