Inner Journey with Greg Friedman explores Unity vs Divisiveness

Inner Journey with Greg Friedman esxplores Unity vs. Divisiveness.  Naturalist David Attenborough once asked, "Did you know that if you put 100 black ants and 100 red ants in a jar, nothing will happen? But if you shake the jar hard, the ants start killing each other. The red ants consider the black ants their enemies, and the black ants consider the red ants their enemies. The true enemy is the one shaking the jar." The same thing happens in human society. So, before we attack each other, we should think about it who's shaking the jar.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, this is Greg Bradon, Jack Canfield, Marian Williamson, James
Van Prad.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi, everyone, this is Neil Donald Walsh and I'm happy
to tell you that you're.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Listening to Inner Journey with Greg Friedman.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
Stick around.

Speaker 5 (00:18):
Your life will change any minute.

Speaker 6 (00:22):
You heard the man. You are listening to Inner Journey
with Greg Friedman on k x F M one O
four seven, broadcast from Laguna Beach, for Laguna Beach and
for the entire world. You all know the gig sex
relationships stream interpretation. We talk about it all. We don't

(00:44):
tell you what to do and we don't tell you
how to do it, and there's a very good reason
for that. It's not our lives. It's your lives. It's
your power, it's your choice, it's your love, it's your happiness,
and as a matter of fact, if you choose it
to be, it's also your sorrow, your suffering, your grief.

(01:07):
Your life is by your design. What you choose to
do with it is up to you, and that is
also part of the magic. And this show is all
about helping you understand you are the magic, and we

(01:27):
just get to help you realize it.

Speaker 7 (01:30):
You know, one of the more ridiculous things that happens
in the world today is everybody thinking that we're all
supposed to agree with each other on every single thing,
and if somebody doesn't agree with you on everything, that
they are somehow now your opposition, like, let's keep it
all the way funk you like, you guys have somehow
managed to figure out or not figure out. You guys
have somehow managed to decide that if people don't agree

(01:51):
with you on every single topic, that you should cut
them out. People are cutting out friends and families, and
people are getting divorced though opinions, mainly politics. That's and
it's one of the more ridiculous things ever because when
did people become so interested in politics? I would venture
to say two thousand and eight when Obama became president,

(02:12):
and with the advent of social media, everybody feels like
their opinions are so important that they should put them
out there, and anybody who disagrees with their opinion is
the opposition. And in reality, most of you guys are
not qualified to talk politics because politics are very, very,
very complex, and most of you guys can't see pastor

(02:33):
and emotions. And I remember I'm not that old, but
I Remember there was a time where asking somebody who
they voted for was rude, like that was somebody's private opinions,
And now everybody just shares everything all willy nilly. Some
of this stuff is so outrageous, Like my husband voted
for Trump, so I divorced them, and you can't really. Yeah,

(02:54):
I was gonna say, you can't blame people for that,
but I take it back. You can blame people for
that because as a don't you have to be able
to make your own decisions. Everybody wants to talk about
emotional intelligence, but you guys throw it all out the
window as soon as it comes to politics. Well, when
you hear people like Michelle Obama saying things like, if
you vote Trump, you're basically voting against the safety of

(03:17):
your women, voting against the safety of your daughters and
your sisters and your wives and mothers and all this
other nonsense. And that's a paraphrase, by the way, that's
not what you said word for word, but it's it's
pretty close. Whether that's big media or social media have
convinced you guys to take a hard line on stances,

(03:38):
and if anybody crosses that hard line, then you should
just cut them out. Now, I understand there are certain
things that are very deeply important to some people, and
if something, if somebody disagrees with something that you believe in,
and it challenges your morals, values and principles, then I
wholeheartily agree. Here's what I think people need to understand.

(03:59):
Agree to disagree is a very very powerful thing. You
can say, Look, you're a genuinely good person. I feel
like I'm a genuinely good person. We don't agree on
these topics, but we agree on almost everything else. I
think that we should just agree to disagree on this
topic because if most people are genuinely good people, we

(04:22):
agree on the overwhelming majority of things. There are very
very very important hot topics in the world, such as transgenderism,
such as abortion rights or body autonomy, they're feminism. There
are very very very hot topics out of the world.
Outside of those specific hot topics, we all agree on

(04:46):
the overwoman majority of problems. So the simple fact that
you guys think that because somebody disagrees with the one
or two things you feel strongest about, that you need
to cut them out of your life entirely shows a
lack of intelligence, a lack of emotional intelligence, and I
think you guys need to all do better. I honestly
think that if you have a very hard stance on something,

(05:10):
you probably just shouldn't share it unless you are willing
to either a lose the relationship or be get into
an argument or see agree to disagree. Now, I've noticed
that some of you guys are more than happy to
get rid of people who disagree with you, which is horrible.
I don't know if you guys have ever read the
forty eight Laws of Power, but one of the laws

(05:32):
talks about making use of enemies, and if you don't
have any enemies, do your best to go find some.
Now I'm not telling you guys go out there and
make enemies, but what I'm telling you to do is
having people that disagree with you, who can challenge your opinions,
who can challenge some of the things you believe in,
can actually help you expand the way you think. Because

(05:52):
if everybody around you is repeating the same things you're repeating,
and you're living in an echo chamber, you are never
going to evolve as a human being. So it's very
important to have people around you who disagree in what
you believe in. And if you take offense to somebody
disagreeing with you, even though they're not being disrespectful, it
shows a big lack of intelligence, at an egregious lack

(06:12):
of intelligence. So that's my thoughts on this topic. We
don't need to all agree on everything and stop being
a dickhead, all right?

Speaker 6 (06:24):
That is what this show is about this evening. Now,
what that young man just said, I agreed with some
of them, and there are easily half a dozen things
that he said that I disagree with. However, the primary
expression is what I care about. Are you willing to

(06:47):
be okay being okay as long as somebody isn't doing
something egregious?

Speaker 8 (06:53):
You know?

Speaker 6 (06:54):
I think we can all No, we can't. We can't
even all agree that pedophilia is wrong. The reason I
say that is because there's pedophiles out there, and on
some level they are condoning that behavior. As disgusting and
deplorable and hideous as it is, it is wrong, and

(07:15):
yet they cannot see that. So there are some things,
there are most things that we could figure out a
way to bridge, and there are some things that also
need to be hard lines in the sand. And politics
is a game of misdirection. Politics is a game of divisiveness.

(07:39):
Everybody out there is doing their darnedest to make sure
that this person is distracted by the other person so
I could go and achieve my self serving considerations. Now,
if you've heard this program at all, you've heard me
talk about the black and the red ants. And this

(08:03):
is what's going on, not just locally in the county,
in the state, in the country, it's going on throughout
the entire world. Black ants and red ants are not
natural enemies. However, if you put them in a jar

(08:24):
and violently shake that jar and then pour them out
onto the ground, they will fight to the death. That
is what I'm asking us to make better choices about.
We don't have to fight to the death. We don't

(08:45):
have to be distracted, we don't have to fall into
a trap. We don't have to attend every fight, every
argument that we're invited to participate in and at. Sometimes
you just decide to build bridges and other times walk away.

(09:07):
Just walk away. And because you stand for something doesn't
mean that you have to stand against something else. You're
okay being you, You're okay having your mind, your heart,
your soul. And if you could hold on to it

(09:34):
in this moment with the understanding that it's okay for
me to learn, it's okay for me to change my mind.
It's a choice, not a prison sentence. It's a choice,
not a prison sentence. So if you have aligned with
one ideology, whether it's political or spiritual, or dogmatic or

(09:59):
romance or whatever it happens to be, you could always
make a different choice. You could always decide that I
don't have to drink this kool aid. Literally that comes
from Jim Jones in Guyana, and he was a leader

(10:24):
and he got of this cult down there and he
got found out, and so he had everybody drink poisoned
kool aid. Now, not everybody agreed to it, and they
certainly didn't agree to it easily a lot of the times.
Sometimes they only did it because they had a gun
at their head. However, they forgot something. There were maybe

(10:48):
half a dozen to one hundred or even let's say
a dozen to one hundred of the constituents, half a
dozen leaders saying drink this because I said so. Now,
there were those that felt, Okay, this is what I'm
supposed to do, and I'm going to do it. There
were others that felt no, but they didn't realize the

(11:10):
strength that they had. And that's where we get lost
when we forget our strength, when we forget our power,
when we forget that we have a choice. We are
a multitude and it doesn't take as much as one
would think to stand up to make changes for the better.

(11:34):
If we allow ourselves to unite, then it is impossible
not to be heard. It's impossible not to affect change.

Speaker 9 (11:50):
You.

Speaker 6 (11:51):
Every single one of us has the power to be
an agent of change. And it takes the courage to
find your voice, even when it's shaking, even when you
feel like I can't. You can. You don't have to,

(12:18):
but you can. And what you do with that is
going to change not only the texture, the color, the
timber of your own life. It emanates out and it
affects change. You affect change by your choices. And you

(12:41):
could believe in you or you could not. And all
this program is tonight is different ways of looking at
divisiveness and different ways of looking at being united. And
we'll be back with more in her journey right after this.

Speaker 10 (13:10):
Try to see things my way. It so I have
to keep phone until I can go home. By saying
you well on the risk of knowing that my love
may so big.

Speaker 11 (13:24):
We can work it up, we can walk it out.

Speaker 10 (13:29):
But you just saying you can get it long and
still think that it's all right. Think about what I'm saying.
We can work it out and it's straight, or say
good night.

Speaker 11 (13:42):
We can work it up.

Speaker 10 (13:44):
We can walk it up like this is Pami shot
and that's not time.

Speaker 12 (13:55):
Passing and boxing.

Speaker 5 (13:57):
My pen.

Speaker 11 (14:02):
Away. Stop that is so I will last you.

Speaker 10 (14:11):
So then try the things my way.

Speaker 12 (14:16):
He only time we're.

Speaker 11 (14:17):
Till lift buck and right or I am ronge.

Speaker 13 (14:21):
Why are you said here to your way?

Speaker 10 (14:23):
That's passing where my father body brought too long?

Speaker 11 (14:28):
Weekend working up?

Speaker 14 (14:30):
Weekend work up?

Speaker 15 (15:03):
Yeah, look, get out in the loo, get out in the.

Speaker 16 (15:17):
Din.

Speaker 11 (15:17):
No way all the time that the saying that we
are a bad lot. You know, wake.

Speaker 10 (15:38):
If you can get it listen standing that all men said,
where can.

Speaker 11 (15:45):
We set out on the stars sake?

Speaker 17 (15:47):
And that.

Speaker 11 (15:51):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (15:56):
Social media is in a journey with Greg Friedman and
the website is Gregfriedman dot com. Tonight we are talking
about divisiveness and there is a pervasive energy in the zeitgeist.

(16:17):
There is a push there is a huge ask, almost
a coercion, that we divide ourselves with our neighbors, across
political lines, across domiotic lines, across social cultural lines. We
are being invited to a fight. We are invited to

(16:41):
fight within our own homes, with our own families, with
our own friends, with our own communities. And we don't
have to over and over and over again. We don't
have to. We get to choose. And what are you
going to choose? And there's a lot of ways to

(17:04):
look at this man. And when you look at those
people that are asking us to divide within our own
selves much less anywhere else, it is, if not psychopathic,
on the verge of it.

Speaker 16 (17:48):
I don't want to freak you all out when I
tell you this, but none of us here is authentic.
We're all a little fake. We're not one hundred percent authentic.
Pinch yourself just to check to see if you're real.
But I'm going to be talking about a different kind

(18:09):
of authentic, the kind of authentic which is about how
we show up our true selves to other people. And
what I'm going to do today is I'm going to
share with you what I learned about being authentic from
working with psychopaths, and how I then use that in
my work with leaders later on. Now the psychological research

(18:29):
backs up what I'm about to tell you, which is
that being less than one hundred percent authentic is probably
a good thing, and it might even save your life.

Speaker 18 (18:42):
Let me tell you about a time when it probably
saved mine.

Speaker 16 (18:45):
So picture this. I'm sitting in a room, and actually
it's a prison cell to be precise, it's a maximum
security prison cell with bars on the windows, big heavy
iron doors. The room is quite bare, and I'm wearing

(19:07):
a belt with keys which allowed me to go in
and out of this room quite freely. I'm sitting in
this room with a man in his late fifties who
is a psychopath, and he's been incarcerated for many, many
years for killing three people.

Speaker 18 (19:27):
Two were his.

Speaker 16 (19:28):
Girlfriends and one was his closest male friend. Now it's
safe to say he had issues with relationships and particularly
when they didn't go his way. So back to me
sitting in the room with this psychopath, and I'm there
because I'm a clinical and forensic psychologist, and I'm there

(19:51):
to carry out a risk assessment. I need to figure
out the likelihood of him killing again and for that,
I need him information from him. I need to know
how well had he planned these murders, Were they triggered
by revenge or power or hate or control?

Speaker 18 (20:10):
And how would we know?

Speaker 16 (20:13):
Now you can imagine he wasn't very motivated to share
that information with me. I mean, he was locked up
and I had all the power with the keys literally
to his freedom. And I wasn't going to be able
to trick him or manipulate him into giving me that
information either, because psycho paths, by their nature are well
very good at manipulation and he would have seen it coming.

(20:36):
So actually I was going to have to motivate him
to give me that information. I was going to have
to build rapport, build trust, be authentic, encourage him to
share the details of what he had done.

Speaker 18 (20:50):
Now to do that, I did three things.

Speaker 16 (20:52):
The first thing I did was I stayed within the
role I was therefore and the permission of it. And
what that means is I was there as a psychologist
to do a job. I wasn't there as a friend.
I wasn't there as judge or jewry there to criticize
or punish. And so I made very clear the expectations

(21:14):
from my side on my role and the work I
needed to do, and I stayed within those boundaries. The
second thing I did was I was prepared. I did
my research. It's a very good idea if you're going
to walk into a room with a psychopath, to be
prepared and know who you're about to face. So before

(21:36):
I walked in, I checked out what kind of day
he was having, had he had any bad news, was
he in a bad mood? And how did he feel
about talking to a psychologist about all the things that
he had done. Most importantly, I checked where the exit
was in the room so I could get out quickly
if I needed to. The third thing I did was

(21:58):
I remained curious even when I was challenging him or
felt challenged. I mean, he was a pretty unlikable person,
so you can imagine some of the thoughts.

Speaker 18 (22:08):
That were going through my mind.

Speaker 16 (22:10):
But it wouldn't have been wise for me to start
saying some of those things that are on my mind,
like oh, my goodness, how could you do such terrible things?
And what about the poor victims? And oh, that sounds gruesome.
So I stayed curious. I framed my questions and responses
carefully to test hypotheses to make sure I didn't share

(22:32):
assumptions to gather the information I needed.

Speaker 18 (22:38):
Was I authentic?

Speaker 6 (22:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 18 (22:41):
What kind of not?

Speaker 16 (22:42):
If being authentic means that you're one hundred percent honest
at all times, I mean I had to think about
what I was wearing, where I sat, what questions to ask,
how not to give away all the thoughts I was
having in my facial expressions of my body language. So
if being authentic as being one hundred percent honest or

(23:02):
brutally honest, no, I wasn't. And so what I had
to do was think about what being brutally honest would
have done had I shared all those things that were
on my mind. And let's face it, his brutal honesty
had resulted in the death of three people. I didn't
particularly want it to trigger that, and if I'd been

(23:24):
brutally honest, I probably would have killed a conversation closed
down the things that he I.

Speaker 18 (23:30):
Needed him to share with me.

Speaker 16 (23:33):
And so what I did was I was authentic, but
with empathy, And what that meant was I put myself
in his shoes and thought about what it must be
like to sit with something and have to share the
details of your past and what you had done, and
I stayed curious whilst I was showing empathy. But let

(23:54):
me be clear, showing empathy doesn't mean that you agree
with what has been done. I wasn't sympathizing with him
or condoning what he had done, because empathy is not agreement.
It's about understanding. And so by showing empathy, I was
able to get an understanding, and through several meetings over

(24:15):
many months, I managed to figure out what had triggered
those attacks to prevent them from happening again. And he
was able to share openly with me some of the
experiences he had had that had led him up to
those actions. We call that psychological safety. As therapists, when
we sit and create a safe space where somebody can

(24:37):
share openly without fear of criticism or judgment, we call
that psychological safety. And that was important in our relationship
to get the work done. And so after many months,
I completed my risk assessment and I was able to
walk out of that room, closing the door behind me,

(24:58):
and I walked out alive because I was authentic with empathy.

Speaker 18 (25:05):
Fast forward, and I'm working as a.

Speaker 16 (25:09):
Leader and a leadership coach in business now some of
you might be thinking, what can working with psychopaths possibly
have to do with leadership, although some of you might
be thinking I know the answer to that.

Speaker 18 (25:24):
Well, in leadership, we talk a lot.

Speaker 16 (25:27):
Nowadays about leaders needing to be authentic, They need to
show up as their true selves, they need to be
more open, they need to be more vulnerable. Well, I've
seen some leaders using being authentic and being their real
selves as an excuse to be what I call brutal
brutal honesty. And I'll hear them saying things like, you know, naturally,

(25:49):
it's just me, this is me. You want me to
be authentic?

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Right?

Speaker 16 (25:54):
And there are essentially two kinds of leaders that I
came across in my work. Those that were able to
create the psychological safety I had seen when I was
working with psychopaths, where they had teams that trusted each
other and they collaborated and they shared, and they seemed
to have fun, and they could even disagree and still
keep going and the relationships remained positive and intact. And

(26:18):
then there was a second group of leaders who didn't
manage to do that. And you could tell because the teams, well,
they whispered behind closed doors. They didn't have that trust
between them. They didn't like to share or collaborate, and
they certainly were fearful, perhaps even mistrusting, of being negatively
criticized by the leader or by each other. And so

(26:39):
in my work with this second group of leaders, I
asked them what the impact they thought they were having
in the way they were approaching their teams. And of
course the first thing you would typically hear was, you know, Nashtally,
it's not me, it's then if I had smarter people,
I'd be a much better leader. And so I explored

(27:01):
the kinds of conversations they were having with their team,
and I made the same observations that this brutal honesty
is I'm just being myself, but giving unfiltered criticism or micromanaging,
shouting perhaps or even you know, the red pen all
over the memo, ignoring perhaps your messages and mails, sitting

(27:24):
behind computers when you're talking. All these behaviors were ways of,
in a way, being brutal in your feedback to your
team members. And what I shared with them was, you
know what, if that's being you, authentic you, it's not
working for your team. Your brutal honesty is actually killing

(27:47):
the team's motivation, their trust in you, and their cooperation.
And so I began to think some of the things
that I had learned about being authentic with empathy rather
than being brutal in my authenticity, might be helpful to
these leaders, and so I shared three things I encouraged
them to do. The first was know your role and
stay within the boundaries of that. You were there as

(28:10):
a leader. You're not there as a friend. You're not
there to criticize or punish. It's important that you're clear
about your expectations and you have a conversation with your
team members about the boundaries of those expectations. The second
thing I encouraged them to do was to be prepared
and do their research to know their team members much

(28:33):
more than just the tasks and the activities they were
involved in together. What drives this person, what motivates them,
what makes them want to work in this company or
with you. In doing so, you were able to hook
into the other person's desire or motivation to do their
work and to perform. The third thing I encourage these

(28:54):
leaders to do was to remain curious even when they
felt challenged, Because they would often say that they felt
they had people who were incompetent or who were resistant
to change or pushing back on the agenda that they had.
Sometimes they just didn't like members of their team, and
so I suggested they remained curious rather than being judgmental

(29:17):
or critical. And so my feedback to these leaders was, well,
being authentic isn't an excuse to be brutal or careless.
You can be authentic, but you can do so with empathy.
We all do it all the time. Take, for example,
a friend who has a bad haircut and asks you
what you think, and you've.

Speaker 18 (29:38):
Probably heard yourself saying, yeah, it's very you do you
like it?

Speaker 16 (29:44):
I mean, you're not being one hundred percent authentic and
honest by telling them you don't because you want to
save their feelings. You care about them, So you're showing empathy.
So we can do it, and we actually do it
all the time. And so the message to leaders is,
in order to be authentic, you don't have to be
one hundred percent honest and brutal with it at all times.

(30:07):
And so what I learned from working with psychopaths was
that being authentic comes in many shapes and forms, and
we don't need to be brutal to be authentic. Brutal
authenticity kills conversations, kills connections, kills motivation, and kills trust,

(30:29):
whereas being authentic with empathy encourages openness, encourages conversation and
builds trust. And so my message to you today as
you leave this room is think about that. Think about
the connections that you're building, think about the role that
you play within those connections, and think about the impact
that you want to have. You can be authentic, but

(30:53):
be authentic with empathy. It might just save your relationships
both at home, your reputation at work, and one day
it might even save your life.

Speaker 18 (31:06):
Thank you.

Speaker 6 (31:09):
In your journey with Greg Friedman helping you realize and
make real.

Speaker 11 (31:21):
George Man.

Speaker 7 (31:52):
And why he goes thereon let's do on locker day.

Speaker 19 (31:59):
Those around created sas and sleeping a few fractl on
not breaking wall. I see you, my friend, and touch
your face again, man, because we'll have a nasty tree.

Speaker 17 (32:27):
But whatever, I.

Speaker 11 (32:28):
Gonna slept.

Speaker 8 (32:31):
Less, like we're getting.

Speaker 19 (32:33):
Little crazy, you know, whatever gonna slept.

Speaker 11 (32:40):
Less.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
We are a let a.

Speaker 19 (32:45):
Careless people walking through my head.

Speaker 20 (32:51):
One of them's got gone shoot out the wa get
to whether they were Francisco.

Speaker 11 (33:07):
Following out when we first took the ben.

Speaker 6 (33:16):
Here pers will have a nus miss bee.

Speaker 11 (33:26):
Never against the calls we get a little wayson do
whatever dost we have a little.

Speaker 21 (33:46):
Fat?

Speaker 11 (34:20):
He says, yes, hover tdays.

Speaker 5 (34:32):
In a start for love.

Speaker 22 (34:34):
People who is sun to fucking person preserve.

Speaker 5 (34:41):
The af love.

Speaker 22 (34:43):
People who in to fuckson' u preserves.

Speaker 20 (34:52):
No people person sun to fig pres.

Speaker 5 (35:02):
Stust about give me aways?

Speaker 23 (35:23):
Whatever about.

Speaker 11 (35:28):
Yells about.

Speaker 5 (35:36):
Yes, give him a aways?

Speaker 11 (35:41):
Whatever asked about yeld.

Speaker 6 (36:27):
We are never going to survive unless we get a
little crazy. You are listening to Inner Journey with Greg
Friedman on k x F M one O four seven,
broadcast from Laguna Beach. For Laguna Beach and for the
entire world social media is Inner Journey with Greg Friedman

(36:53):
and the website's Greg Friedman dot com. You know, I
think everybody's heard this quote by John Lewis. I love
it and it's poignant and it's amazing. Get in good trouble,
necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America. Because

(37:15):
I'm going to tell you this, regular people, you me,
the people that think that they have no power do
and we are strong when we are united. We are
strong when we cooperate, and when we cooperate, it is

(37:36):
the most significant agent of change that you could ever
ever imagine. And it is horrifying and terrifying to those
people that want to feed their own insatiable illness, their

(37:57):
own insatiable greed. And Maya Angelou said so many amazing things,
and one of them was she said, you should be angry.
You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It

(38:22):
eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the
object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it,
you paint it, you dance it, you march it, you
vote it, you do everything about it. You talk it.
Never stop talking it. Find your voice, and do it

(38:45):
with a bridge. I don't care if you're on the
left side of the aisle. I don't care if you're
on the right side of the aisle. I don't care
if you are Jewish or Catholic, or Christian or Muslim.
We're not that far off from one another. We can
be the bridge, and we can only be that bridge

(39:07):
if we do it one person at a time, if
we do it one kindness at a time, if we
do it one hug, one acceptance, one recognition, one realization,
one one act of service at a time. This world

(39:28):
as we know it has been based in a very
very quid pro quo way, very transactional. What if we
weren't doing things to see what we could get from it,
but what if we shifted the dynamic and instead we
are offering from our soul, from our passion, from our place,

(39:53):
with the understanding that I don't expect anything in return,
and instead I have faith that that will pay dividends somewhere, somehow,
some way that I will most likely never see. A
wise man plants an acorn with the understanding he will

(40:16):
never sit under the shade of that tree. And if
we could shift the dynamic to one of offering instead
of taking, and it starts with offering a handshake, it
starts with offering a smile, some major or minor kindness,

(40:40):
then then we are going to see that this is
not where we wait to get into heaven, but this
is a heaven because we created it. And then we
go back to that wonderful, weird, wacky world of politics

(41:01):
and we experience questions like.

Speaker 24 (41:11):
In twenty thirteen, a team of researchers held a math test.
The exam was administered to over eleven hundred American adults
and designed in part to test their ability to evaluate
sets of data. Hidden among these math problems were two
almost identical questions. Both problems used the same difficult data set,

(41:34):
and each had one objectively correct answer. The first asked
about the correlation between rashes and a new skin cream.
The second asked about the correlation between crime rates and
gun control legislation. Participants with strong math skills were much
more likely to get the first question correct, but despite

(41:56):
being mathematically identical, the results for the second question looked
totally different. Here, math skills weren't the best predictor of
which participants answered correctly. Instead, another variable the researchers had
been tracking came into play, political identity. Participants whose political

(42:18):
beliefs aligned with a correct interpretation of the data were
far more likely to answer the problem right. Even the
study's top mathematicians were forty five percent more likely to
get the second question wrong when the correct answer challenged
their political beliefs. What is it about politics that inspires

(42:39):
this kind of illogical error? Can someone's political identity actually
affect their ability to process information? The answer lies in
a cognitive phenomenon that has become increasingly visible in public life, partisanship.
While it's often invoked in the context of politics, partisanship

(43:00):
is more broadly defined as a strong preference or bias
towards any particular group or idea. Our political, ethnic, religious,
and national identities are all different forms of partisanship. Of course,
identifying with social groups is an essential and healthy part
of human life. Our sense of self is defined not

(43:22):
only by who we are as individuals, but also by
the groups we belong to. As a result, we're strongly
motivated to defend our group identities, protecting both our sense
of self and our social communities. But this becomes a
problem when the group's beliefs are at odds with reality.
Imagine watching your favorite sports team commit a serious foul.

(43:45):
You know that's against the rules, but your fellow fans
think it's totally acceptable. The tension between these two incompatible
thoughts is called cognitive dissonance, and most people are driven
to resolve this uncomfortable state of lias limbo. You might
start to blame the referee, complain that the other teams
started it, or even convince yourself there was no foul

(44:08):
in the first place. In a case like this, people
are often more motivated to maintain a positive relationship with
their group than perceive the world accurately. This behavior is
especially dangerous in politics. On an individual scale, allegiance to
a party allows people to create a political identity and

(44:29):
support policies they agree with, but partisan based cognitive dissonance
can lead people to reject evidence that's inconsistent with the
party line or discredits party leaders, and when entire groups
of people revise the facts in service of partisan beliefs,
it can lead to policies that aren't grounded in truth

(44:50):
or reason. This problem isn't new. Political identities have been
around for centuries, but studies show that partisan polarization has
increased dramatically in the last few decades. One theory explaining
this increase is the trend towards clustering geographically in like
minded communities. Another is the growing tendency to rely on

(45:12):
partisan news or social media bubbles. These often act like
echo chambers, delivering news and ideas from people with similar views. Fortunately,
cognitive scientists have uncovered some strategies for resisting this distortion filter.
One is to remember that you're probably more biased than

(45:33):
you think, So when you encounter new information, make a
deliberate effort to push through your initial intuition and evaluate
it analytically. In your own groups, try to make fact
checking and questioning assumptions a valued part of the culture.
Warning people that they might have been presented with misinformation
can also help, and when you're trying to persuade someone else,

(45:57):
affirming their values and framing the issue in their language
can help make people more receptive. We still have a
long way to go before solving the problem of partisanship,
but hopefully these tools can help keep us better informed
and capable of making evidence based decisions about our shared reality.

(46:18):
An important tool in fighting echo chambers is learning how
to analyze and dissect what you see on the Internet
and on social media. How good are you at separating
fact from fiction? Test your skills with these videos.

Speaker 6 (46:48):
There's something happened in here.

Speaker 25 (46:52):
What it is paying exactly clear. There's a man with
a gun over there. I'm telling me, I've got to beware.
I think it's time we stopped children. What's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down?

Speaker 20 (47:22):
Because battle lines being wrong?

Speaker 25 (47:26):
Nobody's right If everybody is wrong. Young people speak in
their minds. Are getting so much resistance from me hide
every time we're stopped me, what's that sound?

Speaker 11 (47:44):
Everybody?

Speaker 25 (47:44):
Look what's going down? Water Field day for the heat.
A thousand in the street singing songs and to carry

(48:08):
and signs mostly say ohoay for our side.

Speaker 15 (48:14):
It's time we stop.

Speaker 20 (48:16):
Hey, what's that sound? Never aboty look what's going?

Speaker 25 (48:31):
Or your strikes deep into your life. Bit will create.

Speaker 20 (48:39):
And starts when you're always afraid.

Speaker 25 (48:44):
Step out the line, the man calm and take you away.
We better stop, Hey, what's that sound?

Speaker 11 (48:52):
Never a better look?

Speaker 20 (48:53):
What's going? We bere to stop? Hell, what's that sound?

Speaker 15 (48:56):
Never a better look for what's going?

Speaker 23 (48:58):
There?

Speaker 11 (48:59):
To stop?

Speaker 20 (49:00):
What's that sound?

Speaker 25 (49:01):
Ever about a look what's going? We gotta stop?

Speaker 13 (49:14):
Hi, this is James Redfield, author of the Selsing Prophecy,
and you're listening to Inner Journey with Greg Friedman.

Speaker 6 (49:24):
Welcome back, Thanks for listening, and we appreciate it. You
are listening to Inner Journey with Greg Friedman on k
x F M one O four seven. Social media is
inter Journey with Greg Friedman and Greg Friedman. Dot com
is the website.

Speaker 23 (49:44):
You know.

Speaker 6 (49:48):
If you walk into a room already knowing what you're
gonna see, what you're going to experience, what you're gonna taste,
what you're gonna feel, what you're gonna smell, what you're
going to hear, Then you exclude yourself from the opportunity

(50:09):
to find out. And right now, all over the world,
we are asking being asked to excuse me. We are
being asked to judge, not to find out, not to explore,
not to get to know, not to decide what aspects

(50:32):
of something may or may not work appropriately for me.
But instead I'm being asked over and over and over
to fervently, almost voraciously, align with this side of the
aisle or that side of the aisle, or this person

(50:52):
or that person. And we have forgotten.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
And what.

Speaker 6 (50:58):
We have forgotten is not only that we are American,
not only that we are California or Democrat or Republican.
We have forgotten that we are human.

Speaker 17 (51:09):
You know.

Speaker 6 (51:09):
In the song, Dickinson wrote, then join hand in hand,
brave Americans. All by uniting, we stand. By dividing, we fall,
and Patrick Henry used the phrases in his last speech
united we stand, divided, we fall, and this is when

(51:32):
he was denouncing Kentucky and Virginia having resolutions that created
separation and divisiveness. Our history is being played out on
a loop right now, and we are at a particular
aspect of that cycle that we could either join in

(51:55):
or we could reset in the same way that every pattern,
every legacy, every trauma is handed to us, and we
have the opportunity to do the same or to do differently.
Somebody that was abused has a tendency to become an abuser.

(52:21):
They don't have to be. It's not easy. I'm not
suggesting that I'm not suggesting that this is a Pollyann
of view. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't all or
it wouldn't appropriately be open to understanding. Change often create

(52:41):
is created through friction. That friction is often created by
our gripping onto the old rather than letting go by surrendering,
and in surrendering, we could stand together in a new
and undivided way. So what's it going to take. It's
going to take an understanding. It's going to take action

(53:06):
that reflects choosing a new perspective, choosing a new path,
going on the road less traveled. And if you do that,
then there is opportunity everywhere, and if we don't, there

(53:30):
is destruction everywhere, which in and of itself is a
whole different kind of opportunity. Can you understand there is
no spoon?

Speaker 25 (53:54):
Do not try and bend the spoon.

Speaker 11 (53:57):
That's impossible.

Speaker 20 (54:00):
Instead, only try to realize the truth.

Speaker 18 (54:04):
What truth? There is no spoon, There is no spoon.

Speaker 10 (54:12):
Then you'll see this is.

Speaker 11 (54:13):
Not the spoon that bends, It is only yourself.

Speaker 26 (54:50):
What will you do if I say at all, we
should stand up and walk out on me?

Speaker 11 (55:01):
Let me here?

Speaker 26 (55:03):
Then I sing you a song. I will try, not
just sing out of key. Then and I went at
my friend somebody, My friend said, when.

Speaker 20 (55:24):
My face, Hell, one do I do when my love
is away?

Speaker 11 (55:39):
Does the world be alone?

Speaker 3 (55:43):
No?

Speaker 1 (55:44):
No?

Speaker 20 (55:45):
Pound do I feel at the end of the days?

Speaker 11 (55:50):
Are you saying because you're on your own?

Speaker 27 (55:53):
I say you, I don't get sad?

Speaker 11 (55:55):
No more.

Speaker 28 (55:56):
Let all, my friend, I'm gonna get wi the water
he held from my band to no people trying.

Speaker 14 (56:06):
You when the help from my rad I don't, he said, No.

Speaker 11 (56:20):
I do even bad.

Speaker 18 (56:25):
I need someone want the Lord.

Speaker 11 (56:30):
I could be that someone knows a smell, no sign,
just a little sorry. When from my.

Speaker 28 (56:50):
Friend sad fucking fast somebody time when the.

Speaker 11 (57:01):
Friend when my head on air from.

Speaker 9 (57:04):
Er al.

Speaker 20 (57:11):
Wood, you be league even love at first side.

Speaker 18 (57:17):
I'm certain it happens all the time.

Speaker 20 (57:22):
What do you see when you can turn of the lights.

Speaker 11 (57:27):
I can tell you about it.

Speaker 12 (57:29):
Shut issac line.

Speaker 5 (57:32):
When a little my said, when.

Speaker 11 (57:39):
My friend, I'm gonna get on back.

Speaker 29 (57:46):
With a new ail from my wail, I do.

Speaker 5 (58:07):
I clu be in that.

Speaker 24 (58:12):
Some someonody who's gonna listen man, someone.

Speaker 12 (58:17):
Who's gonnat soon mad away?

Speaker 20 (58:25):
When I go to get back, I'm going to get back.

Speaker 5 (58:29):
By when I'm helping tackle.

Speaker 20 (58:38):
I'm working, trying to get job.

Speaker 15 (58:41):
He wants your hands again away.

Speaker 23 (58:50):
When play.

Speaker 5 (58:55):
Again again.

Speaker 9 (01:00:18):
This disclaimer is a statement notifying listening audiences that any
opinions expressed in our shows are not representative of Laguna Radio, Inc.

Speaker 18 (01:00:24):
Its management, or its board of directors.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
K x R N LP Laguna Noguel, Laguna Beach, k
x FM on one or four point centis KXFM radio
dot org.

Speaker 6 (01:00:38):
My name is Greg Friedman. I am a modern version
of those that have existed in every culture. I am
a guide. For years, I have taken people all over
the world to work with indigenous elders in exotic locations
only to show you that you are the magic, and
we just help you realize it. It could be terrifying

(01:00:58):
to look at our fears and sometimes even more so
to look at our strangers. I take you out into
the wild, into the unknown foreign, enter the journey. And
if you're just tuning in or driving along and you

(01:01:23):
just heard this little snippet, this entire show, this evening
is about the choice to divide or the choice to unite.
And it is a choice. Yes, I understand that both
of the aisles right now have been whipped Both sides
of the aisle right now have been whipped up into

(01:01:46):
a lather, to a fervor. And I also understand that
we can choose. One of the greatest gifts that we
have as humans is the gift of choice. And we
could choose the day, choose to unite, choose the divinity,
or we could choose to succumb. There is an energy

(01:02:12):
that is pervasive right now among those that are ill,
those that are sick psychologically, physically, spiritually, that cannot be sated.
And all they want is more and more and more
and more and more, and in order for those sick
individuals to have more, to get more than It is

(01:02:36):
absolutely vital that there is a wedge put in between us,
that we are separated. We are as a divided nation,
a divided world, a divided neighborhood, so much easier to
be compliant. Whereas if we understand that not that long ago,

(01:03:02):
a Gosin was breaking bread with a Jewish family and
vice versa, and a Ukrainian was having borshed with a
Russian family not that long ago, and we are sitting
down at a table, and because somebody up there in
some office decides that in order to be able to

(01:03:26):
fill those coffers that are already overflowing with even more,
that it's necessary for us to be divided. It's necessary
for us to have civil wars, mental wars, physical wars,
even genocide. It's not an obligation, it's not anything that

(01:03:52):
we have to do. We can remember how useless war
is and how amazing it is to live in a
world where we can see one another, really see one another.
Because I got news for you. Ain't no senator's son

(01:04:13):
gonna go to war, Ain't no president's son gonna go
to war, whether it's civil, whether it's in the National
Guard to break up somebody that is standing up for
his or her rights. We do not have to fight

(01:04:34):
because it's not good for anybody.

Speaker 12 (01:05:00):
Sail again, y'all, what no man, listen to me.

Speaker 30 (01:05:13):
Despise causing me this job.

Speaker 11 (01:05:18):
Listener the long and when I find and.

Speaker 5 (01:05:27):
Lose their.

Speaker 23 (01:05:29):
Who?

Speaker 30 (01:05:31):
Good God, y'all asolu get here again? What absolute listen
to me?

Speaker 12 (01:05:47):
Wow, it ain't nothing.

Speaker 20 (01:05:51):
Wow, friend, only.

Speaker 30 (01:05:53):
To the undertaker.

Speaker 5 (01:06:00):
Boom the.

Speaker 12 (01:06:03):
Raps constant, and then they look to the rest and sets.

Speaker 8 (01:06:11):
Then good and you.

Speaker 12 (01:06:17):
Why, as sir s.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
Why listen to man?

Speaker 4 (01:06:33):
I pray you go.

Speaker 12 (01:06:38):
Undertake many young seems made.

Speaker 11 (01:06:49):
The sun and basses and the.

Speaker 30 (01:06:51):
Boy to walk in the mine and saw the nod.
Y'all absolutely say against.

Speaker 31 (01:07:12):
Absolutely listen to man break ring undertaken?

Speaker 11 (01:07:23):
Oh, manna.

Speaker 5 (01:07:33):
The same.

Speaker 11 (01:07:33):
We must.

Speaker 28 (01:07:35):
Keep up?

Speaker 5 (01:07:37):
Lord, No, this got.

Speaker 12 (01:07:38):
Dumpy had away?

Speaker 5 (01:07:42):
Whoa john?

Speaker 12 (01:07:44):
Y'all you tell said said said good?

Speaker 11 (01:07:52):
Yeah, my god.

Speaker 6 (01:07:58):
Social media is in journey with Greg Friedman in the
website is Gregfriedman dot com. You are listening to k
x f M one O four seven broadcast from Laguna Beach, California,
for the entire universe for all of us. And that's

(01:08:20):
what this program is about, this evening all of us,
for us, by us, And we need desperately to understand
that as much as we may try to be open
about certain things, to be enlightened about certain things, we

(01:08:40):
do have biases. Each one of us goes in with
certain bents that often can get stoked and turn into
anger and confrontation and then fighting your neighbor, and we
don't need to. Instead, if we trust our gut, trust
our intro wish an end, allow for the possibility of

(01:09:05):
learning something, of shifting a perspective, of opening up to
aspects of ourselves that we may not have recognized, aspects
of this world that we may not have recognized, aspects
of our brothers, our sisters, our mothers, our fathers, our

(01:09:26):
neighbors that we did not recognize. Then we are providing
fertile ground for us to grow, for us to learn,
for us to unite, and we can. It's a choice,
and you can make the choice, and I can make

(01:09:47):
the choice to know that there's always something that I
can learn, and the best way to learn that is
from somebody that thinks differently than I do. They're not
your enemy, they're your opportunity. Are you willing? Are you
capable of understanding that because they think differently, they are

(01:10:11):
going to provide something that if you live within an
echo chamber, will not cannot be recognized, will not cannot
be implemented for your good or for anybody else's. We

(01:10:31):
don't have to be political with one another before we're
human with one another.

Speaker 9 (01:10:41):
Carolyn Lukensmeyer to you first, I want to say first
that your institute was founded after former Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford's
was shot in an incident. This happened what seven years ago?

Speaker 32 (01:10:52):
Yes, in January of twenty eleven, after the very contentious
twenty ten election.

Speaker 9 (01:10:57):
So here we are again, and we should say we do.
I don't know where these pipe bombs came from. They're
still very much in the investigative phase.

Speaker 20 (01:11:07):
But this moment feels.

Speaker 9 (01:11:09):
Very divisive in our country. What is it compared to
Krolin Lupin's Meyer, How do we is there a moment
in our history that this is similar to.

Speaker 32 (01:11:18):
Well, actually in our recent history at least, as we
get lots of messages from the American public all over
the country, there was a similar real sense of moral
outrage and concern with the images of children in cages
on the border and a belief that that actually could
lead to physical violence at certain places in the country.

(01:11:41):
And then that was intensified even further with the Kavanaugh hearings,
where no matter what state or city I was in
giving speeches, I could literally say to people, whatever your
belief is about the outcome of this, how has this
impacted you in terms of the state of our ability
to be together in our communities, And without exception, people

(01:12:04):
described it as a time that things would be worse.

Speaker 9 (01:12:07):
Joanne Freeman, is there a time how much of our
history have we spent divided the way we are today?

Speaker 33 (01:12:17):
Well, you know, I think you have to say that
there's no constant lines. So we've had bad moments, We've
had less than bad moments. There have been moments where
we've been very violent. There have been moments that are
much like the present, that are very divided, that are
very polarized. And I think there are moments when, very
much like the present, people realize that the nation is

(01:12:40):
seemingly turning in one direction or another, and the stakes
seem higher, and because of that, I think things become
more polarized Americans become distrustful in each other. A lot
of the things that we're seeing now happen. So you
can look over the long haul. As a historian, I
can look over the long haul, and I can say
that in the seventeen nineties when people were debating how

(01:13:03):
democratic the new Republic would be was one such moment. Obviously,
the lead up to the Civil War when the concept
the thing that they were talking about with slavery, and
I'd say the nineteen sixties was another one.

Speaker 9 (01:13:13):
How much this is so tough to condense us into
one conversation, But Carol Lukensmeyer, how much have words mattered?
You gave some modern examples, current examples a moment ago,
but over time, how much have words mattered in these
in these moments that led to some sort of political violence.

Speaker 32 (01:13:33):
Well, people are really social beings, Judy, and they respond
to the signals that they're given, particularly for people who
they look up to, and our elected political officials are
amongst the people who set the norms in the country.
Words really matter. Every time any one of us speak,
we have an impact on the people that we're listening

(01:13:53):
to in terms of how they perceive things and in
terms of actions they take. In the twenty sixteen Life
we actually saw this connection between the use of demonizing
language of other rising groups African Americans, Muslims, women, reporters,
and then we actually watched in some rallies where that
turned into violent action. So the link between using words

(01:14:18):
that incite people to emotional reactive stances and the move
next to actual physical violence, it's a link that's been
well established over time.

Speaker 9 (01:14:28):
Joann Freeman, How has this country gotten through moments like this?
What has it taken to bring the country back to
a place where we could, if not all be friends
with one another, at least tolerate people with different views?

Speaker 33 (01:14:44):
Well for one thing, and I think that's obviously, as
you suggested, hard to condense.

Speaker 28 (01:14:48):
All this in.

Speaker 33 (01:14:49):
But part of the answer to that question has to
do with the actual political process and the investment of
Americans into that process. If you go all the way
back to the founding, of the things that the founders
thought that they were doing that would really have lasting
value was that they were creating a process, a set
process of governance that no matter what happened down the road,

(01:15:09):
the nation could turn to it. And so I think
elections are part of that process. Supreme Court decisions are
part of that process, and some of the events in
the past that have gone on a difficult trail. Sometimes
really it is an election or a decision that, as
much as it might be disliked, Americans have invested themselves

(01:15:30):
in the process enough to accept that answer. So I
think part of what that does, of course, is set
up the next few elections, the one that's coming right
down the road and the presidential one after that.

Speaker 18 (01:15:41):
The meaning of those are going to be very profound.

Speaker 9 (01:15:44):
Are there lessons either in history Caroline Luken's Meyer or
more recently that give us some sort of roadmap to
how we work our way through this?

Speaker 32 (01:15:55):
Well, when there is this big a gap between how
political leadership are conducting themselves and what ordinary Americans really
know in their hearts and minds are the base values
of our country, which really are about how we can
work across our differences and fine common ground. Then we've

(01:16:15):
often seen in history where there is a link between
a single enlightened leader, Martin Luther King and a civil
rights movement that never could have happened without literally millions
of Americans shifting their views. I think we're at that
moment again where we can't count at the moment on
our current elected officials to shift this rhetoric.

Speaker 18 (01:16:36):
But what we see across the country, and it's very hopeful.

Speaker 32 (01:16:39):
Judy, Americans of both parties, every red states, blue states,
purple states, they're actually coming together in one on one conversations,
small group conversations and setting up the conditions.

Speaker 8 (01:16:51):
How do we get past this divide.

Speaker 32 (01:16:53):
We want to be past this divide.

Speaker 9 (01:16:54):
So maybe it's coming from the community level, from the
ground level up just quickly. Joe Anne Freeman examples in
history of leaders who have led us out of a
period of terrible division.

Speaker 33 (01:17:08):
Well, I mean you could go all the way back
and say that the first real contested presidential election from
eighteen hundred, Thomas Jefferson.

Speaker 18 (01:17:17):
That election happened. People thought that there might even be
civil warfare because it was so fraught.

Speaker 33 (01:17:22):
Jefferson came out of that and said, we are all federalists,
we are all Republicans. Let us try to stand back
and unite. And that was precisely the right thing to
do at that moment. So I do think and I
like the sense of hope in that. I take encouragement
as much as it also means that some people are
thinking violently. People are really engaged in the political process

(01:17:44):
now in a way that I think is important and
that is encouraging.

Speaker 9 (01:17:49):
Well, it's we are in a tough moment, a difficult
moment for all of us, and it helps, I think,
to put it in some perspective. And that's why we
thank you both for being here, Joeanne Freeman, thank you,
Carol Lukinsmire.

Speaker 6 (01:18:03):
And thank you for having us.

Speaker 18 (01:18:05):
Thank you well.

Speaker 23 (01:18:08):
People.

Speaker 34 (01:18:14):
Everybody tells about bag and a stag, a stag, a
fag tag, give a stag?

Speaker 23 (01:18:24):
Oh yahsu.

Speaker 11 (01:18:35):
Oh yes. Everybody talks about stop by, stop by.

Speaker 23 (01:18:54):
Bye bye step by. Oh yaa oh yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:19:19):
Everything is that.

Speaker 34 (01:19:20):
Everybody comes over mad PLA fatilate regulation replaces Lenny Day
candidate to a fractuate Oh ya, it's come, Oh, let's

(01:19:45):
quest come. Oh thanks, everybody is coming about Bob start
is not the most day Amy.

Speaker 23 (01:19:57):
Lenny Day mom tailor. I I.

Speaker 28 (01:20:03):
Oh oh, oh Yasa, pray for that, yeahsa.

Speaker 11 (01:21:00):
Oh say.

Speaker 23 (01:21:06):
Pisa, lets not it come?

Speaker 5 (01:21:12):
Oh it came, Pisa said, Oh I say this pizza.

Speaker 23 (01:21:32):
Every record, Oh no, say you want it? I'm ga.

Speaker 5 (01:21:46):
O say.

Speaker 11 (01:21:49):
Not together.

Speaker 23 (01:21:52):
Pisa do together ago.

Speaker 28 (01:21:57):
Oh ya, says jam pizza.

Speaker 23 (01:22:09):
Oh yes, we can get it above. Oh yes, it's kisa.

(01:22:32):
Oh yes, it's pizza pusial.

Speaker 5 (01:22:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:22:54):
Does it sound like I'm too much of a dream
or does it sound like it's too much poll bs.

Speaker 8 (01:23:03):
I believe.

Speaker 6 (01:23:05):
I more than believe. I have faith. I have faith
in humanity to be humane. I have faith in all
of us to awaken, to recognize that nobody wants to fight,
that at the end of the day, what we really
choose is to love, love our families, love our neighbors,

(01:23:27):
love each other, love ourselves. And in order to do that,
it's necessary for us to do differently. You know that
phrase that is often spoken about in protests of war.
What if they gave a war and nobody came is

(01:23:50):
a line from a Carl Sandberg poem where it's called
the People Yes. Think about that alone, The People Yes,
where a young girl in this poem is imagining a
scenario where would no one show up for a war.

(01:24:14):
We don't want to fight, we don't need to fight.
And if not for us choosing not to fight, then
all that's left is to unite, and we each of
us can be very, very loving, very caring, and be

(01:24:40):
of service to ourselves and one another. And we could
do that in small ways, and we could do that
in really big ways, and we could do that in
ways that are of service to ourselves and the entire world.
But it's going to take something. It's going to take
something very very specific. Let go, Let go, let go.

(01:25:09):
In order to discover new lands, it's necessary to lose
sight of shore. That means that that is familiar. Even
if it's scary, to let go, even if your voice quivers,
speak your truth, but do it. Don't do it against
one another, do it for yourself, do it for one another.

(01:25:30):
Be of service. Be clear that we are here to love.
Let go.

Speaker 17 (01:25:37):
I'm a Buddhist, I'm a Muslim, I'm a Christian, I'm
whatever you want me to be. It all comes down
to the same thing.

Speaker 8 (01:25:44):
You're in a loving place or you're in an unloving place.
I just want to be myself.

Speaker 17 (01:25:48):
If I lose, if you bring people who can't deal
with the fact that there is other forces in the world,
that's okay to me.

Speaker 1 (01:25:54):
The meaning of life, you want to know what it is,
love yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
Jim Carrey is left by many, known for his Rules
in Dumb and Dumber, The Mask ace Ventura, and many more.
He's made a name as one of the funniest people
on Earth, although for decades there's been a spiritual sided
Jim that's often overlooked or misinterpreted. In two thousand and nine,
he told a story about a mystical experience he had
which pushed him down a path of spiritual awakening.

Speaker 1 (01:26:23):
A few months ago, after knowing Ecker totally for a
while and studying the books, I woke up and I
suddenly got it. I understood suddenly how fought was just

(01:26:45):
an illusory thing, and how fought is responsible for, if
not all, most of the suffering we experience. And then

(01:27:07):
I suddenly felt like I was looking at these thoughts
from another perspective, and I wondered, who is it that's
aware that I'm thinking? And suddenly I was thrown into
this expansive, amazing feeling of freedom from myself, from my problems.

(01:27:34):
I saw that I was bigger than what I do.
I was bigger than my body. I was everything and everyone.
I was no longer a fragment of the universe.

Speaker 8 (01:27:49):
I was the universe. And ever since that day I've
been trying to get back there. It's like riding wave.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
Sometimes I'm on, sometimes I'm off, But at least I
know where I want to go and that I want
to take as many people with me as I possibly can,
because the feeling is amazing. You know, it's our intention.
Our intention is everything. Nothing happens on this planet without it,

(01:28:25):
Not one single thing has ever been accomplished without intention.
So I started thinking about my life, and I started
thinking about this conference and what we're about. And I
looked back and I thought, well, I was two people.
My whole life, I was in the living room entertaining people,
being a monkey, you know, doing my thing for the company,

(01:28:46):
and trying to relieve my mother who was suffering. She
had cadiphritis and aphlebitis and everything everything under the sun
that was nagging at her, and she was depressed, and
I wanted her to be free, and I wanted her
to realize that her life was worth something, because she

(01:29:10):
gave birth to someone who's worth something. And then I
would go into my room.

Speaker 8 (01:29:19):
And I would sit with a legal pad. I was
a little kid.

Speaker 1 (01:29:27):
I would sit there and I would try to figure
out what it meant, what it was all about why
are we here?

Speaker 23 (01:29:34):
What is this?

Speaker 3 (01:29:37):
Jim describes that he once read from Buddha that all
spirituality is relieving from suffering. Similarly, the Buddha summarized of
the reality of suffering in the Four Truths. One our
lives are pervaded by suffering, both obvious and subtle. Two,
there is an identifiable cause of our suffering. Three because

(01:29:59):
we know it's cause, we can free ourselves from suffering.
And for there is a specific path we can follow
to end suffering, which consists of meditation, wisdom, and ethical living.
Buddha's teachings on suffering resonated with Jim as he realized
that he was trying to relieve his mother from suffering
all along.

Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
One day, I read something from Buddha that said that
all spirituality is about relieving suffering. And I suddenly realized
that's what I'm doing in the other room. And I'm aligned.

(01:30:40):
You know this, My purpose is aligned with this. So
I felt incredibly lucky. I lose sight of that all
the time. I get caught up in different concerns and
ego concerns. But I'm so lucky to be a part
of this community and to do something that is a
vowed you, and.

Speaker 3 (01:31:01):
He's relieved more than just his mother from suffering with
countless timeless performances. There's something for everyone to find escape
from their own life strife, one of which being his
portrayal of Andy Kaufman in the nineteen ninety nine film
Man on the Moon. Following the film, he had another
awakening experience where he saw through his ego.

Speaker 1 (01:31:23):
It was definitely an important moment in the process where
I found myself subjugating Jim Carrey for Andy Kaufman and
Tony Clifton, and then and then at the end of
it looking for Jim Carrey again and having trouble finding him.

Speaker 8 (01:31:39):
And at a certain point I realized, hey, wait a second.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
You know, if it's so easy to lose Jim Carrey,
who the hell is Jim Carrey? Or I was kind
of watching from another place. And there's been a series
of kind of awakenings I've had in my life, and
you know, people chalk it up to depression.

Speaker 8 (01:31:56):
All that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:31:57):
I think that, you know, grief and sadness and all
those things are are are the ticket home?

Speaker 8 (01:32:04):
Uh Nothing. I think that that was a part of
the process.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
There's been several other awakenings and and and yet still
I have a lot of ego at attachments that that
that pull my attention and focus.

Speaker 3 (01:32:21):
This experience suggests that the distinction between Jim Carrey and
his iconic rules can become blued. However, Jim has an
interesting perspective on this notion.

Speaker 4 (01:32:30):
You said, you've kind of disassociated yourself with with Jim Carrey.

Speaker 8 (01:32:34):
But does it?

Speaker 4 (01:32:34):
You know, everyone we see your face. There's so many
iconic roles and so many of our favorite movies from
Eternal Sunshine, Sem and Dumber and everything. Does that has
nothing to do with Jim Carrey. That has nothing to
do with Jim Carret, nothing.

Speaker 8 (01:32:46):
At all to do with Jim Carrey. That's just that's
just what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
And uh and it was it is wonderful and uh
there's insane gratitude around it and wonder around it.

Speaker 8 (01:33:02):
How did it happen?

Speaker 1 (01:33:03):
And and uh fulfillment from it, and uh it's I
look back at it and I see something beautiful that.

Speaker 8 (01:33:15):
Rose out of nothing and happened for.

Speaker 4 (01:33:16):
No one, you know, it just it just was like
it was almost like every six months to a year
we saw this like huge Jim Carrey comedy.

Speaker 8 (01:33:26):
Do you miss that? No, I honestly, there's nothing but this.
You're my universe, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:33:32):
So I'm not looking forward and I'm not looking backward,
and I'm not you know, the aspect of this that's
backward to me is like a contemporary thing.

Speaker 8 (01:33:41):
What's what's what's good about this movie? It's not a
look back, It's it's.

Speaker 1 (01:33:45):
A cotemporary concept. It's what's happening right now. Inside everybody
is they're going, who am I?

Speaker 8 (01:33:51):
And they're depressed, you know, a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:33:54):
Of people because they're trying to hold up an image
in the world, and that's what depression is.

Speaker 9 (01:33:58):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
People go like, oh's been depressed and stuff. Well, yeah,
I was depressed when I was trying to be the
Wizard of Oz instead of the sweaty guy behind the curtain.
But now I know that Oz is a character, you know,
and uh, and you know, I think that everybody deals
with that. Everybody walks around and they go like, why

(01:34:20):
am I depressed? Wells, because you're trying to be something
for the world, you know, and as soon as you
let that go better things happen because they're just happening.

Speaker 8 (01:34:31):
But it's not you know now it's the sadness.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
You know, sadness comes, happiness comes, whether the lies by
this guy, it doesn't sit on you long enough.

Speaker 8 (01:34:41):
To drown you.

Speaker 18 (01:34:42):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:34:44):
As mentioned, Jim has struggled with depression. He previously mentioned
depression as his body needing deep rest from putting on
an act. Here he takes us further into that journey.

Speaker 2 (01:34:54):
I've read a couple of places where you said you've
had you struggle with depression from time to.

Speaker 8 (01:34:59):
Some pro back for a long time.

Speaker 3 (01:35:02):
Yep.

Speaker 17 (01:35:02):
I was on prozac for a long time, and I'm
not sure it may have helped me out of a
jam for a little bit, but people stay on it forever,
you know. I had to get off at a certain
point because I realized that, you know, everything's just okay.

Speaker 6 (01:35:19):
No takes some valids.

Speaker 17 (01:35:21):
There are peaks, there are values, but they're all kind
of card and smoothed out, and it feels like a low.

Speaker 8 (01:35:31):
Level of despair.

Speaker 17 (01:35:32):
You live in where you're not getting any answers, but
you're living okay, and you can smile at the office,
you know, but it's a low level of despair and you.

Speaker 6 (01:35:42):
Don't take any of them. You don't take anything.

Speaker 8 (01:35:45):
Nothing.

Speaker 17 (01:35:45):
I don't take anything. I rarely drink coffee. I'm very
serious about no alcohol, no drugs. I just life is
too beautiful. After talking to you for a couple of.

Speaker 2 (01:35:56):
Hours, I mean, I just I get to send You
are a big bundle of conflicting emotions. Really don't you
get that sense for me? Well, I think you're very
emotional about a lot of things. It's all very close
to the surfer.

Speaker 3 (01:36:10):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 8 (01:36:12):
I'm decided to be there.

Speaker 6 (01:36:14):
I only act in the movies.

Speaker 3 (01:36:16):
And his level of authenticity is apparent in these interviews.
Perhaps it's because he's able to detach from his psyche
and see a bigger picture.

Speaker 1 (01:36:26):
I think that we're all, you know, we're all trying
to add things to ourselves so that we can finally
define our define ourselves, and then everybody will get us
and they'll go, okay, that this is what you are.
And then if you actually get there, you will find
it so empty that you'll realize that's really not what
it's about. It it's about not only, you know, just

(01:36:48):
going with the flow, but it's about not taking it personally.

Speaker 23 (01:36:52):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:52):
It's like the difference between how a house and my
house is a world of difference, and it's the min
that's the problem, you know.

Speaker 8 (01:37:00):
So you can do all this without the my involved.

Speaker 1 (01:37:04):
You know, you can do it in a way that
it's not Life isn't happening to you. It's happening for
you know, for the good of everyone. It's just a
it's like a it's a play, it's a it's a giant,
you know, field of consciousness dancing for itself and you're
here to make me happy and you're.

Speaker 8 (01:37:23):
To kind of up. It's making itself happy.

Speaker 23 (01:37:25):
You know.

Speaker 8 (01:37:25):
It's like one soul.

Speaker 12 (01:37:26):
That's how I feel.

Speaker 8 (01:37:27):
I feel like you know, people say, well I have
a soul. You don't have a soul, there's no you.
But I feel like there is a soul and it
includes everything.

Speaker 1 (01:37:37):
And when you wake up in the morning and you
feel like I'm the universe, you don't have to reach
for the stars.

Speaker 8 (01:37:42):
You know, you can just let life happen and walk
through the doors.

Speaker 1 (01:37:51):
Hi, I'm Bruce Lipton and you are listening to Inner Journey.

Speaker 11 (01:38:13):
You just excuse your.

Speaker 5 (01:38:15):
Take on.

Speaker 11 (01:38:18):
Think you need a table? Help me to get the
things ride.

Speaker 5 (01:38:25):
Men, I'm my new have a lou show.

Speaker 11 (01:38:28):
This Swell Days a.

Speaker 23 (01:38:32):
Sad not been in the bush and.

Speaker 11 (01:38:34):
The last one time.

Speaker 5 (01:38:39):
King tell this guy saying.

Speaker 22 (01:38:42):
You get something, don't get on something. There a comication.
I don't get down.

Speaker 11 (01:39:01):
Ba patients, it.

Speaker 5 (01:39:21):
Can wait on.

Speaker 27 (01:39:25):
Give me one way, you give me one last tried,
have the other trucking future.

Speaker 11 (01:39:36):
Sitting by line.

Speaker 27 (01:39:39):
We untill the angels aras games.

Speaker 11 (01:39:46):
I'll look at this save.

Speaker 21 (01:39:50):
Get out sign looking about Sunday.

Speaker 5 (01:40:00):
Give me a.

Speaker 11 (01:40:05):
Tip shop.

Speaker 15 (01:40:15):
To shop stop.

Speaker 21 (01:40:34):
Shock to the s SI, give up shops.

Speaker 11 (01:40:56):
Time shot name the Scots.

Speaker 6 (01:41:39):
You are listening to your journey with Greg Friedman on
k x F M one O four seven, brought to
you by the world. All right, you guys, we are
coming close to that place. And ultimately we have been
talking all night about one thing and one thing alone,

(01:42:02):
and that's Are you willing to choose inner piece over
your inner turmoil? Are you willing to choose love for
yourself over anger at yourself? And then are you willing
to unite with others even if they're different, different in color,

(01:42:26):
different in culture, different in dogma, different in you know, ideologies,
different in every single way, different in gender assignment, different
in everything. Are you willing to disagree and still be united,

(01:42:47):
and yes it's possible.

Speaker 13 (01:42:51):
Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life.
That's it, no big deal, just three stories. The first
story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out a
recollege after the first six months, but then stayed around
as a drop in for another eighteen months or so

(01:43:13):
before I really quit. So why'd I drop out? It
started before I was born. My biological mother was a young,
unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up
for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be
adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for

(01:43:34):
me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and
his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided
at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.
So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got
a call in the middle of the night, asking, we've
got an unexpected baby boy. If you want him, they said,

(01:43:54):
of course. My biological mother found out later that my
mother had I had never graduated from college, and that
my father had never graduated from high school. She refused
to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a
few months later when my parents promised that I would
go to college. This was the start in my life,

(01:44:20):
and seventeen years later I did go to college, but
I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive
as Stanford, and all of my working class parents savings
were being spent on my college tuition. After six months,
I couldn't see the value in it. I had no
idea what I wanted to do with my life and
no idea how college was going to help me figure

(01:44:41):
it out. And here I was spending all the money
my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided
to drop out and trust that it would all work out. Okay,
it was pretty scary at the time, but looking back,
it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the

(01:45:03):
required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in
on the ones that looked far more interesting. It wasn't
all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I
slept on the floor in friend's rooms. I returned coke
bottles for the five cent deposits to buy food with,
and I would walk the seven miles across town every
Sunday night to get one good meal a week at

(01:45:26):
the Hari Krishna temple. I loved it, and much of
what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition
turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give
you one example. Reed College at that time offered perhaps
the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus,
every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand calligraphed.

(01:45:51):
Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take
the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class
to learn how to do this. I learned about and
san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between
different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It
was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science

(01:46:14):
can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this
had even a hope of any practical application in my life,
But ten years later, when we were designing the first
Macintosh computer, it all came back to me and we
designed it all into the mac. It was the first
computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in

(01:46:36):
on that single course in college, the Mac would have
never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since
Windows just copied the mac It's likely that no personal
computer would happen. If I had never dropped out, I
would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class, and
personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

(01:46:57):
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking
forward when I was in college, but it was very
very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can't
connect the dots looking forward, You can only connect them
looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots
will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust
in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever, because believing

(01:47:22):
that the dots will connect down the road will give
you the confidence to follow your heart even when it
leads you off the well worn path, and that will
make all the difference. My second story is about love
and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved

(01:47:43):
to do early in life was and I started Apple
in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard,
and in ten years Apple had grown from just the
two of us in a garage into a two billion
dollar company with over four thousand employees. We just released
our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I
just turned thirty and then I got fired. How can

(01:48:06):
you get fired from a company you started well? As
Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very
talented to run the company with me, and for the
first year or so things went well. But then our
visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we
had a falling out. When we did, our board of
directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out,

(01:48:28):
and very publicly out. What had been the focus of
my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do.

Speaker 8 (01:48:36):
For a few months, I.

Speaker 13 (01:48:38):
Felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down,
that I had dropped the baton as it was being
passed me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noys
and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I
was a very public failure, and I even thought about
running away from the valley. But something slowly began to
dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The

(01:49:02):
turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit.
I'd been rejected, but I was still in love, and
so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then,
but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was
the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness
of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It

(01:49:25):
freed me to enter one of the most creative periods
of my life. During the next five years, I started
a company named Next, another company named Pixar, and fell
in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife.
Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated
feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful
animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events,

(01:49:49):
Apple bought Next and I returned to Apple and the
technology we developed it Next is at the heart of
Apple's current renaissance, and Loreena and I have a wonderful
family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have
happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was
awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.

(01:50:09):
Sometimes life. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the
head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that
the only thing that kept me going was that I
loved what I did. You've got to find what you love,
and that is as true for work as it is
for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a
large part of your life, and the only way to
be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is

(01:50:30):
great work. And the only way to do great work
is to love what you do. If you haven't found
it yet, keep looking and don't settle. As with all
matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it,
and like any great relationship, it just gets better and
better as the years roll on. So keep looking, don't settle.

(01:50:54):
My third story is about death. When I was seventeen,
I read a quote that when something like if you
live each day as if it was your last, someday,
you'll most certainly be right. It made an impression on me,
and since then, for the past thirty three years, I
have looked in the mirror every morning and ask myself,

(01:51:15):
if today were the last day of my life, what
I want to do? What I am about to do today,
And whenever the answer has been no, for too many
days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important
tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big
choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride,

(01:51:40):
all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall
away in the face of death, leaving only what is
truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is
the best way I know to avoid the trap of
thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.
There is no reason not to follow your heart. No

(01:52:02):
one wants to die, even people who want to go
to heaven don't want to die to get there. And
yet death is the destination we all share. No one
has ever escaped it, and that is as it should be,
because death is very likely the single best invention of life.
It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to

(01:52:23):
make way for the new. Right now, the new is you,
But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually
become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be
so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited,
so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be

(01:52:44):
trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of
other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions,
drownd out your own inner voice, and most important, have
the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow
already know what you true we want to become. Everything
else is secondary. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Speaker 6 (01:53:13):
Obviously that was Steve Jobs all right, y'all. It's been
the same theme all night long. We could divide among
ourselves and everything else in this world, or we could
choose to unite internally and externally. It's our choice. And

(01:53:35):
as always, I'm incredibly grateful to all the people that
help put this program on, and most of all, I'm
grateful to you, the listening audience. This show does not
exist without your participation. For that, and so so much more,

(01:53:55):
I we are huge, hugely grateful you've been listening to
Wish in your journey with Greg Friedman. Good Night, m