December 30, 2025 • 31 mins
What if the most powerful resolution you could make this year wasn’t about productivity, perfection, or hustle — but connection?
In this special New Year’s episode of My Legacy, hosts Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King, Marc Kielburger, and Craig Kielburger bring together some of the most moving and practical insights of the year to help you begin 2026 grounded, peaceful, and truly connected.
Featuring:
- Simon Sinek on why friendship takes work
- Mel Robbins on the viral “Let Them” theory
- Jay Shetty on rebuilding your “third space”
- Dr. Vivek Murthy on the power of shared joy
If you're setting intentions for the new year, start here.
Subscribe for more extraordinary conversations with remarkable people.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I didn't learn as so as fifty four years old.
If I had known this way back when, I would
literally not have been a walking red flag for most
of my life. I would not have taken my stress
out on my family. I would have been more peaceful
and more powerful because I had no idea how much
power I'd given to other people.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What does it take to stop feeling isolated and start
building real connection in your life? Just in time for
the holidays. In this best of episode of My Legacy,
hosts Martin Luther King the Third, Andrea Waters, King, Mark Kilberger,
and Craig Kilberger explore the power of connection, how to
create it, how to nurture it, and how to build
a life rooted in meaningful relationships. We'll hear from Jay
(00:47):
Shetty on creating connection in the chaos of everyday life.
Doctor VIVEC. Murphy on how shared joy is the easiest
way to create true connection. Mel Robbins on her viral
let them theory Welter, stop reacting, start healing and reclaim
her power. But first up, Simon Sinek on how we're
getting friendship all wrong.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
What do you see as the main obstacle to people
finding true connection.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I think there's many things that get in the way
of us forming true connection. One is I think we
take friends for granted. You know, everybody knows you have
to work hard in marriage, like marriage takes work. Everybody
knows that. And when marriages have trouble, you get help.
(01:34):
You you go for therapy, you go for couple's therapy.
But nobody goes for friends therapy when your friendships are
in trouble. I love that. You know, nobody thinks that
friendships take work. We sort of take them for granted.
Like if you guys have a massive fight, you don't
default to divorce. We're in friendships. You have a massive fight,
and people like I don't think I can do this
(01:55):
friendship anymore. We're sort of much more disposable about friendships
for some reason. I don't know why. Maybe there's no contract.
Maybe that's the reason. And if you ask the best couples,
like the couples that we look at and admire and
be like, I want a marriage like theirs, And if
you ask them what's your secret, they all say the
same thing, it's hard work. Can we do the work?
And I don't know anybody in friendship who says friendship
is hard work, and we do the work, and so
(02:16):
I think one of the reasons we have so much
disconnection in the world is we actually are not very
good at the skill of being a friend. You know,
would you cancel in a friend for a meeting. Would
you cancel in a meeting for a friend, Oh, but
my friends would understand. You don't think the people in
the meeting would understand. And that's the problem. I think
we deprioritize friends almost always, quote unquote because they'll understand. Yes,
(02:40):
we can blame social media, it absolutely is a contributing factor.
Yes we can blame post lockdown world, you know, it's
absolutely a factor. But I think deeper than all of
those things is we lack the skills to be a friend.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
It's interesting because I reflect on this time and this
is the beautiful part, but being able to have a
conversation with someone who we spent so much time with.
And there was one of these moving moments when we
were talking as a group and you talked about friends
that politically you very much disagreed with the story I'm
sharing here. Yeah, yeah, And you had a choice there
because you could have acted not exactly out of respect
and kind of called her out. I think it was her.
(03:15):
It was in that moment and you saw how to
build bridges and stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Yeah, a friend of mine, she and I see the
world very differently. She's a conspiracy theorist and I view
the world differently. And she came to visit me in
New York and we were going for a long walk
and she said something that I disagreed with politically or worldviewee,
and I thought, definitely thought and I think, I said,
(03:40):
how can you be so stupid? And she stops in
her tracks and says, you just called your friend stupid.
And I realized how judgmental it was to just because
I disagree with someone's worldview that I think they're dumb,
because on both sides of the political al, both sides
think the other are the sheeple, you know. And so
we were both confronted with the situation of somebody, a
(04:03):
friend who we both care about and love, which is
each other.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Now what?
Speaker 4 (04:08):
And we could have abandoned the friendship. We could have
just said this is not going to work. I don't
see the world the way you see it. But we
chose instead to figure out how to talk and how
to communicate and we didn't do what you know is
usually suggested for Thanksgiving dinners, which is, you know, just
don't bring it up. You know, we brought it all up,
and we learned how to listen to each other without judgment,
(04:31):
but with curiosity. We learned how to allow the other
person to say what they needed to say to the
point where you could find something that you did agree
with or that was based in truth, and at the
moment of affirmation we could build upon that. We're actually
very open to each other's points of view. And to
this day, I just talked to her last week. I
absolutely adore and love her and she feels the same
about me. And we talk about this all the time.
(04:52):
We talk about that we're different. We talk about that
our friendship as a model for how the world could work,
and we talk about how we don't agree on on
everything and we see the world differently, but at the
end of the day, we share the same values. At
the end of the day, we offer each other a
safe space to be our true selves. At the end
of the day, we found ways to communicate and put
(05:13):
our judgments aside and embrace curiosity. And because of that friendship,
I am a better human being. And I think people
who avoid tension simply because it's difficult, I don't think
they're taking the opportunity to grow as a person. That
doesn't mean that that person has to be your friend.
I'm not suggesting that at all, But I am suggesting
that the challenge to sit in discomfort with someone, where
(05:37):
you feel triggered, or you want to be defensive, or
you want to fight back, or you want to be
right and you want to prove them wrong, are not
the instincts for any kind of friendship or relationship. And remember,
even beyond the friendships that we have, that is how
you find peace. You cannot make peace with your friends.
You can only make peace with your enemies. And so
if you can't learn to listen to someone who you
(05:58):
consider an enemy or on the polar oppisode of how
You see the World, then peace is non existent. And
when I talk about world peace, I don't I'm not
so foolhardy to believe that we can live in a
world without conflict. That's nonsense, that doesn't exist. When I
talk about world peace, I imagine a world in which we
can resolve all conflict peacefully. You're going to have conflict
(06:19):
but can you resolve that conflict peacefully and change starts
at home, Like, we can't criticize our politicians and our
governments for their inability to find peace across an aisle
if we're incapable of having a conversation with somebody we
disagree with.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
Because I think for like listeners and watchers or those
who are following this, they like, everyone's got their friend
who politically they have the different views of, or maybe
on faith, politics, whatever it happens to be, that often
pulls us apart. But you found a little bit of
the roadmap how to build.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
So the mistake that we make when we talk to
someone with whom we see the world in a diametrically
opposed way is we interrupt, We attempt to correct facts,
We are sometimes triggered by what they say, We get defensive,
and we tend to make the argument for our case
(07:10):
before they've even finished making the argument for theirs. And
so one of the challenges and it is a skill,
It's just a learnable, practicable skill, you know, That's all
it is is to allow someone to feel heard. Right,
to allow someone to feel heard doesn't mean you have
(07:31):
to agree with them, doesn't mean you have to see
the world the way they see it. Your only job
is to listen to their story. The story doesn't have
to be true. It's their story, and your job is
to listen to their story. And if it triggers you,
you put that aside and you wait. You'll have your turn.
Don't worry, and remember there's a big difference between listening
(07:53):
and waiting for your turn to speak. Listening is listening
for meaning. Listening is listening to the point where they
feel heard, not that you think you heard the words.
And this is what my friend and I figured out
how to do, which is one of us went first
and said, tell me what you think, and the other
one started talking, and all the other did was tell
(08:15):
me more go on. That's interesting, I don't understand. Can
you say it differently and just allow them to get
it all out? And invariably we will always find something
we agree on always And what at that point one
of us can say that's true or I completely agree.
(08:36):
The other person is now seen, the other person feels
heard in that moment. The other person now becomes open
to your point of view, even if your point of
view is different, simply because you showed them the respect
to feel heard.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
Like follow and subscribe to my Legacy podcast, and most
importantly share this with someone who needs a reminder of
their strength today.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
What would you offer to people that are that are
feeling that that fear, that that disconnection, that the overwhelm,
the the stress.
Speaker 7 (09:16):
You know. The first thing that came to mind for
me is whenever I feel like things are out of
my control, or I feel like overwhelmed at what's happening
around me, or even in our own life, there's this
every time I feel like it's just me, the problem
feels really difficult to handle. But as soon as I
think the problem is me plus God, or me plus
(09:39):
the universe or something that has a much higher power
than I do, it starts to feel a little bit
more manageable. And so I find that prayer for me
has always been such a beautiful place to come to
when all other hope feels lost. I think I get
a lot lot of solace in prayer. And I think
(09:59):
that but also connects to the idea that if we
can feel way more disconnected when we don't feel connected
to ourself, and so whether it's practices and rituals to
actually connect deeper to ourself that allows us to connect
deeper to other people and have meaningful connections with others
that help us through those times. I think reconnecting every
(10:22):
single day in some way to who you are and
having those moments are really important to be able to
connect to someone else, to be able to feel understood
or valued by other people. And yeah, I think for me,
the main one always ends up being prayer because I'm like,
at this point, I can't control anything, so I'm leaving
it up to you, But yeah, I would love to
(10:44):
hear some of yours.
Speaker 8 (10:46):
There's something called the third space theory, and it's this
idea that just around twenty five fifty years ago, we
had three spaces we lived in, We had home, we
had work, and then we had church or temple, synagogue, mosque.
And what happened is that those three spaces shrunk to
(11:08):
two spaces. We went from work to home and home
to work. And now we all know that those two
places have shrunk into one place. We work from home
and we live at home. And what's happened is not
that we've just lost three spaces, but we've lost what
that third space provided us. So what happened at church
(11:29):
or the community center or a place of gathering, was
you had a space to look back on work and
home and state and everything else and reflect on how
could I be better? What could I do differently? Let's
figure out together what the solution is. What can we
all band to do together. So the biggest challenge today
(11:50):
is that we're all feeling the same feeling, but we're
feeling it on our own. We're lonely feeling the same thing.
And then a big difference between being lonely feeling something
and feeling belonging in feeling something. And so what I
would encourage everyone to do is go and find your
third space. Go and find your space of belonging. Go
(12:13):
and find your space of connection. Go and find that
space where you're with people of equal value, where you
can share your heart, when you can hear other people's,
when you can open up your mind, where you can
carry someone else's burden. I think we've just lost that
as a society, and I think these moments are great
reminders that we are stronger when we are working together,
(12:35):
we are better when we're working together, and ultimately, when
we're united and carrying each other's weight the weight doesn't
feel as large, And I think that's the biggest challenge today,
is that we're all carrying the weight on our own
and so finding that third space, creating that third space
if you don't have it. The third space doesn't have
to be two hundred people, two thousand people, twenty thousand people.
(12:57):
It can literally be four people in a room that
are reading scripture together, that are starting a book club,
that are listening to this podcast and sharing what they
learned from you and all your amazing guests that you've
had on It starts that small, and I really feel
that we have to create that third space, even because
right now our third space is all of us sitting
(13:19):
in front of the television, and the TV screen is
the third space. The phone screen is the third space,
and that third space isn't giving you what the original
third space gave you.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I know, Vivik that you've said that relationships out of
the foundation of health and fulfillment. In a world that
is now more divided than ever, how can we build
relationships out in the world. What can we do to
overcome so much of this division that we all are
feeling right now?
Speaker 9 (13:55):
Yeah, it's such a timely question, and I think there's
a lot that's telling us in the world right now
to find ourselves based on political differences or differences and
how we feel on policy issues. But the reality is
that obscures so much of what we do in fact
share in common. Like we have common concerns as parents,
as community members, as caregivers for aging parents, for people
(14:21):
who are contending with a lot of common challenges, but
a lot of that those common challenges get obscured. So
we found that one of the things that's important to
do now is one to be able to create spaces
where people can come together and talk about shared challenges.
Right and because we're our kids are school age and
we think about the parent community in our school. Alice
(14:41):
Is is the co president of our Parents Association in
school and really helps create these opportunities for parents in
the community to come together and talk about shared concerns.
And that's very powerful because a lot of parents just
feel like they're struggling alone. I think the other thing
that we can do is to create speriences of shared joy.
(15:01):
So there is so much it feels heavy in the
world right now, but when we can experience joy together,
whether that's coming together, as we have so often in
our school to see our kids all perform, you know,
for a holiday or just for an end of the
year's show, or whether it's coming together for music. We
(15:22):
recently had the pleasure of taking our kids and my
sister and brother in law to a music concert and
we all experienced that together. And it was one of
those things where were initially hesitant, it's late, it's going
to be far away, that the kids are going to
fall asleep, is it really worth it? But it was
so beautiful to be with thousands of other people just
(15:45):
uplifted and just invigorated and inspired by this powerful music
we were all hearing. That was an experience of joy
and upliftment, and we need more of those. But having
those experiences, Andrea, means that we have to actually come
out of our homes and be physically together. These experiences
are very different online versus when you're physically in the
(16:08):
presence of other people. And it's one of the reasons
why I think it's especially important for young people that
we model how to do that, that we create opportunities
to do that, because I think that we have maybe
in prior generations assumed that everybody just develops robust social
skills as they get older because pre sort of digital era,
(16:30):
you had to go and just talk to people, find
out how to, like, you know, make things work with
your roommate in college or if you went to college,
or figure out how to talk to somebody in middle
school in the lunch room. You know, the middle school
is hard for everybody, myself included. But these days, actually
there's an off ramp if you feel the stress of
isolation or social anxiety, and that off ramp is your phone. Right. So,
(16:52):
and this is what young people tell me all the
time when I traveled around the country and spoke to
high school students and college students, as they would say, yeah,
it's when things are stressful. We don't necessarily have to
interact with each other. So maybe there's a mixer or
an orientation, but if we get uncomfortable, we just pull
out our phones.
Speaker 8 (17:07):
Right.
Speaker 9 (17:08):
So, I think it's especially important for us to cultivate
these skills and these opportunities for in person interaction. I
want to just share one quote with you what I
actually just came across, which moved me very deeply. It
was written by a college student's about thirteen years ago
in twenty twelve, who had when she was just about
to graduate from college, and her essay that she wrote
(17:32):
was called the Opposite of Loneliness, And this is the
quote that really stuck with me. Her name is Marina Keegan,
and tragically she died five days after a graduation in
a car accident. She says, we don't have a word
for the opposite of loneliness. It's not quite love, it's
not quite community. It's just this feeling that there are people,
(17:56):
an abundance of people who are in this together, who
are on your team. When the check is paid and
you stay at the table when it's four am, and
no one goes to bed that night with the guitar.
That night, we can't remember that time. We did, we went,
we saw, we laughed, we felt. I think about that
(18:20):
quote all the time because what it reminds me of
is that this belonging that we all need, that's part
of our just basic human requirement to be alive and thrive.
That sense of belonging can come through these powerful shared experiences.
It can come from knowing that we're in it together,
(18:43):
that we're not alone. During the pandemic, in those early
days when everybody was staying at home, many of us
realized that it meant something to us to be in
a coffee shop with other people, even if we weren't
there with all of our best friends. It meant something
to be in a grocery store and to be passing
other people and seeing, oh, there's a fellow parent who's
(19:03):
shopping for her child, and I can relate to that.
All of these moments of connection, whether it's with a
best friend or with somebody in our schoocare kids school,
or somebody in a coffee shop, they contribute to our
sense of belonging. And this is what we need to
now intentionally build in our lives and in the world,
(19:24):
because it's a foundation on which bid build everything else,
from our health to our economy to our education. And
that's why I think it has to be such a
priority at this moment.
Speaker 10 (19:34):
I feel like so much of this is about these
like individual acts and like just like like small decision
points like do I reach out to this friend, do
I invite somebody over for dinner? I have nothing to
do this afternoon. Do I spend it with people or
do I spend it but with myself? And I feel
like we all just have to Like it's like a
(19:54):
million of these acts and it's all of us working
that muscle of I will have people over for dinner today,
I will go on a walk with a friend instead
of by myself. I mean, it's wonderful to have solitude,
but it's also it's choosing to make those make those
putting yourself out there a little bit and having the
discomfort of being with another person who has different thoughts
and how do you navigate that. We had this experience
(20:18):
we started this social committee in our in our condo building,
and there was a men that we were going to
do on the roof and it was raining, so we
just had everybody over to our house and everybody kind
of just hung out at our house for hours, and
as people were leaving, we had this strange experience where
people said thank you for being so brave and having
us all over, and it just felt like we're all
(20:39):
we've all been living in this building together for years.
We passed each other in the hallways like like I
hear your noise upstairs, Like how is it brave to
have people over? But I think we want to work
toward a world where that is no longer strange and
oh my goodness, wow, they did that, but something that's
just normal.
Speaker 11 (20:56):
We're building something real here, one episode at a time.
If you want to be part of it, subscribe, it's free,
it matters, and we're just getting started.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Now back to my legacymel.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Your new book that Let Them Theory. It encourages people
to just let control go over other people's choices.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Absolutely so. Let Them Theory is a simple mindset tool
that helps you identify literally in a moment, what's in
your control and what's not your control, and the way
that you use it is very simple. If you're in
a situation and some other person is stressing you out,
or upsetting you or offending you, or you're worried about them,
or they're treating you poorly, you literally say let them
(21:45):
because the number one thing in light that you will never, ever, ever,
ever be able to control is another human being. You
can't control what they think, you can't control what they do,
You cannot control how they feel, period And any psychologists
will tell you that anytime that you spend trying to
only makes you feel more stressed, out, frustrated, and out
of control. And the problem for all of us, and
(22:10):
I didn't learn as so as fifty four years old.
If I had known this way back when, I would
literally not have been a walking red flag for most
of my life. I would not have taken my stress
out of my family. I would have been more peaceful
and more powerful because I had no idea how much
power I'd given to other people, and neither nobody does
(22:33):
because we don't understand how we're turning other people into
the problem. And I've got very important and exciting information.
It says, if you feel tired in life, if you
are frustrated, if you're stuck, if you're stressed out, if
you feel like you never have time for yourself, if
you're just not as happy as you'd like to be,
(22:54):
the problem isn't you. The problem is you're unknowingly giving
power to other people. Do it in four ways. You
allow them to stress you out, yep, you worry about
and you manage what they're thinking. You navigate your life
based on their moods and their opinions and their disappointment
and their guilt and their expectations. And you paralyze yourself
(23:16):
because you're chronically comparing yourself to them and telling yourself
that if they're successful or they're this, then I can't
have it, and it's simply not true. And what they
let them. Theory does is that any situation that you're
in and you know you're going to use it with
your family more than anybody, because I think family teaches
you how to love people you hate sometimes, right, you
(23:36):
gotta let them because you're not going to change them.
And what you will learn as you start to use
this is people only change when they feel like changing.
People only change when they're ready to change. People only
change when they're ready to do the hard work to change.
And the other piece that you have to embrace is
(23:58):
that we think worrying about or pressuring or judging or
pushing people to change motivates people to change. It's actually
the opposite. If you look at the wiring of a
human being, everybody has a fundamental need for control. When
you're in control of what you're thinking about in your
decisions and your future and the environment that you're in,
(24:18):
you actually feel safe. And the problem is if Martin's
doing something that is worrying me, now, his behavior is
something I want to control. But Martin has the same
need to control his life as I do. So when
I start to push on Martin or suggests that Martin
should do this or should do that, what does Martin do?
(24:39):
Martin pushes back because he needs to be in control.
And I didn't realize that I was creating so much
unnecessary friction and frustration and distance with people in my life.
I didn't realize how much time and energy I was losing,
because you know, let's just take a simple example. You're
(25:00):
at the grocery store and there's five people in front
of you and there's one cash.
Speaker 12 (25:06):
You you've all been there, yes, And immediately the stress
rises up inside you, and then all of a sudden
you get agitated.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And then you start thinking why are they not calling
in it? And then you're looking around, and then you
start thinking you can run the store better than anyboe.
And now let's just stop and actually really look at
what this is. This is you giving power to something
that you do not control. And when you do that,
a number of things happen. Number one did you notice
(25:40):
is the stress goes up your life. First, energy goes out,
so you are allowing stupid, meaningless all kinds of irritating
people that are beneath you and not worth your time
and energy. You are allowing it to exhaust you and
you don't have to. And the solution is just to
(26:02):
say let them, and immediately you feel peace because what
you're doing is you're tapping into a tremendous like I
feel like I've got everybody's ancestors with me. Because this
is an application of stoicism, of Buddhism, of radical acceptance,
of detachment, theory of literally not reacting and staying in
(26:25):
your peace, and then something interesting happens. You say the
second part, which is let me, let me remind myself
that in any situation, I have power because there are
three things I can control. I can control what I
think about. Next, I can control what I do or
I don't do, because you can leave the supermarket if
(26:48):
you never have time to talk to your friend, you
could pick up the phone and call your friend or
your grandma. You could practice meditation, you could say a prayer.
If you say, let me and remind me yourself that
you have power, right, and so that's what it is.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
And also you said you know all of these different ancestors.
Also this also is you're bringing in the ancestor of
Martin Luther King Junior and the whole civil rights movement. Yes,
because I think what people also forget is that, you know,
they just see kind of one one step of you know,
(27:25):
civil disobedience is just one step in the process. But before,
when you're talking about the lunch counters, you're talking about
the freedom writers, Yes they were they trained. Yes, you know,
they didn't just go and you know and so and
Alelan reackt, Yes, and it was a lot of what
exactly that you're talking about, and let them like this
(27:47):
is like they're going to do this. Yes, I you know,
I choose, I choose how then I will respond to that.
And what I also think is important is like, you
have to it is trained. Yes, it is true. It
is you know, you have to think about it and
you have to.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yes, it is disciplined. And here's the other thing. It
is because a lot of people hear this and then
they'll say, wait, you're just allowing people to walk all
over you. You're allowing people to abuse you. And I'm like, oh, no,
it's the opposite, because you're actually allowing it. Now when
you say let them, it's almost like you're allowing it
without allowing it. Because you're saying, I see the reality here,
(28:27):
and I see that I can't control this, and so
I choose my response because I know I do have power,
and oftentimes the best response is no response. The best
response is peace. And we give too much energy and
too much fear into things we can't control, and in
doing so, we blind ourselves to the fact that you
(28:49):
always have control. And you know, whether you're talking about
a family dynamic, or you're talking about a community, or
you're talking about a world at large, I see. I
find it just so sad and fascinating that we always
let the most challenging and toxic behavior seem to get
all the power. But I actually think the opposite is true.
(29:11):
I believe that the person that is peaceful, I believe
that the person that understands their power. I believe the
person who actually constantly reminds themselves, wait a minute, I
have power here because I have power over my thoughts,
I have power over my actions. I have power over
how I allow my emotions to rise and fall. And
(29:32):
it's inside that power that any single person can change
something for the better. And that's what because you're responding
and not reacting, yes and responding is when you come
from a place of power. Yes, and it's also how
you take personal responsibility. Yeah, let's talk about responsibility because
(29:55):
the word responsibility is just the ability to respond and
everybody has that. And so when you really remind yourself
of that, now you can be the person that changes everything.
Because it just takes one person to change the energy
and dynamic and a family. It takes one person who
(30:17):
cares enough to change the politics in a country. It
takes one person to just shift everything. And if you
don't like where you're at, or you don't like where
your family's at, or you don't like something in a relationship,
or you don't like something in the world at large,
that one person is you. And as long as you
give your time and energy, and you give other people power,
(30:40):
their opinions, all of it, none of what you can control.
You are not present to the power you actually have
and the time and the energy that you need to
create the change that you capable of changing.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
We're taking a short break over the holidays, but we're
not leaving you empty handed. Every Tuesday, we're sharing some
of the best moments from twenty twenty five to help
set you up for a great new Year. We'll be
back with all new episodes on January thirteenth. Make sure
you subscribe so you don't miss a single one.
I didn't learn as so as fifty four years old.
If I had known this way back when, I would
literally not have been a walking red flag for most
of my life. I would not have taken my stress
out on my family. I would have been more peaceful
and more powerful because I had no idea how much
power I'd given to other people.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What does it take to stop feeling isolated and start
building real connection in your life? Just in time for
the holidays. In this best of episode of My Legacy,
hosts Martin Luther King the Third, Andrea Waters, King, Mark Kilberger,
and Craig Kilberger explore the power of connection, how to
create it, how to nurture it, and how to build
a life rooted in meaningful relationships. We'll hear from Jay
(00:47):
Shetty on creating connection in the chaos of everyday life.
Doctor VIVEC. Murphy on how shared joy is the easiest
way to create true connection. Mel Robbins on her viral
let them theory Welter, stop reacting, start healing and reclaim
her power. But first up, Simon Sinek on how we're
getting friendship all wrong.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
What do you see as the main obstacle to people
finding true connection.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I think there's many things that get in the way
of us forming true connection. One is I think we
take friends for granted. You know, everybody knows you have
to work hard in marriage, like marriage takes work. Everybody
knows that. And when marriages have trouble, you get help.
(01:34):
You you go for therapy, you go for couple's therapy.
But nobody goes for friends therapy when your friendships are
in trouble. I love that. You know, nobody thinks that
friendships take work. We sort of take them for granted.
Like if you guys have a massive fight, you don't
default to divorce. We're in friendships. You have a massive fight,
and people like I don't think I can do this
(01:55):
friendship anymore. We're sort of much more disposable about friendships
for some reason. I don't know why. Maybe there's no contract.
Maybe that's the reason. And if you ask the best couples,
like the couples that we look at and admire and
be like, I want a marriage like theirs, And if
you ask them what's your secret, they all say the
same thing, it's hard work. Can we do the work?
And I don't know anybody in friendship who says friendship
is hard work, and we do the work, and so
(02:16):
I think one of the reasons we have so much
disconnection in the world is we actually are not very
good at the skill of being a friend. You know,
would you cancel in a friend for a meeting. Would
you cancel in a meeting for a friend, Oh, but
my friends would understand. You don't think the people in
the meeting would understand. And that's the problem. I think
we deprioritize friends almost always, quote unquote because they'll understand. Yes,
(02:40):
we can blame social media, it absolutely is a contributing factor.
Yes we can blame post lockdown world, you know, it's
absolutely a factor. But I think deeper than all of
those things is we lack the skills to be a friend.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
It's interesting because I reflect on this time and this
is the beautiful part, but being able to have a
conversation with someone who we spent so much time with.
And there was one of these moving moments when we
were talking as a group and you talked about friends
that politically you very much disagreed with the story I'm
sharing here. Yeah, yeah, And you had a choice there
because you could have acted not exactly out of respect
and kind of called her out. I think it was her.
(03:15):
It was in that moment and you saw how to
build bridges and stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Yeah, a friend of mine, she and I see the
world very differently. She's a conspiracy theorist and I view
the world differently. And she came to visit me in
New York and we were going for a long walk
and she said something that I disagreed with politically or worldviewee,
and I thought, definitely thought and I think, I said,
(03:40):
how can you be so stupid? And she stops in
her tracks and says, you just called your friend stupid.
And I realized how judgmental it was to just because
I disagree with someone's worldview that I think they're dumb,
because on both sides of the political al, both sides
think the other are the sheeple, you know. And so
we were both confronted with the situation of somebody, a
(04:03):
friend who we both care about and love, which is
each other.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Now what?
Speaker 4 (04:08):
And we could have abandoned the friendship. We could have
just said this is not going to work. I don't
see the world the way you see it. But we
chose instead to figure out how to talk and how
to communicate and we didn't do what you know is
usually suggested for Thanksgiving dinners, which is, you know, just
don't bring it up. You know, we brought it all up,
and we learned how to listen to each other without judgment,
(04:31):
but with curiosity. We learned how to allow the other
person to say what they needed to say to the
point where you could find something that you did agree
with or that was based in truth, and at the
moment of affirmation we could build upon that. We're actually
very open to each other's points of view. And to
this day, I just talked to her last week. I
absolutely adore and love her and she feels the same
about me. And we talk about this all the time.
(04:52):
We talk about that we're different. We talk about that
our friendship as a model for how the world could work,
and we talk about how we don't agree on on
everything and we see the world differently, but at the
end of the day, we share the same values. At
the end of the day, we offer each other a
safe space to be our true selves. At the end
of the day, we found ways to communicate and put
(05:13):
our judgments aside and embrace curiosity. And because of that friendship,
I am a better human being. And I think people
who avoid tension simply because it's difficult, I don't think
they're taking the opportunity to grow as a person. That
doesn't mean that that person has to be your friend.
I'm not suggesting that at all, But I am suggesting
that the challenge to sit in discomfort with someone, where
(05:37):
you feel triggered, or you want to be defensive, or
you want to fight back, or you want to be
right and you want to prove them wrong, are not
the instincts for any kind of friendship or relationship. And remember,
even beyond the friendships that we have, that is how
you find peace. You cannot make peace with your friends.
You can only make peace with your enemies. And so
if you can't learn to listen to someone who you
(05:58):
consider an enemy or on the polar oppisode of how
You see the World, then peace is non existent. And
when I talk about world peace, I don't I'm not
so foolhardy to believe that we can live in a
world without conflict. That's nonsense, that doesn't exist. When I
talk about world peace, I imagine a world in which we
can resolve all conflict peacefully. You're going to have conflict
(06:19):
but can you resolve that conflict peacefully and change starts
at home, Like, we can't criticize our politicians and our
governments for their inability to find peace across an aisle
if we're incapable of having a conversation with somebody we
disagree with.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
Because I think for like listeners and watchers or those
who are following this, they like, everyone's got their friend
who politically they have the different views of, or maybe
on faith, politics, whatever it happens to be, that often
pulls us apart. But you found a little bit of
the roadmap how to build.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
So the mistake that we make when we talk to
someone with whom we see the world in a diametrically
opposed way is we interrupt, We attempt to correct facts,
We are sometimes triggered by what they say, We get defensive,
and we tend to make the argument for our case
(07:10):
before they've even finished making the argument for theirs. And
so one of the challenges and it is a skill,
It's just a learnable, practicable skill, you know, That's all
it is is to allow someone to feel heard. Right,
to allow someone to feel heard doesn't mean you have
(07:31):
to agree with them, doesn't mean you have to see
the world the way they see it. Your only job
is to listen to their story. The story doesn't have
to be true. It's their story, and your job is
to listen to their story. And if it triggers you,
you put that aside and you wait. You'll have your turn.
Don't worry, and remember there's a big difference between listening
(07:53):
and waiting for your turn to speak. Listening is listening
for meaning. Listening is listening to the point where they
feel heard, not that you think you heard the words.
And this is what my friend and I figured out
how to do, which is one of us went first
and said, tell me what you think, and the other
one started talking, and all the other did was tell
(08:15):
me more go on. That's interesting, I don't understand. Can
you say it differently and just allow them to get
it all out? And invariably we will always find something
we agree on always And what at that point one
of us can say that's true or I completely agree.
(08:36):
The other person is now seen, the other person feels
heard in that moment. The other person now becomes open
to your point of view, even if your point of
view is different, simply because you showed them the respect
to feel heard.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
Like follow and subscribe to my Legacy podcast, and most
importantly share this with someone who needs a reminder of
their strength today.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
What would you offer to people that are that are
feeling that that fear, that that disconnection, that the overwhelm,
the the stress.
Speaker 7 (09:16):
You know. The first thing that came to mind for
me is whenever I feel like things are out of
my control, or I feel like overwhelmed at what's happening
around me, or even in our own life, there's this
every time I feel like it's just me, the problem
feels really difficult to handle. But as soon as I
think the problem is me plus God, or me plus
(09:39):
the universe or something that has a much higher power
than I do, it starts to feel a little bit
more manageable. And so I find that prayer for me
has always been such a beautiful place to come to
when all other hope feels lost. I think I get
a lot lot of solace in prayer. And I think
(09:59):
that but also connects to the idea that if we
can feel way more disconnected when we don't feel connected
to ourself, and so whether it's practices and rituals to
actually connect deeper to ourself that allows us to connect
deeper to other people and have meaningful connections with others
that help us through those times. I think reconnecting every
(10:22):
single day in some way to who you are and
having those moments are really important to be able to
connect to someone else, to be able to feel understood
or valued by other people. And yeah, I think for me,
the main one always ends up being prayer because I'm like,
at this point, I can't control anything, so I'm leaving
it up to you, But yeah, I would love to
(10:44):
hear some of yours.
Speaker 8 (10:46):
There's something called the third space theory, and it's this
idea that just around twenty five fifty years ago, we
had three spaces we lived in, We had home, we
had work, and then we had church or temple, synagogue, mosque.
And what happened is that those three spaces shrunk to
(11:08):
two spaces. We went from work to home and home
to work. And now we all know that those two
places have shrunk into one place. We work from home
and we live at home. And what's happened is not
that we've just lost three spaces, but we've lost what
that third space provided us. So what happened at church
(11:29):
or the community center or a place of gathering, was
you had a space to look back on work and
home and state and everything else and reflect on how
could I be better? What could I do differently? Let's
figure out together what the solution is. What can we
all band to do together. So the biggest challenge today
(11:50):
is that we're all feeling the same feeling, but we're
feeling it on our own. We're lonely feeling the same thing.
And then a big difference between being lonely feeling something
and feeling belonging in feeling something. And so what I
would encourage everyone to do is go and find your
third space. Go and find your space of belonging. Go
(12:13):
and find your space of connection. Go and find that
space where you're with people of equal value, where you
can share your heart, when you can hear other people's,
when you can open up your mind, where you can
carry someone else's burden. I think we've just lost that
as a society, and I think these moments are great
reminders that we are stronger when we are working together,
(12:35):
we are better when we're working together, and ultimately, when
we're united and carrying each other's weight the weight doesn't
feel as large, And I think that's the biggest challenge today,
is that we're all carrying the weight on our own
and so finding that third space, creating that third space
if you don't have it. The third space doesn't have
to be two hundred people, two thousand people, twenty thousand people.
(12:57):
It can literally be four people in a room that
are reading scripture together, that are starting a book club,
that are listening to this podcast and sharing what they
learned from you and all your amazing guests that you've
had on It starts that small, and I really feel
that we have to create that third space, even because
right now our third space is all of us sitting
(13:19):
in front of the television, and the TV screen is
the third space. The phone screen is the third space,
and that third space isn't giving you what the original
third space gave you.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I know, Vivik that you've said that relationships out of
the foundation of health and fulfillment. In a world that
is now more divided than ever, how can we build
relationships out in the world. What can we do to
overcome so much of this division that we all are
feeling right now?
Speaker 9 (13:55):
Yeah, it's such a timely question, and I think there's
a lot that's telling us in the world right now
to find ourselves based on political differences or differences and
how we feel on policy issues. But the reality is
that obscures so much of what we do in fact
share in common. Like we have common concerns as parents,
as community members, as caregivers for aging parents, for people
(14:21):
who are contending with a lot of common challenges, but
a lot of that those common challenges get obscured. So
we found that one of the things that's important to
do now is one to be able to create spaces
where people can come together and talk about shared challenges.
Right and because we're our kids are school age and
we think about the parent community in our school. Alice
(14:41):
Is is the co president of our Parents Association in
school and really helps create these opportunities for parents in
the community to come together and talk about shared concerns.
And that's very powerful because a lot of parents just
feel like they're struggling alone. I think the other thing
that we can do is to create speriences of shared joy.
(15:01):
So there is so much it feels heavy in the
world right now, but when we can experience joy together,
whether that's coming together, as we have so often in
our school to see our kids all perform, you know,
for a holiday or just for an end of the
year's show, or whether it's coming together for music. We
(15:22):
recently had the pleasure of taking our kids and my
sister and brother in law to a music concert and
we all experienced that together. And it was one of
those things where were initially hesitant, it's late, it's going
to be far away, that the kids are going to
fall asleep, is it really worth it? But it was
so beautiful to be with thousands of other people just
(15:45):
uplifted and just invigorated and inspired by this powerful music
we were all hearing. That was an experience of joy
and upliftment, and we need more of those. But having
those experiences, Andrea, means that we have to actually come
out of our homes and be physically together. These experiences
are very different online versus when you're physically in the
(16:08):
presence of other people. And it's one of the reasons
why I think it's especially important for young people that
we model how to do that, that we create opportunities
to do that, because I think that we have maybe
in prior generations assumed that everybody just develops robust social
skills as they get older because pre sort of digital era,
(16:30):
you had to go and just talk to people, find
out how to, like, you know, make things work with
your roommate in college or if you went to college,
or figure out how to talk to somebody in middle
school in the lunch room. You know, the middle school
is hard for everybody, myself included. But these days, actually
there's an off ramp if you feel the stress of
isolation or social anxiety, and that off ramp is your phone. Right. So,
(16:52):
and this is what young people tell me all the
time when I traveled around the country and spoke to
high school students and college students, as they would say, yeah,
it's when things are stressful. We don't necessarily have to
interact with each other. So maybe there's a mixer or
an orientation, but if we get uncomfortable, we just pull
out our phones.
Speaker 8 (17:07):
Right.
Speaker 9 (17:08):
So, I think it's especially important for us to cultivate
these skills and these opportunities for in person interaction. I
want to just share one quote with you what I
actually just came across, which moved me very deeply. It
was written by a college student's about thirteen years ago
in twenty twelve, who had when she was just about
to graduate from college, and her essay that she wrote
(17:32):
was called the Opposite of Loneliness, And this is the
quote that really stuck with me. Her name is Marina Keegan,
and tragically she died five days after a graduation in
a car accident. She says, we don't have a word
for the opposite of loneliness. It's not quite love, it's
not quite community. It's just this feeling that there are people,
(17:56):
an abundance of people who are in this together, who
are on your team. When the check is paid and
you stay at the table when it's four am, and
no one goes to bed that night with the guitar.
That night, we can't remember that time. We did, we went,
we saw, we laughed, we felt. I think about that
(18:20):
quote all the time because what it reminds me of
is that this belonging that we all need, that's part
of our just basic human requirement to be alive and thrive.
That sense of belonging can come through these powerful shared experiences.
It can come from knowing that we're in it together,
(18:43):
that we're not alone. During the pandemic, in those early
days when everybody was staying at home, many of us
realized that it meant something to us to be in
a coffee shop with other people, even if we weren't
there with all of our best friends. It meant something
to be in a grocery store and to be passing
other people and seeing, oh, there's a fellow parent who's
(19:03):
shopping for her child, and I can relate to that.
All of these moments of connection, whether it's with a
best friend or with somebody in our schoocare kids school,
or somebody in a coffee shop, they contribute to our
sense of belonging. And this is what we need to
now intentionally build in our lives and in the world,
(19:24):
because it's a foundation on which bid build everything else,
from our health to our economy to our education. And
that's why I think it has to be such a
priority at this moment.
Speaker 10 (19:34):
I feel like so much of this is about these
like individual acts and like just like like small decision
points like do I reach out to this friend, do
I invite somebody over for dinner? I have nothing to
do this afternoon. Do I spend it with people or
do I spend it but with myself? And I feel
like we all just have to Like it's like a
(19:54):
million of these acts and it's all of us working
that muscle of I will have people over for dinner today,
I will go on a walk with a friend instead
of by myself. I mean, it's wonderful to have solitude,
but it's also it's choosing to make those make those
putting yourself out there a little bit and having the
discomfort of being with another person who has different thoughts
and how do you navigate that. We had this experience
(20:18):
we started this social committee in our in our condo building,
and there was a men that we were going to
do on the roof and it was raining, so we
just had everybody over to our house and everybody kind
of just hung out at our house for hours, and
as people were leaving, we had this strange experience where
people said thank you for being so brave and having
us all over, and it just felt like we're all
(20:39):
we've all been living in this building together for years.
We passed each other in the hallways like like I
hear your noise upstairs, Like how is it brave to
have people over? But I think we want to work
toward a world where that is no longer strange and
oh my goodness, wow, they did that, but something that's
just normal.
Speaker 11 (20:56):
We're building something real here, one episode at a time.
If you want to be part of it, subscribe, it's free,
it matters, and we're just getting started.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Now back to my legacymel.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Your new book that Let Them Theory. It encourages people
to just let control go over other people's choices.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Absolutely so. Let Them Theory is a simple mindset tool
that helps you identify literally in a moment, what's in
your control and what's not your control, and the way
that you use it is very simple. If you're in
a situation and some other person is stressing you out,
or upsetting you or offending you, or you're worried about them,
or they're treating you poorly, you literally say let them
(21:45):
because the number one thing in light that you will never, ever, ever,
ever be able to control is another human being. You
can't control what they think, you can't control what they do,
You cannot control how they feel, period And any psychologists
will tell you that anytime that you spend trying to
only makes you feel more stressed, out, frustrated, and out
of control. And the problem for all of us, and
(22:10):
I didn't learn as so as fifty four years old.
If I had known this way back when, I would
literally not have been a walking red flag for most
of my life. I would not have taken my stress
out of my family. I would have been more peaceful
and more powerful because I had no idea how much
power I'd given to other people, and neither nobody does
(22:33):
because we don't understand how we're turning other people into
the problem. And I've got very important and exciting information.
It says, if you feel tired in life, if you
are frustrated, if you're stuck, if you're stressed out, if
you feel like you never have time for yourself, if
you're just not as happy as you'd like to be,
(22:54):
the problem isn't you. The problem is you're unknowingly giving
power to other people. Do it in four ways. You
allow them to stress you out, yep, you worry about
and you manage what they're thinking. You navigate your life
based on their moods and their opinions and their disappointment
and their guilt and their expectations. And you paralyze yourself
(23:16):
because you're chronically comparing yourself to them and telling yourself
that if they're successful or they're this, then I can't
have it, and it's simply not true. And what they
let them. Theory does is that any situation that you're
in and you know you're going to use it with
your family more than anybody, because I think family teaches
you how to love people you hate sometimes, right, you
(23:36):
gotta let them because you're not going to change them.
And what you will learn as you start to use
this is people only change when they feel like changing.
People only change when they're ready to change. People only
change when they're ready to do the hard work to change.
And the other piece that you have to embrace is
(23:58):
that we think worrying about or pressuring or judging or
pushing people to change motivates people to change. It's actually
the opposite. If you look at the wiring of a
human being, everybody has a fundamental need for control. When
you're in control of what you're thinking about in your
decisions and your future and the environment that you're in,
(24:18):
you actually feel safe. And the problem is if Martin's
doing something that is worrying me, now, his behavior is
something I want to control. But Martin has the same
need to control his life as I do. So when
I start to push on Martin or suggests that Martin
should do this or should do that, what does Martin do?
(24:39):
Martin pushes back because he needs to be in control.
And I didn't realize that I was creating so much
unnecessary friction and frustration and distance with people in my life.
I didn't realize how much time and energy I was losing,
because you know, let's just take a simple example. You're
(25:00):
at the grocery store and there's five people in front
of you and there's one cash.
Speaker 12 (25:06):
You you've all been there, yes, And immediately the stress
rises up inside you, and then all of a sudden
you get agitated.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And then you start thinking why are they not calling
in it? And then you're looking around, and then you
start thinking you can run the store better than anyboe.
And now let's just stop and actually really look at
what this is. This is you giving power to something
that you do not control. And when you do that,
a number of things happen. Number one did you notice
(25:40):
is the stress goes up your life. First, energy goes out,
so you are allowing stupid, meaningless all kinds of irritating
people that are beneath you and not worth your time
and energy. You are allowing it to exhaust you and
you don't have to. And the solution is just to
(26:02):
say let them, and immediately you feel peace because what
you're doing is you're tapping into a tremendous like I
feel like I've got everybody's ancestors with me. Because this
is an application of stoicism, of Buddhism, of radical acceptance,
of detachment, theory of literally not reacting and staying in
(26:25):
your peace, and then something interesting happens. You say the
second part, which is let me, let me remind myself
that in any situation, I have power because there are
three things I can control. I can control what I
think about. Next, I can control what I do or
I don't do, because you can leave the supermarket if
(26:48):
you never have time to talk to your friend, you
could pick up the phone and call your friend or
your grandma. You could practice meditation, you could say a prayer.
If you say, let me and remind me yourself that
you have power, right, and so that's what it is.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
And also you said you know all of these different ancestors.
Also this also is you're bringing in the ancestor of
Martin Luther King Junior and the whole civil rights movement. Yes,
because I think what people also forget is that, you know,
they just see kind of one one step of you know,
(27:25):
civil disobedience is just one step in the process. But before,
when you're talking about the lunch counters, you're talking about
the freedom writers, Yes they were they trained. Yes, you know,
they didn't just go and you know and so and
Alelan reackt, Yes, and it was a lot of what
exactly that you're talking about, and let them like this
(27:47):
is like they're going to do this. Yes, I you know,
I choose, I choose how then I will respond to that.
And what I also think is important is like, you
have to it is trained. Yes, it is true. It
is you know, you have to think about it and
you have to.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yes, it is disciplined. And here's the other thing. It
is because a lot of people hear this and then
they'll say, wait, you're just allowing people to walk all
over you. You're allowing people to abuse you. And I'm like, oh, no,
it's the opposite, because you're actually allowing it. Now when
you say let them, it's almost like you're allowing it
without allowing it. Because you're saying, I see the reality here,
(28:27):
and I see that I can't control this, and so
I choose my response because I know I do have power,
and oftentimes the best response is no response. The best
response is peace. And we give too much energy and
too much fear into things we can't control, and in
doing so, we blind ourselves to the fact that you
(28:49):
always have control. And you know, whether you're talking about
a family dynamic, or you're talking about a community, or
you're talking about a world at large, I see. I
find it just so sad and fascinating that we always
let the most challenging and toxic behavior seem to get
all the power. But I actually think the opposite is true.
(29:11):
I believe that the person that is peaceful, I believe
that the person that understands their power. I believe the
person who actually constantly reminds themselves, wait a minute, I
have power here because I have power over my thoughts,
I have power over my actions. I have power over
how I allow my emotions to rise and fall. And
(29:32):
it's inside that power that any single person can change
something for the better. And that's what because you're responding
and not reacting, yes and responding is when you come
from a place of power. Yes, and it's also how
you take personal responsibility. Yeah, let's talk about responsibility because
(29:55):
the word responsibility is just the ability to respond and
everybody has that. And so when you really remind yourself
of that, now you can be the person that changes everything.
Because it just takes one person to change the energy
and dynamic and a family. It takes one person who
(30:17):
cares enough to change the politics in a country. It
takes one person to just shift everything. And if you
don't like where you're at, or you don't like where
your family's at, or you don't like something in a relationship,
or you don't like something in the world at large,
that one person is you. And as long as you
give your time and energy, and you give other people power,
(30:40):
their opinions, all of it, none of what you can control.
You are not present to the power you actually have
and the time and the energy that you need to
create the change that you capable of changing.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
We're taking a short break over the holidays, but we're
not leaving you empty handed. Every Tuesday, we're sharing some
of the best moments from twenty twenty five to help
set you up for a great new Year. We'll be
back with all new episodes on January thirteenth. Make sure
you subscribe so you don't miss a single one.
Hosts And Creators
Craig Kielburger
Marc Kielburger
Martin Luther King III
Arndrea Waters King
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