Leadership Lessons From The Great Books – Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev w/Libby Unger

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Alright. Leadership Jesan from the great books podcast,
Hello. My name

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is Jesan Sorrells, and this is Leadership Lessons fourth the Great Books podcast,

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episode number 103

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with our book today, a short novel, a

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relatively short novel anyway, that focuses on a topic

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area relevant for understanding and

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communication efforts and leadership efforts, quite frankly, in

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our own current time.

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First published in 18/62, this book tells the

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story, about the clash of ideologies,

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between generations. Remember I said it was relevant

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to our time. The core of this story

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focuses on the inability or at least the challenges

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that parents and children have in communicating across

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the narrow expanse of time when great social and

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cultural unraveling is coalescing around them

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at exactly the same time.

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A lot of what we have talked about this year on the podcast has been

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focused around this idea of America exiting the

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fourth turning, exiting chaos. Well, before you can get

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into chaos, you have to have an unraveling. And our unraveling happened

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between the 19 eighties and actually, the 19 seventies in

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America and the 19 nineties, except we all

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didn’t recognize it. Because after unraveling, there is

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chaos. And when this book was written, this book was written during a

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time of unraveling, which was followed closely by a time of

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chaos. And we’re gonna talk about all of that today.

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Well, in our time, as we begin to exit the chaos that always

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follows such an unraveling, as I just said, American

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society and American leadership is beginning with fits, starts, and

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stops to put back together the pieces of communication between

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people, leveraging the long tail of technology and the

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technology of the Internet and the narrowcasting of

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podcasts and long form video, kind of like

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the video you’re watching today or the podcast episode you are listening

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to today. This process of putting everything back

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together is indeed a long process. It will not happen

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instantly at the snap of our fingers, and this book

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guides us through understanding just how

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long and tenuous a process that will

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be. Today, we will be covering

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the relationship between fathers and sons fourth in the

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original Russian fathers and children by Ivan

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Perganev. And today, in order

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to kind of walk through this, we will be rejoined by

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our cohost. And pardon me if you

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hear me doing all that. I’m I’m struggling a little bit with allergies. I’m gonna

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try to mute as much of that out of this episode as I possibly can,

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but we will be rejoined by our cohost today,

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Libby Unger. How are you doing, Libby?

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I’m great. Nice to be here again. Alright. Could be

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a little bit more toned down from last time you were here, maybe.

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Maybe. Maybe. I have a little more sleep under the belt. Yeah. You

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didn’t just you’d we’re just jet lag coming back from coming back from India. Yeah.

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So this this will Libby, I think this will be a good

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conversation today. So, let me pick up

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from fathers and sons. Gonna pick up from

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chapter 1 of this book by Ivan

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Turgenev.

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Well, PR thrown it. Not in sight yet was the question asked on May

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20th, 18 59 by a gentleman of a little over

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40 in a dusty coat and checked trousers who came in without his

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hat to the low steps of the posting station at s. He was

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addressing his servant, a chubby young fellow, with whitish down on

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his chin and little lackluster eyes.

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The servant in whom everything, the turquoise ring in his ear, the streaky hair

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plastered with grease, and the civility of his movements indicated a

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man of the new improved generation, glanced with an air of

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indulgence along the road and made an answer. No, sir. Not in

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sight. Not in sight, repeated his master. No, sir, responded the

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man a second time. The master’s side and sat down

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on a little bench. We will introduce him to the reader while he sits, his

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feet tucked under him, gazing thoughtfully round.

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His name was Nikolai Petrovich Kersonov. He had 12

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miles from the posting station, a fine property of 200 souls, or as

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he expressed it, since he had arranged a division of his land with the peasants

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and started a, quote, unquote, farm of nearly 5,000 acres.

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His father, a general in the army who served in 18 12, a fourth half

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educated but not ill natured man, a typical Russian who had been in

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harness all his life, first in command of a brigade, then of a division, and

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Libby constantly in the provinces where by virtue of his rank, he played

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a favorite, a fairly important part. Nikolai

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Petrovich was born in the south of Russia like his elder brother, Pavel, of whom

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wore the hereafter. He was educated at home till he was fourth,

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surrounded by cheap tutors, free and easy but toadying

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adjuncts, and all the usual regimental and staff set. His

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mother, one of the Kolyazion family, as a girl called Agatha, but

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as general’s wife, Agalithia, who’s Manisha

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Kersonov, was one of those military ladies who take their full

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share of the duties and dignities of office. She wore

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gorgeous caps and wrestling silk dresses. In church, she was the 1st to advance

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to the cross. She talked a great deal in a loud voice, let her children

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kiss her hand in the morning, and gave them her blessing at night.

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In fact, she got everything out of life she could.

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Nikolai Petrovich has a general Jesan, though so far for being distinguished by

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courage and he even deserved to be called a funk, was intended, like

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his brother Pavel, to enter the army, but he broke his leg on the very

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day when the news of his commission came. And after being 2 months in bed,

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retained a slight limp to the end of his days. His

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father gave him up as a bad job and let him go into the civil

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service. He took him to Petersburg directly. He was 18 in a place turning

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the university. His brother happened about the same time she made an officer in the

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guards. The young men started living together in one set of rooms with the remote

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supervision of a cousin on their mother’s side, Ilya

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Kolyazin, an official of high rank. Their father returned to his

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division and his wife had only rarely sent his essays large sheets of gray

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paper scrawled over in a book, clerkly hand.

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At the bottom of these sheets stood in letters enclosed carefully in scroll

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book, the words Piotr O Kursanov general major.

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18/35, Nikolai Petrovich left the university a graduate. In the same year,

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general Kursunov was put on the retired list after an unsuccessful review and

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came to Petersburg with his wife to live. He was about to take a

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house in the Tavarishki Gardens and adjoin the English

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club, but he died suddenly of an apoplectic

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fit. Agalithkea Kumnishka

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soon followed him. She could not accustom herself to adult life

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in the capital. She was consumed by the

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ennui of existence away from the

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regiment. Meanwhile, Nikolai Petrovich had already

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in his parents’ lifetime, Tom to their no slight chagrin, had time to fall over

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the daughter of his landlord, a petty official, Popola Novinski.

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She was pretty and as is called, advanced girl. She used to read

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serious articles in the science column of the journals. He married her directly. The term

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of mourning was over, and leaving the civil service at which his father had

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by favor procured him a post, was perfectly blissful with his

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Masha, first in a country villa near the Lianski Institute. Afterwards

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in the town, a pretty little flat with clean staircase and a haughty drawing room.

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And then in the country where he settled finally and where in a short Tom,

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son, Arkady, was born to him. The young couple lived very happily and

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peacefully and were scarcely ever apart. They read together, sang, and

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played duets on the piano. She tended her flowers and looked after the

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poultry yard. He sometimes went hunting and busied himself with the estate

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while Arcadia grew and grew in the same happy and peaceful

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way. 10 years passed like a

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dream. In 18 fourth, Cursonov’s wife died. He

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almost succumb to this blow. In a few weeks, his hair was gray. He was

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getting ready to go abroad if possible to distract his mind, but then came the

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year fourth. He returned unwillingly to the country

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and after a rather prolonged period of inactivity, began to take

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interest in the improvements of the management of his land. In

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18/55, he brought his son to the university. He spent 3 winters with him in

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Petersburg, hardly going out anywhere and trying to make acquaintance with

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Arcady’s young companions. The last winter, he had

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not been able to go. And here we have seen him in May of 18

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59, already quite gray, stoutish, and rather bent,

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waiting for his son who had just taken his degree as

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once he had taken it himself.

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Why did I give you all of that background?

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Well, because, a, this is what Russian writers do. They give you the background of

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everybody in the family before they tell you what anything that’s gonna happen fourth they

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move on to the main action. And Turgenev is, at the end of the

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day, or was at the end of the day, a Russian writer. Speaking of

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which, the literary life of Ivan Turgenev is probably

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worthwhile for us to understand even after

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well, even after that whole laying out of the history

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of Nikolai and Arcadia.

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Yvonne Sergeiovich Turgenev was born on

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November 9th, 18 18 and died September 3,

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18, 83. He was a Russian novelist, a

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short story writer, a poet, a playwright, a translator, and a popularizer of

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Russian literature Tom and in the west.

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Ivan and his brothers, Nikolai and Sergei, were raised by their mother,

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an educated and authoritarian woman. Their

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father spent little time with the family. And although he was not hostile to

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them, his absence hurt Ivan’s feelings.

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After the standard schooling, for the son of a

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gentleman, Turgenev studied for 1 year at the University of Moscow

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and then moved on to the University of Saint Petersburg. From 1838

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to fourth, he studied philosophy, particularly

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Hegel. This is, by the way, very important to understand for what’s about to

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happen in fathers and Jesan, and he studied history

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at the University of Berlin.

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Now what we don’t realize now, because a

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lot of things have happened, is that back in the day,

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Germany was considered to be the high cultural and

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intellectual

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glittering jewel of Europe. And everyone from Russia

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who wanted to learn anything about anything intellectual

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or cultural, went to Germany. And I

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know that’s kind of weird, but particularly with the rise of

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particularly with the rise of Hegel, and Hegelianism, and then

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later on with the rise of Nietzsche, and Nietzschean

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ideas of nihilism, Germany became a hotbed

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of intellectual and cultural

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leaders for the Russians.

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By the way, historically, that’s probably not gonna work out

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fourth later. Turgenev first made his

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name, with writing a sportsman’s sketches, a collection of short

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stories credited with having influenced Russian public opinion in favor of

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the abolition of serfdom in 18/60 1. And this is another

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element that we forget about in Russia.

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Russia had a system of serfdom. When we think about

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serfdom, we should probably think about it in context of American

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slavery, which was also,

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well, not beginning to be abolished. It had yet to be abolished, but was on

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the road to being abolished in 18/61. We were having a

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civil war over it. Russians, however,

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were just having it thrust upon them.

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Fathers and sons, Turgutov’s most famous and enduring novel appeared in

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18 62. Its leading character, who we do have not

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met yet, Eugene Bazarov, was

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considered the first Bolshevik in Russian literature and

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was in turn herald and reviled as either a glorification or parody

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of the, quote, unquote, new men of the 18 sixties.

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Unlike Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, who Turgenev did know, by the

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way, as a matter of fact, it was Tolstoy who spoke at

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his funeral, and Turgenev had a little counter Trump with Dostoevsky

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that went on 10 years, if you can believe that. Literary

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fights are some of the worst literary fights.

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But Turgenev lacked religious motives in his writings. That’s something that you see in

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fathers and sons. He’s not consumed with religion in the same way that Tolstoy

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and Dostoevsky are. And he was more

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consumed with the social aspects of the reform

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movements that were beginning to sweep and unravel Russia

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in the 18 sixties and subsequently 18

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seventies and 18 eighties, and all that unraveling that would lead to the

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horror of World War 1 and then the Leninist

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revolution, the Bolshevik revolution on the other

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side of that. Targanev was considered to

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be anagnostic, and he did not let religion

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influence his writers. Unlike Dostoevsky who considered himself a

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Christian socialist and Tolstoy who considered himself

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a man of god, period.

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So that’s where we are starting with Turgenev, with fathers and

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sons, with Russian history. There’s a lot here that parallels

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ways in which America has engaged with itself

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internally between the 19 nineties and all the way up to

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now, right, the last 30 years. Of course, there are ways

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in which those parallels don’t line up. There’s ways in which we we

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have parted because we have our own separate history with our

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own separate set of ideas. But there are broad

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lessons that can be drawn fourth leaders from Turgenev’s fathers and sons

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and from the literary life of Ivan Turgenev. And so,

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I wanna kick this over to Libby now. I sent you

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a link to a video about, Turgenev, watched a little bit of that. I don’t

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00:15:21,835 –> 00:15:25,455
know if you watched that. But to tell me what you love about Turgenev,

242
00:15:25,595 –> 00:15:29,000
tell me about the literary life of Ivan Turgenev. And, what do you think of

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00:15:29,000 –> 00:15:30,620
fathers and sons? Let’s start there.

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00:15:32,975 –> 00:15:36,735
Yeah. You did an excellent job of recapping kind of

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the the literary journey journey and the comparison with,

246
00:15:40,495 –> 00:15:44,270
you know, other famous Russian authors. I read

247
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this in high school, and I remember

248
00:15:47,950 –> 00:15:51,645
loving it, but I loved all of the Russian literature.

249
00:15:53,464 –> 00:15:57,200
And I think it has to do with the the deep

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exploration of the human condition yeah. The human

251
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condition and understanding, how we all

252
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have dark and light in us.

253
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We all have good and evil. It’s about understanding it

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and not letting 1 you know, letting

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the dark outweigh the outweigh the light.

256
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But if you understand the human condition, in

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yourself, first, you can solve for it. And then in you

258
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know, if you see it in others too, you can help maybe help them

259
00:16:30,840 –> 00:16:34,220
see it and act or input systems in place so they act

260
00:16:34,600 –> 00:16:38,014
in their delighted and heart based best

261
00:16:38,014 –> 00:16:41,454
interest. But I just always love the the

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descriptions and the lang the Russian language.

263
00:16:45,120 –> 00:16:48,800
What was interesting is I I would never have

264
00:16:48,800 –> 00:16:52,180
guessed that Dostoevsky had a religious foundation.

265
00:16:52,480 –> 00:16:56,214
Like, I don’t when having read Crime and Punishment, that

266
00:16:56,214 –> 00:16:59,975
was not a through yeah. Mhmm. A through

267
00:16:59,975 –> 00:17:03,355
affair in that book fourth, yeah, at least for me,

268
00:17:03,920 –> 00:17:07,679
it was understanding the human condition, though. Yeah. Yeah. In the same

269
00:17:07,679 –> 00:17:11,460
way, I think that the Bible is from, you know, all the allegories

270
00:17:11,599 –> 00:17:15,194
within the Bible. You know, they’re just ways for you

271
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to understand, you know, good and evil

272
00:17:19,034 –> 00:17:22,650
within yourself and within others and how, the

273
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consequences of letting one

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00:17:26,570 –> 00:17:30,350
lead more than the other. That being said, what

275
00:17:31,615 –> 00:17:33,955
I was not I always said Turgenev,

276
00:17:35,615 –> 00:17:39,235
not Turgenev, but, I know I was hearing a lot Turgenev,

277
00:17:39,455 –> 00:17:43,130
so I’ll go with that. If I flip up,

278
00:17:43,130 –> 00:17:46,649
it’s because I always said Turgenev. We can go with we can go with Turgenev

279
00:17:46,649 –> 00:17:50,394
as well. I know Turgenev. Yeah. Tomato, tomato. Yeah. Yeah.

280
00:17:50,394 –> 00:17:54,215
I’m terrible with Russian names here. But, what I really liked

281
00:17:54,514 –> 00:17:58,134
was, what I kinda took away

282
00:17:59,230 –> 00:18:02,049
is the the over over

283
00:18:03,070 –> 00:18:06,690
overreaching theme around balancing progressivism with tradition.

284
00:18:07,355 –> 00:18:10,575
And so what Turgenev, he grew up,

285
00:18:11,755 –> 00:18:15,290
he grew up, yeah, with lots of land and with, you know,

286
00:18:15,370 –> 00:18:18,910
money, but he wasn’t, he was a hunter,

287
00:18:19,130 –> 00:18:22,810
and he also, worked with the peasants and

288
00:18:22,910 –> 00:18:26,284
fourth side by side than as a, yeah, than as a owner.

289
00:18:26,985 –> 00:18:30,664
And, you know, he while he was educated in

290
00:18:30,664 –> 00:18:32,764
Saint Petersburg and in Germany,

291
00:18:34,630 –> 00:18:37,850
which balances, in my mind, kind of the intellectual.

292
00:18:39,430 –> 00:18:43,065
He had the intellectual education, but he also had the

293
00:18:43,065 –> 00:18:46,585
human education. And I always think of the

294
00:18:46,585 –> 00:18:50,070
balancing, like, you know, I always essays, I’m city and country. There

295
00:18:50,230 –> 00:18:53,909
no suburban in my in my life. I love the city

296
00:18:53,909 –> 00:18:54,809
and the cosmopolitan

297
00:18:57,509 –> 00:19:01,305
benefits, the art, the food, the intellectual

298
00:19:01,605 –> 00:19:05,285
conversations, cities tended

299
00:19:05,285 –> 00:19:09,130
to always be the art of the possible. Now when cities are

300
00:19:09,130 –> 00:19:11,230
dying, it shows you how,

301
00:19:13,610 –> 00:19:17,414
the art of the possible taken too far without, you know, without

302
00:19:17,414 –> 00:19:21,255
good boundaries Mhmm. Can erode. But for the most part, like, the

303
00:19:21,255 –> 00:19:25,095
cosmopolitan sensibilities, cities are about, you know,

304
00:19:25,095 –> 00:19:28,820
the potential, and urban

305
00:19:29,940 –> 00:19:33,785
and the rural areas and country Tom me is more about the

306
00:19:33,785 –> 00:19:37,325
constraints of us as humans within a broader ecosystem

307
00:19:37,465 –> 00:19:41,020
and understanding how we relate to a

308
00:19:41,020 –> 00:19:44,540
broader ecosystem of you know, with animals and

309
00:19:44,540 –> 00:19:47,520
food. And, to me, that’s where

310
00:19:49,865 –> 00:19:53,405
being human Mhmm. Is truly

311
00:19:53,544 –> 00:19:57,300
felt. Like, that’s where it’s quiet so you can hear your thoughts. It’s

312
00:19:57,300 –> 00:20:01,140
where it’s quiet, so you can feel the energy of the animals.

313
00:20:01,140 –> 00:20:03,960
You can feel the energy of the land,

314
00:20:05,015 –> 00:20:08,855
and you learn to work in balance with all of that when

315
00:20:08,855 –> 00:20:11,275
you’re in the role. And

316
00:20:12,375 –> 00:20:16,200
so what I see the battle,

317
00:20:16,740 –> 00:20:20,420
the unraveling today that was similar to the unraveling that

318
00:20:20,420 –> 00:20:23,965
Turgenev was dealing with in fathers and sons is

319
00:20:24,025 –> 00:20:27,725
the overreaching of the progressive and intellectual.

320
00:20:29,785 –> 00:20:32,880
You know, the nihilism, we don’t believe in any tradition.

321
00:20:33,980 –> 00:20:37,340
Mhmm. Everything must be destroyed, because

322
00:20:37,340 –> 00:20:40,285
nothing is unless it has value to me.

323
00:20:41,405 –> 00:20:43,905
So the overreaching of, like, the progressivism

324
00:20:45,005 –> 00:20:48,605
with the overreaching of religion as a

325
00:20:48,605 –> 00:20:52,140
traditional moral

326
00:20:52,200 –> 00:20:56,040
framework. Mhmm. Where Turgenev landed was, yes,

327
00:20:56,040 –> 00:20:59,580
the art of the possible. Science matters. Art matters.

328
00:20:59,925 –> 00:21:03,545
But you balance that with the need to have balance

329
00:21:04,165 –> 00:21:07,880
with the with with land and people

330
00:21:07,880 –> 00:21:10,860
and, and animals.

331
00:21:11,400 –> 00:21:14,059
So he gets to the same place that,

332
00:21:15,480 –> 00:21:18,905
in you know, intellectual understanding

333
00:21:19,285 –> 00:21:22,965
and understanding of nature takes you and but he

334
00:21:22,965 –> 00:21:26,580
ignores the extremes through his language. And where we

335
00:21:26,580 –> 00:21:30,419
are right now, society wise, we have the writers

336
00:21:30,419 –> 00:21:33,860
who are break all systems, and then we have, you

337
00:21:33,860 –> 00:21:37,315
know, the extreme right, religious

338
00:21:38,255 –> 00:21:41,855
that aren’t willing to neither group is willing to compromise or

339
00:21:41,855 –> 00:21:45,460
understand positions of the other. At his

340
00:21:45,460 –> 00:21:48,940
time, as you said, like, Bakarov is the first

341
00:21:48,940 –> 00:21:52,620
Bolshevik. He’s the nihilist, yeah,

342
00:21:52,620 –> 00:21:56,065
woke, progressive, Bolshevik. You

343
00:21:56,065 –> 00:21:59,765
know, 60 50 years later, you know, the Bolsheviks,

344
00:22:00,065 –> 00:22:03,850
you know, killed the czar and the Romanovs and allowed Lenin to

345
00:22:03,850 –> 00:22:06,990
rise. And how many people did Lenin kill? You know,

346
00:22:07,210 –> 00:22:10,890
20, 30, 40, 50, 60,000,000? Somewhere in there. Yeah.

347
00:22:11,050 –> 00:22:14,684
All debatable. Yeah. But, you know, the both

348
00:22:14,782 –> 00:22:17,425
Sorrells, the czar was extremely totalitarian.

349
00:22:19,885 –> 00:22:23,429
The, yeah, the rise of the Bolsheviks, and ultimately

350
00:22:23,490 –> 00:22:27,250
communism was also tyrannical and, you know, an

351
00:22:27,250 –> 00:22:31,025
authoritarian in its own its own way. So

352
00:22:31,025 –> 00:22:34,085
what I love with Turgenev was it was real my takeaway

353
00:22:34,785 –> 00:22:38,225
Mhmm. And perhaps its projection of my beliefs is a

354
00:22:38,225 –> 00:22:41,350
balance of I do believe in, you know, intellectual

355
00:22:41,650 –> 00:22:45,350
understanding of our history,

356
00:22:45,730 –> 00:22:49,030
the world, but balancing that with true

357
00:22:49,565 –> 00:22:52,945
understanding of the human human nature and

358
00:22:53,165 –> 00:22:56,465
the world we live in and coming to balance

359
00:22:56,605 –> 00:22:59,490
with nature and ourselves.

360
00:23:00,510 –> 00:23:04,050
So it’s interesting. The I’m reading this book

361
00:23:04,510 –> 00:23:08,265
at an interesting time in my life, without going

362
00:23:08,265 –> 00:23:12,105
into too many personal details publicly. I’m

363
00:23:12,105 –> 00:23:15,645
in the process of moving from a place that

364
00:23:16,320 –> 00:23:19,299
by an urban conception would be rural anyway,

365
00:23:20,640 –> 00:23:24,394
to a more rural conception,

366
00:23:24,534 –> 00:23:27,975
right? A more rural place, right? A place that’s even a place that the people

367
00:23:27,975 –> 00:23:31,274
who would be considered rural by the urban,

368
00:23:33,720 –> 00:23:37,480
entity that exists next door to us. Yeah. The people

369
00:23:37,480 –> 00:23:40,920
who live in this entity consider where I’m going to be rural, which is just

370
00:23:40,920 –> 00:23:44,655
weird to me. Right. And I’m moving my family and I’m buying some land. I’m

371
00:23:44,655 –> 00:23:48,415
becoming well, in, in, in one sense, I am becoming like,

372
00:23:48,415 –> 00:23:51,299
we’re, you know, we’re gonna start homesetting.

373
00:23:52,320 –> 00:23:55,760
I’m gonna be around like goats and steers and chickens and

374
00:23:55,760 –> 00:23:59,545
ducks. Now the framing for this,

375
00:23:59,545 –> 00:24:02,925
the context for this is I’m reading it is that

376
00:24:03,225 –> 00:24:06,045
I was a kid who like

377
00:24:07,620 –> 00:24:11,380
allergies, pollen, activated my asthma when I was a kid. I

378
00:24:11,380 –> 00:24:15,000
was allergic to, like, animals of all kinds. It was just a mess.

379
00:24:15,195 –> 00:24:17,995
And so for a lot of the years of my life, I Libby in urban

380
00:24:17,995 –> 00:24:20,815
areas, or suburban areas at best.

381
00:24:22,235 –> 00:24:26,060
I don’t hike. I I would I would I

382
00:24:26,060 –> 00:24:29,860
would I would concrete over a tree because it’s trying

383
00:24:29,860 –> 00:24:31,980
to kill me. Like, I look at a tree who’s trying to kill me. I

384
00:24:31,980 –> 00:24:34,695
don’t look at it as trying to help me because it’s spitting off this crap,

385
00:24:34,695 –> 00:24:37,755
and then I can’t breathe. Right? Okay. Yeah. And so the irony,

386
00:24:38,215 –> 00:24:41,860
because God is not without a sense of irony, is that I’m probably

387
00:24:41,860 –> 00:24:45,400
going to end up my life and the situation closer to target have

388
00:24:45,940 –> 00:24:48,745
then Dostoevsky.

389
00:24:49,423 –> 00:24:53,125
Writers. And so I’m reading target at this

390
00:24:53,125 –> 00:24:56,485
stage of my life and I’m reading what he’s talking about. I’m reading about his

391
00:24:56,485 –> 00:25:00,210
background being a. And being a part of nature and

392
00:25:00,210 –> 00:25:03,909
being, like you said, this more centrist sort of character in Russian,

393
00:25:04,929 –> 00:25:08,755
literature and Russian history. And I’m also trying to place

394
00:25:08,755 –> 00:25:11,095
that. Pardon me with a cough here.

395
00:25:13,794 –> 00:25:16,850
I’m also trying to place that. I have a cough button folks so that you

396
00:25:16,850 –> 00:25:20,290
don’t hear it. I’m also placing that in the

397
00:25:20,290 –> 00:25:23,430
context of the history that Turgenev

398
00:25:24,995 –> 00:25:28,835
or Genya lived through during a time

399
00:25:28,835 –> 00:25:32,595
of everything being questioned. Right. And everything’s

400
00:25:32,595 –> 00:25:36,259
sort of coming apart, Not yet the chaos, which was

401
00:25:36,259 –> 00:25:39,639
gonna come afterward because when everything, when nihilists

402
00:25:39,860 –> 00:25:43,240
like, like Bazarov start talking,

403
00:25:43,674 –> 00:25:47,034
you know, there’s going to be chaos on the other side of it. And, and

404
00:25:47,034 –> 00:25:50,475
the sense you get both from Nikolai and from,

405
00:25:50,794 –> 00:25:54,380
his, his brother. Is that

406
00:25:54,680 –> 00:25:58,440
they know because they know traditionally they know that chaos is on the other side

407
00:25:58,440 –> 00:26:01,500
of it, but they can’t articulate it. And then our Katie,

408
00:26:02,105 –> 00:26:05,465
I think Jesan of Nikolai stands in much more for

409
00:26:05,465 –> 00:26:09,225
target where he’s fourth, or to get you up where he’s sort

410
00:26:09,225 –> 00:26:12,769
of the character who there’s always this person during the

411
00:26:12,769 –> 00:26:16,610
unraveling. Who’s kind of going, oh, well, you know, it won’t be

412
00:26:16,610 –> 00:26:19,809
that bad. It won’t be that bad. If it unravels, it’ll be fine. Like we’ll

413
00:26:19,809 –> 00:26:23,554
be able to handle it. And there were a

414
00:26:23,554 –> 00:26:26,215
lot of people when I was in high school in the nineties who said that.

415
00:26:26,674 –> 00:26:29,715
A lot of people. They’re like, oh, the Internet. It’s I don’t know. I just

416
00:26:29,715 –> 00:26:33,519
took on the Internet for a moment. Oh, the Internet it’s unraveling. It’ll be fine.

417
00:26:33,820 –> 00:26:37,600
Like, it’ll be fine. Or, you know, by after September 11th.

418
00:26:37,659 –> 00:26:40,515
Oh, it’ll be fine. We’ll just go take care of it over there in the

419
00:26:40,515 –> 00:26:44,355
Middle East, and it’ll be you know, speaking of current events, we’ll go take care

420
00:26:44,355 –> 00:26:47,395
of it in the Middle East. It’ll be fine. Like, what could possibly what could

421
00:26:47,395 –> 00:26:48,535
possibly go wrong?

422
00:26:51,320 –> 00:26:54,919
And that level of this is gonna sound

423
00:26:54,919 –> 00:26:58,585
hard, but that level of naivete is I

424
00:26:58,585 –> 00:27:02,045
think why is read in high school

425
00:27:02,585 –> 00:27:06,265
and not read so much later on in your life. Because you do get

426
00:27:06,345 –> 00:27:10,190
as you get older and you have more experiences, I would say you become more

427
00:27:10,190 –> 00:27:12,690
cynical, but you become more cautious. Right?

428
00:27:15,310 –> 00:27:19,135
For me, it’s more it it’s

429
00:27:19,135 –> 00:27:22,895
more about balancing it’s it’s more about

430
00:27:22,895 –> 00:27:25,875
balancing vision with systems. Right. Writers.

431
00:27:26,909 –> 00:27:30,669
Yeah. And, specifically, what I mean by this is,

432
00:27:30,669 –> 00:27:34,350
you know, you have a lot of folks are, like you know, don’t worry

433
00:27:34,350 –> 00:27:38,165
about abolishing slavery and the, chaos on the other side.

434
00:27:38,165 –> 00:27:41,605
It will all work itself out. Well, I

435
00:27:41,980 –> 00:27:45,759
what they didn’t work through is what you do with the released

436
00:27:46,139 –> 00:27:49,820
slaves so that they can thrive faster instead of having them

437
00:27:49,820 –> 00:27:53,414
have to figure it out and just be thrown

438
00:27:53,475 –> 00:27:57,235
out of their the place where they were getting fed and had roof over their

439
00:27:57,235 –> 00:28:00,990
head, and they have no jobs and no homes. Which is exactly, by the way,

440
00:28:00,990 –> 00:28:04,130
the same that was the same thing that was said in America about the emancipation

441
00:28:04,190 –> 00:28:07,550
of the slaves. But where we solved that

442
00:28:07,550 –> 00:28:11,375
problem in America was just killed 750,000

443
00:28:11,435 –> 00:28:14,955
people. Like, we just did that. We’re just like, okay. Well, we’ll just kill we

444
00:28:14,955 –> 00:28:18,735
almost I mean, we almost out wiped out an entire generation during that unraveling

445
00:28:19,529 –> 00:28:21,549
because the spirit of vengeance

446
00:28:23,049 –> 00:28:26,409
that would have been, right, that would have been in the younger generation. The,

447
00:28:27,174 –> 00:28:30,934
the Basarovs was instead in the older generation. It was

448
00:28:30,934 –> 00:28:34,475
in the Nikolai’s and the Sorrells. There there also

449
00:28:34,534 –> 00:28:38,160
isn’t a trust that you’ll do what you’re you’ll say. Right?

450
00:28:38,160 –> 00:28:41,840
Like, so and to help with the transition. Yeah. So I noticed

451
00:28:41,840 –> 00:28:45,215
this in corporate, yeah, where you you can

452
00:28:45,215 –> 00:28:48,995
plan, you know, a good go to market. You can you can,

453
00:28:49,615 –> 00:28:53,270
plan a good announcement of an m and a event or a

454
00:28:53,270 –> 00:28:56,630
restructuring where everyone isn’t left in chaos

455
00:28:56,630 –> 00:29:00,390
wondering what’s next. Like, you can have messaging. You can

456
00:29:00,390 –> 00:29:04,195
have, discussions. You can have, you know,

457
00:29:04,195 –> 00:29:07,975
benefits plans. You can have a lot set up to

458
00:29:08,115 –> 00:29:11,270
reduce the stress and uncertainty

459
00:29:11,970 –> 00:29:15,270
of you know, to make that transition easier.

460
00:29:15,570 –> 00:29:18,309
But too many individuals have low expectations

461
00:29:19,090 –> 00:29:22,835
around what that transition should look like, and

462
00:29:22,835 –> 00:29:26,195
it’s like, oh, we’ll just figure it out. They actually kind of

463
00:29:26,274 –> 00:29:29,940
yeah. We’ll just figure it out. So We’ll wing it. Figure it out in

464
00:29:29,940 –> 00:29:33,480
government. You figure it out in corporate.

465
00:29:33,780 –> 00:29:36,920
And this isn’t about yeah. And so for me, it’s the balance.

466
00:29:38,245 –> 00:29:41,705
Bill Maher on Friday was talking about the balance of, you know,

467
00:29:42,406 –> 00:29:46,150
literature are your pedal on the metal, and conservatives are

468
00:29:46,150 –> 00:29:49,510
on the brake. And I’m like, no. You do like, you it’s not one or

469
00:29:49,510 –> 00:29:53,165
the other. It’s both, but it’s being thoughtful about it.

470
00:29:53,465 –> 00:29:57,065
And, unfortunately, most people don’t wanna do the work of

471
00:29:57,065 –> 00:30:00,669
being thoughtful. You know, the go go slow go slow to go

472
00:30:00,669 –> 00:30:04,029
fast. They either see it being a brake or an

473
00:30:04,029 –> 00:30:07,390
accelerator, and, ultimately, you do have

474
00:30:07,390 –> 00:30:11,225
unnecessary chaos. So I think

475
00:30:11,305 –> 00:30:15,145
yes. Absolutely. And now in

476
00:30:15,305 –> 00:30:18,265
and this is why I said in my open, it with fits and starts

477
00:30:19,140 –> 00:30:22,500
Yep. The centrists are coming back into the

478
00:30:22,500 –> 00:30:25,880
conversation. Maybe not necessarily

479
00:30:26,100 –> 00:30:29,684
politically because politics is always downstream from all of this

480
00:30:29,684 –> 00:30:32,265
nonsense. It always is at the end of the day.

481
00:30:33,044 –> 00:30:36,485
Yep. And I think it started it’s interesting that you mentioned Bill

482
00:30:36,485 –> 00:30:40,009
Maher. I think it started with bill Maher, you know,

483
00:30:40,070 –> 00:30:43,769
where I was listening to him a few months ago.

484
00:30:44,789 –> 00:30:48,455
And normally I’m like, okay, Bill. That’s

485
00:30:48,455 –> 00:30:51,835
your position. Okay. That’s fine. But

486
00:30:53,255 –> 00:30:56,075
I think he’s reached a point where he’s more like Nikolai

487
00:30:58,110 –> 00:31:01,410
than Bazarov now. Mhmm. And

488
00:31:01,549 –> 00:31:05,150
he recognizes and I don’t think he knows how to articulate this as I think

489
00:31:05,150 –> 00:31:08,654
a lot of folks who fourth used to be

490
00:31:08,654 –> 00:31:12,174
revolutionaries and then the revolution moved on ahead of them to other places they didn’t

491
00:31:12,174 –> 00:31:15,730
think the revolution was gonna go to. Yeah. They don’t know how

492
00:31:15,730 –> 00:31:19,490
to say, oh, no. Wait a minute. There were some

493
00:31:19,490 –> 00:31:23,305
things worth preserving. Right. And I think he’s starting

494
00:31:23,305 –> 00:31:26,905
to roll around to that, which looks like a

495
00:31:26,905 –> 00:31:30,570
centrist position when the revolution is

496
00:31:30,570 –> 00:31:34,250
pushing the fringes. Right? It’s pushing to the fringes. Right? Right.

497
00:31:34,250 –> 00:31:36,909
Right. And in the United States,

498
00:31:38,475 –> 00:31:42,095
I think that we did have our revolutionary

499
00:31:42,475 –> 00:31:45,935
moment in 2020. I do. I think we had our revolutionary moment

500
00:31:46,320 –> 00:31:50,080
from, like, the summer of 2020 all the way through to, like, January, February

501
00:31:50,080 –> 00:31:53,300
of 2021. That was our revolutionary moment. And

502
00:31:54,135 –> 00:31:57,495
and I’ve said this before on this podcast, now we’re done. And so when you’re

503
00:31:57,495 –> 00:32:01,255
done with the revolutionary moment, the centrists come back into

504
00:32:01,255 –> 00:32:05,030
the folder that at least they’re invited in. Now are they gonna look

505
00:32:05,030 –> 00:32:08,010
the same as the centrists that were previously outside

506
00:32:08,554 –> 00:32:11,770
fourth who were saying it’s not that bad during the last unraveling?

507
00:32:12,230 –> 00:32:14,955
No. I mean, the

508
00:32:16,055 –> 00:32:17,195
no one’s gonna confuse

509
00:32:20,510 –> 00:32:24,210
how can I frame this? No one’s gonna confuse Marjorie Taylor Greene with Newt Gingrich.

510
00:32:26,190 –> 00:32:29,170
Like, nobody’s gonna do that. You know? Nobody’s gonna confuse,

511
00:32:30,645 –> 00:32:33,465
Joe Lieberman with, like,

512
00:32:34,565 –> 00:32:37,065
I don’t know. And I know Julie just passed away.

513
00:32:38,300 –> 00:32:41,980
Yeah. Yeah. Like, it’s not it’s not gonna happen. So the characters are gonna be

514
00:32:41,980 –> 00:32:45,440
different, but the that centrist pullback,

515
00:32:46,195 –> 00:32:48,215
I think, is starting to happen.

516
00:32:49,554 –> 00:32:53,395
I I agree. They let’s just

517
00:32:53,475 –> 00:32:56,990
like, let’s go to Turgenev with, fathers and

518
00:32:56,990 –> 00:33:00,530
sons and Arkady in in particular.

519
00:33:02,405 –> 00:33:06,245
He grew up on the grew up in the, on the land, then went to

520
00:33:06,245 –> 00:33:10,005
the city and got educated and came back in what he wants to

521
00:33:10,005 –> 00:33:13,580
do. His father is not great at managing the

522
00:33:13,580 –> 00:33:17,340
farm, and it’s not doing well. And

523
00:33:17,340 –> 00:33:20,000
Arcady wants to introduce some new practices.

524
00:33:20,695 –> 00:33:24,375
Mhmm. Yeah. With the land, you know, that he

525
00:33:24,375 –> 00:33:28,055
learned when he was away at school. So he’s bringing a little bit of science.

526
00:33:28,055 –> 00:33:31,730
He’s bringing a little bit of modernity, but he’s

527
00:33:31,730 –> 00:33:35,110
not saying they yeah. Go be dead those farms.

528
00:33:35,330 –> 00:33:38,795
It’s only the intellect that matters. Right? So he’s not saying

529
00:33:39,035 –> 00:33:41,615
all institutions that exist

530
00:33:42,795 –> 00:33:46,610
existed before need to die because they’re

531
00:33:46,610 –> 00:33:50,230
not sustainable in their current fashion. Let’s bring a bit of modernity,

532
00:33:50,450 –> 00:33:53,750
but smart modernity. And he can say that because

533
00:33:54,845 –> 00:33:58,525
he actually has worked the land. He’s worked with the people, and

534
00:33:58,525 –> 00:34:01,965
he’s balanced his practical experience with an

535
00:34:01,965 –> 00:34:05,780
intellectual experience, you know, that where I learned about science and medicine

536
00:34:05,780 –> 00:34:08,679
and things at school. Mhmm. Yeah. Same way

537
00:34:10,100 –> 00:34:13,895
today, one,

538
00:34:14,035 –> 00:34:16,455
revolutions take years,

539
00:34:18,435 –> 00:34:22,130
sometimes decades, to occur. I think what

540
00:34:22,130 –> 00:34:25,510
happened in 2020 was an away like, a a broad awakening

541
00:34:26,770 –> 00:34:30,485
True. True. Of the fact that our country was being taken over.

542
00:34:30,784 –> 00:34:34,005
Right. And because it was done

543
00:34:34,465 –> 00:34:37,989
in a soft way, and and we observed it through

544
00:34:37,989 –> 00:34:41,670
digital means, you know, and not loss

545
00:34:41,670 –> 00:34:45,510
of our children. Mhmm. We could say that we’re losing our children and we’re

546
00:34:45,510 –> 00:34:49,335
losing our, you know, men and women, to the digital space, but we

547
00:34:49,335 –> 00:34:52,775
didn’t you know, suicide and a lot of other

548
00:34:52,775 –> 00:34:56,299
things. But we didn’t lose them in a a physical war

549
00:34:56,839 –> 00:35:00,059
like World War 1 fourth World War 2. Right. Right?

550
00:35:00,920 –> 00:35:04,520
But, you know, many people could’ve could see a soft coup

551
00:35:04,520 –> 00:35:08,185
happening. Mhmm. You know, that was the yeah. We were being

552
00:35:08,185 –> 00:35:11,945
redirected away from with an insurrection that

553
00:35:11,945 –> 00:35:15,369
had no guns and no army idea. Right? And no army. Like,

554
00:35:15,369 –> 00:35:17,790
so people yeah.

555
00:35:19,290 –> 00:35:22,430
Like, most people, they probably were believing it until,

556
00:35:23,115 –> 00:35:26,955
you know, like, a few weeks out where the facts started to spew. And

557
00:35:26,955 –> 00:35:30,635
then folks were like, wait. What is not making sense

558
00:35:30,635 –> 00:35:34,380
here? I had my wake up call in, like, 2017 with

559
00:35:34,380 –> 00:35:37,980
the hysterics day in and day out on the front page of The New York

560
00:35:38,151 –> 00:35:41,565
Tom, where it’s like, this just doesn’t sound like rational

561
00:35:42,505 –> 00:35:46,285
analysis of what’s occurring. Like, this actually sounds like hysteria.

562
00:35:46,745 –> 00:35:49,565
And so then I started just doing deeper dives

563
00:35:50,810 –> 00:35:54,110
into news. Like, I would actually watch full videos instead of snapshots.

564
00:35:54,810 –> 00:35:58,425
But, you know, whatever I think 2020 was a

565
00:35:58,425 –> 00:36:02,185
pinnacle where it became like, the emperor we could see the emperor

566
00:36:02,185 –> 00:36:05,880
had no clothes. Right. But, you know, I’ve used this term

567
00:36:05,880 –> 00:36:09,660
quite a bit. The Leviathan is not gonna give up easily.

568
00:36:10,120 –> 00:36:13,735
Right. And we’re gonna see a lot of a lot more

569
00:36:13,735 –> 00:36:17,195
chaos, and discomfort through 2024.

570
00:36:17,975 –> 00:36:21,675
So it’s unraveling. I think the chaos is still here.

571
00:36:21,960 –> 00:36:25,180
So what I was challenging was that the revolution

572
00:36:25,320 –> 00:36:29,020
happened. I guess my perception is that chaos is still

573
00:36:29,745 –> 00:36:33,445
around. Well, I wanna be very clear. I wanna be very clear. I said revolutionary

574
00:36:33,665 –> 00:36:37,425
moment. That’s not to say that there can be another moment. Writers? Yeah.

575
00:36:37,425 –> 00:36:41,100
Another moment. I I don’t disagree with that. I think I think

576
00:36:41,100 –> 00:36:44,860
things are when I was a kid, I

577
00:36:44,860 –> 00:36:48,375
used to in my more my more felonious

578
00:36:48,675 –> 00:36:52,515
moments Yeah. Used to try to, knock

579
00:36:52,515 –> 00:36:56,055
over Coke machines. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And one thing I learned about a Coke machine

580
00:36:56,430 –> 00:36:59,950
is you gotta rock it a few times. You can really do. You gotta rock

581
00:36:59,950 –> 00:37:02,990
it a few times, and then it’ll go over. Book things are beasts. Yeah. Yeah.

582
00:37:02,990 –> 00:37:06,765
Yeah. Right? Yeah. You can’t just push it once or kick it

583
00:37:06,765 –> 00:37:10,605
once or whatever. Right? I do

584
00:37:10,605 –> 00:37:11,745
think that

585
00:37:14,280 –> 00:37:18,040
there are touchstones along the

586
00:37:18,040 –> 00:37:21,565
way. Yeah. But the

587
00:37:21,565 –> 00:37:25,265
high watermark, I don’t I genuinely

588
00:37:25,405 –> 00:37:29,190
and I could be wrong. I am I’m open to being wrong on this. Yeah.

589
00:37:29,190 –> 00:37:32,570
Libby, I absolutely am. I’m open to being corrected on this.

590
00:37:32,870 –> 00:37:36,710
Sure. But in my heart of hearts, I want to

591
00:37:36,710 –> 00:37:40,365
not be wrong. Right. I think the high watermark

592
00:37:40,365 –> 00:37:44,065
was 2020. That was, like, the height of of BS.

593
00:37:44,605 –> 00:37:48,450
That’s your high watermark. Everything else after that’s gonna be step

594
00:37:48,450 –> 00:37:52,130
down, step down, step down, step down, step down, step

595
00:37:52,130 –> 00:37:55,625
down until we step down into, you know, the new

596
00:37:55,625 –> 00:37:59,385
awakening and we step down into the new way of moving forward, which

597
00:37:59,439 –> 00:38:02,925
Tom get back to fathers and Jesan, may be

598
00:38:03,390 –> 00:38:06,510
that combination of in our time, the

599
00:38:06,677 –> 00:38:10,349
readers coming onto the new

600
00:38:10,349 –> 00:38:13,855
property and saying, these are the things we could preserve that were

601
00:38:13,855 –> 00:38:17,535
old. These are the things we have to inject that are new, and it’s

602
00:38:17,535 –> 00:38:21,369
fine. Let’s move forward with this. It’s a vision of

603
00:38:21,430 –> 00:38:25,190
the Yeah. And to bring that to the modern day, I would

604
00:38:25,190 –> 00:38:28,724
say the expansion of the Overton window back to

605
00:38:28,724 –> 00:38:32,405
normal Yeah. Like, a normal size Yeah. Is

606
00:38:32,405 –> 00:38:35,924
why the censors centrist voices are being

607
00:38:35,924 –> 00:38:39,590
heard. Right. You and and, you know, people aren’t

608
00:38:39,590 –> 00:38:43,270
afraid of the retaliation anymore. You know? People are saying what, you

609
00:38:43,270 –> 00:38:46,655
know, what they believe. Like, there was a time when the Overton went I I

610
00:38:46,655 –> 00:38:50,415
didn’t know there was an Overton window. You have to be that I was naive

611
00:38:50,415 –> 00:38:54,130
myself, but, you know, that Overton window is

612
00:38:54,130 –> 00:38:57,910
very broad. You’re also seeing, a lot of

613
00:38:58,050 –> 00:39:01,835
the political talking points that the current administration

614
00:39:01,974 –> 00:39:05,494
thinks are gonna stick, they’re moving through them really fast

615
00:39:05,494 –> 00:39:08,934
because they’re not working anymore Right. Which

616
00:39:08,934 –> 00:39:12,640
means, know, kinda the the jig is up. And then finals

617
00:39:12,800 –> 00:39:16,099
finally, regulatory lag is also

618
00:39:16,319 –> 00:39:19,694
another is an example of politics

619
00:39:19,755 –> 00:39:23,295
following culture. You’re starting to see a shift on the climate

620
00:39:24,075 –> 00:39:27,740
a a lot of the climate policies, because the

621
00:39:27,740 –> 00:39:31,039
cost of it was was gonna be too high,

622
00:39:31,500 –> 00:39:35,255
the literal cost of it. And the cost to poor who

623
00:39:35,255 –> 00:39:38,935
weren’t getting their energy or their energy costs were going up too high, like,

624
00:39:38,935 –> 00:39:42,750
that pushback, like, started to change. You know, plus people saw

625
00:39:42,750 –> 00:39:46,370
that it was the rich getting wealthier and not necessarily

626
00:39:47,070 –> 00:39:50,670
we weren’t considering things that were actually going to solve the problem, like nuclear,

627
00:39:50,670 –> 00:39:54,235
etcetera. So Overton window expansion

628
00:39:54,615 –> 00:39:58,280
is the centrist voice is now being able to be heard, and it just starts

629
00:39:58,280 –> 00:40:02,120
with a few brave people. Mhmm. Yep. And people saying they are not killed

630
00:40:02,120 –> 00:40:05,820
or, yeah, or die, fourth commit suicide.

631
00:40:06,555 –> 00:40:10,315
And then regulatory lag, you’re starting to see a pullback in

632
00:40:10,315 –> 00:40:13,935
some of the things that you we wouldn’t have imagined

633
00:40:13,994 –> 00:40:17,840
being able to be pulled back to within reasonable frames,

634
00:40:19,340 –> 00:40:23,100
you know, of of pursuing. So Yeah. Yeah. I like it how you

635
00:40:23,100 –> 00:40:25,965
mentioned, and we’ll get back to the book here in just a moment. But I

636
00:40:25,965 –> 00:40:28,945
like it how you mentioned the Overton window because I think that

637
00:40:29,885 –> 00:40:33,309
and I mentioned this when the Russians invaded the Ukraine. The

638
00:40:33,309 –> 00:40:36,049
Overton window got moved around,

639
00:40:37,790 –> 00:40:39,250
us having open conversations

640
00:40:41,575 –> 00:40:43,755
around the use of nuclear weapons in warfare,

641
00:40:45,255 –> 00:40:48,555
which I can’t remember that conversation

642
00:40:49,500 –> 00:40:52,560
ever being in the public space after like

643
00:40:54,060 –> 00:40:57,660
1994 fourth people were going on and on about,

644
00:40:58,140 –> 00:41:01,255
not going on and on, but when there was a lot of,

645
00:41:02,674 –> 00:41:06,515
analysis about whether or not nuclear weapons would be used

646
00:41:06,515 –> 00:41:10,340
in Bosnia. Mhmm. And I do

647
00:41:10,340 –> 00:41:14,180
remember that. And and I haven’t heard I had literally not heard

648
00:41:14,180 –> 00:41:17,944
hide or hair about nukes until the Russians

649
00:41:17,944 –> 00:41:21,724
invaded the Ukraine. And now, at an international level,

650
00:41:22,184 –> 00:41:25,724
we have the Iranians escalating with the Israelis,

651
00:41:26,810 –> 00:41:28,990
which while that is

652
00:41:30,810 –> 00:41:33,230
while that has moved the Overton window

653
00:41:36,234 –> 00:41:39,375
towards a conversation of what Israel does next,

654
00:41:40,474 –> 00:41:43,855
it has not moved it towards a conversation of

655
00:41:44,400 –> 00:41:48,180
how soon are the nukes coming to Tel Aviv or Tehran.

656
00:41:48,480 –> 00:41:52,240
And it’s interesting to me. Essays in these kinds of

657
00:41:52,240 –> 00:41:55,925
discussions, Overton window is interesting for me too for where it

658
00:41:55,925 –> 00:41:58,905
moves and then where it does not go.

659
00:42:00,005 –> 00:42:03,789
And so I think and I was one of the folks last

660
00:42:03,789 –> 00:42:07,630
year who was saying, we gotta stop talking about nuclear war. We just

661
00:42:07,630 –> 00:42:10,805
do. We gotta stop talking about it. Not to say that by stopping and talking

662
00:42:10,805 –> 00:42:14,185
about it, we’re not it’s not gonna happen. I’m saying instead,

663
00:42:14,805 –> 00:42:18,220
let’s not give that conversation energy, and instead, let’s give

664
00:42:18,220 –> 00:42:21,515
conversation energy to something else that’s fourth,

665
00:42:21,580 –> 00:42:25,260
productive. Because if you start giving energy to that conversation, it’s

666
00:42:25,260 –> 00:42:29,025
gonna grow. And then you will wind up the spots that you

667
00:42:29,184 –> 00:42:32,885
They’re priming you for it. They are priming you to expect it,

668
00:42:33,425 –> 00:42:36,740
and the fact that it had been out of the conversation for so long and

669
00:42:36,740 –> 00:42:40,420
then bringing it book, yeah, I I’ll go cynic I’ll go

670
00:42:40,420 –> 00:42:44,100
skeptical on this. It’s because all their other fear tactics aren’t working anymore,

671
00:42:44,100 –> 00:42:47,494
and now we’re back to, you you know, mutual assured destruction.

672
00:42:48,755 –> 00:42:52,434
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. No. Yeah. So there’s a

673
00:42:52,434 –> 00:42:55,910
lot of different things that a lot of different threads that run underneath this book

674
00:42:55,910 –> 00:42:59,430
that parallel our time. I know. Yeah. It was

675
00:42:59,430 –> 00:43:03,130
brilliant call to read this book, actually. Yeah.

676
00:43:03,655 –> 00:43:06,555
So, back to the ball. Although all of the classics

677
00:43:07,255 –> 00:43:10,094
seem to parallel this time in some way. Book

678
00:43:10,935 –> 00:43:14,560
interesting how that works, isn’t it? As, as Tom

679
00:43:14,560 –> 00:43:17,859
Libby, my other guest co co host says,

680
00:43:18,640 –> 00:43:22,455
the more things change, you know, we all know how the how

681
00:43:22,455 –> 00:43:25,975
that ends. And he’s

682
00:43:25,975 –> 00:43:29,810
exactly right. Alright. So back to the book, back to

683
00:43:31,150 –> 00:43:34,849
fathers and sons or fathers and children as it was written in the original

684
00:43:35,345 –> 00:43:38,404
the original Russian by Ivan Turgenev.

685
00:43:39,664 –> 00:43:43,184
Alright. So we’re gonna pick up here in, chapter 6, and,

686
00:43:43,860 –> 00:43:46,680
I wanna turn this conversation towards something around,

687
00:43:47,300 –> 00:43:50,200
communication, towards the ideas of communication, particularly

688
00:43:51,215 –> 00:43:54,975
communication at the end of the where we are at at the end of the

689
00:43:54,975 –> 00:43:56,275
enlightenment experience.

690
00:44:03,190 –> 00:44:06,330
So Pavel Petrovich is, Nikolai’s

691
00:44:06,630 –> 00:44:10,434
brother, and without going into a

692
00:44:10,434 –> 00:44:13,974
whole lot of background about Pavel, let’s just say he’s a little more aristocratic

693
00:44:14,194 –> 00:44:17,700
than even his brother, if that’s at all possible. And,

694
00:44:18,020 –> 00:44:20,200
and he’s questioning Basarov’s

695
00:44:22,340 –> 00:44:25,560
life choices here. Is your special study physics?

696
00:44:25,985 –> 00:44:29,825
Pavel Petrovich, in his turn, inquired. Physics, yes,

697
00:44:29,825 –> 00:44:33,585
and natural sciences in general. They say the Teutons of

698
00:44:33,585 –> 00:44:37,400
late have had great success in that line. By the way, pause. Teutons means

699
00:44:37,400 –> 00:44:41,240
German. Back to the book. Yes. The Germans are our teachers

700
00:44:41,240 –> 00:44:44,744
in it, Bazarov answered carelessly. The word

701
00:44:44,744 –> 00:44:48,525
Teutons is in the Jesan, Pavel Petrovich had used with ironical

702
00:44:48,744 –> 00:44:51,485
intention. None noticed it, however.

703
00:44:52,700 –> 00:44:56,319
Have you such a high opinion of the Jesan, said Pavel Petrovich with exaggerated courtesy?

704
00:44:56,859 –> 00:45:00,225
He was beginning to feel a secret irritation. His

705
00:45:00,225 –> 00:45:03,765
aristocratic nature was revolted by Basarov’s absolute

706
00:45:11,240 –> 00:45:14,920
the surgeon’s son was not only not overawed. He

707
00:45:14,920 –> 00:45:18,745
even gave abrupt and indifferent answers. And in the tone of his voice, there was

708
00:45:18,745 –> 00:45:22,585
something churlish, almost insulate. The scientific men there are

709
00:45:22,585 –> 00:45:26,270
a clever lot. To be sure, a Russian

710
00:45:26,270 –> 00:45:29,010
scientific man, you have not such a flattering opinion, I dare say.

711
00:45:30,190 –> 00:45:33,790
That is very likely. That’s very praiseworthy self abnegation, Pavel

712
00:45:33,790 –> 00:45:37,435
Petrovich declared, drawing himself up and throwing his head back. But how is

713
00:45:37,435 –> 00:45:41,195
this? Arkady Nikolaich was telling me just now that you accept

714
00:45:41,195 –> 00:45:45,000
no authorities. Don’t you believe in them? And how am

715
00:45:45,000 –> 00:45:48,520
I accepting them? And what am I to believe in? They tell me the truth.

716
00:45:48,520 –> 00:45:52,360
I agree. That’s all. And do all Germans tell the truth, said

717
00:45:52,360 –> 00:45:56,204
Pavel Petrovich. His face assumed an expression as unsympathetic

718
00:45:56,345 –> 00:45:59,964
as remote as if he had withdrawn to some cloudy height.

719
00:46:00,970 –> 00:46:04,650
Not all replied Bazarov with a short yawn. He obviously did not care to

720
00:46:04,650 –> 00:46:08,410
continue the discussion. Pavel Petrovich glanced at

721
00:46:08,410 –> 00:46:11,725
our Libby. And as though he would say to him, your friend’s polite, I must

722
00:46:11,725 –> 00:46:15,165
say. For my own part, he began again, not without some

723
00:46:15,165 –> 00:46:18,950
effort. I am so unregenerate as to as

724
00:46:18,950 –> 00:46:22,630
not to like Germans. Russian Germans, I am not speaking of now. We all know

725
00:46:22,630 –> 00:46:25,930
what sort of creatures they are, but even German Germans are not to my liking.

726
00:46:26,185 –> 00:46:30,025
In former days, there were some here and there. They had, well, Schiller, to be

727
00:46:30,025 –> 00:46:33,565
sure, Gertha, my brother, he takes a particularly favorable

728
00:46:33,785 –> 00:46:37,540
view of them. But now they have all turned chemists and materialists.

729
00:46:38,800 –> 00:46:42,480
A good chemist is 20 times as useful as any poet, books in

730
00:46:42,480 –> 00:46:46,235
Bazarov. Oh, indeed, commented Pavel Petrovich as

731
00:46:46,235 –> 00:46:49,995
though falling asleep. He faintly raised his eyebrows. You don’t acknowledge art

732
00:46:49,995 –> 00:46:53,490
then, I suppose. The art of making money or of advertising

733
00:46:53,490 –> 00:46:56,549
pills? Cried Bazarov with a contemptuous laugh.

734
00:46:58,049 –> 00:47:01,395
You are pleased to Jesan. I see. You reject all that, no doubt.

735
00:47:01,475 –> 00:47:05,155
Granted. Then you believe in science only. I’ve already

736
00:47:05,155 –> 00:47:08,355
explained to you that I don’t believe in anything. And what is science? Science in

737
00:47:08,355 –> 00:47:10,775
the abstract? There are

738
00:47:11,839 –> 00:47:15,440
sciences as there are trades and crafts, but abstract science

739
00:47:15,440 –> 00:47:19,200
doesn’t exist at all. Very good. Well and in regards to the other

740
00:47:19,200 –> 00:47:22,775
traditions accepted in human conduct, you maintain the same negative attitude.

741
00:47:23,475 –> 00:47:26,135
What’s this, an examination? Asked Bazarov.

742
00:47:27,075 –> 00:47:30,910
Pavel Petrovich turned slightly pale. Nikolai Petrovich thought

743
00:47:30,910 –> 00:47:34,670
it his duty to interpose in the conversation. We will converse on

744
00:47:34,670 –> 00:47:38,505
this subject with you more in detail someday, dear Yevegny Vasovich. We will

745
00:47:38,505 –> 00:47:41,865
hear your views and express our own. For my part, I am heartily glad you

746
00:47:41,865 –> 00:47:45,225
are studying the natural sciences. I have heard that Libby has made some wonderful discoveries

747
00:47:45,225 –> 00:47:48,980
in the amelioration of soils. You could be of assistance to me in my agricultural

748
00:47:49,040 –> 00:47:51,460
labors. You could give me some useful advice.

749
00:47:52,720 –> 00:47:56,320
I’m at your service, Nikolai Petrovich, but Liebig smiles over our

750
00:47:56,320 –> 00:47:59,795
heads. 1 has to first learn the ABC and then begin to read, and we

751
00:47:59,795 –> 00:48:03,234
haven’t set our eyes on the alphabet yet. You are certainly a

752
00:48:03,234 –> 00:48:06,455
nihilist. I see that, thought Petro thought Nikolai Petrovich.

753
00:48:07,039 –> 00:48:10,640
Still, you will allow me to apply to you on occasion, he added aloud. And

754
00:48:10,640 –> 00:48:13,039
now I fancy brother. It’s time for us to be going to have a talk

755
00:48:13,039 –> 00:48:16,405
with the bailiff. Pavel Petrovich got up from his

756
00:48:16,405 –> 00:48:19,925
seat. Yes, he said without looking at

757
00:48:19,925 –> 00:48:23,685
anyone. It’s a misfortune to live 5 years in a country like

758
00:48:23,685 –> 00:48:27,440
this, far from mighty intellects. Fourth turn you

759
00:48:27,440 –> 00:48:31,119
turn into a fool directly. You may try not to forget what you’ve

760
00:48:31,119 –> 00:48:34,835
been taught, but in a snap, they’ll prove all that’s rubbish and tell you that

761
00:48:34,835 –> 00:48:38,435
sensible men have nothing more to do with such foolishness and that you, if you

762
00:48:38,435 –> 00:48:42,215
please, are an antiquated old fogey. What’s to be done?

763
00:48:42,400 –> 00:48:46,020
Young people, of course, are cleverer than we are.

764
00:48:47,440 –> 00:48:50,800
Pavel Petrovich turned slowly on his heels and slowly walked

765
00:48:50,800 –> 00:48:54,045
away. Nikolai Petrovich went after him.

766
00:48:55,545 –> 00:48:58,925
Is he always like that? Azarov coolly inquired of Arkady

767
00:48:59,230 –> 00:49:03,070
directly that the door had closed behind the 2 brothers. I must say you gave

768
00:49:03,070 –> 00:49:06,610
me. You weren’t very nice to him, remarked Arkady. You have hurt his feelings.

769
00:49:07,955 –> 00:49:11,655
Well, I am I going to consider them these provincial aristocrats?

770
00:49:12,355 –> 00:49:15,730
Why it’s all vanity, dandy habits, fatuity? He should have

771
00:49:15,730 –> 00:49:19,410
continued his career at Petersburg if that’s his bent. But there, enough of

772
00:49:19,410 –> 00:49:22,630
him. I found a rather rare species of water beetle, Disticus

773
00:49:23,090 –> 00:49:26,904
margariatus. Do you know? I will show it to you. I promise

774
00:49:26,904 –> 00:49:30,525
to tell you his story, Jesan Arcady. The story of the beetle?

775
00:49:30,825 –> 00:49:34,580
Come, don’t you, Gebni? The story of my uncle. You will see he’s not the

776
00:49:34,580 –> 00:49:38,120
sort of man you fancy. He deserves pity rather than ridicule.

777
00:49:39,220 –> 00:49:42,815
Oh, I don’t dispute it, but why are you worrying over him? What ought to

778
00:49:42,815 –> 00:49:46,434
be just? How does that follow?

779
00:49:47,775 –> 00:49:51,510
No. Listen. And Arkady told him his uncle’s story.

780
00:49:51,750 –> 00:49:55,050
The reader will find it in the following chapter.

781
00:50:01,405 –> 00:50:05,120
That exchange right there between Pavel

782
00:50:05,120 –> 00:50:08,100
Petrovich and Eugene Bazarov

783
00:50:09,040 –> 00:50:12,715
with Arkady and Nikolai watching from

784
00:50:12,715 –> 00:50:16,015
the sidelines is the beginning

785
00:50:16,715 –> 00:50:17,215
of

786
00:50:20,270 –> 00:50:23,890
wrestling with new ideas versus old traditions.

787
00:50:24,830 –> 00:50:28,050
But it’s also the beginning of Turgenev

788
00:50:28,510 –> 00:50:30,674
setting the table around

789
00:50:33,295 –> 00:50:36,974
a critical core idea in his book in

790
00:50:36,974 –> 00:50:40,190
fathers and Jesan, and it is this core idea of communication

791
00:50:41,050 –> 00:50:44,810
between generations. So let’s start with

792
00:50:44,810 –> 00:50:48,490
this idea of nihilism because how we think of nihilism almost a 100

793
00:50:48,490 –> 00:50:51,934
and what is it, almost a

794
00:50:51,934 –> 00:50:55,775
170 years after the events in

795
00:50:55,775 –> 00:50:58,840
fathers and Jesan, has transformed

796
00:50:59,380 –> 00:51:02,840
from what Hyrgen Yev, might have initially

797
00:51:03,780 –> 00:51:07,095
been proposing. So nihilism at the time,

798
00:51:07,555 –> 00:51:11,315
in the 18 fifties and the 18 sixties was a new theory of the world

799
00:51:11,315 –> 00:51:15,095
that had sprung up from the mind of German intellectuals like Hegel,

800
00:51:16,259 –> 00:51:19,700
he of the Hegelian dialectic, and Nietzsche, he

801
00:51:19,700 –> 00:51:22,200
of the man and Superman.

802
00:51:23,565 –> 00:51:27,265
Russian nihilism was defined at the time as, quote,

803
00:51:27,484 –> 00:51:31,025
the symbol of struggle against all forms of tyranny, hypocrisy,

804
00:51:31,484 –> 00:51:35,220
and artificiality, and for individual freedom.

805
00:51:35,360 –> 00:51:38,960
So nihilism was perceived as a way to tear

806
00:51:38,960 –> 00:51:42,685
down the systems of tyranny, the czarist systems

807
00:51:42,685 –> 00:51:46,465
of tyranny, quite frankly, that were impacting

808
00:51:46,525 –> 00:51:49,940
every single piece of Russian culture all the way from,

809
00:51:50,560 –> 00:51:54,240
the inter the interactions between

810
00:51:54,240 –> 00:51:57,680
people of different classes, the upper class, the middle class, and the

811
00:51:57,680 –> 00:52:01,285
worker, not even the worker, the peasant and the serf class,

812
00:52:01,665 –> 00:52:05,185
all the way to how all of those classes engaged

813
00:52:05,185 –> 00:52:08,900
with the czar and the tsarists’ apparatchiks and the

814
00:52:08,900 –> 00:52:11,160
bureaucracy surrounding the tsar.

815
00:52:12,980 –> 00:52:16,345
Now Russian nihilists of the late 19th century, just

816
00:52:16,345 –> 00:52:20,105
like Bazarov, rejected political violence. He actually says

817
00:52:20,105 –> 00:52:23,800
that in the book. He he he rejects, taking

818
00:52:23,800 –> 00:52:26,780
on murder or riotous nature or thievery.

819
00:52:28,280 –> 00:52:31,980
And they rejected political violence or violence with a political

820
00:52:32,120 –> 00:52:35,845
focus as a, quote, unquote, outdated stage of humanity.

821
00:52:36,545 –> 00:52:40,225
They kind of remind me in that way of the new atheists of the

822
00:52:40,225 –> 00:52:44,000
early 20th century or sorry, the early 21st century in the United

823
00:52:44,000 –> 00:52:47,360
States. Christopher Hitchens and Richard

824
00:52:47,360 –> 00:52:51,125
Dawkins and and my friend over there,

825
00:52:51,185 –> 00:52:54,785
Sam, and I’ll remember his name in a second

826
00:52:54,785 –> 00:52:58,305
here, Harris. That’s right. My buddy, Sam Harris, who, by the

827
00:52:58,305 –> 00:53:01,830
way, all 3 of those guys, not Hitchens, but

828
00:53:01,830 –> 00:53:05,610
Dawkins and Harris, have over the course of

829
00:53:05,670 –> 00:53:09,035
time come around to the idea

830
00:53:10,135 –> 00:53:13,595
that atheist nihilism might not

831
00:53:13,815 –> 00:53:17,520
get you where you need to go in the

832
00:53:20,060 –> 00:53:23,740
west. The Russian

833
00:53:23,740 –> 00:53:26,185
nihilists would eventually

834
00:53:27,445 –> 00:53:31,205
have their ideals hijacked by the Trotskyites, during the

835
00:53:31,205 –> 00:53:34,760
Bolshevik Bolshevik Revolution. The Trotskyites were

836
00:53:34,980 –> 00:53:37,000
in that revolution, centrists,

837
00:53:39,460 –> 00:53:43,035
centrist Bolsheviks, while while Lenin was an

838
00:53:43,035 –> 00:53:46,875
extreme Bolshevik. And so that was sort of the the

839
00:53:46,875 –> 00:53:50,300
makeup of that, coalition that was engaged in

840
00:53:50,300 –> 00:53:54,060
political violence. And Trotsky was more than happy to send his enemies to a

841
00:53:54,060 –> 00:53:57,464
gulag or send them to be shot in a mass

842
00:53:57,464 –> 00:54:01,305
execution. And so and he would do he was more

843
00:54:01,305 –> 00:54:04,810
than willing to do this all the while claiming, that he

844
00:54:04,810 –> 00:54:08,570
believed that he was in a struggle against all forms

845
00:54:08,570 –> 00:54:12,170
of tyranny, hypocrisy, artificiality, and in a

846
00:54:12,170 –> 00:54:14,585
struggle for political and individual freedom.

847
00:54:18,885 –> 00:54:22,425
But Basarov doesn’t see any of this yet. Basarov’s 20.

848
00:54:22,800 –> 00:54:26,640
By the time the Russian revolution shows up and is completed, if

849
00:54:26,640 –> 00:54:30,080
Bazarov makes it, which he won’t, but guys like him never

850
00:54:30,080 –> 00:54:33,605
do. But Bazarov will be at his sixties or seventies.

851
00:54:34,065 –> 00:54:37,845
He’ll be a traditionalist by the time the Bolshevik revolution

852
00:54:38,464 –> 00:54:42,090
shows up. But

853
00:54:42,090 –> 00:54:45,770
there’s a deeper idea here in this chapter, and it is this idea

854
00:54:45,770 –> 00:54:48,350
of how do generations communicate

855
00:54:49,765 –> 00:54:53,365
and how do generations communicate when the younger

856
00:54:53,365 –> 00:54:57,170
generation is disillusioned with the older generation, disillusioned

857
00:54:57,310 –> 00:55:00,610
with false promises, disillusioned with

858
00:55:00,830 –> 00:55:04,590
unfulfilled potential, judging the

859
00:55:04,590 –> 00:55:07,585
past based on the perfection of the present.

860
00:55:09,405 –> 00:55:12,925
So here’s a question for you, Libby. Let’s start with this fourth leaders who are

861
00:55:12,925 –> 00:55:16,230
listening to this, leaders across all spectrums.

862
00:55:17,970 –> 00:55:21,430
How can genuine communication occur across generations?

863
00:55:21,890 –> 00:55:25,605
In spite of such delusion disillusionment? And I do think

864
00:55:25,605 –> 00:55:29,445
this is a core question, for our time, particularly in the United

865
00:55:29,445 –> 00:55:33,000
States as we have 4 generations in the workplace right now.

866
00:55:33,240 –> 00:55:36,860
We have baby boomers. We have gen xers. We have millennials, and we have,

867
00:55:37,480 –> 00:55:41,000
we have gen zers. And we’ve always had 4 generations in the

868
00:55:41,000 –> 00:55:44,494
workplace, so there’s always been issues with communication and disillusionment.

869
00:55:45,275 –> 00:55:48,975
But I think those issues become sharper with social media

870
00:55:49,720 –> 00:55:53,160
and the speed with which trends move through our society and

871
00:55:53,160 –> 00:55:57,000
culture, particularly communication trends. So how do we

872
00:55:57,000 –> 00:55:58,460
how do we communicate successfully?

873
00:56:02,335 –> 00:56:03,635
It is a good question

874
00:56:05,855 –> 00:56:09,530
because as you noted, their voice been in multiple

875
00:56:09,530 –> 00:56:12,750
generations, you know, in the workplace together and in civilization

876
00:56:12,890 –> 00:56:16,035
together. What’s changed

877
00:56:16,335 –> 00:56:20,015
is the speed

878
00:56:20,015 –> 00:56:22,115
of communication, but more importantly,

879
00:56:24,029 –> 00:56:27,630
the shift in, focus

880
00:56:27,630 –> 00:56:31,329
and direction specifically that the younger generations

881
00:56:31,470 –> 00:56:35,195
can can take. Like, they, it’s hard

882
00:56:35,195 –> 00:56:38,875
to focus them. You know, their belief you know, they’re not aware

883
00:56:38,875 –> 00:56:42,540
that their belief structure is constantly changing and in flux.

884
00:56:47,400 –> 00:56:50,035
But, yeah, I think

885
00:56:52,615 –> 00:56:56,435
yep. Now I’m in a hurry. Well, this is a tough one because, like,

886
00:56:57,010 –> 00:57:00,770
when you, if we look back at history, you know, in the United States, the

887
00:57:00,770 –> 00:57:04,150
generation that came up with the whole idea of never trust anyone over 30

888
00:57:04,924 –> 00:57:08,501
is the current generation that can’t retire. Book

889
00:57:08,845 –> 00:57:12,684
They’re also saying, you know, get over it. Trust us. You know? Like

890
00:57:12,765 –> 00:57:16,290
you know? Right. So if you understand human

891
00:57:16,290 –> 00:57:19,589
nature, all you’re seeing is that, you know, no one wants

892
00:57:19,970 –> 00:57:23,494
to to be out of power. So when you’re feeling powerless,

893
00:57:23,635 –> 00:57:27,095
you’re fighting against the power. When you have power, you wanna stay in power.

894
00:57:28,595 –> 00:57:32,430
Yeah. And I think there’s more righteousness

895
00:57:33,290 –> 00:57:36,990
on one side than the other. 1 is more, you know, stay off

896
00:57:37,609 –> 00:57:40,875
stay off my book. I’ll stay off you don’t tread on me, and the other

897
00:57:40,875 –> 00:57:44,435
is, like, do as I say, but as I do,

898
00:57:44,435 –> 00:57:47,955
because I know better. You know, and so we throughout

899
00:57:47,955 –> 00:57:51,790
history and, you know, in society, in general, you have

900
00:57:51,790 –> 00:57:55,250
the nanny state, and you have the don’t mess with me state.

901
00:57:56,750 –> 00:58:00,535
And it’s a constant movement of

902
00:58:00,535 –> 00:58:03,895
1 going from the bottom to the top. And when you’re in the

903
00:58:03,895 –> 00:58:07,734
top, know it. Yeah. Especially, those who love the

904
00:58:07,734 –> 00:58:10,730
power don’t wanna relinquish it, and,

905
00:58:11,349 –> 00:58:15,029
and ration and reason don’t always work. But where I

906
00:58:15,029 –> 00:58:16,410
was gonna go is

907
00:58:19,195 –> 00:58:22,335
knowing that these trends and cycles are constant,

908
00:58:23,435 –> 00:58:26,575
knowing, recognizing, again, human nature.

909
00:58:28,540 –> 00:58:30,720
We are designed to repel,

910
00:58:33,420 –> 00:58:36,720
those telling us about to act certain ways.

911
00:58:38,275 –> 00:58:41,255
That’s why you have youth questioning their parents.

912
00:58:43,075 –> 00:58:46,660
You know, when you learn something new for the first time and you’re

913
00:58:46,660 –> 00:58:50,420
new at learning things for the first time, you think everything that you

914
00:58:50,420 –> 00:58:54,225
learn for the first time is the truth and new and absolute. And anyone

915
00:58:54,225 –> 00:58:58,065
who doesn’t think the same way as you, is just

916
00:58:58,065 –> 00:59:01,585
not as enlightened. But once you get

917
00:59:01,585 –> 00:59:05,200
more experience and you realize that the less you you have the more you

918
00:59:05,200 –> 00:59:08,420
know, the less you know, you’re a bit more,

919
00:59:08,880 –> 00:59:12,505
accommodating of others as they’re moving through that natural

920
00:59:12,505 –> 00:59:15,725
life cycle of, like, learning and growing, experiencing

921
00:59:16,025 –> 00:59:19,829
life, idealism into reality.

922
00:59:21,329 –> 00:59:25,170
If you you know, you you are intended Tom like, you’re designed to

923
00:59:25,170 –> 00:59:29,015
be idealistic when you’re when you’re young. Everything is new. You

924
00:59:29,015 –> 00:59:29,835
think everything

925
00:59:43,145 –> 00:59:46,825
and so from my perspective, you

926
00:59:46,825 –> 00:59:50,444
know, I was a brash know it all,

927
00:59:52,609 –> 00:59:56,290
especially in my late teens and, you know, through my

928
00:59:56,290 –> 00:59:59,650
twenties, and I cringe now at some of the things

929
00:59:59,650 –> 01:00:03,345
that I had said to, you know, my elders who

930
01:00:03,805 –> 01:00:07,585
were incredibly smart and accomplished. And now I look at, yeah,

931
01:00:07,710 –> 01:00:11,069
I look at myself, yeah, I I look at myself from their

932
01:00:11,069 –> 01:00:14,829
perspective, and they, you know, they knew who I was

933
01:00:14,829 –> 01:00:18,355
and that I was just going through a stage. Mhmm. You

934
01:00:18,355 –> 01:00:21,954
know? They never got emotional about it. They,

935
01:00:22,355 –> 01:00:25,795
were rational, indulged. They quest yeah. They use the

936
01:00:25,795 –> 01:00:28,660
Socratic method. They provide different,

937
01:00:29,860 –> 01:00:33,700
examples to, you know, plant seeds fourth

938
01:00:33,700 –> 01:00:37,525
me as a youth of different ways to think. But I

939
01:00:37,525 –> 01:00:41,285
think the wrong way of working of having

940
01:00:41,285 –> 01:00:44,964
multi generations think is telling people that they’re wrong or they’re

941
01:00:44,964 –> 01:00:48,790
stupid, and it’s my way or the highway, and it doesn’t matter if

942
01:00:48,790 –> 01:00:52,310
you’re an elder or a youth. So as

943
01:00:52,310 –> 01:00:55,945
most leaders that inspire, they inspire because you

944
01:00:55,945 –> 01:00:59,545
don’t feel judged. You then you you you’re

945
01:00:59,705 –> 01:01:03,340
they inspire you because you feel heard. Even

946
01:01:03,340 –> 01:01:07,180
if they don’t necessarily agree with you, you feel heard

947
01:01:07,180 –> 01:01:10,960
and that you matter. And so

948
01:01:11,020 –> 01:01:14,555
from where I sit, it’s continuing to be, you

949
01:01:14,555 –> 01:01:17,055
know, strong in your principles and convictions.

950
01:01:18,235 –> 01:01:22,040
But as a leader, knowing that

951
01:01:22,040 –> 01:01:25,100
there are maybe things that you don’t know and having an open mind,

952
01:01:25,640 –> 01:01:28,380
but also not judging

953
01:01:29,895 –> 01:01:33,675
others for things that are, you know, for things that are different

954
01:01:33,895 –> 01:01:37,415
than, what you believe in and that you actually know to be

955
01:01:37,415 –> 01:01:40,690
true. The

956
01:01:41,070 –> 01:01:43,730
challenge we have is creating

957
01:01:44,750 –> 01:01:48,369
can’t believe I’m gonna say this. A safe space for actual work.

958
01:01:50,615 –> 01:01:54,395
And what I mean by that is we just wanna work.

959
01:01:55,255 –> 01:01:59,040
Like, I just wanna make great products. I just wanna

960
01:01:59,040 –> 01:02:02,420
work with a team where we’re focused on get GSD

961
01:02:03,200 –> 01:02:06,785
Mhmm. And helping each other Tom be successful. I don’t care about

962
01:02:06,785 –> 01:02:10,545
your politics. I don’t care about who you’re married to and

963
01:02:10,545 –> 01:02:14,224
what you’re doing in your bedroom. I don’t care if you have a

964
01:02:14,224 –> 01:02:17,900
tattoo or not. You know, what

965
01:02:18,059 –> 01:02:21,900
I don’t care who you’re voting for. Like, for me, what matters is

966
01:02:21,900 –> 01:02:25,695
who you are in the room. And are you focused

967
01:02:25,695 –> 01:02:29,295
on getting the work done that you committed to? Are you

968
01:02:29,295 –> 01:02:31,955
able to support a team member who may need support?

969
01:02:33,200 –> 01:02:36,820
You know, but helping each other to thrive

970
01:02:37,040 –> 01:02:40,800
around the work we’re doing and keeping the noise out of the

971
01:02:40,800 –> 01:02:44,265
system. Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about individuals as

972
01:02:44,265 –> 01:02:47,785
humans. I do. But, you know, there

973
01:02:47,945 –> 01:02:51,410
yeah. Religion, community

974
01:02:51,470 –> 01:02:55,069
service, politics is for outside of work, and we can

975
01:02:55,069 –> 01:02:58,835
discuss that outside of work, or we create specific times and

976
01:02:58,915 –> 01:03:02,375
forms for in work where that’s all that you’re talking about.

977
01:03:02,595 –> 01:03:06,275
But, you know, just like they did at Coinbase, just like they’re

978
01:03:06,275 –> 01:03:09,299
doing at a lot of other, Palantir,

979
01:03:09,920 –> 01:03:13,599
companies that you wanna work for, even Twitter and x. Like, the companies I wanna

980
01:03:13,599 –> 01:03:17,299
work for are the ones that are passionate about the product, and

981
01:03:17,505 –> 01:03:20,945
the people is, you know, are the is the culture and

982
01:03:20,945 –> 01:03:24,085
the teamwork to get the product done.

983
01:03:25,859 –> 01:03:29,480
So let me ask you a question here because this is this is an idea

984
01:03:29,619 –> 01:03:33,380
that some companies have gone

985
01:03:33,380 –> 01:03:37,095
all in on, but the vast majority of

986
01:03:37,954 –> 01:03:40,934
publicly traded companies

987
01:03:42,880 –> 01:03:46,400
still seem to be really

988
01:03:46,400 –> 01:03:50,085
focused on all of this other stuff that’s that that’s

989
01:03:50,085 –> 01:03:53,705
hooked into workplace culture, but actually erodes

990
01:03:53,765 –> 01:03:57,205
culture, and they don’t seem to be as hooked

991
01:03:57,205 –> 01:04:00,109
into the product. So case in point,

992
01:04:01,450 –> 01:04:05,049
I get a lot of one of the parts of our business, we do a

993
01:04:05,049 –> 01:04:08,795
lot of my consultancy. We do a lot of,

994
01:04:09,494 –> 01:04:13,255
bidding on corporate gigs. Right. So we’ll

995
01:04:13,255 –> 01:04:17,070
bid for a gig. Right. And I I’m actually

996
01:04:17,150 –> 01:04:19,950
I’m I can actually glance over to my email and see this in my email.

997
01:04:19,950 –> 01:04:23,775
Now I’ve got a bid that was emailed to me. I’m not gonna bid on

998
01:04:23,775 –> 01:04:27,615
this, but it was emailed to me, by a corporate client with

999
01:04:27,615 –> 01:04:31,460
a name that you would know if I said it. And they are

1000
01:04:31,460 –> 01:04:35,220
bidding out, diversity, equity, inclusion, and

1001
01:04:35,220 –> 01:04:38,915
belonging training. Now, again, I’m not gonna

1002
01:04:38,915 –> 01:04:42,515
go into sort of the benefits of DEI or the drawbacks or any of that.

1003
01:04:42,515 –> 01:04:46,210
I’m clear on the record on all of that, my thoughts on all that. You’re

1004
01:04:46,210 –> 01:04:49,650
a publicly traded company, and you’re bidding out this

1005
01:04:49,650 –> 01:04:53,330
project. Now on the one hand, you

1006
01:04:53,330 –> 01:04:57,165
could say at Libby, as you’ve already stated, maybe they’ll they’re

1007
01:04:57,165 –> 01:05:01,005
just bidding this out for one specific time, for one specific area that’s

1008
01:05:01,005 –> 01:05:04,440
in book, and that it won’t impact the rest of everything else because they’ll be

1009
01:05:04,440 –> 01:05:08,059
ridiculously focused on the product. But this company

1010
01:05:08,975 –> 01:05:11,955
hasn’t been ridiculously focused on its product for a while.

1011
01:05:12,815 –> 01:05:15,615
Again, if I said the name of the company, you would know who they are.

1012
01:05:15,615 –> 01:05:19,359
They haven’t been focused on their other stuff for a while. And And so I

1013
01:05:19,359 –> 01:05:23,059
look at all of these sort of I call them side games,

1014
01:05:23,279 –> 01:05:26,339
right, that corporations are doing. Yeah.

1015
01:05:26,720 –> 01:05:30,525
And the side games get a lot of

1016
01:05:30,664 –> 01:05:34,505
fire and smoke and attention in a in a

1017
01:05:34,505 –> 01:05:38,160
cycle a media cycle, But all they

1018
01:05:38,160 –> 01:05:41,619
do is create distractions with people that just wanna, like you said,

1019
01:05:41,839 –> 01:05:44,500
GSD and show up and do the work.

1020
01:05:45,440 –> 01:05:49,025
And They’re not they’re not focused on

1021
01:05:49,025 –> 01:05:51,845
actual value creation for their customer.

1022
01:05:52,545 –> 01:05:56,300
Right. They’re focused on metrics that that matter to a

1023
01:05:56,300 –> 01:06:00,140
broader stakeholder group. And quite honestly, you

1024
01:06:00,140 –> 01:06:03,924
know, excellence is the exception. It’s not the rule. You know,

1025
01:06:03,924 –> 01:06:07,285
publicly traded companies, especially those, you know, with

1026
01:06:07,285 –> 01:06:09,865
50,000 employees, a 100,000, 250,000,

1027
01:06:10,805 –> 01:06:14,070
they’re attracting the average and the mediocre.

1028
01:06:16,050 –> 01:06:19,890
You know, and so what are the things that they think are

1029
01:06:19,890 –> 01:06:23,725
going to attract the average and the mediocre. These aren’t

1030
01:06:23,725 –> 01:06:27,505
people, as a rule of thumb, who are continuing

1031
01:06:27,645 –> 01:06:31,425
to who are looking for careers to thrive and grow,

1032
01:06:31,640 –> 01:06:35,080
to contribute, you know, value and get value in

1033
01:06:35,080 –> 01:06:38,920
return. For the most part, these are people who just want a

1034
01:06:38,920 –> 01:06:42,555
job. Show yeah.

1035
01:06:42,695 –> 01:06:46,315
Mhmm. They’re they basically work to live, and they don’t live to work.

1036
01:06:46,775 –> 01:06:50,559
Yeah. So when your company isn’t valued

1037
01:06:50,940 –> 01:06:54,619
based on the value you deliver to your customer, the value you deliver to

1038
01:06:54,619 –> 01:06:57,759
your, partners and your employees,

1039
01:06:59,545 –> 01:07:03,385
or it has to appeal to the masses, you’re

1040
01:07:03,385 –> 01:07:06,685
going to get mass programs

1041
01:07:06,905 –> 01:07:10,730
and mass communications. And so this

1042
01:07:10,730 –> 01:07:14,250
is why you’re seeing a continuation of all those things that on the

1043
01:07:14,250 –> 01:07:17,805
surface be good, but you and I

1044
01:07:17,805 –> 01:07:20,945
both know our, candy

1045
01:07:21,645 –> 01:07:25,220
for yeah. Or or empty calories for the

1046
01:07:25,220 –> 01:07:29,060
company. Yeah. I always say, like, HR, for the most part, is a

1047
01:07:29,060 –> 01:07:32,615
make work function. Yeah. You

1048
01:07:32,615 –> 01:07:35,755
know, there are key elements of it that

1049
01:07:36,829 –> 01:07:40,580
turning and development you know, there are things that I think

1050
01:07:40,580 –> 01:07:43,940
are important, but I don’t think you have to have them in house. They are

1051
01:07:44,180 –> 01:07:46,760
Right. Functions that I think you build the capability,

1052
01:07:47,700 –> 01:07:51,434
you deliver it, it’s embedded in the culture, and you move

1053
01:07:51,434 –> 01:07:55,214
on. But when you have a full time function that,

1054
01:07:55,970 –> 01:07:58,870
you know, that isn’t actively

1055
01:07:59,650 –> 01:08:03,490
and directly creating value for your customer

1056
01:08:03,490 –> 01:08:06,705
or your partners, you have a make work function.

1057
01:08:07,405 –> 01:08:11,245
So Okay. So let me ask you this question then. How much of a But

1058
01:08:11,245 –> 01:08:15,060
but but not in a nut shell, it’s because they’re appealing to the masses.

1059
01:08:15,119 –> 01:08:18,640
They’re not trying to be exceptional. Okay. They don’t need to be

1060
01:08:18,640 –> 01:08:22,425
exceptional. They have right they have cash flow that like, why why

1061
01:08:22,425 –> 01:08:26,264
do you think the cable companies haven’t shifted in, you know, in 25

1062
01:08:26,264 –> 01:08:29,164
years? Yeah. Right? Fourth, you’re right. Because they don’t have to.

1063
01:08:30,370 –> 01:08:33,930
Okay. To the masses. So I asked this question on

1064
01:08:33,930 –> 01:08:36,890
LinkedIn. Well, I didn’t ask it. I sort of did a rant on LinkedIn, and

1065
01:08:36,890 –> 01:08:40,675
I got in a whole bunch of trouble. It’s fine. I’m used to getting

1066
01:08:40,675 –> 01:08:44,275
in trouble. And my

1067
01:08:44,275 –> 01:08:47,580
rant basically came down to this. Bring back

1068
01:08:48,199 –> 01:08:50,219
the cantankerous disagreeable.

1069
01:08:52,279 –> 01:08:54,920
I’m gonna tell you what to do the right way to do it because I’m

1070
01:08:54,920 –> 01:08:58,034
competent, but I’m probably not gonna tell you in a way that’s gonna make you

1071
01:08:58,034 –> 01:09:01,395
feel good leader. Like, bring that, and it is gonna be a guy. Sorry,

1072
01:09:01,395 –> 01:09:04,830
ladies. Fourth bring that guy back because that

1073
01:09:04,830 –> 01:09:08,210
guy will make sure doors don’t fall off the planes of your

1074
01:09:08,350 –> 01:09:12,189
product in midair. There are many women like that

1075
01:09:12,189 –> 01:09:15,085
too. There are many women like that. Yeah. Bring

1076
01:09:17,785 –> 01:09:20,765
back the kind of leader who will

1077
01:09:21,729 –> 01:09:25,570
get the bridge in Baltimore up faster than 10

1078
01:09:25,570 –> 01:09:29,330
years because it shouldn’t take 10 years. Like, you just need one

1079
01:09:29,330 –> 01:09:33,064
person who’s willing to be disagreeable and just yell at everybody

1080
01:09:33,444 –> 01:09:36,645
and tell them to do it right and that we’re gonna be here 25 years

1081
01:09:36,645 –> 01:09:39,250
until you do it right, or we could be here 10 minutes. Do it right.

1082
01:09:39,250 –> 01:09:42,950
Yeah. I don’t know that it I Well, well, the reason why it’s disagreeable,

1083
01:09:43,410 –> 01:09:47,024
but it’s not compromising on the things that matter.

1084
01:09:47,085 –> 01:09:50,785
Okay. Well, not compromising these days seems like being disagreeable.

1085
01:09:51,005 –> 01:09:54,740
Because people yeah. Yeah. Because we’re in this make work

1086
01:09:54,820 –> 01:09:58,500
because and I’m drawing We’re in we’re in this make work feel good. Give me

1087
01:09:58,500 –> 01:10:02,275
a dopamine give me a dopamine hit world. Right. You know? And

1088
01:10:02,275 –> 01:10:05,255
I can also say that these startups are also

1089
01:10:05,955 –> 01:10:09,600
appealing to the average because these startups are

1090
01:10:09,600 –> 01:10:12,580
funded by VCs. They have no accountability,

1091
01:10:14,000 –> 01:10:17,380
other than exiting. And when there’s a ton of money,

1092
01:10:18,605 –> 01:10:22,364
chasing noneconomic entities, they can do a lot of stupid

1093
01:10:22,364 –> 01:10:26,065
stuff that doesn’t actually deliver deliver any value.

1094
01:10:26,364 –> 01:10:30,050
So what you like, so the reason you’re seeing this stuff continue

1095
01:10:30,050 –> 01:10:33,889
is because there’s no accountability Libby. Like, the businesses are

1096
01:10:33,889 –> 01:10:37,255
gonna continue to be going concerns because they’re either funded

1097
01:10:37,255 –> 01:10:40,635
by, legacy cash flows and brand

1098
01:10:41,175 –> 01:10:44,855
or by VCs that are funding them, and they don’t actually have to produce

1099
01:10:44,855 –> 01:10:48,620
positive cash flow. The only reason you can produce positive cash flow is

1100
01:10:48,620 –> 01:10:52,460
because you actually have products that people love, partnerships that

1101
01:10:52,460 –> 01:10:56,115
people value, and employees committed to your company. But are we to a point

1102
01:10:56,115 –> 01:10:59,955
where we have to be have to be. Are we to a point

1103
01:10:59,955 –> 01:11:03,715
where the the the only way out we were just talking about this

1104
01:11:03,715 –> 01:11:07,409
before we started. The only way out is through. And

1105
01:11:07,409 –> 01:11:11,170
and the way to get through sort of the mediocrity and the

1106
01:11:11,170 –> 01:11:14,974
lack of focus on product and and and the lack of

1107
01:11:14,974 –> 01:11:18,574
accountability. The only way through and I’m asked this as a challenge question to you

1108
01:11:18,574 –> 01:11:22,114
because I’m I’m I don’t know what the answer is myself,

1109
01:11:23,580 –> 01:11:27,020
but I know what I want the answer to be based on my temperament. So

1110
01:11:27,100 –> 01:11:30,380
but that’s not true. Right? It’s just based on my temperament. Right? Like, is the

1111
01:11:30,380 –> 01:11:33,605
only way through to find that unlikable

1112
01:11:33,985 –> 01:11:37,585
person, man or woman? I don’t care. Find that unlikable person and give them the

1113
01:11:37,621 –> 01:11:41,030
Tom, or or or do we need to find

1114
01:11:41,330 –> 01:11:45,170
a way is there a third way Tom paraphrase from Bill

1115
01:11:45,170 –> 01:11:49,005
Clinton? Is there? The likability is, like, overrated.

1116
01:11:49,545 –> 01:11:53,385
Like, I like you know, likability isn’t

1117
01:11:53,385 –> 01:11:57,130
what you what you need to run a a business. It

1118
01:11:57,130 –> 01:12:00,970
might be nice to be light, but there’s there’s a difference between

1119
01:12:00,970 –> 01:12:04,565
being respected and being hated or disliked.

1120
01:12:04,864 –> 01:12:08,465
Right. Disliked, like, yo, to me,

1121
01:12:08,465 –> 01:12:12,060
respected is I’m telling you what our decision criteria

1122
01:12:12,120 –> 01:12:15,880
is. I’m telling you where we’re heading. I’m telling you why we’re not

1123
01:12:15,880 –> 01:12:19,560
investing in these functions. And I’m giving you kind of

1124
01:12:19,560 –> 01:12:23,355
our like, likability is emotional driven. Respect

1125
01:12:23,495 –> 01:12:26,155
is rationally driven. We need more rational

1126
01:12:26,506 –> 01:12:30,100
leaders, who can share things

1127
01:12:30,100 –> 01:12:33,940
from a rational basis. And

1128
01:12:33,940 –> 01:12:37,125
right now, you just have too many like, apologizing,

1129
01:12:38,625 –> 01:12:42,465
because someone’s feelings are hurt. Well, I’m sorry you interpreted it something

1130
01:12:42,465 –> 01:12:46,300
differently than I intended it, but you need to take accountability for what

1131
01:12:46,300 –> 01:12:49,980
you’re feeling. I’m gonna check my intentions, but

1132
01:12:49,980 –> 01:12:53,715
my intentions, I know my intentions. I’m not gonna apologize for how

1133
01:12:53,715 –> 01:12:57,475
you receive them because you have had a different experience that

1134
01:12:57,475 –> 01:13:01,060
interprets my actions one way that was not actually

1135
01:13:01,120 –> 01:13:04,960
real. So the only way through, yes, is just like

1136
01:13:04,960 –> 01:13:08,260
Elon did. I’m sorry. Elon did it. He didn’t apologize.

1137
01:13:09,665 –> 01:13:13,505
He fired 80% of the staff because the staff was noise.

1138
01:13:13,505 –> 01:13:17,240
They weren’t actually creating value. When you focus on what you

1139
01:13:17,240 –> 01:13:20,920
need you just need to build and deliver an amazing experience, look at the

1140
01:13:20,920 –> 01:13:24,600
innovation that has happened at x in the last, like, year. It’s

1141
01:13:24,600 –> 01:13:28,435
insane. Look at the innovation that happened at Zoom in the last

1142
01:13:28,435 –> 01:13:31,875
year. 0. Right. You know, one

1143
01:13:31,875 –> 01:13:35,560
company is focused on being liked and probably has

1144
01:13:35,560 –> 01:13:38,460
20,000 employees that are talking about politics

1145
01:13:39,240 –> 01:13:42,680
or, you know, lots of other stuff we don’t care

1146
01:13:42,680 –> 01:13:46,145
about during the work day, and the other one is turning to

1147
01:13:46,145 –> 01:13:49,744
get us done. So the the biggest the biggest example right

1148
01:13:49,744 –> 01:13:53,380
now of what you’re talking about is Google. I I mean, just I know.

1149
01:13:53,380 –> 01:13:56,900
Right. Like, that’s the biggest example right now. About it today. Right. Yeah. Right. Right.

1150
01:13:56,900 –> 01:14:00,600
Right. Like, Google Gemini and that entire disastrous rollout and all that. Okay.

1151
01:14:00,895 –> 01:14:03,235
So my follow-up question to that is this,

1152
01:14:04,655 –> 01:14:07,955
because I’m not I don’t know what the answer is. This is why I’m asking.

1153
01:14:08,779 –> 01:14:11,060
Writers. Will younger generations

1154
01:14:12,719 –> 01:14:15,140
who have been communicated with differently?

1155
01:14:16,965 –> 01:14:20,025
Risk and by the way, have different expectations of communication

1156
01:14:21,764 –> 01:14:25,465
still follow that sort of leader

1157
01:14:26,429 –> 01:14:30,190
or not even follow will listen and be appreciative of the

1158
01:14:30,190 –> 01:14:33,949
communication style of someone fourth whom likability is

1159
01:14:33,949 –> 01:14:37,215
on like number 10 of their list of the top 10 things they have to

1160
01:14:37,215 –> 01:14:40,975
be. And effectiveness is number 1 or maybe number 2. Whatever. Whatever is

1161
01:14:40,975 –> 01:14:44,435
number 1. Number 2, it’s not likability. Our younger generations,

1162
01:14:45,440 –> 01:14:48,960
because this is the challenge question for all of us out here, not just

1163
01:14:48,960 –> 01:14:52,239
publicly traded, but small, medium sized businesses all the way up and down because the

1164
01:14:52,239 –> 01:14:55,945
cancer is everywhere. I have conversations with folks all the time. The

1165
01:14:55,945 –> 01:14:59,545
cancer is everywhere. Okay? In all of our business

1166
01:14:59,545 –> 01:15:03,250
sectors, all of our economic sectors. It is. Yeah. It’s even in our families. I

1167
01:15:03,250 –> 01:15:06,850
mean, it’s everywhere. Right? Yeah. It is. And so will

1168
01:15:06,850 –> 01:15:10,675
younger generations follow that person if that person sets

1169
01:15:10,675 –> 01:15:12,855
those expectations correctly, or will they rebel?

1170
01:15:14,595 –> 01:15:18,295
From where I say it, it yeah. It’s the exception. It you know?

1171
01:15:20,520 –> 01:15:23,340
If you’re looking for excellence, if you’re looking for,

1172
01:15:24,920 –> 01:15:28,380
working in a, you know, in an empowered way, if you’re

1173
01:15:28,600 –> 01:15:32,285
focused on in a challenging

1174
01:15:32,505 –> 01:15:36,045
experience that you get excited about, you are going to

1175
01:15:37,545 –> 01:15:41,290
work for that effective leader and not just the nice leader. We

1176
01:15:41,290 –> 01:15:44,970
have all worked with nice leaders. They’re like, I’m gonna I’m gonna

1177
01:15:44,970 –> 01:15:48,330
quit. I don’t care how nice you are if you’re actually not removing the

1178
01:15:48,330 –> 01:15:52,035
barriers to my success. Mhmm. Like, I you know, at the

1179
01:15:52,035 –> 01:15:55,475
end of the day, I’m at work. I don’t wanna have to jump over, you

1180
01:15:55,475 –> 01:15:59,095
know, 30 bad processes and redundant work

1181
01:15:59,410 –> 01:16:03,170
and people not doing their job because you’re not doing your job

1182
01:16:03,170 –> 01:16:06,655
as a leader. I don’t care how nice you are. You might be the nicest

1183
01:16:06,735 –> 01:16:10,175
thing on the planet, but if you’re not helping me to be effective in my

1184
01:16:10,175 –> 01:16:14,014
role, I’m moving on to the next, you know, the next role

1185
01:16:14,014 –> 01:16:17,670
and the the next leader. So I always talk

1186
01:16:17,670 –> 01:16:21,190
about this outside in kind of transformation. Google is

1187
01:16:21,190 –> 01:16:24,730
lost. You have 200,000 employees, one of the largest

1188
01:16:25,255 –> 01:16:28,475
publicly traded companies around, and all they do is search.

1189
01:16:29,255 –> 01:16:32,855
You know? Like, what was the last innovation that they did that you were excited

1190
01:16:32,855 –> 01:16:36,580
about? 0. They’re only about search and then

1191
01:16:36,580 –> 01:16:40,260
talking in their Slack channels about politics and gender

1192
01:16:40,260 –> 01:16:43,725
ideology. You know, that’s an example of

1193
01:16:43,785 –> 01:16:47,545
where cash flow is allowing them to not be accountable to

1194
01:16:47,545 –> 01:16:50,910
their shareholders for new innovation and great ideas.

1195
01:16:52,250 –> 01:16:55,930
But, yeah, do you need to be loud and vocal, or do you just

1196
01:16:55,930 –> 01:16:59,764
set the example and attract like like,

1197
01:16:59,764 –> 01:17:03,525
you know, attract bees to honey? Like, you can find that there

1198
01:17:03,525 –> 01:17:07,020
are lots of incredible there’s lots of incredible

1199
01:17:07,080 –> 01:17:10,380
talent who actually wants to have their potential

1200
01:17:10,440 –> 01:17:13,835
unleashed, who doesn’t wanna talk about BS, that

1201
01:17:13,835 –> 01:17:17,195
actually wants to do great things. They just haven’t seen

1202
01:17:17,195 –> 01:17:21,035
it. So show it to them. And, you know, they’ll

1203
01:17:21,035 –> 01:17:24,480
start talking to others, and others will want to be a part of your organization.

1204
01:17:25,180 –> 01:17:28,780
I would I actually would love to do more, research on Coinbase to see what’s

1205
01:17:28,780 –> 01:17:32,435
happening there. I’d like to do more around Palantir and

1206
01:17:32,435 –> 01:17:36,275
then, what Lucky Palmer’s company is. Mhmm.

1207
01:17:36,275 –> 01:17:39,495
Like, I’d really like to see what they’re getting

1208
01:17:39,910 –> 01:17:43,050
with respect to employee feedback Mhmm.

1209
01:17:43,750 –> 01:17:47,110
You know, and employee engagement. You book? Because those are companies

1210
01:17:47,110 –> 01:17:50,045
where you have strong

1211
01:17:50,505 –> 01:17:54,105
leaders who also have strong teams

1212
01:17:54,105 –> 01:17:57,545
working within their businesses. I wanna see how satisfied those

1213
01:17:57,545 –> 01:18:00,930
employees are because those guys are gonna be the

1214
01:18:00,930 –> 01:18:04,690
examples, at least Palantir and Coinbase, around trying to live by

1215
01:18:04,690 –> 01:18:08,425
your principles and focusing on delivering great product. The same

1216
01:18:08,425 –> 01:18:12,204
would be for Twitter and not, and not,

1217
01:18:12,344 –> 01:18:15,750
you know, Glassdoor, you know, free

1218
01:18:16,210 –> 01:18:19,970
Elon, but, you know, maybe the last 6 months, you know, where you have

1219
01:18:19,970 –> 01:18:23,615
engineers who are actually able to deliver and continue to deliver new features and

1220
01:18:23,615 –> 01:18:27,455
functionality. Yeah. So the only way is through.

1221
01:18:27,455 –> 01:18:30,890
I think the biggest risk that we run, though, is,

1222
01:18:31,989 –> 01:18:35,429
is that the momentum from the rate is

1223
01:18:35,429 –> 01:18:39,125
not good enough to offset

1224
01:18:39,125 –> 01:18:41,784
the cancer that is everywhere. Yeah.

1225
01:18:43,605 –> 01:18:46,940
K. Back to the book.

1226
01:18:48,040 –> 01:18:51,160
We’re rounding it. We gotta round our corner here. We take it a lot in

1227
01:18:51,160 –> 01:18:54,735
the business time. We gotta round the corner here. We gotta we gotta wrap

1228
01:18:54,735 –> 01:18:58,541
this sucker up. We gotta bring this home. So let’s

1229
01:18:58,541 –> 01:19:02,348
get back to the book, back to fathers and sons.

1230
01:19:02,348 –> 01:19:05,670
By the way, you can pick up, Turgenev.

1231
01:19:06,450 –> 01:19:09,970
It is an open fourth, book now. So it’s

1232
01:19:09,970 –> 01:19:13,655
published in a wide variety of different formats. You can get it

1233
01:19:13,655 –> 01:19:17,014
online, as well, from

1234
01:19:17,014 –> 01:19:20,855
any major or minor publisher. So I’d encourage you to go out and

1235
01:19:20,855 –> 01:19:24,360
pick up a copy of fathers and sons.

1236
01:19:25,060 –> 01:19:28,440
Back to the book. We’re gonna pick up in chapter

1237
01:19:28,580 –> 01:19:32,074
8, with with

1238
01:19:32,074 –> 01:19:34,815
Nikolai Petrovich’s, new mistress,

1239
01:19:35,994 –> 01:19:39,434
Finichka. Nikolai Petrovich had made Finichka’s

1240
01:19:39,434 –> 01:19:43,130
acquaintance in the following manner. He had once happened 3 years before to stay

1241
01:19:43,130 –> 01:19:46,890
a night at an inn in a remote district town. He was agreeably struck

1242
01:19:46,890 –> 01:19:49,870
by the cleanliness of the room assigned to him, the freshest of the bed linen.

1243
01:19:50,185 –> 01:19:53,864
Surely, the woman of the house must be a German was the idea that

1244
01:19:53,864 –> 01:19:56,824
occurred to him, but she proved to be a Russian, a woman of about 50

1245
01:19:56,824 –> 01:20:00,150
neatly dressed of of a good looking sensible countenance and discreet

1246
01:20:00,610 –> 01:20:04,450
speech. He entered the conversation with her at tea. He liked her

1247
01:20:04,450 –> 01:20:08,175
very much. Nikolai Petrovich had, at the time, only just moved into his

1248
01:20:08,175 –> 01:20:10,974
new home. And not wishing to keep serfs in the house, he was on the

1249
01:20:10,974 –> 01:20:14,770
lookout for wage servants. The woman of the inn on

1250
01:20:14,770 –> 01:20:17,489
her side complained with the small number of visitors to the town and the hard

1251
01:20:17,489 –> 01:20:20,690
times. He proposed to her to come into his house in the capacity of a

1252
01:20:20,690 –> 01:20:24,535
housekeeper. She consented. Her husband had long been

1253
01:20:24,535 –> 01:20:27,915
dead, leaving her and only daughter, Fenichka. Within a fortnight,

1254
01:20:28,055 –> 01:20:31,880
Arina, Savishna, that was the new housekeeper’s name,

1255
01:20:31,960 –> 01:20:35,800
arrived with her daughter at Merino and installed herself in the little

1256
01:20:35,800 –> 01:20:39,560
lodge. Nikolai Petrovich’s choice

1257
01:20:39,560 –> 01:20:43,265
proved a successful one. Irina brought order to the household. As for

1258
01:20:43,265 –> 01:20:47,025
Panitchka, who was at that time 17, no one spoke of her and

1259
01:20:47,025 –> 01:20:50,680
scarcely anyone saw her. She lived quietly and sedately, and only on

1260
01:20:50,680 –> 01:20:54,440
Sundays, Nikolai Petrovich noticed, in the church, somewhere

1261
01:20:54,440 –> 01:20:57,580
in a side placed the delicate profile of her white face

1262
01:20:58,685 –> 01:21:02,445
More than a year passed thus. 1 morning, Irina came

1263
01:21:02,445 –> 01:21:05,085
into a study and bowing what was usual. She asked him if he could do

1264
01:21:05,085 –> 01:21:08,570
anything for her daughter, who’d got a spark from the stove in her

1265
01:21:08,570 –> 01:21:12,410
eye. Nikolai Petrovich, like all stay at home people, had studied

1266
01:21:12,410 –> 01:21:16,225
doctoring and even compiled a homeopathic guide. He at once told Irina to

1267
01:21:16,225 –> 01:21:19,985
bring the patient to him. Fenichka was much frightened when she heard the master

1268
01:21:19,985 –> 01:21:23,760
had sent for her. However, she followed her mother. Nikolai Petrovich led her

1269
01:21:23,760 –> 01:21:27,200
to the window and took her head in his two hands. After thoroughly

1270
01:21:27,200 –> 01:21:30,815
examining her red and swollen eye, he preside a he prescribed a fomentation,

1271
01:21:31,275 –> 01:21:34,875
which he made up himself at once and tearing his handkerchief to pieces. He showed

1272
01:21:34,875 –> 01:21:37,835
her how it ought to be applied. The finished go Jesan to all he had

1273
01:21:37,835 –> 01:21:41,330
to say and then was going. Kiss the master’s hand,

1274
01:21:41,330 –> 01:21:44,690
silly girl, or said arena. And Nikolai

1275
01:21:44,690 –> 01:21:48,530
Petrovich did not give her his hand and in confusion himself, kissed her bent

1276
01:21:48,530 –> 01:21:52,295
head on the parting of her hair. Benyushka’s

1277
01:21:52,355 –> 01:21:55,395
eye was Sorrells again, but the impression she had made on Nikolai Petrovich did not

1278
01:21:55,395 –> 01:21:59,070
pass away so quickly. He was forever haunted by that pure, delicate,

1279
01:21:59,070 –> 01:22:02,670
timidly raised face. He felt on the palms of his hands that soft hair and

1280
01:22:02,670 –> 01:22:06,285
saw those innocent slightly parted lips through which pearly teeth gleamed with moist

1281
01:22:06,285 –> 01:22:09,885
brilliance in the sunshine. He began to watch her with great attention in

1282
01:22:09,885 –> 01:22:13,165
church and tried to get into conversation with her. At first, she was shy of

1283
01:22:13,165 –> 01:22:16,900
him, and one day, meeting him at the approach of evening in a narrow footpath

1284
01:22:16,900 –> 01:22:20,260
through a field of rye, she ran into the tall thick rye overgrown with

1285
01:22:20,260 –> 01:22:23,635
cornflowers and wormwood so as not to meet him face to face.

1286
01:22:24,495 –> 01:22:28,015
He caught sight of her little head fourth golden network of ears of rye fourth

1287
01:22:28,015 –> 01:22:31,780
which she was peeping out like a small little animal and called affectionately to

1288
01:22:31,780 –> 01:22:35,380
her, good evening, I don’t bite. Good evening, she

1289
01:22:35,380 –> 01:22:39,135
whispered, not coming out of her ambush. By degrees,

1290
01:22:39,135 –> 01:22:42,835
she began to be more at home with him but would still shine his presence.

1291
01:22:43,775 –> 01:22:46,595
But suddenly her mother, Irina, died of cholera.

1292
01:22:47,800 –> 01:22:51,560
What was to become of Faniqa? She inherited from her mother

1293
01:22:51,560 –> 01:22:55,405
a love for order, regularity, and respectability, But she was

1294
01:22:55,405 –> 01:22:59,165
so young, so alone. Nikolai Petrovich was himself so good and

1295
01:22:59,165 –> 01:23:02,784
considerate. It’s needless to relate

1296
01:23:03,405 –> 01:23:04,065
the rest.

1297
01:23:13,775 –> 01:23:17,535
This is one of those, moments in a in a book,

1298
01:23:17,535 –> 01:23:21,375
in a Russian novel. Russian novelists in general have this little twitch that they

1299
01:23:21,375 –> 01:23:25,220
do where they Dostoevsky did it. Tolstoy did it. I mean,

1300
01:23:25,220 –> 01:23:28,840
it’s all of a war and peace is about. My gosh. And, and Turgenev.

1301
01:23:29,060 –> 01:23:32,715
Even even Nabokov, we’re we’re readers. We’re trying to get through and

1302
01:23:32,715 –> 01:23:36,315
read Lolita. Had tried to pull some interesting things from Lolita. That’s a

1303
01:23:36,315 –> 01:23:39,614
fascinating little little book there. But

1304
01:23:40,410 –> 01:23:43,929
every single one of these Russian writers is consumed with the

1305
01:23:43,929 –> 01:23:47,550
idea of how relationships develop between men and women,

1306
01:23:48,335 –> 01:23:52,095
in particular, how relationships develop between men and women of different social

1307
01:23:52,095 –> 01:23:55,315
classes and across different ages.

1308
01:23:56,750 –> 01:24:00,430
Now it’s interesting. As I was reading this book, I I also, the other day,

1309
01:24:00,430 –> 01:24:03,810
watched a movie fourth watched a television show from the 19 seventies where

1310
01:24:04,155 –> 01:24:07,995
this, this older man was having an affair with his younger secretary and

1311
01:24:07,995 –> 01:24:11,275
my 13 year old daughter getting ready to be fourth, happened to be in the

1312
01:24:11,275 –> 01:24:15,120
room where we’re watching the show, And she was like, and it’s the 1970s.

1313
01:24:15,180 –> 01:24:18,960
This is the Rockford files actually. And my daughter goes, oh, he’s so old.

1314
01:24:20,725 –> 01:24:24,405
It’s like, yeah, well you’re 14. That’s the correct, that’s the correct response. Thank you.

1315
01:24:24,405 –> 01:24:27,465
You’re right. You’re exactly right. He is so old.

1316
01:24:28,929 –> 01:24:32,289
But I said, they’re only separated by like, this is the seventies. They’re only separated

1317
01:24:32,289 –> 01:24:35,329
by like 20 years. It’s fine. She’s in her twenties. He’s in his fifties or

1318
01:24:35,329 –> 01:24:39,175
thirties or whatever, or forties. It’s fine. She even and and she still looked

1319
01:24:39,175 –> 01:24:42,215
at me. She gave me the side look with the sneer that only a 14

1320
01:24:42,215 –> 01:24:45,960
year old girl can give her father. It’s

1321
01:24:45,960 –> 01:24:48,860
fine. It’s whatever. But it puts me in mind

1322
01:24:51,000 –> 01:24:54,655
of what I was just reading there in this book.

1323
01:24:54,655 –> 01:24:58,115
And Nikolai is attempting to be

1324
01:24:58,495 –> 01:25:01,075
a moral man in a culture where

1325
01:25:02,020 –> 01:25:04,680
the morality of connection

1326
01:25:05,620 –> 01:25:09,455
and of interpersonal

1327
01:25:10,075 –> 01:25:13,375
sexual behavior between people of different classes

1328
01:25:13,675 –> 01:25:17,150
and between people of different ages is strictly

1329
01:25:17,929 –> 01:25:21,530
bounded. And one of the interesting things about finishka

1330
01:25:21,530 –> 01:25:24,830
is when our Katie, who is closer to

1331
01:25:25,075 –> 01:25:28,675
Panitchka’s age, and Nikolai’s son, when Arkady

1332
01:25:28,675 –> 01:25:31,895
and, Bazarov turning to the property,

1333
01:25:33,560 –> 01:25:37,320
has a little baby boy. And,

1334
01:25:37,320 –> 01:25:40,920
of course, because it’s Russian, everyone’s very discreet about such

1335
01:25:40,920 –> 01:25:44,614
things, but everybody knows what is happening.

1336
01:25:45,875 –> 01:25:49,574
This, of course, creates tension between Arkady and Bazarov.

1337
01:25:50,470 –> 01:25:54,310
And, Arcadia basically says my

1338
01:25:54,310 –> 01:25:57,370
father has a right to be happy, and Bazarov

1339
01:25:57,989 –> 01:26:01,805
also says that your father has a right to be

1340
01:26:01,805 –> 01:26:05,405
happy, but they’re coming from different perspectives on this. Bazarov is coming from a

1341
01:26:05,405 –> 01:26:09,140
nihilistic perspective. Arkady is coming from a perspective that’s

1342
01:26:09,140 –> 01:26:12,580
way more personal, way more individualized to what he

1343
01:26:12,580 –> 01:26:14,120
knows about his father.

1344
01:26:20,815 –> 01:26:24,470
The challenge that Turgenev presents to us in this

1345
01:26:24,470 –> 01:26:28,230
part of fathers and sons and further on in the book is

1346
01:26:28,230 –> 01:26:31,530
the challenge of whether or not such morality should impact state policy.

1347
01:26:32,745 –> 01:26:36,185
Do we really need to, and we, by the way, we’ve done this in our

1348
01:26:36,185 –> 01:26:39,864
own country. We’ve scaled up in people’s individualized experiences to the

1349
01:26:39,864 –> 01:26:43,199
level of state policy that is currently what is happening with

1350
01:26:44,219 –> 01:26:48,059
the, transgender, contra Tom. And

1351
01:26:48,059 –> 01:26:51,515
I don’t call it a movement. I call it a contra Trump. We’re taking

1352
01:26:51,515 –> 01:26:55,115
people’s individual collect individual experience, and we’re scaling it

1353
01:26:55,115 –> 01:26:58,555
largely to a collective, interestingly enough, involving

1354
01:26:58,555 –> 01:27:02,330
children. And

1355
01:27:02,330 –> 01:27:05,850
in an attempt to as we did the 19 fifties 19 sixties in

1356
01:27:05,850 –> 01:27:09,655
America Tom enfranchise those on the fringes, We

1357
01:27:09,655 –> 01:27:13,014
moved to the edges closer to the center, but what we didn’t realize was that

1358
01:27:13,014 –> 01:27:16,614
the fringe that’s way out there now becomes closer

1359
01:27:16,614 –> 01:27:20,190
to the center. This happens in cross generational

1360
01:27:20,330 –> 01:27:24,010
transitions and this occurs, fourth this is a danger

1361
01:27:24,010 –> 01:27:27,825
that can occur. And I think this is what Arkady is really focused

1362
01:27:27,825 –> 01:27:31,105
on. Not Pavel, not Bazar. Tom, I think he senses it, but doesn’t know how

1363
01:27:31,105 –> 01:27:34,760
to say it in the book. The danger of scaling

1364
01:27:34,760 –> 01:27:38,280
the individual experience to the collective is that you will lose the

1365
01:27:38,280 –> 01:27:42,074
morality that the collective has relied upon all of

1366
01:27:42,074 –> 01:27:44,815
this time. And, of course, Basarov doesn’t see it as being

1367
01:27:45,915 –> 01:27:49,739
a problem. We’ve

1368
01:27:49,739 –> 01:27:53,199
talked about cross generational wisdom a little bit on some of this,

1369
01:27:53,500 –> 01:27:54,000
Libby.

1370
01:27:57,315 –> 01:28:00,835
Maybe just some brief comments on how we practically kinda get through this

1371
01:28:00,835 –> 01:28:04,195
moment. And I think it is I think it’s different in in America because it’s

1372
01:28:04,195 –> 01:28:07,860
it’s a moment by moment sort of thing, with us

1373
01:28:07,860 –> 01:28:11,300
as I think it is in all countries. I do think that because the

1374
01:28:11,300 –> 01:28:14,659
messaging and the speed of the messaging has increased, we don’t have we don’t have

1375
01:28:14,659 –> 01:28:17,415
5 years to think about something now. We don’t have 2 years to think about

1376
01:28:17,415 –> 01:28:20,855
something now. Now we have to make a decision, a split second decision about

1377
01:28:20,855 –> 01:28:24,350
someone doing something on TikTok in about 10

1378
01:28:24,350 –> 01:28:28,190
seconds before we can like scroll to the next thing. Right. We’re not being given

1379
01:28:28,190 –> 01:28:31,570
time to think. I think that’s on purpose, but putting that aside,

1380
01:28:32,565 –> 01:28:36,164
how do we transition that

1381
01:28:36,164 –> 01:28:40,005
wisdom that knows he has, but doesn’t know how

1382
01:28:40,005 –> 01:28:43,130
to articulate? And I think a lot of people know they have it. They do,

1383
01:28:44,150 –> 01:28:47,910
but they don’t know how to get that across to to

1384
01:28:47,910 –> 01:28:51,664
people who are trying to scale up their individualized experience to collective

1385
01:28:51,724 –> 01:28:52,465
state policy?

1386
01:28:56,925 –> 01:29:00,630
It’s that question as old as time. Right? It is a

1387
01:29:00,630 –> 01:29:03,990
question as old as time. Yeah. I mean, for forget it. We we covered this

1388
01:29:03,990 –> 01:29:07,705
in the Republic of Plato. So, yes, it’s it’s as old as time. Yeah. Yeah.

1389
01:29:07,705 –> 01:29:11,165
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

1390
01:29:17,420 –> 01:29:20,560
I I really like the Socratic method around this.

1391
01:29:21,179 –> 01:29:24,325
And, specifically, I’m turning to remember

1392
01:29:24,705 –> 01:29:28,545
this author’s name. I can’t think of it. I think can’t think of her name

1393
01:29:28,545 –> 01:29:30,885
right now. She’s kind of in the woo woo space,

1394
01:29:33,070 –> 01:29:36,830
But she asks yeah. She has fourth core

1395
01:29:36,830 –> 01:29:40,590
questions that she asks when she has

1396
01:29:40,590 –> 01:29:44,125
a response, you know, yeah, positive or negative

1397
01:29:44,585 –> 01:29:48,205
towards something she’s seen or observing. And it’s like

1398
01:29:49,860 –> 01:29:53,540
questions like, how do I know this to be true? Why do I believe this

1399
01:29:53,540 –> 01:29:57,380
to be true? What would the world look like if it wasn’t

1400
01:29:57,380 –> 01:30:01,175
true? So it recognizes that our belief systems

1401
01:30:01,555 –> 01:30:05,315
are based on our experience overlaid by, you know,

1402
01:30:05,315 –> 01:30:09,030
thoughts and narratives from others, And that reality

1403
01:30:10,050 –> 01:30:13,810
our belief structure system is actually relative to

1404
01:30:13,810 –> 01:30:16,550
only our experience. So if we start to actually

1405
01:30:18,205 –> 01:30:21,885
ask why we believe something and why we might be

1406
01:30:21,885 –> 01:30:25,178
hesitant to not believe something different. Book.

1407
01:30:25,640 –> 01:30:29,080
Because who would I be if I believe something different? My tribe might not like

1408
01:30:29,080 –> 01:30:32,540
me anymore, or, I might have to reexamine

1409
01:30:32,840 –> 01:30:36,505
so much so much more about the

1410
01:30:36,505 –> 01:30:40,265
world if, you know, if what I believe is not no longer

1411
01:30:40,265 –> 01:30:41,965
true. Yeah. So

1412
01:30:43,790 –> 01:30:47,389
framing by asking the youth the things they

1413
01:30:47,389 –> 01:30:50,965
know, and, yeah, in those fourth

1414
01:30:50,965 –> 01:30:54,025
questions, can help them.

1415
01:30:55,045 –> 01:30:58,780
It just creates a thought process and plant seeds for them

1416
01:30:58,860 –> 01:31:02,079
to question what they know and to maybe be more open,

1417
01:31:03,260 –> 01:31:06,000
as they experience life or take in information,

1418
01:31:06,940 –> 01:31:10,685
to maybe think differently. So what we see as

1419
01:31:10,685 –> 01:31:14,045
a natural progression already from young to old for the most

1420
01:31:14,045 –> 01:31:16,865
part, is they go from idealist

1421
01:31:17,490 –> 01:31:21,330
idealist to pragmatists, and hopefully don’t lose

1422
01:31:21,330 –> 01:31:24,790
their lust for life and become cynical in that process, but actually

1423
01:31:26,315 –> 01:31:29,675
enjoy life more, as they become

1424
01:31:29,675 –> 01:31:33,435
practical and, you know, and see

1425
01:31:33,435 –> 01:31:36,980
how much more they have to learn. Yeah. I think if we just

1426
01:31:36,980 –> 01:31:40,599
open someone’s aperture, like, you allow

1427
01:31:40,659 –> 01:31:44,099
that movement into maturity so much

1428
01:31:44,099 –> 01:31:47,724
faster. Does that make sense? Yeah. That makes

1429
01:31:47,724 –> 01:31:48,625
sense. And

1430
01:31:52,125 –> 01:31:55,090
it sort of answers the question as we sort of round the corner here. Where

1431
01:31:55,090 –> 01:31:58,850
do we go from here? Right? Right. Like, opening that aperture of

1432
01:31:58,850 –> 01:32:01,830
experience, opening that

1433
01:32:05,155 –> 01:32:08,515
back in the sixties, they called it the age of Aquarius. Right? You know, we’re

1434
01:32:08,515 –> 01:32:12,120
gonna have a new a new consciousness raising, right, a new understanding.

1435
01:32:13,300 –> 01:32:16,680
No one’s turning about language. No one’s talking a language like that now.

1436
01:32:17,780 –> 01:32:21,605
Matter of fact, the the recent solar eclipse that we had in North America, I

1437
01:32:21,605 –> 01:32:24,244
told my, my 7 year old that his 3rd eye was gonna open, and he

1438
01:32:24,244 –> 01:32:28,085
was running around telling other people that. And, my wife was

1439
01:32:28,085 –> 01:32:29,780
like, you probably need to stop talking to

1440
01:32:31,699 –> 01:32:35,539
him. Yes. Yeah. Well, I do some things to

1441
01:32:35,539 –> 01:32:39,385
amuse myself with my children. Anyway, but my

1442
01:32:39,385 –> 01:32:43,145
point is that that that

1443
01:32:43,145 –> 01:32:46,125
opening of the aperture, that understanding. Right?

1444
01:32:48,880 –> 01:32:52,179
I I think it has to operate on so many different levels that it befuddles

1445
01:32:52,239 –> 01:32:55,920
us. And so I think at certain points in

1446
01:32:56,035 –> 01:32:59,744
Tom, particularly in American culture, we can only focus on one level at

1447
01:32:59,744 –> 01:33:03,344
once. Like, right now, we’re hyper focused on the technological level. We think

1448
01:33:03,344 –> 01:33:06,724
that if we just open up our aperture around all these technologies,

1449
01:33:08,850 –> 01:33:12,370
then then enlightenment, for one of a better

1450
01:33:12,370 –> 01:33:14,950
word, will will will appear.

1451
01:33:17,235 –> 01:33:20,835
But there’s always a poverty that’s attached to that.

1452
01:33:20,835 –> 01:33:24,534
Right? Because the enlightenment has to happen in a bunch of different

1453
01:33:24,594 –> 01:33:28,290
places. It can’t just you can’t just have your

1454
01:33:28,430 –> 01:33:32,110
your perceptions expanded in one

1455
01:33:32,110 –> 01:33:35,844
spot. That’s too narrow. You’ve gotta have

1456
01:33:35,844 –> 01:33:39,525
your ex your your your your your perceptions expanded in

1457
01:33:39,525 –> 01:33:43,270
your communication, in your, in

1458
01:33:43,270 –> 01:33:47,110
your finances, in your spirituality, in your technology. Like,

1459
01:33:47,110 –> 01:33:49,990
it’s all books all these things come together in in who you are, right, as

1460
01:33:49,990 –> 01:33:53,795
a leader, but also who you are as a follower? Well, I

1461
01:33:53,795 –> 01:33:57,555
think the the one thing I do know for sure is that

1462
01:33:57,555 –> 01:34:01,230
telling people that there’s only one way Yeah. Or my

1463
01:34:01,230 –> 01:34:04,750
way is the fastest path to people

1464
01:34:04,750 –> 01:34:08,130
shutting down. Correct. So people will change

1465
01:34:08,190 –> 01:34:12,015
when they are ready to change. And, like,

1466
01:34:12,475 –> 01:34:16,155
you know, first is helping yeah. We talk about the change curve a lot

1467
01:34:16,155 –> 01:34:19,870
in transform yeah, in enterprise transformation, but it’s also

1468
01:34:20,570 –> 01:34:24,010
in in personal transformation is, like, first, you have an

1469
01:34:24,010 –> 01:34:27,335
awareness of something, and then you,

1470
01:34:27,715 –> 01:34:31,395
like, maybe seek deeper understanding of it. And then you

1471
01:34:31,395 –> 01:34:35,200
have knowledge, and then you have mastery. But what our goal is

1472
01:34:35,200 –> 01:34:37,700
is to just help build awareness.

1473
01:34:39,200 –> 01:34:42,640
And you do you can help build awareness through

1474
01:34:42,640 –> 01:34:46,485
questioning and maybe sharing, you know, ideas

1475
01:34:47,025 –> 01:34:50,784
and sources. But, yeah, by

1476
01:34:50,784 –> 01:34:53,640
telling people that they don’t

1477
01:34:54,900 –> 01:34:58,580
know what’s in their best interest and you know better Right.

1478
01:34:58,980 –> 01:35:02,285
You’ll shut people down to discovery.

1479
01:35:02,665 –> 01:35:06,125
You also shut yourself down to discovery

1480
01:35:06,185 –> 01:35:09,625
because the other thing that I know for sure is that we don’t know anything

1481
01:35:09,625 –> 01:35:13,180
for sure. Well, that’s and that

1482
01:35:13,180 –> 01:35:17,020
is that’s where leadership Yeah. And, fundamentally, this is a

1483
01:35:17,020 –> 01:35:20,385
leadership podcast, so we covered a lot of different areas today. And thank you

1484
01:35:20,385 –> 01:35:23,204
for listening. And leadership

1485
01:35:25,025 –> 01:35:28,650
takes all of that that you’ve talked about and

1486
01:35:28,650 –> 01:35:32,110
then transmits that because that’s all called wisdom,

1487
01:35:32,970 –> 01:35:36,650
transmits that through coaching, through communication, through

1488
01:35:36,650 –> 01:35:40,324
mentoring, through creating succession plans.

1489
01:35:40,545 –> 01:35:43,985
And here’s another way. Actually leaving when you say you’re going to

1490
01:35:43,985 –> 01:35:46,910
leave. Mhmm. Right. Right.

1491
01:35:47,929 –> 01:35:50,750
Do what you say. Do what you say you’re going to do.

1492
01:35:52,489 –> 01:35:56,045
And these

1493
01:35:56,045 –> 01:35:59,344
are areas that we struggle with, but I’m starting to see people

1494
01:36:01,485 –> 01:36:03,585
saying things like the future is bright,

1495
01:36:05,120 –> 01:36:08,720
or I have optimism. And they’re

1496
01:36:08,720 –> 01:36:11,360
looking at some of the same things that you and I are looking at, and

1497
01:36:11,360 –> 01:36:12,740
they’re drawing different conclusions.

1498
01:36:16,145 –> 01:36:19,365
But I think that that wisdom transfer

1499
01:36:21,265 –> 01:36:24,630
that I don’t know what I don’t know is probably

1500
01:36:26,610 –> 01:36:30,390
the humility that needs to be at the core of all leadership communication

1501
01:36:30,610 –> 01:36:34,385
cross generationally. I would agree, and that’s where the power of

1502
01:36:34,385 –> 01:36:37,744
story comes into. It is, like, how did you get, like

1503
01:36:37,985 –> 01:36:41,760
so sharing like, so share my experience of how I got

1504
01:36:41,920 –> 01:36:45,699
to Right. Believe the thing that I believe Yep.

1505
01:36:46,159 –> 01:36:49,860
Currently. And Yeah. And also share that

1506
01:36:49,920 –> 01:36:53,745
if in 10 years from now, I’m not questioning everything I believe now, then

1507
01:36:53,745 –> 01:36:57,505
I haven’t learned and grown. Right. But by sharing the

1508
01:36:57,505 –> 01:37:01,220
journey, you can you can share with people the thought processes and

1509
01:37:01,280 –> 01:37:05,120
experiences that, at some point, they may be able to mirror

1510
01:37:05,120 –> 01:37:08,825
or relate to that can help them, like, you know,

1511
01:37:08,825 –> 01:37:12,505
with their own journey. But it

1512
01:37:12,505 –> 01:37:15,865
gives, like, treat I, 1, treat people as

1513
01:37:15,865 –> 01:37:18,590
adults. Yeah.

1514
01:37:20,170 –> 01:37:23,610
You know, 2, provide kind of readers to

1515
01:37:23,610 –> 01:37:26,910
support you why you believe what you believe.

1516
01:37:27,525 –> 01:37:30,885
Mhmm. Help yeah. Like, for me, it’s also

1517
01:37:30,885 –> 01:37:34,725
about being you know, it’s about coaching, but it’s like showing as

1518
01:37:34,725 –> 01:37:38,370
well. So I don’t ask anyone to do

1519
01:37:38,370 –> 01:37:42,210
what I won’t do myself, and I’ll sit

1520
01:37:42,210 –> 01:37:45,735
side by side with folks to help them, you know, to

1521
01:37:45,735 –> 01:37:47,514
learn or understand something.

1522
01:37:49,655 –> 01:37:52,795
But I wanna go back to, you know, the other

1523
01:38:00,210 –> 01:38:03,974
strengthening your adherence to your principles and not compromising

1524
01:38:04,594 –> 01:38:07,735
on your principles. Mhmm. So, you know,

1525
01:38:08,355 –> 01:38:11,990
from a leadership perspective, the how may I may not care as

1526
01:38:11,990 –> 01:38:15,430
much about the principles to have

1527
01:38:15,430 –> 01:38:18,870
a have a how element to it True. But not

1528
01:38:18,870 –> 01:38:22,244
compromising on quality. Right. Right. So outcomes.

1529
01:38:22,244 –> 01:38:25,925
Right? And I do care about how we get to those outcomes. Right? Like,

1530
01:38:25,925 –> 01:38:29,570
I I don’t want a person with poor values

1531
01:38:30,270 –> 01:38:34,030
who’s walking all over the team, you know, getting to

1532
01:38:34,030 –> 01:38:37,705
the out you know, to, like, a tangible outcome. You know? So I

1533
01:38:37,705 –> 01:38:41,244
have principles about how we work together, holding each other accountable,

1534
01:38:41,945 –> 01:38:44,205
integrity, collaboration.

1535
01:38:45,784 –> 01:38:49,250
I also have principles around quality standards and not

1536
01:38:49,250 –> 01:38:53,030
lowering them because they’re hard. You know? Like,

1537
01:38:53,330 –> 01:38:56,804
figure out, like, that the challenge and the

1538
01:38:56,804 –> 01:38:59,864
excitement is around actually

1539
01:39:00,485 –> 01:39:04,164
achieving hard goals and objectives. Yeah. But

1540
01:39:04,164 –> 01:39:06,970
giving people space

1541
01:39:07,830 –> 01:39:11,350
to actually use their own brain and to

1542
01:39:11,350 –> 01:39:14,815
create to get there. So, you

1543
01:39:14,815 –> 01:39:17,555
know, leadership is about balancing the principles

1544
01:39:18,175 –> 01:39:21,600
Mhmm. With the how. And

1545
01:39:22,140 –> 01:39:25,900
people there’s a

1546
01:39:25,900 –> 01:39:29,445
lack of soul and, excitement when

1547
01:39:29,445 –> 01:39:33,145
you’re told how to do everything. If you understand

1548
01:39:33,204 –> 01:39:36,344
where you’re going and the why, and you’re given some

1549
01:39:45,080 –> 01:39:48,864
Yeah. Yeah. The whole goal is to allow

1550
01:39:48,864 –> 01:39:52,645
people to feel empowered, allow people to create,

1551
01:39:52,945 –> 01:39:56,450
but not giving them so much rope that they can hang

1552
01:39:56,450 –> 01:39:59,890
themselves and fourth provide you know, create risk for

1553
01:39:59,890 –> 01:40:03,405
the for the company. For the company. So Yeah.

1554
01:40:03,405 –> 01:40:07,105
So the disagreeableness is only around radical candor.

1555
01:40:07,245 –> 01:40:10,545
It’s only about questioning, but not holding,

1556
01:40:11,645 –> 01:40:15,360
but not giving up on your principles. And too

1557
01:40:15,360 –> 01:40:18,980
many leaders we’ve seen have given up on their principles

1558
01:40:19,875 –> 01:40:22,695
in order to stay in power, in order to be liked.

1559
01:40:23,635 –> 01:40:26,135
And when you do that, you’re losing your soul.

1560
01:40:29,040 –> 01:40:32,719
But that yeah. But, effectively, to be a good leader, it’s the power of the

1561
01:40:32,719 –> 01:40:36,495
question. Yeah. You know? It’s the power of the question. It’s the power

1562
01:40:36,495 –> 01:40:39,795
of the story, and it’s belief in the individual

1563
01:40:40,895 –> 01:40:44,420
to be able to, you know, take on big challenges and

1564
01:40:44,420 –> 01:40:48,180
succeed. I think Turgenev would,

1565
01:40:48,500 –> 01:40:52,005
or Turgenev would agree. So I would

1566
01:40:52,005 –> 01:40:55,305
encourage you to pick up a copy of fathers and sons.

1567
01:40:55,925 –> 01:40:59,180
Take a look at Tom, mark it up, read it, contextualize

1568
01:40:59,480 –> 01:41:03,320
it for our time now. I’d

1569
01:41:03,320 –> 01:41:06,831
like to thank Libby Younger for coming on the Leadership

1570
01:41:06,855 –> 01:41:10,395
Lessons fourth the Great Books podcast today. And with that,

1571
01:41:12,643 –> 01:41:13,543
we’re out.