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Conversations about Creating a Culture of Activity: Profiling the people, places, programs, and policies that help to promote a culture of activity within our communities.
Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:26:22
Carter Lavin
All of this is hard work for everyone and everyone, including you, the listener, including you, John, including me. Carter. Like we can all do better. And, I think this is the path. Like a custom took. Like, so much of this is about working with other people. And if you are angry with other people and have no empathy and you can't see things from them, and you can't just, like, tolerate that, they're not going to want to work with you.
00:00:26:24 - 00:00:32:21
Carter Lavin
Very few people go from you screaming at them to them saying, oh, you're right, I suck. Okay, what do you want? I'll do whatever you want.
00:00:32:21 - 00:00:53:06
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Carter Lavin, author of the new book. If you want to win, you've got to Fight A Guide to Effective Transportation Advocacy. It is a return trip for Carter to the podcast. And, yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun to dive into the details of the book.
00:00:53:06 - 00:01:15:04
John Simmerman
But before we do that, I just want to say, if you're enjoying this content here in the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. Hey, super easy to do. If you're here on YouTube, just click on the join button right down below, or you can navigate over to Active towns.org. Click on the support tab at the top of the page, and there's several different options, including becoming a Patreon supporter up.
00:01:15:04 - 00:01:25:26
John Simmerman
My patrons do get early and free access to all my video content. Okay, let's get right to it with Carter Levin.
00:01:25:28 - 00:01:29:13
John Simmerman
Aloha. Welcome back, Carter Levin. Thank you.
00:01:29:13 - 00:01:32:07
Carter Lavin
It's great to be back, John. Thanks for having me back.
00:01:32:10 - 00:01:42:07
John Simmerman
I was just trying to refresh my memory as to when you were last on the, the podcast. And, do you remember when that was?
00:01:42:09 - 00:01:45:14
Carter Lavin
Two years ago? Something like that. A lot's changed a lot.
00:01:45:15 - 00:02:02:11
John Simmerman
A lot has changed. It was way back in. It posted in May of 2023. So yeah, I mean, we probably actually recorded it, a month or two prior to that. So yeah, it's it's been almost three years, I tell you.
00:02:02:18 - 00:02:10:00
Carter Lavin
Pretty crazy. Yeah. You've moved I've written the book. A lot's happened in those three years. A couple other things in the broader world. Yeah.
00:02:10:03 - 00:02:18:19
John Simmerman
Well, let's do this. Let me turn the tables over in the floor, over to you. And to have you just do a real quick 32nd introduction. Who is Carter Levin?
00:02:18:21 - 00:02:45:18
Carter Lavin
Sure thing. Hi, I'm Carter Lavin. I'm based in Oakland, California. I train transportation activist climate activists across the United States. Locally, I'm the co-founder of the group trans Bay coalition. And I wrote the book. If you want to win, you got to fight a guy to effective transportation advocacy, which you can get from Island Press or Princeton University Press, which is a soup to nuts beginner all the way through to experience advocates teaching you how to fight.
00:02:45:18 - 00:03:01:25
Carter Lavin
Because there's a lot of wonderful books out there that talk to you about what to fight for, what are the problems in the world, what are the solutions out there? But a lot of times people say, yeah, I'm mad already. What do I do about this? How do I transmit my anger into power, or my sadness, or my feelings or whatever?
00:03:01:27 - 00:03:21:13
Carter Lavin
And this book takes you all the way from recognizing that what you want is, in fact, political. How to get comfortable with that, how to design a campaign, how to work with other people, how to build coalitions. Some more sophisticated strategy and tactics there. On about 200 something pages. Pretty quick read. So I'm excited to talk with folks about it.
00:03:21:16 - 00:03:41:19
John Simmerman
Fantastic, fantastic. And yeah, I've got the book right here pop up. Oh yeah. It's fun. It was a really entertaining book and very fascinating too. But the very first thing I want to do is I want to have you address the title. If you want to fight you or if you want to win, you've got a fight.
00:03:41:21 - 00:03:48:05
John Simmerman
A Guide to Effective Transportation advocacy. How did you settle in on that title?
00:03:48:08 - 00:04:13:27
Carter Lavin
Yeah. So if, I settled on it because it's true. Kind of at this fundamental thing that I especially growing up as a teen, as a college student, was just someone who would really hoover up books and studies and reports and saying, well, why? Why does the world suck? Like, why are there all these problems if there's so many good people in this world who care so much, like, why is the rainforest so being cut down, like, you know, how does someone not figure this out?
00:04:13:29 - 00:04:31:06
Carter Lavin
And a big thing that just over the years just kept coming up enough, enough. It's like, oh, the issue is not that we don't have solutions. The issue is that not that we don't have solutions. We don't know how to make the world a better place. The problem is that the folks like us, who want the world to be a better place, aren't being listened to.
00:04:31:06 - 00:04:55:11
Carter Lavin
And the reason that it's not like, oh, okay, well, let's get another fancy schmancy degree. Or, you know, this 12th report that says everything like, oh, that gets people to listen to. It's like now being listened to is part of power. It is an element of power. And all this stuff like this is happening and this needs to happen through a struggle, because there are people who want the world to be bad.
00:04:55:11 - 00:05:12:27
Carter Lavin
You know, they don't think of it as bad. They're happy with how things are. You know, when a kid gets killed crossing a street, there are plenty of people who say, yeah, that sucks. Don't change the street. That's, you know, just hold the kid's hand tighter next time. There's all sorts of people who do all sorts of things and say, this problem isn't worth solving.
00:05:12:29 - 00:05:39:05
Carter Lavin
And the and it takes a fight. If you say, well, I want to solve it. And they say, I don't like you're in conflict. And I think that language of fight and conflict is so important. Why put it on the cover and why? Chapter one really just focuses on it, is because I know it makes people uncomfortable. I know there are people who are listening this, watching this right now who are very uncomfortable with that word, the F word that they are like, I just can we just talk about it?
00:05:39:08 - 00:05:51:19
John Simmerman
Well, it's it's conflict, as you mentioned, it's conflict. And we're in and there's a part of us that is just like, oh my gosh, there's conflicts all around us. And so we kind of want to have a little bit of, conflict avoidance. Yeah.
00:05:51:19 - 00:06:08:28
Carter Lavin
And and that's part of a fight. Now you can say, well, I don't want there to be conflict. I just want us to sing Kumbaya. So I'm going to invite everyone over to the Ice Cream Social, where we talked about bike lanes. Like, congratulations. That is a tool in your fight. Like being fighting doesn't mean being a terrible jerk.
00:06:08:28 - 00:06:31:07
Carter Lavin
And in fact, it often means very intentionally not being a terrible jerk. Because if you're like, I'm a terrible jerk, people don't want to sign your petition. So but thinking about it, recognizing that this is conflict, that you cannot kumbaya your way to greatness, I think is really important because otherwise, a lot of times people say, well, why isn't this other person getting on board?
00:06:31:07 - 00:06:50:14
Carter Lavin
And I'm doing all this outreach. I've redesigned this system to, you know, fix every concern they have. And it's like, oh, no, because they don't want it. They're your opposition. They are in conflict with you. It's not about winning them over. It's about winning over everybody else so that you overpower them. Are they outmaneuvering them? So that is a fight.
00:06:50:14 - 00:07:16:02
Carter Lavin
And I think one part to your conflict thing that is so. Well, I put chapter one about this, like, let's get comfortable with conflict and the fact that, you know, this is work is the type of conflict you have in politics is really different than the type of conflict you might have in a interpersonal level, like if if your mayor doesn't care about you, you know, there's only so many times you need to reach out to them before you're like, okay, cool.
00:07:16:02 - 00:07:36:18
Carter Lavin
They just learned to block my number or ignore me. And so you're in conflict with them. But if you say, I want to get 1000 other people, I'm going to talk to a thousand other people in town and get them to call the mayor. That's you still having conflict. You're just having very indirect conflict. And so for your listeners and viewers who are uncomfortable with direct conflict, like, congratulations, politics is a really wonderful place for you.
00:07:36:19 - 00:07:49:00
Carter Lavin
You know, like, I mean, there's lots of indirect conflict. And that's really important to, to have and to get comfortable with. So chapter one focuses on that. And the rest say, okay, now that you're ready, here's like what a lot more of that work looks like.
00:07:49:02 - 00:08:11:23
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to open up the book here and actually go quickly through the, you know, the chapters here. So chapter one of course, is politics isn't a dirty word. Chapter two is picking up, picking your battles and outlining your campaign. Chapter three understanding your context and making connections. Chapter four you can't win alone.
00:08:11:23 - 00:08:40:00
John Simmerman
So build out a team chapter five win bigger in coalition and chapter six deploying an inside out strategy. Before you conclude with, you know, chapter seven, deploying tactics to win, you do have a conclusion chapter as well. But those are the seven main chapters there, and I'm glad that you addressed, you know, you get kind of comfortable with with conflict.
00:08:40:00 - 00:09:06:07
John Simmerman
You I wanted to start this off with that because choosing a title for a book is is always an interesting thing. And, and Wes Marshall and I had this very same, you know, conversation about, well, okay. West, how did you come up with the title of killed by a Traffic Engineer? And so he gave the whole backstory of how, yeah, like ten years ago, that title popped into his head.
00:09:06:09 - 00:09:32:13
John Simmerman
This is kind of what I need to write a book on one day. And and then he dove into the research during the pandemic of, you know, really, you know, getting to the meat of it. But I really do appreciate that. And I, I asked him, I said, do you think that the title, because of the quote unquote salaciousness or negativity of it turns a lot of people off and says, oh, yeah, definitely.
00:09:32:15 - 00:09:50:22
John Simmerman
But it also gets more it gets people talking about it. So I'll, I'll, I'll pose that to you as well. You know, if we replace fight with the word strategic or some other word that isn't, is is is edgy, do you think it it you think you get more readers or less or what do you think.
00:09:50:24 - 00:10:10:21
Carter Lavin
Yeah. I mean, if the word that I thought about if it wasn't fight would be struggle, which one longer word fits less of well on a thing. And and then I come to transportation advocacy from, you know, climate advocacy. I come from this from a I want people to have a good life and have an easy time getting around this world.
00:10:10:24 - 00:10:28:10
Carter Lavin
And there's a lot of other spaces, there's a lot of other issues that people work on from that same framing. And a lot of times in those spaces, people talk about the struggle like that. This doesn't end that they're like a thousand years from now, there's still going to be transportation advocacy because people are still going to get around.
00:10:28:15 - 00:10:46:16
Carter Lavin
People also have different opinions are choices will affect each other. Therefore that is politics. And so in a lot of spaces I use the word struggle. And that is kind of the classic one. This struggle is great. Love it. And sounds a lot harder like that sound. Yeah.
00:10:46:16 - 00:11:08:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. Just going to say it all start. Yeah. It almost sounds like less empowering. You know, it almost seems a little bit like, you know, the fight seems to be, like you're taking it to it versus struggling. You could you could use struggle in a couple different contexts. Yes, it can be an active form, but it also could be like, I just can't get through.
00:11:08:01 - 00:11:10:04
John Simmerman
I'm struggling. I'm struggling. Yeah. You know what I mean.
00:11:10:08 - 00:11:33:09
Carter Lavin
And and I think one thing about fight that you know, about the bucket, like I avoid Marshall or military language throughout. I voiced a lot of metaphors and idioms throughout because I did write this for an audience, you know, ages 15 to 80, people, all sorts of different experiences. So there's like, I think two pop culture references in the entire book, which was very hard for me.
00:11:33:09 - 00:11:50:07
Carter Lavin
As someone who often thinks about metaphors and what are the lessons from other places, but a thing about fight that I think is very helpful is, you know, you can have a fight that's three second, you know, two dogs and a bone and a fine. It's two seconds and over, or you can have something that it's like, this is a multi-generational effort.
00:11:50:10 - 00:12:12:09
Carter Lavin
And I think it's helpful for people to recognize that things like, you know, this particular action was a fundraiser party for Transbay Coalition. My group, you know, that this helped fund us in the fight of this regional measure in the Bay area. I'm like, that's a fight. You know, you could see on this someone sitting on one of the Bay area bench collective benches where people have been installing benches, and that's a fight.
00:12:12:09 - 00:12:48:11
Carter Lavin
And, you know, building and installing a bench at a bus stop that's a part of a fight. That's a the fight against like, discomfort. Our unwelcoming communities. And so, you know, I think one reason why I wanted to center kind of the concept of fighting and struggle and conflict and just like, hey, sometimes we're butting heads is because a lot of people are drawn into the space because it's a space where there are natural solutions, you know, how do we get people quickly and easily from one city to another city about 304 hundred miles away, like high speed rail, is objectively the answer by any metric, any of that thing, and said, okay, cool.
00:12:48:11 - 00:13:07:03
Carter Lavin
So we're right. And that doesn't magically mean a lot. Like there's a quote I have from the beginning of the book from large Unions of Pittsburgh, a transit advocate there who says, like, winning doesn't help you win. Besides, it helps motivate your people. But when it comes time for winning, it's not that the decision maker says, well, who's objectively right?
00:13:07:03 - 00:13:31:07
Carter Lavin
They say, okay, well, the facts are on this side. Here's the power. Here's the thing. And to this larger point, for folks who are uncomfortable with this, like people who are wrong win a lot, especially in the transportation space. Like the corollary to like, oh, being right doesn't mean you win is that people who are wrong win a lot, and they win not because they're wrong, but because they're powerful and smart.
00:13:31:07 - 00:13:48:00
Carter Lavin
And so or strategic. And when people say, oh, well, that's because they're corporations and they're putting in a bunch of money are the oil lobby and they're doing X, Y, and Z, it's like, okay, so you're saying they have power in this form of money. That's one of many ways of having power. And they're applying their power in this way.
00:13:48:01 - 00:14:11:29
Carter Lavin
So they're being strategic with their power like so. They're fighting. They're winning because they're fighting. If you would like to win, you also need to fight. And and kind of lastly, to this point, you know, memes are great. I think one thing that's really wonderful about transportation advocacy culture now versus, you know, ten years ago is there is a huge culture shift that has happened.
00:14:12:01 - 00:14:29:13
Carter Lavin
It's not the majority of culture, but it is a much bigger niche issue. There's a lot of people who care about this stuff, and they look at the map, they look at the Alfred True high speed rail map after Alfred True's holding the green bus. And this and Alfred is great and their high speed rail board games great.
00:14:29:15 - 00:14:45:27
Carter Lavin
And people say, oh, I want that thing, I want that map. And people have a lot of opinions about the high speed rail map, but I cool if you want that map. You can't, you know, clicking like on a Facebook post about it, that's fine. But if you actually want that thing to happen, you do need to fight like you are in the world.
00:14:45:27 - 00:14:59:04
Carter Lavin
You're in the news. You're you have the ability to affect change. You have to do it with other people. Which is why, you know, chapters three through seven exist for helping people recognize that this is not an academic exercise.
00:14:59:06 - 00:15:29:14
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's it bears, you know, setting the table in the context that, you know, those quote unquote, individuals or groups that are quote unquote in the wrong that are winning, you know, the winning argument, there's winners and losers. Oftentimes that's just the status quo. And so the status quo, it has this momentum flywheel effect of it's easier for the status quo to remain the status quo.
00:15:29:14 - 00:15:36:21
John Simmerman
And it's hard for the status quo to change. And and that's I think the point.
00:15:36:23 - 00:15:59:07
Carter Lavin
Yeah. And it takes work. And especially in a lot of transportation spaces, you know, taking let's say closet conversion, for example, like your town has an area that could be a car free plaza. There is not a permit process for that. There is not a hearing that happens that's saying, oh yeah, once a year we all get together and we decide which parts of our community to convert to car free plazas and we don't like.
00:15:59:12 - 00:16:24:19
Carter Lavin
There isn't a process. So you have to advocate to create a process, whatever that process might be. Could be a pretty simple one, could be a long one. But if it's not happening, you need to get it going. And the way you get it going is by understanding your context, by figuring out the point of intervention which chapters two and three really focus on, by getting people with you together on this and learning how to work with them.
00:16:24:19 - 00:16:48:16
Carter Lavin
Which chapter four is about? By getting other groups, helping them see themselves in the story with chapter five talks about learning how to like use your special powers in different ways, what chapter six does and like actually applying pressure because you know, if you don't do that, there's no you know, it's not like every year just to take California, for example, where they say, okay, well, hey, do we want to keep high, you know, highway five going or not?
00:16:48:18 - 00:16:57:08
Carter Lavin
You know, they set a budget and that sounds like okay, so fight at the budget. And I think helping people recognize that it's it's not going to happen until we make it happen.
00:16:57:10 - 00:17:20:19
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. I love the fact, too, that you, you know, emphasized that, this is politics. I mean, so you're going to have to get comfortable if you want to see change to the status quo, you're going to have to get comfortable getting into the fact that this is politics. These these things are inherently political.
00:17:20:21 - 00:17:42:07
Carter Lavin
Yeah. I mean, they're political. Because let's go back to the definition. Politics is the relation between individuals and society. So right now we're having a political moment. You and I are influencing each other. We're changing how we think about stuff. Your listeners, they're being politically radicalized. You know, we are teaching you things. This is a political moment right here.
00:17:42:09 - 00:18:14:22
Carter Lavin
Any time individuals and society are shaping each other, whether that's in this case, a, big rally to support transit that we hosted in San Francisco, where we got the mayor and people all across the region coming out. You know, that's a political event that gets people paying attention. But simply the act of, you know, getting to know your neighbors so that when the time comes that you need to mobilize for a rally or an action or a ballot measure or whatever, just connecting with your neighbors is political because that's you impacting each other.
00:18:14:24 - 00:18:43:29
Carter Lavin
And that sets the stage for further actions. You know, if you say, oh, well, how do we get to 10,000 people at a rally? It's like, well, you invite a lot of people. How do you invite a lot of people? You have their information, you know, their stuff. And a big point, the chapter one focuses on is we are all doing politics at any moment, like, because especially in transportation, like if you're in a car on a highway, you're in a car in a residential neighborhood, you are impacting not just the climate and the air quality, but you're impacting the lives of people around you.
00:18:44:02 - 00:19:08:03
Carter Lavin
Therefore, that is political. If you're sitting idling your car and blast blasting your horn, you are impacting the lives of dozens of people around you. That is like literally definitionally a political act. And I think for street safety advocates and other type of transportation advocates, one thing that is so important to keep in mind, kind of by definition, what we want is disruptive.
00:19:08:06 - 00:19:25:02
Carter Lavin
We are saying, hey, you are driving too fast on the road. We would like a speed bump here. I would like to literally disrupt what you're doing in a day, so that you hit that speed bump so you slow down. No wonder this conflict. Someone says no, no, I want to drive dangerous. I want to speed.
00:19:25:02 - 00:19:40:03
Carter Lavin
I'm paying attention. You want. You want me to have both hands on the wheel? I'm. How will I make. How am I going to send a text? You want me to not text back my friends like. And the answer is not for you to say. Oh, you're right. You shocks. I'm sorry for. Why did you change it? You say, yeah, you're wrong.
00:19:40:03 - 00:19:57:28
Carter Lavin
And I recognize that you don't want to change. So I'm going to talk to a bunch of other people who want to change this. And, you know, I think one thing, particularly from a traffic safety perspective, as someone who does a lot of advocacy on that, is everyone thinks they're the good driver, everyone thinks everyone else is the terrible driver.
00:19:58:00 - 00:20:11:25
Carter Lavin
And so part of the conversation saying, hey, you know how everyone else is a terrible driver, it's not your fault, but because everyone else, that's why we need the speed bump. So you got that. You're going to have to slow down a bit, but you're going slow. You're good anyway. But these people you're right. Yeah. You're right.
00:20:11:28 - 00:20:31:10
John Simmerman
Yeah. A little, little jujitsu happening there. But I'm glad that you just mentioned, you know, being able to talk with your neighbors. And that's one of the things that that I emphasize a lot here on the channel is that when they're saying, you know, okay, I see that change needs to happen. What's the first step?
00:20:31:10 - 00:20:52:15
John Simmerman
And my, you know, my response is, do you even know your neighbors? And so being able to, like, get out of our hermetically sealed cars and get out of our hermetically sealed houses and connect with others and, and get to know them and, and I want to emphasize that, saying this doesn't mean this has to be transactional.
00:20:52:15 - 00:21:16:25
John Simmerman
It doesn't have to be that I'm only getting to know my neighbors so that I can try to influence them. It could be get get to know your neighbors and do a little less talking and a little more listening to try to really understand them. Because when it does come to that point of trying to, do that step of don't go this alone, you need a, you need a group, you know, it needs to be a coalition.
00:21:16:25 - 00:21:28:17
John Simmerman
It needs to be a big tent. You want to have that relationship and you want to have that empathy and understanding of where you're who your neighbors are and where they're coming from.
00:21:28:19 - 00:21:53:19
Carter Lavin
Yeah. And one part about that, that I want to like zoom in on because it's such a great point. As I talk about in chapter four, yeah. How do I say this? Politely. You it's good to know your neighbors, and it's good to know other people who care about the stuff. And you're doing it for a purpose like you are not when it comes to organizing advocacy.
00:21:53:21 - 00:22:24:02
Carter Lavin
Yes, it's nice to know your neighbor, but maybe you, someone listening in, you're like, oh, I know my neighbor. He's a jerk. I don't want to talk to him. It's like, yeah, okay, talk to other people. Like, you need to know people, right? You don't necessarily need to know that particular person. And I think one thing, which was a really fun exercise in writing the book is like, really slowing this down is you need to have other people on your side, you need to join other people, and that doesn't necessarily mean like literally your neighbor.
00:22:24:02 - 00:22:56:15
Carter Lavin
And I just want to be very clear because there's a lot of people in the transportation space. We're very literal people. It doesn't literally need to be your actual neighbor, but other people in the district that care about this thing. And another part is transportation issues. Although it is everyone's day all the time. It is very rarely there's there's only certain moments of a day where someone's top priority and people might not want to go to your talk about here's how bus service can be better in our community.
00:22:56:18 - 00:23:16:14
Carter Lavin
Academically, talk is like, you know, here's let's talk about bus punching. But they might say, I will sign this petition. If you talk to me about this thing, like, you know, you don't you're not asking people to get married like you're saying, hi, I need you to care about this thing for this purpose of a that. And I think one reason why I want I want to slow that down.
00:23:16:14 - 00:23:36:01
Carter Lavin
Because you're totally right. Like, talk to your neighbors, get to know other people, figure out where they are, but also like, yes, it is not transactional. But if you think of it as like you are doing the service of helping them understand what's going on as it relates to the issue that you also care about, and helping them take action in a way that is meaningful.
00:23:36:03 - 00:23:56:23
Carter Lavin
You know, that's not transactional, that's service. But, you know, we in transportation advocacy, you know, this is, not to get too in the weeds of advocacy theory, but like, this is like issue based organizing because your neighbor might say, I want a gigantic parking lot. I want this road to be wider. I want to and you're like, oh, am I here to make my neighbor happy?
00:23:56:23 - 00:24:13:28
Carter Lavin
Like, I know you're here to get the thing done that you want, and your neighbor might be one over. But in transportation spaces, we are coming a lot of times with a solution in mind. And that's okay. Like we we do have solution. There's plenty of folks out there like killed by a traffic engineer talks, you know, slip lanes are bad.
00:24:13:28 - 00:24:40:17
Carter Lavin
We know that. And you know, that's why chapter three really focuses on how to make these connections, how to navigate contacts. Because I think, a lot of times, you know, when people are learning advocacy, just kind of scrolling through social media are like seeing on the news and piecing it together. There's just like an overly romantic idea of this tight knit group of people who all like to get, you know, each other and they get along so well.
00:24:40:17 - 00:24:58:29
Carter Lavin
It's like just in this picture, for example, of this is a rally we organize in five days, and we are able to do in five days because we have connections and like have people's contact info and we are trusted. So when we put out the alert, a lot of people responded, not gonna name any names, but there's at least seven people in this photo who I know hate each other.
00:24:59:02 - 00:25:16:18
Carter Lavin
And like, you know, for various reasons or whatever. But people say, oh, we're going to get along like, it's not about liking everyone. It's about figuring out what you have in common, what you want. Who else shares your vision? Whose vision do you share and helping make that happen? And everyone in this picture is a lovely person, to be clear.
00:25:16:21 - 00:25:34:02
Carter Lavin
And so it just kind of, you know, I think some people get there's like, so much work to do when it comes to this stuff. And I just always like to remind people it's, yes, it is a lot of work, but it is less than you think and it's different than you think. And that's why there's a whole book kind of walking you through every step.
00:25:34:05 - 00:25:58:22
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm really glad to that you clarified that whole concept of will define what neighbor is, because in my mind, when I was mentioning that, yes, I did mean my next door neighbors, but, something happened to something happened to our community and our neighborhood because that's a little bit different terminology to say. The neighborhood.
00:25:58:22 - 00:26:33:18
John Simmerman
Oh, okay. You don't mean just my neighbors immediately around me, the neighborhood kind of infers, okay, a little bit more community, a little bit further out. And what was interesting, too, is my whole paradigm of who my neighbor is, who my neighbors are changed during the pandemic, changed during our, 2021 snow snowpocalypse there in Austin, where we had eight inches of snow and below freezing weather and nobody had power, and we were all looking out for each other because it brought us together.
00:26:33:18 - 00:26:46:05
John Simmerman
And people who, you know, we didn't even know, we started like, you know, you know, two blocks over and several houses down, or because we were familiar strangers, because we'd see each other.
00:26:46:10 - 00:26:48:25
Carter Lavin
When you're walking the dog and yeah.
00:26:48:27 - 00:27:16:24
John Simmerman
Boom. And it's a neighborhood that doesn't have sidewalks. And so we walk in the middle of the street. And because of the pandemic, we saw a tenfold increase in people. So you just had this neighborly nurse of the entire neighborhood, of the entire community, and now you're starting to talk about, okay, these are bigger numbers. They're kind of still familiar, you know, strangers, you know, but at the same time, it's bigger from that.
00:27:16:24 - 00:27:36:12
John Simmerman
I want to shift to talking about the exactly the context of what we're talking about, which is you can't go this alone. So if you're going to have change to the status quo, you've got to you have to somehow bring your team together. So talk a little bit about what you mean by you can't go this alone.
00:27:36:15 - 00:27:55:11
Carter Lavin
Yeah. I mean, if you one of my favorite examples was, you know, people often hear like, oh, we need to flood the governor's office with letters or calls. And I talked to first. I was like, oh, I can make a thousand fake email addresses and send a thousand fake emails. And it's like, okay, one done that. All that teaches the governor's ignore this.
00:27:55:11 - 00:28:17:01
Carter Lavin
Like, this is all fake and this isn't real, because when it comes time to knock on doors or campaign or get votes or donate like that, you don't have anything like so one, it just really matters for it to be real. And the other part is, you know, you could do you can bend over backwards to show how much you care and do a million things.
00:28:17:01 - 00:28:38:06
Carter Lavin
And that shows, wow, John really wants us. And so I was like, okay, well, if John really wants us before people say no, the majority means we don't do this. It doesn't matter if John wants us four times as much as anybody else. And and so, you know, it was just kind of mathematically. And then like lastly, there's just so much work to do when it comes to advocacy.
00:28:38:09 - 00:28:55:18
Carter Lavin
So just this picture, for example, is from bike to wherever day, which is this big thing, that bike East Bay and all these other, bike organizations in the San Francisco Bay area have been pushing on for years and years and years. And, you know, as part of it, there's an organized ride on Grand Avenue. It's a big road in Oakland.
00:28:55:20 - 00:29:13:29
Carter Lavin
And here, exactly when this picture was taken. But the person behind me is now a county supervisor, and the person behind her is a city council member for this area. And when it comes to getting safer roads on just Grand Avenue on the road where they're biking, for example, like the city of Oakland could put up X amount of money.
00:29:14:06 - 00:29:40:00
Carter Lavin
It's also nice when the County of Alameda puts up Y amount of money. And to get that, we need, at the very least, we need an elected official at the city of Oakland, in fact, a majority. And we need the county supervisors there. And that's just one extremely small example. You know, a thing I think about a lot, particularly when it comes to like event organizing or firing and all this stuff, you know, it takes people to say, okay, well, what's the bike route?
00:29:40:02 - 00:29:55:06
Carter Lavin
For example? It takes people to say, okay, how are we going to get people there? Who should we invite? It takes people to say, oh, well, I'll make the flier. Takes people to say, oh, I'll put the fire out another person, maybe print out the flier. All that stuff is different roles, and a person can take on a lot of the stuff.
00:29:55:06 - 00:30:13:21
Carter Lavin
Like maybe you're a great graphic designer and you feel like doing that. You know, this old flier, for example, the petition for safer Grand Avenue, you know, that's a you could tell by the esthetics, like I made that flier for tonight at home. I, you know, but I checked it with other people's like, hey, how does this language look?
00:30:13:21 - 00:30:37:11
Carter Lavin
Because I always I recommend almost always running your language by somebody else. Because you know what you meant. You know what you manage, you know, you find it convincing. You said it. You're like, of course. And so it's always very nice when someone else reads and says, I don't think that means what you think it means, or, hey, there's this whole other implication, or you're missing a word, like just running it by other folk.
00:30:37:14 - 00:30:38:29
Carter Lavin
And it's, and I.
00:30:39:06 - 00:30:48:05
John Simmerman
I love the fact that, you know, this is small. It's gets to the point, there's not a lot of words on it. And you got a QR code.
00:30:48:08 - 00:31:00:12
Carter Lavin
And you got it. And it's something that, you know, just in this example, I forgot where I was, like, I wasn't dressed up to go flying. I was dressed up. I was going somewhere. I don't wear suits.
00:31:00:15 - 00:31:02:16
John Simmerman
Dressed to impress, you know. Yeah.
00:31:02:20 - 00:31:21:20
Carter Lavin
I mean, we we do have dress to impress on transit day in the Bay area and in California as part of transit month. But part of it is, you know, how do you make this easy for people to incorporate into their lives? And so maybe your group says, you know, some groups do meetings, you know, like that. They're like every Wednesday we have a meeting.
00:31:21:20 - 00:31:49:12
Carter Lavin
And that's great for some groups. One thing that comes up a lot in transportation advocacy is the people you're organizing have a hard time getting places. That's kind of the thing. And so when you try to have a fixed date or time or physical location, that becomes a really hard thing to do. And so I'm personally a big fan of like the online meeting spaces, or we're having the quick call meeting and it's a bunch of folks.
00:31:49:15 - 00:32:08:14
Carter Lavin
This is a different yeah, there's all sorts of different like petitioning ways to get out there. And, you know, saying to someone like, hey, I will pass out the flier if someone designs the flier or, hey, I will print out 1000 because my office lets me print out a thousand, I can put out 100. Who wants a stack of fliers?
00:32:08:14 - 00:32:26:29
Carter Lavin
Or in this case, this is, stickers that were at bus stops throughout California. It says, where's the bus? And it has the governor's phone number on it. It's like waiting for the bus. You wonder where it is. I called the governor down to find it, and it's in English. That's in Spanish. And that version and, you know, some you you virtual listening.
00:32:26:29 - 00:32:44:29
Carter Lavin
That's like, maybe you aren't multilingual yet. Having other people involved is really important so that you can translate, in all these different ways, you know, yeah, this is a big rally as part of the regional measure to safe transit, which we passed the authorizing bill. Now we have to collect 200,000 signatures in the Bay area.
00:32:44:29 - 00:33:08:27
Carter Lavin
So find me I trans Bay coalition.org to get involved with that effort. But, you know, working with other people is, other people are different from you. Like, there's inherently great benefits and amazing things. And anyone who's ever talked to anyone else in your life knows that there's, sometimes disagreement about how to do a thing or when when to do it, or what's the best way of doing it.
00:33:09:00 - 00:33:31:13
Carter Lavin
And so chapter four of the book really spells it out, slows us down, and pulls from examples from I interviewed dozens of activists across the country about their experience and their advice about how how to best work with other folks. And, you know, a thing that's great about transportation advocacy specifically, is a lot of times we are, you know, we're not talking just for the sake of talking to each other.
00:33:31:13 - 00:33:52:04
Carter Lavin
We're talking for the sake of doing something. And since it is almost always volunteer at or, at, maybe someone's being paid a very, very little amount to be involved. You know, someone says, well, I'm not going to design the flier. You say, okay, cool, I'm going to find someone who will or maybe I'll take a really terrible Canva class or make something simple like, what's the flier design look like?
00:33:52:04 - 00:34:17:28
Carter Lavin
Well, who's designing it? You know, maybe there's this bit of like, a democracy that gets involved and, you know, there's pluses and minuses that come with that. But I think having this propensity towards action really helps focus the conversation as, in the book, I have a quote, some advocates, trans advocates from Rhode Island who talk about like, yeah, sometimes you say, cool, we're in disagreement as a group.
00:34:17:28 - 00:34:34:00
Carter Lavin
So the group is going to do this thing, or some people in the group are going to do this thing. Some people in this group are going to do a different thing, and then we'll meet back up later when we are back in agreement. And like, that's fine, as long as you kind of consciously uncouple and then consciously couple up again.
00:34:34:02 - 00:34:48:00
Carter Lavin
But just about recognizing that, we can be explicit about this, like we can talk about our relationship like organizers, organizers, volunteers to volunteers about like, you know, this is why codes of conduct and things like that are for groups.
00:34:48:02 - 00:35:12:14
John Simmerman
Yeah. These photos to kind of remind me, like this one, you know, on the bike, everybody's kind of smiling there. You guys are posing for a nice shot here. I'm reminded on, you know, campaigns that I've been engaged with over the last 30 years and some of my best friends have come out of that. Not everybody always gets along.
00:35:12:14 - 00:35:40:15
John Simmerman
And sometimes there's there's personality conflicts and you're like, okay, I'm, you know, glad this particular campaign is wrapped up and I don't have to be around such and such person. But I want to say that, you know, some of my lifelong friends I can point back to, you know, campaigns that where we came together and we we were like, passionate about changing something or promoting something or getting something past and you're like, yeah, I'm still in touch with that.
00:35:40:23 - 00:35:50:28
John Simmerman
Even though our lives have gone different directions. You've done that. You can't expect that that's going to happen. That shouldn't be an expectation, but it just it does kind of happen from time to time.
00:35:51:00 - 00:36:20:09
Carter Lavin
You you naturally, you naturally in organizing a big part of what you do is finding people who you have a lot in common with, or finding people who you share values with, which is a lot of what a friendship is based around. There's a lot of other things friendships are based around, and you get to know each other and all these different ways, and you spend time with each other and it is, you know, a whole, you know, yeah, I like I met my spouse through advocacy, you know, 16 years ago.
00:36:20:12 - 00:36:39:28
Carter Lavin
And that is a fairly no. Yeah. And I'm not saying, hey, ditch OkCupid or whatever and, you know, get into advocacy. I did, in fact, like the first draft of the book was literally twice as long as the final version. You're all very welcome. It's a lot more readable now. Big thanks to my spouse who was like, what are you saying here?
00:36:40:00 - 00:37:07:07
Carter Lavin
But the one line, it's like, you will find there's a very good chance that you're going to find friendship and and maybe even love through advocacy. There's kind of other problems that come out of this where you're like, well, now I'm mad at my friend, just like a coalition partner. And that's like a whole other issue. We took that out, but yeah, like, you know, for people who say, oh, I'm the only one in my town who cares about biking or my only one in my town who cares about walk ins?
00:37:07:07 - 00:37:32:11
Carter Lavin
Like, that's just objectively not true. And you haven't talked to everyone in your town. And maybe you need to make this a really crummy, really simple petition that says I support more biking and walking infrastructure in my town, or better sidewalks. And then you pass it out and you talk to a thousand people, and you're going to find some people who agree with you, they may not agree with you to the level that they're going to also flier and make it their whole personality for a couple months.
00:37:32:13 - 00:37:53:00
Carter Lavin
But they'll agree with you enough to sign the petition. And then you say to the mayor, hey, here's a bunch of people who want this thing. What are you going to do about it? Yeah. And so it's only natural that friendships come out of that. And, so, yeah, anyone who's, that's not saying that that's my solution to the male loneliness epidemic, but like, get involved in the transportation advocacy makes me some cool people.
00:37:53:03 - 00:38:38:27
John Simmerman
How? I met my partner to, so you said something there that I want to hone in on, and you mentioned, you know, the coalition partner groups as well. And and so this is a good opportunity to talk about the difference between, you know, you're you're finding your tribe and you know, you're coalescing around a specific issue and trying to enhance awareness throughout the overall community, but then also coming together in coalition with other, groups that maybe have different missions and different objectives, but or in alignment with, like, say, this thing that you're, you're concerned about whether that's active transportation or transit or whatever.
00:38:38:27 - 00:38:50:21
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that because there is a big difference between, you know, this more, you know, tight knit group that's focused in on this versus coalition partners.
00:38:50:23 - 00:39:11:12
Carter Lavin
Yeah. And this is such a big topic that chapters five and six are all about this. And, you know, I host workshops about coalition building. How do this because and it's one of the more in-demand workshops that I do. Because it's just such a key part to all of this. And, you know, you're not operating in a vacuum.
00:39:11:12 - 00:39:31:27
Carter Lavin
You are not the first person in your community who decided, hey, we should work on an issue. You might be the first person who said, I care about the sidewalk on Chestnut Street. But even then, maybe not. There's probably other people on Chestnut Street who have gone for a walk. And other groups are out there and their values are somewhat aligned to different levels.
00:39:31:29 - 00:39:59:28
Carter Lavin
You know, maybe it's a business association that really cares about it, because they recognize that having sidewalks or street safety is helpful for making kind of a walkable downtown vibe, which gets good tourism and, you know, business, you know, foot traffic and all that stuff. Maybe it's a church that signs up for a mosque or synagogue or temple or house of worship that gets involved because they do services for seniors, or they have after school activities, and they want kids to be able to get there from school.
00:40:00:00 - 00:40:19:27
Carter Lavin
You know, I literally at the last call I had before this one was with a group that deals with, refugees and immigrants, and we were talking about transit service, and they said, yeah, these are folks who are transit dependent. It is not their top issue. They have a lot of other issues as an immigrant rights group in America right now, and saving bus service in our community is really important.
00:40:20:00 - 00:40:41:24
Carter Lavin
And so one part about working in coalition, as I talk about in the book, is finding these points of overlap, recognizing that people are going to have different levels of engagement, that they're going to want to do, that for some groups, maybe all they can do is say, hey, put my logo on that letter. I got to get back to my other thing, and you say, thank you so much.
00:40:41:24 - 00:41:15:08
Carter Lavin
And they might say, oh, here's my logo or here's our logo, and you should talk to these two other groups that we often know and that kind of stuff. And, you know, it's so and there's all these different ways to work in coalition, as I talked about in chapter five. And it's so important because also, a lot of times as transportation advocates, like we're the we're the small people in the group, like we are the junior partner, we are the, yes, there might be 100,000 people in your community who take transit in any given week or month or whatever, unless you have a 100,000 people in your database and you're contacting like you, yourself,
00:41:15:08 - 00:41:39:19
Carter Lavin
your group, you might say, we speak for them, but you do not. You can't mobilize that. But the local, you know, afterschool club or local house of worship or unions or any of these other groups, business associations, like they've got a lot of umph behind them. And as part of that, as a talk about the chapter, like they also have other stuff that they're dealing with and stuff that maybe you disagree with or maybe you don't care about and like, guess what?
00:41:39:19 - 00:42:07:04
Carter Lavin
They don't care about a lot of your other stuff. But if you care about the one thing, you can work with them about advancing that. And so chapter five really walks through these different ways of doing that. And chapter six kind of elaborates on it because as we're talking about like there's inherent tensions because there's inherent differences. And so you and a coalition partner might have different opinions on things like a street protest or might have just different legal ability to take certain actions.
00:42:07:04 - 00:42:15:11
Carter Lavin
And so recognizing these differences is really crucial to making sure that you are working in concert together, toward that shared goal.
00:42:15:13 - 00:43:00:07
John Simmerman
Right? Right. A great example might be that you just mentioned the street protest. You know, you know, there might be one organization within a whole coalition to try to move forward, like, like, say, a livable Communities initiative. And you've got a whole bunch of different, you know, folks signing in or signing on to this, including maybe your local, AARP chapter, etc. they may not be comfortable to being the activists out on the street protesting, but at the same time, you know, when you're presenting this, you know, as, a coalition and as a group, you know, the politicians, the decision makers are like, oh my gosh, you know, Active Towns is involved in
00:43:00:07 - 00:43:04:29
John Simmerman
this, and this group is involved with this, and the AARP is involved with this.
00:43:04:29 - 00:43:09:13
Carter Lavin
Everyone's involved with this. That's everyone's. Yeah. Who else's? Who else is there. Yeah.
00:43:09:16 - 00:43:35:28
John Simmerman
And in this brings up a really, really good point that I was having as a conversation with the local, bicycling club here, in on Hawai'i Island last week. Is that if they, if the leaders, if the decision makers only think that it's a very, very small niche group of, oh, it's it's the cyclists, you know, in quotation mark, it's those people.
00:43:36:00 - 00:43:56:16
John Simmerman
Yeah. We kind of have to listen to them, but it doesn't carry the same weight. If all of a sudden there's this coalition of, oh, the Chamber of Commerce is on board, and the AARP local chapters on board, and all of these, this local church is on board is saying, you know, hey, we need to, like, bring speeds down along this main street here.
00:43:56:16 - 00:44:31:29
John Simmerman
It's it needs to be more welcoming and a higher quality of life. Maybe we shouldn't be paying as much attention to those few motorists that were, you know, flooding our office with emails and calls in. And it brings up the point that I try to also make is that, you know, I can't remember where I heard this. It might have been a politician that said, you know, it's like it it almost feels like I need to hear from eight people, to counter one negative.
00:44:32:06 - 00:44:48:12
John Simmerman
You know, when I get when I get yelled at from somebody who's unhappy with a change to the status quo, I gotta. I need to feel like I need to hear from, a constituent, a large number of constituents to say, no, no, no, no, we need this change.
00:44:48:14 - 00:45:09:07
Carter Lavin
Because it's also, it takes work to disrupt and change the status quo. And so one person has all that pressure behind them if they're like, oh, yeah, I'm saying don't do anything like, you know, it's pretty easy to say, hey, you should stay on the couch. You're like, oh, that's that's pretty tempting. You're like, okay, well now I have seven people saying, no, let's go for it.
00:45:09:07 - 00:45:31:06
Carter Lavin
Let's do it. Like, fine, I'll get off the couch and I'll do stuff. And I think the other part is, you know, this isn't a popularity contest for the sake of a popularity contest. Like, as I talked on chapter seven, like there are consequences to these actions, and people get their careers made and they get their careers ruined.
00:45:31:06 - 00:45:48:19
Carter Lavin
Depending on these things. And so they say, oh, well, I know that there's a bunch of people who really don't want the thing, and I know that there's a few people who want this thing. Okay. So if I do the thing, do I get reelected? Do I lose a reelection? Do I get positive new coverage? Do I not get positive news coverage?
00:45:48:21 - 00:46:07:10
Carter Lavin
Like, who's the picture with, you know, and if you say, hey, look, if you join my side, you're you got to be at the front of that parade, the thousand people behind you. We have all these, you know, kids in the, you know, AARP and all these different groups coming on. And, hey, that's what happens. And like, okay.
00:46:07:10 - 00:46:31:08
Carter Lavin
And it's like also the other part of it's like, and if you make us the people who are going to be unhappy, we're going to be very clear with the world. And so just to take this picture for an example, Governor Gavin Newsom, currently governor of California, you know, has, being required has been someone that I've spent a lot of effort, pressing on to be better on transit.
00:46:31:10 - 00:46:49:25
Carter Lavin
I will say that, and last year, as part of this whole statewide fight to get transit funding, you know, there was a part where it seemed like, you know, he wasn't getting the message. And so it's one way of helping make sure he got the message was, advocates in, I believe, 12 cities across the state of California.
00:46:49:25 - 00:47:06:20
Carter Lavin
This is a picture from the city of San Mateo. Advocates in 12 cities across the state of California put the message on, I think it was bed sheets or something like that. A draft class like for freeways to make sure that Gavin Newsom got that message and, you know, that was part of it. He got that message.
00:47:06:20 - 00:47:27:09
Carter Lavin
And I was part of all these other actions so that he was hearing from those, you know, rabble rousers in the street and getting the media there. He was getting calls into his office. He was getting, outreach from various other coalition partners who, you know, maybe have a greater ability to talk directly to staff of his and aren't just, you know, calling the main line number all of that's needed.
00:47:27:14 - 00:47:51:25
Carter Lavin
And it works out when it's done in conjunction, which chapter six really focuses on is like, how do you coordinate this stuff? Because if you know, if those rabble rousers on the outside are saying the same thing that those like select people on the inside of saying it's like, oh, that kind of says, oh, everyone wants this, which, you know, brings us back to this point we're kind of getting at before, you know, because this is a fight, because this is a conflict.
00:47:51:27 - 00:48:09:11
Carter Lavin
This isn't a game of how do I make everyone happy? And sometimes you'll hear, people say, well, if everyone's unhappy, that means I did the right thing. It's like, now that. Oh, that doesn't mean that means you made everyone unhappy here. There's a couple of other questions that you have to ask to determine if you did the right thing.
00:48:09:13 - 00:48:39:27
Carter Lavin
And you know, sometimes you're saying to a politician, look, someone's going to be pissed at the decision that you make, and your best choice is if you pick it, if you make sure I'm not the people who are pissed. If you make sure that our team of the churches in the mosque, in the synagogues and the temples and the schools and the seniors and those bike people and those bus people and the business, you know, and all that stuff that we're on one side, on the other side is like deranged people who are screaming at children saying, how dare you play at a playground across the street?
00:48:39:29 - 00:48:45:19
Carter Lavin
Take like, yeah, someone's gonna be mad. You don't want us to be the mad side. Join us.
00:48:45:21 - 00:49:06:24
John Simmerman
You just mentioned the inside and outside. You've got the chapter six, of course, is all about that. Talk about the inside game and the outside game. And how, you know, sometimes you're able to partner and come together and do some things, but sometimes they have the inside has a different rulebook that they have to play by. But go ahead and highlight that a bit.
00:49:06:27 - 00:49:31:13
Carter Lavin
Yeah. This is a big question. One of the reasons why the first draft of the book was twice as long as the final draft. So, I'll do it. I'll do a condensed version. So first off, when we're talking about inside, what we're saying is people who are inside the decision making process. So any time there's a decision made, whether it's a logging past or you and a friend deciding to get a slice of pizza, a decision is being made.
00:49:31:13 - 00:49:52:25
Carter Lavin
There's people whose opinions are counted or, like officially reviewed, a person who makes a decision. Maybe it's could be a group that's the insiders. So that might be the elected official themselves, that might be their staff that might be their close advisors, that might be some donors, that might be the people that they listen to. Literally everyone else is the people on the outside.
00:49:52:27 - 00:50:12:18
Carter Lavin
They're outside. That process. And just to take the pizza example, that's a pretty simple one. You know, maybe you and your friend are thinking, oh, should we get pizza? Should we get tacos? And all of a sudden 20 people on the street start shouting pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza! Even though they're outside that decision making process, they will have influence your decision in some way.
00:50:12:20 - 00:50:34:12
Carter Lavin
In in the case of elected officials, like when they see mass protests or getting a lot of calls or all these things that helps them say like, oh, the popular thing is this other one, that's not everything. You know, you say, okay, well, the popular opinion is this. But if all it took was popular opinion, you know, we'd have gun control and free health care and, you know, low, lower rates for everyone in America.
00:50:34:12 - 00:51:01:29
Carter Lavin
There's plenty of things in the world that are popular and are not done. So the issue is not necessarily how do we make something popular? It's how do we get the thing we want done, done. And so insiders, you know, there's a lot happens on the inside of process and especially in the transportation space where there is so much space on the inside, especially in like rail or, anything with your state Department of Transportation, you know, they have committees on committees on committees.
00:51:02:02 - 00:51:20:04
Carter Lavin
And so there's a lot of winds that can happen just on the inside. And there's a lot of great advocates and those I interviewed for the book who have a ton of experience working on the inside and winning stuff. You know, however, a big issue is when you do an inside only campaign where you don't apply pressure on the outside.
00:51:20:06 - 00:51:40:29
Carter Lavin
Inside only campaigns are ones who say, hey, I have this great idea, here's this policy, we should change this, and not that. And occasionally you can just get curb stomped when someone's like, okay, but here's this gigantic donor who says this other thing, or here's all these other outside forces. Yes, you're right, but we agree. We disagree with you and you're going to get stomped and we're going to stop you.
00:51:41:02 - 00:51:58:11
Carter Lavin
And when you're in the inside game, you have less recourse. Like you just say, okay, well, I'm not being listened to anymore, okay. They slam the door on me. And that's one of the big parts where outside game is so powerful. We're outside games. There's no we have 10,000 voters on our side. Like, we we make our own power.
00:51:58:14 - 00:52:25:01
Carter Lavin
And so you better listen to us. And, you know, outside game has its own issues when there's no inside part because you say, okay, well, you know, we're demanding more transit funding and we want X amount of money. Okay. Well what if it's Y amount of money? What if it's a loan? What if it's a loan with six month terms like it is important to have people who are on the inside who can kind of like, land the ship, so to speak, or dock the boat or whatever.
00:52:25:04 - 00:52:53:15
Carter Lavin
And when these groups are working together, that works out very, very well. And when they're not working together, there's all sorts of chaos and lack of progress. And so one of the reasons going back to your original question of like, why I picked fight as the title and part of the title, I do think that a lot of people in the transportation advocacy space are more comfortable on the inside than they are on the outside, that there are people who say, oh, I want to be on my town's Pedestrian Advisory committee.
00:52:53:17 - 00:53:15:15
Carter Lavin
It's like, okay, well, that's advisory. That is not the committee who decides everything. Committee, that is a committee devises. And as you know, we have entire forests for all of reports that no one's ever read or fought this. I said, okay, put that on the shelf for the next 50 years. And so part of what we need as a movement, like, yes, we are right.
00:53:15:15 - 00:53:42:27
Carter Lavin
We have a lot of inside actors. We have allies, as you're talking about, like there are bike groups, there are transit groups, there are people doing this. And so there's someone who picks up the buckets as well. I care about this a great find your inside ally. Realize you're on the outside to some level. Like ramp that power up that one of, you know, one of the biggest things that you're like first and listening like your state probably has a bike advocacy group, probably has a street safety advocacy group, probably has a trans advocacy group.
00:53:42:29 - 00:54:05:29
Carter Lavin
The thing that they need besides, you know, donors and everyone needs donations, is a lot more people behind them so that when they say, hi, Governor Xyzzy, we think they're saying that, you know, you can kind of create this like people cannon that says, oh yeah, that's how fliers I did all this list building, you know, we're with them, you know, listen to what that person said.
00:54:06:02 - 00:54:07:18
Carter Lavin
That makes a huge difference.
00:54:07:21 - 00:54:36:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And one of the things that, I try to emphasize, too, is you'd be surprised how many individuals on the inside want sort of the same thing that you want, but they have to play by a slightly different game. And you mentioned, you know, like the bicycle advisory committees and these advisory groups, they're you're like this quasi, you're on the outside, but you're really kind of in the, in the inside.
00:54:36:18 - 00:55:19:06
John Simmerman
You're trying to play by the rules. But, you know, like you said, they're not the decision makers and they may not even have influence over the decision makers. And, chapter seven, you really get into sort of what we saw, like with the pressure campaign, with the stuff is, you know, applying pressure to the decision makers. Talk a little bit more about that because I think it you it was a great way to kind of end the book and really kind of emphasize that, at the end of the day, there needs to be a little bit of pressure on that decision maker, whoever that is, whether it's the governor or D.O.T. for,
00:55:19:12 - 00:55:23:15
John Simmerman
director for the city or whomever or the politicians. Yeah.
00:55:23:18 - 00:55:44:22
Carter Lavin
Yeah. And this is, you know, so many people on the inside, are doing the best they can with what they've got, and they've you there, they go to work and they say, okay, well, my job is I have to do all these different requirements. I have to, you know, there's these various laws, you know, various calculations. You know, I have to I have to assemble this puzzle.
00:55:44:22 - 00:56:02:09
Carter Lavin
I have to play this game with what I got. And sometimes people are mad at me and they're mad. I'm mad to I want to I want a magic wand. I can't believe, like, yes, I'm also mad that our state policy says something, something, something. Now I have to wait for three more kids to die on the street before I can officially recommend this.
00:56:02:09 - 00:56:29:14
Carter Lavin
Like that's terrible. Like, don't yell at me. And I think one big part for outsiders to really recognize is that our role in this one is some level, as we do say, hey, there's that lever you didn't push, or what about this other lever? Like, not everyone's perfect. Not everyone has perfect knowledge of how everything works. And so sometimes we have to help our inside allies be a bit more effective at that, that we come in and we say, oh, well, let me just kind of poke around here.
00:56:29:14 - 00:56:48:15
Carter Lavin
It seems like, you know, this this effort has been tried. Then the other way, our part of our saying say cool. Okay, well, what if we got 20,000 people to say this thing? Or what if we changed that law? Or what if we rearrange the rules of this game, or we change how many cards you can hold in your hand, does that change the results?
00:56:48:18 - 00:57:11:08
Carter Lavin
And so chapter six really focuses on that. Because it's so easy for insiders and outsiders to have conflict, to be mad at each other because like what's call is they've often called like inside game, outside game, like they're fundamentally playing different games, like they're using different strategies. They have different rules. They have different things they're trying to do.
00:57:11:08 - 00:57:31:17
Carter Lavin
They have different ways of doing it. No duh. They're going to have different theories of like, oh, does it make sense to block a freeway traffic or show up at our, you know, a five hour public comment hearing to say one thing for one sentence for one minute, like, of course you're gonna have different opinions. And chapter six walks are like, okay, how do you navigate these things?
00:57:31:17 - 00:57:51:09
Carter Lavin
How do you help each other understand that? You know, and it's such an important part, you know, some, for example, someone might say, okay, here's the design for the street and our design for the streets this way, because we're pretty sure the businesses are going to hate us if we change the design that way. And you, as the outsider, can say, okay, well, did you talk to the businesses?
00:57:51:09 - 00:58:10:11
Carter Lavin
And they'll say, yeah, if we talk to the businesses, we say, what do you want? And they're going to say, a bigger parking lot, you know, like, oh yeah, us on the outside, we're able to say hi business. Given that here's all the traffic violence. Given that, here's these bunch of reports, given that the last 50 people who just walked in here, all were holding bike helmets and smiling and ordered extra sprinkles.
00:58:10:14 - 00:58:28:00
Carter Lavin
Would you support a bike lane here? And they say, oh, well, yes. Given that all those things. Yeah, that sounds fine. Like we on the outside are allowed to use different tools of persuasion. Like like one. Just like legally there's different laws and rules around it and helping kind of recognize these different ways of going about it.
00:58:28:02 - 00:58:48:20
Carter Lavin
Because when inside and outside are working in concert, it is immensely powerful. And you can really start winning a lot bigger things. And so, chapter six focuses on it. And this is not by any means a new concept or new to transportation or new. You know, I didn't invent this. Like, this has been going on for a long, long time.
00:58:48:22 - 00:59:12:21
Carter Lavin
Civil rights movement did this really effectively. But even before that and so kind of recognizing for the listeners and folks who are saying, like, you know, this is a lot of stuff, it's like, you don't you don't have to be everyone. You, in fact, are probably one person. And so maybe you, the listener or someone who is happy to read a 500 page PDF and digest it in a way that's actually not what.
00:59:12:21 - 00:59:37:28
Carter Lavin
Like ChatGPT says, bikes are good. You know, like maybe you are actually someone who's going to do that and say, hey, chatterbox friend, who is going to talk to 500 people? Here's the three sentences. They're like, oh, thank you. Here. Now I have that like there's different roles for everybody. And so recognizing part of this is like finding the role that works for you, figuring out how you want to plug into other folks so that you collectively building something bigger than what you could do individually.
00:59:38:00 - 00:59:38:28
Carter Lavin
Yeah.
00:59:39:01 - 01:00:01:11
John Simmerman
I went back to this, photo here of, the group, with the bicycles, because you mentioned a couple of, elected officials that are in here now. And one of the things that that I try to remind people when you're wanting to see change happen within your community is that, you know, you do. You have to grow your tent.
01:00:01:11 - 01:00:28:16
John Simmerman
You have to be, you know, having those conversations, as we talked about before and and getting people moving and letting the leaders, city leaders know that this isn't just those those crazies over here. This isn't just this small little niche group. It's like, oh, wow, I'm I'm hearing from a broad constituency, you know, across the in my electorate.
01:00:28:16 - 01:00:55:23
John Simmerman
And it's like, oh, wow. Okay. And the I also you know, point out that, you know, when it comes down to, you know, that pressure campaign and like saying because they may still say, yeah I don't care. It looks like you've got the numbers, but I'm still going with, you know, my buddy who happens to be my funder, who happens to own the automobile dealership chain and, and etc..
01:00:55:25 - 01:01:05:00
Carter Lavin
Or my buddy who votes they, you might they say, oh, I see that you have a lot of people on your side. Are they going to vote? Are they going to knock on the door? Are they going to register to vote? Are they going to register people?
01:01:05:03 - 01:01:09:26
John Simmerman
Are those actual voters? Yeah. Are they actually your constituents? Yeah. Yeah. Are they love it.
01:01:09:28 - 01:01:31:01
Carter Lavin
Yeah. Oh you're like oh no they don't. And that's and this is I think a lot of times just because you said the car dealer thing, which is like such a low point for me. Local business owners tend to vote in every election. They vote in the primary, they tend to show up. And it's not like, oh, I'm going to listen to them because they're for they are like, you know, their businesses pay a bunch of taxes.
01:01:31:03 - 01:01:47:00
Carter Lavin
They are they've been around for a decade or so, and they are consistent voters. And they get the word out to a lot of people. It's like, okay, cool. How can you recreate that? How can you do bigger than that? And you and someone listening to us might be like, cool. They might be 17 and not legally able to vote.
01:01:47:00 - 01:02:07:18
Carter Lavin
That's fine. It's not about you as a voter. You can only vote once, like, okay, but can you get 20 people who would vote? Can you be consistent and so chapter seven talks about all these different tactics of like applying consequences to elected officials. And one of the big ones is can the questionnaires just like getting these people on the record, getting the word out, getting electorally engaged.
01:02:07:20 - 01:02:43:11
Carter Lavin
And the other part about this, that's you know, I know people have different feelings around the concept of electoral ism. I like how much the stuff matters. And I know people have different feelings around like or different abilities. As a 501 C3, maybe you as an official bike or transit nonprofit can't endorse a candidate, but you can host a candidate forum and invite the three candidates or the five candidates or whatever, and get 200 people out there and publish it on TV and or, you know, Instagram or YouTube, and you can't ask a question saying, hey, x number of children were killed crossing the street and the city hasn't done it.
01:02:43:14 - 01:03:10:21
Carter Lavin
Would you fix this to that? You know, would you fix this as a first office, or would you wait for more kids to be killed and then just see how they answer? Like, you are allowed to apply pressure and like that's applying pressure. That's how you endorsing, you know, and I think it's just so important to like in this fight of considering what are all these different ways that you can apply pressure all the way through because, there's you have to translate like on our side because we are actually very numerous.
01:03:10:21 - 01:03:27:28
Carter Lavin
Like there's a lot of people on the bus, there's a lot of people who bike, there's a lot of people who walk or use wheelchairs and want the stuff. You need to translate those numbers into consequences. And that doesn't mean, you know, like, so I'm done. He's a very special cannon. And there's a lot of things around this, like in your community.
01:03:27:28 - 01:03:47:05
Carter Lavin
Maybe running on free busses isn't the thing that's going to really mobilize everyone, because bus riders are only 10% of your community. It's like, okay, but if we get the bus community to Dornoch and they talk about whatever other issues your people in community care about, that still challenge the elected official, oh, those bus people are going to show up for me.
01:03:47:07 - 01:03:55:02
Carter Lavin
And this is something that, like unions do really well, something that businesses do very well. And so something that we as, you know, team transportation need to do better.
01:03:55:05 - 01:04:20:27
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I whenever I have the opportunity, I try to profile elected officials here on the channel, especially when there's positive things happening, in their community. I have also profiled, people running for office, on the channel. I can do that. That's what I get to do as a as a, a platform where I'm able to broadcast, you know, far and wide.
01:04:21:00 - 01:04:41:25
John Simmerman
The other thing that I like to point out, going back to these elected officials that, you know, happened to be in the in the photo here is that, you know, if if your leaders aren't working for you, you know, who are you who who in your group, who in your coalition, who and your your your your group that is trying to see change go forward?
01:04:41:27 - 01:05:04:19
John Simmerman
Maybe you need to escalate them to elected officials to and get them at that level. And I'm seeing more and more cases of where we're starting to see, you know, that happening, where we're electing people who got engaged, got involved. We're passionate about this stuff. And and they're like, yeah, this isn't happening with the current slate of leaders that we have.
01:05:04:19 - 01:05:06:05
John Simmerman
We need new leaders.
01:05:06:08 - 01:05:25:06
Carter Lavin
I mean, the current mayor of Seattle that, you know, used to be the head of a channel transit riders group. And I think also, it's really important to keep in mind that there's stuff in between those two points. Because winning an election is hard. Not exactly huge news to tell people. Like, that's a lot of work.
01:05:25:06 - 01:05:26:01
Carter Lavin
And and it's a.
01:05:26:01 - 01:05:27:00
John Simmerman
Long game, too.
01:05:27:00 - 01:05:27:28
Carter Lavin
It's it's a long game.
01:05:27:28 - 01:05:29:20
John Simmerman
It's further out. Yeah.
01:05:29:22 - 01:05:44:14
Carter Lavin
And if you want to win an election, you still need to have a lot of people on your side. So building a lot of people on your side anyway is always, you know, it's like the diet and exercise. Like there's just some basics that are just good to do, you know, floss your teeth, pass out fliers, like just do all these things.
01:05:44:16 - 01:06:08:11
Carter Lavin
And in a lot of communities, especially smaller communities, your elected officials don't have staffers. Maybe no one on staff or any support. And so when you say to them, hey, you should pass a policy changing, you know, reforming parking mandates in your town, and then you walk away. They're like, okay, I just was given a to do list about a phrase I kind of maybe have heard about it, most likely have not.
01:06:08:13 - 01:06:26:21
Carter Lavin
What am I supposed to do with that? But when you say hi, I'm such and such. I would love to work with you on making our town more affordable. And here's a policy. Here's, you know, written down most of it. And I see that the upcoming such and such committee meetings happening in six months. I would love to work with you by getting this introduced.
01:06:26:25 - 01:06:49:24
Carter Lavin
And by the way, I'm talking to your peers in other districts through other coalition partners. Then you're like lining up the shot. Then you're making as easy as possible for them to do the right thing. And I think this is like one of the other parts that is so important to keep in mind when I make a big point in chapter six, talks about like working with elected officials is it's work.
01:06:49:26 - 01:07:11:02
Carter Lavin
Like, you know, there's, like there's a reason why Alec and a lot of these, like, large, you know, national groups like, get a lot of stuff done as they write policy, and they and they pass it off. They say, hey, who wants a policy? Here you go. Like there's people in your town depending on your community, like they they want their streets to be safer.
01:07:11:04 - 01:07:28:07
Carter Lavin
They've never heard of a neck down, you know, they may know about they probably know what a speed bump is at this point. But like, they don't know what slip lanes are, let alone that slip lanes are deadly. And if you say, well, here's a report about how slow planes are deadly and I'm mad at you for not banning them, they're like, okay, well, now I know that there's a thing that you're mad at me about.
01:07:28:10 - 01:07:44:12
Carter Lavin
What? What do you want me to do about it? You say ban slip lanes, like, okay, how? Like one of my favorite covers I've, You know, I love Oakland. I love the Oakland political scene. It's a very interesting place. I once asked a city council member, saying I was like, hey, what was your what was your orientation like?
01:07:44:12 - 01:08:06:20
Carter Lavin
Like what? Like they're like, hi. And they're like, well, you know, like they say, here's like your official city, email address. They give you like some, like, here's liho like, you can't do this, you can't do that. Whatever. And like, I've really basic, but they're like, there's not a lot of hand-holding in this process. Like, it's a it is a very weird job to be an elected official.
01:08:06:22 - 01:08:11:18
Carter Lavin
It's also a terribly paid job. Terrible hours. And everyone's mad at you a lot of times.
01:08:11:18 - 01:08:12:18
John Simmerman
Mad at you.
01:08:12:20 - 01:08:32:21
Carter Lavin
And you often have to work another full time job at that. And maybe you have kids or any other thing going on in your life. And so as advocates, we can get a lot done when we do as much of the work as possible for someone else where we say, okay, here's the policy, here's the bunch of constituents who want this, here's the coalition that wants us.
01:08:32:21 - 01:08:51:19
Carter Lavin
Here's your other colleagues who said they will vote for it. If you introduce that, here's the, you know, six month timeline beforehand, all these things. And then if someone says, oh, I'm not doing that, then you're like, okay, hey, everybody. All those people that I just lined up, I'm going to let them know that you said no, that you're you're spitting in their face, that you're not even going to tie your shoes.
01:08:51:19 - 01:09:16:02
Carter Lavin
We are doing everything else, you and I, we're gonna get out the front door. Good to know. And they might say, oh, wait. No. That policy. Yeah. No, that policy I'll introduce, but a lot of times, like, they, you know, they come in, they have their agenda, they want to do stuff. And if you say, oh yeah, this parking reform on the street safety, this ties into your agenda, you know, fun fact about saving transit is it helps with health care in the economy and rent and all these things.
01:09:16:05 - 01:09:29:05
Carter Lavin
So can you XYZ, you know okay. Thank you. Thank you for making that easy. And it's very similar to working with a volunteer as we talked about in chapter four. Like you got to make it easy for people to help you. And that's why if you want to win, you got to fight. Is rent the way it is.
01:09:29:05 - 01:09:34:04
Carter Lavin
So it's easy for you all to reach. And so it can help you a lot.
01:09:34:07 - 01:09:56:25
John Simmerman
And having empathy too, I think for those elected officials and the city staff, because it's really it's really easy just to hate on them. It's really easy just to say that, you know, these these guys are the impediment to, to me getting what I want and our group getting what we want. And so it's really easy to demonize them.
01:09:56:27 - 01:10:21:06
John Simmerman
But as you're pointing out, it's they kind of have a really, really tough job. They're not very well paid, etc., etc., etc.. And so we do have to kind of be a little bit empathetic with where they are actually at. And sometimes, yeah, they're yeah, we do need to, you know, kick them out and get them, you know, get get them, get somebody in there else.
01:10:21:06 - 01:10:36:14
John Simmerman
But so I'm not saying that it's just I'm not giving them a pass, but I'm saying that it's important for us to understand if we want change, we kind of need to know how difficult it is to change the status quo, even when you are the leaders.
01:10:36:17 - 01:11:04:05
Carter Lavin
Yeah, like all of this is hard work for everyone and everyone, including you, the listener, including you, John, including me, Carter. Like, oh, we could all do better. And, I think this would part like a custom book. Like, so much of this is about working with other people. And if you are angry with other people and have no empathy and you can't see things from them, and you can't just, like, tolerate that, they're not going to want to work with you.
01:11:04:12 - 01:11:22:16
Carter Lavin
Very few people go from you screaming at them to them saying, oh, you're right, I suck. Okay, what do you want? I'll do whatever you want. Like they'll say, cool, I'll ignore you. And so, cultivating, you know, it doesn't have to be positivity or toxic positivity. Just like this understanding of, like, cool. So we're all part of these systems.
01:11:22:16 - 01:11:45:21
Carter Lavin
People could all do a little bit more. We are asking people to be brave. But guess what? Your job, and this is the thing, I train people and I do consultations and you know, one hour zoom talks through people like our job is to make it easy. Our job is to say, got it? I see that this city council member or that nonprofit partner or that union is, you know, has all these external pressures.
01:11:45:23 - 01:12:02:05
Carter Lavin
I will try to change these pressures. I will try to make this easier. So I'm not just saying, hi, can you sign on to this coalition letter? I'll say, hi, here's this coalition letter. Would you like me to add your name and your logo onto it? Or if can you please fill out this form? The link is here.
01:12:02:07 - 01:12:23:05
Carter Lavin
Like, literally. And this is, like, making it frictionless for people to help you. And this is, I think, one thing I love about advocacy is there's so many different skill sets us come into this, and they're people who listen to us, who are listening right now, who have an industrial design background or any sort of design background like this is an engineering thing.
01:12:23:11 - 01:12:36:25
Carter Lavin
How do you set up a system so it's easier for people to help you? Is very similar to the concept of like, how do you build a bike network? So it's easy for people to choose biking. You're just the conversation of how do we eliminate stops and how do we make this a better choice?
01:12:36:28 - 01:12:59:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the conclusion, you also give some advice and we'll we'll kind of wrap things up on the book and then shift over to your, your consulting, work in just a moment here, to wrap things up on the book, you talk a little bit about, you know, the realities of. Yeah, you may win, you may lose, you may get burnt out.
01:12:59:28 - 01:13:31:09
John Simmerman
Talk to wrap things up, let's let's put a nice bow on the book and talk a little bit about the fact that these do take time. These are a lot of work. They are tiring. Conclude us you know, for the the this conversation on the book, any way that you'd like and as part of that, I also want to acknowledge the fact, just like I did with, with, Ryan Short, with his new book on the civic brand.
01:13:31:11 - 01:13:45:03
John Simmerman
Is you basically gave away your intellectual property for your consulting firm in the book form. This really is truly a guidebook. Why would you do that quarter? I mean, this is your living. You just gave it away in a book.
01:13:45:05 - 01:14:12:28
Carter Lavin
I. You want the world to be a drastically better place. And if I know how to when changes to make it better, I would love nothing more than everyone else to be like. Great. I've. I've read your book. I'll work on that car. You can hang out on that couch. I was like, oh my God. And and there's also part just give selfishly to your point, like, I work with a lot of people and it's so much easier to work in coalition and with your allies when you're able to say, yes, we are working in coalition, like when you just have that shared vocabulary.
01:14:12:28 - 01:14:38:20
Carter Lavin
So it's been fun on that regard. You know, people have the book's been out for two months or so, people have already reached out to me of like, hey, I'm in the Bay area and I want to get involved, and that's awesome. And to your point, like, this never ends. Like there is no there is no finish line, which I think is kind of cool from that sense of like, as we say, like cosmetically like it is not on us to complete the work, but neither are we free to desist from it.
01:14:38:22 - 01:14:49:04
Carter Lavin
But like so, it doesn't end. And so someone's like, oh well, we lost and we didn't get the bike lane this year. I was like, okay, what about next year? What about five years from now? And like and what did.
01:14:49:05 - 01:14:51:21
John Simmerman
And what did you learn, you know. And what did you build.
01:14:51:21 - 01:15:08:22
Carter Lavin
Yeah. You're like, oh yeah. Well I got all this stuff and like that's cool and that's powerful. And yes, this is all optional. Which, you know, it's all optional. This is all people opting in and consenting in. And the second that your fellow volunteers don't feel like doing this, or the second that you were like, you know, I found the love of my life.
01:15:08:22 - 01:15:25:05
Carter Lavin
And FYI in I'm going to peace out or I'm going to go find myself on the mountain like, they can do that. And so part of it's like we're always off to again. We're always choosing to not just care, but to take action about that which we care about to say, no, I love my community. I love life.
01:15:25:05 - 01:15:47:06
Carter Lavin
And so I don't want people being killed on my streets when that's preventable. So let's prevent it. And that kind of omnipresence that this like I find that inspiring. I find that makes it easier to like, keep doing it because you for me, it's like, oh, this isn't I switch into that mode and now I do this thing, it's like, oh, this is just how we are in the world.
01:15:47:08 - 01:16:07:00
Carter Lavin
And that's exhausting. Yeah. Okay. Like, exactly. You know, fire is both warm and it burns, like, it is great. And there is a classic thing about burnout where you just look so exhausted and you just can't do it anymore. And the book talks a bit about that. The conclusion there are a lot of great books that burnout.
01:16:07:00 - 01:16:24:19
Carter Lavin
I referenced some of them, and the conclusion, and I really invite people to consider that it's not necessarily about any particular fight, although it obviously is, but it's about kind of like how climate change just makes everything worse and just ups the odds of everything where like, it's at that hurricane, I don't know, but just hurricanes in general.
01:16:24:19 - 01:16:42:10
Carter Lavin
Like the more organizing you do and the more fights you pick. Like maybe you don't win that by claim, but you win the other bike lane, or you get that transit improvement or that speed bump and no one can stop you like it is all optional. It's all this stuff and that means nothing can stop you. And so maybe you in your community, you feel so alone.
01:16:42:10 - 01:16:56:25
Carter Lavin
You're the only one who cares about the stuff. It's like, okay, well, get on the bus. There's there's probably other people on the bus. You're like, yeah, well, the bus only comes once an hour. It's like, oh, so you're saying at the bus stop, there's someone else that's also waiting there for 20 minutes? Like, what about the bus operator?
01:16:56:28 - 01:17:14:10
Carter Lavin
And, you know, so I think figuring out because there's so much there's so many ways into it like this will absorb as much as you feel like putting into it. And so a big part is to say, okay, I will do this for these hours of this day of the week, or I'm going to pass up the fliers when I'm walking by this thing.
01:17:14:10 - 01:17:33:04
Carter Lavin
But some days I just won't pass out the fliers like the answer is, sure, it's all good. It's all needed. And so, you know, the conclusion is there to really help people process through that. Because the work doesn't end. You are desperately needed. Like, I need you, the listener, to like, take action. The book is here to help you do that.
01:17:33:07 - 01:17:54:17
Carter Lavin
Maybe you're more of a chatty person, less of a read person, although it's a very easy read. Reach out on my website. Carter lavin.com I do these training sessions. It's fairly low cost. And the other part trip thing about the book and trainings and all this stuff is, you know, there's the book is like, here's all the recipes, here's how to cut and, you know, here's how to cut the vegetables, all this stuff.
01:17:54:17 - 01:18:10:03
Carter Lavin
But sometimes people say, okay, but like, here's the situation I'm dealing with now. Thank you. Thank you for the compass and the map and the this which way do I go? Or how do I think about this? Or I'm just so mad like, this is this has been a long conversation. There's a lot to keep in mind around all this stuff.
01:18:10:06 - 01:18:25:12
Carter Lavin
And so it is very helpful to talk through this with other people. And I'm someone who's gone through this a whole lot. You know, people have reached out to other folks in the book, that they're like, hey, I heard you quoted and I read your quote in this book, and I had this question, like, we're all in community together.
01:18:25:12 - 01:18:48:11
Carter Lavin
And so I think lastly, to your point, like, we are all in a very broad coalition together. We are all on team, you know, good stuff. And we're all doing some big level of inside outside game together. And like, that's great. And I look forward to doing this more intentionally with you all. And so reach out, get a copy of the book you can get on Island Press, 20% off with, discount code fight, the big F-word.
01:18:48:13 - 01:18:51:22
Carter Lavin
And, you know, John. Thank you. This is so great to chat with you all.
01:18:51:25 - 01:19:13:03
John Simmerman
Yeah. No, it was great having you back on. And, yes, folks, I do highly recommend that you get this book. As I mentioned to to cadre before we hit the record button, I literally recommended this book earlier today in an email to a local group. Again, Carter, thank you so much. Congratulations. This has been an absolute joy and pleasure catching up.
01:19:13:06 - 01:19:19:20
John Simmerman
Mahalo. New Hilo, from the bottom of my heart, and much Aloha, Carter. Thank you.
01:19:19:23 - 01:19:20:25
Carter Lavin
Thank you.
01:19:20:28 - 01:19:37:00
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Carter Lavin. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, be honored to have you subscribe to the channel again, just click on that subscription button down below and ring that notification bell.
01:19:37:00 - 01:19:54:10
John Simmerman
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01:19:54:10 - 01:20:15:04
John Simmerman
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01:20:15:06 - 01:20:33:28
John Simmerman
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