00:00:26.000And this is the show for you if you want honest conversation.
00:00:30.000conversations with fascinating people. Our terrific guest today is an organizational
00:00:35.240psychologist and an author, Dr. Karlyn Borisenko. Welcome to Trigonometry.
00:00:40.000Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.
00:00:42.580Oh, it's great to have you. Listen, before we get in to the conversation, for anyone who doesn't
00:00:46.780know who you are, just tell everybody who are you, how are you, where you are, what has been
00:00:51.200your journey to the problematic seat in which you find yourself now?
00:00:54.480Yeah, so I'm an organizational psychologist and essentially that means is I work with
00:00:59.740businesses all over the world to help create better working environments, things like that.
00:01:03.660And that was a space I had been playing in since about 2012 until I had the, well, some would say
00:01:10.340fortune, some would say misfortune of going to a Trump rally as a Democrat of 20 years. And I had
00:01:17.020no idea really what I was going to find, but I live in New Hampshire in the States. And so I had
00:01:21.900seen all of the Democratic candidates for president at some point or another in person because we're
00:01:26.720very spoiled. And Donald Trump came to town and I decided to go to a Trump rally and write about
00:01:31.540my experiences. And the article kind of went viral on the internet, which is how I got thrust
00:01:36.340into the problematic space rather quickly and unexpectedly. Well, we'll get onto that. We'll
00:01:43.160get onto the political stuff. But actually, Francis and I wanted to chat to you about the
00:01:47.280workspace stuff for a bit, which is, you know, an area of expertise that we don't often cover.
00:01:51.500go ahead, Francis. No, absolutely. So what we're seeing at the moment because of COVID and the
00:01:57.900COVID and Corona and all the rest of it is the way we work fundamentally change almost overnight.
00:02:05.600So could you explain a little bit to us about how the ways we've worked have changed? And what are
00:02:12.100the implications do you think about these changes and these rapid changes we're experiencing?
00:02:16.820Yeah. So, I mean, a lot to unpack there, but I think the first thing was just the absolute shock of how quickly work had to change. And when you think about the elements that people need psychologically to be set up for success at work, it starts at a very basic level of things that people don't even think about.
00:02:34.760Like, do I have a desk that's not broken to sit at?
00:02:38.760Do I have a lamp in my office that is not going to give me a headache?
00:02:42.060Do I have a chair that's not going to give me back problems?
00:04:52.440And so it is a very tough place for organizations to be in. And, you know, I actually have not seen many that are handling it very well, because we're talking about up and down the leadership chain. We're having all these problems that are coming up with communication and trust and just being worn out, being burnt out.
00:05:13.920And Carlin, a lot of people are saying that what we're seeing now is the death of the office in real time.
00:05:20.040This idea that we commute 40 minutes to an hour to an hour and a half to go somewhere to go and then sit at a desk for eight hours and then commute an hour and a half back.
00:05:28.380That is an obsolete idea. Do you agree with that or do you think the answer is slightly more nuanced?
00:05:32.680I think it's much more nuanced than that. I think the reality is that we're talking about phasing out the office environment.
00:05:39.300It is a lot easier to do that at tech companies like Twitter or Facebook than it is at places like, you know, an insurance company or, you know, I have this one client that they make socks.
00:05:52.640And so, I mean, there have to be people there.
00:05:54.600I have clients that are credit unions.
00:05:57.020While there have to be people in the banks, we have to be able to go to the bank.
00:06:00.780And so it does become a much more nuanced discussion.
00:06:03.280And frankly, it's not beneficial to phase out the office.
00:06:07.080We need to have these face-to-face human interactions.
00:06:11.080Otherwise, we literally forget that our co-workers are human, right?
00:06:15.660And then you have all these interpersonal problems popping up.
00:06:18.040So not only do I think this is not the death of the traditional office, I think that's
00:08:49.200They forget to take walks maybe during lunch. They work way later. They stop going to the gym
00:08:54.960entirely. And so work-life balance also gets really out of whack and people just become
00:08:59.320generally a lot more unhealthy, which makes them a lot more consternated when they're in the work
00:09:03.920environment, which again, only adds to those interpersonal issues. And there's been a lot of
00:09:09.020people who are saying that actually what we're going to start to see is our cities becoming more
00:09:13.940and more obsolete when people realize that they can work from home that they don't actually have
00:09:19.400to be amongst the hustle and the bustle when they're going to be on zoom four days a week
00:09:24.820what do you reckon about that i i mean i think i i don't know that cities are going to become
00:09:29.840obsolete i think that there is certainly something to it and i think we're seeing this in the states
00:09:34.560where people stop living in the cities but certainly there are always ways to commute in
00:09:38.740I think that, you know, my biggest concern with this entire affair is just the dehumanization that's going on all around.
00:09:47.000We've got to stop being afraid to be around each other.
00:09:49.260And whether that's from the virus or it's just we've gotten used to this new normal of working in our houses and never seeing each other.
00:09:57.080The more that the longer that this continues without some sort of corrective action to try to steer us back to where we were before all this started.
00:10:06.100I'm becoming increasingly concerned that this really is our normal now.
00:10:11.080I mean, people keep calling it the new normal.
00:10:17.040That's more than enough time to develop a habit.
00:10:19.500And so all the work that we took to get into this scenario, we're now going to have to
00:10:23.980do the same work to get back out and reclaim a normal where it is common to be around each
00:10:29.820other and have conversations in person and do work in person.
00:10:32.880And that's going to be a whole process to get us back there.
00:10:35.200But Colin, you've just said that this is the new normal and we've become not comfortable but accustomed to being isolated.
00:10:45.020What effect does that have on the human being and the human mind being isolated, not being used to interacting with people, not used to socializing?
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00:11:24.200Well, I think it makes it incredibly uncomfortable when you are in social situations.
00:11:31.740I mean, it's kind of roughly akin to, you know, I guess, I suppose being an introvert going to a networking event.
00:11:37.540Now, it's not as though you can't engage in those social situations if you've gotten used to being alone, but it's going to take a lot more energy to do it.
00:11:46.860So, you know, we'll think back in olden times when we used to have networking events that we were going to.
00:11:52.240you know, for an introvert like me, it took a lot to get me out to a networking event. I didn't want
00:11:56.280to go. I didn't want to be around people I didn't know and be uncomfortable and all this good stuff
00:12:00.020and have to make chit chat. But I did it because you have to do it. And when you do it, you just
00:12:05.000get really tired from it, right? It just takes extra energy. And so what people need to realize
00:12:09.540is that we can still have these human interactions. We can still meet up in person. We can still do
00:12:16.960these things. But because we have gotten used to the isolation, it's simply going to take more
00:12:21.600energy. It's going to take more determination to actually see it through. Maybe it's useful to
00:12:27.460liken it to, you know, going back to the gym when you haven't been there for three months, as I
00:12:32.260recently had to do when my gym reopened again. And you know it's going to be painful and you don't
00:12:36.940want to go and you are not looking forward to it, but you know it's good for you. And so you do it
00:12:41.040anyway. And is it a little bit painful at first? Yes, it absolutely is painful. But once you get
00:12:46.500over that hump, I mean, maybe it would be helpful for people to visualize, like, wouldn't it be
00:12:50.920nice to be sitting at a restaurant and have people around me again, or having a conversation in
00:12:55.560person, if we can think about how it felt to do those things when we really enjoyed them,
00:13:00.880that'll make it easier for us to get back there. Yeah, it's an interesting point. And when you
00:13:06.120talk about creators and destroyers, that's something that reminded me, it's actually
00:13:10.400true of animals as well. Like if you keep a dog at home and you don't give it enough exercise and
00:13:15.400etc it starts you know chewing stuff and tearing stuff apart and i mean obviously the other thing
00:13:22.980that's affecting workplaces now in a very big way is the whole conversation about race um people are
00:13:30.000being required to read certain books and being uh forced to accept certain ideologies as being
00:13:36.500the truth sent down from from above uh what do you think will be the impact of some of those
00:13:42.060things on the way that we're having these conversations and the way people relate to
00:13:45.680each other in the workplace and outside of it. Yeah, I'm actually terrified of what I'm seeing
00:13:50.860in the workplace in response to George Floyd's death with, you know, certain books, the books
00:13:56.240that will not be named, being mandated that being mandated out to the workforce. They're actually
00:14:02.940buying copies of the book in bulk, giving it out to everyone, forming book clubs around these
00:14:07.880anti-racist ideas, bringing in high dollar value, anti-racist trainers. And by the way, there is
00:14:13.440absolutely zero evidence that anti-racist training works and has any positive effect on the
00:14:21.320organization. There's zero evidence in the literature of that, but organizations are
00:14:25.260spending tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. We know that the United States government spent
00:14:29.140$5 million on this training to indoctrinate government employees into anti-racist ideals.
00:14:35.780This is actually the most terrifying thing to me because fundamentally what this literature says is you as a person do not matter. The only thing that matters is your skin color. And I have to treat you according to your skin color and talk to you according to your skin color.
00:14:51.820And that's an incredibly disempowering position to be in because not only does it not really give me the ability to communicate with you just as an average person to get what I need, it also is incredibly disempowering to people of color, to be honest.
00:15:10.280It doesn't give them a whole lot of leeway as well.
00:15:12.400It actually takes their empowerment away and says, you are at the whim of what the group says.
00:15:18.200Because those are really the people that feel the most when they speak up.
00:15:21.240It's not white people like me. It's people of color who speak up and said, I don't want to be infantilized in this way in the workplace. They're the ones that get it the worst. And so I am deeply concerned about the impact of anti-racist training on things like team camaraderie, collaboration, connection, being able to engage in productive conflict.
00:15:40.180Because every time you engage in conflict, it becomes, what does it become? A microaggression. Every time. And so it's going to start tearing teams apart and really is going to inhibit resiliency and productivity in the work environment.
00:15:55.680I mean, one of the things we should probably say at this point, just for the low IQ people, is that we're all against racism.
00:16:02.600This is like a disclaimer. You're nodding that people won't be able to see.
00:16:06.160Let me make sure that everyone can see this. Three of us, we're all nodding. We're against racism, right?
00:16:11.860But the point is, what you're talking about is very specific.
00:16:15.840That did look like brainwashing, mate. I'm going to be honest with you.
00:16:18.640That's what we do here at Trigonometry. We convince people not to be racist, Francis. Remember, that's the goal of the show.
00:16:24.420but that's not what people say on twitter but anyway carry on they're very true uh but but
00:16:29.800the point my point is colin when most people because you're an expert in this and the two of
00:16:34.440us aren't experts but we've been paying attention let's say and because of what we do most people
00:16:39.100when they hear anti-racism training like that's a good thing right i mean you want to train people
00:16:44.100not to be racist right if you can help it that'd be fantastic so when you talk about anti-racism
00:16:50.440training the indoctrination you're talking about and that it doesn't work just explain to someone
00:16:55.740who may be less you know aware of everything that's happening what it is that you're talking
00:17:01.220about what are people being taught what are they being told what are they being told they have to
00:17:05.700do now etc well i mean it is brilliant branding isn't it for anti-racist training it's very
00:17:11.560orwellian it's a very orwellian branding because what they're essentially saying is um you you you
00:17:18.380as an individual do not matter. You are not an individual. I've been telling Francis this for
00:17:23.700years, you know, and in fact, being, being, being an individual in terms of an anti-racist framework
00:17:32.600is actually part of a white supremacist culture in organizations, you know, and other components
00:17:37.900that they're going to teach you as part of the white supremacy are things like meetings or
00:17:42.520writing things down or having goals or being on time. These are all part of white supremacist
00:17:49.420culture in organizations that need to be dismantled in anti-racist training.
00:17:55.240Now, are you exaggerating here? This is what they're actually saying. Meetings are racist.
00:18:00.200I am 100 percent not exaggerating. In fact, there is a six page document that I have that
00:18:05.600the city of Seattle was using in their anti-racism training about what is that white
00:18:10.840supremacy culture is that enumerates every single one of these things, even except expecting a high
00:18:16.500quality work product, white supremacist. And so, and the problem with this is these trainings come
00:18:22.020in and they teach you all the ways in which you are a white supremacist at work, but they don't
00:18:27.060offer alternatives. They don't say, here's what we should do instead. They come in and they say
00:18:31.500white supremacy bad. And they very literally make you confess your sins if you're a white person,
00:18:37.680because they're also, by the way, to call it, I mean, this is why I say anti-racist training is
00:18:41.740Orwellian. The city of Seattle, when they did their mandated city anti-racist training,
00:18:47.640segregated it by the racists. There was a separate training for white employees of the city of
00:18:52.120Seattle than there were for black employees of the city of Seattle. I'm not kidding.
00:18:57.040Did they have separate drinking fountains as well, just to spice things up?
00:19:00.180Well, they probably did. And I'll give you even one better. The white employees were asked to
00:19:04.680come in on a vacation day that they had already planned to participate in the anti-racist training
00:19:09.820voluntarily of course wow so they were segregating people because of their race to receive different
00:19:18.620training and uh i think the question is like haven't we made this mistake before i mean it's
00:19:25.740separate but equal if there ever was a case of it isn't there yeah right no but and but they never
00:19:32.900offer an alternative they all they basically do when they come in and do this training is they
00:19:36.740say all of these things that white people have brought onto the organization these are all bad
00:19:41.520and so we have to dismantle them now an extra thing i'm going to throw in here is i've actually
00:19:45.520analyzed that six-page document that they say is all white supremacy in organizations and i'll tell
00:19:51.920you this absolutely none of those things in organizations have to do with skin color a lot
00:19:56.400of the grievances they have actually have to do with the work styles that people bring with them
00:20:00.280to work. So your work style is things like how you communicate, how you collaborate. Do you like
00:20:04.200to work at a fast pace? Do you like to work at a slow pace? Are you open and friendly? Are you
00:20:08.540more questioning and skeptical? All of these things make up an individual's work style and
00:20:13.400all of the conflicts that we see coming up that are, that are grieved in this white supremacist
00:20:18.940document are all work style conflicts. I can explain every single one of them by saying
00:20:23.460this work style does this, this work style does not. And so they're trying to frame it as though
00:20:28.240this is an issue of race. All white people do this. All people of color do not. And it's just
00:20:32.740not true. And there is no evidence to back it up. And Carla, we keep using this term white
00:20:39.900supremacy and white supremacist. Now, when I think of a white supremacist, maybe because I'm a bit
00:20:44.880backward and a bit ignorant, I imagine a Ku Klux Klan member in a little pointy hat saying
00:20:49.660awful racial epithets, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Is that what we mean now by a white
00:20:55.480supremacist it is not what we mean by a white supremacist what we mean by a white supremacist
00:21:00.600is someone who is white oh well i'm i'm nothing more to add like honestly he's talking about you
00:21:09.080mate you are the face of white supremacy disappointing as that is for white supremacists
00:21:15.440if that's the case well i don't know about that the white supremacy movement is therefore
00:21:21.100fucked if i'm the leader of it okay i mean you put it in a very blunt way but i i have to say
00:21:30.900based on what i am hearing as the conversation about white supremacy it's starting to feel a
00:21:37.400little bit like that is what they mean it's exactly what they mean in fact it's actually
00:21:42.120laid out in the books i can i can point to passages in the cursed book that shall not be
00:21:48.200named in which they actually say that white people do not exist in a culture outside of
00:21:54.480white supremacy. Okay, so all white people are white supremacists. Well, yeah, I have a feeling
00:22:01.540that might not be a healthy way of looking at things, you know, if I may say so without being
00:22:06.380cancelled. So you talk about this being implemented in the workplace. I can't imagine this would have
00:22:14.340anything other than a horrific impact on relationships between people in those workplaces.
00:22:21.860But I imagine in terms of broader society, the impact of that, of re-racializing everything,
00:22:29.020is going to be detrimental as well, isn't it? Well, yeah. And what I'm about to say,
00:22:33.280it can apply to workplaces. It can also apply to broader society. So one of the components
00:22:37.360of the anti-racist training is that white people are responsible for calling out other white people
00:24:15.160So in the work environment, it's going to be incredibly detrimental, but also in society
00:24:19.080where we have so many divisions right now, it makes it near impossible for people who
00:24:24.700even have the most minor disagreements to have productive conversations.
00:24:29.920Francis, before you take over, let me just say this one thing.
00:24:33.100So, Colin, you're saying meetings are white supremacists, being organized is white supremacy, having positive intent and assuming positive intent on behalf of other people.
00:24:42.780That's white supremacy. Working hard, creating good product.
00:24:46.180These are all are they trying to make white supremacy really attractive?
00:24:56.320And part of the problem, again, is that they haven't presented an alternative.
00:25:00.320Well, if this is white supremacy, what do you want?
00:25:03.940If you want to dismantle the system of white supremacy,
00:25:06.940what are you trying to replace it with?
00:25:08.500There's no alternative that's been presented.
00:25:11.480And, Carlin, so we're saying all these things,
00:25:14.700you know, white supremacy and all the rest of it,
00:25:16.420but there's a cynical part of me that goes, hang on.
00:25:20.140When this affects the bottom dollar, when this affects profits,
00:25:24.340isn't it on the shareholders going to be up in arms and going,
00:25:28.320look, I don't care about any of this. Profits are down. We're going to cut this nonsense out.
00:25:33.840Well, I mean, you say that, and I tend to agree with it. But here's the thing.
00:25:37.600When I talk to CEOs of organizations that are issuing their Black Lives Matter statements and
00:25:43.660making bold declarations of all the training they're going to do with their people,
00:25:47.420they don't care about any of this stuff. They don't care at all. They're doing it because
00:25:52.960they don't want the mob to come after them. That is the only reason that they're doing it.
00:25:57.640And so CEOs are actually between a rock and a hard place right now, because if they don't issue the statement, they're going to have people saying, well, why didn't you issue the statement? What are we doing? What are we doing to dismantle white supremacy in our organization? And there's going to be a whole thing of it.
00:26:11.420If they do it, then they're going to be actively infusing their organizational culture with more of this nonsense, and it's eventually going to lead to the bottom line of having that bottom line impact.
00:26:23.520I don't know how this plays out until there's got to be one or two CEOs of major companies that stand up and say, we're not doing this.
00:34:40.920So if we delve slightly deeper into that,
00:34:43.320Were the people who started bullying the people that you mentioned, were they kind of existing members of the community or were these people who came seemingly out of nowhere?
00:34:54.960No, they were existing members of the community.
00:34:58.340But I mean, and actually some of them, there's actually a very big knitting site Ravelry that actually ended up banning all support for Donald Trump.
00:35:06.220So you are not allowed to talk about Donald Trump on the biggest knitting site on the Internet.
00:35:10.680So no, I mean, they were definitely existing members of the community, but I'll tell you a funny story about one of them. So the person that was leading the charge against the man that eventually went to the hospital and suicide watch, it was later discovered, she actually lives in the UK as well, it was later discovered that she was running a scam out of her house to sell handicapped children vacation packages, and is currently in jail because of it.
00:35:35.300So I have to say there's a little bit of vindication about that.
00:36:01.920It's really, we need to hit this point home.
00:36:03.840um and your viewers know this it's not about the knitting it's not about the gaming it's not about
00:36:08.480young adult fiction it's not about it's not about racism in the workplace it's not about any of
00:36:13.440these things it's about having something to be angry about right so but i guess then the question
00:36:20.120is and maybe i don't know if you feel like you're the right person to answer it but why now carlin
00:36:25.700why is it that now people so many people all at once feel that they've got to be angry about
00:36:30.400something? Is it that we've done so well as a civilization that there's nothing to be angry
00:36:34.840about? Or is it, on the other hand, rising inequality and people genuinely have a reason
00:36:39.500to be angry at something? What is it about this moment that has erupted in this way?
00:36:46.060I think that's a really good question. And I don't know that I have a concrete answer to it. I have
00:36:50.820some theories about it. I think that if I'm looking at the people that are being really
00:36:55.400destructive in this moment. They're primarily younger people, right? They're primarily people
00:37:00.240under, you know, 25, certainly under 30 for most of them. And they never had their civil rights
00:37:05.620movement. I mean, when I was younger, I was fighting for gay marriage to be legalized and
00:37:11.020not, I mean, because I thought that was something that was very important to me. That was part of
00:37:14.180a reason I became a Democrat is I wanted anyone to be able to marry who they loved. Well, that was
00:37:19.000really one of the last big battles of civil rights in the United States. I mean, today, if we look at
00:37:25.080marginalized groups. I mean, we can talk about how, you know, trans people struggle. And I think
00:37:29.540there's certainly conversations to be had there, but can they do anything under the law that I can
00:37:33.960do? Well, yes, they can. The legal barriers to this have been, have been torn down. And so there
00:37:41.620has not been a civil rights battle for people to struggle. And I think when younger people,
00:37:46.480especially look back at the civil rights era and the protests, I think there's something enticing
00:37:51.180about that. There's something enticing about being part of the group that is fighting for the moral
00:37:56.280good of humanity, but there's no battle to fight. So they had to create something. Now, I also don't
00:38:01.880think that social media has helped matters any. I think that social media and the dopamine hits
00:38:07.680that people get from those likes and having those large followings, and they're always on their
00:38:11.940phones all the time has only contributed to this. The other part of this though, is that we know
00:38:17.060that people who spend a lot of time on social media or on their phones, they get clinically
00:38:21.800depressed. They are much more likely to be clinically depressed. And so we're factoring
00:38:27.040in mental illness into this affair. And really, there's no, people have not taught them how to
00:38:33.660productively manage these challenges, how to productively cope with these challenges. What
00:38:38.660they are doing is just feeding them more things to be angry about. So I blame the education system,
00:38:44.040Number one, primarily, that's the thing that I spend the most time thinking about these days is how much our system of education, at least in the States, and I'm sure elsewhere as well, from kindergarten all the way up through higher education, how much our teachers have contributed to this problem?
00:39:00.960Because not only are they teaching a very distorted version of history, but they're not teaching people how to productively cope and how to actually build things and become creators.
00:39:11.760They're only teaching them about how to do negative things.
00:39:15.020And don't you think part of the problem as well, Carlin, is that we've built, you know, Twitter, Facebook, all the rest of it.
00:39:21.500And really, we have tools that are so powerful.
00:39:24.380We don't even know the long term implications of being exposed to these kind of things.
00:39:28.260and also let's be brutally honest it's not in these companies best interest to minimize your
00:39:33.600time on their platform no no it's not in their best interest at all and so they've got all sorts
00:39:38.340i mean they they know exactly what they need to do to keep you on that platform to keep you doing
00:39:42.760posts to keep you liking things they they've got us all by by something um i'll tell you that and
00:39:49.600and that's well done for being inclusive there carly well i don't want to make any assumptions
00:39:54.540Right. No. So, I mean, I, this is, this is a problem and I don't know how we counteract this
00:40:02.080because people are there. They're not only addicted to social media, but also that anger
00:40:07.720that people are feeling. There is actually a physical addiction to anger and to outrage
00:40:12.760that is just as powerful as an addiction to cigarettes or alcohol or sugar or any of these
00:40:18.760things. And if we're constantly just feeding people anger, we're not helping them to get
00:40:24.020over that addiction. That's really interesting. So people, in a sense, just become addicted to
00:40:29.700that emotion, that emotion that they're feeling. And do you think Trump as a president helps to
00:40:36.880kind of perpetuate that anger when he puts out some of his more, dare we say, inflammatory tweets?
00:40:43.120I think Trump takes pride in being inflammatory. Trump is the ultimate troll for sure. No,
00:40:50.840I mean, Trump is not helping this. This is one of my biggest challenges with Trump is that he could, I really think Trump has had moments in his presidency where he could have worked to bring people together. And what does he do? He demonizes the other side just as much as the other side has demonized him. There are no innocent people in this scenario.
00:41:09.540And I think that the challenge is that we need to have people in leadership positions that are actually interested in solving the problems, not interested in winning the fight, being interested in solving the problems.
00:41:22.620Because when you shift from winning the fight to solving the problem, it's fundamentally different because when you're trying to solve a problem, you have to come to the table and be willing to compromise, be willing to debate different positions,
00:41:34.760be willing to give up a little bit of your position to give someone else a win so you could
00:41:39.460bring them along. You know who Paul knew this as a politician? Arnold Schwarzenegger.
00:41:45.620Arnold Schwarzenegger, of all people, he absolutely knew this. Arnold Schwarzenegger,
00:41:49.940as a Republican when he was governor of California, he had Democrats on his team. He had a whole
00:41:55.280little team of rivals going on. He also, you know, I saw him speak at South by Southwest
00:42:00.280several years ago. And one of the things he talked about in his talk, I'll never forget it. He was
00:42:05.160talking about how he brought all the stakeholders around healthcare in California into the same room
00:42:10.600and to try to fix healthcare. And he told them going into it, he said, none of you should expect
00:42:16.380to walk out of here with a 10. The best you should expect for it is a seven, because if you get 70%
00:42:22.140of what you want, and that means you're giving other people a win. If you demand 100% of what
00:42:27.420you want, that means that guy's over there is only going to get 30% of what he wants, and he's not
00:42:31.540going to go along with it, and he's going to leave entirely. We have forgotten that it's pretty good
00:42:36.300to get 70% of what you want and to give the other side a win. Instead, what everyone is doing is
00:42:41.980digging their heels in until they can get 100% of what they want. And what that leads to is everyone
00:42:47.080getting nothing. That's a really good point that you make. And I guess the question is, as we come
00:42:54.020to probably the last 10 minutes of the interview is how do we start to set society back on the road
00:43:00.060to the sensible uh ideas that you make i mean for example in the workplace how do we how do we go
00:43:06.340back to or not maybe go forward to to to that way of thinking i think it's going to take people in
00:43:13.480leadership positions that are going to have to make unpopular choices they're going to have to
00:43:19.420say, no, we're not doing this anti-racist stuff because we are a pillow company. That is what we
00:43:24.940do. We are going to do the very best that we can to produce the best pillows that we possibly can.
00:43:29.960And that does not involve anti-racist training and to have the courage to stand up and do that.
00:43:34.960And, you know, I have a series of conversations on my channel with Dr. Howard Asher, who's a
00:43:39.920psychotherapist out in Los Angeles. And he says all the time, he says, Carlin, people have to be
00:43:45.260willing to be called a racist and to know that is not the end of the world. And once people get
00:43:52.240over that obstacle of being willing to be called a racist, then that frees them up to make all
00:43:57.280sorts of decisions because they are no longer having fear of what the mob is going to do to
00:44:03.920them. But isn't that a lot to ask from people? Because I've been, I mean, we both have been
00:44:09.840called racist i've been called pro-fascist i've had a deeply hurtful email written to me from
00:44:15.380someone who i used to consider a friend explaining to me how i've now become a mean and nasty person
00:44:20.360all the rest of it all right mate it's not a therapy session she's a psychologist it is therapy
00:44:26.200but but my point is this isn't that a lot to ask from people because these words are deeply hurtful
00:44:35.000Well, Francis, you're still doing the show.