Tom Morris: Ever since this book has come out, people on opposite ends of the political spectrum have written me emails saying how much they love this little book, The Everyday Patriot.
In fact, one guy, a mutual acquaintance, told me to send a book to this well-known guy who owns the newspaper. And I said, okay. So, I sent the book to him and another friend who knows us both says, “Well, who have you sent your early copies to?” I said, this guy who runs this newspaper.
“Oh, no, you sent it to him,” my friend said. “He's so far removed from you politically, he's on the opposite end. He's as far removed from everybody. Oh, God. Good luck with that guy.”
Well, that guy not only wrote me an email that he loved the book, but he also asked me to write a guest op-ed for his paper about the ideas of the book.
So, let's don't prejudge people. People can come across as curmudgeonly. People can come across as cynical, as died in the wool, as impossible to reach.
I don't guess a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan looks like he's open to new ideas. Daryl doesn't care. We should give people more credit than they show us they deserve because deep down, we're all human beings. Wow.
Jill Konrath [52:05]: Now, I'm going to say if anybody else has a last question, it's time to ask it right now because we'll be closing this up in just a few minutes. Tom, let me ask you if there's anything you would like to say.
Tom Morris [52:17]: I want to ask you this question that somebody has asked. Time is precious and doing good things can be time consuming and fulfilling. Time consuming and fulfilling. He asks: “How can we use strategies from Jill's book, More Sales, Less Time, to fulfill our patriotism for our citizenship? Love your books, Jill. I’m going to buy a few of Tom's books too.” I love this person already.
Jill Konrath [52:47]: Yeah, well, let me just answer quickly. Time.
Tom Morris [52:51]: Sure, we want your wisdom on this.
Jill Konrath [52:54]: We don't have enough time, but we waste a whole lot of time that we don't even know we're wasting. And that to me, is like the biggest thing that I discovered in More Sales, Less Time—because I cover my own journey to not getting enough done and feeling always overwhelmed.
I really found out that there's a lot you can do. In fact, what's weird for me is that there were all these techniques and strategies to do, and I tried so many of them. But before you know it, I’d be going back to what I’d always done. Talk about cynicism.
One time though, I decided to act in a role. I put up a big sign that I was the Time Master—Jill the Time Master. And I'd walk into my office, and the sign was in front of me, and I'd spend the morning being Jill the Time Master.
Tom Morris [53:44]: Like that.
Jill Konrath [53:45]: But it wasn't me who was doing it at first. It was me pretending to do it. And it really worked to assume that role of somebody who had good control of their life.
Tom Morris [54:02]: You're genius, Jill. No wonder people love your book. You’re a genius because these new books have just been coming out recently on habits like the book Atomic Habits and all this, right?
So, I was never a reliable flosser. Okay? I’d nice teeth, but I didn’t floss regularly. And my wife was a dental hygienist, believe it or not.
I read Atomic Habits when it came out, and I started saying to myself, “I'm a flosser. I floss.” Yeah. It's like, “Jill the Time Master.” Make it a matter of your personal identity just rather than something you want to do. Call yourself that and all of a sudden, you feel an extra desire to do it and an extra desire not to not do it. That's important.
Oh, a comment just popped up … “I hope you put this interview up on YouTube ASAP. I have thousands of people I'd like to share it with. (Now, that's a comment I like.) I also hope you can find a way to get on so many other shows. I think many hosts on MSNBC would appreciate this message. This is the message we need to hear today.”
Jill, you're the person who said it was your idea that we do this because, well, you're not just a Time Master. You're a Citizenship and Patriotism Master, too.
Jill Konrath [55:26]: Apparently, because you were coming here You know, it's like, people have asked me, “What are my goals in doing this?” And I’m like, “Well, I don't know exactly what my goals are.”
I want to spark people and get them engaged. But secondarily, it just has to be done. I can't not do this. It's wrong for me to sit back and talk about how to write an email subject line right now to get somebody to open it, when I feel that I have a greater calling in this world.
Tom Morris [55:55]: Right. You're absolutely right. And somebody asks, I see here in the Q and A, “As we seek to engage people in groups whose perspectives are so different from ours, how do we do it empathetically rather than just as a journalist or worse yet, as a critic?”
I was writing a book for 20 years, and I just finished it recently during the pandemic, which was a terrible thing, but a lot of us got big projects finished for the first time. One book of mine that took 30 years, one that took 20 years, both finished during the pandemic, right?
And the book that I'm talking about now is based on Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. It's a study of why smart people do stupid things. Victor Frankenstein was a brilliant man who set a clear goal, did everything the success people tell you to do in support of a goal, and he achieved his goal, thereby launching into the world a monster he couldn't control.
Now, how is that as a metaphor for American politics? How is that as a metaphor for social media? How is that as a potentially troubling metaphor for artificial intelligence?
So, then the pandemic hit. Very bad. But it let me do something very good. Finish this book.
Here we have guys, Victor Frankenstein doing something very good, setting goals, supporting those goals, being consistent with the goals, and it turns out, was something very know. A monster he lets loose on the world.
Zuckerberg never sat around his dorm room and asked himself, “How can I destroy democracy around the world?” He sat around his dorm room and said, “How can I get more popular? I know. I'll put people's pictures on. We'll call it Facebook.”
So, when we go to talk to somebody who we kind of want to hold our noses, their views are so different from ours.
But we got to remember, Viktor Frankenstein did not want to create a monster that would kill everybody he loved. Zuckerberg didn't want to create something that would destroy or trouble democracy around the world.
So many people who've done so many wrong things only had good intentions in mind, but they went wrong.
We can find when we approach somebody from a very different perspective, we're probably going to find a little spark of that good stuff in them. And maybe we can help them see how to avoid the bad stuff.
Okay? That's empathy at its best.
