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Welcome to the Healing Our Politics Podcast!
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Guest:
Dr. Jerome Burt II is a clinical psychologist, therapist, and Ph.D. based at the Heritage Group in Nashville, Tennessee, with an expansive career that blends deep expertise in psychology with a uniquely diverse background. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Mississippi, followed by a Postdoctoral Residency at the Psychological and Counseling Center at Vanderbilt University, but his career path has been anything but traditional—before becoming a psychologist, he spent 20 years as a personal trainer and fitness instructor. With expertise in neuroscience, emotional intelligence, and human behavior, Dr. Burt II’s work spans a wide range of individuals, from Forbes-featured CEOs to college graduates figuring out what's next. He has been a featured TED speaker, with his talk, How a Dinner Party Can Save Your Life, and recently hosted TEDx in Nashville. As the co-host of the Billboard Happiness Podcast, Jerome redefines the way we think about psychology, infusing it with his deep belief in the redemptive power of good friends, good food, and good conversation. In his sixth decade, he is a convener of community, a preacher of possibility, and an acolyte of abundance. Anyone lucky enough to know him can attest to his ability to transform lives!
Dr. Jerome Burt II is a clinical psychologist, therapist, and Ph.D. based at the Heritage Group in Nashville, Tennessee, with an expansive career that blends deep expertise in psychology with a uniquely diverse background. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Mississippi, followed by a Postdoctoral Residency at the Psychological and Counseling Center at Vanderbilt University, but his career path has been anything but traditional—before becoming a psychologist, he spent 20 years as a personal trainer and fitness instructor. With expertise in neuroscience, emotional intelligence, and human behavior, Dr. Burt II’s work spans a wide range of individuals, from Forbes-featured CEOs to college graduates figuring out what's next. He has been a featured TED speaker, with his talk, How a Dinner Party Can Save Your Life, and recently hosted TEDx in Nashville. As the co-host of the Billboard Happiness Podcast, Jerome redefines the way we think about psychology, infusing it with his deep belief in the redemptive power of good friends, good food, and good conversation. In his sixth decade, he is a convener of community, a preacher of possibility, and an acolyte of abundance. Anyone lucky enough to know him can attest to his ability to transform lives!
About the Episode:
In today’s conversation, I’m joined by Dr. Jerome Burt II, a mentor, friend, and one of the most intentional people I know. We dive into the importance of elders and your social network, and how surrounding yourself with the right people can propel you to success. Jerome shares how something as simple as a dinner party can save your life, why ease leads to dis-ease, and the concept of pocket pebbles for personal freedom. Packed with fun anecdotes, and valuable insights, we get into everything from navigating anger to the importance of professional—and non-professional—support in shifting from blame and shame to effective leadership. We discuss using annual retreats to unite teams, how exercise and home-cooked meals can elevate your leadership, and building connections across partisan divides. You’ll also hear about the science of being the good Samaritan, the distinction between "getting shit done" juice and "cuddle juice," and how to tap into them to elicit the best from your nervous system. We explore the five S's of success, the power of mentorship, and the importance of being lovingly challenged. Jerome’s wisdom, heart, and vision will challenge you to think about leadership in a whole new way.
Key Topics Discussed:
· [00:01:05] Guest/Episode Intro
· [00:04:46] ! Naked ! A ‘No Notes’ Conversation !
· [00:05:10] An Interesting Morning
· [00:09:09] Having a Cold, but staying Heart Healthy
· [00:10:38] Heart Hardening & Stories of Righteousness
· [00:12:25]How Long Have We Known Each Other? (The Best Question)
· [00:15:16] Slay The Dragon
· [00:17:30] Why Do We Get Stuck in Mental Constructructs?: The Juices
· [00:19:48] The Good Samaritan (is not in a car line)
· [00:21:17] ! Pattern Interrupt Reminder !
· [00:22:33] The Samaritan Experiment
· [00:24:34] Women Are the Biggest Liars
· [00:26:11] Shift to Heart Opening
· [00:28:33] I Don’t Wish for What’s Not Available
· [00:29:30] Do What You Can.
· [00:30:30] Making it Sticky
· [00:31:31] The Small, LOUD Room
· [00:34:03] An Anecdote for Context and Contemplation
· [00:39:15] Advice for the Individual
· [00:41:45] The 5 S’s: Sleep, Sun, Sweat, Self-Compassion, & Self-Talk
· [00:42:23] To be Effective, You’ve got to be Elected
· [00:43:23] ELC Foundation donors (https://www.electedleaderscollective.com/donate)
· [00:46:16] Pebbles in Your Pocket
· [00:50:30] Live WELL by “Making Your Life Difficult”
· [00:53:08] Preventing Dis-Ease
· [00:54:33] Complaining as a Loop/Social Mechanism
· [00:56:29] From Victim to Leader: We Believe What We Think
· [00:58:22] A Digression on Traffic & Cars
· [01:01:27] Take Care of Your Heart
· [01:02:24] TEDX Talk: How A Dinner Party Can Save Your Life
· [01:03:54] “Freakin’ Enjoy It”
· [01:05:47] You’re My Gravlax Club
· [01:06:45] Welcome Love & Offer It In Return
· [01:07:24] Welcome “White Girl Wasted”
· [01:09:06] “There’s Cute Shit Everywhere”
· [01:11:36] Don’t Get Bored
· [01:12:23] When to Seek Professional Help
· [01:13:24] Therapist vs. Coach
· [01:13:53] Determining the Right Fit
· [01:15:01] Therapy Comes in Many Valid Forms
· [01:16:19] We Are All at Risk
· [01:20:12] Final Question: Knowing & Magic Can’t Coexist
· [01:22:51] “The Leader’s Handbook” (https://www.healingourpolitics.com/#newsletter) Newsletter
· [01:23:50] Sponsor: ELC (https://www.electedleaderscollective.com)
Key References and Resources Mentioned:
· [00:43:23] ELC Foundation donors
· [01:22:51] “The Leader’s Handbook” (https://www.healingourpolitics.com/#newsletter) Newsletter
· [01:23:50] Sponsor: ELC (https://www.electedleaderscollective.com)
Where to Find Dr. Jerome Burt II:
Where to Find Host Skippy Mesirow:
- Receive Support at the Elected Leaders Collective ElectedLeadersCollective.com
- Follow on Instagram www.instagam.com/skippymesirow
- Book a free Clarity Call https://calendly.com/skippymesirow/elc-clarity-call to see if coaching is right for you
Episode Sponsor:
Helping You Heal Our Politics
The Elected Leaders Collective (ELC) organization is the leading US-based provider of mental well-being training for public servants, conducted by public servants and the world's best mental health and human optimization professionals. With ELC Training, you will learn to rise above and become the political healer you were meant to be, improving your well-being in the process.
Contact the HOP Team:
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We'd love to hear from you!
Contact our team at jesse@healingourpolitics.com
Your input helps us create content that matters.
Creators and Guests
Host
Skippy Mesirow
Skippy Mesirow is a prominent leader, certified Master Coach, and founder of the Elected Leaders Collective (ELC) and ELC Foundation. ELC leads the US in mental health and well-being training for public servants, recognized in The Apolitical Foundation's Mere Mortals report, and named as one of 26 worldwide political well-being "Trailblazer Organizations." A transformational leader in political innovation and wellness, Skippy serves on Gov. Polis’s Natural Medicine Advisory. Skippy’s work has been featured in numerous podcasts and publications, as well as main-stage speaking engagements for organizations NLC, YEO, CML, MT2030, Bridging Divides, and Fulcrum, highlighting his significant contributions to mental health, community, and policy reform. Alongside his professional achievements, Skippy lives in Aspen, CO. with his partner Jamie where he enjoys running ultra-marathons, road biking, motorcycling, international travel, culinary arts, Burning Man, and lifelong learning.
Producer
Aaron Calafato
Aaron’s stories are currently heard by millions around the globe on his award-winning Podcast 7 Minute Stories and on YouTube. Aaron is a co-host of Glassdoor's new podcast (The Lonely Office) and serves as a podcast consultant for some of the fastest-growing companies in the world.
Editor
Jesse Link
Jesse is a strategy, research and partnership consultant and podcast enthusiast. A 2x founder, former Goldman Sachs Vice President and advisor to 25+ businesses, Jesse brings a unique and diverse background to HoP, helping to elevate the range, depth and perspective of HoP's conversations and strategy.
What is Civic Courage Lab?
Hello,
I’m Skippy Mesirow, host of “Civic Courage Lab”, the show that shows you, the heart-centered public servants and political leaders, how to heal our politics by starting with the human in the mirror.
Civic Courage Lab, “CCL,” is a first-of-its-kind show that provides tools and practices for mental well-being, health, and balance, specifically for public servants so we can do good by feeling good and safe in our jobs.
CCL brings together experts, scientists, doctors, thought leaders, healers, and coaches to share their insights in practical, tactical, actionable ways specifically tailored to the public service experience for you to test and implement with yourself and your teams. Episodes feature intimate conversations with global leaders about their self-care practices and personal challenges, providing insights for a more holistic, connected approach to leadership. Whether you're a Mayor, teacher, police officer, or staffer, this podcast will guide you to be the best version of yourself in service to yourself and the world!
Sign up for our once-per-month Leader’s Handbook newsletter to receive an actionable toolkit of how-to guides on topics discussed on the podcast that month to test and implement in your life and with your team: https://leadershandbook.substack.com/
Welcome to the Healing Our Politics podcast, the show that shows you how to heal our politics by starting with the human in the mirror. My name is Skippy, coach, former elected official, and lifetime public servant. It is my job to sit down with the best thought leaders, coaches, therapists, authors, scientists, and more, and to take the best of what they have learned and translate it specifically for the public service experience. Warning, this is a postpartisan space. No policy, party, or partisanship here because well-being belongs to all of us.
Speaker 1:This show is about resourcing you and trusting you to make up your own damn mind about what to do with it and what's best for your community. So as always, with love, here we go. Welcome to the Healing Our Politics podcast, the show that shows you, the heart centered leader, how to heal our politics by starting with the human in the mirror. Today, I have something and someone very special for you, Doctor. Jerome Burt II, a mentor, a close friend of mine for well over a decade and a trusted elder.
Speaker 1:Yes, he calls himself an elder now, so I can do that, who I call on for perspective, guidance, and insight. Jerome is a clinical psychologist, therapist, and PhD at the Heritage Group in Nashville, Tennessee, but he is so much more. A TED speaker with a talk, how a dinner party can save your life, and recently the host of TEDx in Nashville, Tennessee, the cohost of the Billboard Happiness podcast, Jerome does psychology differently. Jerome has deep knowledge of neuroscience, emotional intelligence, and humans gained through a quite unconventional life. A committed fitness guru who was once acclaimed for inventing and teaching gerobics, true story, at Ole Miss University, Jerome still takes double digit mile runs regularly in the hills and mountains in his sixth decade of life.
Speaker 1:Jerome is a convener of community, a preacher of the possible, and an acolyte of abundance, and simply put, the most intentional human I know. In this episode, we get into the importance of elders and your social network, highlighting the people you wanna kick it with so you can kick butt out in the world. We talk about how a dinner party can save your life, how ease leads to dis ease and pocket pebbles for personal freedom. Jerome is full of fun anecdotes, rhymes, and memorable insights. We talk about being a leader who's angry and how to use that experience to find the right professional or nonprofessional support to allow you to come out of blame and shame and into leadership, out of martyrdom and into leadership.
Speaker 1:We talk about using annual retreats to bring your team together across differences and across party to deliver more for your community. We talk about the benefits of exercise and home cooked meals to make you a better leader. Building connection across partisan boundaries, being the Good Samaritan and the science behind that. The distinction between getting shit done juice, GTD, not to be confused with Paul Allen, also on the podcast, and cuddle juice. What are they?
Speaker 1:How do you elicit them in your nervous system? And what are they good for? We talk about pathology and how to break through it. The five S's of success, mentorship, and the importance of being lovingly challenged. The power of telling stories and shifting our stories about ourselves to ourselves.
Speaker 1:And we get deep, deep, deep into hardening and heart opening behaviors and what you can do as a leader to move from condition A to condition B for the benefit of yourself, your community, your office or organization, and our world. So I hope you enjoy this beautiful, loving, direct, and insightful conversation with my good friend and mentor, Doctor. Jerome Burt II.
Speaker 2:Hey, brother. Nice to see you. I've got a cold. However, in my journal this morning, I was like, I'm excited to see what Skippy elicits and stirs in me today with his questions.
Speaker 1:I am coming into this conversation naked. Normally, have so much, like, you know, prep and notes and whatever, but you really called me forward into like, let's just have a conversation. So I have a totally blank slate in front of me. Yeah, man, I'm just looking forward to dropping in.
Speaker 2:Let's go. Let's talk. What's going on with you?
Speaker 1:Oh, man. We had an interesting morning. We had a really interesting morning. We have a older couple that are sort of like mentors in a way, I guess, to us. I don't know mentors is quite right, but they have been part of our community.
Speaker 1:We have a ton of overlap in work. We lived in their house for a while and they've been supportive of us over the years. And while that's true that they've been supportive of us and we've loved what they've done, we've also had points of friction over the years and we've been able to work through that. But the relationship has been complicated. That has impacted Jamie a lot more than myself because she is very conflict averse and can get very emotionally triggered when she thinks that she's causing emotional harm to someone else, whether that's true or not.
Speaker 1:So when we were living in this house, probably every two months she'd be in tears over something, some story in her head about our upstairs neighbors who are also giving us this beautiful place to be in Aspen, all this great stuff holding that dichotomy. And we're planning our wedding right now. And we made a decision to keep our wedding really small, really small. Our aim is 50 folks. That means not inviting a lot of people you really care about.
Speaker 1:Aunts and uncles, cousins, people that have been friends since I was five. It was really hard to come down to that list. But we did and they weren't on that list. They're on our bigger party list in Aspen and we're excited to have them there but they're not on that 50 person list. And Jamie intuited that they were going to be really hurt and upset and she got into one of those zones where she was just like really turned up inside.
Speaker 1:And I was so proud of her because instead of running from the conflict, she said, You know what? No, I wanna have what we would call in our house the carefrontation. And I want to proactively ask this person to sit down and to explain our decision and to own our decision and to talk about it. And I just thought that was so beautiful. So I've been supporting her for the last week in that she had this sit down two days ago, and it went really well.
Speaker 1:It was super well received. She was on top of the world. And then they texted her right after, after the person she had the conversation with got home and spoke to her husband. And they said, Actually, we need to have a follow-up conversation with both of us, just you. Come to our house in two days.
Speaker 1:So she has been really building story but also processing about that. And this morning was that second conversation and right before, maybe like an hour before we got on the podcast, she came home and we were in a big hug and unpacking it. That's what's going on for us, man. I'm just really proud of her, basically.
Speaker 2:For being so assertive and genuine and head on and not just people pleasing because it's the easier thing to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for being willing to face her fears, to use them for her own growth, to come into whether that's understood or not yet, and it seems like it is, more authentic, real conversation, or real relationship through hard conversation, and to push the bounds of her nervous system availability for her liberation and for others. I just think it's beautiful. And I just watched this woman grow and grow and grow, but this was a big one.
Speaker 2:A lot of maturity. A lot of maturity.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that's what's going on for me. What's going on for you? Podcast guests won't be able see you, which is unfortunate, but it's a vibe right now. You've got this amazing armchair, these beautiful tortoiseshell frames, this incredible chunky sweater.
Speaker 1:It's sort of like, I don't know, super high end ski nouveau fashion meets like Jedi Knight, which kind of fits. Just like
Speaker 2:it's good, man. It's good. Well, what's going on for me physiologically? I'm just not at my best because of the cold. I actually took a long hike this morning and that made me feel better.
Speaker 2:But as far as my heart is concerned, I've been having this mission this year of saving hearts from going dark, or getting hard one person at a time. And in so doing, I've never felt so heart healthy in terms of psychological, emotional way. And so I feel so good in terms of of appreciating people and all life form and feel like I'm doing really important work by challenging people to, as you said earlier, to not write those stories that will harden your heart. And politically right now, I guess half of my caseload, you know, are people that are disappointed about the presidential election.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:just making sure that they stay on top of making sure that they don't get too dark a narrative going, get too self righteous, too omniscient, knowing it all. That has been the most important thing in my life right now. And it feels so good and it feels so appropriate.
Speaker 1:When you say harden your heart, what specifically do you mean?
Speaker 2:Well, know, I'm a valuable person. But when I say harden your heart, I mean, I'll speak Nashville. If you write a story filled with hate and spite, that story will haunt you at night. It will take a life of its own and it won't even need you to participate in singing it. It will become an anthem.
Speaker 2:And your adrenaline and your cortisol and your nervous system will narrow your view and just take over. And you end up being resentful and bitter and vengeful and missing out on using your heart for love.
Speaker 1:So is it fair to interpret that? And maybe you can kind of think about it in terms of a client who would come and see you that these stories, these heart hardening stories that you're building are ones where there is some element of blame or projection or othering? Are there other key constituent parts or are those pretty much it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Components of self righteousness diminishing the other person. They're wrong and I'm right. The more right you are, the more right you get. And the more right you get, the more right you are.
Speaker 2:And the next thing you know, a peaceful protest becomes burning down the courthouse.
Speaker 1:Yeah. If I think about my own journey, and you've been in an observational front row seat for a lot of it because, you know, we've known each other for like fifteen years now, something like that. Crazy.
Speaker 2:2012 or 2013.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, probably 2012. Cause I think there was a, I think there was an election going on when we met. Was, it was pre election Cause we met over a question at the Aspen Institute. And it was about Yes.
Speaker 2:It was the best question asked. And I was like, who is that kid? Like, woah. And then you told me a year later that Thomas Friedman, you had to ask him in private that same question.
Speaker 1:Yes. Because
Speaker 2:And he told you to ask it again.
Speaker 1:Yes. That's true.
Speaker 2:And so it was rehearsed. It was prepared. And I was like, oh, it didn't break my heart though. Like, when I found out that President Obama, when he started singing Amazing Grace at that church in South Carolina, when he was speaking and he just broke out in song. And his chief of staff, years later, she was telling a story about that.
Speaker 2:And she was saying that he said he was gonna sing. And she's like, no, do not sing. We're not gonna do that. And he's like, yeah, I'm gonna sing. And so I was like, oh, I thought the spirit moved him.
Speaker 2:I didn't know he had rehearsed that. But
Speaker 1:anyway Well, it's funny you say that because I think this is so important for this moment for all folks who have a desire to make our current situation better regardless of where they come from. But it's funny, what I'm hearing in that is because I had said the question out loud before, somehow it took some of the glitter off the experience for you. I understand that. What's also true is I sat in the audience, I listened to them, I thought of the question. I then had to get up the nerve to go to Thomas Friedman, who at the time was one of my top favorite writers, was very nervous.
Speaker 1:I shared it with him. He asked that. I was flattered to be able to do that. Now I have to do it in front of a room of what, I don't know, 150, I'm guessing? Like highly selected intellectual, Roddy, that's not a word, people.
Speaker 1:And so I asked it and I probably sounded poised because I know enough about myself now that even when inside I'm nervous as fuck, that externally it can come off okay. But I was so nervous asking the question that I barely remembered the answer. And I remember thinking like, Jesus, I could barely hear him even responding because my nervous system was jacked.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you did just fine. It made us become friends. Came I think I started talking to you. Yeah. So moved and impressed by your verbal ability, your Broca's area, your expressive speech center is just pops off so well that I think didn't they ask you one time to speak?
Speaker 2:Didn't you just stand up impromptu and speak on Newt Gingrich's behalf just like for fun?
Speaker 1:I did. And that is also a deeply interesting story of personal failings and maturation. There is if you're listening and you go onto YouTube, you can see I do a talk about this whole experience called Slay Your Dragon. So if you search Slay Your Dragon Skippy Mesero, it'll come up. But the long and short is yes, in a previous time when I was in this place of it's their fault, someone else is wrong, I've got the answers, I'm right.
Speaker 1:I decided to assert my opinion in a presidential caucus in Mar State, but electoral process for a party that I had no intention to vote for. And what I said was true, but was very disingenuous for having left out the fact that I was not a member of that party and didn't plan to vote for that person outside of the primary in the general election. But what transpired was a very unexpected sequence of events where I got invited into sort of the inner sanctum of that party and learned the lesson of holy shit, these are people too. We come from a different place. Had I come from the place that they did, I might have the opinions and beliefs that they do.
Speaker 1:And through I think some fairly shameful behavior, it was one of the most transformative experiences for me of growing out of that I'm right, they're wrong to there are different perspectives on a problem and this didn't happen immediately, but down the road, Oh wow, we can solve all problems better if we get all of these opinions in the room, value everyone as simply a human being who's had an experience, and then together be able to have those challenging conversations like Jamie did this morning around how can we bring our unique experiences, our unique perspectives together towards collective problem solving that improves everybody. So yeah.
Speaker 2:May there be more?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's help people get there. There'll be people listening who are feeling all those things, and it's totally normal of I'm scared, I'm angry, someone else is wrong, it's their fault, I know the answers. And that's okay. We've all felt that at some point. I felt that many times.
Speaker 1:I still feel it sometimes. And so for folks who are in that place, could you kind of help us understand like psychologically, with the lens of your work, What's what's actually going on? How do those thought processes serve us? How do they harm us? Like, why why do we get into these mental constructs?
Speaker 2:For many reasons. I'd like to use the couple's example. When you have a owner of a hardware store and a pediatrician that are married and they have three kids. When they are out in the world, the juices that flow are get shit done juices, you know, change the world, narrow focus. I've got a bow and arrow in my hand.
Speaker 2:And so when that couple gets home, halftime is probably the drive home because they've got things to do. You know, the game starts again if you've got kids. And so you're still just revved up on get shit done juice. And you've got spears and you're trying to get different shit done. Your mindset is fueled by, you know, the juices that are flowing and you feel right.
Speaker 2:And right leads to a fight. And it's difficult for people to be nice and polite when they are at home and the adrenaline and the dopamine and such and such and the nerve, epinephrine are all flowing through your body to get things done or through your brain. That's just it can happen with anything when you're driving in traffic, where you're trying to get to the ski lift, you know, you've got a mission, you know what you want to do. And if anybody gets in your way, you know Cherry. There's that's right.
Speaker 2:There's no kumbaya juice. There's no cuddling juice flowing through your body at that time. So people just have things to do.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I love the parable, the good Samaritan. If you have time to help someone in need, probably you're not on your way to being in a car line to pick up your kids. We think people should just slow down and be kind to strangers and the such. But you have to be juiced up for that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And also just I think that, like, there's a lot of parental estrangement. Mhmm. And a lot of people think it's for good reason. And it's usually, in my experience, the no contact is a function of usually the the kid or the young adult. They're not looking at themselves as Bill Clinton would say.
Speaker 2:They got one finger pointed, but they've got three other one pointed back at them and then they're not examining how hard it is. You know? Maybe maybe your parents think you're a piece of work too. You know? And so if you're the innocent and the victim, then it makes sense to be pissed off.
Speaker 2:But usually, you know, people aren't the innocent and they're not completely innocent and they're not just the victim.
Speaker 1:I love this. I've never heard anyone say that, but yeah, like if you're pointing your finger literally at somebody like do that right now, that could be such a pattern interrupt reminder. Okay, I'm in a mode of blame. My fingers pointed out. Oh shit.
Speaker 1:Three of those fingers are pointed back at me. I can't change what the other person's doing. I can change how I'm showing up. Every single human interaction, there are two people involved. We're always participatory in some way.
Speaker 1:I really love that. That's great.
Speaker 2:Mel Robbins would love just the way you put that. Let them and let me look at myself. You know? That's awesome. Such a fun book for so many people.
Speaker 2:She's just doing such a great job changing lives.
Speaker 1:What's the title of the book?
Speaker 2:The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay. I haven't read this yet. Jamie's been on this on social media, and she's been telling me about it secondhand. Cool. We'll put it in the show notes for folks.
Speaker 1:I'm going to flag parental estrangement as maybe we'll come back to that. I have that experience and you have your own stories about your father, and that might be instructive for folks. But I want to come back to what you said about the Good Samaritan. Because there's actually a study on this, and we'll try to find it for the show notes, where the people in the study are told, and I may get some of these details wrong, folks, but we'll get the broad strokes right. And Jerome's nodding his head, he knows what I'm talking about, so you correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1:But they tell the participants who are actually in a seminary or they're seminary students, they're in religious study, that they're looking at this problem of the Good Samaritan, which is true. But they don't tell them what they're actually testing. So they take these folks from a study that's actually on that piece of literature of the Good Samaritan, and then they have them going back to some other location, their primary church, and they plant someone who's in need of assistance along the way. And they are measuring how often and how they interact to be the Good Samaritan. What they don't tell the participants is part of them are the control group where they just say, Hey, go back home, and they plant this person.
Speaker 1:The other, they tell them there's something important that's time limited that they have to get it back there for. So they introduce that get up and go juice. What they find is even for these people who have just come from the Bible study of the Good Samaritan, if there's something to be done, the ability of them to stop and be the Good Samaritan is significantly reduced. Is that how you remember it?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And the cuddle juice is not flowing when you've got shit to do. You know, your focus narrows when you are intentional and you miss out on a lot of variables. And it's just it's just impossible. Again, the mom that's got to pick up another kid, she's not letting anybody in, in traffic.
Speaker 2:She's not being generous. You know, she's got a kid to pick up.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I got my kid.
Speaker 2:Or when she gets home. I had the most fun last year. It was like six in the morning. And was just like, Man, women are the biggest
Speaker 1:liars. This is a Chris Rock bit.
Speaker 2:And I just started laughing like women are the biggest liars. They are the biggest liars. Because it's just impossible to be as awesome as they are And not be lying. Because when you are Artemis, and you're a working woman, a professional, and you're trying to get shit done, and you've got, you're the goddess of the hunt. And then you go home and you've got to be goddess of the hearth.
Speaker 2:You got to be Hera to your kids. And then your husband wants to hook up and you gotta be Venus. And that's just all, that's just different juices. And if you're doing that all on the same day, that just doesn't, you just can't shift that quickly. So when I say that, when I was laughing at the same thing with The Biggest Lives, it's like, they're going through the motion.
Speaker 2:They are showing up. They are doing, they're in, it's impossible to feel it, you know, on the same day. They're the original AI.
Speaker 1:That's hilarious. There's a great Chris Rock bit where he talks about that in one of his recent standouts where he's like, Women are the biggest liars. Men tell the biggest lies. And it's very funny. Oh, really?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's good. You should go see it. We're not endorsing everything that Chris says on the show, but he is very funny and very insightful. So go check it out. All right, so I want to come back to what we were talking about, about heart hardening and shift to heart opening.
Speaker 1:And the way I want to get into this more specifically to give people approaches to do that is first I want to ask a couple of rhetorical questions for the audience. So I'm going to ask a couple of questions, I'm going to leave a couple of seconds, And in that, if you're listening, I'm going to ask you to just allow whatever comes forward naturally to come up for you. These are simple yes or no's. Don't think about it. Don't analyze it.
Speaker 1:There's no right or wrong. Just see what's true for you. Okay? So the first question is, Do I wish our politics were more functional? Do I wish we lived in a less partisan time?
Speaker 1:Do I seek to have more constructive relationships with the people that I work with? The reason I ask that is reliably in polling, over 80% of people say yes to those. Those are people that are highly partisan, people that are not even voting, right? Like we tend to want to live in a place that is not full of conflict, vitriol, anger, judgment, and to have the systems and structures in place to create better outcomes for ourselves and our children, right? Those are pretty close to universal values.
Speaker 1:And yet we are all walking around in our own meat suit. We all have our own get up and go chemicals, as Jerome is saying. We have all these systems that can often fight our ability to show up in such a way where we can work across difference and move from heart hardening to heart opening. The types of behaviours, the neurochemicals that allow us to see, work, respect, and be effective across differences. So Jerome, assuming that you are human like us, and you've had moments of heart hardening thoughts, behaviors, neurochemicals.
Speaker 1:If you haven't, that's okay. You can tell us how you do that. But how do you come back into the place of heart opening behaviors, perspectives, mindsets, etc?
Speaker 2:You know, you ask those questions. And I think the last one was, do you seek to know the people around you more? I said no, because that's just automatic. It's just the way I roll.
Speaker 1:You already do it.
Speaker 2:I don't seek it. I that's part of who I am. And when you said, like, do you wish politics were less partisan? And I don't wish for that which is not currently available. But I do want things to be as functional as possible.
Speaker 2:That's why I said no to I'm not spending any time wishing that because that's just not what's available right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah. What I'm hearing in that is actually I recognize the state of play as suboptimal, but I'm not going to live in a fantasy of what could be and I'm not going to point the one finger of blame saying you're the reason it's that way without considering the three fingers. And the three fingers are, Do I want to do anything about it? I don't have to. But if I do, what can I do?
Speaker 1:So maybe let's approach it from the three finger side of those questions. If you wanted to do something, or if someone wanted to do something about it, what might they do?
Speaker 2:Whatever they could do and enjoy doing. Showing up and doing their part and doing it well informed. And, I mean, you know, people have their different ways of doing things. I think that it's more constructive to decide I'm gonna run a better race. You know, I'm gonna run a different type of race.
Speaker 2:I might even decide that, you know, I'm gonna do what it takes to win. The naivete of thinking that you can win with the current state of the population that you can win by being nice. That doesn't work right now. Know, people need to be stirred and to get their attention. You really have to say something.
Speaker 1:Is it true that nice and saying nothing are synonymous? I guess what do you mean by nice?
Speaker 2:You have to grab their attention. Sure. And it has to be sticky and that energizes them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite scenes last year was on the December 26 visiting with my dad. He had a walker and a four pronged cane because he broke his hip last year. And all these medicine bottles and this urinal, this bottle that piss in, you know, for emergencies. And the news was blaring. And every once in a while, he jump up and spike because of whatever news story was on.
Speaker 2:And he's like, see there? Listen to that. You know? It was just giving him so much meaning and life, and it was fun to watch. But I think that that's the state of so many people's lives.
Speaker 2:We're all somewhat in an indolent state and need, you know, some poking to get some movement.
Speaker 1:I would agree with that. I think that we are metaphorically, effectively each in a small room, small closed room, no doors or windows. And there are strobe lights and speakers blaring from every corner. That's modern life. There's so much competing for our attention all the time.
Speaker 1:And so we have consistently, whether it's an advertiser or your parents or your teacher, or the movie that you watch, they get more and more violent, They get more and more funny. They get more and more extreme to seek our attention in that increasingly loud So I think there's no question about that. Where I get concerned is that people see a few folks who are breaking through that noise envelope, and they happen to be angry, mean people who are saying that everyone else is wrong and bad. But that doesn't mean that those are the only things that can break through. I think if we look back historically, the people that have come through the sands of history as our greatest heroes, that are respected really across the aisle, were people who brought us together and preached love and connection, but not in a meek or small way.
Speaker 1:We just had MLK Day not too long ago, it might be a while now when you're listening to it, but the fierceness of love, the conviction and courage of coming together. I think that there is, and I've seen that there is space to both grab attention while not being mean, blame oriented and destructive, but by bringing people together. Do you think that's possible?
Speaker 2:I'd like to think that it's possible. Of course, it works for a lot of people and a lot of people it doesn't. It doesn't seem to stick as well. You know, when you have statesmen like Mitt Romney, you know, ten years ago, he could bring people out. Today, that's not how people roll.
Speaker 2:People, you know, it's more socially acceptable to be pissed for sport, right for sport, even if you know what you're talking about. For the people that hike and break bread with other folk and work at being self aware and inundated with kind smelling strangers. Yeah. It probably works for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Alright. I'm gonna tell, like, a little anecdotal story, and then I'm gonna circle back to the initial question and put more of a clinical lens on it. Because I know from our conversations over the years, you actually have a lot of tools and practices that people could use to kind of come back into this way of thinking. But I want to give the real world example for folks listening. So I just finished effectively a three day goal setting retreat for a major city.
Speaker 1:Okay? So I'm going in, and that city manager is reaching out to me saying, Hey, we just had the most contentious election in at least since I've been in this community. It got nasty. And I'm really concerned that in what is supposed to be a nonpartisan municipal district, this infighting from the top is going to come in and is going to make us dysfunctional. So there's an awareness that if we allow this us versus that mentality to come in, what's actually going to happen is everyone lose, it harms our citizens and our outcomes.
Speaker 1:And so we go into this retreat and I spend about seventy five minutes with each council member, the mayor, city manager and ACM before the two day in person retreat as a group. And we are digging into a lot of stuff. What is their vision for the community? How do they want to show up as a leader to do that? What are their greatest fears?
Speaker 1:What are their known blocks or internal patterns? How might they self sabotage on the way? So we're building rapport, but we're also learning where their limiting beliefs are, where their fears are. By the time we get to the in person retreat where everyone's there, including city staff, so there's 30 ish folks in the room, We do a visioning exercise. We come back to our individual visions.
Speaker 1:People's eyes are closed. And we're asking people to raise their hand if you're vision included. And it might be something like a thriving downtown with businesses that serve the population. And then they open their eyes and they go, Oh, seventy five to one hundred percent of people in this room have that. Okay, close your eyes again.
Speaker 1:Does your vision include a council that listens to its community and really strives for more effective communication for everyone and transparency in government. Open your eyes. 100% of people have their hands up, right? And so we kind of go through this and people come to realize, Oh, we have a lot of shared overlap. And then we drop in with, Okay, well, can anyone guess what your greatest fear was in your one to one?
Speaker 1:What was the fear that came up more than anything else? It was partisanship. Almost every single member's primary fear was partisanship. I won't be listened to or heard because they've already made their decision. I will be othered in some way or not included in government.
Speaker 1:We will be, you know, on the receiving end of anger, vitriol, lies, etc. There's a lot of fear there. But what we come to realize is that that fear is a projection through the lens of the news media and maybe personal experience, but is not actually a reflection of the actual human beings in the room. The actual human beings in the room have a ton of overlap on what they want to do. And what we recognize is that when we are in fear of the other in fear of partisanship, that fear naturally without training causes us to close off, to build walls, to other to effectively engage in partisan behaviours.
Speaker 1:And in doing so, we confirm the fear on the other side that gets reflected back, it amplifies over time. And we end up in a reality that confirms our worst fear because we personally engaged in the behaviors to cultivate that outcome that nobody wanted. And when we become aware of that reality, and we can find the connective tissue, The opportunity is to notice that fear when it comes up, and it will. To own that that's a story in my head, it's not real. And to interject before embodying the behaviors of partisanship with opening behaviors, with curiosity, with questioning, with confirming or denying those beliefs, with seeking to work across and with just saying, Hey, I've got this fear coming up.
Speaker 1:Is this founded? Is this true? And the retreat kind of goes on from there. But that's sort of like, you know, early morning day two. And what we found by the end when we get into goal setting is that this council that had members of both parties who had been in that party infrastructure leadership for, in some cases, twenty-thirty years, who use words to describe themselves as conservative, liberal, progressive The correlation between those self imposed labels and the things they want to do in their community relative to one another is almost zero.
Speaker 1:Almost zero. And they came out with very clear consensus on how to work together and a toolkit of how to use their differences towards those shared problems and challenges. So I know in concrete terms it's possible. What I want to ask you is, you know, you're not leading retreats, right? You're seeing clients one to one.
Speaker 1:But like, imagine that there's a counselor, not a real person, we're making this up, but in your hometown of Nashville, who comes to you after a rough election cycle. And they lay down on your couch. I don't know if you lay down outside of cartoons on the couch in the office, but that's my vision. They lay down on the couch and they say, Jerome, I'm really scared. I'm really scared.
Speaker 1:I'm scared the community is running away from what I believe. I'm scared that I'm losing my influence. I'm scared no one's going to listen to me. And I'm scared that me and my kids are going to get targeted. And I'm noticing that I'm falling into these behaviours of just saying it's someone else's fault and problem and I'm worried that I'm inflaming the situation rather than helping it.
Speaker 1:I don't need you as my therapist to give me political strategy, but like what do I do as a human with these feelings, with these fears, so that I can be as constructive of a member of my community leadership as possible? And what I want to give you permission to do here is rather than being the therapist that's going to guide them to their own answers, draw from your history of years and years of psychotherapy and from your own personal experience, what are the one or two or 20 practices that somebody might do that could be helpful.
Speaker 2:Anybody that comes in does that is already there. I had a woman say this week, I know I'm not perfect, but I'm sure it's shit self aware. That's the consequence of therapy or life coaching for her. And any politician that comes in lies on the couch with those concerns, they've already done their work. They are self aware and they're watching themselves and knowing where they're going.
Speaker 2:They're paying attention. They've got a narrative that counters the narrative that they speak outside of the office. Just as long as a person has conversations or journaling or to such, where they are paying attention to or watching or observing themselves, then they're likely be fine. And also just if you're not getting enough sleep, you're not going to be alright. If you're disconnected from your partner and family, I mean, if you're not socializing, I think we've talked about this before the five S's, sleep, and that scheduled sunlight, and sweating to complete the stress cycle, and self compassion, and self talk, talking to themselves in a way that lends itself to not getting too right, you know, not being too right.
Speaker 2:And also appreciating that, hey, that's a great mindset and a great temperament. And you're already just fine if you're taking care of yourself and smart enough to appreciate that, like, to be effective, you've got to be elected. And people do what they need to do to get elected, then they can get to the business of being effective. But being naive and pretending that you can get elected with Kumbaya and holding hands in this climate, you never get to be effective because you're not gonna get elected. But I do think that, like, you know, that's how one ought to live.
Speaker 2:I think that that's the person that can collaborate. And I love the temperament of Mitt Romney and Cory Booker. They appear to be lovely people, driven and lovely and kind hearted, open hearted, but it's both of them struggle to get buy in with the current climate.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And now a quick break from our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode of the Healing Our Politics podcast is brought to you by platinum level donor Moon Song Fund. This content would not be possible without donors just like you. If you want to see more of this content, helping more leaders heal themselves, their communities, and our world, please go to www.electedleaderscollective.com and click donate in the upper right corner, always 501c3 tax deductible.
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Speaker 1:Use it today and become one of the brave political leaders healing our politics. Use code politicalhealer by going to www.electedleaderscollective.com and starting today. That's www.electedleaderscollective.com and starting today. You had a practice, I'm gonna guess a year and a half ago, maybe it was longer of having a certain number of pebbles in your pocket. Do you remember this one?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. It was like so I wouldn't be ghetto in traffic. Right. I put those pebbles in my pocket to be mindful of, like, not being too self righteous in traffic. I had a bit of road self righteousness going, and it just you can't help it if your adrenaline's flowing because you got shit to do and you're trying to get somewhere.
Speaker 2:You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the practice was I think it was five pebbles in the pocket. Maybe it was three. Do you remember? It's five, I think.
Speaker 2:It was five. They're still on the arm of my chair that I sit in every There are five black pebbles that I still play with.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So there's a recognition from you that sometimes you human and engage in a behaviour that's not helpful to you or others which is getting ghetto, as you said in the car, road rage maybe, and you want to shift that behaviour.
Speaker 2:I said road self righteousness.
Speaker 1:Road self righteousness.
Speaker 2:Rage is a little old.
Speaker 1:Okay, road self righteousness. But you want to shift that behaviour. It's hard to shift behaviours. So you're doing a couple of things. You're putting five stones in your pocket.
Speaker 1:You're effectively setting a limit per day on how often you get to engage in that behaviour. So you're normalising that the behaviour is part of life, it's part of the thing. It's not going to disappear through forcing it down or resisting it because what we resist persists. But when the behaviour comes up, now you have an anchor to notice that you're bringing mindfulness to it. You're then shifting that rock from one pocket to the other.
Speaker 1:So you're reducing the number of total instance per day that you have left, again, kind of layering in that mindfulness and attention to it. As you're doing that, you're providing a break for a cognitive reset to make a different choice if you want to. And then you're repeating that over and over again without judgment, but awareness and correction, awareness and correction. And so, yeah, this is beautiful, right? Beautiful, beautiful practice.
Speaker 2:Well said. And paying attention to the fact that really the reset was just having the pebbles. My energy went toward trying to keep my pebbles, not trying to keep somebody from pulling in front of me or me pulling in front of somebody else. Yes. I just I still was adrenaline charged, but instead of using it to spar with another driver, I used it to keep my pebbles, you know.
Speaker 2:I still I put the focus in another place.
Speaker 1:Yes. You hijacked what you know about your own reward system. You're an achiever. You like to win and achieve, as many of us do. So instead of being in competition with the other person in the other car as the definition of winning, you hijack your nervous system with a new technique that put you in competition with yourself.
Speaker 1:Can I win my highest and best self retaining my pebbles as evidence and chits of winning and then giving yourself a reward of something healthy in the run? Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was fun. That was so much fun and it really helped. Unless I'm talking on the phone with somebody that I love, then I can't do it. I mean, I get so protective. And whoever it is that's on the phone, it's as if they're in the car with me, it's gonna violate their safety.
Speaker 2:So I've noticed that I still pop off if I'm talking to, like, my friend Laura.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:You know, think that's about taking care of I bought a Tundra and it is so huge, so much trunk, and I have to be so attentive. And so now you need pebbles. I just gotta pay attention to where all this trunk is being placed and how I maneuver it.
Speaker 1:Well, when we first met, the car you had would probably fit in the bed of that Tundra.
Speaker 2:Right. Right. But, you know, I think part of living well is making your life difficult, making hard the easier thing for you to do. Doing the harder thing is one of the things that I took from Robert Sapolsky back twenty years ago when he wrote his book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, being constructively engaged because it's the idleness that makes you wanna be addict to the other chip. And so if you're busy, constructively engaged, you're less likely to be doing something destructive.
Speaker 2:As we said earlier, we live in a world where there's so much ease and we're designed to opt for ease, but we're not designed to thrive and ease. And that's why ease leads to disease. And if you're in a room and on your screens all day, you need something pretty over the top to pull you back into your set emotional homeostasis. Because when you're starting to decline, you know, and starting to feel like death, you got to overcorrect with something to pull people out of their doldrums. I make sure that I don't get into too many doldrums because I got to wash my own kale, drive this big ass truck, do my own chopping.
Speaker 2:You know? I just think if you if you wanna get life, do the harder thing. I've got a friend right now that's trying to do me a painting of Sisyphus, rolling the heel, the rock up the heel. I want it to be the first thing that I see when I walk in because being constructively engaged, effort, windedness, it's one of my favorite emotions. I love to feel winded.
Speaker 1:First, someone who's not familiar with Sisyphus, obviously, the image itself tells the story, but can you just explain that a little bit more?
Speaker 2:Dude's rolling the rock up the hill and it rolls back down the hill. You know, every time it rolls to the bottom of the hill, then he has to roll it back to the top of the hill. With like heel repeats, rinse and repeat. Yeah. But still because the reward circuitry is on the inside, you're activating the reward of getting there.
Speaker 2:Even if it's the same thing over and over again. It's like you ski the same slopes, but your reward circuitry is on the inside. So you still get this this high every time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So for someone who is in a already challenging, potentially very stressful role who might say, Hey, I've already got enough challenge going on. What would you recommend that they do to grow expand their nervous system so that ease doesn't lead to dis ease in this age of convenience?
Speaker 2:And for sure, they've got to exercise, you know, if nothing else, exercise and cook from scratch. And if you can't cook from scratch, do those meal things, you know, they send it in a box. And I think it takes like twenty minutes for people to cook. Sure. It's still, it's something to look forward to.
Speaker 2:It's like anticipating this easy meal prep and it feels like they really are involved in doing something. And those are some of the easier things to do. Also just like making sure that you don't buy into like the thought. There's a new book out about winter, helping people to winterize better and and get out of their mindset of winter sucks. I hate winter.
Speaker 2:We're so busy. We're so busy. It's like, no, you're not. You know? Just like, don't don't do that.
Speaker 2:You know? One of the most disappointing things that I talk about all the time is being a physician is just a really wonderful gig. You are always constructively engaged in helping people, and they look forward to seeing you, and you get to see them and, you know, and you get to be smart and challenged, and you don't have to lie and falsify. You know, it's just a good gig, man. And I think a lot of physicians bit and moan about their gig because that's what people do.
Speaker 2:And they diminish the quality of that experience. And then their kids are listening to them. And then they say, I don't want to be a physician. My parents talk shit about it. But really in the break room, they love being physicians.
Speaker 2:It's so titillating and smart. Interesting.
Speaker 1:Yes. Somewhere along the way, they learn the lesson that if they complain or bitch, that they will get attention in some way, perhaps.
Speaker 2:Probably. And, you know, it's socially acceptable. We bitch ourselves into thinking that our lives suck. That we're so busy that we don't have time. And people are just saying shit.
Speaker 2:Look at your data and see look at the data and see how much time you spent on Pinterest or some of the other things and and get used to it. Like, once you start cooking for your kids, it becomes this thing that you get to do. You know, you your body doesn't it just you just make room for it. But I'm 60, and that's what moms did when I was growing up. You know, even if they worked, they still made these meals that people call Sunday dinners now, but they did it like on a Tuesday night.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And what I hear in that again is kind of moving from this place of victimhood or disempowerment into empowerment and leadership. Right? We're going from like from martyr to leader. It can be easy to get cheap attention by saying, Oh, woe is But in doing so, you're making it about you, when in fact your job is incredibly important.
Speaker 1:You are helping people every day. And if you can shift out of the victim about me and make it about the role and how do I invest my time in being the best possible physician I am, not only will you be better for your clients, but ironically, you're going to feel way better as well. And then you start a virtuous feedback loop. And now you are inspiring your kid.
Speaker 2:That's right. You know, David Brooks' best friend died last year. He wrote this beautiful article about it and how the mental health system failed his friend. And, you know, he had depression and he stopped believing in his life and his worth and the such and the such. And I was just like, man, that's not the mental health system.
Speaker 2:That's, that's just bad thinking. A lot of it is that we are designed to buy into our thought processes. And you say that shit enough. You'll, talk yourself right into a suicide. You'll talk yourself right into thinking your, you know, your career sucks, that your kids don't love you.
Speaker 2:We believe what we think. And we speak it into existence.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Our external reality is often a reflection of our internal state and not the other way around. And we have control of our internal state and thus we can affect those externals.
Speaker 2:That's right. Whenever you see traffic, you should be excited about it because it means that legal tender is being exchanged. And if there's no traffic in certain parts of town, you know, we're in trouble.
Speaker 1:Well, it reminds me of all the conversations I would have at the council table where we had traffic and people would come in and they would, you know, would point fingers, they would blame, they would angry and irate. How are we not solving the traffic problem? And one of the questions that I would ask is how did you get here today? I drove. Did you drive with anyone else?
Speaker 1:No, I drove by myself. What kind of car do you have? Large pickup truck? Where might you be contributing to that traffic?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, we're not gonna talk about that. It's with all of a sudden.
Speaker 1:Didn't talk about Bruno.
Speaker 2:Bitch about the traffic might be, you know, what they think that they're supposed to be bitching about, to bitch about the weather.
Speaker 1:But if we could instead of bitching at each other, roll up our sleeves together, that's how we actually alleviate or at least have the potential to alleviate the traffic or just the negative experience of the traffic, like you said.
Speaker 2:And there are some wonderful people that are forward thinking that are doing things. In the South, traffic is a you know, there's so many suburbs. If you're coming to town, you know, it's just harder. If you got kids, you gotta have a car. You know?
Speaker 2:It's just know, you can't cycle with kids. And well, I mean, you're in Amsterdam, but this is not, you know, if you if you live forty five minutes away from the city center and and they've gotta go to soccer and ballet after school, you know, we're gonna have smaller cars though. That's coming down the pipe.
Speaker 1:We are?
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's happening. I know. But not my Tundra.
Speaker 1:Spoiler alert. Back to the SLK.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I saw one. I saw one two days ago. Was walking with Jamie, a little yellow one just like you had. And I had the thought of like, am I supposed to smuggle bourbon into this interview under the desk?
Speaker 2:Dude, I had a black one. Don't let anybody think I had a yellow one. Now you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, shit. Oh, I misremembered that. You know who had a yellow one? It was my kindergarten teacher who I'm obsessed with. You're right.
Speaker 1:Yours is black. Alright.
Speaker 2:Was black and fun. And my friend Steven sold it for me in, twenty seconds because he dropped the top and he put his labradoodle in the driver's seat and his paws on the steering wheel and took a picture. So just like that.
Speaker 1:That's funny.
Speaker 2:That's super
Speaker 1:funny. Well, brother, I want to leave people with some perspective on how to find the right support for them. But before we get to that on the way out, is there anything that's just really on your heart, on your mind that you really want to talk about or share with the audience?
Speaker 2:I want people to take care of their hearts. I want people and I mean that in a psychological way. I want them to be real attentive to anything that starts to harden their hearts and make them bitter and self righteous and and dark and so on. That can just even be from being pissed at your kid for deciding to be an artist instead of a finance bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Roll it back. Don't be so right. Don't think you're omniscient. You
Speaker 1:know? Yeah. And I'll put in this plug for you. We'll throw this in the show notes, Jerome. But Jerome has truly been one of the most important people in my life.
Speaker 1:A few people I talked to out of state on as regular basis over the last, I guess twelve years than Jerome. And he's so full of wisdom, he lives everything he does. And it's just beautiful to watch. And although there are many things that he has to share we haven't gotten to today, maybe there'll be around too. He does a TEDx talk called How a Dinner Party Can Save Your Life.
Speaker 1:Am I getting the title correct?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And it's like, it's just so beautiful. It's something that maybe I have overlooked as simple, but truly the elements that are at a dinner party from the food, the nutrition, the social sustenance, the support network, the mentorship. There's just so many constituent elements that we take for granted and that we as you said, we default to convenience rather than connection. And so I just it's a resource you should totally check out.
Speaker 2:And the preplan, you know, being so excited about what you're gonna get to cook and looking forward to it and telling everybody and talking to your grocer about it and even getting the show pictures afterwards. It's a wonderful way to live Yeah. Welcoming people into your home and hosting them and sharing food. This year, I said I'm gonna have 60 different faces in my house for dinner over the course of the sixtieth year of my life. And I think I'm at 29 or 30.
Speaker 2:And in five months, I'm jamming that. And one thing I did that I started putting time limits, you know, it's like, hey, Skippy, come over for dinner between six and 07:15 on Monday night. So people can, you know, in a casual dinner, you know, know that there's an end and they don't have to think that they gotta stay till 09:00. It's just dinner, man, at the kitchen table. I realized that I was not sabering the gathering.
Speaker 2:I was more was having the gathering. I was paying attention to the clock. Yes. So, you know, make sure you freaking enjoy it and don't get so hijacked getting it right and putting things on the table so precisely in the such as chill, safer and enjoy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You are a big part of our inspiration to start doing weekly dinners two years ago, Shabbat dinners, not in a super religious way, but two to eight people home cooked meal, no technology allowed. And the conversation had to be one conversations and a side conversations. That was it. And whatever else happened happened.
Speaker 1:And we've kind of fallen off the wagon when we moved and we're out of town for a bit, but planning to resurrect those because they're really just they're beautiful.
Speaker 2:I had a family this weekend. It was I think it was so much fun because they had the the the mom, my good friend has 20. Her her daughter and son are 23, four, whatever. And just their laughter, they were just so fun.
Speaker 1:You
Speaker 2:know? It's like, I felt like a member of the tribe for sure. You know? I made myself a member of the tribe. Don't understand.
Speaker 2:But no. I told somebody that I call I that did I tell you this? That you're a Gravix club. You're the only member of my Gravix club. And I think What's
Speaker 1:gravics?
Speaker 2:That that's like a it's like locks, but it's like it's different. It it might have Don't mess with that. I don't know about You've never heard of it?
Speaker 1:No. I've never heard of it. I liked locks club. That was perfect. I tell everyone that you're part of the locks club and they laugh.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I put you in a club of your own. Now look it up. It's like a different kind of locks. It's like, because you've added so much to yourself.
Speaker 1:I see.
Speaker 2:I thought I wrote you and told you that.
Speaker 1:If you did, I don't remember it. But I love locks club. Think that's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So enjoying it. Make sure you enjoy it. And don't let them do any of the dishes. Save it for yourself so you can be constructively engaged when they leave.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:That's something that makes me excited when I think about it. This kid that I saw at a Christmas show, and he was sitting next to my friend. He's about six years old. He's making, moving, squeaking the chair a lot and everything. But at one point he looked over at my friend and I could see out of the corner of my eye in the dark and he like looked at her and he like put his hand up to hold hands while they watch together.
Speaker 2:And I thought like, man, you know, this kid is welcoming love. And it's been a theme for me this year. Was like, I'm going to welcome love, make sure that I encourage people to welcome love. And of course, offer it in return. My new favorite thing is white girl day drinking.
Speaker 2:Man, that shit is so much fun. It's like, you know, they call it white girl wasted here. I'm just getting white girl.
Speaker 1:They call it Opry here. Opry ski.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. And the person that told me that they call it Opry there is the one of the ones that took me white girl day drinking. It was a birthday gift.
Speaker 2:And then they took me back to their house and these girls are like cooking dinner for me and talking shit. And they're still drinking this Abilene, Cameron Diaz's wine. And they're drinking that because it's no sugar, you know, and you won't have a hangover. It's like it's sort of like a girl told me that Prosecco is really not even alcohol. It's mostly just water and bubbles, so you can have as much of that.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a thing you'd be saying after you started, like, drinking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude.
Speaker 1:That sounds a bit So funny.
Speaker 2:But they fried chicken. I don't know why they chose the fried chicken. Sounds good. And and they dusted it in cassava root. They sprayed avocado oil on it and then they put it in the skillet.
Speaker 2:And then they turned it over and sprayed a little more, but it was so cute because they thought that that was fried chicken and like, you know, there's no pot of grease, you know, nobody got a cigarette hanging at the side of their mouth, you know? But anyway, white girl day drinking, man, it's so much fun. That was fun.
Speaker 1:Right. So I want to leave people with just a little bit of guidance. People are going come at this from all different places. There's going to be folks who are in that state of anger and fear. There's going to be folks who are just overwhelmed, stressed, have no idea why or what it is.
Speaker 1:There's going to be folks who are those things and have a story of like, This is just normal. I need to grin and bear it. And then there will be people who have some self awareness of what they need to shift in their behavior or their experience. There's not a right or wrong, right? There's any number of ways to get support, whether it's a therapist, whether it's a transformational coach, a personal development coach, a men's group like I'm part of just a book to read but I want to just kind of like play around with some of the different stuff people might find so that people kind of know where they might check out what might serve them at this moment.
Speaker 1:Do you have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Man, it's like if you, anybody that doesn't have acute apartment, they just didn't go to Target. It is so easy, you know, to like, no one has an excuse for not having a cute apartment Exactly where I thought you were gonna There's cute shit everywhere. Walmart, everybody, you know, so, and it's the same for, you know, working on your head. I mean, there's so much stuff out there. It's so accessible.
Speaker 2:Everybody's walking around listening to podcasts of like past dudes on the trails that are talking about self confidence and anxiety and how they're inversely related. And I'm like, shit, man. Everybody is so much more psychologically minded and the such. And just remembering to kick it with people that encourage you to choose information sources that will help expand your heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Encourage and give you the skills to be a more compassionate person and a healthier person. It's at our fingertips all day long. Yeah. You know, talking to a 16 year old that can just go on and on about Buddhism because they've been watching videos all day. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So digital teachers, YouTube, podcasts like this one and many others, social circle.
Speaker 2:Right. And it's like, don't get too bored such that you have to overcompensate or and be Andrew Tate or Andrew Tatish in your life. If you have an enriched life experience, you're not trying to be a dickhead. If you got people that you're cool with and you're moving and you're not hopeless about where you stand in the world, you know, you won't evolve into this crusty commudgeon. But you gotta not be an invalid.
Speaker 2:You cannot be a physical invalid. You can't be a social invalid. You can't be a purpose invalid. You gotta have a meaningful way of spending your time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:When would you recommend or when should people think about getting some professional help of some kind, whether that's a therapist, a coach, a consultant or a group program, community of some kind. Do you have a sense of when people should seek those type of resources rather than just sort of free on your own time resources?
Speaker 2:I might be biased and might be the way that the world that I live in, but I just think that that's such a big part of the world right now. People people just do it for sport now.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It's so socially acceptable to talk to somebody, you know, to most of my practice, even though I get a they get a diagnostic code so I can bill. But, you know, most of it is coaching and finding a way to optimize life and finding the ways that they are making a mess of life and not even realizing it.
Speaker 1:You said like sometimes you kind of work as a coach in the therapist seat. What's the distinction between those in your mind?
Speaker 2:I don't see it really. Certainly the coaching focus is usually not pathological focus. And of course therapy focus can be addressing pathology if you are depressed. A lot of times people that are coaching or just trying to optimize their life situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And how do you determine fit? So, you know, people will come across our work and, you know, like everything, right? Whether it's a chef, a restaurant, a therapist, a coach, Uber driver, you see a variety of experiences. I had the most transformative experience.
Speaker 1:I'm obsessed with my therapist too. It didn't work for me at all. And I think often while there's certainly in any profession a bell curve of efficaciousness more often that success or quote unquote setback failure is not a result of the objective skill of the practitioner, but the fit between the practitioner and the patient or the client. Would you agree with that? And do you have a sense of how people can find the right person for them?
Speaker 2:You just keep going around and you talk to your friends and the research reports that that's probably the most important piece that you're talking to the right person. Yeah. That can even still go sell.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. Totally. And do you think like, are you one of these folks that thinks everyone needs therapy?
Speaker 2:I think everyone needs, like you mentioned, you guys had some elders in your life that, you know, had contributed so much. Yeah. And gave you something to aspire to. I think people need elders to look to and something meaningful to do and nature and movement and touch. And that's therapy.
Speaker 2:If you were raised in a family that was more cynical for sport, There are times in your life that that cynicism might get you in trouble when you can't afford to be pessimistic because you're already grieving and experiencing loss. And so that will just take even farther down. And next thing you know, you got a full blown depressive episode. And so I think that's when people need therapy. I had a patient recently apologize for taking up time.
Speaker 2:You know, he knew that I had people that needed that spot much more than he did. It's like, I've got a really healthy population of folk that I see. They're very interesting. They're doing interesting things. But they're at risk as we all are for diminishing the quality of our life experience with not telling the right story about it.
Speaker 2:And I don't have any people that need it. But they certainly benefit just by having someone edit what they're saying.
Speaker 1:I'll reflect that back with some genuine gratitude, is you talked about a family history of cynicism. I don't necessarily have that. But I got in trouble with you recently for a family communicative tradition called sarcasm, also known as Jewish speech. You reminded me, not in a nice way, but in a kind way, that sarcasm is one of the four horsemen of the relational apocalypse, that it is a behaviour of disconnection and separation. And you called me out on that and provided the space for me to take ownership and have awareness of that.
Speaker 1:And since that conversation, I have had at least three times where that's come up and that conversation has reminded me to shift my behavior. So
Speaker 2:thank self awareness is all you needed, right?
Speaker 1:Thank you. But I also had, as you said, an elder, a social structure, a mentor who was able to point that out from a place of not criticism, but love and wanting me to be better. So I think you are an example of how to find that resource. So thank you for that. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess that proves what I'm saying, that having an elder, you know? Yes. Yeah. You know, it's so funny. You used to be this cat that I remember your girlfriend at the time wanted to meet me because nobody told Skippy what to do.
Speaker 2:And she's just like, Who the hell are you? You know, that he's like talking to me, he listens to you, you know? And, yeah, like, you had your arrow and bow and you were not, you know, being kumbaya and listening. And that was exactly where you needed to be to do what you were trying to do. Can't go gunzo if you're not, you know, driven and intentional.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Thank you for that, brother. Thank you for that reflection. Such a joy to have you on the show. Than the TEDx talk that I pointed people to earlier, where else can people find you if they wanna work from you, work with you, learn from you?
Speaker 1:Where would people find you? If you want them to? Maybe you wanna stay mysterious.
Speaker 2:A funny joke. I've recently hosted Nashville's TEDx Twenty Twenty Four.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Host man.
Speaker 2:And I realized that I don't know how to do this, you know, keep yourself relevant stuff that, you know, you're supposed to post that and blow that up and let people know. And I didn't do any of that. So Yeah. I I don't know how to self promo like that. But if they're hearing today that I think this is somebody I could connect with, you know, just go to my website, jeromebird.com.
Speaker 2:Send a shout out and we'll get back with them. Beautiful. I'd rather you start one start with taking long hikes with a good friend. You won't need this brother. If you're taking long hikes with good friends, talking about your problems, resolving them.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful, man. So final question, same question to everyone on the show, which is the listeners of this podcast are what Teddy Roosevelt would have called the humans in the arena. They're not passive observers. So if you could leave them with just one thing, one thought, one practice, one idea, one resource that would best resource them to individually be a vector for healing our politics, what would it be? A quote, a Jeromeism, a practice, a resource, a book, anything.
Speaker 2:My Uncle Archie, he's 92 years old. And I saw him at Christmas. And he says stuff like, tell me how the Lord's been taking care of you, Jerry. I was like, oh, that's so sweet. You know?
Speaker 2:And he said that he asked the Lord to let him live to be a hundred. And and that the Lord said, for what? You know? And he was is like I was like, well, what did you tell him? And he said, well, I didn't have nothing to say, but I still think he's gonna let me live to be a hundred.
Speaker 2:You know? But I yeah. He is such a cool cat. And every time he stands up and says something for the family, he always says, you know, that Al Green song, If loving you is wrong, I don't wanna be right. And I've been thinking a lot lately, you know, it's just like, I know that loving you is not wrong and I still don't want to be right.
Speaker 2:And because right leads to fight way too often, you know. You know, I just want people to be the antithesis of that. The more you know, the less you motherfucking grow because knowing and magic can't coexist.
Speaker 1:Knowing and magic can't coexist. Beautiful place to end it brother. Thank you so much for spending your very valuable time with me, with our audience. I appreciate you. I adore you.
Speaker 1:And I look forward to month after month after month as as you will have me.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. You're my boy. I always look forward to talking to you.
Speaker 1:Locks Club, bing the cream cheese. Let's go.
Speaker 2:Told you. So you gotta check that graphics. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Alright, man. Thank you.
Speaker 2:You so much. Be loved by peace.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us today. If you want to put what you've heard here today into practice, sign up for our newsletter, The Leader's Handbook, where each month you'll receive just one email with a curated selection of the most useful tools and practices discussed on this podcast today and over the course of the last month, delivered in simple how to worksheets, videos, and audio guides so you and your teams can try and test these out in your own life and see what best serves you. And lastly, if you wanna be a vector for Healing Our Politics, if you wanna do your part, take out your phone right now and share this podcast with five colleagues you care about. Send a simple text, drop a line, and leave the ball in their court. Because the truth is, the more those around you do their work, the better it will show up in your life, in your community, and in your world.
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