Tom Morris: I have a friend who started the world's most profitable reinsurance company. At least that's what it was known as for a long time. And he was one of the busiest CEOs I've ever known. He would work from before dawn to after dark, almost too late at night.
But he had time to volunteer for the boys and girls club. He had time to help build a library to organize. He had time to create an organization to bring together philanthropic funds to make a difference for people in the town.
We can always incorporate what we already love doing.
And see, patriotism is not like gut it out, do something you don't like. No, it's like find something you like. Anyway, like me taking my walk. I love that it helps contribute to my philosophical acumen that I get the blood flowing.
But I pick up some trash along the way. I pick up my dog's leavings, and sometimes from other people's dogs. Right. To make it a better … who doesn't have time for that if you're out.
Jill Konrath [37:38]: I know when my kids were little, my volunteer work centered around their activities. I coached a Destination Imagination creative problem-solving team for almost a decade to be with my kids and to help and support other kids.
But I have to say, just the fact that I did that expanded my own capabilities, which was fascinating to me. I got better at doing things I'd never done just because I offered my time to these young people growing up.
To me, that's an interesting part of volunteering and doing something is that you do add skill levels. And the other thing I appreciate is people have different things that they love to do and that they're really good at.
I can tell you there are some things I totally suck at. You don't want to ask me to organize an event. Don’t ask me to cook a fancy meal. I can't do that either. But some people, that's what they do. I mean, it's their passion and that they love.
Tom Morris [38:43]: As soon as you say this, Jill, you and I are twins, separated at birth here. Because forget it with me organizing something. Forget it with me with the cooking of good meals.
Jill Konrath [38:52]: I know. But I do think people need to stop and think about what it is that they’re good at. How they can contribute.
I’d like you to go back and talk a little bit more about purpose. I think that's important, too. And so many people just are so frustrated. They can't see their purpose.
Tom Morris [39:13]: Know that Aristotle's whole idea on how best to live well together. There's a purpose for government. There's a purpose for politics. How best to live well together.
We're going to figure that out. We're going to implement it. We're going to try to make it work.
I know we're saving our questions for the end, but the Q&A just popped up on the side of my screen here. Let me read exactly what says, “So no people of color have a voice in your book?”
The answer to that question is, yeah, a lot of people of color have voices. I quote Booker T. Washington. I quote Frederick Douglass. I quote Luther King.
I quote Daryl Davis—a man who is a great musician and a prominent speaker—an African American man who's about my age. He and I were represented by the same speaker’s bureau agent for many years. We never met because we were speaking to different organizations.
But Darryl is probably more; he's a great musician, learned piano. He and Jerry Lee Lewis learned from the same guy. He's probably recruited more than I think the number now is. I've heard different numbers. 200 to 400 people out of racist organizations, militant racist organizations out of the Klan.
And he does it the way those two guys outside Troy did it. He finds common ground, believe it or not. How come you guys hate me? You don't even know me. What are your values? Why are you in this organization?
They've given him their robes. One guy who was the head of the Ku Klux Klan in Virginia or Maryland, it was one or the other. He didn't want to talk to Daryl, but Darryl wanted to talk to him because Daryl wanted to understand and to see if there was some common ground.
So not only does the guy leave the clan—now this is the Grand Wizard or whatever—not only does he leave the clan, but he also gives Daryl his robes. When he gets married, his fiancé’s father is too infirm to walk her down the aisle. He asks Daryl to walk his bride down the aisle.
This is a man who could have just been bitter and resentful toward these white supremacists, but instead of that, he was like the Greek on the plains of Troy. He wanted to know these people and figure out why they dislike a person like him that they didn't even know.
And he genuinely asked real questions, not defensive questions, not aggressive questions—understanding questions.
The result of which it was these people felt like they were being respected and listened to as human beings, and suddenly, they became human beings. They shed all the stuff that was getting in the way of their genuineness.
I talk about Daryl in the book. There are a lot of great African Americans in the book and people of other races and ethnicities who have given America its best guiding ideals from the oppressions they experienced.
Like Gandhi, for example. No surprise, you know, for Gandhi to be quoted. But Gandhi sounds like Heracles. It sounds like Gandhi and Heracles knew each other.
And so, when you have quotes all through the book, when you take some of these quotes out and reflect on them and their relevance to your own life, you all of a sudden start to wake up, like, oh, I can do that. I may not be Daryl Davis, but I can approach my sister-in-law more respectfully about things we have in common.
There's a story I didn't put into the book because I came across it too late, but it was about a lobbyist for a certain kind of cause and a senator on the other side of the political divide from that cause. They hated each other. The lobbyist assistant said, “Look, don't ever get one-on-one with the senator because you'll punch him out or something, and we'll alienate a bunch of people.”
And one day, one of the senator’s aides came to the lobby and said, “Senator So-and-So will see you in his office right now.”
So, the lobbyist says to himself, “It would be disrespectful of me not to go. Everybody's telling me, never be alone with this guy. I'm going to go. I'm going to go.”
He walks into the guy's office right now. The senator is sitting there. The lobbyist sees a picture of the senator's family off to the side, a framed picture. He says, “That's a great picture. Is that your family?”
And the senator said, “Yes.” And then the lobbyist said, “Wow, that's one of the most beautiful family portraits I think I've ever seen. So you have two kids?”
And they start talking about the kids, and the senator starts warming up. To make a long story short, a few years later, the senator supports the bill that he had opposed all those years and brings it to the floor for a vote.
We can get beyond our differences if we find what we have in common.