November 15, 2023 • 51 mins
How do you find hope and personal empowerment in the face of war and political unrest?
According to Lea Endres, the CEO of NationBuilder, democracy is the least violent form of government currently known to humans. It's a system. It's also an idea. And it lives in our imaginations.
Research shows that when citizens are actively engaged in showing up for their community, it can actually turn the tide in countries that have slid into authoritarianism. Human beings will not endorse or advocate for violence against another group until they have dehumanized that group. Dehumanization is a prerequisite for violence.
Lea reminds us that we each have personal power and agency. When institutions fail, it's actually civil society that can bring us back into a healthy balance.
For our second live podcast series, we reimagine democracy as an everyday practice of listening, speaking, and asking questions in a new way to humanize one another and build our muscle of empathy.
Tune into this raw, inquisitive conversation with our live audience, the Gratitude Blooming team, Jim Herr from the Democracy Center, and Lea Endres from NationBuilder.
Enjoy the captivating intro and closing beats of the Taiko drummers from On Ensemble to notice more fully with your heart.
Share your perspective as you experience this practice with us at hello@gratitudeblooming.com!
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Create an intentional practice with your own Gratitude Blooming card deck, notecards, candle and much much more at our shop at www.gratitudeblooming.com.
Learn more about our co-hosts and special guest for Season 4:
Co-host Belinda Liu | Hestia Retreat Centers
Co-host Omar Brownson | Trickster's Guide to Immortality on Substack
Special Guest Dr. Paul Wang | The Dao Center
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave us a 5-star rating and review. Your feedback is valuable to us and helps us grow.
Share your thoughts and comments by emailing us at hello@gratitudeblooming.com. We love hearing from our listeners!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello Blinda.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi Omar, it's wonderful to have Arlene here in
studio as we replay our eventthat just happened.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
This is our Empathy and Democracy series.
This is the second one up afour-part series in
collaboration with the JapaneseAmerican National Museum and the
Democracy Center.
It was incredible to have ourspecial guest, leah Andres,
along with the Taiko drummersand, you know, some of her team
(00:47):
from Nation Builder and all thepeople who showed up and really
get to explore the pop-up artinstallation, the conversation
and the practice of really howto speak.
You know, listen and ask rightand like.
How do we speak from the eye,how do we listen for resonance
(01:11):
and ask those open-endedquestions that are not leading,
that really allow sort of newkind of reflections to emerge?
And so we hope folks enjoy thissecond live recording of our
Empathy and Democracy series.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And we hope to see some of you back in February for
our third event in LA hey.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Cheers.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Enjoy, hi.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
My name is Jim Hur.
I'm the director of theNational Center for the
Preservation of Democracy hereat the Japanese American
National Museum and it's mypleasure to welcome you to our
second edition of the Empathyand Democracy podcast with our
friends from Gratitude Blooming.
Give them a nice round ofapplause.
I've gotten to become veryclose to this team, although
(02:06):
I've known Omar for probablywhat do we think like 15, 20
years now, and he's gotten meinto a lot of predicaments over
the years.
So I wanted to return the favorin a way.
One of those predicaments washe asked me to be on the podcast
almost a year.
Well, he asked me about a yearago and we did it, I think in
(02:28):
January or February.
And so I went back and I wasre-listening to some of the
podcasts and listening to someof the newer ones, and that's
when I started to get this ideain my head of like there's
something here with likegratitude and democracy in our
civil society and through, ifyou listen to the podcast, you
(02:48):
know or maybe they don't knowpulling back the curtain a
little bit.
In other podcasts I've done,I've been they do a
pre-interview.
With this there's none.
You just kind of jump into it.
You pull a card and theuniverse delivers what it's
supposed to deliver for you thatday, and so we get into this
conversation and then everythingjust started like kind of
(03:10):
clicking, like empathy and theneed for empathy, especially in
our society.
We here at the Democracy Centerhave been in the process of
relaunching and so we've beentrying to think about what it is
that we want to do, how we wantto engage audiences, how we
want to engage people, and wekind of look to many different
things centered around the arts,centered around the Japanese
(03:33):
American experience which theJapanese American National
Museum collects in terms ofstory and history and people,
and we contemporize that forother audiences and we look for
solutions to what's going on inthe world today.
It's not just simply talkingabout things endlessly, but
where can we find solutions?
(03:54):
And we want to find for us.
We want to find them in unusualplaces, and this is certainly
not a conversation that peopleare used to having around
democracy, especially in theworld today, especially when we
seem so fractured.
But I think that's exactly whywe need to have these
conversations, the DemocracyCenter.
For me personally, the work isvery important because, growing
(04:15):
up as a mixed race kid in a timeand a place where my parents
couldn't get married in myfather's hometown and I sat at a
segregated lunch table and Iwas made to feel what other
people could have.
I couldn't have A career ingovernment.
A career in politics was justsomething that I was discouraged
(04:38):
from because I wasn't white orI wasn't white enough, and so I
don't want any kid anywhere toever think that they don't have
that possibility in their livesNot any person and that we
should all understand that, nomatter what we look like or
where we come from, who weworship, who we love, what our
(04:59):
economic status is or what ourimmigration status is, in this
society, in this country, we allhave rights and
responsibilities to make surethat democracy endures, and
that's what we want to do atthis center, and we thank you
for joining us on this journeytonight.
It's a very special one becausewe have a band behind me.
I feel like I'm like JimmyKimmel or something.
(05:23):
I got this band and noweverybody's going to expect that
there's going to be a bandbehind us every time we do this.
But we're really excitedbecause on ensemble and yet I
have difficulties saying thatbecause every time I start to
say it, my philly accent comesout, so I want to say one.
So the on ensemble, the onensemble is celebrating 22 years
of just amazing artistry andperformance.
(05:46):
So we're just going to take amoment to relax, to arrive in
this space and enjoy thiswonderful performance by on
ensemble.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
My name is Arlene and I am an artist at Gratitude
Blooming, along with Belinda andOmar.
I wanted to create a bridgebetween this beautiful
performance and the art outsideand then the talk that we're
going to see today.
(09:09):
We have art that covers thesethemes that we like to think of
as the virtues and values ofwhat it takes to be human.
We have a collection of cardsthat there's 39 different themes
in this set of cards.
(09:30):
We're trying to imagine how canwe blend that art with the work
that is happening here at theDemocracy Center, and what
arrived was reimagining votingbooths as reflection booths that
give you an opportunity toreally practice these themes.
(09:50):
So what you're going to see outin the reflection booths are a
sampling of the themes, andthey're also on the stickers
that we have, and we createdthese as almost like badges
about how are you going to showup for democracy, how are you
going to show up in your life,and so we hope that you'll
(10:14):
choose one and wear it and haveconversations with each other
about them.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Arlene has just shared the intention of this
beautiful art experience thatyou all entered into and we felt
this music, this energy of thedrums, helping to clear the
space in our hearts to beavailable for the discovery that
can come from discomfort.
(10:43):
So just take a moment to justbreathe into that, just being
present in our bodies in thismoment, just clearing space for
discovery, what can come frombeing with the unexpected of the
(11:03):
moment.
I know we didn't expect thislive podcast to emerge from
Arlene's 100 Days ofillustrating these plants, but
they then became 39 themes inthis physical card deck.
That now became a podcast andI'm going to invite our dear
(11:25):
friend Omar here to come andconnect with Leah.
So the two of them are going tohave a conversation about
democracy and what is thatpractice, and I would love for
the two of you to share.
What value from the garland offearless gratitude did you pick
(11:47):
as a beginning of thisconversation?
I picked trust, which I justfelt like I really needed.
Walking in here and it leaptoff the page and, I have to say,
embracing the unexpected, that,the drumming I'm still like
(12:10):
what just happened to me thesecond it started, I felt like
it hit my heart in this veryintense way and I was like, oh,
I might start crying, which isan interesting way to start this
experience.
So I'm just naming that interms of trust.
I'm rolling with it becauseit's still very present for me.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Well, I picked mystery and it was not
coordinated with Belinda.
And I think I've been doing aseries right now with this guy
named Bayo Okomalafé and it'scalled Dancing with Mountains,
and he invites us in this momentto sit with the cracks.
(12:53):
Oftentimes we want to jump toconclusions, we want to find
solutions, and his invitation isjust sit with the cracks and be
present.
And so to me, the cracks arethe unknown, and not rushed to
fill them up, because sometimes,when we fill things up, we
(13:15):
don't actually leave room forsomething new to emerge.
And I think, in some ways, whyare we having these
conversations?
Is that we want new things toemerge.
We've done the old ways manytimes now, and I think Jim, in
inviting us to be a part of thisconversation, he's inviting us
(13:37):
to participate in a particularway.
He's inviting us to participatenot just in a conversation, but
through art in particular, andI think that's really the bridge
for this conversation aroundempathy and democracy is how can
art express what we don't quiteyet know?
Part of what I love aboutpoetry is there's lots of gaps
(14:01):
in it, there's lots of cracks,and it leaves room for us to
find our own interpretation andto find our own ways forward.
And so I'll accept Arlene'sinvitation to read the poem and
really I think it was Arlene, aswe were talking about the
pop-up art installation and Iwas sharing some ideas, she's
(14:23):
like oh, my sounds like you havea lot of ideas.
Why and Leah knows this as wellwhy don't you take some time to
think about it?
And so, instead of using mynormal sort of like very
analytical part of my brain, mysort of strategy side, I was
like, let me write a poem andsort of see what wants to emerge
(14:47):
.
So the poem is called the Plantis Present and I'll read it
twice.
Here we are, lost in the wild ofclimate and inequality, trying
to reconnect to our humanity.
Maybe in the flower petal wecan see our hearts.
(15:10):
Maybe in the pollen we cansmell our soul attracting.
The plant is present here,watching, listening, growing,
breathing still.
Imagine flowers in votingbooths growing out of composted
(15:31):
constitutions, checking the boxto our humanity.
Just one more time.
Here we are, lost in the wildof climate and inequality,
trying to reconnect to ourhumanity.
Maybe in the flower petal wecan see our hearts.
(15:53):
Maybe in the pollen we cansmell our soul attracting.
The plant is present here,watching, listening, growing,
breathing.
Still Imagine flowers andvoting booths growing out of
(16:13):
composted constitutions,checking the box to our humanity
.
And so it was beautiful aboutwriting this poem.
I was like, oh, I can put aflower in a voting booth.
That's something within mypower, my control.
And so I reached out to thecounty voting registrar office
(16:35):
and I was like hey, I'm anartist and I'm doing this
collaboration with the JapaneseAmerican National Museum around
empathy and democracy.
Could I borrow a couple ofvoting booths?
And they were like sure.
I was like, oh, I'm going tocall myself an artist way more
often now.
And then it was just beautifulinvitation from Arlene to
(16:59):
literally express myself, notjust through the words but
through this art installation,and invite the plan to be
present so that we could pauseand greet this plan and have the
plant, in many ways, greet us.
And so when we had our secondsort of series and we were
(17:20):
thinking about who we wanted toinvite, immediately I was like,
I know who we need to invite andLeah Endress, who is a dear
friend, a longtime activist and,in the last several years, a
co-founder and CEO of a softwaretechnology firm focused on
(17:41):
democracy and leadership.
And so when Arlene extended theinvitation for me to express
myself as an artist, I was like,well, that's an invitation that
we can share with Leah, whichis can you be an artist tonight?
And what is the art ofpracticing democracy?
(18:02):
And really, because this issomething that we often forget,
democracy is something that wehave to create each and every
day.
It's not something that'sactually inherited and set down
in tablet and stone.
It's something that we actuallyhave to live and embody, and so
(18:23):
the question then becomes likehow do we do that, how do we
live and embody the practice ofdemocracy?
And so, to answer the question,I'm going to pull a card this
is real time, folks I'm going toflip them upside down and I'll
let you pick.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
This is wildflower and it says trust.
Trust that all shall be well.
Can you allow space forresolutions to emerge, even in
difficult situations?
Trust that all shall be well.
Can you allow space forresolutions to emerge, even in
(19:06):
difficult situations?
Yeah that's my truth and it'sreally muscular and challenging
to do that.
It's not easy to trust.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I would love for you to also define what is democracy
from your perspective.
And you run a technologycompany that's not just here in
the US, it's worldwide.
Presidential campaigns havebeen led on it around the world,
and so it really technology isthis new and very growing tool,
(19:44):
but it's a tool.
And I think the way I talkabout technology sometimes it's
how I imagine early humans werewith fire, Like, oh, fire, very
cool.
And then they burn down aforest and like, oh, I just need
a small fire to cook a meal.
We're like, oh, technology cool.
And then we burn down democracyand we're like, actually no, we
just need a little bit oftechnology or something for us
(20:06):
to solve our problems.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
I had this opportunity to collaborate with
Jim Gilliam, who's our founder,my co-founder.
He's been a brillianttechnologist and he was an
engineer and really gifted, andso we joined forces to build a
company and an organization.
And for me it was really aboutanswering the question like, how
(20:29):
do you scale equipping people?
Because for me, I was sort ofused to traveling and being in
different spaces and trying toequip, in whatever way I could
be helpful, folks on the ground,wherever they might be, and
this idea of marryingeducational infrastructure and
(20:50):
practice alongside technologicalinfrastructure was really
compelling to me.
And so that's what we've beendoing for the last 12 plus years
.
Somehow, and I think, becausethe premise of Nation Builder is
infrastructure that helpsleaders around the world build
community and organize andreally lead.
(21:10):
It's inextricably linked withdemocratic practice, that's,
we're building infrastructurefor democracy.
And so it's very ingrained inthe work, this idea that moving
people to action, formingcommunity and leading those
communities so that they can dosomething, they can create
change.
And so for me, when I thinkabout the definition, to try to
(21:32):
circle all the way back to whereyou were, yes, it's, first of
all, the least violent form ofgovernment currently known to
humans as an architecture, it'sa system, it's institutions.
It's also an idea.
It lives in our imaginations.
It has to.
But, to your point, when wefirst started talking and we
(21:53):
were in the conversation arounddemocracy and empathy for me I
was like we have to.
I want to be in spaces wherewe're talking about the practice
, not as just being, and I thinkwe should transform voting
booths everything that you justsaid about what's possible there
and how that shifts ourimagination and we have to help
reimagine the daily life of ademocratic practitioner, because
(22:17):
it is not just running foroffice or voting in, you know,
once every few years, it isevery single day when we're
encountering our, you know,fellow human beings out in the
world.
It's the choices that we makeabout how to engage with them in
a pluralistic, democraticsociety.
(22:39):
And I think one thing I'll saybriefly is that you know it can
seem far away like this, if youwant to frame it as a fight
between democracies andauthoritarianism.
It can seem far away, but thedata is really clear about what
happens.
When citizens practice like,when we're engaged and
(23:02):
participating and doing ourthing and building communities
and showing up, it can actuallyturn the tide in countries that
have slid into authoritarianism.
That's the thing that helpsthem come back and be considered
democracies.
When institutions fail, it'sactually civil society that can
pull countries back from havingslid into authoritarianism.
(23:24):
It's that's extraordinary.
We have so much power.
We have so much power.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I'm curious about, because when things fail right,
you're talking about what'sslipping into sort of
authoritarianism or what haveyou.
Oftentimes it's power right andfear right.
And I think part of what I'vecome to appreciate about the
(23:50):
practice of gratitude is, when Ifirst started with gratitude it
was like pause, noticesomething good.
And that really just on my ownpersonal, as a founder and
entrepreneur as well like youhave a go, go, go sort of
mindset, and just pausing andnoticing good was like oh, I can
actually be a little bit morepatient, I can be a little bit
(24:12):
more kind.
And as my practice of gratitudehas deepened, my definition of
gratitude has evolved.
So at first it was like pause,make good visible.
And then it was like, oh, okay,I'm actually making a lot of
things invisible, right, becausewhat we make invisible we take
(24:34):
for granted.
And so then my practice waslike, oh, fearless gratitude and
this is why we have thefearless gratitude garden here
is really the practice ofbecoming aware of what am I
making visible and what am Imaking invisible, and not
judging it as good or bad, it'sjust.
This is maybe where a little bitof my fear is hiding, and how
do I sort of bring that in theshadow into the light and my
(25:00):
definition of gratitude andevolve, because this isn't just
really about the practice ofmaking good visible.
This is really about thepractice of noticing with my
heart.
How do we do that?
How do we notice with ourhearts when we see what's
happening around the world rightnow?
There is violence, there issort of this desire to react
(25:23):
with violence right when we talk.
This morning you said somethingabout I just feel afraid.
So how do we pause just tonotice our emotions?
And what is that sort ofexperience like for you?
Speaker 3 (25:37):
So you mentioned, obviously, the violence is
happening right now, and that'sI mean, I think that's part of
what happened for me with thedrumming is just wanting to cry,
which has been really presentfor two weeks.
So the thing that I think is soimportant for us to hold
(26:01):
collectively is that humanbeings will not endorse or
advocate for violence againstanother group until they have
dehumanized that group.
Dehumanization is aprerequisite for violence,
because if we're gonna be inspaces, many of which are
(26:22):
fraught and really difficult tonavigate, one of the most
important things we can do is inorder to hopefully honor
someone else's humanity as honorour own.
And so that pause that you'retalking about, that muscle to be
able to say what am whoa, whatjust happened for me, what am I
experiencing right now?
(26:42):
I think that that first, it'shard to listen, it's hard to ask
good questions, it's hard toeven speak authentically if
we're first not present withwhat's going on for us.
Omar, I have known you for awhile and we met in the context
of doing work together and I, ifI were to have guessed which of
(27:07):
my friends and colleagues inthe movement, so to speak, was
going to at some point help toco-create a beautiful company,
community organization artproject about gratitude.
It would not have been you, myfriend.
I think the reason being rightis that you were really focused
(27:30):
on what I would consider theheadspace that you were deeply
gifted at strategy, veryincisive.
There was sometimes an edge tothat incisiveness that was both
clarifying and like sharp.
And this journey you've been onI would love to hear how you
came to the place where yourecognized and are experiencing
(27:55):
the clarity around practice inthe way that you're practicing,
not just with gratitude, but Iwould say like your own self
discovery and journey.
How did you come to that?
Because I think when in theheat of building and doing and
creating and everything that youwere doing when running
(28:17):
organizations, how did thathappen?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
When you hit your head against the wall enough
times, you realize like hmm,this wall's not moving.
And I wasn't.
I was accomplishing things inthe external world that we're
supposed to the right schools,the right jobs, the right titles
but I wasn't the human beingthat I wanted to be.
(28:46):
I wasn't the dad that I wantedto be, I wasn't the husband that
I wanted to be, I wasn't theleader that I wanted to be, and
so I felt like something had toshift, and so for me, it was
like I'm willing to walk awayand I did from a lot of those
things.
There's a great book by thecolumnist David Brooks called
(29:09):
Second Mountains, and so I wason the top of the mountain and I
was like, well, this isn't ascool as everybody said it was
going to be, and so I decided towalk down, and that practice
was a practice, right?
And it's like what is it thatyou can do?
And just for anybody who isinto habits, reminders, routine
(29:33):
rewards, like, what are thosethings that you can do each and
every day?
It was my 49th birthday acouple months ago and I saw this
mural on the wall and it saiddream, believe, achieve.
And I was like, well, thatfeels very familiar.
I've done that a lot in my life, but in this stage of my life I
(29:54):
want to do it differently, andtwo things came to me.
One was what's it look like todream beyond what I can achieve?
And then, second was what's itlook like to dream, believe,
receive, to move from a place ofachievement and into a place of
receiving, because you trustthat word that you picked.
(30:15):
You trust in the abundance ofthe universe.
The scarcity is a mindset,right?
Not enough, I'm not enough,never enough.
Who's good enough?
We dehumanize ourselvesoftentimes more than we
dehumanize others, and so whatdoes it look like to live with
(30:36):
that compassion and to live withthe shadows that we each hold
and to be like hey, that's partof my beauty too, though, if I
could like wave a magic wandright of moving from this
illusion of separation.
Right like this is why nature isso important to the gratitude
(30:57):
blooming work, because itreminds us that everything is
interconnected right, and thatwe're not alone like that's.
The big myth is that we'realone and separate in our either
suffering or in our joy or ouraccomplishments, and when we
sort of then all was.
You know, we were just inGuatemala and we had an
(31:20):
opportunity to stay with thisMayan family and the host mother
started talking about Mayancosmology and she said we
believe in harmony.
Everything is connected.
So if the water is clean, thenI am clean, if the trees are
healthy, then we're healthy, andso the great myth of
(31:42):
humanization and dehumanizationis that we are separate and when
we realize that we harm someoneelse, we're harming ourselves.
Right?
That's to me, is that constantsort of reminder of like I am in
community.
I am part of something greaterthan myself.
That's what gratitude is like.
Gratitude is that constantreminder that I am part of
something bigger than myself.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Like, if we just ask someone a question that's
ideally open-ended, like a howor a what question, then you
know you shared it and then ourthe ideal situation is that
there's someone on the receivingend who's basically just saying
tell me more.
And we just got to hearbeautiful wisdom from you.
(32:25):
And I think that's the dream,right is that together we can
create that space for each otherto feel heard.
I don't know how many of youfeel like you could remember the
last time that you were trulyheard, not just like listen to
kind of or someone's and maybetrying to solve the problem with
you or for you, or flips itback to them and makes it about
(32:47):
themselves or, you know, tellsyou it's going to be fine or
whatever.
But actually there's a lot ofpower in just asking a question
that you don't know the answerto or have any judgment on what
the person is going to say andmake it really open and then
listening to them, and you knowyou can do that, obviously do
that through our body language,and you know like it sounds like
(33:12):
you had a really clear momentin your journey where you were
like I'm not the you knowpartner, father, leader that I
want to be, and I'm going to dosomething about it.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
That reminder is that we can do something about it,
right, like we can actually make.
You are helping to build acompany and a culture just unto
nation builder.
Right that is practicing tospeaking from I statements right
, listening with that sort ofempathy, asking questions that
are open-ended.
(33:42):
Bye, then, not where you'retrying to lead someone to the
answer that you think isnecessary for them.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
I don't know if you'll notice this, but I was.
I did a thing, which was I justreflected back to Omar
something he said earlier andused the sentence stem.
It sounds like this, and thenhe was able to keep talking.
So we're gonna try that on aswell as we get into this with
some of those like sentencestems.
That can just really helpCreate space for folks.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
I Think we talked about this on a couple of the
podcasts that, like it's reallyhard for me to reach, reach
across the aisle or reach acrossa room to somebody who I feel
Does not think I should be here.
So how, using the tools thatyou use, how would you go about
(34:34):
doing or that, or how can Ibegin that process of reaching
out?
Speaker 3 (34:41):
That's a deep one.
To start with, just to say Imean my first Responses like you
don't have to do anything youdon't want to do.
You know what I mean.
So, like, if that's genuinelyYou're moved to do that and to
have that conversation, that's abeautiful thing.
And also we have to trust ourown, in our own timing.
So it may not be that moment.
(35:02):
You know, if it is.
The thing I think that'sbeautiful about the open-ended
question vibe is that it's justabout curiosity.
So, for example, if you're withsomebody that you deeply
disagree with, showing up withlike I want to tell me more,
like how did you, how did youget there?
(35:24):
What's your journey been likethat?
Has you sitting here?
Just that openness, it's it'sand just for for, like pro tip,
any question that we ask thatstarts with is our do or did.
Like, did you blah, blah, blah,do you?
This is, you know it's a yes orno answer.
(35:47):
So like, do you agree withso-and-so, you know?
And so if you're genuinelycoming for sitting in a place of
inquiry and you like Want tohave that conversation with that
person and again like, honoryour own, like, if it really you
really want to, then that placeof curiosity and and and,
asking how they got where theygot or what Happened in there in
(36:10):
their you know journey, such asa there or anything, what, how,
vibes.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Who hurt you in life?
Speaker 3 (36:16):
You know, whatever, whatever, whatever's coming
through, I will say to, like,just for on the tactical, like
the technically, why is also anopen-ended question?
It's just, can you know we, weget a lot of wise, and so people
sometimes feel, you know, puton the spot or defensive, yeah,
they can't feel really defensive.
That was a great question.
(36:37):
Thank you the premise ofdemocracy and that the
democratic practice is like we,we're all here, we're all here.
So if we're all here, then wehave to pull each other closer,
because the only other thing iswe're pushing each other away
further and further, into themargins or into the shower,
however you want to articulatethat, and so, like the hope is,
(37:00):
what does it take to pull eachother Closer?
and the first thing is toacknowledge, like I don't want
to be around those people, youknow what I mean like a no thank
you, and I don't want to be inthe same space, especially if we
feel afraid or we feel likethey don't want us.
You know what you just named,so?
well, I think it was from thepodcast with Simon cynic, where
(37:20):
some of this really germinatedthis idea of in a democracy,
we're all supposed to movetogether and Yet right now it
feels like we're just verywilling to leave people behind
so that I can get where I wantto go 100% and and I can I just
say, like that's my great, myfear, when Omer and I were
(37:41):
talking about this earlier,because that's where a lot of
you know Extremism, particularlypolitical extremism, and
radicalization, happens, and soit can literally be the
difference between someone goingdown a rabbit hole and we can't
like get to them and ourability to invite and it takes a
lot to do that and I'm again,we have to like check what it
(38:03):
works for us in that moment, ifthat's even possible.
And you know, also beingcommunication with our community
and being Like I am not thereright now, someone else needs to
do that.
So, but that motion, I don'tknow another way, like if I knew
another way, I'd be like cool,cool, cool, let's do that, but I
I don't know another way.
You know cuz, like when wethrow people away, there's no
way.
Thank you, leah and Jim, formodeling the, the discovery that
(38:29):
can come from the discomfort of, you know, not knowing what's
gonna emerge in the moment of aquestion.
And so now what we're gonna dois actually really practice
being present for each other,like how can we really listen to
the people that are next to us,and many of us are coming With
(38:52):
people that we already know.
So our hope is that you candiscover something new about
each other just by listening inthis new way.
This conversation isparticularly important For me.
You know, I steward land in arural area in Northern
California where I constantlyfeel like I'm out of place, and
(39:15):
it's been really interesting tohumanize people who I
politically strongly disagreewith, but they're like my
plumber, they're my contractor,you know, and so this is very
real to me, right?
You know, in the life that Ilive and and many of us are
coming with people that we knowwell and so this feels, you know
(39:38):
, safer.
And you know this is aninvitation to practice with
people that you're close with toeventually Take another step.
You know someone that you mightnot feel comfortable with.
How can you listen to theirhuman experience in this new way
?
So this is really theinvitation to practice in this
(40:02):
safe space and then to try thiswith someone on the street or
someone that you know you'relike.
Oh, they kind of get on mynerves.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
How can I listen to them differently?
Speaker 3 (40:12):
and see what happens.
So this is the invitation fornow and beyond, and Just as
plant a seed, just connectingwith this theme of fearless
gratitude.
You have ten themes in yourpacket and I invite you to start
the conversation with anotherperson by just sharing, you know
(40:39):
, the card that resonates withyou and, as the person that's
listening like, really hear theperson that's speaking and Ask
an open-ended question relatedto what they're saying and
notice what comes up when youhear that response from Asking a
(41:00):
question that you don't reallyhave the answer to, as a form of
being present and seeing eachother in a new way.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
Hello, I'm Sasha.
I feel like I kind of have likea little bit of a leg up
because I work at NationBorderand we practice this every day,
but we I picked vulnerability asthe card and in the
conversation it was reallyhelpful to reflect back on when
(41:30):
I feel safe being vulnerable andwhen I don't, and how that
shows up in Workspaces andnon-workspaces, because I was in
conversation with one of mycolleagues.
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 10 (41:43):
I'm Soltry.
I'm an avid gratitude bloomingfan and Practitioner for the
last what four years now.
So I also got vulnerability.
So you made me courageous insharing.
Once I heard yours, but it feltlike a conversation where we
weren't thinking about what wehad to say next or how we could
(42:06):
be of support.
It didn't feel performative.
It felt like we were both verypresent and I felt seen and
heard.
So Thank you, and I see you.
Speaker 6 (42:17):
Hi, I'm Kim.
I was in a work conversation.
I work in philanthropy and Iwas in a work conversation where
I was Pushing for the idea thata couple of set of grants
needed to really focus on blackstudents and got a little bit of
pushback and walked out of theconversation not certain whether
(42:39):
I had been hurt at all.
And then the next day we walkedinto a staff meeting and the
lead of our team walked in andsaid I have slept on it and this
is what we're doing.
We're gonna go forward on thisand center black students, which
was great and part of what madeit feel heard Was it wasn't
(43:02):
just a platitude sandwich, itwas a here's the word the road
forward with action.
Speaker 9 (43:10):
I'm a fairly anxious person and often I'm in my head
about how I seem, how people areseeing me, and the act of
genuinely asking a question outof curiosity and wanting to hear
the response, and hearing likesuch a beautiful response and
(43:31):
take me, then it completelytakes me.
It calms my, my soul and mymind, and so it's a nice
reminder to truly listen tosomeone else because it is
calming for one's anxiety.
Speaker 11 (43:48):
I'm Jennifer and I was in a work training recently
and they said that when folksare listening generally, the
natural things we tend to do iswe tend to first listen for
similarities, like somethingthat vibes with something that
we know, or we listen to try toprepare ourselves for what we're
going to say, and that there issomething called transformative
(44:09):
listening, where you reallyjust kind of absorb what the
person is saying.
You try to be ultra, superpresent, and that's essentially
what I tried to do.
And speaking with Gail, who Iadore, to just make sure, even
though I heard some things, Iwas like, oh, I recognize that I
know somebody do that too Ididn't but to just sort of let's
let me just hear and be presentand just take in everything
(44:32):
that she says.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
I love the fearlessness in the room.
Speaker 12 (44:37):
Yes, so I got the card.
Growth and for me at least,growth connects a lot to
learning and last year I had ateacher who my English teacher
who I did not agree with on alot of things, but no matter
what I said in class or how ouropinions differed, I always felt
(45:00):
like he listened and was opento new ideas, which I think is
really important and helpful,especially in an educational
standpoint.
And I was talking to himrecently, recently, and he he
was saying oh, I like how youadd your characters because I'm
(45:22):
writing a short story and howtheir personalities help round
them but also cause problems forthem and a person, and I think,
especially connecting to growth, how a person changes and how
they are, is what makes themwhole and what makes them grow.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Thank you, Thank you proud dad moment right there.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Those reflections were amazing and I think, just a
reminder that you know,democracy isn't somewhere out
there, it's like right here andwe're.
We're creating it together.
So just thank you and thank youall for for having me.
Speaker 5 (46:07):
Thank you for coming.
So my expectation for the firstpodcast was that we would leave
with all the problems of theworld, saw like it was gonna Be
an hour and a half and we wouldbe getting ready for our Nobel
Prize.
And that's not how it happens.
Just like flowers, it takestime to grow and bloom.
But I think some of the stuffthat we talked about today, and
(46:29):
especially the conversation thatyou two had, is the evolution
of this conversation.
At the beginning, you know, wekind of level set this process
for the podcast and and what andhow we were going to approach
this, and I think thisconversation and the next two to
come, the next ones in February, february 10th, so mark your
calendars is Starting to makethese connections and making an
(46:55):
understanding how everything isinterconnected, how we help
people see things differently,because with that, they will
think differently, and if theythink differently, they feel
differently, and when they feeldifferently, they will act
differently, and I think that'sthat's what we're trying to do.
That's what we're trying to getto.
(47:15):
If you've enjoyed thisconversation, please tell your
friends, your family, look forus in social media.
Democracy at Janum is thedemocracy centers, instagram and
, I think across all of oursocial platforms.
Shoji, do you want to introduceeverybody real quick, because I
don't think we had a?
Speaker 8 (47:34):
chance to do that.
To my right, we have AnneHunter ishikawa on vibraphone,
abe Lagremus Jr on ukulele,masato Baba on Bué, and then
this is Sumie Kaneko, all theway from New York.
She will be singing and playingthis beautiful instrument here.
This is called the.
Speaker 7 (48:03):
Koto, and then this is Sumie Kaneko, and then this
(48:53):
is Sumie Kaneko, and then thisis Sumie Kaneko, and then this
(50:14):
is Sumie Kaneko, and then thisis Sumie Kaneko, and then this
(51:04):
is Sumie Kaneko, and then thisis Sumie Kaneko, and then this
(51:52):
is Sumie Kaneko.
Hello Blinda.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi Omar, it's wonderful to have Arlene here in
studio as we replay our eventthat just happened.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
This is our Empathy and Democracy series.
This is the second one up afour-part series in
collaboration with the JapaneseAmerican National Museum and the
Democracy Center.
It was incredible to have ourspecial guest, leah Andres,
along with the Taiko drummersand, you know, some of her team
(00:47):
from Nation Builder and all thepeople who showed up and really
get to explore the pop-up artinstallation, the conversation
and the practice of really howto speak.
You know, listen and ask rightand like.
How do we speak from the eye,how do we listen for resonance
(01:11):
and ask those open-endedquestions that are not leading,
that really allow sort of newkind of reflections to emerge?
And so we hope folks enjoy thissecond live recording of our
Empathy and Democracy series.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And we hope to see some of you back in February for
our third event in LA hey.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Cheers.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Enjoy, hi.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
My name is Jim Hur.
I'm the director of theNational Center for the
Preservation of Democracy hereat the Japanese American
National Museum and it's mypleasure to welcome you to our
second edition of the Empathyand Democracy podcast with our
friends from Gratitude Blooming.
Give them a nice round ofapplause.
I've gotten to become veryclose to this team, although
(02:06):
I've known Omar for probablywhat do we think like 15, 20
years now, and he's gotten meinto a lot of predicaments over
the years.
So I wanted to return the favorin a way.
One of those predicaments washe asked me to be on the podcast
almost a year.
Well, he asked me about a yearago and we did it, I think in
(02:28):
January or February.
And so I went back and I wasre-listening to some of the
podcasts and listening to someof the newer ones, and that's
when I started to get this ideain my head of like there's
something here with likegratitude and democracy in our
civil society and through, ifyou listen to the podcast, you
(02:48):
know or maybe they don't knowpulling back the curtain a
little bit.
In other podcasts I've done,I've been they do a
pre-interview.
With this there's none.
You just kind of jump into it.
You pull a card and theuniverse delivers what it's
supposed to deliver for you thatday, and so we get into this
conversation and then everythingjust started like kind of
(03:10):
clicking, like empathy and theneed for empathy, especially in
our society.
We here at the Democracy Centerhave been in the process of
relaunching and so we've beentrying to think about what it is
that we want to do, how we wantto engage audiences, how we
want to engage people, and wekind of look to many different
things centered around the arts,centered around the Japanese
(03:33):
American experience which theJapanese American National
Museum collects in terms ofstory and history and people,
and we contemporize that forother audiences and we look for
solutions to what's going on inthe world today.
It's not just simply talkingabout things endlessly, but
where can we find solutions?
(03:54):
And we want to find for us.
We want to find them in unusualplaces, and this is certainly
not a conversation that peopleare used to having around
democracy, especially in theworld today, especially when we
seem so fractured.
But I think that's exactly whywe need to have these
conversations, the DemocracyCenter.
For me personally, the work isvery important because, growing
(04:15):
up as a mixed race kid in a timeand a place where my parents
couldn't get married in myfather's hometown and I sat at a
segregated lunch table and Iwas made to feel what other
people could have.
I couldn't have A career ingovernment.
A career in politics was justsomething that I was discouraged
(04:38):
from because I wasn't white orI wasn't white enough, and so I
don't want any kid anywhere toever think that they don't have
that possibility in their livesNot any person and that we
should all understand that, nomatter what we look like or
where we come from, who weworship, who we love, what our
(04:59):
economic status is or what ourimmigration status is, in this
society, in this country, we allhave rights and
responsibilities to make surethat democracy endures, and
that's what we want to do atthis center, and we thank you
for joining us on this journeytonight.
It's a very special one becausewe have a band behind me.
I feel like I'm like JimmyKimmel or something.
(05:23):
I got this band and noweverybody's going to expect that
there's going to be a bandbehind us every time we do this.
But we're really excitedbecause on ensemble and yet I
have difficulties saying thatbecause every time I start to
say it, my philly accent comesout, so I want to say one.
So the on ensemble, the onensemble is celebrating 22 years
of just amazing artistry andperformance.
(05:46):
So we're just going to take amoment to relax, to arrive in
this space and enjoy thiswonderful performance by on
ensemble.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
My name is Arlene and I am an artist at Gratitude
Blooming, along with Belinda andOmar.
I wanted to create a bridgebetween this beautiful
performance and the art outsideand then the talk that we're
going to see today.
(09:09):
We have art that covers thesethemes that we like to think of
as the virtues and values ofwhat it takes to be human.
We have a collection of cardsthat there's 39 different themes
in this set of cards.
(09:30):
We're trying to imagine how canwe blend that art with the work
that is happening here at theDemocracy Center, and what
arrived was reimagining votingbooths as reflection booths that
give you an opportunity toreally practice these themes.
(09:50):
So what you're going to see outin the reflection booths are a
sampling of the themes, andthey're also on the stickers
that we have, and we createdthese as almost like badges
about how are you going to showup for democracy, how are you
going to show up in your life,and so we hope that you'll
(10:14):
choose one and wear it and haveconversations with each other
about them.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Arlene has just shared the intention of this
beautiful art experience thatyou all entered into and we felt
this music, this energy of thedrums, helping to clear the
space in our hearts to beavailable for the discovery that
can come from discomfort.
(10:43):
So just take a moment to justbreathe into that, just being
present in our bodies in thismoment, just clearing space for
discovery, what can come frombeing with the unexpected of the
(11:03):
moment.
I know we didn't expect thislive podcast to emerge from
Arlene's 100 Days ofillustrating these plants, but
they then became 39 themes inthis physical card deck.
That now became a podcast andI'm going to invite our dear
(11:25):
friend Omar here to come andconnect with Leah.
So the two of them are going tohave a conversation about
democracy and what is thatpractice, and I would love for
the two of you to share.
What value from the garland offearless gratitude did you pick
(11:47):
as a beginning of thisconversation?
I picked trust, which I justfelt like I really needed.
Walking in here and it leaptoff the page and, I have to say,
embracing the unexpected, that,the drumming I'm still like
(12:10):
what just happened to me thesecond it started, I felt like
it hit my heart in this veryintense way and I was like, oh,
I might start crying, which isan interesting way to start this
experience.
So I'm just naming that interms of trust.
I'm rolling with it becauseit's still very present for me.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Well, I picked mystery and it was not
coordinated with Belinda.
And I think I've been doing aseries right now with this guy
named Bayo Okomalafé and it'scalled Dancing with Mountains,
and he invites us in this momentto sit with the cracks.
(12:53):
Oftentimes we want to jump toconclusions, we want to find
solutions, and his invitation isjust sit with the cracks and be
present.
And so to me, the cracks arethe unknown, and not rushed to
fill them up, because sometimes,when we fill things up, we
(13:15):
don't actually leave room forsomething new to emerge.
And I think, in some ways, whyare we having these
conversations?
Is that we want new things toemerge.
We've done the old ways manytimes now, and I think Jim, in
inviting us to be a part of thisconversation, he's inviting us
(13:37):
to participate in a particularway.
He's inviting us to participatenot just in a conversation, but
through art in particular, andI think that's really the bridge
for this conversation aroundempathy and democracy is how can
art express what we don't quiteyet know?
Part of what I love aboutpoetry is there's lots of gaps
(14:01):
in it, there's lots of cracks,and it leaves room for us to
find our own interpretation andto find our own ways forward.
And so I'll accept Arlene'sinvitation to read the poem and
really I think it was Arlene, aswe were talking about the
pop-up art installation and Iwas sharing some ideas, she's
(14:23):
like oh, my sounds like you havea lot of ideas.
Why and Leah knows this as wellwhy don't you take some time to
think about it?
And so, instead of using mynormal sort of like very
analytical part of my brain, mysort of strategy side, I was
like, let me write a poem andsort of see what wants to emerge
(14:47):
.
So the poem is called the Plantis Present and I'll read it
twice.
Here we are, lost in the wild ofclimate and inequality, trying
to reconnect to our humanity.
Maybe in the flower petal wecan see our hearts.
(15:10):
Maybe in the pollen we cansmell our soul attracting.
The plant is present here,watching, listening, growing,
breathing still.
Imagine flowers in votingbooths growing out of composted
(15:31):
constitutions, checking the boxto our humanity.
Just one more time.
Here we are, lost in the wildof climate and inequality,
trying to reconnect to ourhumanity.
Maybe in the flower petal wecan see our hearts.
(15:53):
Maybe in the pollen we cansmell our soul attracting.
The plant is present here,watching, listening, growing,
breathing.
Still Imagine flowers andvoting booths growing out of
(16:13):
composted constitutions,checking the box to our humanity
.
And so it was beautiful aboutwriting this poem.
I was like, oh, I can put aflower in a voting booth.
That's something within mypower, my control.
And so I reached out to thecounty voting registrar office
(16:35):
and I was like hey, I'm anartist and I'm doing this
collaboration with the JapaneseAmerican National Museum around
empathy and democracy.
Could I borrow a couple ofvoting booths?
And they were like sure.
I was like, oh, I'm going tocall myself an artist way more
often now.
And then it was just beautifulinvitation from Arlene to
(16:59):
literally express myself, notjust through the words but
through this art installation,and invite the plan to be
present so that we could pauseand greet this plan and have the
plant, in many ways, greet us.
And so when we had our secondsort of series and we were
(17:20):
thinking about who we wanted toinvite, immediately I was like,
I know who we need to invite andLeah Endress, who is a dear
friend, a longtime activist and,in the last several years, a
co-founder and CEO of a softwaretechnology firm focused on
(17:41):
democracy and leadership.
And so when Arlene extended theinvitation for me to express
myself as an artist, I was like,well, that's an invitation that
we can share with Leah, whichis can you be an artist tonight?
And what is the art ofpracticing democracy?
(18:02):
And really, because this issomething that we often forget,
democracy is something that wehave to create each and every
day.
It's not something that'sactually inherited and set down
in tablet and stone.
It's something that we actuallyhave to live and embody, and so
(18:23):
the question then becomes likehow do we do that, how do we
live and embody the practice ofdemocracy?
And so, to answer the question,I'm going to pull a card this
is real time, folks I'm going toflip them upside down and I'll
let you pick.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
This is wildflower and it says trust.
Trust that all shall be well.
Can you allow space forresolutions to emerge, even in
difficult situations?
Trust that all shall be well.
Can you allow space forresolutions to emerge, even in
(19:06):
difficult situations?
Yeah that's my truth and it'sreally muscular and challenging
to do that.
It's not easy to trust.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I would love for you to also define what is democracy
from your perspective.
And you run a technologycompany that's not just here in
the US, it's worldwide.
Presidential campaigns havebeen led on it around the world,
and so it really technology isthis new and very growing tool,
(19:44):
but it's a tool.
And I think the way I talkabout technology sometimes it's
how I imagine early humans werewith fire, Like, oh, fire, very
cool.
And then they burn down aforest and like, oh, I just need
a small fire to cook a meal.
We're like, oh, technology cool.
And then we burn down democracyand we're like, actually no, we
just need a little bit oftechnology or something for us
(20:06):
to solve our problems.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
I had this opportunity to collaborate with
Jim Gilliam, who's our founder,my co-founder.
He's been a brillianttechnologist and he was an
engineer and really gifted, andso we joined forces to build a
company and an organization.
And for me it was really aboutanswering the question like, how
(20:29):
do you scale equipping people?
Because for me, I was sort ofused to traveling and being in
different spaces and trying toequip, in whatever way I could
be helpful, folks on the ground,wherever they might be, and
this idea of marryingeducational infrastructure and
(20:50):
practice alongside technologicalinfrastructure was really
compelling to me.
And so that's what we've beendoing for the last 12 plus years
.
Somehow, and I think, becausethe premise of Nation Builder is
infrastructure that helpsleaders around the world build
community and organize andreally lead.
(21:10):
It's inextricably linked withdemocratic practice, that's,
we're building infrastructurefor democracy.
And so it's very ingrained inthe work, this idea that moving
people to action, formingcommunity and leading those
communities so that they can dosomething, they can create
change.
And so for me, when I thinkabout the definition, to try to
(21:32):
circle all the way back to whereyou were, yes, it's, first of
all, the least violent form ofgovernment currently known to
humans as an architecture, it'sa system, it's institutions.
It's also an idea.
It lives in our imaginations.
It has to.
But, to your point, when wefirst started talking and we
(21:53):
were in the conversation arounddemocracy and empathy for me I
was like we have to.
I want to be in spaces wherewe're talking about the practice
, not as just being, and I thinkwe should transform voting
booths everything that you justsaid about what's possible there
and how that shifts ourimagination and we have to help
reimagine the daily life of ademocratic practitioner, because
(22:17):
it is not just running foroffice or voting in, you know,
once every few years, it isevery single day when we're
encountering our, you know,fellow human beings out in the
world.
It's the choices that we makeabout how to engage with them in
a pluralistic, democraticsociety.
(22:39):
And I think one thing I'll saybriefly is that you know it can
seem far away like this, if youwant to frame it as a fight
between democracies andauthoritarianism.
It can seem far away, but thedata is really clear about what
happens.
When citizens practice like,when we're engaged and
(23:02):
participating and doing ourthing and building communities
and showing up, it can actuallyturn the tide in countries that
have slid into authoritarianism.
That's the thing that helpsthem come back and be considered
democracies.
When institutions fail, it'sactually civil society that can
pull countries back from havingslid into authoritarianism.
(23:24):
It's that's extraordinary.
We have so much power.
We have so much power.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I'm curious about, because when things fail right,
you're talking about what'sslipping into sort of
authoritarianism or what haveyou.
Oftentimes it's power right andfear right.
And I think part of what I'vecome to appreciate about the
(23:50):
practice of gratitude is, when Ifirst started with gratitude it
was like pause, noticesomething good.
And that really just on my ownpersonal, as a founder and
entrepreneur as well like youhave a go, go, go sort of
mindset, and just pausing andnoticing good was like oh, I can
actually be a little bit morepatient, I can be a little bit
(24:12):
more kind.
And as my practice of gratitudehas deepened, my definition of
gratitude has evolved.
So at first it was like pause,make good visible.
And then it was like, oh, okay,I'm actually making a lot of
things invisible, right, becausewhat we make invisible we take
(24:34):
for granted.
And so then my practice waslike, oh, fearless gratitude and
this is why we have thefearless gratitude garden here
is really the practice ofbecoming aware of what am I
making visible and what am Imaking invisible, and not
judging it as good or bad, it'sjust.
This is maybe where a little bitof my fear is hiding, and how
do I sort of bring that in theshadow into the light and my
(25:00):
definition of gratitude andevolve, because this isn't just
really about the practice ofmaking good visible.
This is really about thepractice of noticing with my
heart.
How do we do that?
How do we notice with ourhearts when we see what's
happening around the world rightnow?
There is violence, there issort of this desire to react
(25:23):
with violence right when we talk.
This morning you said somethingabout I just feel afraid.
So how do we pause just tonotice our emotions?
And what is that sort ofexperience like for you?
Speaker 3 (25:37):
So you mentioned, obviously, the violence is
happening right now, and that'sI mean, I think that's part of
what happened for me with thedrumming is just wanting to cry,
which has been really presentfor two weeks.
So the thing that I think is soimportant for us to hold
(26:01):
collectively is that humanbeings will not endorse or
advocate for violence againstanother group until they have
dehumanized that group.
Dehumanization is aprerequisite for violence,
because if we're gonna be inspaces, many of which are
(26:22):
fraught and really difficult tonavigate, one of the most
important things we can do is inorder to hopefully honor
someone else's humanity as honorour own.
And so that pause that you'retalking about, that muscle to be
able to say what am whoa, whatjust happened for me, what am I
experiencing right now?
(26:42):
I think that that first, it'shard to listen, it's hard to ask
good questions, it's hard toeven speak authentically if
we're first not present withwhat's going on for us.
Omar, I have known you for awhile and we met in the context
of doing work together and I, ifI were to have guessed which of
(27:07):
my friends and colleagues inthe movement, so to speak, was
going to at some point help toco-create a beautiful company,
community organization artproject about gratitude.
It would not have been you, myfriend.
I think the reason being rightis that you were really focused
(27:30):
on what I would consider theheadspace that you were deeply
gifted at strategy, veryincisive.
There was sometimes an edge tothat incisiveness that was both
clarifying and like sharp.
And this journey you've been onI would love to hear how you
came to the place where yourecognized and are experiencing
(27:55):
the clarity around practice inthe way that you're practicing,
not just with gratitude, but Iwould say like your own self
discovery and journey.
How did you come to that?
Because I think when in theheat of building and doing and
creating and everything that youwere doing when running
(28:17):
organizations, how did thathappen?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
When you hit your head against the wall enough
times, you realize like hmm,this wall's not moving.
And I wasn't.
I was accomplishing things inthe external world that we're
supposed to the right schools,the right jobs, the right titles
but I wasn't the human beingthat I wanted to be.
(28:46):
I wasn't the dad that I wantedto be, I wasn't the husband that
I wanted to be, I wasn't theleader that I wanted to be, and
so I felt like something had toshift, and so for me, it was
like I'm willing to walk awayand I did from a lot of those
things.
There's a great book by thecolumnist David Brooks called
(29:09):
Second Mountains, and so I wason the top of the mountain and I
was like, well, this isn't ascool as everybody said it was
going to be, and so I decided towalk down, and that practice
was a practice, right?
And it's like what is it thatyou can do?
And just for anybody who isinto habits, reminders, routine
(29:33):
rewards, like, what are thosethings that you can do each and
every day?
It was my 49th birthday acouple months ago and I saw this
mural on the wall and it saiddream, believe, achieve.
And I was like, well, thatfeels very familiar.
I've done that a lot in my life, but in this stage of my life I
(29:54):
want to do it differently, andtwo things came to me.
One was what's it look like todream beyond what I can achieve?
And then, second was what's itlook like to dream, believe,
receive, to move from a place ofachievement and into a place of
receiving, because you trustthat word that you picked.
(30:15):
You trust in the abundance ofthe universe.
The scarcity is a mindset,right?
Not enough, I'm not enough,never enough.
Who's good enough?
We dehumanize ourselvesoftentimes more than we
dehumanize others, and so whatdoes it look like to live with
(30:36):
that compassion and to live withthe shadows that we each hold
and to be like hey, that's partof my beauty too, though, if I
could like wave a magic wandright of moving from this
illusion of separation.
Right like this is why nature isso important to the gratitude
(30:57):
blooming work, because itreminds us that everything is
interconnected right, and thatwe're not alone like that's.
The big myth is that we'realone and separate in our either
suffering or in our joy or ouraccomplishments, and when we
sort of then all was.
You know, we were just inGuatemala and we had an
(31:20):
opportunity to stay with thisMayan family and the host mother
started talking about Mayancosmology and she said we
believe in harmony.
Everything is connected.
So if the water is clean, thenI am clean, if the trees are
healthy, then we're healthy, andso the great myth of
(31:42):
humanization and dehumanizationis that we are separate and when
we realize that we harm someoneelse, we're harming ourselves.
Right?
That's to me, is that constantsort of reminder of like I am in
community.
I am part of something greaterthan myself.
That's what gratitude is like.
Gratitude is that constantreminder that I am part of
something bigger than myself.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Like, if we just ask someone a question that's
ideally open-ended, like a howor a what question, then you
know you shared it and then ourthe ideal situation is that
there's someone on the receivingend who's basically just saying
tell me more.
And we just got to hearbeautiful wisdom from you.
(32:25):
And I think that's the dream,right is that together we can
create that space for each otherto feel heard.
I don't know how many of youfeel like you could remember the
last time that you were trulyheard, not just like listen to
kind of or someone's and maybetrying to solve the problem with
you or for you, or flips itback to them and makes it about
(32:47):
themselves or, you know, tellsyou it's going to be fine or
whatever.
But actually there's a lot ofpower in just asking a question
that you don't know the answerto or have any judgment on what
the person is going to say andmake it really open and then
listening to them, and you knowyou can do that, obviously do
that through our body language,and you know like it sounds like
(33:12):
you had a really clear momentin your journey where you were
like I'm not the you knowpartner, father, leader that I
want to be, and I'm going to dosomething about it.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
That reminder is that we can do something about it,
right, like we can actually make.
You are helping to build acompany and a culture just unto
nation builder.
Right that is practicing tospeaking from I statements right
, listening with that sort ofempathy, asking questions that
are open-ended.
(33:42):
Bye, then, not where you'retrying to lead someone to the
answer that you think isnecessary for them.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
I don't know if you'll notice this, but I was.
I did a thing, which was I justreflected back to Omar
something he said earlier andused the sentence stem.
It sounds like this, and thenhe was able to keep talking.
So we're gonna try that on aswell as we get into this with
some of those like sentencestems.
That can just really helpCreate space for folks.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
I Think we talked about this on a couple of the
podcasts that, like it's reallyhard for me to reach, reach
across the aisle or reach acrossa room to somebody who I feel
Does not think I should be here.
So how, using the tools thatyou use, how would you go about
(34:34):
doing or that, or how can Ibegin that process of reaching
out?
Speaker 3 (34:41):
That's a deep one.
To start with, just to say Imean my first Responses like you
don't have to do anything youdon't want to do.
You know what I mean.
So, like, if that's genuinelyYou're moved to do that and to
have that conversation, that's abeautiful thing.
And also we have to trust ourown, in our own timing.
So it may not be that moment.
(35:02):
You know, if it is.
The thing I think that'sbeautiful about the open-ended
question vibe is that it's justabout curiosity.
So, for example, if you're withsomebody that you deeply
disagree with, showing up withlike I want to tell me more,
like how did you, how did youget there?
(35:24):
What's your journey been likethat?
Has you sitting here?
Just that openness, it's it'sand just for for, like pro tip,
any question that we ask thatstarts with is our do or did.
Like, did you blah, blah, blah,do you?
This is, you know it's a yes orno answer.
(35:47):
So like, do you agree withso-and-so, you know?
And so if you're genuinelycoming for sitting in a place of
inquiry and you like Want tohave that conversation with that
person and again like, honoryour own, like, if it really you
really want to, then that placeof curiosity and and and,
asking how they got where theygot or what Happened in there in
(36:10):
their you know journey, such asa there or anything, what, how,
vibes.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Who hurt you in life?
Speaker 3 (36:16):
You know, whatever, whatever, whatever's coming
through, I will say to, like,just for on the tactical, like
the technically, why is also anopen-ended question?
It's just, can you know we, weget a lot of wise, and so people
sometimes feel, you know, puton the spot or defensive, yeah,
they can't feel really defensive.
That was a great question.
(36:37):
Thank you the premise ofdemocracy and that the
democratic practice is like we,we're all here, we're all here.
So if we're all here, then wehave to pull each other closer,
because the only other thing iswe're pushing each other away
further and further, into themargins or into the shower,
however you want to articulatethat, and so, like the hope is,
(37:00):
what does it take to pull eachother Closer?
and the first thing is toacknowledge, like I don't want
to be around those people, youknow what I mean like a no thank
you, and I don't want to be inthe same space, especially if we
feel afraid or we feel likethey don't want us.
You know what you just named,so?
well, I think it was from thepodcast with Simon cynic, where
(37:20):
some of this really germinatedthis idea of in a democracy,
we're all supposed to movetogether and Yet right now it
feels like we're just verywilling to leave people behind
so that I can get where I wantto go 100% and and I can I just
say, like that's my great, myfear, when Omer and I were
(37:41):
talking about this earlier,because that's where a lot of
you know Extremism, particularlypolitical extremism, and
radicalization, happens, and soit can literally be the
difference between someone goingdown a rabbit hole and we can't
like get to them and ourability to invite and it takes a
lot to do that and I'm again,we have to like check what it
(38:03):
works for us in that moment, ifthat's even possible.
And you know, also beingcommunication with our community
and being Like I am not thereright now, someone else needs to
do that.
So, but that motion, I don'tknow another way, like if I knew
another way, I'd be like cool,cool, cool, let's do that, but I
I don't know another way.
You know cuz, like when wethrow people away, there's no
way.
Thank you, leah and Jim, formodeling the, the discovery that
(38:29):
can come from the discomfort of, you know, not knowing what's
gonna emerge in the moment of aquestion.
And so now what we're gonna dois actually really practice
being present for each other,like how can we really listen to
the people that are next to us,and many of us are coming With
(38:52):
people that we already know.
So our hope is that you candiscover something new about
each other just by listening inthis new way.
This conversation isparticularly important For me.
You know, I steward land in arural area in Northern
California where I constantlyfeel like I'm out of place, and
(39:15):
it's been really interesting tohumanize people who I
politically strongly disagreewith, but they're like my
plumber, they're my contractor,you know, and so this is very
real to me, right?
You know, in the life that Ilive and and many of us are
coming with people that we knowwell and so this feels, you know
(39:38):
, safer.
And you know this is aninvitation to practice with
people that you're close with toeventually Take another step.
You know someone that you mightnot feel comfortable with.
How can you listen to theirhuman experience in this new way
?
So this is really theinvitation to practice in this
(40:02):
safe space and then to try thiswith someone on the street or
someone that you know you'relike.
Oh, they kind of get on mynerves.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
How can I listen to them differently?
Speaker 3 (40:12):
and see what happens.
So this is the invitation fornow and beyond, and Just as
plant a seed, just connectingwith this theme of fearless
gratitude.
You have ten themes in yourpacket and I invite you to start
the conversation with anotherperson by just sharing, you know
(40:39):
, the card that resonates withyou and, as the person that's
listening like, really hear theperson that's speaking and Ask
an open-ended question relatedto what they're saying and
notice what comes up when youhear that response from Asking a
(41:00):
question that you don't reallyhave the answer to, as a form of
being present and seeing eachother in a new way.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
Hello, I'm Sasha.
I feel like I kind of have likea little bit of a leg up
because I work at NationBorderand we practice this every day,
but we I picked vulnerability asthe card and in the
conversation it was reallyhelpful to reflect back on when
(41:30):
I feel safe being vulnerable andwhen I don't, and how that
shows up in Workspaces andnon-workspaces, because I was in
conversation with one of mycolleagues.
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 10 (41:43):
I'm Soltry.
I'm an avid gratitude bloomingfan and Practitioner for the
last what four years now.
So I also got vulnerability.
So you made me courageous insharing.
Once I heard yours, but it feltlike a conversation where we
weren't thinking about what wehad to say next or how we could
(42:06):
be of support.
It didn't feel performative.
It felt like we were both verypresent and I felt seen and
heard.
So Thank you, and I see you.
Speaker 6 (42:17):
Hi, I'm Kim.
I was in a work conversation.
I work in philanthropy and Iwas in a work conversation where
I was Pushing for the idea thata couple of set of grants
needed to really focus on blackstudents and got a little bit of
pushback and walked out of theconversation not certain whether
(42:39):
I had been hurt at all.
And then the next day we walkedinto a staff meeting and the
lead of our team walked in andsaid I have slept on it and this
is what we're doing.
We're gonna go forward on thisand center black students, which
was great and part of what madeit feel heard Was it wasn't
(43:02):
just a platitude sandwich, itwas a here's the word the road
forward with action.
Speaker 9 (43:10):
I'm a fairly anxious person and often I'm in my head
about how I seem, how people areseeing me, and the act of
genuinely asking a question outof curiosity and wanting to hear
the response, and hearing likesuch a beautiful response and
(43:31):
take me, then it completelytakes me.
It calms my, my soul and mymind, and so it's a nice
reminder to truly listen tosomeone else because it is
calming for one's anxiety.
Speaker 11 (43:48):
I'm Jennifer and I was in a work training recently
and they said that when folksare listening generally, the
natural things we tend to do iswe tend to first listen for
similarities, like somethingthat vibes with something that
we know, or we listen to try toprepare ourselves for what we're
going to say, and that there issomething called transformative
(44:09):
listening, where you reallyjust kind of absorb what the
person is saying.
You try to be ultra, superpresent, and that's essentially
what I tried to do.
And speaking with Gail, who Iadore, to just make sure, even
though I heard some things, Iwas like, oh, I recognize that I
know somebody do that too Ididn't but to just sort of let's
let me just hear and be presentand just take in everything
(44:32):
that she says.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
I love the fearlessness in the room.
Speaker 12 (44:37):
Yes, so I got the card.
Growth and for me at least,growth connects a lot to
learning and last year I had ateacher who my English teacher
who I did not agree with on alot of things, but no matter
what I said in class or how ouropinions differed, I always felt
(45:00):
like he listened and was opento new ideas, which I think is
really important and helpful,especially in an educational
standpoint.
And I was talking to himrecently, recently, and he he
was saying oh, I like how youadd your characters because I'm
(45:22):
writing a short story and howtheir personalities help round
them but also cause problems forthem and a person, and I think,
especially connecting to growth, how a person changes and how
they are, is what makes themwhole and what makes them grow.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Thank you, Thank you proud dad moment right there.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Those reflections were amazing and I think, just a
reminder that you know,democracy isn't somewhere out
there, it's like right here andwe're.
We're creating it together.
So just thank you and thank youall for for having me.
Speaker 5 (46:07):
Thank you for coming.
So my expectation for the firstpodcast was that we would leave
with all the problems of theworld, saw like it was gonna Be
an hour and a half and we wouldbe getting ready for our Nobel
Prize.
And that's not how it happens.
Just like flowers, it takestime to grow and bloom.
But I think some of the stuffthat we talked about today, and
(46:29):
especially the conversation thatyou two had, is the evolution
of this conversation.
At the beginning, you know, wekind of level set this process
for the podcast and and what andhow we were going to approach
this, and I think thisconversation and the next two to
come, the next ones in February, february 10th, so mark your
calendars is Starting to makethese connections and making an
(46:55):
understanding how everything isinterconnected, how we help
people see things differently,because with that, they will
think differently, and if theythink differently, they feel
differently, and when they feeldifferently, they will act
differently, and I think that'sthat's what we're trying to do.
That's what we're trying to getto.
(47:15):
If you've enjoyed thisconversation, please tell your
friends, your family, look forus in social media.
Democracy at Janum is thedemocracy centers, instagram and
, I think across all of oursocial platforms.
Shoji, do you want to introduceeverybody real quick, because I
don't think we had a?
Speaker 8 (47:34):
chance to do that.
To my right, we have AnneHunter ishikawa on vibraphone,
abe Lagremus Jr on ukulele,masato Baba on Bué, and then
this is Sumie Kaneko, all theway from New York.
She will be singing and playingthis beautiful instrument here.
This is called the.
Speaker 7 (48:03):
Koto, and then this is Sumie Kaneko, and then this
(48:53):
is Sumie Kaneko, and then thisis Sumie Kaneko, and then this
(50:14):
is Sumie Kaneko, and then thisis Sumie Kaneko, and then this
(51:04):
is Sumie Kaneko, and then thisis Sumie Kaneko, and then this
(51:52):
is Sumie Kaneko.
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