Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Kuric, and this is next question.
Speaker 1: We hear it every day. Americans are politically and culturally divided.
Speaker 1: But something we don't hear very often is that eighty
Speaker 1: seven percent of us are sick and tired of it.
Speaker 1: So if so many people feel this way, what can
Speaker 1: we do about it?
Speaker 2: At the essence, the overwhelming majority of human beings are
Speaker 2: wired to want to transcend what is happening to our
Speaker 2: society today. We are not designed to be nasty jerks,
Speaker 2: but ultimately comes to our daily habits.
Speaker 1: Daniel Lebetsky is the founder of Kind Snacks. He's also
Speaker 1: a social entrepreneur. He's always believed in using business as
Speaker 1: a force for good, and his approach to the polarization
Speaker 1: problem is a non part in civic movement called Starts
Speaker 1: with Us. We'll also be talking to Peter Coleman. He's
Speaker 1: a professor at Columbia and he's working with Daniel's organization
Speaker 1: on conflict resolution along with two hundred and thirteen thought
Speaker 1: leaders and cultural figures. Daniel and Peter are taking on
Speaker 1: everything from extremist attitudes to divisive media to power hungry politicians,
Speaker 1: all in the name of what so many of us
Speaker 1: want a rational approach to solving our most intractable problems.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you want to get smarter every
Speaker 1: single morning with a breakdown of news and fascinating takes
Speaker 1: on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for
Speaker 1: our daily newsletter, Wakeup Call by going to Katiecuric dot com.
Speaker 1: Heik getting on my ergonomic chair. Hi Daniel, or are
Speaker 1: you good? How are you very well? I'm very excited
Speaker 1: to talk to you because you are a very interesting person,
Speaker 1: and to say your backstory is fascinating is an understatement.
Speaker 1: I feel like getting to know you, we have to
Speaker 1: first get to know your father, because he was such
Speaker 1: an important influence on you, and his story I think
Speaker 1: very much shaped the person you are today. Tell us
Speaker 1: about your dad, Roman.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I do think that my story starts with my family,
Speaker 2: and particularly with my dad, who was probably one of
Speaker 2: the greatest influences in my life. And he was a
Speaker 2: little kid when World War two started. Eventually he landed
Speaker 2: in a concentration camp in Dajau and he was liberated
Speaker 2: by American soldiers. And I can speak for hours about him,
Speaker 2: but I'll say that what was remarkable about my dad Katie,
Speaker 2: is that he was able to speak about the horrors
Speaker 2: of what he went through without it making him embittered
Speaker 2: about the world or about humanity. He was the kindest,
Speaker 2: sweetest person you'd meet, and every person he met it
Speaker 2: was like it was his mission to make their day better.
Speaker 3: He was always building bridges. He was always like.
Speaker 2: My mom also was a bridge builder. My dad was
Speaker 2: always trying to connect with people, and he didn't shy
Speaker 2: away from speaking about what happened with him. But he
Speaker 2: found a way to remember those small moments of heroism
Speaker 2: by kind people that saved his life as much as
Speaker 2: the horrible moments that were probably the dominant part of
Speaker 2: his experience. But he found a way to remember the
Speaker 2: humanity that helped them survive.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable when you think about how relatively recently the
Speaker 1: Holocaust was, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Well for me, Katie, What's most stunning is that not
Speaker 2: only was it only like seventy some years ago, but
Speaker 2: all throughout my upbringing, my first I don't know, forty
Speaker 2: five fifty years of my life, I couldn't connect the
Speaker 2: dots of how stuff like that can happen, How could
Speaker 2: anything like that ever happen, and it's very depressing for
Speaker 2: me that I now can understand it that only in
Speaker 2: the last several years have I noticed how power works,
Speaker 2: how humanity can be so manipulated and dehumanized, and how
Speaker 2: polarization can lead to such divisions and the rise of
Speaker 2: authoritarianism and dictatorial forces. And by no means saying that
Speaker 2: anywhere in the world today is as bad as what
Speaker 2: happened in World War Two. But you see, you can
Speaker 2: connect dots to understand how we could land there. I mean,
Speaker 2: ten years ago, none of us thought that this was
Speaker 2: remotely an issue, and many of us now can appreciate
Speaker 2: that we cannot take for granted the freedom and democracy
Speaker 2: that made America what it is today, and the freedom
Speaker 2: and democracy brought to the entire world, which now literally
Speaker 2: across the world, you see these rise of neo fascist
Speaker 2: extremism across the spectrum of politics. You have dictatorial figures
Speaker 2: from the left as well as from the right, across
Speaker 2: all five continents.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that in the work you're doing on
Speaker 1: polarization in just a bit, but I wanted to continue
Speaker 1: with your family's story because your father, at seventeen immigrated
Speaker 1: to Mexico. He only had a third grade education. He
Speaker 1: didn't speak English or Spanish, and he went to Mexico
Speaker 1: and became very successful. Why Mexico and to what do
Speaker 1: you try attribute his success?
Speaker 2: He landed in Mexico because he had nowhere else to go.
Speaker 2: And ant an uncle of his had landed in Mexico
Speaker 2: before the war, again because they had nowhere else to go,
Speaker 2: and Mexico, I guess let them in. And when he arrived,
Speaker 2: like you said, he the way he educated himself was
Speaker 2: by getting used encyclopedias and reading them cover to cover.
Speaker 2: That's how he got his education. And he worked double
Speaker 2: and triple shifts till he was able to start his
Speaker 2: small business with his father and then eventually became a
Speaker 2: very successful businessman. And we eventually came to the United
Speaker 2: States when I turned fifteen and a half. But what's
Speaker 2: interesting is when I arrived as fifteen and a half,
Speaker 2: I had a roof over my head and had, you know,
Speaker 2: all the opportunities that my dad never had. When he
Speaker 2: was fifteen and a half, he was liberated by American soldiers.
Speaker 2: When the American forces were advancing, the Nazis came up
Speaker 2: with a final plan with their final solution to get
Speaker 2: rid of the Jews. They didn't have enough bullets to
Speaker 2: kill all the inmates, so they were going to walk
Speaker 2: them up mountains ravines and throw them off a cliff.
Speaker 2: And they were walking my father and my grandfather and
Speaker 2: thousands of other inmates without you know, coats, and some
Speaker 2: of them died along the way because they were already
Speaker 2: you know, my dad was six foot tall and he
Speaker 2: weighed less than seventy pounds, so they were all almost
Speaker 2: subhuman by then. And they went and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: a snowstorm hit, so the German soldiers kept advancing, and
Speaker 2: all the inmates thought, this is how we're gonna die
Speaker 2: in the snowstorm in the middle of this mountains. The
Speaker 2: Germans had continued marching ahead because they didn't want to
Speaker 2: get caught by the Americans. So the inmates started heading
Speaker 2: back and when they saw the tanks, they're like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: he are the Nazis again. But it was and it
Speaker 2: was the American soldiers in the form of Japanese Americans.
Speaker 2: And when my dad first saw them, he didn't understand
Speaker 2: what to make of it because he had never seen
Speaker 2: a Japanese person. And it was Japanese Americans whose families
Speaker 2: were you know, incarcerated or in turned while they were
Speaker 2: fighting to liberate another continent. And so you can imagine
Speaker 2: these Jewish inmates not understanding this, and the Japanese Americans
Speaker 2: being the sweetest and kindest people, feeding them chocolates and
Speaker 2: taking care of them. And can you imagine witnessing seeing
Speaker 2: these people that look like they're not human beings, like
Speaker 2: almost carcasses walking and seeing that suffering and that what
Speaker 2: had become them.
Speaker 1: That's an amazing story. And just the degree of human
Speaker 1: suffering and then the degree of compassion is just hard
Speaker 1: to even comprehend. I think thank you for sharing that story.
Speaker 1: At fifteen and a half, you and your parents immigrated
Speaker 1: to the US. You moved to Texas. Was it hard
Speaker 1: for you to find yourself in the United States? Probably
Speaker 1: not as difficult as your father finding himself in Mexico.
Speaker 1: But what was that transition like for you, Daniel?
Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun, honestly, I mean, it
Speaker 2: was a great experience because for us, the United States
Speaker 2: was not just the land of opportunity, but the land
Speaker 2: of Disneyland and long, long, long long Cereal Isles. So
Speaker 2: you know, you in Mexico, there were two cereals, and
Speaker 2: here you show up and there's dozens of cereals and
Speaker 2: you can choose a different cereal every day, and so
Speaker 2: it was a lot of for us. It was very special.
Speaker 1: You ended up going to college? Where did you go
Speaker 1: as an undergraduate?
Speaker 3: I went to Trinity University.
Speaker 2: I was the first person for my family to go
Speaker 2: to college, and it was an incredible experience. It's there
Speaker 2: that I first fell in love with learning, and I
Speaker 2: became very curious. Up until then, I was a smart kid,
Speaker 2: but I was just freezing by. I didn't really read
Speaker 2: or apply myself, and that's when I became an official nerd.
Speaker 1: Well, you must have done pretty well because you got
Speaker 1: into Stanford Law School and you originally wanted to be
Speaker 1: a career diplomat, but you changed your mind at Stanford
Speaker 1: or shortly thereafter.
Speaker 2: Why so I went to Stanford Law because I thought
Speaker 2: I was going to be a diplomat to try to
Speaker 2: resolve the Arab Israeli conflict. I was very passionate since
Speaker 2: I was a kid about building bridges, particularly to bring
Speaker 2: peace to Israel and all of its neighbors. So I
Speaker 2: had the idea for using business and commerce to encourage
Speaker 2: neighbors to become friends and to work together.
Speaker 1: How did this notion of food and producing food as
Speaker 1: a means to create peace? Where did that come from?
Speaker 2: I studied abroad for six months in Israel and met
Speaker 2: Palestinian friends and Israeli friends, and I started becoming very
Speaker 2: curious about the power of economics to advance conflict resolution.
Speaker 3: Then in the research that I'm doing, the agricultural.
Speaker 2: Sector is one of those few sectors whereas symmetrical relationships
Speaker 2: between Arabs and Israelis are possible.
Speaker 3: And that's how peace Work started. It was Israel and
Speaker 3: its neighbors.
Speaker 2: Trying to show both sides how they could make money
Speaker 2: together rather than fight.
Speaker 1: You got the idea for your company kind when you
Speaker 1: were building peace Works and you barely had time to eat.
Speaker 1: You thought, I need something to sustain me, So tell
Speaker 1: us that story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I've been running piece Works at that point
Speaker 2: ten years. I couldn't find a snack that I could
Speaker 2: feel good about eating. It was all either very indulgent
Speaker 2: or it tasted like cardboard. And long story short, I
Speaker 2: came up with idea for using nutrient andse ingredients like
Speaker 2: almonds and tree nuts to create a versatile snack that
Speaker 2: was kind to your body, kind to your taste, butts,
Speaker 2: and kind to the world.
Speaker 3: And that's how Kind started.
Speaker 1: But Kind it wasn't just the name of the company.
Speaker 1: It was really emblematic of the values of the company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: tell me sort of what your goals were in terms
Speaker 1: of building your business.
Speaker 2: So I was so blessed that I discovered the piece
Speaker 2: Works model of bringing people together while making money. When
Speaker 2: I had the idea for Kind, I wanted to also
Speaker 2: find a way to not just make money.
Speaker 3: But to do something meaningful.
Speaker 2: The year that I and my team and I conceived
Speaker 2: Kind is the year my dad passed away, and we
Speaker 2: were looking for an adjective that would fit our three
Speaker 2: pillars for the product that was kind to your body,
Speaker 2: kind to taste books, and kind to the world.
Speaker 3: But the catalyst was that.
Speaker 2: That was who my father was, right, the kind person
Speaker 2: that always connected people. And so I think that's what
Speaker 2: during that year of mourning my dad, it was a
Speaker 2: way to honor him and a way to remember all
Speaker 2: the magic that he brought to my life and other
Speaker 2: people's lives by trying to name the brand in his.
Speaker 1: Honor movie right back and we're back. When Kind started
Speaker 1: taking off, were you like, holy shit, I can't believe it,
Speaker 1: because I mean, were you just dumbfounded?
Speaker 2: My experience as a business person, Katie is that there's
Speaker 2: an enormous amount of surprises, enormous amount of stuff that
Speaker 2: you learn every single day, and entrepreneurs that or founders
Speaker 2: that position themselves as saviors of humanity are full of
Speaker 2: shit because there's an enormous amount of like being lucky
Speaker 2: to be at the right time. It doesn't mean you
Speaker 2: don't need to have an extraormedly hard work ethic. You
Speaker 2: do otherwise you're not gonna win and be extremely a
Speaker 2: critical thinker and develop curiosity and compassionate encourage in your
Speaker 2: daily life and really really work harder than others and
Speaker 2: be more creative and out, you know, be more disruptive.
Speaker 2: But in addition to that, there needs to be a
Speaker 2: enormous amount of luck and being there at the right time.
Speaker 2: And once we launch Kind, You're right, it just took
Speaker 2: off and it benefited from all the lessons of all
Speaker 2: the mistakes that I had done in my first ten
Speaker 2: years at Piece Works.
Speaker 1: It's a huge, I guess billion dollar business now, Daniel,
Speaker 1: and you sold it right.
Speaker 2: I didn't sell I saw the controlling stake in the company.
Speaker 2: I still have a meaningful stake in the company, and
Speaker 2: I'm still deeply involved and I love working with my team.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about your philanthropy now, because I know you
Speaker 1: have begun to focus your efforts on trying to diminish
Speaker 1: the divisions we've seen grow and calcify in our country.
Speaker 1: Why polarization, Why was this area of interest to you?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, Katie, the way my mind works
Speaker 2: is that I just don't sleep well very very often.
Speaker 2: And I think, as a son of aholl survivor, I
Speaker 2: have this extra awareness that I cannot just take for
Speaker 2: granted that I have such a great life, and I'm
Speaker 2: so blessed to have immigrated to America. And I'm not
Speaker 2: saying the United States is perfect, but it's probably the
Speaker 2: best experiment of any other country out there.
Speaker 3: But we need to preserve it.
Speaker 2: And I live in constant worry that my children are
Speaker 2: going to inherit a much tougher sort of circumstances than
Speaker 2: when my generation inherited. I mean, I have five different
Speaker 2: areas of focus in my philanthropy right now, but the
Speaker 2: overarching concern that connects to all of those is this
Speaker 2: growing trend of extremism and dehumanization and tribalism that informs the.
Speaker 3: Global conflict across the world.
Speaker 2: Is the rise of authoritarianism that informs anti Semitism, that
Speaker 2: informs the conflict that's happening in Israel and the Middle East,
Speaker 2: that informs what's happening here in the United States.
Speaker 3: And you know, social media makes all of us.
Speaker 2: Think we have the answers because we are living in
Speaker 2: echo chambers, makes us all be a little bit more
Speaker 2: rigid and a little bit less introspective and a little
Speaker 2: bit less willing to be curious about understanding the other side.
Speaker 2: Same with cable news are just fitting us what we
Speaker 2: want to hear rather than what we need to hear.
Speaker 2: And same with politicians who increasingly are just wielding disproportionate
Speaker 2: power when they take extreme mistakes. And we need to
Speaker 2: change that because if we don't change that, we cannot
Speaker 2: assume that our lives, our communities, and our country and
Speaker 2: our world are going to be what we want for
Speaker 2: our children. We need to recognize eighty seven percent KD
Speaker 2: of the United States are very, very alarmed at the
Speaker 2: direction of our country towards so much polarization, so much
Speaker 2: the humanization, so much hatred, and feel that it has
Speaker 2: to change. So the overwhelming majority of people feel that,
Speaker 2: but we're not doing something about it because we all
Speaker 2: feel powerless. We don't understand what to do, and so
Speaker 2: Starts with Us is an initiative. I know Peter Coleman
Speaker 2: is going to join us soon, and he's one of
Speaker 2: our two hundred and thirteen senior movement partners that have
Speaker 2: built this movement to try to give people a tool
Speaker 2: kit of small things they can do in their daily
Speaker 2: lives to seize back the agenda away from extremism and
Speaker 2: towards a world that is closer to the America that
Speaker 2: we inherited that they want where we're approaching.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's bring in Peter Coleman, a professor at Columbia
Speaker 1: University and also the author of The Way Out, How
Speaker 1: to Overcome Toxic Polarization. Peter, thanks for joining us because
Speaker 1: I know you're bringing your experience and knowledge to Starts
Speaker 1: with Us in its effort to bridge the bitter divisions
Speaker 1: we're seen in this country. And needless to say, I
Speaker 1: think many people are very upset about the state of
Speaker 1: the country and Peter, why did you want to get
Speaker 1: involved in this effort?
Speaker 4: I have worked and studied in this area for a
Speaker 4: long time. One of the things I study is long
Speaker 4: term intractable conflicts. Conflicts are going on for decades, been
Speaker 4: getting progressively worse, escalating, you know, for decades.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I have a lab here called the Difficult Conversations Lab,
Speaker 4: where we bring people in who are opposed on some
Speaker 4: moral issue. We study the conditions under which those conversations
Speaker 4: go well and go poorly. So I've been doing that
Speaker 4: for a long time. And because of that, when Donald
Speaker 4: Trump was elected, when political rhetoric was really heating up
Speaker 4: in the US, so I wrote a book called The
Speaker 4: Way Out, which was my attempt to say, okay, there
Speaker 4: is science on this, this is what the science is,
Speaker 4: you know, pay attention please. And then I started conversations
Speaker 4: with Daniel's team and met Daniels soon thereafter. And they're
Speaker 4: innovative group of radical product of tours I think, who
Speaker 4: are trying to do disruptive things, and so I love that.
Speaker 4: And what I've found is that they were listening to
Speaker 4: the science when we would have a conversation and they say,
Speaker 4: we think we want to do this, and I'd say, okay,
Speaker 4: but understand these may be the consequences, and they'd say, okay,
Speaker 4: that's good to know. So maybe we need to reshape it.
Speaker 1: Right, But we have obviously become so tribal in all
Speaker 1: our institutions. For example, you mentioned the media. They seem
Speaker 1: to have a business model that's predicated on pulling us
Speaker 1: apart instead of bringing us together. Well, I would say
Speaker 1: it's more extreme on one side, but we can discuss that.
Speaker 1: So how in the world are you going to change
Speaker 1: it now?
Speaker 2: I completely agree that we have our hands full here
Speaker 2: in terms of the challenge, because it's been a challenge
Speaker 2: that I've been following for decades and it's only gotten
Speaker 2: worse now with the power of social media, and they're
Speaker 2: incentivized to scandal.
Speaker 3: So it's a very serious challenge.
Speaker 2: A lot of what starts with us is starting by
Speaker 2: injecting into our discourse the three c's curiosity, compassion, and courage,
Speaker 2: and they concrete things you can do in your daily
Speaker 2: life to live by those three days, which is not
Speaker 2: just going to be about saving America from dictatorship, is
Speaker 2: also going to make you a better parent, a more
Speaker 2: effective business leader, a more effective leader. And the ultimate
Speaker 2: thing I would answer is not only the power of
Speaker 2: the people because we're the overwhelming majority, it's that if
Speaker 2: we don't do it, nobody else will do it for us.
Speaker 2: So it's imperative that we stand up and do it.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. We're back. But Daniel Lubetski and
Speaker 1: Peter Coleman, Peter, where does science come into all of this?
Speaker 4: Everywhere? The good news about the crisis that we're in
Speaker 4: is that it has created, you know, these kinds of crises,
Speaker 4: these kinds of times, create their own conditions for their
Speaker 4: own undoing. So the fact that something like eighty to
Speaker 4: ninety percent of Americans are exhausted, fed up, and really
Speaker 4: looking for a different way forward, that's good news, right.
Speaker 4: That means there is a majority that is ripe for
Speaker 4: something else. This instability that we think we're just coming
Speaker 4: out of, COVID, awareness of racial injustice, economic downturns, the
Speaker 4: Great Resignation, There's been so much tumult in our lives.
Speaker 4: So the good news is we're exhausted, we're miserable, we
Speaker 4: fail destabilized, And so what we need to provide this
Speaker 4: middle majority is what the alternative looks like what do
Speaker 4: you do. Where I find optimism is that over the
Speaker 4: past couple of years, I've had the opportunity to work
Speaker 4: with Starts with Us and other groups that are working
Speaker 4: in all different sectors. That's happening in politics, it's happening
Speaker 4: in business, it's happening in journalism, so in major sectors.
Speaker 4: And then there are eight thousand community based organizations across
Speaker 4: the country that are doing this at the community level.
Speaker 4: So there's a social movement that's happening. We don't think
Speaker 4: of it yet. We're not aware of ourselves as a
Speaker 4: social movement yet. I think that's part of what Starts
Speaker 4: with Us as trying to do is say, hey, you know,
Speaker 4: we're there's many good people doing good things bringing us together,
Speaker 4: which show us how to have respectful conversations. We're not
Speaker 4: trained in this. Americans are trained in debate. So a
Speaker 4: political difference comes up and we move into debate and
Speaker 4: it escalates, especially because we oftentimes don't know what we're
Speaker 4: talking about.
Speaker 1: And we also just want to win at all costs.
Speaker 1: We don't want to listen. We want to prove our point.
Speaker 4: And that's what Yeah, that's basically the design of debate
Speaker 4: is the game to win, right, and that's one way
Speaker 4: to communicate. But we don't really understand how to listen effectively,
Speaker 4: how to really listen to learn about ourselves and others
Speaker 4: and the issues.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of work to do to help
Speaker 4: Americans see what that looks like.
Speaker 2: And also, you know, the political parties are not necessarily
Speaker 2: our best friends, because they're a gen that is to
Speaker 2: win over the other political party rather than to solve problems.
Speaker 2: You were saying Katie earlier that in your opinion, one
Speaker 2: side probably is more intolerant than the other. And I
Speaker 2: suspect that you were thinking that the people that support
Speaker 2: Trump are much more rigid and inflexible than the people
Speaker 2: that are post Trump.
Speaker 1: I think I was thinking Fox News versus say MSNBC,
Speaker 1: although I do think they both represent two sides, But
Speaker 1: I feel like Fox News is really the devil. I
Speaker 1: have to say, Daniel, I think they're awful. I think
Speaker 1: they're craven. I think they care about ratings and ratings alone,
Speaker 1: and they'll say anything to get those ratings, even if
Speaker 1: they don't believe it's true. And that's been shown in
Speaker 1: the dominion lawsuits. So they discussed me.
Speaker 2: Go on, let me tell you I have equal discuss
Speaker 2: towards Fox News.
Speaker 3: But the problem does exist across the spectrum.
Speaker 2: We literally just came out with a study were in
Speaker 2: parniship with the George Mason University's Center for Media and
Speaker 2: Public Affairs identified the seven most bi parties and members
Speaker 2: of Congress and the seven most hyper parties.
Speaker 3: And members of Congress.
Speaker 2: Marjorie Taylor Green got more media attention than anybody else.
Speaker 2: She got more media attention than all the bipartisans together.
Speaker 2: You would think that the greatest culprits are the extremist media.
Speaker 2: You know, who was the new source out of the
Speaker 2: sixteen leading stations that gave her the most focused on attention,
Speaker 2: The New York Times. If I speak to my friends
Speaker 2: at the New York Times, they'll say, well, how can
Speaker 2: we not govern our stuff? So what ends up happening
Speaker 2: is we're just news media with very few exceptions. They're
Speaker 2: throwing the red meat to their audiences and so right,
Speaker 2: of course, and it's to your point, it's the incentives
Speaker 2: for the system.
Speaker 1: It's reinforcing preconceived biases.
Speaker 2: What we need to ask from members of the media
Speaker 2: is not that they not cover the crazies because it's
Speaker 2: impossible for them to not get ratings, but that they
Speaker 2: just fine tune those ratios so then they work a
Speaker 2: little bit to bring in the constructive people that are
Speaker 2: actually addressing our problems and trying to advance solutions.
Speaker 1: And people who are working on solutions. The worry, I
Speaker 1: think is that if it's not incendiary, if it doesn't
Speaker 1: create a visceral emotional response, people are going to change
Speaker 1: the channel or not buy the newspaper. This is how
Speaker 1: we've all been condition.
Speaker 2: Exactly what starts with us is trying to learn from
Speaker 2: I mean, is those little micro habits that can help
Speaker 2: overcome that. It starts with a little action every day. Peter,
Speaker 2: maybe you can talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 4: So a small group of us started to say, okay,
Speaker 4: so if we were to actually live these actions every
Speaker 4: day for a little bit of time every day, what
Speaker 4: would we do? What would that look like. We've basically
Speaker 4: generated one hundred different microactions, microactivities, nudges, exercises that you
Speaker 4: can do every day. There's an option that's five minutes
Speaker 4: and then they can get more. And we piloted it
Speaker 4: this summer with a small group of people, and I
Speaker 4: participated myself and it was helpful. It really helped us
Speaker 4: sort of start to have different kinds of conversations. The
Speaker 4: first week you kind of focus on yourself and your
Speaker 4: own inclinations and attitudes. The second week we ask you
Speaker 4: to start to think about the people you are comfortable
Speaker 4: talking politics with. Are you being honest? Are you able
Speaker 4: to talk about your own ambivalence, and how do you
Speaker 4: start to change that conversation. Maybe the third week is
Speaker 4: about trying to find somebody that you're you know, politically
Speaker 4: alienated from. Right now, there was a man in my
Speaker 4: building who I was friendly.
Speaker 1: With for years, and I read that piece and Time magazine.
Speaker 1: You took a walk with him, took a while, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, he could not have been more different than
Speaker 1: you in almost every conceivable way. And I have to say,
Speaker 1: I don't think i'd want to have dinner with your neighbor,
Speaker 1: but go on.
Speaker 4: But I have to say again, you know what, it
Speaker 4: reminded me of what the context of his attitudes were,
Speaker 4: his opinions, his part of it was his religion, and
Speaker 4: part of his upbringing his grandfather. So you know, again
Speaker 4: being reminded of the humanity of this man helped me
Speaker 4: hear him and frankly helped him kind of talk himself
Speaker 4: away from more extreme opinions, you know. Right, So that's
Speaker 4: one of the activities in this challenge that we offer.
Speaker 4: So right now starts with us built this website that
Speaker 4: you can go to and register for this thing every day.
Speaker 4: You know, there are four or five things you can
Speaker 4: choose from. It's like a mindfulness app Right, you can
Speaker 4: do small things every day.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to read them and you can give
Speaker 1: us a quick instruction on each one. Number one, stop
Speaker 1: to reset. What does that mean?
Speaker 4: Well, that means that oftentimes we launch into things automatically,
Speaker 4: we say things, and we start, we get ourselves in
Speaker 4: trouble and then we can't.
Speaker 3: Walk it back.
Speaker 4: So it is about when you feel the possibility that
Speaker 4: things could go awry, go into it with some intentionality
Speaker 4: and reflection before you start.
Speaker 1: Number two spot positive deviance.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's I mean. The great news is that
Speaker 4: there are, as I said earlier, thousands of people doing
Speaker 4: this work. I Mean, one of the things I'd ask
Speaker 4: you to think about is like, is there somebody in
Speaker 4: your life who you grew up with or you know, well,
Speaker 4: who is really good at dealing with hard conflicts, sitting
Speaker 4: with them, being respectful but firm, right, and those are
Speaker 4: the positive deviants in our life. Right. It's not how
Speaker 4: to fix problems, it's how do we see people that
Speaker 4: already manage those effectively, and how can we be more
Speaker 4: like them?
Speaker 1: Complicate to simplify.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so again these it's very easy for us to
Speaker 4: oversimplify them and us and the issues. Right. It's like immigration,
Speaker 4: which is this immensely complex set of issues, becomes about
Speaker 4: a wall, and that's you know, ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So one of the things I do is, about two
Speaker 4: years ago, I identified five people who are on the
Speaker 4: other side of the political divide from me, who have
Speaker 4: you know, opinions and ideas that are opposed me, but
Speaker 4: who I think are decent, well intentioned, and often well informed.
Speaker 4: And when the news breaks, instead of just going to
Speaker 4: the you know, my comfort news, I force myself to
Speaker 4: find them because oftentimes I may disagree, but they're they're
Speaker 4: making a point and that's complicating my understanding of this world,
Speaker 4: which is so hard to do because of the biases
Speaker 4: in the news that you were.
Speaker 1: Describing, Daniel, you were going to add something.
Speaker 2: I just want to say that what Peter does is
Speaker 2: so commendable, and I try my own version of that,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if you do, Katie, but it
Speaker 2: is so extraordinarily exhausting, and yet it's also externally accelerating. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: the more high functioning societies, the more high functioning families,
Speaker 2: the more high functioning companies.
Speaker 3: Will be the ones that eschew that approach.
Speaker 2: I learn to be hardy debaters that respect to one another,
Speaker 2: learn to know how to be critical thinkers and critical listeners.
Speaker 2: Those are skills that have made as the best country
Speaker 2: that we are, the best companies that get created. We're
Speaker 2: going to lose that if we lose the ability to
Speaker 2: have debates with one another in a respectful fashion.
Speaker 1: I try to do that. I mean, I sometimes watch
Speaker 1: Fox News. Usually I'm disgusted by how smug and smarmy
Speaker 1: they are, but once in a while, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: that gives me something to think about.
Speaker 4: I mean, listening to too much again. What I'm not
Speaker 4: recommending when I say reach out to the other side
Speaker 4: is the crazy nonsense. I think the Hannay and Tucker
Speaker 4: stuff is just, you know, it is problem and it's
Speaker 4: it is toxic. But there definitely are smart conservatives and
Speaker 4: smart Trump conservatives that still are reasonable, still are in
Speaker 4: there trying to make their case that I can listen
Speaker 4: to without the craziness.
Speaker 3: But also we.
Speaker 2: Need to evaluate our own side because the weakness in
Speaker 2: the work I do is when I tell you eighty
Speaker 2: seven percent of people are fed up with polarization and extremism,
Speaker 2: everybody nods. Everybody feels it, but most people think the
Speaker 2: problems on the other side. So I have a dear
Speaker 2: friend that I think is one of the smartest people
Speaker 2: I know from the right, and he nods when I
Speaker 2: say this, but he thinks all the problem is in
Speaker 2: the wokism on the left. And they have very differ
Speaker 2: friends that are progressive and they not, but they think
Speaker 2: the problems on the right. The truth is all of
Speaker 2: us suffer from this, every single one is because we're
Speaker 2: all being part of the you know, institutions and mechanisms
Speaker 2: that are manipulating us for profit, for power, and so
Speaker 2: we need to break those shackles and use the skill
Speaker 2: sets to think critically.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, I think this is such an interesting conversation.
Speaker 1: Daniel and Peter, thank you both so much for talking
Speaker 1: with us. This is a fascinating and conversation and such
Speaker 1: an important issue because democracies aren't guaranteed, are they? And
Speaker 1: we want to preserve ours as long as we possibly can,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to be able to do that
Speaker 1: unless we come together and solve some of these intractable problems.
Speaker 2: Oll Katie, I think from the bottom of my heart,
Speaker 2: not only I'm a big, big fan of yours always,
Speaker 2: but your style of work is exactly what we need
Speaker 2: more of, where there's self reflection and where there's really
Speaker 2: real efforts to tell the whole story. So I think
Speaker 2: we need more of that, and I'm very, very grateful
Speaker 2: for you. I encourage people to learn more at starts
Speaker 2: with Us, which it starts with dot us.
Speaker 1: Starts with dot us. Okay, and Peter, we'll make sure
Speaker 1: that people buy your book as well.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Katie, and I want to second everything.
Speaker 1: Daniel sim thanks guys, appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Katie, Peter, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question
Speaker 1: for me or want to share your thoughts about how
Speaker 1: you navigate this crazy world reach out. You can leave
Speaker 1: a short message at six oh nine five point two
Speaker 1: five five oh five, or you can send me a
Speaker 1: DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Kirk Media.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Litz.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Marcy Thompson. Our producers are Adriana
Speaker 1: Fazzio and Catherine Law. Our audio engineer is Matt Russell,
Speaker 1: who also composed the music. For more information about today's episode,
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