The Power of Participation: How to Transform Your Political Process w/ Michael Draskovic

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(00:47):
Check the link in the show notesfor more. Hello. My name is
Skippy, coach, former electedofficial, and lifetime public
servant. Welcome to Healing OurPolitics, the show that shows
you, the heart centered publicservant and political leader,
how to heal our politics bystarting with the human in the

(01:09):
mirror.
It is my job to sit down orstand up with the best experts
in all areas of humandevelopment thought leaders,
coaches, therapists, authors,scientists, and more to take the
best of what they have learnedand translate it specifically
for the public serviceexperience, providing you
actionable, practical, tacticaltools that you can test out

(01:32):
today in your life and with yourteams. I will also talk to
leaders across the globe with aself care practice, getting to
know them at a deeply human andpersonal level so that you can
learn from their challenges andjourney. Warning, this is a
postpartisan space. Yes, I havebias. You have a bias.

(01:53):
We all have a bias. Everybodygets a bias. And I will be
stripping out all of theunconscious cues of bias from
this space. No politics,partisanship, or policy here
Because well-being belongs toall of us, and we will all be
better served if every human inleadership, regardless of party,

(02:15):
ideology, race, or geography,are happier, healthier, and more
connected. This show is aboutresourcing you, the human doing
leadership, and trusting you tomake up your own damn mind about
what to do with it and what'sbest for your community.
So as always, with love, here wego. Welcome to the Healing Our

(02:43):
Politics podcast, the show thatshows you, the heart centered
leader, how to heal our politicsby starting with the human in
the mirror. And in this episode,I sit down with public servant
Michael Draskovic. Michael wasactually my first ever coaching
client, one to one, back in theday, and is amongst the most

(03:04):
impressive polymaths andrenaissance men in our political
space today. This man, not even40, has truly done so much.
A creative producer anddemocracy advocate, Michael's
life goal is to cultivate a moreinclusive and participatory
democracy. He is a graduate ofthe Harvard School of

(03:28):
Government. And lest you beunimpressed by that, he is also
a graduate of MIT and currentlyenrolled as a PhD student in
CIIS, studying the intersectionbetween philosophy, cosmology,
and consciousness. Yes, he's gotthe educational background and
chomps, but Michael is also adoer. Michael served as the

(03:51):
marketing manager for Bono's ONEcampaign seeking to end world
poverty.
He is the founder of Overture, ov r t u r e, producing mission
vision content for brands youmay know such as Snapchat,
Bumble, A and E, MSNBC, andmore. Michael is the founder of
the Democracy Policy Network,creating deep libraries of open

(04:14):
source policy kits to be used byleaders across the country,
including you. Go check themout. They are also the creators
of the This Is What DemocracyLooks Like podcast. Lest you
think Michael gets bored, he isalso the co founder of LA For
Democracy Vouchers, bringing aninnovative approach to ensure
that every citizen regardless ofincome in one of our nation's

(04:37):
largest cities has a politicalvoice.
He is the co lead at PublicDemocracy LA and and and and
since we recorded thisconversation, Michael has
launched a leadership advisorycalled Common Light, which
supports people in developingthe capacities for flourishing
leadership along the eightelements of his living

(05:00):
framework. And you can checkthat work out. It is remarkable
at commonlight.co. C 0 M M 0 N LI G H T Co. Michael is working
to use his deep expertise tobridge the worlds that mean the
most to him, bringingcreativity, policy, and
spirituality together to createa new form of effective

(05:23):
participatory democracy.
Simply wow. In this episode, wedig into living with the fear of
not enoughness and breakingthrough to self assuredness.
Being a closeted gay man and theshadows and light cast on his
life and service. Working withan international superstar, fame

(05:46):
and access, a how to guide toget the most out of those
relationships. How understandingthe difference between thinking,
doing, feeling, and knowing willempower your work.
A starter guide forparticipatory democracy and how
you as a leader can support andpractice it in your community,

(06:07):
creating better outcomes byempowering others. Finding the
soft voice, more on that, deeplyinteresting. Michael's daily
practices, including ameditation practice to reduce
partisanship, how it changed hislife and how you can apply it in
yours. Owning your faults tobetter accept and work with

(06:27):
others, actionable approaches toco governance, and much, much
more. So I hope you enjoy thisgrounding, connected, wisdom
filled conversation with myfriend, Michael Droszkovic.
I am so excited to welcome youto the Healing Our Politics

(06:52):
podcast, the show that showsyou, the heart centered leader,
how to heal our politics bystarting with the human in the
mirror. This is a very specialepisode for me. Michael was my
first, true first, one to onecoaching client in this journey
all that time ago. It's been soexciting to watch you grow and

(07:17):
evolve. And when we left off wasplaying with and working around
the idea on a new project ofintegrating creativity, policy,
and spirituality, and just anamazing human, lifelong leader,
public servant.
I couldn't say more about thishuman. And you are all in for a

(07:39):
treat. And Michael, I'm soexcited to have you on the show
today.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Skippy, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
So the audience is getting This video is so nice
and most of you are listening onaudio, but this is super funny
to me because I know exactlywhere you are. We did most of
coaching sessions from

Speaker 2 (07:57):
this Right here.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah. And the lighting situation is apparently
everything because I rememberthe first time we had we were
going into winter and I startedout with like, oh, Michael. And
by the end of the session,

Speaker 2 (08:07):
it was the Cheshire cat.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
I could only see your teeth.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
That's right. That's right.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
And now we've got this beautiful scape and you you
look so nice. You're cleanshaven, which I haven't seen.
What's going on with that?

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah. Well, you know, I started growing out my hair a
bit longer and between that andthe beard, it was just too much
facial hair. So I decided oneneeds to go, and I'm gonna keep
the long hair.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
So this isn't tied to a newly identified spiritual
practice in your new PhD programor anything?

Speaker 2 (08:40):
No. No. It was getting a a little hot during
the the summer. So yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
That's awesome. That's awesome. So I actually
thought it might be fun to startwith a story, and it's kind of
the story where we started,which is the story of the shoes.
Yeah. Would you be willing tokind of share what that was and
maybe, maybe share both whathappened, but also how current

(09:08):
Michael understands that story.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Yeah, so I grew up in Los Angeles. And when I was, I
think, in fourth, fifth grade, Iwas so afraid to wear shoes that
had an ounce of color on thembesides white or black or gray.

(09:30):
And for me, that meant showingan aspect of my personality and
I was just not ready to kind ofhave that come through. And so I
would just be buying gray shoesand black shoes and white shoes
and just keep it at that. And itkind of became a story that I

(09:51):
carried with me that expressionwas not something that was for
me.
Self expression, whether it'sthrough the arts or my work. And
I think that's also linked to, Igrew up gay in the closet. There
was a dynamic there reinforcingthis need to keep myself hidden

(10:12):
a little bit. And so that I feellike has been one of the big
challenges of my life is toreally work through those fears
and to live authentically. Andit's something I still struggle
with to this day, but it's justemerged as I find when I lean
into that and when I talk myselfinto doing things that

(10:37):
demonstrate an aspect of myself,I'm always rewarded by it.
And it's always a very enrichingexperience, even when it goes
poorly or not as planned. Sothat's been something that's
been really wonderful to workthrough with you really. Then
just to, over the past couplemonths, see it kind of evolve
some more.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
I'm curious, I just spent five days at an opening
retreat for a new educationalprogram I'm part of at Naropa
University, which if you've beenlistening to this podcast, know
is a place that I really used tojudge and look down on and then
beg to get into. So that's myevolution. But I had this very

(11:19):
interesting experience of beingdeeply aware of my privilege.
Not that I'm not aware of itintellectually, but how many
things I get to take forgranted. In this place where I
as like a straight white male,you know, upper middle class,

(11:42):
you know, kind of all of thecenters of power effectively,
through no fault of my own,those were all in the minority
in this group.
And a lot of the work focused onintentionally having
uncomfortable conversations toraise awareness and heal some of
those wounds. And it really wasthe first time that I felt like,

(12:06):
not in an intellectual, but anembodied way, I understood what
things were like for say my auntwho, you know, grew up a lesbian
in the sixties when that wasn'tacceptable or anything else. And
I want to kind of check myhomework and not that everyone's
experience is the same, but howwould you describe for someone

(12:28):
who hasn't had any experience ofbeing in those shoes what it's
like to grow up as a closetedgay man or just someone who's
hiding parts of yourself?

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Well, there's a lot of dimensions to it, and I won't
be able to do them all justice.But I think one of the big
dimensions that I experiencedwas a total lack of self
assurance and a sense ofbelonging, like a self source
sense of belonging. So, youknow, just about everywhere I

(13:00):
would look in society at thattime when I started to realize
that I was different and thiswas in the 90s, so there wasn't
this widespread culture ofacceptance yet. You know, it
felt like you had a secret thatyou had to keep and that the
disclosure of the secret wouldfundamentally end your life. I

(13:23):
mean, it was very heavy becauseyou would carry that with you.
You would develop reallyheightened sense of kind of
perception and vigilance and seewhere I was always on edge to a
degree, especially around othermen, other boys. And then also

(13:45):
if I were in conversations thatwere veering towards a
discussion about romanticinterests and whatnot, it was a
really anxious conversation forme to be part of. I haven't
thought about it in a while, butluckily for me, I and just who I
am have a much, you know, I'mable to work through different

(14:10):
communities with more ease. Youmentioned privilege, being
white, being male. All thesecharacteristics helped kind of
lessen the experience of beingcloseted.
And so I was able to just learnthrough that that there are
difference in degrees to thisexperience. But one of the

(14:32):
common threads is just a feelingof not being able to be one's
authentic self. I think that'sprobably the big one is just not
recognizing what's there andthat it's okay and that it's
totally fine. I mean, probablythe biggest challenge too was
many of these spiritualreligious institutions that I

(14:52):
was a part of at that time. Iwas raised both Roman Catholic
and Serbian Orthodox.
I didn't know much about SerbianOrthodox teachings on
homosexuality, but the Catholicteachings were very loud and
clear. And I also went toLutheran grade school. And
again, at this time, I knowthere's been some reforms in

(15:13):
American Lutheran churches. Manyof them are more accepting now.
But at that time too, it was notsomething we talked about and
was stigmatized.
So when your relationship with adivine entity or power, higher
power is severed by otherstelling that you're not capable

(15:35):
of having these relationships,that really does a number on a
lot of people. And I think we'reonly really beginning to explore
a lot of that now from what I'mseeing, this kind of spiritual,
can call abuse, trauma that'sinflicted on those who are gay,
lesbian, trans, bisexual, youname it, who just don't fit into

(15:58):
those boxes. And so in someways, it's kind of ironic now,
there's all this talk from thesereligious leaders on wanting to
make sure that the LGBTQcommunity feels included. And
part of me is wondering, we'refine. We're living our best
lives.
It's about kind of including youall in the reality that these

(16:22):
are real experiences.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
That's interesting because I would think that so
correct me if I'm wrong, butultimately, anytime a power
source, be that a dominantculture or an institution or a
parent or just a, an adult issending the message explicitly

(16:46):
or implicitly that some naturalpart of a child is wrong, then
that child is going to make itmean something's wrong with me.
Because a child you know, notbecause they're like little
little egomaniac sociopathsrunning around, but, like, they
they literally don't have brainsthat have evolved to the point

(17:06):
where everything isn't aboutthem. And so if mom gets
divorced, that's my fault. Ifbeing gay is wrong, something's
wrong with me. And there's not apower source greater if you're a
believer than the omnipotent.
And that must be just crushing,I would think.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
It it gave a lot of that discrimination just an
extra very significant weightbehind it because it wasn't just
a friend or a teacher sayingsomething, but it was this
religious institution that goesback to the death of Christ,
right? So in that way, it justhad an immense effect.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah. So I want to kind of follow this thread a
little bit, but I don't want tooverlook other important
formative experiences andsuggest through omission that
this was the single driver ofMichael growing up. And so are
there other elements, otherthreads of story that stand out

(18:11):
as important for you justbecoming you in the early days?

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah. I would say before I get to two other
things, one thing I just wannashare is I was once asked on a
Zoom call when I introducedmyself how my identity shaped my
democracy work. And I couldclearly make that connection
between the story I just sharedand what I'm doing now in the
democracy space. And I do thinkthat there was part of me that

(18:41):
was just intrinsicallyinterested in this work. Trauma
and all that aside, I thinkthere's part in all of us that
wants to collaborate, wants towork with others, wants to co
create the world together.
And so how to handle both ofthose stories at the same time,

(19:03):
I think, is really important.But I want to say that I can't
explain this part. It just wasinside me growing up. But there
was a real desire to workcreatively with people. I was
raised, both of my parents wereand still are television
producers, and my grandfatherswere involved in politics.

(19:28):
One was a scholar of communismand another was in the military
and ran for office. And so thesewere influences that very much
were present in growing up. Andthrough those influences, I was
just encouraged to thinkcreatively about what was going
on in the world and to seethings from multiple

(19:51):
perspectives. And so that wasjust a formative household
dynamic that was going on.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
It strikes me that you have this source material to
pull from. Right? So you havereal world examples in politics,
in creativity, in media. Right?We don't paint with colors we've
never seen before.
So it makes sense that you woulddraw on those. And this is just
me making an assertion, so tellme if this resonates at all. But

(20:20):
I think it's quite common thatif we have the ability and
privilege in choosing our work,We choose to do something we
need. Like many people who gointo therapy needed inner
repair, etcetera. And it strikesme that there's a number of ways
you can do politics.
There's a number of ways you cando organizing or media, but you

(20:44):
chose a path that focuses oninclusion, that focuses on
belonging. These two things thatyou didn't feel as a kid. I
think about myself growing up aproduct of divorce and fractured
family. And I look back andalthough it wasn't conscious at
the time, taking a similar pathof inclusivity and bringing

(21:06):
people together, I'm like, oh,I'm like trying to rebuild this
family and make it even biggerand less breakable. And does
that connect at all with you?

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Totally. I mean, there's definitely a through
line there. And I think a lot ofmy work right now is just based
around ensuring that what we'redoing has everyone at the table
and we're learning as we build.So it's in some ways kind of
rethinking policymaking andpolitics and as the activity

(21:40):
itself of kind of becoming morehuman. So rather than the law
getting passed and then webecome more human, which of
course is part of it, it's howwe get the law passed that's
just as important, if not moreimportant.
And so part of my work in LosAngeles is really trying to just
experiment with that. Youmentioned the work we're doing
on citizens assemblies here,which are just about folks from

(22:03):
all walks of life getting into aroom and talking about issues
that face their communities andthen coming up with solutions.
So it kind of flips the equationa bit to say, we have all the
resources we need right now withus. We have this immense
potential. It's just we'recreating, we've created barriers

(22:25):
that prevents that potentialfrom expressing itself.
And this is a very different wayof going about solving or
addressing community issues thatbegins with a problem and starts
with a problem. And then that'skind of how we organize. This
starts with a recognition of thepotential, and then it looks to

(22:46):
what are the challenges in theway of that potential, and
addressing those challengesaddresses the problems in turn.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah. And it's participatory. And the example
that came to mind for me, whichis a weird one, but you know me
well enough to know that's whatwe're gonna get, is there's like
a there's a community somewherethat's very physically
unhealthy. There's high rate ofobesity and as a result, all
kinds of disease and earlymortality, etcetera. And the old
approach or the traditionalapproach, I guess we could call

(23:15):
it, is that community says, wow,we really need a gym.
And then they sit around andthey wait for, like, a big brand
to come in and build something,and then they join the gym and
hopefully they go. And theapproach you're talking about is
the community says, we need agym. We're not gonna wait for
someone else to do the work forus. We're gonna start building

(23:36):
it ourselves brick by brick. Andmaybe the gym isn't gonna be as
fancy or as well thought out,but by the time it opens, we'll
all have lost 20 pounds and haveformed real relationships along
the way because we've built it.
Totally. And then once we'reinside, we can decide what to do
with it.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
That is so spot on.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Love that.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
I was just at a conference last week, and a
woman told me about a group shefounded in New Jersey. I'm
blanking on the name, butbasically it came about because
of the mental health crisis kindof embedded within the housing
crisis we're facing. And theywere, you know, just neighbors

(24:16):
who are trying to work on thisissue felt like they were
constantly waiting for the cityto respond to these issues or
like to build additionalcapacity. So they taught
themselves how to be firstresponder like in these times of
mental crisis. So they were ableto understand how do you

(24:37):
approach someone that looks likethey may be going through a
mental health crisis.
And so in a way, was kind ofdemocratizing this knowledge out
of the purely professionalsphere. The part that could be
democratized, which was beingpleasant and asking people
questions and just kind of beingwith them, of course, looking
after your own safety. But itwas this amazing insight that

(24:59):
there's so much we have yet to,as a community, say, Okay, what
can we equip ourselves to doright now rather than waiting
that would have an immediateimpact and would be much more
affordable.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yes. It brings me back to being in office during
COVID, and what is our responsegoing to be? There was a
significant push of people whoreally wanted it to be a
community led response. And thenthere were those who wanted it
to be institution led andcitizen supported. And yes, we

(25:35):
did end up passing funds thatwent directly to community
members and holding them up.
But ultimately, it was theinstitution led response that
carried the day. And, you know,if I'm putting on my most
charitable hat, those in theinstitutions wanted to do it
right. Didn't want to shortcutthings. They didn't want to JVT

(25:56):
thing. Know, they they had agenuine fear that it could cause
harm by allowing individuals todo it.
But, you know, there were manyof us who had a very different
view that harm is not just theobjective thing, but it's also
what's missing in the process.And I think we can look back
with objective measures and say,because we've seen the

(26:18):
disconnecting continue ofcommunities, and that
disconnection being at the rootof so many of our individual
mental health challenges, thateven if the solutions at that
moment weren't greater, whatcould we have gained in terms of
our connection to one anotherand our sense of agency and
connection to the process, thatlong term yields much better

(26:40):
results. So I am very attractedto what you're saying. And we're
going to come back to projectand some of the more theory
under that. But I want to comeback to the creation of you for
a moment.
I, as I do, took us off on atangent, but let's come back.
And you're talking about acouple other of the kind of key

(27:00):
elements of becoming Michael.Could you elaborate a little bit
more on those?

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah. I think, I look at another formative experience.
It was in high school. Rightaround the time I was in high
school, actually, the City OfLos Angeles created its
neighborhood council system. Sothe City Of LA is about
4,000,000 people, and theydivided the city up into 99
neighborhood council kind ofjurisdictions.

(27:26):
And these were kind of advisorybodies that could provide input
into city matters, and they weregiven a budget of, like, 30 to
40 ks at the time. And so theneighborhood council where I
lived was met just down theblock at the public school here.
And so I got involved as a highschooler, and it was intense. I

(27:51):
mean, it was hyper local,neighborhood level, local
democracy, super messy. You hadpeople that were trying to
practice Robert's rules of orderand make it really official.
But then you were also dealingwith Jim and Sarah down the
street who just wanted a potholefix and didn't care about all

(28:14):
the formality. So I remember oneof the big issue that was
happening when I was there waslike a disagreement between this
beloved local coffee shop andartists performing center, like
really small, intimate joint anda gay porn star and who owned an

(28:41):
editing suite next door. Andthey just hated each other. And
you could read about this. It'slike

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Welcome to Lanny's party, people.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Such an LA battle. They're like, oh, well, you're
operating after, you know, 11PMand well, you're doing something
that we consider immoral. And sowe had this big town hall and
hundreds of people showed up allto kind of weigh on this thing.
And I just remember being like,wow, it was just the energy. And

(29:13):
not just on that issue, ofcourse, but just across it was
so high.
And I really felt like we weretrying really hard to make our
community better. And so thatwas my first experience with
politics.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
I'm just curious, when you decided to join that
local council, do you I mean,that was twenty years ago, but
do you remember why? What yourthought process was at that
time? Because most kids in yourschool were not doing that.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Well, yeah, I think part of it was resume padding.
There was college applicationsright around the corner for
sure. It was also something new,and I remember that it was very
open and they were just lookingfor help. It was kind of that
type of vibe. So I remember justbeing really fascinated by my

(30:05):
history courses in high school.
And of course, growing up, Imentioned with my grandparents
who were very politicallyactive, it just resonated with
me. And I felt like, Oh, thiscould be cool. But I had no that
it would really serve as thislike formative experience that
would kind of anchor me to ahyper local form of

(30:29):
deliberative, you know,participatory politics until
much later. So it was kind ofinteresting how that happened.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah. Okay, so take us to the Campaign.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
So went to the ONE Campaign, which was an amazing
organization working oninternational development, anti
poverty policy. And it was kindof a crash course in how
legislation was made, especiallyat the federal level and at
these multilateral internationallevel organizations like Gavi
Alliance and the Global Fund,all these groups. And so that

(31:03):
was really It was just like,wow, this is how this is how a
bill becomes a law. And it wasyou know, we were very
fortunate. Had a little, like,global rock star as our
spokesperson.
So it was easy to get meetingswith folks. Right? And because
we got those meetings, we wereable to see like, okay, this is
how if you do have an issuethat, you know, and we did have

(31:27):
to fight a lot to get people tocare about poverty and AIDS and
agriculture because it wasn'tdomestic. In America, have a
very like, what's our interestin this? Like egotistical
motivation for internationalaffairs.
And so there was a lot ofpersuasion and lobbying that had

(31:47):
to take place. But it was thisamazing process and we would
collaborate with differentgroups and we would go on the
hill. But all the while I sawjust the immense opportunity to
bring more voices into shapingthe ideas we fought for. So we
had an amazing policy team thatspanned parts of Africa,
Germany, France, The UK, here inThe States. And yet I felt there

(32:12):
was still more we could do tobring more voices in to set the
agenda, especially those livingin Sub Saharan Africa where our
policies were directed.
And they've done a lot of workat kind of expanding the voices
at the table since I've beenthere. But that experience
really led me to want to gostudy democracy and also learn

(32:34):
who's doing it, who's actuallysetting up institutions or
governance that really bringpeople into the decision making
process in a meaningful way.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
I'm curious, just from a functional standpoint,
was this campaign totally itsown entity? Were you
collaborating with variousorganizations? I mean, Africa is
a very big place with differentorganizations that were local on
the ground. Were you connectedinto PEPFAR and some of the
national programs? Functionally,how were you coordinating,

(33:06):
collaborating, or not withothers?

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Right. So it would depend on the issue that we were
taking up. So if it weresomething unlike PEPFAR and the
USAID budget, for example, whichwere domestic programs, we would
be working with your typical USbased advocacy organizations

(33:29):
kind of in coalition. As thepolicies became more focused on
multilateral institutions, likewe did one campaign targeted at
the African Union, that thenbecame much more about finding
the partners on the ground inAfrica and different countries
to kind of generate thatawareness and that support. So

(33:49):
it varied depending on who ouradvocacy target was and then
also what the issue was.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
I'm curious what this overall experience taught you
about the structure of influenceand power dynamics, which is to
say, you learn about particularstructures that were
particularly unfunctional orfunctional? And then also the
dynamic of working with or underthe banner of a international
superstar. I've noticed in manyorganizations since, you've not

(34:20):
repeated that model. And maybeit's because you asked a lot of
them and they said no, but Idon't think so. I think it's
been an intentional choice.
You've worked with big brands,but you haven't sought like a
huge name. And so I wonder ifyou could speak to that
experience and what you learnedbecause there's gonna be people
out there that are thinkingabout starting a project and are
considering all kinds ofstrategies, including getting a

(34:41):
big name, how much they wannacollaborate versus do it their
own. So anything that for youwas a clear learning that you've
carried forward into subsequentprojects that you find or have
found to date to be a effectivelearning?

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Yeah. I mean, it was, I think, on the whole, for the
cause, a a gift to have someonelike Bono at the helm kind of
raising awareness about theissue. And this was at a time
when very few people inWashington, D. C. Wanted to put
their political careers on theline by talking about AIDS in

(35:19):
Africa and hunger in Africa,right?
So from that perspective, Ithink there's immense value in
finding someone with a platformto help kind of get people
talking about an issue that noone's talking about. Obviously,
a lobbying and advocacystandpoint, it was really
helpful because, you know,people knew who we were and we

(35:42):
were able to build up kind ofrelationships with different
offices. And we were able toget, I think, most of the
meetings that we wanted to get.This didn't mean that people
agreed with us or were going tovote our way, but we could at
least be in the room with them.So that helps.
And some of the challenges arenot every person with a platform

(36:04):
like that is going to have thebandwidth or the interest in
taking up issues that need to betaken up. And so I think kind of
waiting for that as a strategyor designing your vision around
it, requiring that element. I'mnot sure how wise that would be,
but I know Jamie Drummond, theexecutive director, I mean, his
vision was one of the cofoundersof the ONE Campaign. His vision

(36:25):
from the get go was like, Bono,you got to be involved. You've
got to be involved.
You got to be involved. And if Iremember correctly, he was like,
knocked on his door severaltimes until he finally took the
answer and took the call andsaid, Okay, what is this? What's
this idea and what's happening?I think there was like a debt
relief campaign at first.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Oh, it's interesting. I didn't realize that it wasn't
Bono led. Like I would have madethe assumption that Bono wanted
to do something in this area andthen not having direct
experience, found someone whohas experience in that area to
activate it or strategize. Butactually, Bono was approached to
be part of it.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Right. And I just want to be transparent. Like,
there's a book that just cameout that I think detailed a
little bit about this. I thinkit was in his biography or
something he just put out a fewyears ago. But yeah, he was
essentially recruited to dothis.
And he had done, of course, thelive aids work and had been seen
as like this voice for thevoiceless. That had all

(37:25):
happened. But I think this was,hey, this was an effort to kind
of supercharge that with policyexpertise and advocacy know how
and see what we could do if wekind of really got smart. So I
remember Bono saying in a fewspeeches something like, we want

(37:46):
to become the NRA for theworld's poor. Because NRA was
kind of the archetype of thiswell oiled advocacy machine,
membership machine.
And so that, I think, is kind ofwhere a lot of the initial
inspiration came from. And Ithink it's a live question
whether that's the model thatour world needs right now. Think

(38:07):
Bono actually just stepped backfrom the one campaign, is no
longer serving on its board ofdirectors. I think recognizing a
new generation kind of cominginto the organization and there
to be new ideas, new directionsand whatnot. So if you're
working with one, awesome.
I mean, you can see it, it'shelping so many causes right now

(38:28):
to have that person really kindof talking to the media, posting
on social and all that. But Iobviously wouldn't let you know,
not having one stop you fromgetting going.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah. So if you were to be back at square one in a
project, say it's at the crosssection of spirituality and
policy, just, you know, forinstance, just in case, just
pull something random. And youhad the opportunity to work with
someone who was a significantlyknown entity in that space. It
doesn't really matter who it is.How would you approach that

(39:01):
opportunity?
What are the things that youwould do to make the most out of
that opportunity? And what aresome of the activities or ways
of using that opportunity thatmight be detrimental or harmful?

Speaker 2 (39:13):
I think governance is really important. So how power
is shared among differentstakeholders, including the
people who are going to belargely affected by the
policies. So I would start fromthat standpoint, be like, how
are we ensuring that even ourmission statement comes from a

(39:38):
diverse group of people thatlook like and reflect the
community that we're working in.So I would maybe start there and
then getting a sense of who arethe people at the table that
have the capacity to push invarious ways or add various
skill sets and kind of havingthat open conversation about how

(40:01):
we're all gonna cooperate witheveryone's interests. And you
have people from differentorganizations and their own
mission statements.
And so how to respect all ofthat. I think it just, you can
only work through those issuesif you have a system that's set
up to allow for thatconversation to happen. So a
deliberative setting moderatedby a kind of outside

(40:23):
facilitator, I think is a way togo about kind of sourcing kind
of the tensions that exist andthen coming to some agreements
around them.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
So let's assume that that work is done. We have great
clarity about what we want todo, why we want to do it, who
it's coming from. And so we knowwhat we want to get out. Let's
just make it very specific.Let's just say it's this
podcast, right?
Like, it's about healing ourpolitics. It's super clear. It
comes from community. And oh myGod, all of a sudden George

(40:56):
Washington comes back from thedead. He's a very bipartisan
figure.
Everyone likes George. AndGeorge is like, Hey, I'm willing
to be the face of this podcast.I'm willing to get out there and
help you spread this messagebecause, I said in my speech
leaving office that two partieswere going to be problematic.
And I'd like to posthumouslycome back and make a case for

(41:18):
that. And we're like, oh, great,George.
That's so awesome. Really happyto hear that. This is an honor.
Would you like any modernclothing? No.
Okay. Can we borrow yours? Andthen we're like, what do we do
with this? How would you usethat opportunity or not use that
opportunity?

Speaker 2 (41:35):
So the resurrection of Washington for the podcast.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
Just a casual example.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
A casual example. Okay. So I think that you want
to get a sense of their comfortlevel and their interests, why
they care about this issue, inthis case, why having more than
two parties is important. Andthen kind of build around that.
And you're going to figure outwhat's the stories that we want

(42:02):
to tell that kind of amplifythat why, that mission.
How are we going to actuallylive it? So it's not just
content that's living online,but has a real felt process. You
know, I was actually thinkingbecause I was raised Catholic,
right? And the Pope just had abig sixty minutes interview. I
haven't watched it yet, but I'veread some of the quotations from

(42:25):
it.
And one of the things he says isthat he wants people to open up
their hearts to the world andsees all this suffering that's
happening in different parts ofthe world Palestine, Israel,
Ukraine, and elsewhere and hasbeen noticing kind of this
indifference in people's hearts.And I think he's very correct in

(42:46):
what we're seeing. You can alsodo a lot with the Catholic
Church at the institutionallevel. I'm reminded of the
Quakers and how they practiceand how they worship. And I'm
not sure if you've ever been toa Quaker meeting before.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
I have not.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
So the Quakers are amazing, and the Quakers meet
for worship on Sunday, and theyjust sit in silence, meditation,
contemplation for an hour. Andthen whenever someone feels
inspired to speak, they juststand up and share what's on
their mind. And so you you gothrough this experience and, you
know, by, like, the thirty five,forty minute mark, someone will

(43:22):
have stood up and kind of sharedwhat they're feeling. And so by
the end of the hour, you'veheard all these voices sharing
what's moving within them inthis present moment. And it's a
beauty you come away justtotally connected and feeling
that there is a realtogetherness and a sense of
like, sensing the worldtogether.
I'm thinking now about whathappens in the Catholic church.

(43:44):
You know, I was raised Catholic,and there's a point in the Mass
where the Gospel is read andthen the priest comes to deliver
a homily, or basically theirreflection on the religious on
the Gospel that was just read.So it's one person's reflection.
And then the audience sits andjust listens. And one of the

(44:05):
original meanings of homily, Ibelieve, like homolia is the
Greek word, was conversation.
It was about dialogue. How do wetake these opportunities we have
where there is reflectionhappening and expand it to more
people? So it's not just thepriest's reflection being

(44:25):
offered, but everyone in thepews can kind of turn around and
talk to one another to really toreally hear from one another how
we're relating to what was justread. Think there's lots of
opportunities like that where wecan actually institutionalize
what we're saying needs tohappen in the world right now.
Opening up hearts, I really feellike as an act of feeling
together.

(44:46):
What could that look likewherever we are?

Speaker 1 (44:48):
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It's so interesting. What I'mhearing in that is we actually

(48:09):
can't open up hearts by thinkingabout it. Yes. We actually have
to have the experience ofopening our hearts to know what
that is. And while I don't thinkyou or certainly I are intending
to critique the Pope in any way,it's beautiful that he's raising
He's using his platform to raiseawareness.

(48:30):
And what I'm hearing you say,correct me if I'm wrong, like
the next level from that is notto use the voice to critique
others' poor or insufficientbehavior of heart opening, but
rather to use the institution toprovide the framework,
structure, and encouragement andsafety, frankly, to do it

(48:55):
amongst its members, to do itexperientially. And that's not
to say that the pope isn't doingthat. He very well may be. The
institutions may be doing that.I don't know.
Pope Francis, if you'd like todefend your record, just know
there's always a seat for you onthe other side of this
microphone. And, but that'sthat's effectively what you're
saying. Right?

Speaker 2 (49:13):
Totally. I think it gets the first point you made,
which is we have to do it ratherthan just think it. And doing
it, I think, is bringing in newways of relating to each other
that we haven't quite seen yet.You know, if we were relating in
the ways that I think PopeFrancis is asking us to
consider, we wouldn't see thesame conflicts in the world. And

(49:37):
so the fact that we seeconflicts in the world is an
invitation, in my view, toradically reimagine what are the
ways in which we're beingtogether and to work towards and
experiment with and trydifferent things wherever you
are.
The Catholic church is just aninstitution and organization,

(49:59):
but we all are affiliated withmany. And so what are ways we
can bring these dynamics intoit?

Speaker 1 (50:04):
So I think that's it's super interesting. And just
to kind of close loop, becausewe arrived at this place with
George Washington as ourspokesperson. And I'm doing that
because I think it will be veryinteresting to audience members
to think about how to betterutilize those resources when
they're available. And so I'mmixing your stories and

(50:25):
interpreting, and you tell me ifthis is correct. What I'm
hearing in that is not usingGeorge Washington just to have a
pullout quote, not using GeorgeWashington just to say like
message approved by and fundedby, but actually to show him out
there doing the work, to havehim working on building

(50:47):
multipolar forums of discussion,to watch him doing that, to
allow others to come into theexperience of being with George.
Is that is that true?

Speaker 2 (50:59):
Totally. Totally. There's a really good example of
this. There's a New York CityCity Council Member named Chi
Osei who ran for office, I wantto say in 2020, and won. And his
campaign was very nontraditionalcampaign.
He actually campaigned throughkind of community events and

(51:22):
mutual aid. So in some ways,what he was campaigning, he was
campaigning in the way that hewas gonna govern, which was just
constant events. It wasn't himgoing and just delivering
speeches or people knocking ondoors. He was having, you know,
food distribution and clothesdistribution. And so he was kind
of building the infrastructurefor a new world as he campaigned

(51:46):
for office, giving people aglimpse that, you know, it was
more than just him.
And it was built There werepeople kind of taking up
responsibilities along the way.So we can see it happening. Of
course, the mutual aid that cameabout during the pandemic is
another example of thatspontaneous initiative. But,

(52:06):
yeah, that's that's what I thinkI'm talking about.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
I love that example. And I'm not familiar with Chi,
so this is not an endorsement ofI'm actually making an
assumption that it's even he,but his policies or what he's
doing in office or anything likethat. It's the first I've heard
of it, but I have hadconversations in the past with
folks that basically orientedaround, we're spending billions
of dollars on campaigns. What ifwe spent that on delivering the

(52:31):
solutions to the campaignspurported to care about? And
even if we don't like them,like, let's use that those
dollars to support the people.
And what I'm hearing is Chi,other than, you know, chatting
about it, as I have, actually isdoing something about it. So
shout out to Chi. That's very,very cool. Okay. Alright.
So the last this is the lastquestion, then I'll leave

(52:52):
George's horse alone. But sowe've got George out there, and
he's now hosting these sessions.He's bringing people together.
He's providing the experienceand your ex So much of why our
hearts are hardened is becauseof the fun house mirrors that we
see in the media, not because ofwhat's actually happening in our
lives. Right?
It's the proverbial, crime iscrazy. Oh, no, but it's totally

(53:15):
safe in my community. And andthat's a reflection of the media
landscape, and this is somethingyou know a lot about because at
Overture, you're you're creatingcontent and you're getting
content out to people, and yourecognize the value, from the
perspective of content creation.So how would you be capturing
George's work in small rooms andgetting it out so that a mass

(53:38):
audience could see andunderstand that these good
things are happening and allowthat to come into their
worldview?

Speaker 2 (53:45):
The first thing is it's not about George. Even
though George is there, it'sabout the people that are coming
together and the experiencesthat they're having. It's the
transformations that they'regoing through. It's them saying
that this is the most meaningfulexperience of my life, you know.
It is, I think, telling thestory along those lines and

(54:07):
really building up in the waythat it was that documentary on
Netflix bringing down the house,the one with AOC in it.
I mean, all these figures whoparticipated in that documentary
weren't household names beforethat, but that experience
totally transformed them. Andthen, you know, the rest is
history. So it's about findingthe everyday folks who are who

(54:30):
become the heroes. If you'reinto Lord of the Rings, it's
like we got to start seeingourselves as like simple hobbits
rather than like the knightsgoing into battle like Gondor or
what have you. It's like thiskind of coming to that level in
everything.
And we're seeing it happen. Iknow we're going to talk about
this later, but we're seeingthese effects in Europe right

(54:50):
now with their Citizens Assemblymovement, their deliberative
democracy movement, where,again, people from all walks of
life are completely transformedand they go on to run for office
just because they've had thisamazing experience deliberating
policy with their neighbors. Soit's wild what happens when you
can kind of light that fire fromwithin, and it can go really

(55:12):
magical places from there.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Yeah. Okay. Let's go there, but let's take a slight
detour along the way. I'd loveto start with what are some of
the experiments in participatorydemocracy you're seeing around
the world that get you excited.But let's walk there through the
garden of the things that lityour fire.

(55:36):
What were the things thatcontributed to your sense of
clarity around this? Your senseof energy or conviction? And
that could be an moment. Itcould be a program. It could be
a slow transformation.
It could be a relationship. Itcould be anything. There's no
right or wrong answer. But ifyou were to hand select the,

(55:57):
let's say one to three mostvaluable experiences that lit
your fire, to use your words,and then transition into what
you're seeing out there that isexciting you.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Sure. So I'll start with my experience at the
Democracy Policy Network cofounding that with Pete Davis.
We just got to talk to all thesepolicy wonks that weren't part
of the traditional think tankstructure, but were really
interested in how laws couldchange, people working on public

(56:31):
banks or democracy vouchers orrestorative justice or youth
incarceration. And these were,when I say experts or policy
wonks, I don't mean that just inthe people writing and studying
laws and whatnot, but folks whohave lived experience or
advocating for these ideas onthe ground. We would talk to
them, form these policy kitsbased on our conversations with

(56:52):
them.
And you just learn, like,there's so many amazing ideas
and amazing people out there,and their ideas just kind of are
stuck in their one locale. Andso our job, as we saw, was kind
of to help raise up the ideasand spread them and get them out
to more people so that theycould if you lived in a state
next door, you could trydemocracy vouchers or you could

(57:13):
see what could we do aroundrestorative justice and whatnot.
So there's this real momentwhen, one, these people who are
doing this amazing work, theywanna help, they wanna help
other cities and statesintroduce these ideas, but they
need help doing so. And then onthe other side of the equation,
the lawmakers too, at the cityand local level, and you'd know

(57:36):
this, the accessibility to thesefolks is just much greater than
your United States Senator atthe federal level. And so you
can see them at the grocerystore, you can email them, you
can set up calls if they havestaff, you can meet with them.
So we just found it was a loteasier to get some of these
ideas into people's hands forconsideration. And so that just,

(57:58):
for me, I think at that pointjust had my neighborhood council
political experience and thenthis national political
experience. And so this was thelocal and state that I was now
learning about, and it justopened up a whole new world of
possibilities. And I got to seethe ways in which our national
political conversation with themedia and all of that was and

(58:22):
wasn't coming into The States.And so you got to see just like
everyone's kind of dealing withboth like what's happening
nationally, but also what'shappening locally.
And what's happening locally canusually only be understood by
like, what's the people there.So that was one big experience.
Another one was just being inLos Angeles and starting to work
on democracy vouchers here andlearning how our city we would

(58:46):
face a number of corruptionscandals, a few resignations too
with this awful racist tape thatdropped a year or so ago. And
just working an idea in my owncommunity, in my own backyard,
and seeing how challenging itcan be to talk about something
new, talk about reform in aplace even like Los Angeles,

(59:08):
which is very progressive, stillcan have kind of a I don't even
know how to describe this,really. It's like a nothing can
be fixed mentality.
We rather just complain aboutit. And so I was like Fatalism.
Totally. And I was encounteringthat in a lot of meetings.
Thankfully, found an amazinggroup of coalitions of different
activists who were Reform mindedand were really knowledgeable

(59:32):
about the history of Los Angelesand everything, so I was able to
plug in there.
But that just taught me, one,that there's like all these
people in Los Angeles who wantto see things changed, but they
don't have a lot of hope thatthe current systems will allow
for that change and that theythemselves have really
interesting ideas. And sothere's no one really serving

(59:54):
that. And then I think the lastthing was just like, I don't
know, a meditation practice,really focusing on exercises to
strengthen one's attention andability to kind of see more of
what can exist in a certainsituation. That's certainly
changed my view of like partisanpolitics of the past several

(01:00:17):
years and how I think we couldgo about that differently and
just made me more open to seeingviewpoints expressed in people
that I traditionally not wantanything to do with being able
to see kind of what they'resaying that I really agree with,
that I actually believe isimportant. And then working from

(01:00:38):
that agreement.
It's been my experience thatpeople that I've disagreed with
in terms of like party politics,when you can actually sit with
them and hear what they'resaying, and the same happens to
you. Like, I found, this is justme, you can get a lot done. You
can actually build a bond. It'swhen we start abstracting who we

(01:00:59):
are and we miss the humanelement that we become avatars
for all the subconscious shadowsthat we don't want to own up to.
So I think this meditativecontemplation work was the other
big, woah, how do we integratethis work into how we think
about politics?

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Yeah. Interesting. I mean, what I'm hearing in that
as, like, a broad takeaway is ifyou are experiencing some form
of fatalism or nihilism and youwant to not see that be
manifest, then what you need todo is get involved. It's the
being outside of the arenathat's feeding that sense of

(01:01:42):
powerlessness, that's drivingdaily confirmation biased
information that that's true.But as soon as you walk into the
arena, in a small way, someone'sgonna hand you a shield,
someone's gonna hand you asword.
You might not be, quote,unquote, good at it. It's
irrelevant. You're going torealize that you actually can be

(01:02:02):
in the arena. And from thatplace, you are almost certainly
going to increase yourknowledge, experience,
relationships. And so the bestbalm is really to get involved.
Is that true for you?

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Yeah. I mean, you know, here's the tragic part is
not everyone has the resourcesor the time to get involved,
especially in a city like LosAngeles. Our city council
meetings, our committee meetingsdon't even allow, in some cases,
for remote input or dialing in,for example. So it's

(01:02:38):
understandable why people are sokind of turned off and why they
become fatalistic about it.Yeah.
Means we gotta be creative.Like, okay, who can? Who can
right now, given where we arewith our economic, like, issues
or social issues, politicalcorruption, who can show up to
move the dial a little bit andremove some of those barriers so

(01:03:01):
more people can come andparticipate.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Right. And of course, the story is often amongst those
who are in the seats that couldactually make those changes is
that I don't have time. Right?It's like we're already behind
in all this stuff. We've got 55different policy priorities.
I don't have time to be thinkingabout how we're taking public
feedback. That's not the mostimportant thing right now. And
while I can understand how youwould arrive at that conclusion,

(01:03:26):
it's actually incorrect becausewhat you really need to do is
pause, take a break, and fix thesystem. Because until you do,
every single thing that comesout of that system is gonna be
fundamentally flawed, is gonnadrive that continued cycle of
disassociation that drivesdistrust, which drives bad
policy outcomes, which drivespolitical decline, system

(01:03:48):
decline. And so actually, thething that you have to do
sometimes as a human, if you'reexhausted and you have stuff to
do for work, at some point youactually have to go to sleep
because you can't do the workanymore until you do.
We get lost in this. And thenthere's also a dynamic where
those who have been in thesystem the longest benefit in

(01:04:10):
some cases from those powerdifferentials and are not
incentivized to make thosechanges. But it's a devil's
bargain because that will onlylast so long. And on the other
side of that, democratic decayis a decay for whatever position
of power influence you hold,even in the most benevolent way.
And so I just wanna just extrahighlight the importance of

(01:04:33):
taking the pause to get downinto the systems and process
level as a means of healingcommunities and democracies.
And with that, you saidsomething super interesting to
me, which is that yourmeditation and contemplative
practice for you personally,this has been my experience too,
but for you personally hasreduced partisanship, has

(01:04:57):
reduced thoughts of othering,has allowed you to be open more
open minded and empathetic. Andthat has led you to being in the
room with someone, which hasthen furthered that. But the
truth is being in the room isnot enough. We have to watch,
you know, one impeachmenthearing to know that we can be
in a room face to face andcontinue to not see each other

(01:05:18):
as people. And so I wonder ifyou could tease apart from us a
bit more.
In what way or how has thismeditationcontemplative practice
opened your empathetic universe?And then as it's done that, and
you've chosen to take that intophysical rooms with people, what

(01:05:39):
are the approaches that you havegoing into those rooms so that
you can exercise those expandedabilities?

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
The way I describe it is you're able to see more of
what already existed. So beforeand I think and by the way, this
is something that I stillstruggle with. So it's not like
I figured anything out orcracked a code. But what I've
been able to figure out or seeis partisanship is just one

(01:06:07):
dimension of many. And there arethese other dimensions,
including the recognition thatsometimes the politicians you
support do things you don'tlike.
And so seeing that, we cancreate a space in which you can
have those vulnerableconversations. You can then just
disclose more of what exists thetable that hasn't been aired

(01:06:32):
yet. You know? And so I thinkthat's that's one thing I've
seen. And then, you know, Ithink that's on the partisan
stuff, but just on a on apersonal dimension, just a
character dimension.
I mean, once I think it's reallyhard to really call out someone
for their character flaws whenyou've yourself see like all the

(01:06:56):
things that exist in you and youstill do to this day and you're
working on and, you know, findembarrassment when they do
express themselves, then thatbecomes this another layer of
issues that you have to dealwith. And so they're just like,
Okay, I'm this way. I see that.I have a choice when or when not

(01:07:17):
to express it. And I'm going tosay something when I think it's
wrong, but I'm not going tototally throw them out as a
human being because they didsomething that I once did a few
weeks ago.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Does that

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
make sense?

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
It makes so much sense. It makes so much sense.
It's Ash, the part that you saidthat just really hit me is it
helped me be aware of my flaws.Because as you were giving the
example of some politician doessomething we don't like, the
thought that was screaming at meis like, Yeah, no shit. I do
stuff I don't like.

(01:07:53):
Totally. But the predispositionis to give myself grace. I don't
have an option that that's okay.Or to extend grace to in group
members who do things I don'tlike, recognizing it's not the
totality of them. But the thehuman predisposition is for out

(01:08:14):
of group members to have a atest of of perfection.
That if you do one thing that wedon't like, well then your
entire personhood is And ofcourse that's obscene, but it is
hard to see. And yeah, thebeauty of being able to own your

(01:08:36):
own imperfections and using thathowever imperfectly to remind
yourself of the humanity andothers is, yeah, that really hit
home for me.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
I've tried to figure out like a metaphor for it. Like
if we're all in the same foresttogether, like we thrive or die
alongside each other, right? Andit's not like, oh, my side of
the forest is gonna win bydestroying your side of the
forest. And I think when you cansee that, it really, the

(01:09:08):
activity becomes tending to theneeds of everyone in the
political sphere, not just thosethat you politically agree with.
And in fact, I think sometimesit's the folks we disagree with
that may need our attention.
And so I think it's just comingto that realization. I'm not
sure what this looks like inpractice. I've not formalized

(01:09:30):
any of this, but I will say I'mseeing seeds of it in the
bridging work that's happeningaround the country where they're
bringing people from variousparties together to have
difficult conversations. Some ofthat work, think, is really,
really good. Some of the work Ialso think could go further in
actually talking about partypolitics and kind of questioning

(01:09:51):
why that's an important featureof our democracy.
Because I think you start to seeall the ways in which we make
agreements, both in politics,but outside of politics and the
economy, between people, betweencommunities, as sites for just
reappraising how we want to betogether. And so when you're
able to kind of not just seepolitics as the center of

(01:10:14):
gravity, but a center ofgravity, you can then also look
at culture and especially theeconomy in its own way. And of
course, they're all interrelatedhere. But I think sometimes what
happens is we think who we electis gonna solve all our problems,
including those that we see inthe economy, or we'll write

(01:10:36):
legislation to fix what we seeis happening in the economy. But
I think a lot of and that's truepolicy is going to have an
enormous impact on the economy.
It does already. But so much ofwhat can be fixing the economy,
I think it also come about byindividual decisions within
these firms to pay theiremployees wages that reflect
their living expenses.

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
Yeah. I mean, it's just so much more than the
individual, right? It's like,it's such I mean, if you stop
back for one second and thinkabout it, it's so silly to think
that hiring a new personeffectively is going to be the
only thing you need to do tosolve anything. It's like, yeah,
we just went out and signed thenumber one pro skiing athlete,
but then their housing is in thesummer. Okay.

(01:11:17):
Well, that's not gonna be veryhelpful for our team. Or or we
like we just hired the numberone race car driver for our f
one season. Oh, but our systemis a tractor. We only have a
tractor. And it's like, okay.
Well, Verstappen's not gonna winin a tractor. It's like it's
such a ridiculous notion that wewouldn't accept in any other
area. But for some reason, wecontinually get duped every

(01:11:40):
election cycle into thinking ifwe just had the right person.
Totally. I wanna elaborate onyour forest analogy.

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):
Yeah. Go for it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
I'm thinking old growth forest. I'm, like, up in
the Northeast somewhere with thehuge redwood trees, very high
canopy. You can kind of walkthrough, but there's a lot
actually going on. There's thesehuge trees, but there's also the
small mammalian creaturescrawling about. There's the
insect kingdom.
There's the avian kingdom.There's the mycelial kingdom.

(01:12:10):
There's the sage and lichenkingdoms. And our politics today
is basically like the mycelialkingdom and the Redwood kingdom
decided we're not sharing spaceanymore. This is ridiculous.
You're taking up all that spacedown here. We're the big
Redwoods. Like, this should bejust ours. And mycelials are

(01:12:31):
like, you guys are just lazy.You just stand around doing
nothing up there, just gatheringmoisture as it comes over the
hills.
Like, we are decaying andremaking life. We take and give
life. Like, it's ridiculous foryou to be there. And so they go
to war thinking only one of usshall stand. And when they get

(01:12:52):
to the final conclusion of that,what they find is they're both
gonna die because they can'tlive without each other.
Right. It is the mycelialnetwork that allows the regrowth
of those trees to happen. It'sthe shade that the trees cast
and the weather they keep outthat allows the mycelial network
to grow and proliferate. And wesee this in our farming today.

(01:13:14):
Right?
When we have artificially movedto monocrop and said, hey,
soybeans are the most valuablething per square foot. We're
only gonna have soybeans. Whathappens? We lose all the
nutrients in the soil, and thesoybeans can't live anymore. And
it takes a decade to regeneratethe soil.
Totally.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
I think that's a beautiful elaboration.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
So you're saying that the mushrooms and the trees have
to talk. Yeah. That's what I'mhearing. Mushrooms and trees
have

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
to We all gotta talk.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
So the mushrooms and trees are gonna talk, but they
can't just talk in any way. Theycan't just yell at each other
across the table. They can'tcontinue to see the worst in
each other and expect to haveanything happen. So for you,
taking that meditation practiceinto the room to steal a
Hamilton line. What are youdoing?

(01:14:03):
How are you approachingconversations to actually be
able to hear empathetically?

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
Wow. So I'm still working on this, but I try to
really understand where they'vecome from and why they're
thinking the way they'rethinking. And so sometimes what
I do is think about, you youlook at someone's rhetoric or
someone's speech or someone'sactions over a year and to
listen for what I'm calling likethe the softest voice among

(01:14:35):
everything they say. Like,what's the softest voice that
you can hear? And the softestvoice usually isn't ever
expressed explicitly, but youcan hear it within what is
expressed, but almost distorted.
Kind of tuning into the softestvoice, the most subtle voice you
can you can hear is usuallywhere you can find something

(01:14:57):
that you actually really agreewith too and really think is
important.

Speaker 1 (01:15:01):
Can you give an example of that just so I
understand specifically what youmean?

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
Let's take Los Angeles, right? Their city
council leaders have been reallyslow to move on reform, and
they're giving all sorts ofexcuses why it's actually
important that they hold on topower and they, you know, not
delegate authority to otherbodies. Okay. In that, you can
actually hear the really softvoices. I wanna get it right.

(01:15:27):
I want us to be a good city. Iwant us to do this correctly
together. Okay. So when you cantune into that, now you can then
kind of communicate from thatquiet voice in explicit terms.
And sometimes you miss,sometimes it's not the quiet
voice you thought you heard andmaybe a lost cause.

(01:15:48):
But I do think at least thenthey recognize, they see
themselves in you because it'sthe quiet part in them that was
motivating what they weresaying. They can see it and
understand that you're notcoming for them. You're not
trying to make their life hell.You're actually trying to
cooperatively co work with them.This idea of co governance is

(01:16:09):
getting a lot of attention, Ithink, wonderful because it
suggests that governance isn'tjust the dominion of the people
elected, but it's something thatis shared and we take up
together.
So I think that's one way to goabout it. Another thought I had
too was polarization that we seeright now where these sides
seemingly can't or thesepositions can't come together,

(01:16:33):
whether it's reproductive rightsor gay rights, marriage
equality, what have you. Andit's kind of finding the quiet
voices on both of those sidesand turning it from polarization
to polarity. So these are nowthese now need to be together,
and they're always going to bein tension. But it's recognizing

(01:16:53):
the tension you can actuallydevelop the new through the
middle.
Right? And so when they'repolarized, don't even work. You
can't create from it. But whenyou've now bring them into
polarity, now you could be like,okay, well, actually what we're
seeing is, you know, this sideis really, this is really
important to them, and thatside, this is really important
to them. What can we agree onthat would honor both of these

(01:17:14):
views?
And we see that happening inpractice in the Citizens
Assembly in Ireland on marriageequality and reproductive
rights, where you had folks froma traditionally culturally
conservative country, Irelandbeing very Catholic, have the
conservatives feel that theirviews, their anti abortion
views, were respected. Andbecause they were respected,

(01:17:37):
they could legalize abortion. Soit was almost like they just
wanted to be heard, that theycould believe that abortion was
something that they didn'tbelieve in, to make it legal. I
don't know how to describe this,but it's this like kind of
evolution that we're seeing. Ithink that can only happen
though when you haveconversations, when you bring
people together and they canhave those moments of seeing

(01:17:58):
themselves in each other andgrowing and learning together.
So

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
Yeah. I mean, what I hear in that is the soft voice
is intentionally listening for awhy underneath the how that you
disagree with that you do agreewith. So instead of being angry
and demonizing you for policy X,I'm listening for the reason you
want policy X is for reason Y.And I actually really agree with

(01:18:25):
reason Y. And if I share withyou the recognition of, hey, I
see that I believe the reasonyou're saying this is because
you want reason why.
And you confirm, is that true?And they say, yes. You're like,
great. I totally want that too.And I think that there's another
way that we could approach it.
Are you open to having aconversation with maybe more

(01:18:50):
more mutual curiosity ofconsidering other things to get
to that shared place? And fromthat, you're not just opening
the door, but you're tellingthem you're safe, right? That
you're not there to hurt them.Allowing their nervous system to
settle into a place where theymight be able to actually hear
you. Because the truth is theperson who's sitting at the dais

(01:19:11):
is also scared.
Totally. It's a scary place tobe, to have people that you care
about, who are in yourcommunity, are your next door
neighbors coming at you, tellingyou how terrible you are, and
you're very much on guard. Andso to have someone come forward
in that way, I imagine would bea really big pattern interrupt.

(01:19:32):
And it would also be a great wayfor you as a citizen to stand
out.

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):
We're seeing this happen again. I I keep going
back to deliberative democracy,but we're seeing what you
described go even a few moresteps further. So the person who
feels like, okay, I'm now in aspace where I can share a little
bit more and disclose a littlebit more of myself, we consider
that progress in our politicalreality. But what we're seeing

(01:19:57):
in other places is that is justlike the half step, because then
those same people get excitedabout co creating something
together. They get so excitedthat they're actually growing in
new ways and developing newcapacities that their entire,
like, being is different.

(01:20:17):
So this kind of initialdisclosure, which we ought to
celebrate as a big thing here,is really just seen kind of at
the initial step of a muchlonger spectrum that can happen
to anyone. If we create thoseconditions where everyone feels
respected, everyone feels liketheir viewpoints are going to be
heard and seriously consideredby everyone in the room, then

(01:20:40):
they kind of turn into, okay,how can I help understand your
views? And then you start to seepeople kind of turn into
facilitators. They are trying toreally harness the wisdom in the
room. This is totally againstthe political wisdom in our
country, right?
It's about finding the smartpeople to run the government, to
manage the government. And whatwe're seeing elsewhere is

(01:21:03):
actually when you bring folkswith immense diversity of
experience into a room and givethem a serious problem that they
have a stake in solving, and yougive them resources, you help
provide childcare, cover theirtransportation, language access,
you have experts and informationon tap, amazing things can
happen. And then they take theball and run even further than

(01:21:25):
you can ever imagine, right? Sothat's where I think we can we
are seeing some of this go. Anda lot of the challenges I'm
seeing right now is, you know,public officials have a hard
time believing a group ofrandomly selected people from
all walks of life could evercome up with anything
interesting.
And again, all you have to do isjust point to these examples

(01:21:46):
where they've come up withamazing actionable policy
proposals.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
Right. Okay. So I want you to take this however
you want to take it. But ifyou're speaking, which you are,
by the way, directly to a lot ofelected officials in this case,
or policymakers or staff memberswho are curious, who are
thinking, wow, that thatactually does sound interesting.
I'd love to test that out, butI'm scared that it might not go
well, that I might get my bossmight get upset or they might

(01:22:13):
not get it.
If the result isn't good, thenthat's my head. What would be
some small incremental ways thatmitigate risk where they could
test out and see if thatapproach might hold water for
them.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
So if, you know, bringing together 100 to 150
people to providerecommendations around policy
recommendations for a specificproblem is too much, I think a
great way to get going is tojust try a smaller group of
people, take a, a lesscontentious issue, start with

(01:22:53):
students, start with schools,ask students what the city or
county should be doing about x,y, or z issues. Those are all
ways to kind of walk before yourun, so to speak, to get used to
what it means to hold adeliberative assembly selected
by lottery. And and then to, Ithink, gain some confidence

(01:23:14):
because, the best way theseassemblies are are are used is
to really tackle the issues noone wants to touch because
you're creating an environmentwhere it's now safe to discuss
these issues. And so long asyou're designing for legitimacy
at every step of the process,you're gonna protect yourselves

(01:23:35):
from the inevitable tax you'llalways get when you try
something new. So that meansmaximizing inclusion, ensuring
that the people selected toparticipate in these assemblies
is a representative crosssection of the population.
It also means being transparentat every step of the way so
people can follow along theprocess in public. Committing to

(01:24:00):
hearing the proposals and takingaction on them, is another great
way to show that you've kind ofyou're trusting their citizens
to make good decisions. Thepresident of the Brussels the
Citizens Assembly in Brusselssaid something along the lines
of, what we lose in power, wegain in legitimacy. And that's
because she's now participatedin a series of these assemblies

(01:24:22):
and has found that when we'rethese aren't displacing
political decision making as wetraditionally understand it.
It's making the process easierfor all parties, and it's also
it's helping, like, make a moreinformed public decision.
So I would see it less as, youknow, a threat or something
risky and more of like, hey, wewant to get this right. How can

(01:24:43):
we ensure that all the voicesthat usually show up to complain
after we've done something arein the room before we make the
decision, figuring out what weshould do before we decide. And

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
it's hard for me to imagine through my experience
that you are likely to find anelected body and a city, county,
office, manager, chief of staff,who are all universally aligned
and love this idea, that there'sgonna be various levels of
excitement, fear, etcetera. AndI imagine that getting into a

(01:25:19):
process like this, even when theprocess is successful, but then
having the decision makersultimately throw out the results
is a high likelihoodprobability, in a lot of cases.
And so to avoid that, becausethen that drives the initial
distrust that the participantshad, it continues to

(01:25:42):
delegitimize, and that's not thegoal here. So to avoid or
mitigate for that potentialoutcome, would you and there may
be more than these theseoptions, so you tell me. But the
the things that immediately cometo mind are, a, pick something
so uncontroversial or not in thepress that no one's gonna care,
and they can, like, pretty muchguarantee that it's gonna be

(01:26:03):
adopted.
B, bind themselves through theprocess to the adoption in the
enabling legislation so theycan't change their mind at the
end. Or c, be willing to movethrough that internal discord

(01:26:24):
and just kind of roll the diceand see what happens on the
other side. And then d, and thisis the last one is like taking
enough time to get to universalsupport of this idea amongst the
decision makers prior tostarting, even if that takes
years, which is honestly notunlikely.

Speaker 2 (01:26:43):
I think there's a few things you could do here. So I
should first say that, yes,there have been examples where
the 100% of the policyrecommendations haven't been
taken up. But there's also beena ton of examples. I think the
majority of recommendations havebeen taken up by the governing
bodies. And sometimes that's bythem themselves, but oftentimes

(01:27:05):
it's through the ballot.
So they refer therecommendations to the people.
So that again is another way inwhich if someone's not
comfortable supporting it, theykind of put it to a vote. But
again, I think I wanna highlightthe goal with these assemblies
is they tend to integratedifferent viewpoints. And so to

(01:27:25):
give you an example, some ofthese assemblies will produce a
report of say 10 policyrecommendations, and the
assembly will vote on eachpolicy recommendation. And so as
a lawmaker, you'll see, okay,92% of the assembly voted in
favor of this.
Now the assembly is arepresentative cross section of
your city. So you kind ofunderstand like, okay, that's
92% of the city like supportthat, 82 support this, 72

(01:27:48):
support that. And then for undereach item, you also have an
opportunity to have a dissentingexplanation. So the people, the
8% who didn't vote for it thefirst time, you know, didn't
vote for the top one can say,here's our rationale for why we
didn't support this. Soessentially, you're you're
gifting legislators with, youknow, political policy

(01:28:11):
intelligence that they can thenuse to make these decisions.
And, you know, now you have 100,one hundred and 50 people who
are fired up about being moreinvolved. They're also potential
political constituency. We'veseen a lot of them run for
office. So the politicians whohave really kind of made this
part of their shtick that wewanna continue doing these

(01:28:31):
assemblies seem to have supportand interest from the people on
that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
Interesting. Yeah. Love some shtick. We all need
shtick. Yeah.
So tell us a bit about what youhave going on right now.
Obviously, there's a prodigiousamount of work and study and
intellect and self developmentthat leads you to the embodied
human you are. What are youdoing with that at this moment
and why?

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):
So my big goal right now is to help get off the
ground this group, PublicDemocracy Los Angeles, which is
working on establishing a civicassembly here in Los Angeles.
So, we have an amazing group of,like, 10 or 12 volunteers
meeting regularly, planningevents, civic proposals to the
county. We're trying to get thatfinanced so that we can host the

(01:29:20):
first Civic Assembly in a citylike LA. So that's what I'm
doing on the political side. Andthen on this kind of more
interpersonal side that I thinkrelates to the inner work that
we talked about, I'm stillexperimenting with different
events and workshops that bringpeople into a more living

(01:29:41):
relationship with elements ofpolitics.
So I was just in Veruca,Wisconsin A Few Months ago
giving a talk and a workshop onreimagining policymaking as a
community wide culturalpractice. And these were
farmers, these were schoolteachers, these are people that
had little to no experience inpolitics, and in fact, had a lot

(01:30:03):
of negative perceptions ofpolitics and, you know, was able
to find a way to kind of bringthem into recognizing all those
past experiences as legitimate,but then having them step into
kind of a new relationship withpolicymaking where they felt
empowered, where they felt thatthey could go toe to toe with
lawmakers and eventually startbrainstorming some ideas. So

(01:30:26):
trying to kind of reawaken thatlowercase d democratic
policymaking spirit that I thinkis, gonna be really important.
And so, yeah, experimenting withwith those ideas too, and hoping
to do some coaching around thatand some workshop planning
around that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:41):
Very cool. And when you say inner work, what does
that mean to you? And how doesthat relate to or intersect with
your policy work?

Speaker 2 (01:30:51):
The inner work that I'm focused on is like a
contemplative practice ofenhancing one's attention and
becoming aware of where we placeit and what qualities it has and
their effects on us. So justdeveloping awareness of the
thoughts we have, developingrelationships with them and
becoming to know them. I mean,it's a lot of it inspired by the

(01:31:13):
work we did together, coming tounderstand myself from a whole
different vantage point andreally deepening that. So for
me, it's meditation, it'svisualization, it's it's also
just letting insights kind ofcome. So practicing what I would

(01:31:35):
call like a receptivity andreally developing a sense of
like, oh, this is how myintuition works.
When I have a new idea, itfunctions in this way. How can I
hone that and come to know thatprocess more? And I think it
relates to the political workbecause, you know, I see all of
us as inherently co creators.And so the more we can bring

(01:31:56):
that faculty online and people,the more kind of conscious co
creators will have participatingin not just the civic space, but
all the economic and culturalspaces, doing just incredible
work figuring out how we canbuild new things and that really
come from a human centric space.

Speaker 1 (01:32:16):
Yeah. And you mentioned the coaching container
that we were in as a place ofexploration or development of
those skills. Is that theprimary for you? Or are there
other places where you found askind of unlock containers for
that type of inner work?

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):
I think I have a number of sources. That was
definitely one of thesignificant It was like immersed
in it, you know, so I waspracticing it with you. Also
reading various, like, eithercontemplative or spiritual texts
from different traditions hashelped just open my sense of

(01:32:53):
different views on the mind andhow we think and how to relate
to positive and negativethoughts. And then ultimately
just experimenting and tryingthings and seeing what works or
how it works and then revisitingit. So really kind of, you know,
every day is kind of a drawingboard being like, is this

(01:33:14):
working for me?
Is it helping me become morecompassionate towards myself and
others? And is it helping me bemore fearless? Things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:33:23):
Are there any, if you were to pick maybe just one, and
it doesn't have to be the mostimportant one, but one specific
practice that you are at thismoment really finding valuable
that you could describe veryspecifically for someone who
wanted to try it on?

Speaker 2 (01:33:38):
Yeah, I think I would, for like just five
minutes every day, take a boringhousehold object and just call
your attention to it in yourmind and just try to see it in
your mind. And that's it. So Ilike to envision a chopstick,

(01:34:00):
and I just pay attention to thechopstick and just notice it
from different angles. It'snatural for your thoughts to
wander, of course, while you dothat. But over time, you'll
start to see you can actuallyhold it for longer than you
might realize.
And I think that's a veryimportant, capacity to bring
into the political space.

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
Love that. I'm going to give that one a shot this
week. I'm going to shift up mydaily meditation routine and
find something that reminds meof you to focus on. That feels
really, really fun. Closing uphere, wondering for someone
who's listening, who is feelinga bit stuck, kind of doesn't
know where to go, who'scommitted to public service, but

(01:34:43):
is just in that uneasy place ofstruggle.
Are there particular areas,practices, retreats, resources,
anything that you would justpoint them to that they could
check out as maybe sourceinspiration?

Speaker 2 (01:34:57):
Well, I think the work you're doing is really
fundamental to this space, to betalking about mental health and
politics. So I'd certainlyrecommend people head over to
you. And then if folks want tofollow the work I'm doing, they
can find me atmichaeldraschkovich.com. I have

(01:35:17):
a link to my blog there and thenalso a link to schedule
conversations if you'd like totalk about something. I can
always talk to folks about whatthey're working on.
If they're interested in some ofthe, citizen assembly stuff and
just kind of getting a primer onthat, I would just look at a
website called demnex.org. Theyseem to have done a really good

(01:35:41):
job at summarizing theinformation that's out there.

Speaker 1 (01:35:45):
Beautiful. And you've integrated into my next
question, but just to elaborate,anything else for people to
reach you? Social media? Andanything else where people can
find you or you'd want to befollowed or, anything else?

Speaker 2 (01:35:58):
Yeah. You can find me on Twitter at, Mike Drashkovich
and on Instagram at Michaelunderscore Drashkovich. And like
I said, my website isMichaelDrashkovich.com. Nice.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:36:10):
So two closing questions. There's really only
one. The first one's just gonnabe an inside joke to me because
I haven't gotten to do this yet.But if you were a breakfast
cereal, what kind of breakfastcereal would you be?

Speaker 2 (01:36:20):
Oh my gosh. Okay. Easy. Reese's Pieces had a
cereal. Do you remember this?
No. You don't remember that? Wasit Reese's Pieces? It was like
orange and black. I swore it'slike

Speaker 1 (01:36:30):
Orange and brown. I think I do remember. Like, they
were like the puffs?

Speaker 2 (01:36:33):
Yes. Yeah. Was that Reese's Pieces or is peanut
butter Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:36:37):
I do remember this. I do. Yeah. No. I think it's
Reese's Pieces, but they werepuffs.
Were like little They werepuffs. Whatever those cocoa
puffs, but they were Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
It was a peanut butter. I love peanut butter.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
That's you. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:36:49):
I eat it actually every day. So for me, that would
be the cereal I would become.

Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
Oh my gosh. Okay. I love it. Shout out, Tim. That's
hilarious.
Final question. Same questiongoes out to every guest, which
is this. Listeners to ourpodcast are not passive
observers. They are theproverbial humans in the arena.
And so if you were to leave themwith just one thing, one quote,
one practice, one word ofinspiration, one anything, but

(01:37:18):
just one thing that would bestresource them to personally be a
vector for healing our politics,what would it be?

Speaker 2 (01:37:24):
I would contemplate the quote I shared from the
president of the BrusselsCitizens Assembly, which is,
What we lose in power, we gainin legitimacy.

Speaker 1 (01:37:35):
Yeah, that's really great. Yeah, awesome. Michael,
thank you so much. This has beenso fun. If for no other reason
that I just get to spend twohours with you, that just makes
my day.
It's just a delight to see youand see how you continue to move
and grow in this world. And Ijust can't wait to keep watching
your journey, my friend.

Speaker 2 (01:37:54):
Well, Skippy, thank you for having me. It was a joy
to be on, and I'm excited tofollow what you're doing and see
this community grow. So thankyou again.

Speaker 1 (01:38:05):
Thank you so much for joining us today. If you want to
put what you've heard here todayinto practice, sign up for our
newsletter, The Leader'sHandbook, where each month
you'll receive just one emailwith a curated selection of the
most useful tools and practicesdiscussed on this podcast today
and over the course of the lastmonth, delivered in simple how

(01:38:27):
to worksheets, videos, and audioguides, so you and your teams
can try and test these out inyour own life and see what best
serves you. And lastly, if youwant to be a vector for healing
our politics, if you wanna doyour part, take out your phone
right now and share this podcastwith five colleagues you care
about. Send a simple text, dropa line, and leave the ball in

(01:38:51):
their court. Because the truthis the more those around you do
their work, the better it willshow up in your life, in your
community, and in your world.
Have a beautiful day. Asleaders, we all face contentious

(01:39:14):
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the most contentious STR andland use conversations in a
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yourself or someone in yourcommunity. There's a link in the
show notes below. Feel free toshare it. The Healing Our
Politics podcast is brought toyou by the Elected Leaders
Collective, the first leadingand most highly recognized name

(01:40:16):
in mental health, well-being,and performance coaching for
elected leaders and publicservants designed specifically
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It is for all public servants,staffers, volunteers,
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(01:40:41):
If you are filled with passionfor improving your community and
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if you find yourself bangingyour head against that same
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