#17: Belonging & Purpose: A Journey with Ulcca Hansen

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Makes a huge difference. If you'll do me a favor by
subscribing and liking the podcast wherever you listen, it
goes a long way. Thanks and I hope you enjoy.
Doctor Olka Joshi Hansen is an educator, researcher, speaker,
and facilitator, author of the book The Future of Smart,
podcast host by the same name, and parent.

(00:21):
She has been nationally recognized for her work in
education as a Harry S Truman Scholar, a British Marshall
Scholar, and a All and Daisy Soros Fellow.
She is a futurist and thought leader on Human centered design
and educational transformation. She has a doctorate in education
from Oxford University and a lawdegree from Harvard University.

(00:44):
She grew up in multiple countries and communities, which
has greatly influenced how she views education and learning
today. She tackles questions such as
how do we help human beings growand learn so that they can build
a better future? Why is this the moment for
transforming education and how can we cultivate a sense of
belonging in our schools, leadership, activism, and

(01:07):
workplaces? We have a wide-ranging
conversation about education, learning, belonging, challenging
the status quo in the future. I hope you enjoy.
I saw in your book you have a quote from Sir Ken Robinson.
I do. Did you did you meet him along
the way? Yeah.
In fact, I I worked with him early on in my career.

(01:31):
So I was a teacher and when I left the classroom, I went to
work at a foundation in New Jersey called the Gerald Leonard
Dodge Foundation. So this was back in the in the
late lease and we had an arts docket and through our arts
portfolio, we were working with the Getty Museum on learning in
the arts. And so Sir Ken at the time was
this little known, you know, professor, I don't even know if

(01:52):
he was Sir Ken at the time, but he was this, you know, professor
from Warwick University in the UK.
And he came over and we did workwith him.
And so, yeah, I knew him early on.
And I remember like getting intolike conversations with him when
I was thinking about going over to England to do my doctorate
because I agree with everything he says about creativity in the
arts. And I also think that part of

(02:15):
why the arts lend themselves so much to creativity and to a
certain kind of thinking is because it's harder in the arts
to forego process, right? Well, this may be different now
with AI, but if I'm going to create something as an artist, I
have to go through the process of creating it.
If I'm learning to have a state of play or if I'm drawing

(02:35):
something or creating pottery, Ican't forego the process of
actually making it. And so process and outcome
become really valuable. And so I remember like having
these conversations with him early on that actually you could
think about science and mathematics and any discipline
when done at a really high levelalso has this process element to

(02:56):
it. And so in many ways, it's less
about the art specifically and then and more about how do we
teach certain things. And for me, that's a thread
that's kind of gone on through through the years.
But yes, I was 24 or 25. When I first saw.
You. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. My child is 18 and I'm just a

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couple of years older. Yeah, exactly.
About to turn 24 in a couple of weeks.
Yeah, those mid 20s. That's right.
What, what was he like? What was he like in
conversations? Because I've only, you know,
read his books, seen his Ted Talks, and yeah, yeah.
Well, and I'll say I also then worked with him.

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So I was hired to be Chief strategy officer at a nonprofit
that he and Ted Dentersmith had Co founded and we were supposed
to launch in March 2020. And then COVID hit and then
that's when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he
passed away during COVID. And so but I'd had a chance to
work with him again, you know, in the run up to as as they

(04:03):
were, as we were all thinking about and the team was being
hired. So but I you know, I would say
he is very much in private, similar to what you see on on
stage, you know, a little bit more of a show on stage.
But you know, that sense of humor.
I mean, that's kind of a Britishdry sense of humor thing where
he's taken his life and his experiences and kind of mind
them for really great insights to share with the rest of us.

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And, you know, he's a, when you had a chance to work with him,
kind of one-on-one because he did a lot of facilitation for
groups and work directly with schools.
Just. Yeah, thoughtful, reflective,
good questions that kind of madeyou think.
And yeah, always kind of lookingto create a space where people
could come together, have have agood time.
Yeah. I think what you see is not all

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that different from from what you get.
Yeah, yeah, when my daughter wasgoing to be born, I read one of
his books and I'm, I think around that time or when she was
real young, watched his Ted talkabout do schools kill
creativity? And so that like has definitely

(05:06):
impacted the way I've thought about education, formal
schooling, my daughters, our daughters education, things like
that. Yeah, Yeah.
I mean, it's a, it's a really important point.
I think he's spot on, right? And I think this critique, he is
one of the people who who made Ithink the critique of the
factory model system the most accessible to a broad audience,

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right? I mean, there are many amazing
people who've Diane Ravitch and others who've been writing about
this for I just think his combination of examples and
humor and and then the the making of that into the RSA
animate that I think a lot of people have seen, right.
It really kind of allowed that idea and that question to be
spread in a really powerful way.I mean, his his fingerprints and

(05:54):
his legacy will be all over the work of transforming school as
and when we finally get there. So.
Yeah, yeah. And you're doing your part to
make that happen. You're trying.
So you talk about talk about a sense of belonging and purpose
in schools and how important that is for people who haven't
listened to your Ted Talk yet orread your book.

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And we'll talk about those things.
But like, why do you feel like that's so important, that sense
of belonging and purpose in school education?
Well. The term I use for the kinds of
schools that I believe in is human centered.
And for me, human centered meansthings, whether it's schools or
organizations or ways of operating that are aligned with

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what we know about human development and what we know
about how human beings learn andthrive.
And for all of us, a sense of belonging and a sense that the
things we are doing have meaningand, and are valued right in the
world and by others, that is a foundational.
Without that, everything else kind of goes out of out of

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whack. You know, in my first Ted Talk,
I kind of give this list of things, you know, gangs and book
clubs and fundamentalist and fundamentalist extremists and,
and really say that, you know, belonging is at the heart of so
many of these different spaces that people go to be seen and
witnessed and known. So when it comes to our children

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at this period between birth and25, when young people finish
adolescence, that is a unique moment in life, right?
It is, it is the place and the time in which human beings
finish being kind of born and shaped into the people that
they'll be in the world. And so if that isn't a time to
center, what is most foundational to them becoming

(07:41):
human beings who have what they need to thrive.
I'm not sure where else or what else you would you would do
that. Yeah, yeah.
When I was in college, that makes me think we guest speakers
and this gentleman, the movie American History X is based on
him. He came and spoke to our school.
He at that time, I don't know ifhe still is, I was working for
the Peace and Tolerance Institute in Los Angeles, but

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previously he was the head of the California neo Nazi
movement. And I remember him sharing.
I was, you know, 20 years old atthe time.
So I was four years ago doing math, but just.
Kidding. But a few years ago, a few
decades ago, I remember him talking about how they would go
into schools and like hang out outside of schools and get that

(08:27):
like middle school age or end ofelementary school beginning a
high school age. They would look for the kids
that didn't have that, that group.
And then they would be like, Hey, come on, you know, hang out
with us. We get, we'll protect you.
We get got your back. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like
manipulating it for the wrong purpose, wrong reason.
But how important it is to feel a sense that you're attached to

(08:50):
others? Yeah, yeah.
I mean that that is a foundational human need.
And, you know, I mean, there areother answers we could give
that. We just know that when young
people feel like they belong, they can feel safe.
They can feel safe taking risks.They can feel safe, you know,
trying things that they haven't tried before.
So that enables them to take chances and do hard work and and
fail sometimes and be OK If you feel like you belong, same

(09:13):
thing, right? That that if you make mistakes,
if you fall down, it's not goingto be the end.
That's like deeply wired. So there's a functional reason
and a pragmatic reason that we want this sense of belonging and
purpose to exist. But at the end of the day, to
me, the reason is that we need it as human beings.
And education is about human beings, whether they're young

(09:34):
learners or older learners. And so that's that's just super
important. And my worry, sorry, I'll just
add one thing like my worry is that, you know, these days, the
word belonging now is being bantied around as know people
seek to avoid other language that is more, you know, kind of
divisive and, and polarizing. And so belonging has become the

(09:56):
new term. And we can certainly talk about
this because this is part of howI see the world.
So words are interesting becausethey carry meanings and subtexts
and contexts. And and yet how we embody them
in the world has a lot to do with mindset and how we sit in
the work. And so there are some people and
we've all been there. You can think of an organization

(10:17):
or a meeting or a place that youwent to where the word, you
know, joyful or you will belong here and you will feel, you
know, whatever. And you go there and you're
like, Nope, don't really feel that at all.
And then there are other places you go and those words, whether
they're used or not, you do feelthat.
And to me, that's a difference in how people are showing up in
the work. And my, my worry right now is

(10:40):
that, you know, a lot of schoolsand organizations are slapping
the word belonging and joy into their descriptions of what they
do, but they're not actually building the capacity of the
people inside those organizations to show up
differently. And so they show up from day one
to day three. I'm doing exactly the same
stuff, but you just have a new word label, you know, kind of

(11:00):
slapped on top of it. And so, and that's not to make
light, right, of the really hardwork that our educators and our
young people are doing to and leaders are doing to make
schools really great places. But it requires to go back to
Sir Ken and this idea of process.
It takes time to kind of bring ourselves down into the work

(11:21):
that we do in a separate way, ina in a different way where we
can show up in a way that reallyallows us to let people be who
they are and really hold them and see them without trying to
change them and fix them. And that's what belonging
requires. I love that because I've worked
at places where there's beautiful words on the wall.
Yes. But it didn't feel so beautiful

(11:43):
working there, right? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you know, it's everybody's like we're going to
go through a strategy refresh and we're going to come up with
a new set of words to talk aboutthe work that we're doing.
It's like, that is wonderful, but that is a very intellectual
exercise that you just went through and it's not clear that
anybody is going to shift what they're doing just because they.
But this is a very like modern Western conception is if we can

(12:05):
just get the words right, if we can just describe it right, if
we can just get the theory of change nicely delineated on a
PowerPoint, somehow that's goingto get us where we need to go.
And I think that's just all something that's like a pattern
of thinking that we need to disrupt and sort of get
ourselves out of and say, actually what changes things is
when we move them from our headsinto our bodies and can actually

(12:29):
be and show up in the work differently for ourselves and
other people. And that's a very different
process than struggling over theright word.
In the right word on the paper or on the Yeah.
So how do we, how do we move thethe concepts then from our head
to our heart or our head to our body, as you say?
Yeah, I mean, I've got a small bottle of pills that you can

(12:52):
take and and we'll get there. Morning and night.
Or that's right. That's right.
Morning and morning and night both.
No, I mean that. Or without.
Really depends where you're starting from, Chad.
It depends how much of A disruption this is going to be
to your system. I mean, this is the $20,000
question right in, in my book and in my work.

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You know, there, there are things and frameworks,
conceptual frameworks that you encounter that somehow can help
you make sense of the world in areally important way.
So there's a psychiatrist and neuroscientist in the UK named
Ian McGill Crist who has been the pioneer and the kind of drum
beat for this question. You know, the human brain has

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two hemispheres. And while it is not true, right,
This old idea of I'm right brained, I'm artistic, I'm left
brain, I'm good at math, that isnot true.
Everything that we do, whether it's creative or analytic,
requires all of our brain. And Ian asked the question and
held on to it. Why is it that the human brain
has two different hemispheres that are not exactly identical,

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where the corpus glossum sometimes connects them and
sometimes inhibits 1 hemisphere while the other is more?
And the answer, through the research that he and others have
done, is that human beings have to do 2 different things at the
same time. So we are embodied beings in
this second, you and I are both taking in hundreds of data
points, whether it's kind of temperature or small noises or

(14:16):
the expression on your face. It's so the right hemisphere is
like the large end of a funnel that allows us and allows our
brain to be aware of and take inall of the richness and
complexity that exists for us being embodied beings in time
and space and place. And we can't possibly sort
through all of that every time we have to use it.
And so the work of the left hemisphere is this more narrow

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attention where we, it takes what's complicated and rich and
simplifies it through this very reductive, linear, abstractive
process. It creates categories, it gives
definitions to categories. It kind of simplifies the world.
So think of this as like the difference between the real
world and a map. A map represents the real world,
but it isn't the real world. And they're both important for
different reasons, but they're not the same.
And when the brain is working properly, our right hemispheric

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capacity should be stronger thanour left because they need to
mediate things, because things start in the right.
They go to the left to be made simplified and then go back to
the right to be used in context,right?
Some people might call that wisdom.
And the answer to your question right in my mind is we live in a
world today that is very left hemispheric dominant.

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And there are historic and cultural reasons for that, that
there was this period in Europe around 500 years ago when this
metaphor for human beings, of usas being part of a living whole
and connected to everything, wasdisplaced by this idea of the
world as a machine. As with as a machine, you can
take it apart, you can manipulate it, you can make it

(15:39):
work. But it also puts us aside, like
we, it removes us from the worldto be observers.
And it lets us think that we canunderstand the world in this
abstracted, conceptualized way that's kind of disembodied and
fragmented. And that worldview, that
approach to seeing the world wasexported out of Europe through
colonization. And so it is the dominant way of

(16:01):
being in the world and certainlyin a place like America.
And so all of us are very good at living in this conceptual
world where we're like, let's just figure it out and figure
out the right categories in the right world.
And what we actually all need todo is develop our right
hemispheric capabilities, which is those abilities that allow us
to sit in and experience and feel and be in the world without

(16:22):
trying to judge it or fix it or sometimes even understand it or
articulate it. I was just having lunch with a
friend today and we were talkingabout the fact that, you know,
sometimes she meditates and she like bursts into tears and
somebody, you know what her teacher was telling her, like,
don't worry about it, Just let it go.
Don't stop, don't think about it.
You don't have to put words to it.
Just let it be what it is. And I think that right

(16:44):
hemispheric capability, right? It's when we can sit inside of
that that we are able to kind oflet things move down from our
heads into our hearts and our bodies so that they kind of show
up differently in the world for other people and for ourselves.
Yeah, exactly. So it can go from our head to
our heart to our hands. Yeah, like that.
Yeah, yeah. If you travel to other countries

(17:08):
and cultures where you've experienced that first hand.
Oh yeah. So anybody who's been to Costa
Rica, a lot of people, right, will, will talk about Costa Rica
as a place where they go. And it's just what is the word
God, perimenopause brain? I can't remember, but there's
like a there's a phrase that is like very true.
And basically the phrase is justbe in life, right?

(17:30):
And but yes, and I think a lot of what we would think of is
developing nations, developing countries, indigenous
communities, right? Hold on to these ways of being
in ways that can kind of drive, you know, your average American
kind of Western person crazy. You're like, what is wrong with
you? Like, why are you not in a rush
to be efficient and get this done and that done?

(17:50):
I mean, a lot of people have probably, you know, who are
listening to this, have heard oflike the white supremacy culture
framework of what? And if you think about the
things on that list, I actually am not a fan of that framework.
I think it oversimplifies something and puts race on top
of it that actually shouldn't be.
To my mind, it's not about race so much as it is about these two
worldviews and this kind of lefthemispheric way of being, this

(18:13):
focus on efficiency and time andwords and you know, that kind of
stuff. And so you go to, I was just in
Spain and I was in Japan at one point.
I was live in India. I talked about Costa Rica, but
you go to these places and everyone's just kind of like,
you know, life will happen. It's fine, it's fine.
Sometimes it can be a little extreme, but right there is

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this, there's this sense that like, you know, life is, life is
long time is time is sort of a construct that we can live
inside of. Right, there is in these places,
you will have much more of a communitarian feel, right?
That relationships, that the relationships and community are
sort of a place where we go. There is often a sense of
abundance and, and there's something interesting in that,

(18:57):
right? A lot of left hemispheric
thinking is very tied to scarcity because the left
hemisphere, you can only imaginewhat you know and the left
hemisphere only knows what it knows, right?
And so it can't kind of dream orthink outside of that.
Whereas the right hemisphere is much more associated with like
abundance because you can see the hole, you can tap into the

(19:17):
hole, you can be aware of what is there and sort of extend out
into the kind of bigness that isreality.
And if you think about, there's a, an area in philosophy called
axiology that talks about how culture is shaped by place,
right? And geography.
And if you think about the Southern hemisphere, you think
about warm climates, right? If you don't have bananas, you

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will have mangoes. If you don't have mangoes, you
will have other fruits or nuts or other things to eat.
So this idea that there is enough is just kind of a part
and parcel of how you live your life.
As opposed to Northern Europe where you imagine like this
period when there was famine, you have three or four months to
have the food that needs to lastyou for the entirety of the
year. And so it matters.

(20:00):
That you have your own property in your own land and that you
have your own food and that you know how much there is, so no
one stealing it from you. And maybe even you want to get
somebody else's food, right? Because it's your survival.
And so there's that scarcity mindset that sort of goes in.
So I think what I'm talking about this kind of right
hemisphere capability is definitely tied into this notion

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of culture and, and how cultureshave organized themselves.
And so if you think about some of the stuff I've just said,
right, many people listening to this have probably been to
places where they're like frightthat that's there's something
different there. And, you know, in the US,
indigenous communities, if you think about the Inuit, if you
think about the indigenous communities of North America, I
mean, what's fascinating is that, you know, they had

(20:43):
communities and tribes that evenwith cold and with scarcity
rights, still had this communitarian ability to kind of
say, yes, like, there will be enough and we will take care of
each other. So it's about worldview.
And those Indigenous communitieswere very deeply tied to, very
intentionally tied to the wisdomof their ancestors that sort of
carried forward before it was disrupted by Western

(21:06):
colonization and the ideas that were brought that that idea of
the world right and progress that was brought along with
that. The master class right there,
like, I want you to be my teacher every week because yeah,
wow. It made me think.
My college roommate freshman year from Alicante, Spain, on

(21:28):
the Mediterranean. And so right after freshman
year, I went over, spent two weeks with him and his family
and his dad was working, but each day came home like midday
and he took a nap and for like like 2 hours.
And I was like, wait, what's going on?
Like aren't you working? Are you gonna get fired?

(21:51):
And Jorge was like, no, that's the way, that's the way this is
here. And then and then we have our
meal in the afternoon and then he goes back for a couple hours
and then he's done. And I was like, whoa, like what?
Like whole different approach. Just like the other day, I was
talking to somebody and he's like, yeah, I haven't been

(22:12):
sleeping well, but, you know, it's good thing I got my coffee
in the afternoon to just keep megoing, you know, And it's like a
totally different approach we have here in the United States.
Yeah, yeah. And you know, some people,
right, would would look at Spain, for example, and say,
look, that's an economy that is not as strong or as productive.
It's not a country that's as wealthy as the as the US is.

(22:35):
And by some definitions of modern capitalism, right.
And sort of what matters, which in our country is sort of
efficiency and markets and money.
That may be true. On the other hand, right, joy of
life, a sense of well-being, right, cultures and communities
that that feel intact, right? There are many countries that
have that far more strongly thanwe do in the US.

(22:56):
And so at a certain point, it's like, at what cost, right?
In theory, you could make money until you kill humankind, but
like, at what cost? So unrestrained capitalism is
very much a byproduct of this modern Western worldview, this
Cartesian Newtonian worldview, as opposed to social capitalism.

(23:17):
Like, I'm not against capital. I think we should use money for
to do things and people should be able to make money.
That's all good. But at what cost, right?
Do we do we lift up prices of our social media companies at
the expense of our Children's Health and well-being?
Or do we do we say like, yeah, you know what?
There are some things we're not going to do.
And I think that's a, these are questions that we're grappling
with in the US right now and with real, you know, real

(23:40):
consequences for our children and and sort of society.
And the Costa Rican phrase was pura Vida.
Yeah, yeah. Menopause brain always gives it
back to me. It's just not always at the
moment that I need. It exactly Yeah, yes, right.
That's so true yeah, I mean it makes.
When I was college athlete, we used to hang out with the.
I was on the tennis team and we'd hang out with the swim team

(24:01):
a lot. And there's a girl from Brazil
on the swim team that was like part of the friend group.
And she's like that saying the Costa Rican saying she was just
like, yeah, you know, it's all gonna work out.
Like, it's all cool. And I'd be like rushing around,
like I gotta make it to the, youknow, gotta get, gotta get
there. Can't be late to this class or

(24:22):
whatever. She's like, it's all good.
Right, right. And it's always a balance,
right. I mean, we've got we've got
kids. I've got two teenagers.
I'm like, no walk with purpose. Children walk with purpose, you
know, so it's, it's the right hemispheric is a both and with
right. There are times where we are
into a efficiency and time matters and all that.
It's not that it doesn't. The left is very either or.

(24:43):
So it's like always one thing and never the other.
And it's like we could just stand to be a little bit more
fluid, right? Yes.
And when we when we have those right hemispheric muscles, we
do, we can go back and forth between the two.
But when we're very anchored in the left, we are anchored in one
way of being and we lose the other.
So in many ways, this is the invitation to people, right?
Is to actually enrich ourselves because we can still have the

(25:06):
best of some of these, you know,the the modern things that we
have been anchored into. And also we can just sort of
like release when we need to andbe at a different space.
Yeah, yeah. I'm a so I've done some martial
arts and big fan of the Eastern philosophy.
And like Bruce Lee was taught tois like water, you know, because
he would get actually, when he was training, when he was a kid,

(25:29):
he'd get really angry and frustrated and he would make
mistakes. And so do you know the story
about his teacher? His teacher sent him out to, I
think it was like a lake. And he had him punch the water.
And he's like, OK, punch the water.
And he's like, what happens to the water?
He's like nothing. And he's like, yeah, you need to
learn to flow more like water does and be with it.

(25:51):
Like, mistakes are gonna happen.Expectations aren't gonna be
met. And how can you flow?
I understand that you're gonna get angry, but like, how can you
continue to move on so you're not so stuck and locked up?
Yeah. And I think that's like for me,
like what a beautiful lesson that.
Yeah. Well, and, and two parts to

(26:12):
that, right, I think in the West, some of one of the things
I've started to see is this likehyper positivity of like, you
know, just be everything's fine.And I had a teacher who talked
about 88 keys on a piano and themost beautiful songs enable us
to sort of have the high and thelow notes.
And so when you're having, when you're angry, when you're sad,

(26:33):
when you're grieving, when life throws something at you that
feels unbearable, like we shouldfeel it, right?
That's part of the human experience.
And the question is, how do we both feel it and experience it
and acknowledge it and also be able to kind of move through it
and know that it's not unlike water that you go back and
forth, right? Flowing is not in just One

(26:54):
Direction. Like there's things that that
push us back and but it's the fluidity of that and the
understanding that like we, we can acknowledge it.
And sometimes in acknowledging it, I also have a martial arts
background. So like what you're talking
about, right? Like in acknowledging it, you
actually give it less power and you give yourself more capacity
to sort of move through it when you need to and to hold it when

(27:16):
you need to. So it's not spilling out all
over on to other people. But the more you try to kind of,
you know, keep it at Bay, right,the harder it is for you and the
more likely it is that that damage will be done either to
you or to others. Yeah, we're both.
What's your martial arts background?
It's Subakdo, which is the precursor to Taekwondo.
So Subakdo is a bit more of the like original form.

(27:39):
And then Taekwondo was sort of became more martial and became
sort of more competitive. But that's the that's form that
I think more people are aware of.
But it's a it's Korean and it was based on this idea of
fluidity and circles. So circular movements is a large
part of it, but there were eightkey concepts and five of them
were mental, three of them were physical, right?

(27:59):
And so just even even the idea that there were these five that
had nothing to do with the what you were doing with your body.
It had to do with like the mental state you were in that
then moved through your body, right?
That was it was a very deeply embodied lesson, right?
The good thing about martial arts is you're embodying a lot
of these things, so. How did you get into it?

(28:20):
My brother, my brother's five years younger than I am and he
started doing martial arts before I did.
And it was just this studio run by this female instructor and I
was like watching and thought I would try it.
So I think it was it was what 10maybe or 9 when I started. 1415
years ago. That's right, that's right.
And did it did it for about someof black belts.

(28:41):
I did it for about 12 years, youknow, like consistently, and
then have not really kept up with the practice.
And my children had no interest in martial arts and so didn't
get to. But yeah, it is a very formative
kind of experience. Yeah, I bet, especially at that
age. Well, and on lots of levels, not
just doing the martial arts, butalso in the Dojo, right?

(29:02):
The idea that actually it was your rank that mattered in
seniority. And so, you know, you'd be
thirteen and leading a class full of adults in instruction
because it didn't matter that you were 13 or 12.
I mean, there were like 8 year olds that would sometimes lead
classes because they knew. And I think that also has shaped
even how I think about educationin schools, right?

(29:23):
And this, most people don't admit this, but most of us don't
think young people are capable, right?
And, and so and so in general, we're kind of like, yeah, you
know, like hold them, mold them,put them into structures that
kind of cabin them because they're not, you know, they're
not, they're not equipped to do things.
And, and I think the experience of being in the Dojo and having
it be such an important part of my life, one of the lessons was

(29:45):
actually it isn't about age. It's about have you taken the
time and put in the practice andthe effort to earn your rank?
And everyone then knows that, you know, and then you learn
from that person and you know what an egalitarian kind of
space to be in for so many years.
Yeah, It's not based on, oh, once you've done this period of
time, you've done one year, you've done two years.

(30:08):
Now you get advanced, right? Because of and OK, Yeah, you're,
you've been coming to this classfor five years.
So you get to lead the class. It's OK.
Have you earned it? Yeah.
And shown what you do, right. It's based on competency.
You can't do it. You don't do it that time and
then you go back and you try again.
But yes, exactly. Some people were able to like
move through ranks very quickly.Others it took a little bit

(30:30):
longer. And that was also OK, right.
Think about the difference between what I'm what we're just
talking about in school, right? Yeah.
For most most school experiences.
Yeah, yeah. And that's why we know.
This is why we know that young people prefer sports and arts
and extracurricular activity andtheir camps, because in those

(30:52):
places they naturally organize themselves, right?
Youth development spaces organize themselves in such
that, yeah, you have to show what you can do.
And different people are going to be different places.
And for the most part, I mean, look, these are human
institutions, right? But for the most part, that's
that that's so empowering. Like if I put in the work, I can
do it. And that's why we know hands

(31:14):
down that for most students, once they get into middle school
and high school, you ask them the best part of their day.
It's not the academic stuff, it's often their clubs, it's
their activities, it's their social things.
And they much prefer the things that they do outside of school
and to the things that that we make them do inside of school.
Yeah, because, I mean, have you ever read that?
You probably know Dan Pink's drive so and it's based off Desi

(31:37):
and Ryan's work. And so it makes me think like
when our daughter was little, she wanted to grab the bottle,
right, Like the baby, a baby wants to grab the bottle, right?
And they want to hold it. So they're searching for that
autonomy. Yep, that control.
And then as you go to the other end of life, like a frustration

(31:58):
for the people near the end of their life, is the lack the that
losing the grasps of autonomy. Yeah, so.
It speaks to like our lifespan of how important that is to feel
that sense of like, I'm empowered, I'm in charge, I'm in
control, I get to be in the driver seat.
Yep. Agency.

(32:19):
That sense of agency. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, many, many of us are
in this stage of having young your children, Some our children
are older than than not, but also having aging parents.
And it is interesting if you think about the circle of life,
right? You're born, you're kind of
helpless and have to be taken care of, and you gradually
develop more independence. And then you sort of get to this
other stage of life where you are once again reliant on

(32:43):
others, unable to do the things that you want.
So there's a real similarity notto compare our elders to
children, but they in terms of like the experience of life.
And of course the difference with our elders is that they
have had the experience of beingautonomous.
And so it can actively miss something versus children who
yearn for something that they'repretty sure they're it's out

(33:05):
there, right? And they're sort of their, their
bodies and their brains and their sort of little selves are
sort of pushing for that. But they can't miss it actively
because they've never known it. Not yet.
So, yeah, it's a it's AI don't know for me, it's brings empathy
to that can be frustrating rightaround like, no, you can't drive
anymore or no, this is a really bad decision.

(33:25):
And you know, at what point are we going to say that you can't
right? Like it's a for those grappling
with it, It is not easy days. And I wish there were more
communities where, you know, we could all like talk about how it
is that we best help people as they sort of age into the next
chapters of life, right. Once they retire and and still
want to have. I've actually been really

(33:46):
heartened to see the amount of activism there is now because of
the demographic bulge of people who are of retirement age
saying, yeah, but we still we know things we have value.
Why are you why are you shuntingus aside, right.
When you have nonprofits and community needs and all these
things like we want to be purposeful, right?
Again, this word comes up again.So it's been it's nice to see

(34:09):
that that activism in in that community, right.
I hope it's a kind of shifting point for us in this culture of
how we deal with. Yeah, with our elders, there's
another cultural piece. I've spent time with people from
many different countries, including traveling to other
places. One of the things that I've
drawn from say, like the Asian culture that I love so much, and

(34:32):
it's talking about Spanish culture before, IS their
appreciation of their elders, the respect of the elders.
It's like, OK, we need to glean lessons and wisdom and we
appreciate that time together. Whereas like a lot of times in
the US, it's like, OK, push themout to the.

(34:53):
Side yeah, yeah, and. There's a distance there and a
disconnect. Yeah.
Yeah, like, like you talk about capable and competent, It's
like, well, no, they're past their prime.
Right, right. They're not capable and
competent anymore. It's like we we devalue like
what they can bring to the table.
Yeah, yeah. And it's a, it's a delicate and

(35:14):
interesting dance, right? I mean, no question, we, we, we
all in the US have not, have notfigured this out in any way,
shape or form. But I remember talking, I was at
a conference and it was Asian American, an indigenous
philanthropist, philanthropist. And there was a session I went
to where there were the younger people, so 14/15/16.

(35:37):
And then the elders in the community that had been working
with them around this particularproject.
And it, there was an interestingpart of the conversation where
one of the elder gentlemen talked about, he said, you know,
the thing about it, though, is that yes, we are elders, but
elders doesn't mean we get to tell, tell the young people what
to do or to boss them. He's like, because in many ways

(36:00):
they have the vision and the ability to see what's possible
because we've experienced thingsand sometimes forget what's
possible. So he's like, our role is
actually to guide and to share what we've learned, not because
it's to close off what young people think is possible, but to
kind of share with them the insights that we have from it.

(36:22):
And I thought there's like a fine nuance there, right?
Because often it can be, well, we're older and we know and, and
therefore what you're saying is wrong.
And I appreciated the subtlety of his kind of naming that, yes,
in these communities, because inthis community there's that
tension and that just because you're older doesn't mean you
get to dictate what the young do.

(36:43):
And I think there are many cultures where young people
might say there's like an over dictation by the elders as to
what can be done right and sort of an over.
So it's always about balance, right?
These things, It's always about the balance.
And that goes back to mindset, right?
Do we see ourselves as part of awhole that is trying to like

(37:03):
support the whole? Or is it about ego?
And I am asserting my ego in this instance to kind of have
power and to feel good about myself regardless of how it
feeds to the whole. And so that's kind of an ongoing
thing. And you know, this goes a lot to
like systems and structures. Like there are, there are
reasons that there were rituals and that there were rites of

(37:24):
passage at different stages, because rites of passage and
certain cultural institutions ornorms were ways of helping to
codify and to have people share an understanding of what each
phase or what things were supposed to be like in the
relationship within the community.
And I think one of the things we've seen just in the modern

(37:45):
world generally, but especially in the US, is like the decline
of institutions that used to be some of the places that helped
weave together that social fabric, right?
And some of the norms and the ways things were done and
brought to people together across ages and life stages.
And we didn't replace them with anything.
And so we're sort of without anyaccess to any of the cultural

(38:07):
collective wisdom, when the irony is that the US should
actually have the most amazing resources because we pull from,
like, so many cultures and countries that we could have one
of the richest banks of all of this if we chose to, you know,
rebuild that. So we'll see where we go.
Yeah. And to tap into that.
Right. Yeah.
Because the richness is there. It's it's like the diamonds are

(38:30):
in our backyard. We just need a shovel.
Well, and the curiosity to be like, oh, on the awareness that
the diamonds are there to the curiosity to like, oh, we should
like find out what that is, Yeah.
Yeah. You know, taking it like to
school standpoint, I was teaching at Springfield College

(38:50):
in Western Mass like a decade ago, and I asked to observe this
teacher had been teaching for, Idon't know, like 30 plus years,
maybe close to 40 years. The students just loved why I'm
bringing this up is because it speaks to like you're talking
about the that interplay of not dictating, but providing a

(39:13):
perspective. So he was teaching the class
before me. So I said, is there any way I
could come in and observe how you teach a class?
Because I've heard wonderful things from students on campus.
And he said, sure, but I'm not going to be up in the front of
the room teaching the class. I'm using a flipped classroom
this semester. So the students are up in front
teaching less and I'm sitting back and I'm helping and guide

(39:37):
this along. And I was like, fantastic.
And so I went and I remember it and I was like, whoa, why didn't
I get this experience more like in K through 12 education or
maybe at all. I don't even remember like, and
I remember talking to him. I was like, that is cool.

(39:57):
Because it was taking that authority, power, responsibility
and putting it in the capable hands of the students and
empowering them. So it wasn't about him.
It wasn't about his ego being the sage on the stage, so to
speak. Yeah, yeah.
It's amazing. It does.
It takes a, I'm so glad you had that experience, right.

(40:18):
And it probably has shaped everyexperience you've had of
teaching since in terms of yeah,in some way, shape or form,
whether you do it or not, is that question of where does the
power sit? Are we learners together or am I
the distributor of knowledge andthey are recipients?
Again, the subtlety of of that distinction, it matters and it

(40:38):
shows up and we all, we've all felt it.
We all know when we're in the presence of somebody or in a
place where you're like, no, literally this is all of us
together versus yeah, I know, I know my place.
I know my place. Yes, yes, yeah.
And it's such a, it's such a funfeeling.
Like you talked about joy, you know, when we started out a
little while ago and, and some of these, these words that we

(41:01):
grasp for. But it's like you can feel it
like when you're, you can feel like when you're like part of
something where people are rowing together or when you're
on the, on the raft or whatever.And like one person's rowing
really hard, another person's hanging out and like, you know,
another person's preventing holding on to the ore.

(41:23):
Like it's a feeling. Yep, it is and I love that you
use that because I will often say like it feels a certain way.
And I remember a lot of time in school or in college or Graduate
School, it was like feel. That's not a thing.
Tell me what it what did, what was it?
What was it? You know, put your finger on put

(41:44):
your like it was a feeling. And I'm not sure I can give you
the exact words. I mean, I tried to write a book
that gives some of some words, but it's a feeling and the
feeling matters. It's an important data point
that we have all been taught to ignore because it's not good
enough, right? I mean, think about most of us

(42:04):
have learned not to sometimes wefeel uncomfortable in a
situation or we feel like, you know, there's just something in
our gut that's kind of like, andwe, we've been taught not to
listen to that because we're like, Nope, Nope.
Got to think our way through this, got to, you know, got to,
got to understand it. But the reality is that our
brains and our our sort of brainbased cognition is different
than embodied cognition, which is a different kind of

(42:25):
cognition. And our bodies, frankly, are
smarter and often faster than our brains in processing things.
There's some fascinating research that's been done with
people, like I'm trading floors or people just even on like card
games where if you have a strongsense of interception, which is
this sense of what's happening in your body, like you can feel
when your heartbeat goes up or your breathing changes or your

(42:48):
blood pressure to changes. If you're a person that's
attuned to that and you understand how to listen to it,
they did this card game on a computer were like 9 card decks.
Five were rigged to be good, four were rigged to be bad.
And the people that had a strongsense of interception could tell
which the bad decks were like 4 to five turns faster than the

(43:09):
people who were just trying to logically like remember which
deck. And it's because their bodies
were taking in all of this information that their brains
couldn't process fast and that their bodies have reached the
conclusion before. And they found similar like
people on Wall Street trading floors, for example.
It's really stressful. You've got to make like these
huge decisions in a timely way. People with a strong sense of

(43:29):
interception do better and last longer in the field than people
who don't because they're maximizing both their brain and
their bodies to think in the world.
So feeling is is a legit way of knowing.
Oh, I'd love that. That's going to be like the
quote for this podcast. Yeah, so true.
Years ago, I was commuting to work and I listened to The Gift

(43:52):
of Fear by Gavin de Becker, veryfamiliar with his work at all.
So Gavin de Becker in Los Angeles do like surveillance,
counterintelligence, his agency,his work.
They work with like law enforcement, FBI and CIA and all
those sorts of things, agencies.And this book was about the

(44:12):
beauty of the gift of fear that we all have.
And that like you're saying where people would have this
feeling of danger and they wouldbe like, Oh, no, I've seen too
many scary movies. Or, you know, they would push
that feeling away, but their body was telling them something
doesn't fit, doesn't match up, that I got a bad feeling about

(44:35):
this right? And I, I could be getting this
percentage wrong. But before people are listening,
they can look it up. It's like 80%.
It's like 80% of the time that feeling was accurate.
So it's so I think I loved it. You talked about attunement, you
know, when you were just talking.

(44:57):
And I think it's something that we can tap into and we can tune
like a piano or a musical instrument and we can get get it
tuned like stronger and strongerovertime if we pay attention to
it. Because it's like, yeah, like I
remember for example, I had a job interview, it was on Zoom.

(45:18):
And in the first minute I was like, something's off here.
And I was like, I don't never met the person or anything, but
I just, I had a bad feeling, badfeeling.
It wasn't like, oh, I'm nervous about this job interview was
just like this one individual who was the primary, like the
lead of the committee. And I ended up getting the job

(45:40):
and all that and then going to meet the person.
And I was like, yeah, that's crazy.
Like it was wild to me. Like I could tell in the 1st 30
to 60 seconds I was like, there there's some sort of disconnect
here. Huh.
And. And there was.
What was it? It was, it was like.
I mean, without revealing, yeah.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But. You cannot tell us, Chad.

(46:04):
Well, I just was like, to me, itfelt like the person was being
fake. So I'm a person who's genuine,
authentic, and to me, I felt like it felt just way too
scripted. So I had this feeling that the
person was like, because there were other people in the room
with, you know, as part of the committee that they were putting
on a front that they didn't really feel like it was one of

(46:29):
two things. I felt like either that they
didn't want to interview me. I didn't fit their their mold
or, and they were someone was forcing them or like whatever I
was presenting that they were just like, Nah, I'm not, you
know, not buying this, but I have to say these things like,
you know, And so then when I metthe person for the first time, I

(46:50):
was like, yeah, I don't trust this person.
Like, I don't feel like I even, you know how, like if you've
ever had this experience where you are meeting somebody for the
first time, but you feel like you can trust them, Not like you
would go, OK, I'm gonna give me my kids or something like that.
But yeah, depends on how they'rebehaving.
But. Or how, yeah, your kids, yeah,

(47:13):
you got the person. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly. Your kids.
But like there are certain people that you get a vibe.
Yeah, right away. Yeah, you know, or environments
like you're talking about. OK, so I'm so curious.
So did you take the job? I took the job and that was I
love that you said you're so curious.
It's good you're using your curiosity.

(47:34):
And the reason I took the job, everything told me not to take
the job, huh? Internally, externally was like,
all these people are like, Oh mygosh, like how could you not
take the job? It's like such a such an amazing
opportunity and everything, but I knew I was like, doesn't

(47:55):
something's not lining up like on the outside, it looks like,
it sounds like it should be amazing, but I didn't feel it.
I was like, no, I, I don't thinkit's gonna play out like that.
And were you right? I was 100%.
Right. And were you right about the
specific person, like that person specifically?

(48:15):
Yeah, yes, yeah. And you know, like hopefully
lesson learned. Like we just.
I was just at this conference and there was this great session
on failure and people were giving samples and they said
oftentimes failure is when we don't listen to our gut fast
enough and we listen to our headfor too long.
And it's and I just thought thatwas such an interesting way

(48:36):
because it reflected a lot of the stories where in retrospect,
people could be like would say something like you, which is
like, I could feel it. It wasn't right, but my head
kind of like, you know, out outvoted my body.
And I think it's hard because wedo like want to caveat all of
this, right? We, most of us are born children
are born with a sense of like, Imean, they're not unlike dogs,

(48:59):
for example, and animals. Oftentimes kids will know like
if there's somebody they don't want to be with or don't trust
or whatever. And we educate them out of that,
right? That we often were like, no, you
have to, you know, and there's a, there's a limit here, right?
Like, yes, you can still be polite to someone in a safe
space if that's it, right? But we educate them out of like,
don't ignore it if you're feeling sleepy, ignore it if

(49:20):
you're not feeling hungry, if ignore it if.
And so we're all educated out oflistening to our bodies.
So then the process of like learning to re listen to our
bodies and know that we're listening not to the bias of
like, that's a black man and my body's thinking it's fearful
because I've been conditioned toright.
So it's a, it's a delicate, I think, complicated piece of work

(49:43):
to re attune ourselves once we've lost that attunement,
because by the time we're older,we have all these other layers
of things that can sometimes be,you know, kind of interrupting.
And yet I think on the things that are most vital, right?
And like, if I'm ever alone by myself in a place or I like feel
I'm like, OK, like in this instance, I'm going to go with
my gut. But it's a, it's a re education

(50:05):
of ourselves and an understanding that like we have
to also then watch out for some of the things that might not be
true. And I think there's a whole
thing happening right now in theworld where because the world is
changing so fast and it feels uncertain.
And it's very right. We're all living in a VUCA
world. This is the acronym volatile,

(50:26):
uncertain, complex, ambiguous. And none of those, none of those
4 words is a word that the humanbrain is designed to like.
The human brain is wired to wantstability, predictability, kind
of knowing, et cetera. So when we're living in a VUCA
world, our like reptilian brain is primed to be in a constant

(50:46):
state of high alert and stress. And so that makes it even more
complex at a moment like this tobe able to kind of down regulate
back to a state where it's like,OK, yes, there's something
stressful happening, but it's not an immediate danger to me.
So that you can then kind of getback to, all right, so now what
am I feeling? And so, but starting with the

(51:07):
small things, right? They're like, I meet somebody at
a party and I'm just going to listen to my gut.
Like, OK, I kind of, I'm going to talk to you and then maybe
I'm just going to watch you for the rest of the evening and kind
of see like what happens. But like, start small and then
we're sort of more ready when the big things come around.
Like what does my gut say? Yeah.
Is it because we've we've practiced it right.
Like with the small, it's like the makes me think of the

(51:30):
gymnastics where they're like, OK, you start with this small
movement or martial arts, but like made me think of gymnastics
before you're going off the polevault.
Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
First day. Hey.
All right. Yeah, yeah.
Sloan, Biles. Build the skills.
Build the skills. But you you build up to it.
Yep, you build up to it. And that, that creates that, you

(51:51):
know, a lot of times we talk about trust and I think like
when I talk about trust, a lot of times I think about in
relation to others, but it's also in relation to ourselves.
Yep, right. It's like, how much do I trust?
How much is myself? Yeah.
Right. And I think that's important
like helping young people develop that skill set, that

(52:16):
awareness, education, understanding of like, all
right, trusting myself and like even if others are saying, no,
you got to do this or that or you shouldn't do that.
And it's like, well, finding that balance of them trusting
themselves as well. Yeah, for sure.
No, trust of self is huge, is huge.
It's why again when I think about this is right, hemispheric

(52:38):
muscles and strengthening them, you can strengthen them in
different ways, right? This ability to kind of have
your right hemisphere more active to still your left
hemisphere a while to let it. And you can do that through
things like breath work and through somatic like body scans
or through gratitude journals and gratitude practices, other

(52:58):
kinds of exercises. So some of them have nothing to
do with trusting yourself in themoment to make a decision about
something. But it's all stuff that is, is
building your capability to the down regulate yourself out of
your head back into a space of, OK, just being aware and just
just noticing. And then once you notice, then
you can sort of interrupt the immediate process of judging and

(53:20):
just hold off for a second. Like, does it actually make
sense to make that judgment? OK, yes.
But you've given your gut a chance to like, have it stop,
have it say, and then take that into account.
And maybe at that moment, right,if you'd kind of like you, you
were literally interviewing for the job when you felt this.
And so you were like, you couldn't listen to it that much,
right? You're like, I gotta, I'm trying
to get this job. I'm getting this job.

(53:40):
So it's, I shared. I love that story, though.
It's uh yeah, yeah. Never make that mistake again,
hopefully. Yeah, hopefully not.
I mean, I should have known in some respects, but like I came
off the Zoom and I told the people I was with, family
members, they said you know how to go.
And I said like, I think I presented fine, but I had a bad,

(54:02):
I have a bad feeling about it. I was like the main person.
There was a massive disconnect. I was like, I don't trust that
person, said the other people. I felt like we were on the same
page, but I was like, I'm gonna have to be working with that
main person. And I was like, and they're
like, oh, well, you know, maybe maybe it's just on Zoom or

(54:23):
something like that. And I was like, no, no, I'm
telling you, there was somethingthere.
There was something in the air. Yeah, and you still overrode
that? Yeah.
Ultimately to take the job. Yeah, brilliance.
No, no, But no, we all do it. We all do it, right.
We could all of us, I'm sure, make a nice long list of the

(54:45):
experiences we've had where we're like, in retrospect, we're
like, yeah, I didn't feel it. It's really interesting if you
journal, like if you're somebodywho journals that because then
you have a real time record as opposed to like the post, you
know, kind of analysis bias. So if you're a person who
journals and goes back to like, you know, the moments or period

(55:07):
and you're like, oh, man, look at that.
Like it was there. I said it to myself, you know, I
said something that like, next time I want to make sure to
listen to that because look whathappened.
Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, I think it was like Mel
Robbins. I was now like huge in the
podcast world. Yeah.
In the US, like I think she saidit, it was somebody like that

(55:29):
who said attention, like with, in all types of relationships
and with the energy, like do I feel like I'm charged when I'm
interacting with this person or do I feel like I'm being
drained? And she's like, and whether it's
a job or anything of that shape,you want to, she's like, I want

(55:49):
to move more and more towards the people that charge me like
an elevator that take me up to the top floor versus take me
down to the basement. Yeah, Yeah.
No, that's, that's, that's interesting.
And I think that's mostly true for most of us.
I think what's interesting is ifwe're in the work of, if we're
in any kind of work and whether it's being an educator of young

(56:11):
people or being a facilitator ofadults and adult learning, or if
we're trying to do work in the world that requires bringing
people along. The challenge, The challenge
then becomes if we only work with those people or if we
disproportionately push those people to the side, how do we
actually get to the point where we bridge into relationships

(56:32):
with them that allow us to kind of move them along in many cases
because they're necessary and there's in sort of conflict
resolution. There's this idea of breaking,
right? Where fear and mistrust break
relationships. There's bridging, which is can
we expand our circle, like our inner circle or like the circle
of relatedness, to include more people so that we can bridge?

(56:55):
So even if we believe slightly different things or have
slightly different experiences, we can still find ways to
bridge. Sorry, on And then there's
bridging. Sorry, bridging is when you
literally, and not everybody does does this work, but it's
the people who will put themselves into the spaces where
they might be with people who would bring them down
energetically or in other ways. But I think knowing a lot of

(57:18):
people like that and being more of a Bridger in many
circumstances myself, I think there is a skill you learn,
which is how do you actually, I won't say take an
anthropological lens, but it's ahow are you in the interaction
and sitting slightly on the sideof it as well to kind of
remember that their energy doesn't have to shape your

(57:41):
energy or doesn't have to affectit like it, You know, yes,
you're people and you're in the same space, but you don't have
to take on what that other person has.
But that's a that's a different skill than most of us walk
around with every day in the world.
But, and I think it's, it's actually something that in these
times of polarization and dividedness, there's probably

(58:01):
elements of that bridging skill that more and more of us need to
learn and, and build. Because it can feel very hard
with social media and polarized debates that have trained our
brains to immediately put peopleinto boxes based on social cues
or social signals to be able to kind of disrupt that a little

(58:24):
bit and say, all right, we can kind of still still be here,
still kind of sit and, and hear each other to the extent that we
can bring it. Thanksgiving being the prime
example for most people, right? It's like, how are you?
Are you with your family right today?
Everybody's family. I feel like, I mean, maybe
there's exceptions, but like, I don't hear of many.

(58:44):
Everybody's got somebody right in their family that is that
person. And there's a lot of talk about
just them cutting my family off or I'm, you know, cancelling
this person or I'm whatever. I'm like that feels like we're
maybe taking a little bit too far and maybe we haven't quite,
you know, thought through the responsibility that and, and the

(59:04):
not just the responsibility, butthe capacity each of us has to
to be. OK, Dial.
It is a dial. You know, like, and just because
I disagree with you on somethingdoesn't mean that we don't agree
on other things or that we don'thave a shared value.
Yeah, yeah. And and to the you know where

(59:24):
you started, where you said thatthere was this guy who came who
had been involved with the neo Nazis and was telling you that
story about where they went. Like in many ways, like there
are many people who end up goingover into ideologies or groups
that actually went over for reasons that had very little to
do with the idea itself. And more to do with this feeling

(59:45):
of like, I have a group, I have a tribe, I have a space where
there are others around me. And I think in in the world the
way it is right now, there are alot of people who have felt
excluded and felt like they don't know their place.
My sort of analogy of the US right now is that we're like in
middle school. So middle school, part of the
reason developmentally it's sucha hard time is because you're

(01:00:06):
moving away from your family as being your source of your
primary identity to sort of going out into the world with
your peers and other adults, etcetera.
And it's terrifying because you don't know.
It's important that you fit in. It's important that you have a
space and a place because your survival, literally.
Kind of depends on it. And so that's why you often have
kind of cliques and in groups and out groups and bullying

(01:00:28):
because when you're not feeling safe, the inclination is to go
in and attack anything that feels threatening.
And in some ways, like as a country, over the last kind of
20 years, 25 years, there's beenthis push against a dominant
narrative that many people in this country have held as theirs
and have seen themselves inside of.
And there's been this pushback against it that has

(01:00:50):
psychologically, I think, left many people feeling like, wait,
so you're telling me this isn't my country or that if you have
your way, this there won't be a place for me.
And so, and I think, you know, for lots of reasons, there are
people who invested in media andother kind of places and spaces
and fora to draw people in who are feeling that and have sort

(01:01:11):
of radicalize them right in in kind of very real ways.
So we're at a point in America where I think it's, it's a
question of like, can we actually find a narrative and
find a sense of like who we are in a story about who we are?
That gives people the capacity to kind of see themselves and
for individuals to rebuild the capacity to kind of be like

(01:01:35):
actually to belong is a two way St. and that I can still belong
in a story that's more rich and complicated than the one that I
inherited in all sorts of ways. Right?
I think this is true of people across race and culture and
political stripes. But I think I feel like that's
where we are as a country and sort of the the question is
going to be do we actually have the capacity and the desire to

(01:01:56):
kind of do the work that that takes?
But I think it's going to force people to sort of go into places
and spaces that are right now being labeled comfortable.
And that I think there's been maybe a little bit too much
permission to say, well, just, you know, that that's not us and
their other. And that's coming from people
who, you know, I may respect their values and I may respect

(01:02:17):
the values they stand for in theory.
And the ways in which they're bringing them out into the world
feel very either or and very kind of like extreme, very left
hemispheric, even though the values are different.
As opposed to people who are sitting in the middle and sort
of understand, like, life is Gray.
And, you know, people have all kinds of competing contradictory
pieces to their nature. It's far better to make room for

(01:02:37):
that because otherwise there might not be room for us either,
like at the end of it if we're looking for perfection.
Yeah. And consistency, so.
Yeah. Do you hold out hope for for
that, that we will develop that capacity and like answering your
own question, how do you think about answering your own

(01:02:58):
question? Yeah, so I'm a futurist, and
that's a question people ask. They're like, So what do you
predict? And my answer is always there's
no way to predict because we're a dynamic ecosystem made-up of
individuals. And so a large part of it is
going to be choices and the choices people make.
And I would say that I certainlyfeel like I'm shifting my work
and how I spend my time to try to to give talks, to do

(01:03:20):
workshops to help people kind ofbreak free of their own thinking
sometimes. And just sort of like build the
skills they need to navigate VUCA world.
And working on a second book project that kind of talks about
some of these skills that I think I and others develop often
because of our growing up acrosscultures and contexts.
And so had to develop those skills early.

(01:03:43):
And I think those skills are very consistent with that right
hemispheric piece. So yes, I mean, yes, always
right, Because the possibility is there.
I think whether it happens or not is very much going to be a
choice. And, and I think unfortunately,
there's kind of a narrative happening right now where people
are kind of going, oh God, this is too much.
I'm going to disconnect. So I can't pay attention to the
news. I can't take this all on.

(01:04:04):
And there's a visual that I like.
It's kind of three circles, someconcentric circles, with the
smallest one being your sphere of control, the second one being
your sphere of influence, and your third being your sphere of
concern. So like our sphere of concern is
to have a world in which people actually get along and our
children will live and have a climate and an earth that can
actually sustain them, right? There's a whole or there's not

(01:04:26):
income disparities, right, in ways that that we have.
There's all these kinds of things that we want on that
sphere of concern. And the problem is when you
focus on your sphere of concern overly, it feels really big
because it is. And it feels impossible to get
to because it is, because you'rejust one individual.
But your sphere of control is like the place to sit because we
control two things. We control what we do and we

(01:04:48):
control how we react when something happens to us.
And those are the only two things we control.
We don't control other people. We don't control our kids.
We don't control like anything. We don't even control what
happens to us. So it, but if you develop
different muscles so that you can make different choices in
your sphere of concern, then actually it shifts what happens
in your sphere of influence thatif you choose to ask, like tell

(01:05:10):
me more about that. When someone says something that
you like or you know, like, I'm curious, you know, why you think
that or you know, here's why I think what I think and I'm
curious what you think if you dothat instead of being like, Yep,
done. I'm walking away.
That changes what happens. And when something different
happens in your sphere of influence in a dynamic system,
it makes different things possible in your sphere of

(01:05:32):
concern, right? And so that so even though it
feels like it's a small thing tolike choose to have a different
conversation with somebody at that cocktail party or, you
know, like talk to your uncle who watches Fox News or sorry, I
just gave my politics away, but.We can cut that.
Shocking. No, yeah, You know, talk to your
relative who, like watch a different media than you do,

(01:05:54):
right. If you it feels like that
doesn't make a big deal, you're like, well, what does it do?
And you're like, it does actually do something.
Because we live in systems wherelike we push against other
people in small ways and then they push on other things in
different ways. And it just, it ripples out and
we can't know exactly what it, what, what happens.
And so, yeah, it's a large part of what I'm, I'm doing now is

(01:06:14):
kind of thinking and talking andspeaking a lot about, about
that. Like, how do we show up
differently, right. And I keep talking about showing
up differently in the work and in a space.
And to me, that's the, that's like the thing I feel like I can
do and control. But yes, hope springs eternal.
I love it. I love it.
One of my mentors used to say each by inch if this life's a

(01:06:37):
cinch, yard by yard life is hard.
And what he was talking about, he had this other saying, make
each day your masterpiece. John Wooden, UCLA basketball
coach. And and so he was talking about
that circle, that locus of control and focus on this
practice this day and do the best you can with this.

(01:06:59):
Don't worry about the the biggergame or the season or you know,
those things, right. So the second thing that you
talked about and you've talked about throughout is you strike
me as a very curious person, like someone who activates.
I love that you smile too, right?
Like it's a great compliment because you activate that

(01:07:20):
curiosity. I don't look at it as a noun.
I look at it as a verb. It's something you do so by
doing that like saying, OK, well, I see it from another
perspective, like tell me more about yours is it's an opening
for a conversation versus a shutting down and a closing of a
door and removing somebody from a house and like a town and all

(01:07:44):
this right. Like.
So kudos to you for cultivating that garden of curiosity.
Thank you. I.
Appreciate that. Yeah.
Yeah. No.
And I love that description, right?
Because I think stories matter. And so often, like we judge
people based on a thing we see, but that thing sits inside of a
larger story. And you don't know what that
story is. And you still may not agree with

(01:08:06):
where they come from at the end of that story, but you have a
better sense of where it is thatthey're coming from and why
actually they might have raised something where you're like,
yeah, I can see that's really complicated or I can see why I
still don't agree that the rightpolicy is there.
But it gives a very different space in which to play or look
for solutions than to kind of come in with like, this is what

(01:08:28):
I think. And if you don't think that,
that's it because there there's no room for finding anything.
And I think the most complicatedthorny problems, which are the
ones that we're all, you know, at this point trying to many of
us are trying to grapple with, they are they are not easy
because there are many conflicting values at play.
And so the right policy, right policy, there is no one right

(01:08:51):
policy, right is going to be a combination of the balancing of
those competing priorities for very particular reasons.
And hopefully along the way being clear which values you're
not upholding as much in the decision so that you can
potentially mitigate right those.
But if you're not even aware of what the competing values are,
then you're not going to pay attention to them.

(01:09:12):
And I think like we've, we've seen some of this.
So in Spain we had that blackout.
There was that blackout in Spainand Portugal and part of France.
And I was listening to a talk atthis conference I was at around,
you know, how it was about base load where you have always need,
even if you've got renewables, you need a foundation of load
that is being created usually through natural gas or coal or

(01:09:33):
nuclear or something that is notintermittent.
Because at any point the renewables can kind of like not
quite work the way you need. And when that happens, one thing
happens like Domino's and the whole grid goes out of play.
And that that's what happened inSpain.
So like even here, as we think about renewables and the push to
renewables, there are many people who are like
fundamentalist about this. And they're like absolutely no

(01:09:55):
gas or nuclear or coal or whatever, 100% renewable.
Like, first of all, that is not possible in terms of engineering
right now. We don't have the batteries, we
don't have whatever. So even if you wanted to, you
couldn't do that. So to push for something that
isn't realistic without being open to like, look, the issue is
it's technical. It's this, yes, of course there
are financial interests in theirinterest groups and blah, blah,

(01:10:17):
blah. But but you know, the solution
space exists, but you have to bewilling to like have the
conversation inside the solutionspace.
And often activists and advocates sit in these like
extreme positions where they're they're sort of so committed
that they're not willing or ableto kind of play in the middle.
But the complicated things we want to do are going to have
solutions that sit somewhere in this big Gray space.

(01:10:40):
Yeah, it makes me think of you make me think of Abraham Lincoln
with his team of rivals where hewould he surrounded himself with
all these competing viewpoints so that way he could get a
better understanding of how to move forward versus like, well,
this is how I think I'm gonna. And that's just what we're

(01:11:03):
doing. I'm in charge and that's the way
it is, right? But with the team arrivals, it
was like also a lot of his ideaswere stress tested.
Yeah, for sure. Which is is a lot more valuable
because sometimes you might haveto have a good idea, but it's
not a great idea without that stress test.
Right, or hopefully the stress test has you tweaking it right

(01:11:26):
in certain places to kind of account for and be stronger.
And that takes a certain, it takes a level of like confidence
and, and just kind of assuredness, not that you're
right, but an assuredness that just because you might not be
right or that you might be wrongdoesn't somehow diminish you as
a person and as a human being, right.

(01:11:46):
And yet again, like we're livingin a culture right now where so
much of people's image and senseof self is defined by their
external image. And this like presentation of a
polished, you know, whole, right, vulnerability,
authenticity, those are not things that are really rewarded
in a lot of the spaces and social media and that kind of
thing. And so, yeah, it's a, we're

(01:12:09):
gonna need to rebuild those muscles, Yes, of states, states,
personhood, right. Exactly.
Yeah, very much so. Yeah.
All right, so we're coming up ontime.
I wanna be respectful of your time.
Two questions for you part A part B1 closing thoughts.
And then secondly, while you're thinking that where can people
find find your work or, you know, I mentioned your Ted

(01:12:30):
talks, your your book, follow you that anywhere you want to go
and. Those Yeah.
So, so I'm in the middle of likea recreation of stuff.
So I do have a website, itscww.olkamyfirstnameyoulcca.com,
and there there are links to some of my work.
But that site right now is very educationally focused.

(01:12:53):
It doesn't reflect sort of the newer work that I'm doing just
around some of the stuff we've been talking about today.
But yes, my Ted talks and what Ican do is I can send you a few
articles to put in the show notes.
Do you have show notes? Yes to see.
OK, But the nice thing about a name like Olka is if you put it
into Google and you put Olka andarticles, you will get like
lists of some of the stuff that I've published more recently in

(01:13:14):
the Fulcrum and Visible magazineWash PO around different topics.
But yes, my website is probably the easiest.
And then on LinkedIn, I'm forward slash Olka.
Once again. The nice thing about having a
name that I've never met anybodywho has my name.
So yeah, yeah, back in the day when when I started on Twitter,
I was very lucky. I got at Olka and it turned out

(01:13:35):
there was an Olka 2 and I was like, who is Olka 2?
It turned out it was the University of Leicester
Conservative Christian Association.
So I was like, I'm really glad that I got Olka first.
And hopefully nobody thinks thatOlka 2 is like the second
version of my personality. Yes.
What's the origin of your first name?
It's a Sanskrit word. So my, my family's Indian by

(01:13:57):
origin, my family's 3 generations, Tanzania.
But but yes, it's a Sanskrit word and it means it's sort of
the name of an Angel in Indian mythology.
But it also means like a bright light in the sky, like a
shooting star or a comet or a meteor, or as I became during my
dad's wedding, toast, a self-guided missile, which I was
like, really Dad, so destructive, so destructive.

(01:14:17):
Now he started with Khalil Gibran's The Arrow, which I
love. It's the poem that starts my
book. But yeah, somehow in the in the
journey, yeah, I think that sayssomething about how my parents
felt like, holy crap, we tried. We couldn't, we couldn't direct.
We couldn't direct. Yeah, she just went off.
She went, oh, she went. Married a white boy.
What's she gonna do? Kansas.

(01:14:40):
From Kansas to Nebraska. Yeah, yeah.
Oh my goodness, we'll stop there.
Thank you so much. You didn't let me do any closing
thoughts, Chad. No, I don't.
I don't. I don't have any closing
thoughts. I've been giving.
No, I've been giving you all my thoughts.
I mean, I just unless you want to go on for another hour.
No, I I just. Yeah.
Gained it, yeah. Listen to.
The Chad Show, send it to lots of people.

(01:15:03):
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank. You for listening to this
episode. I hope you enjoyed it.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and if you liked it,
please share with a friend on social media.
That goes a long way to promoting this podcast so I can
continue to interview and share these conversations with
fascinating people. You can follow me on social

(01:15:24):
media chat stole off and visit my website
chatstoleoff.wordpress.com For more information.
I'd love it if you would leave areview to support the podcast.
Thanks so much. Until next time.

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