Leadership Lessons From The Great Books – Sonnets by William Shakespeare w/Christen Horne

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Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and

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this is the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast,

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episode number 120.

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In this episode today, we will cover a

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collection of poems. Almost all of them love poems

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that, and I quote, philosophize, celebrate,

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attack, plead, and express pain, longing, and despair,

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all in a tone of voice that rarely rises above a reflective murmur,

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all spoken as if in an inner monologue or dialogue and

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all within the tight structure of the English sonnet

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form, close quote, which that was according

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to Barbara Mallett and Paul Wurstein, editors of the

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Folger Shakespeare Library Editions.

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Now I will preface our conversation today

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by saying upfront that I

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am not a quote, unquote poetry guy. I

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don’t know poetry. I think the greatest poetry probably ever written was

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the rhyming poetry of Ogden Nash. Doctor

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Seuss drives my kids crazy, and the the only point is that I remember.

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So I am not a poetry guy. I am a prose fellow. And by

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the way, we’re gonna be recording an entire episode on Tennyson coming up here in

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a few months, and I’m already working my way through

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that. But I do recognize poetry as a literary

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form. And I think we have to talk about poetry as a

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literary form, but also as a form that can impact leadership.

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Now when I think about these poems, I was supposed to read them in high

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school, and I assiduously avoided it at all costs. As a

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matter of fact, part of the collection of this author’s works

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had all the the sonnets in in the in the work. And it

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was a giant white book because because of Bible. And I

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I literally read everything else other than that, and then I put it away

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back on the shelf. And that is a

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perfect example of my approach to this content, at least in

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the past up until this point, is the perfect example of

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what I talk about in the opening to all of our episodes where I

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state that we are reading books and plays and

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poems that you fell asleep trying to read in

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high school.

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Perfect example of this. But

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and Muhammad Ali, I think, made this point years ago, although he might have ripped

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it off from somebody else. If you are the same person 30 years later that

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you were in high school, you probably haven’t grown at all. And by the

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way, I’m coming off of this, I’m coming to this podcast recording

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today, having watched both 21 Jump Street, the movie, and 22

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Jump Street, the sequel with Jonah Hill and Channing

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Tatum. So I’ve got that floating around in my head as well.

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And don’t worry, this podcast episode, while it may need more Tatum,

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isn’t going to get any Tatum beyond what I’m going to mention

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here. The point of this podcast is to push

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me and you, of course, to be open to other content

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that may not traditionally be considered to be classic literature.

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And this collection of poems and how we talk about this

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collection of poems is going to do that today.

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Leaders, push yourself into different genres and

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into different areas and grow as a

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leader. Now to help us wrap our brains

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around all of this, and we’ve we’ve already heard her chuckling along

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as I have been doing my open here, my cold open, such as it

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were, to help us wrap our brains around this content, and help

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us think about this, in an interesting kind of way. We have

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invited back to this podcast our guest from

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episode number 112, where we dissected or barely

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began to dissect the count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre

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Dumas, Kristin Horn. Hello.

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Back to the podcast, Kristin. How are you doing? Thanks. Thanks for having me. I’m

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very excited. I’m like kind of the complete opposite. Not complete

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opposite. Sorry. I definitely fell asleep reading some of these books in high

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school. Mhmm. We all did. I loved the

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poems though. Like, and I actually got my start in

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writing as a poet. Like, I won, like, even I

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think I was, like, in 4th grade, 5th grade, something like that. I won, like,

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a little prize, like, a little local prize for a poem that I submitted

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to a competition. And so I was just like, it’s funny now

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to be coming back around and being like, oh, I love poetry.

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I don’t like a lot of modern poetry because I’m like,

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I don’t think that’s a poem. Like, just because you spaced it out

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funny on the page, I don’t does is that what makes it a poem? I

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don’t know. I think that might even be offensive to say or ask. So

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but I love the old stuff. My brother, for my birthday, bought me, like,

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a stack of poetry books that I had asked for.

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So I loved going through these. And in high

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school, just to, like, kinda actually brought that back Yeah.

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It was like sonnet 90 just rocked my

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world. And when I got back around to it after reading it for this podcast,

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I was like, this is still a banger. This is still my favorite song.

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So it just it was it I’m I’m I’m thrilled. I love I love

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poetry. It’s like, I can’t wait. Can’t wait. Well, maybe I should bring you back

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for the poetry episode. Like I said, we are going to be covering Tennyson, with

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another cohost. And, he is a poetry

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guy, weirdly enough. And he but he also writes prose. So he he’s

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kind of Yeah. Talented in all those spaces. That’s one of the reasons I

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started getting back into it, is I don’t know if I can consider myself a

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poetry person yet because, like, I haven’t I’m not I’m not very well

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read on it yet. I’m going back into it. But,

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I started getting back into it on the advice of of, like

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like, he just he it’s an he’s a he’s a fantasy author, and he just

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writes and writes and writes and writes. Prolific. That’s the word I was looking for.

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And he’s like, before I read or sorry. Write before I write every

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day, I read poetry because it helps

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make your prose better. And I was like, what?

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That’s amazing. I already love poetry, and it’s gonna make my writing better. Okay.

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Deal. So Well, when I should, I shouldn’t.

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And we’ll get into the we’ll get into the sonnets here in just a second.

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I should probably like it more. I mean, like, I remember lyrics to,

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like, songs, and songs and poetry are pretty basically the same thing. It’s just set

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to music. Right? I get it right. I remember rap lyrics

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from the early nineties when I was bumping to

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whatever degenerate rap music I was bumping to in the early nineties.

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And so I I remember those kinds of things.

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I remember a rhyming structure,

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but there’s something about it sitting on the page.

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It doesn’t up until this point and honestly,

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I’ll be I’ll be I’ll be honest. Like, the the the even how I consumed

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this, I’ll talk about a little bit about that here when we get into, like,

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the literary life of William Shakespeare, a little bit. But, like, how even

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I consumed this, I needed to put it into a bucket where I could

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relate to it. And the bucket that I relate to it on, and this is

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probably a negative on my part, is not just reading it on the page. It

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doesn’t it lays flat for me. Because I’m like, okay. What is what are we

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doing here? How are we doing this? It has to sort

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of be lived in order for me to wrap my arms around it. And I’m

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still carrying that from high school, so I should probably let that go.

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I should probably let that go. I should probably be the bigger man or

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whatever. I don’t know. Older man. I did post on

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my Facebook page one time. Yes. I am on Facebook. If you want to go

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follow me, that’s that’s fine or not. You don’t have to. But, I did

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poke post one time that I’m growing old, but not gracefully.

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All right. Let’s kick it off with the

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sonnets by William Shakespeare. We’re gonna read directly

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from Sonnet 2. Now, for most of these sonnets, and I’ll just tell you this

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for you who are listening today, these sonnets are mostly

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short. Right. And so you can go get an audio version

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of the sonnets by William Shakespeare. They’re not

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long. They’re not laborious pieces. Right.

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But they are meaningful. And they do sit,

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as I stated in the the introduction

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there, they do sit inside of an English literary tradition

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of short form poetry, particularly

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short form love poetry. We’ll talk about here in just a moment.

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Alright. Sonnet 2 by William Shakespeare.

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I’m gonna go down to a murmur here in a moment. When

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14 winters shall besiege thy brow and dig deep trenches

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in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed

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on now, will be a tattered weed of small worth held. Then

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being asked where all thy beauty lies, where all the treasure of thy

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lusty days, to say within thine own deep sunken eyes

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were an all eating shame and thriftless praise.

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How much more praise deserved thy beauties use? If thou could

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stand stir, this bare child of mine shall sum my

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count and make my old excuse, proving his

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beauty by succession thine. This were to be

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new made when thou art old and see thy blood

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warm when thou feelest old.

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I think I did a pretty good job of reading that, actually. You did. I

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I was yeah. I’m gonna pat myself on the back. I mean, I’m not happy

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to read this. Yeah. Not that guy, but I think I

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did okay. In the literary life of William Shakespeare. Let’s let’s talk a

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little bit about this because we’ve talked about Shakespeare before, and this episode sort of

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wraps up our month of Shakespeare. We did not get to

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Macbeth this year. We’ll bump him, to next

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year. But, there we

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we, as usual, have access to the Folger Shakespeare Library,

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which you can get online at folger.edu,

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the largest sort of public domain available

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repository of Shakespeare and Shakespeare and writing about Shakespeare

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and analysis of Shakespeare probably on the Internet. And it’s a it’s a

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great resource for the podcast, and we’ll have links in the show notes to where

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you can go and grab all of that. But from the full quote, the

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Folger Shakespeare Library Editions introduction to Shakespeare

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Sonnets by Barbara Maude and Paul Wurstein. I’m going to quote

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directly again because it sort of lays the foundation for what we’re talking

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about here today. And I quote, yet it is not just

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the beauty and power of individual well known sonnets that tantalize us,

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but also the story that the sequence as a whole seems to tell about Shakespeare’s

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love life. The 154 sonnets were published in

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16/09 with an enigmatic dedication presumably from the

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publisher, Thomas Thorpe, end quote, to the only

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begetter of these ensuing sonnets, mister w h.

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Attempts to identify mister w h have become inevitably tangled

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with the narrative that insists on emerging whenever one reads the sonnet

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sequentially as they are ordered in the 16 09

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quattro. The narrative goes something like this. The

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poet, I e William Shakespeare, begins with a set of 17 sonnets

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advising a beautiful young man, seemingly an aristocrat, perhaps mister w

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h himself, to marry and produce a child in the interest of preserving the

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family name and property, but even more in the interest of reproducing the young

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man’s remarkable beauty in his offspring. These

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poems of advice modulate into a set of sonnets which urge the poet’s love

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for the young man and which claim that the young man’s beauty will be preserved

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in the very poems that we are now reading. The second set

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of sonnets, sonnets 18 to 126, which which in the supposed narrative

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celebrate the poet’s love for the young man, includes clusters of poems that seem to

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tell of specific events as the young man’s mistreatment of the poet, the young

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man’s theft of the poet’s mistress, the appearance of, quote, unquote, rival poets who

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celebrate the young man and gain his favor, the poet’s separation from the young man

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through travel or through the young man’s indifference, and the poet’s infidelity to

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the young man. After the set of 109 poems, the

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sonnet concludes with a third set of 28

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sonnets to or about a woman who is presented

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as dark and treacherous and with whom the poet is

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sexually obsessed. Several of these sonnets seem

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also to invoke, or involve the beautiful young man who

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is, according to the sonnet’s narrative, also enthralled by the, quote, unquote,

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dark lady. Close quote.

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So that gives us a little bit of idea of what we’re doing here. There

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is a narrative structure to the way these sonnets are put together and that the

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way they have been collected and even the way they’ve been read and consumed,

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over the last now, 400

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and, what, 18,

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400 and 17 years, give or take a

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few years here or there. And

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so this is why I wanted to get Kristen on, because Kristen’s a big fan

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of poetry. I did not know she was an award winning. Oh, gosh. I

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was like like I said, 5th grade man. So Well, you’ve

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made more money from poetry. Look. You made more money from poetry than I ever

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have. So you’re award winning to me. You’re award winning to the

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audience of 1. Award winning poet. I’ll make sure to put that in our little

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bio when we publish our novel. There you go. Award winning poet.

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That’s right. Hey. Look. I put on my LinkedIn profile of a 3 time least

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selling author ever. I’m I’ve sold the least books of any author you know.

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We all have to stand on our accolades somewhere. Otherwise, no one else will talk

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about them. Yeah. Right.

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So tell us about the impact and the importance of the of the sonnets on

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you and your life and your creativity. Let’s start with there, Kristen.

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Yeah.

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Sonnet 90, I think, like I said earlier, was the first one to

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really, like, stand out to me. Especially in high school, I

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was pretty depressed, but I was a high functioning depressed

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person. So nobody blinked an eye. I was, like, I was fine. I had

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straight a’s. I was well adjusted. Everything was

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fine. Inside, I was dying. And so when I found

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Sonnet 90, I was like, somebody

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understands me. And they By the way, do you wanna read Sonnet 90 so

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we get a full Oh, I guess I could. Yeah. You know what? Let me

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see. What the heck? Why not? Let me 90. Yeah. We’re breaking the format

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of the podcast. It’s fine. Sonnet 90. Okay.

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I did not practice this, so I apologize. I I read it cold.

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Not Patrick Stewart. Listen, Kristen. I read it cold.

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You’ll be fine. Okay. Okay. So this one,

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then hate me when thou wilt if ever now. Now

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while the now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

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join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, and do not

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drop in for an after loss. Do not,

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when my heart has escaped this sorrow, come in the rearward of a

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conquered woe. Give not a windy night, a rainy morrow,

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to linger out a purposed overthrow. If thou wilt

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leave me, do not leave me last. When other petty griefs have

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done their spite, but in the onset come, so shall I

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taste. At first, the very worst of fortunes might,

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and other strains of woe which now seem woe, compared with

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loss of thee will not seem so.

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And there’s, like, for me, there’s, like, this ringing sensation

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all throughout that that was just

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was my existence in high school. Yeah.

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And as, like, influence

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on, like, my life and my creativity,

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there was something bright. Like, you know, remember inside out with those

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core memories? That’s like Oh, yeah. That’s like a Mhmm. Very bright

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blue core memory for me.

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And it was, like, it was almost an anchor point. Mhmm. It was like, okay.

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Someone understands. That was really important to me. It is still really important to me.

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It’s, like, this idea of understanding. Yeah. And

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and I didn’t, like, think this

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cognizantly at the time, but, like and

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what I am feeling can be expressed. Mhmm. Which as

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an artist, it’s very important. Very important.

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Yeah. So that that was just

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that’s that’s that’s the that was the core. That was the core for me.

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Back in high school when I was, you know, falling asleep at, like,

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what is it? The Scarlet Letter. I was just like. Yeah. Or

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persuasion or That one yeah. Right? But this just like it felt like

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it left off the page Mhmm. At me. And, you

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know, to you mentioned about, like, how you consumed the sonnets. Like,

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I even me, I’m not practiced at reading Shakespeare

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anymore, so I had to listen and read at the same time. And

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I still had to listen to some of them multiple times before I

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was like, okay. I think maybe I understand maybe. And some of them still, I’m

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just like, I’ve I don’t get this one. Yeah. But

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for my creativity oh, I can’t remember if we were recording when I mentioned this.

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The the the author that recommended reading poetry,

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before writing, I definitely felt like as I was just, like, immersing

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myself in these sonnets, I could feel it

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almost like almost what was it? Like, one of those big puzzles? Not not

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really the Rubik’s cube sort of thing, but you can just almost feel your brain,

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like, clicking, clacking, and and shifting. And I was like, this

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is so cool. I can’t wait to do more poetry.

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That’s awesome. And now when I go through and I’m editing, because right we’re we’re

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in the middle of, like, heavy rewrites for our books. I’m going through it. I’m

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like, oh, we don’t need that. Delete that. Oh, we don’t need that. Delete that.

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Oh, gosh. This is delete that. Delete that. All of a sudden, I’m seeing my

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writing in a almost in a completely with completely different

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eyes. And it wasn’t that long ago that I was writing them. So,

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00:18:35,525 –> 00:18:39,205
normally, it takes much longer. Mhmm. You know, people say, like, put

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it away. Like, even freaking Stephen King, he’s like, yeah, just put it

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away until it looks like a brand new book. You’ve never seen it before.

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Yeah. We’re still working on getting published. So I’m like, I I I don’t have

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00:18:50,260 –> 00:18:53,299
time to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I gotta get paid here, Steven. But

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immersing yeah. Right? So I’m in so but but it’s weird that,

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like, immersing myself in these sonnets almost seems to have accelerated

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that happening because now I’m just like,

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00:19:05,225 –> 00:19:09,059
oh, I’m looking at it with a diff completely different perspective. Yeah. I’m like, oh,

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00:19:09,059 –> 00:19:11,700
this is that’s not as effective as I thought it was gonna be. Okay. Did

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00:19:11,860 –> 00:19:14,500
you know, delete that. I’ll, like, switch this over here. And it’s just like, it’s

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00:19:14,500 –> 00:19:17,940
so cool. It’s so much fun. Well and it’s it’s it’s interesting

305
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because neurologically speaking,

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the way our brains work and, again, this is something that I’ve learned over the

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00:19:25,635 –> 00:19:29,395
last 30 years. The way our brains work around

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things that are prose based, narrative structures

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versus something that’s more rhythmical or lyrical, it it activates 2

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different parts of our brains. That’s that’s one of the one thing I do understand

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00:19:39,820 –> 00:19:43,360
now. So I understand why. I mean, I understand why I remember

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song lyrics versus remembering maybe the entire opening

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00:19:47,580 –> 00:19:51,135
anymore to the Gettysburg Address, although I do kinda remember

314
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chunks of that. Right? Because it it activates a different

315
00:19:54,575 –> 00:19:58,335
story center in your in your head. Right? Which is what

316
00:19:58,335 –> 00:20:00,675
you’re talking about as a writer. But, also,

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it’s interesting how the structure and I noticed this one with all of the sonnets,

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00:20:06,175 –> 00:20:09,990
actually. The structure of them is, here’s

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00:20:09,990 –> 00:20:13,670
our setup. There’s a weird sort of muddy middle, and then

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there’s a stinger at the end. Oh my gosh. I can’t tell you how many

321
00:20:17,510 –> 00:20:21,355
couplets I wrote down. And I was like, okay. This couplet is amazing. This

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00:20:21,355 –> 00:20:23,915
couplet is amazing. I just wrote them all down on my phone. I was like,

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00:20:23,915 –> 00:20:27,455
these are so cool. Yeah.

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And and and I I am fascinated

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00:20:32,555 –> 00:20:36,100
by the idea that, number 1,

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we we know a bit about Shakespeare, but we don’t we don’t know as much

327
00:20:39,360 –> 00:20:41,520
as we would like to know. Why we don’t know as much as we would

328
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like to know in a sort of a postmodern, I got to know everything about

329
00:20:44,000 –> 00:20:47,440
children down to your bottom of your psychology kind of thing. Like, we don’t know

330
00:20:47,440 –> 00:20:50,915
anything about Shakespeare, that kind of thing. And by the way,

331
00:20:50,915 –> 00:20:54,275
that’s good. That was actually probably one of the better things that he did other

332
00:20:54,275 –> 00:20:58,055
than dying. Not one of the bad things that he did, you know,

333
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because what it does is it creates mystery and then you can fill that bucket

334
00:21:02,595 –> 00:21:06,320
with whoever or whatever you want it you want it to be. But there’s

335
00:21:06,320 –> 00:21:09,940
clearly a mind back there, not only behind the plays,

336
00:21:10,000 –> 00:21:13,060
obviously, but behind the sonnets most particularly

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that understands something about couplet

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structure that is

339
00:21:21,465 –> 00:21:25,065
very, very sophisticated and is

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very, very demanding. And it’s almost as if and I look at

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00:21:28,825 –> 00:21:32,610
it, of course, you know, I look at it through a martial arts lens because,

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00:21:32,610 –> 00:21:36,370
of course, why not? But also through a business lens or an

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entrepreneurship lens where once you get to a

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00:21:40,130 –> 00:21:43,810
certain point, you’ve seen enough and you’ve

345
00:21:43,810 –> 00:21:47,085
been through enough to where you can now begin

346
00:21:47,304 –> 00:21:51,005
shaving away the excess. Mhmm. And

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00:21:51,304 –> 00:21:54,664
that’s what he did in his sonnets, apparently. He shaved away the

348
00:21:54,664 –> 00:21:58,025
excess. And, you know, really good

349
00:21:58,025 –> 00:22:01,860
poetry writers will eventually wind up

350
00:22:01,860 –> 00:22:05,460
in a space of a haiku where you know, and I don’t understand the haiku

351
00:22:05,460 –> 00:22:08,900
structure at all. It doesn’t rhyme at the end, and so I’m,

352
00:22:08,900 –> 00:22:12,660
like, frustrated. But, you know, you know, you’re gonna

353
00:22:12,660 –> 00:22:16,294
have, like, what is it? What is the high school? Haiku structure is, like, 3

354
00:22:16,294 –> 00:22:19,995
words and then 6 words. It’s syllables. I believe it’s 575.

355
00:22:20,534 –> 00:22:23,575
575. Okay. Alright. I’ll I’ll take your word for it. You go ahead and Google

356
00:22:23,575 –> 00:22:26,760
it and look it up, while I’m rambling. To make sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. While

357
00:22:26,760 –> 00:22:30,300
I’m rambling. 575. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Three lines,

358
00:22:30,440 –> 00:22:34,120
5 syllables, 7 7 syllables, 5 syllables. Yep. Right. So I look at that, and

359
00:22:34,120 –> 00:22:37,880
I look at that as like, okay. That’s a Japanese sword master kinda deal where,

360
00:22:37,880 –> 00:22:41,605
like, you’re killing somebody just by slicing

361
00:22:41,605 –> 00:22:45,065
an ear off and they, like, fall down. Like, I’m looking at it like that.

362
00:22:45,365 –> 00:22:49,125
Whereas Shakespeare is more like medieval, I’m gonna hit you with a bunch of

363
00:22:49,125 –> 00:22:52,164
things, but it’s going to be the right things in the right area. It’s it’s

364
00:22:52,164 –> 00:22:55,790
a fundamentally European versus a fundamentally sort of Asian sort of

365
00:22:55,790 –> 00:22:58,450
approach to to lyrical structure.

366
00:22:59,710 –> 00:23:03,090
I don’t know if anybody like, y’all watched the shogun?

367
00:23:04,030 –> 00:23:07,790
I have heard immense things about it, but I refuse to

368
00:23:07,790 –> 00:23:11,465
get Hulu because I’m not bundling anything for Disney. That’s fair.

369
00:23:11,465 –> 00:23:15,225
That’s fair. But I might rip it off. I might So ride the

370
00:23:15,225 –> 00:23:18,825
pirate waves. It’s so good. I mean, we all knew that was coming

371
00:23:18,825 –> 00:23:22,665
back. Like Yes. As soon as yeah. Yeah. But, there

372
00:23:22,665 –> 00:23:26,070
is a there is there are a couple of

373
00:23:26,070 –> 00:23:29,770
episodes that start to really focus in and and zoom in on the poetry,

374
00:23:30,070 –> 00:23:33,590
and it’s just amazing. Yeah. Like and I don’t pretend

375
00:23:33,590 –> 00:23:37,429
to fully understand Japanese poetry. Yeah. I think the

376
00:23:37,429 –> 00:23:40,975
haiku is also supposed to this is not like everybody’s like, oh,

377
00:23:40,975 –> 00:23:44,575
haiku, 575. It’s also supposed to have something to do with,

378
00:23:44,735 –> 00:23:48,115
a season. Like, that’s like a that’s like an underlying

379
00:23:49,375 –> 00:23:52,995
a true haiku has, like, a seasonal reference

380
00:23:53,215 –> 00:23:56,580
or something. And it was like, oh, I never knew

381
00:23:56,580 –> 00:24:00,260
that. Well, that’s that’s interesting, you

382
00:24:00,260 –> 00:24:04,020
know, particularly for this podcast because, you know, we

383
00:24:04,020 –> 00:24:06,580
do focus on the idea, and we’ll get to it at the end of this

384
00:24:06,580 –> 00:24:10,365
episode as well. We try to focus on solutions to problems at the

385
00:24:10,365 –> 00:24:13,645
end of the 4th turning, which we I fundamentally believe that we’re at the end

386
00:24:13,645 –> 00:24:17,485
of that. We’re in the last bit of chaos before last bit of

387
00:24:17,485 –> 00:24:21,085
chaotic winter before spring shows up, in the West

388
00:24:21,085 –> 00:24:24,600
again. And, you know, leaders have to

389
00:24:24,600 –> 00:24:28,360
have to have to I think that leaders need to be

390
00:24:28,360 –> 00:24:32,200
tied in more to the cyclical and the lyrical versus and we’ll talk

391
00:24:32,200 –> 00:24:35,399
a little bit about this today with the ideas of romantic love, which, of course,

392
00:24:35,399 –> 00:24:39,215
lay underneath the sonnets. But, I do think that

393
00:24:39,215 –> 00:24:42,735
leaders have to be tied into the cyclical and the lyrical in a deeper

394
00:24:42,735 –> 00:24:46,495
level than than they really are. Right? Because leaders are very much

395
00:24:46,495 –> 00:24:50,255
tied into the mechanistic. And that really sort of happens with capitalism

396
00:24:50,255 –> 00:24:53,154
and making money and sort of figuring all of that out.

397
00:24:53,750 –> 00:24:57,429
But there’s a whole other unexplored world that

398
00:24:57,429 –> 00:25:00,889
exists underneath there that if you’re ignorant to it,

399
00:25:01,509 –> 00:25:04,230
I do believe that there are dragons that can come out of that water and

400
00:25:04,230 –> 00:25:07,269
eat you. And and and you won’t have any defense for

401
00:25:08,025 –> 00:25:11,385
a mechanistic mind has zero defense against something that’s cyclical and

402
00:25:11,385 –> 00:25:15,225
lyrical and is and is and is

403
00:25:15,225 –> 00:25:18,985
fundamentally sort of confused when it shows up, and then then

404
00:25:18,985 –> 00:25:22,740
everything falls into chaos and, like, you know, When you’re talking, what

405
00:25:22,740 –> 00:25:25,160
what came to mind was being reactive

406
00:25:26,260 –> 00:25:30,040
versus zooming out and understanding that there’s a big arc.

407
00:25:30,580 –> 00:25:33,880
Right. Yep. Right. Yeah. Well and even

408
00:25:34,260 –> 00:25:37,825
so When I look at the sonnets, the

409
00:25:37,825 –> 00:25:41,365
sonnets are written in a Shakespeare

410
00:25:41,425 –> 00:25:45,125
is sticking to a particular structure.

411
00:25:46,545 –> 00:25:50,145
Now he’s doing art inside that structure. He’s peeling away. Like we just said, he’s

412
00:25:50,145 –> 00:25:53,780
peeling away the meaning inside of that structure, but he

413
00:25:53,780 –> 00:25:57,620
is inside some boundaries. Right? Now I

414
00:25:57,620 –> 00:26:00,420
do think it would have been interesting, and this is one of the one of

415
00:26:00,420 –> 00:26:03,140
the sort of mind games that I do sometimes when I read stuff like this.

416
00:26:03,140 –> 00:26:05,540
What would it have been like if he had been able to travel to Japan

417
00:26:05,540 –> 00:26:09,095
and read a haiku? Like, how would that have blown his

418
00:26:09,095 –> 00:26:12,934
mind? Right. Or or what if a great haiku master

419
00:26:12,934 –> 00:26:16,775
from Japan had been able to go to England and be able to

420
00:26:16,775 –> 00:26:19,915
access sonnets, you know, in the in 17th

421
00:26:20,135 –> 00:26:23,590
century? How would that have blown his mind? Right. And that’s what you’re getting with

422
00:26:23,590 –> 00:26:27,050
the Internet right now is all this cross pollination of ideas.

423
00:26:27,270 –> 00:26:30,970
Yeah. And that’s why it feels like a chaotic a chaotic mess a little bit,

424
00:26:31,430 –> 00:26:34,804
because we’re coming up with new forms. Alright.

425
00:26:35,825 –> 00:26:38,965
By the way, why don’t you tell the story of how you sort of consumed

426
00:26:39,024 –> 00:26:42,705
this with that that not Oh, yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, then tell tell a little

427
00:26:42,705 –> 00:26:44,865
bit about that and a little bit about the Patrick Stewart piece because I think

428
00:26:44,865 –> 00:26:47,845
people wanna hear about that because Yeah. They go like, what what was that reference?

429
00:26:48,065 –> 00:26:51,560
So don’t so if you decide you wanna read the

430
00:26:51,560 –> 00:26:55,160
sonnets, don’t feel bad if you can’t just sit down and read the book because

431
00:26:55,160 –> 00:26:58,680
I couldn’t. I’m I’m out of practice reading Shakespeare.

432
00:26:58,680 –> 00:27:02,440
And so I knew that in order to get through these in time for

433
00:27:02,440 –> 00:27:05,965
the podcast, I was gonna have to listen and read them at the same time.

434
00:27:06,345 –> 00:27:10,185
And thankfully now, like, audiobooks are like, they’re everywhere. So

435
00:27:10,185 –> 00:27:13,625
I was like, sure. Surely, there will be an audiobook. But I actually feel like

436
00:27:13,625 –> 00:27:16,925
I found something better. So during the COVID lockdown,

437
00:27:17,650 –> 00:27:20,630
sir Patrick Stewart read a sonnet a day.

438
00:27:21,490 –> 00:27:25,170
And that that playlist is on YouTube. You can

439
00:27:25,170 –> 00:27:28,929
go find it. Just put sir Patrick Stewart sonnets. There you

440
00:27:28,929 –> 00:27:32,525
go. And it’s just it’s it’s amazing. And don’t

441
00:27:32,525 –> 00:27:35,725
get frumpy. I will I will tell you right now. Frumpy. Sorry. That’s a word

442
00:27:35,725 –> 00:27:39,485
that I use all the time. There are sonnets that he just

443
00:27:39,485 –> 00:27:43,325
skips, and I was very irritated about that. But then, like, sometimes he’ll

444
00:27:43,325 –> 00:27:47,130
he’ll, start a video and he’ll be like, I’m

445
00:27:47,130 –> 00:27:50,730
sorry. I have to apologize. I’m going to skip that one because I

446
00:27:50,730 –> 00:27:54,090
don’t like it. I find it rather offensive and no one’s going to make me

447
00:27:54,090 –> 00:27:57,705
read it. It’s like, okay. And so there’s a handful

448
00:27:57,705 –> 00:28:01,165
that he just doesn’t read. I think in, like,

449
00:28:01,305 –> 00:28:04,365
the seventies or so, he just skips, like, 4.

450
00:28:04,825 –> 00:28:08,505
Mhmm. And I’m like, okay. So you you’ll have to go

451
00:28:08,505 –> 00:28:12,230
find someone else to read that. There was another playlist. I don’t

452
00:28:12,230 –> 00:28:15,990
remember what it’s called. But it looks really bad because

453
00:28:15,990 –> 00:28:19,130
it’s it’s a video of someone pushing a tablet,

454
00:28:20,630 –> 00:28:24,105
to, like, pull up someone else reading the sonnet. But

455
00:28:24,105 –> 00:28:27,865
those are actually amazing reads. Okay. They’re

456
00:28:27,945 –> 00:28:31,785
those are amazing reads. So whenever Patrick Stewart just skips a sonnet, go see if

457
00:28:31,785 –> 00:28:35,625
you can find that playlist, because that some

458
00:28:35,625 –> 00:28:39,100
of those are are better. Like Nope. Nope. Oh,

459
00:28:39,559 –> 00:28:41,900
I No. That was sacrilegious.

460
00:28:43,240 –> 00:28:46,920
I know. So You know, we all can’t

461
00:28:46,920 –> 00:28:49,578
be, we all can’t I mean, Captain Picard can’t hit every I mean I know.

462
00:28:49,583 –> 00:28:50,525
The president Xavier can’t hit all the he can’t he can’t hit all the the

463
00:28:50,525 –> 00:28:52,585
president Xavier can’t hit all the he can’t he can’t hit all the marks, so

464
00:28:52,585 –> 00:28:53,325
it’s fine. Well, also, you know, he’s preparing them in, like, an hour and casually.

465
00:28:53,325 –> 00:28:56,525
So it’s just like it’s all good. When you listen to the one that he

466
00:28:56,525 –> 00:28:59,664
has memorized, you’re like, oh, this

467
00:29:05,690 –> 00:29:09,450
is a completely different level. Right. Because it’s actually embedded

468
00:29:09,450 –> 00:29:13,130
into into his Yeah. Yeah. Soul such as it

469
00:29:13,130 –> 00:29:16,890
were his his psyche. Okay. Awesome. And then Ian McKellen

470
00:29:16,970 –> 00:29:20,565
through Ian McKellen makes a a surprise appearance for sir Patrick Stewart’s

471
00:29:20,565 –> 00:29:24,165
birthday, which is just like, oh, we’re all benefiting from this is

472
00:29:24,165 –> 00:29:27,145
amazing. And off came. Yes.

473
00:29:27,925 –> 00:29:31,225
So just Awesome. Just such it’s a great playlist.

474
00:29:31,730 –> 00:29:34,770
Excellent. Well, we will be sure to put the link to that in the, in

475
00:29:34,770 –> 00:29:38,310
the show notes, underneath the player for,

476
00:29:38,930 –> 00:29:42,610
for this episode. So go click on that link and listen to that

477
00:29:42,610 –> 00:29:45,830
playlist back to the sides, back to

478
00:29:47,455 –> 00:29:51,215
the Folger Shakespeare library translation or

479
00:29:51,215 –> 00:29:54,595
version or publication of the sonnets by William

480
00:29:54,735 –> 00:29:58,355
Shakespeare. I’m gonna put my NPR voice on now as we read

481
00:29:58,414 –> 00:29:59,715
sonnet 18.

482
00:30:02,260 –> 00:30:06,100
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely

483
00:30:06,100 –> 00:30:09,940
and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

484
00:30:09,940 –> 00:30:13,000
and summer’s lease hath all too short to date.

485
00:30:13,585 –> 00:30:17,345
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, and often is

486
00:30:17,345 –> 00:30:20,865
his gold complexion dimmed, and every fare from

487
00:30:20,865 –> 00:30:24,325
fair sometimes declines by chance or nature’s changing

488
00:30:24,385 –> 00:30:28,080
course untrimmed. But thy eternal

489
00:30:28,080 –> 00:30:31,600
summer shall not fade nor lose possession of that fair

490
00:30:31,600 –> 00:30:35,120
thou’s nor shall death brag that wanderst in his

491
00:30:35,120 –> 00:30:38,820
shade when in eternal lines to time thou growst.

492
00:30:39,675 –> 00:30:43,435
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives

493
00:30:43,435 –> 00:30:47,135
this and gives and this gives life

494
00:30:47,275 –> 00:30:51,035
to thee. Shall I

495
00:30:51,035 –> 00:30:53,135
compare thee to a summer’s day?

496
00:30:55,920 –> 00:30:59,520
Now I’m not Pablo Neruda, although I do have a book of Pablo Neruda’s love

497
00:30:59,520 –> 00:31:03,200
poems floating around somewhere in my house. And I’ve been

498
00:31:03,200 –> 00:31:06,880
married a while now. I won’t get into the specific number of years, but I’ve

499
00:31:06,880 –> 00:31:10,575
been married a while now. And when you’ve been married a while, shall I

500
00:31:10,575 –> 00:31:14,175
compare thee to a summer’s day takes on different kinds of meaning than when you’re

501
00:31:14,175 –> 00:31:16,995
first in the throes of a relationship when you’re like 18

502
00:31:21,055 –> 00:31:23,570
or 25 or 40.

503
00:31:28,350 –> 00:31:31,970
So while I’m not going to get into that

504
00:31:32,830 –> 00:31:36,429
aspect of this because this sonnet has been often

505
00:31:36,429 –> 00:31:39,615
quoted in romantic

506
00:31:40,395 –> 00:31:43,755
in a romantic context, right, for romantic novels, romantic

507
00:31:43,755 –> 00:31:47,435
films, you know, the kinds of movies you see, like that silly movie

508
00:31:47,435 –> 00:31:50,590
serendipity back in the day, hate. But,

509
00:31:51,290 –> 00:31:54,730
you know, where, oh, each other and, oh, we’re gonna fall in love. And then

510
00:31:54,730 –> 00:31:58,490
there’s gonna be this tragic middle thing that happens. And then the

511
00:31:58,490 –> 00:32:01,690
day new bond, everybody gets together and she loves him and he loves her, yada,

512
00:32:01,690 –> 00:32:05,405
yada, yada. Okay. We’ve seen this structure before. Right? I’m not dismissing

513
00:32:05,545 –> 00:32:08,585
it. There’s relevance for romance. As a matter of fact, we’re gonna talk a lot

514
00:32:08,585 –> 00:32:12,205
about romance today, in philosophical,

515
00:32:13,625 –> 00:32:17,465
moral, and even leadership terms because there is a role for romance, I

516
00:32:17,465 –> 00:32:20,880
believe, for leaders. And, no, it does not mean having

517
00:32:20,880 –> 00:32:24,580
romance with the people that you work with. I would

518
00:32:25,200 –> 00:32:28,020
strongly reject,

519
00:32:30,000 –> 00:32:32,980
putting the line, shall I compare thee to a summer’s day

520
00:32:33,655 –> 00:32:36,875
in any communication that you’re having with your team members

521
00:32:37,575 –> 00:32:41,415
or employees? And don’t tell them that

522
00:32:41,415 –> 00:32:44,855
they are more lovely and more temperate. Don’t don’t don’t do that part

523
00:32:44,855 –> 00:32:48,330
either. However, reading this

524
00:32:48,790 –> 00:32:52,390
and understanding what we talk about when we talk about

525
00:32:52,390 –> 00:32:56,070
love has to begin with an understanding of sort of

526
00:32:56,070 –> 00:32:59,655
where Shakespeare was coming from, in medieval

527
00:32:59,715 –> 00:33:03,235
times. Right. Or, well, not even medieval post medieval

528
00:33:03,235 –> 00:33:07,075
times in that weird moment that happened between the end of the

529
00:33:07,075 –> 00:33:10,750
medieval era in Europe, historically speaking, and the

530
00:33:10,750 –> 00:33:14,590
beginning of the Renaissance. There’s the low Renaissance and there’s the high Renaissance. And high

531
00:33:14,590 –> 00:33:18,350
Renaissance is what everybody thinks of, like, Michelangelo and David and Raphael of the great

532
00:33:18,350 –> 00:33:21,630
paintings. That was the high Renaissance, which was also a time, by the way, of

533
00:33:21,630 –> 00:33:25,365
Martin Luther and Christopher Columbus. Everybody forgets that. That’s a

534
00:33:25,365 –> 00:33:28,905
lot of dynamics were happening in Europe all at the same time and globally.

535
00:33:29,205 –> 00:33:32,965
Right? But Shakespeare was writing in that weird middle moment where the

536
00:33:32,965 –> 00:33:36,725
transition was being made. And in

537
00:33:36,725 –> 00:33:40,530
medieval times from the 13th 14th century up to Shakespeare’s

538
00:33:40,530 –> 00:33:43,910
day, love

539
00:33:45,330 –> 00:33:49,110
was considered to be a secondary or even tertiary

540
00:33:50,290 –> 00:33:53,510
or minor consideration when it came to

541
00:33:54,105 –> 00:33:57,945
marriage. As a matter of fact, romantic love is a driver for marriage,

542
00:33:57,945 –> 00:34:01,465
and you can Google this and research all this yourself. And

543
00:34:01,465 –> 00:34:05,065
lifetime partnering really didn’t start until in full

544
00:34:05,065 –> 00:34:08,820
force until around 18th century. As a matter of fact, it became

545
00:34:08,820 –> 00:34:12,500
industrialized during the 20th century and led into all the kinds

546
00:34:12,500 –> 00:34:16,260
of current issues and challenges that we have right now, which we’ll talk about some

547
00:34:16,260 –> 00:34:19,940
of those today. So Shakespeare was

548
00:34:19,940 –> 00:34:23,635
sitting in a weird cultural shift that

549
00:34:23,635 –> 00:34:27,174
was happening where the mediaevils who were concerned,

550
00:34:27,315 –> 00:34:30,214
quite frankly, about business arrangements

551
00:34:30,674 –> 00:34:34,275
and property where the status of women

552
00:34:35,020 –> 00:34:38,860
and by the way, feminism was not a thing, okay, in the 13th 14th

553
00:34:38,860 –> 00:34:42,700
century, where the status of women as property and

554
00:34:42,700 –> 00:34:46,400
women not being able to hold property was indirect

555
00:34:48,585 –> 00:34:52,125
contradiction and was in direct challenge to Christian

556
00:34:52,185 –> 00:34:55,784
ideals of egalitarianism. There were also rule in

557
00:34:55,784 –> 00:34:59,405
Europe throughout the medieval period. And, of course, we’re influencing

558
00:34:59,625 –> 00:35:03,380
Shakespeare. And so this idea that you would marry for love,

559
00:35:03,599 –> 00:35:06,720
this idea that a woman was more than just a piece of property. She was

560
00:35:06,720 –> 00:35:10,480
a romantic object with her own, yes, a romantic

561
00:35:10,480 –> 00:35:13,914
object. I did use that term with her own ideals and her

562
00:35:13,914 –> 00:35:17,214
own emotions and her own needs to be fulfilled.

563
00:35:17,275 –> 00:35:21,055
Right? And here’s another practical consideration

564
00:35:21,194 –> 00:35:25,035
that was going in that was also being considered in Shakespeare’s time that somehow

565
00:35:25,035 –> 00:35:27,295
romantic love would act as a,

566
00:35:28,950 –> 00:35:32,550
I’m gonna use a different a challenging word here, an ameliorative barrier,

567
00:35:32,550 –> 00:35:36,170
right, to the very real,

568
00:35:36,390 –> 00:35:38,970
very real challenges of infant mortality,

569
00:35:40,310 –> 00:35:43,865
disease, poverty, and death. I mean, when

570
00:35:43,865 –> 00:35:47,465
Shakespeare was writing in the 7th the early 17th

571
00:35:47,465 –> 00:35:51,305
century, you know, a quarter of Europe’s population, a

572
00:35:51,305 –> 00:35:55,065
little more than a quarter of your population, had been carried off by the black

573
00:35:55,065 –> 00:35:58,550
death in the previous 150 years. And so that

574
00:35:58,550 –> 00:36:02,150
wasn’t something that was sort

575
00:36:02,150 –> 00:36:05,530
of a back of the

576
00:36:05,830 –> 00:36:09,510
mind consideration. It was still very real. He was surrounded by people who would

577
00:36:09,510 –> 00:36:13,035
actually have relatives that had you know, died of the

578
00:36:13,035 –> 00:36:16,715
bubonic plague, and they wanted to I think one of the

579
00:36:16,715 –> 00:36:20,494
even mentions, like, common cure or, like,

580
00:36:20,875 –> 00:36:23,775
something for the plague. So Correct. Right.

581
00:36:24,630 –> 00:36:28,390
And then you put all this in the milieu of Western Europe where they

582
00:36:28,390 –> 00:36:32,230
are in the hangover from Roman and Greek paganism. Right? So the Roman and Greek

583
00:36:32,230 –> 00:36:35,829
ideals of love, and of platonic love versus

584
00:36:35,829 –> 00:36:39,425
romantic love versus agape love, which is the love that

585
00:36:39,425 –> 00:36:42,565
Jesus talked about in the New Testament. These ideals,

586
00:36:43,265 –> 00:36:46,645
while they were supposed to be spread throughout

587
00:36:47,185 –> 00:36:50,245
the gothic not gothic, throughout the medieval world,

588
00:36:51,830 –> 00:36:55,590
by monks and priests and and and Catholic, yes,

589
00:36:55,590 –> 00:36:57,450
Catholic, folks,

590
00:36:59,910 –> 00:37:03,405
it had sort of gotten into being more of a business, which is

591
00:37:03,405 –> 00:37:07,165
how all systems eventually run too. It had sort

592
00:37:07,165 –> 00:37:11,005
of gotten into being more of a business of religion in Western Europe and

593
00:37:11,005 –> 00:37:14,765
in England at the time, which was in

594
00:37:14,765 –> 00:37:18,210
contrast or intention with the actual religious

595
00:37:18,210 –> 00:37:22,050
practice of religion. So people were getting married for a whole bunch of

596
00:37:22,050 –> 00:37:25,410
different reasons just like now. People had a whole bunch of cultural or

597
00:37:25,410 –> 00:37:28,930
numerous cultural challenges around marriage and mating just like

598
00:37:28,930 –> 00:37:32,630
now. But romantic love was not the primary driver,

599
00:37:33,545 –> 00:37:36,905
And then Shakespeare dumps sonnets like this into a

600
00:37:36,905 –> 00:37:40,265
culture indicating that a sea change is

601
00:37:40,265 –> 00:37:43,705
beginning to occur. A key

602
00:37:43,705 –> 00:37:47,465
change, maybe? Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Sorry. Well

603
00:37:47,465 –> 00:37:49,670
well, let’s let’s start there.

604
00:37:51,329 –> 00:37:55,089
So why is love a powerful motivator for people to engage

605
00:37:55,089 –> 00:37:58,930
in romance? And I, you know, I’m fascinated by the idea that

606
00:37:58,930 –> 00:38:01,569
that marriage used to be more of a business arrangement and you went and got

607
00:38:01,569 –> 00:38:04,775
your love someplace else. Like, your marriage was not the one that was supposed to

608
00:38:04,775 –> 00:38:08,575
be. Okay? Yeah. That was fine. Like, nobody nobody cracked it. The only

609
00:38:08,575 –> 00:38:11,955
people who couldn’t afford to do that, by the way, were the medieval

610
00:38:12,015 –> 00:38:15,775
peasants who had no money and no access. Right? But

611
00:38:15,775 –> 00:38:19,000
if you which, by the way, we had all lived during medieval times, I wanna

612
00:38:19,079 –> 00:38:22,780
just even the people who are listening here, let’s just be real. Without industrialization,

613
00:38:23,240 –> 00:38:26,839
all of us would have been medieval peasants. We would have been living on

614
00:38:26,839 –> 00:38:30,059
lands of feudal lords regardless of race or gender,

615
00:38:30,734 –> 00:38:34,015
whatever. We would have been living on lands of feudal lords and working those lands

616
00:38:34,015 –> 00:38:37,454
and dying in wars. The industrial revolution, the

617
00:38:37,454 –> 00:38:41,134
American revolution, all those things matter, free speech, the

618
00:38:41,134 –> 00:38:44,494
constitution, the declaration of it, all those kind of the Magna Carta,

619
00:38:44,494 –> 00:38:48,060
which was getting ready to come up, all that kind of stuff

620
00:38:49,080 –> 00:38:52,920
matters to get us to where we are at now. It didn’t just sort

621
00:38:52,920 –> 00:38:56,680
of pop out of the woodwork. And it’s not guaranteed, by the

622
00:38:56,680 –> 00:39:00,225
way, to last. Okay? So we have to like actually hold on to that stuff.

623
00:39:00,305 –> 00:39:04,085
Because you could easily the default the default for humanity is

624
00:39:04,705 –> 00:39:08,545
service for somebody else because the default is slavery, and you just

625
00:39:08,545 –> 00:39:12,385
live and work and die. And if you fall in love, well, that’s

626
00:39:12,385 –> 00:39:15,740
nice, I guess, maybe, but no one cares. That’s the default.

627
00:39:16,600 –> 00:39:20,440
So having romantic love is great. I’m

628
00:39:20,440 –> 00:39:24,040
fascinated by the idea of it. Again, you get your partnerships, you get your romantic

629
00:39:24,040 –> 00:39:27,800
love over there someplace else, and I’ll gonna bring up an article that I just

630
00:39:27,800 –> 00:39:31,345
saw the headline for in the Atlantic, like literally before I came on this

631
00:39:31,345 –> 00:39:34,945
podcast that I wanna bring up to this. But it’s interesting

632
00:39:34,945 –> 00:39:38,305
that as we are arcing through the early part of the 21st

633
00:39:38,305 –> 00:39:42,065
century, we’re now talking about the difficulties of

634
00:39:42,065 –> 00:39:45,480
romantic attachment, infant or infant or not infant. Sorry.

635
00:39:45,480 –> 00:39:49,320
Fertility is down everywhere across the west. Replacement weights are down all the

636
00:39:49,320 –> 00:39:53,100
way across the rest, all across the west. And because of our technology

637
00:39:53,400 –> 00:39:56,995
now, almost no one can hook up. Although everybody can hook everybody can hook up.

638
00:39:56,995 –> 00:40:00,035
Everybody can hook up to do everything to do everything, but almost no one can

639
00:40:00,035 –> 00:40:03,795
engage in romantic love. But everybody still

640
00:40:03,795 –> 00:40:07,555
wants that. We’re in this weird conundrum just

641
00:40:07,555 –> 00:40:11,015
like in Shakespeare’s time. And so that’s what I connected with on this

642
00:40:11,369 –> 00:40:15,130
Thoughts that you may have. Thoughts, ideas, you’re you’re brimming over. I’m not

643
00:40:15,289 –> 00:40:18,890
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot it’s a lot. It’s a lot. It’s fun. As usual.

644
00:40:18,890 –> 00:40:22,569
You know, Hason sends me this, the the the kind of the

645
00:40:22,569 –> 00:40:26,325
guideline for the podcast. And it’s like, why is love such a powerful motivator? It’s

646
00:40:26,325 –> 00:40:29,785
like, we don’t have time. We don’t there is not enough time

647
00:40:30,085 –> 00:40:33,224
to talk about this. We’ve only got an hour. Yeah. Right?

648
00:40:34,085 –> 00:40:37,685
I think people have written their dissertations on this. So, like, they’re just written and

649
00:40:37,765 –> 00:40:41,150
Yeah. It’s fine. Anyway, so

650
00:40:41,690 –> 00:40:45,150
I I but I wanna point out something. This might feel like nitpicking,

651
00:40:45,369 –> 00:40:48,809
but, like, just almost breaking down this

652
00:40:48,809 –> 00:40:51,630
question. Love is different from romance.

653
00:40:52,825 –> 00:40:56,425
Okay. Right? So that well, I mean, that’s that’s how the question’s written. Why is

654
00:40:56,425 –> 00:40:59,805
love such a powerful motivator for people to engage in romance?

655
00:41:00,025 –> 00:41:03,485
Mhmm. So people, I think, get confused.

656
00:41:03,865 –> 00:41:07,580
Mhmm. And they expect love to be

657
00:41:07,580 –> 00:41:10,880
and feel like romance. Mhmm. And that

658
00:41:10,940 –> 00:41:14,160
causes a lot of pain and strife in

659
00:41:14,620 –> 00:41:18,320
relationships when you go into a romantic relationship,

660
00:41:18,954 –> 00:41:22,635
and then you’re in it for long enough that the romance it doesn’t like, you

661
00:41:22,635 –> 00:41:26,474
have to actively keep it up. I think that’s what shorter lived relationships don’t

662
00:41:26,635 –> 00:41:30,395
they don’t understand. You like, that has to continue to be

663
00:41:30,395 –> 00:41:34,200
an intention. You have to set it, your husband, whatever. Like, you

664
00:41:34,200 –> 00:41:37,400
you you have to work at that because otherwise, you fall into a rhythm and

665
00:41:37,400 –> 00:41:41,160
then the relationship goes stale. That’s that’s that’s just kinda how life

666
00:41:41,160 –> 00:41:44,620
goes. So you could you could apply that to kinda everything.

667
00:41:44,920 –> 00:41:48,615
But love, one of my favorite shows used to

668
00:41:48,615 –> 00:41:51,915
be Doctor Who. I love the old

669
00:41:52,695 –> 00:41:56,535
seasons. Please don’t find me and send me

670
00:41:56,535 –> 00:42:00,135
hate mail. I can’t stand the new seasons. The the writing is

671
00:42:00,135 –> 00:42:03,910
just atrocious. But back when

672
00:42:03,910 –> 00:42:07,610
they first revived it, you know, you’ve got

673
00:42:07,670 –> 00:42:11,510
Christopher Eccleston. You’ve got David Tennant. Matt Smith was not my

674
00:42:11,510 –> 00:42:14,890
favorite, but whatever. It’s fine. Peter Capaldi

675
00:42:15,215 –> 00:42:18,895
gets in there for a couple of seasons, and I still

676
00:42:18,895 –> 00:42:22,335
didn’t love those seasons. Capaldi was an amazing doctor. But, anyway, all that to say,

677
00:42:22,335 –> 00:42:26,095
there’s this punch line at the end of one of his seasons, and it’s

678
00:42:26,095 –> 00:42:29,075
absolutely amazing. And he says, love is not a feeling.

679
00:42:30,130 –> 00:42:33,750
Love is a promise. And that just, like,

680
00:42:34,050 –> 00:42:37,810
boom. It’s like, oh my gosh. That’s that’s the the like, talk about a

681
00:42:37,810 –> 00:42:41,030
compact way of expressing something that I feel like I’ve always known.

682
00:42:41,170 –> 00:42:43,510
Mhmm. So love, like,

683
00:42:44,805 –> 00:42:48,484
but back to, like, the actual question. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It’s

684
00:42:48,484 –> 00:42:51,465
okay. Love is a many splendor thing. We’re gonna talk about that too.

685
00:42:52,244 –> 00:42:56,085
Because and I think the because like, why is love such a powerful motivator?

686
00:42:56,085 –> 00:42:59,820
Because we know I think all instinctively, we all know how

687
00:42:59,820 –> 00:43:03,360
powerful love is. Mhmm. Like, true, deep,

688
00:43:04,540 –> 00:43:08,300
crazy love. Like, it’s it’s I mean, I’m Catholic, so I believe, like,

689
00:43:08,300 –> 00:43:11,660
love doesn’t end. Like, love like, Guru really is. You know, God is

690
00:43:11,660 –> 00:43:15,395
love. Mhmm. Right. It is everywhere. It permeates all things.

691
00:43:15,535 –> 00:43:18,755
It is, like, it is all powerful. Mhmm.

692
00:43:22,095 –> 00:43:25,615
So is there a better motivator? Like, what’s that? I don’t I don’t know. It’s

693
00:43:25,695 –> 00:43:29,400
it it is it’s divine. So we but then engaging

694
00:43:29,400 –> 00:43:32,619
in romance, I think we almost think that romance

695
00:43:33,160 –> 00:43:36,920
is love. Right. Romance is not love. We have 2 different words

696
00:43:36,920 –> 00:43:40,360
for it for a reason. Well, and I think what the other thing that and

697
00:43:40,360 –> 00:43:44,185
maybe you can address this as well. The English language has only one

698
00:43:44,185 –> 00:43:47,885
word for love. Yes. That too. And so

699
00:43:48,265 –> 00:43:51,865
And love is like multifaceted. It’s like, it’s way more than

700
00:43:51,865 –> 00:43:55,640
just like physical attraction. Right. Like, I I I

701
00:43:55,640 –> 00:43:58,600
mean, I have I have talked about my kids on the podcast. Like, okay. I’m

702
00:43:58,600 –> 00:44:01,240
not gonna talk about them. Like, I have friends. I do, actually. I have people

703
00:44:01,240 –> 00:44:03,000
that hang around me and like to hang around me, and I like to hang

704
00:44:03,000 –> 00:44:06,680
around them. I know it’s shocking. But, like like yeah. Like, I I

705
00:44:06,840 –> 00:44:10,405
you know? But I will use the

706
00:44:10,405 –> 00:44:13,204
term love. I love hanging out with this guy. Right? Or Yeah.

707
00:44:14,165 –> 00:44:17,925
I love doing this particular thing with this particular person. Right? But

708
00:44:17,925 –> 00:44:21,685
then we’ll also use that same term to to make it about business and

709
00:44:21,685 –> 00:44:25,500
leadership for just a minute. I love doing I love standing

710
00:44:25,500 –> 00:44:29,180
up on stage, right? Or I love, talking with

711
00:44:29,180 –> 00:44:32,700
my employees, right? Or I love starting a new project, or I

712
00:44:32,700 –> 00:44:36,380
love feeling as though I’m being recognized for my,

713
00:44:37,020 –> 00:44:40,795
my unique gifts and talents and skills and competencies. We’re using

714
00:44:40,795 –> 00:44:44,015
that word love, but the context

715
00:44:44,634 –> 00:44:48,474
changes the container that that word sits in, but it’s still just one

716
00:44:48,474 –> 00:44:52,210
word. And it’s this one word covering a multitude of sins in the

717
00:44:52,210 –> 00:44:55,590
English language. Now in other languages, in other language groups,

718
00:44:56,050 –> 00:44:59,730
in other language forms, love, that word is split

719
00:44:59,730 –> 00:45:03,470
up as I believe it probably should be in in English because, you

720
00:45:03,570 –> 00:45:06,945
know, you talk about the difference between romance and

721
00:45:06,945 –> 00:45:10,405
love. Romance is much more to me

722
00:45:10,785 –> 00:45:14,465
much more of an intentional act. And then it

723
00:45:14,465 –> 00:45:18,225
gets that gets me into trouble a little bit sometimes. But it’s an intent well,

724
00:45:18,225 –> 00:45:22,020
it it does because you have to put some people people

725
00:45:22,020 –> 00:45:23,480
want romance to be spontaneous.

726
00:45:27,140 –> 00:45:28,920
And and and and,

727
00:45:31,780 –> 00:45:35,620
that’s not the reality of life. The reality of

728
00:45:35,620 –> 00:45:38,565
life is that I’m busy, you’re busy, everybody’s busy.

729
00:45:39,425 –> 00:45:42,965
And to your point, if you don’t work on romance,

730
00:45:43,585 –> 00:45:47,425
by the way, the work implies intention Uh-huh. You’re not

731
00:45:47,425 –> 00:45:51,030
gonna get the thing you wanna get on the other side of romance, which is

732
00:45:51,030 –> 00:45:54,730
deep, meaningful physical, spiritual, material,

733
00:45:54,870 –> 00:45:58,310
emotional connection. You’re not gonna get that. You’re gonna

734
00:45:58,310 –> 00:46:02,070
get a big fat 0 because you have to be intentional.

735
00:46:02,070 –> 00:46:05,845
You have to put in work. Romance does have an element of work

736
00:46:05,845 –> 00:46:08,505
to it. It has an element of intentionality.

737
00:46:09,525 –> 00:46:13,285
Now it also has elements of and I would be remiss if I did

738
00:46:13,285 –> 00:46:16,585
not admit this. It does have moments of spontaneity,

739
00:46:17,605 –> 00:46:21,150
for sure. But just

740
00:46:21,150 –> 00:46:24,910
like Denis Leary said in his

741
00:46:24,910 –> 00:46:27,810
great comedy album in the 19 nineties, no cure for cancer,

742
00:46:31,150 –> 00:46:34,895
you eat the chocolate and you feel good for, like, 5 seconds,

743
00:46:35,595 –> 00:46:39,435
and where you, have the orgasm and you feel good for 5

744
00:46:39,435 –> 00:46:43,195
seconds. Right? Like, these things happen for 5 seconds, and then you’re back to your

745
00:46:43,195 –> 00:46:46,635
crappy life. Like, that that that that’s it. Like, you’re back to the thing that

746
00:46:46,635 –> 00:46:50,339
you’re always doing. And the spontaneity and romance

747
00:46:50,339 –> 00:46:54,099
happens for and then you’re back to talking about like, when

748
00:46:54,099 –> 00:46:56,839
are we gonna get how are we gonna deal with the grocery list this week?

749
00:46:59,859 –> 00:47:03,535
Because those things also matter, right? So I think the

750
00:47:03,535 –> 00:47:07,215
struggle in the west has been how to how to and it’s been a 500

751
00:47:07,215 –> 00:47:10,255
year long struggle, and I don’t think we’re out of it yet. I think we’re

752
00:47:10,255 –> 00:47:14,015
deep and technology just made this worse. But the 500

753
00:47:14,015 –> 00:47:17,215
year long struggle in the west is how to have both those things at the

754
00:47:17,215 –> 00:47:21,030
same time between 2 people. And none of us knows

755
00:47:21,030 –> 00:47:24,470
the answer. Nobody knows the answer. We’re all just, like, blind

756
00:47:24,470 –> 00:47:27,770
people groping around, trying to figure it out in the dark.

757
00:47:30,150 –> 00:47:33,935
We don’t know. We have no idea. Like, I’ll stand in line. I’ll

758
00:47:33,935 –> 00:47:37,375
use a Louis CK example. Right? I’m standing in line in the grocery store. This

759
00:47:37,375 –> 00:47:40,515
has actually happened to me, and I’m just watching people’s marriages fall apart.

760
00:47:41,935 –> 00:47:45,635
Just all over the place. And it’s not because it’s not for lack of romance.

761
00:47:47,550 –> 00:47:51,390
It’s not even for lack of love. I think the 2 people probably do love

762
00:47:51,390 –> 00:47:55,230
each other. I have to presume the best modus for everybody. But, like,

763
00:47:55,230 –> 00:47:58,910
he’s on his phone and the kid’s screaming, and she’s staring, you

764
00:47:58,910 –> 00:48:02,510
know, 10,000 yards daily. She’s got PTSD, like a Vietnam

765
00:48:02,510 –> 00:48:06,085
vet. And, like, just what’s

766
00:48:06,085 –> 00:48:09,125
happening there? That’s a relationship that’s like

767
00:48:10,964 –> 00:48:14,805
the sound that it’s making is it’s disintegrating. And if

768
00:48:14,805 –> 00:48:18,490
you go and ask either one of those two people, they will inter they

769
00:48:18,490 –> 00:48:21,309
will intertwine the words love and romance together

770
00:48:23,049 –> 00:48:25,690
if you ask them honestly. And so this is the thing I think we’re struggling

771
00:48:25,690 –> 00:48:29,529
with, and this is what this is what the the ideal is what

772
00:48:29,529 –> 00:48:32,990
Shakespeare delivers to us. He delivers us the ideal from the top of the mountain.

773
00:48:44,145 –> 00:48:47,849
Interesting. I

774
00:48:47,849 –> 00:48:51,390
thought it had some legs. It was a thesis. Yeah. Yeah. It’s,

775
00:48:52,010 –> 00:48:55,549
my my thoughts about that was that,

776
00:48:56,089 –> 00:48:59,690
you know, reading through, especially all the ones that were about the beautiful young man

777
00:49:00,010 –> 00:49:03,845
Mhmm. Is it felt like they were

778
00:49:03,845 –> 00:49:05,625
poems about a love

779
00:49:07,525 –> 00:49:10,345
about someone he couldn’t have. Right.

780
00:49:11,285 –> 00:49:14,965
But to your point, that might be that might

781
00:49:14,965 –> 00:49:18,800
be what that might be the point you’re making. It’s like, yeah. Yeah. The Shakespeare

782
00:49:18,800 –> 00:49:22,500
is delivering the ideal. None of us can have it. It doesn’t really exist.

783
00:49:22,560 –> 00:49:26,240
We just can’t. Like, we can’t get there. Well, on the

784
00:49:26,240 –> 00:49:29,920
ideal, we’ll judge you because that’s what an ideal does. Like, it it it judges

785
00:49:29,920 –> 00:49:33,565
you, and you’re always found wanting. You are always wanting in comparison to the

786
00:49:33,565 –> 00:49:36,545
ideal. You’re never meeting the ideal. You’re never meeting your potential.

787
00:49:38,365 –> 00:49:41,905
Not happening. Like, for instance, here’s an ideal.

788
00:49:42,765 –> 00:49:46,440
I live in a community where the average age of the individuals in the

789
00:49:46,440 –> 00:49:48,220
community is 55 to 75.

790
00:49:51,320 –> 00:49:55,160
A lot of retirees, a lot of folks who are on the downhill

791
00:49:55,160 –> 00:49:58,865
side of life. Matter of fact, I just went to

792
00:49:58,865 –> 00:50:02,225
a barbecue this weekend that had like 6 couples

793
00:50:02,225 –> 00:50:06,065
there. And my wife and I, we’re in our mid forties. We’re the youngest couple

794
00:50:06,065 –> 00:50:09,365
there with our 2 children who are 7 14.

795
00:50:10,110 –> 00:50:12,590
And they were all fascinated by the 7 year old, and he put on a

796
00:50:12,590 –> 00:50:15,150
good show, and he did his job. He did exactly what he was supposed to

797
00:50:15,150 –> 00:50:18,510
do. And my 14 year old, she put on a show. She did her good

798
00:50:18,510 –> 00:50:22,205
job. She’s starting to understand, like, the social stuff, like, how

799
00:50:22,205 –> 00:50:25,825
that works. She’s 14 till, like, it’s it’s sort of starting to begin to happen.

800
00:50:26,205 –> 00:50:29,905
Right? Right on time, by the way, developmentally. But we were the youngest people there.

801
00:50:30,365 –> 00:50:32,385
And it’s just fascinating to watch

802
00:50:33,900 –> 00:50:37,599
these, you know, 4 other couples or 6 other couples

803
00:50:37,980 –> 00:50:41,579
who have been one woman said, I’ve been married to this man for 45 years.

804
00:50:41,579 –> 00:50:44,240
I’ve already heard this story. And I was just like, okay.

805
00:50:45,339 –> 00:50:45,839
Alright.

806
00:50:50,655 –> 00:50:53,315
And you still have romance after 45 years. 45

807
00:50:54,575 –> 00:50:58,415
years with the same person. This is what we struggle

808
00:50:58,415 –> 00:51:02,190
with in the west. Was that a question? Can you have romance? It is a

809
00:51:02,190 –> 00:51:05,630
question. It is absolutely a question. This is the question that all the Gen

810
00:51:05,630 –> 00:51:09,470
Zers who are between the ages of 2535 now are asking,

811
00:51:09,470 –> 00:51:12,430
and they don’t believe the answer is yes. This is the question that all the

812
00:51:12,430 –> 00:51:15,170
millennials who the oldest of them are now 44

813
00:51:16,575 –> 00:51:19,635
are struggling with. This is the question that all the boomers,

814
00:51:21,055 –> 00:51:24,575
many of whom worked on their or or on their second marriage, just hanging on

815
00:51:24,575 –> 00:51:27,855
for dear life, and the Gen Xers who are on their second marriage hanging on

816
00:51:27,855 –> 00:51:31,410
for dear life can’t answer. This is the challenge question of the west in

817
00:51:31,410 –> 00:51:34,850
particular or the west in general and America in particular right

818
00:51:34,850 –> 00:51:38,370
now. How do you stay with 1 person for 45 years and still have romance?

819
00:51:38,370 –> 00:51:42,065
Because what everybody seems to want in

820
00:51:42,065 –> 00:51:45,525
survey after survey after survey from Cosmo all the way to,

821
00:51:46,225 –> 00:51:49,985
you know, the Gallup organization, what everybody seems to want is that

822
00:51:49,985 –> 00:51:53,425
field that ideal. Everybody seems to want that ideal, but no one has a clue

823
00:51:53,425 –> 00:51:56,819
how to get it. I’m only

824
00:51:56,819 –> 00:52:00,180
34. So so I I have I

825
00:52:00,980 –> 00:52:04,660
like, thinking about this, I wonder my my

826
00:52:04,660 –> 00:52:08,219
my my proposed answer. I know nobody has the answer. But Yeah. Nobody knows.

827
00:52:08,420 –> 00:52:12,175
Is so I’ve been with my husband for

828
00:52:13,355 –> 00:52:16,895
almost 20 years now. We haven’t been married that long. But

829
00:52:17,195 –> 00:52:20,015
something that I wonder is if the answer is growth.

830
00:52:21,994 –> 00:52:25,740
Just keep growing as a person. I know people think they

831
00:52:25,740 –> 00:52:29,520
look at that. They were like, we’ve grown apart. That’s that’s the most, like, common,

832
00:52:30,700 –> 00:52:33,520
use of that word in terms of the the

833
00:52:34,460 –> 00:52:37,920
context of relationships. Like, I’m grown apart. I just don’t love them anymore.

834
00:52:39,295 –> 00:52:43,135
But if you both keep growing and you

835
00:52:43,135 –> 00:52:46,815
both keep your intentionality of, like, building this relationship,

836
00:52:46,815 –> 00:52:50,655
strengthening the relationship Mhmm. You just kind

837
00:52:50,655 –> 00:52:53,315
of keep finding new reasons to fall in love.

838
00:52:55,640 –> 00:52:59,400
You can also Yeah. Can also find reasons to fall

839
00:52:59,400 –> 00:53:03,240
out of love For sure. And go apart. You can do both. Both, I think,

840
00:53:03,240 –> 00:53:06,380
both pads Mhmm. Are available.

841
00:53:07,000 –> 00:53:10,765
But that that was what popped into my head. Keep

842
00:53:10,765 –> 00:53:14,525
growing Yeah. As a person. Because I am like you

843
00:53:14,525 –> 00:53:17,965
said earlier, like, if you haven’t grown in 30 years or if you’re the same

844
00:53:17,965 –> 00:53:21,405
person you were 30 years ago Right. You haven’t grown, like, you don’t wanna be

845
00:53:21,405 –> 00:53:25,105
the same person that you were when you started the marriage.

846
00:53:25,800 –> 00:53:29,320
And the person that you are now, if your husband is the same

847
00:53:29,320 –> 00:53:32,680
person, then there might that might be where that

848
00:53:32,680 –> 00:53:35,880
discrepancy is, maybe. Mhmm. I don’t know. I just, like, that was the thing that

849
00:53:35,880 –> 00:53:38,700
popped into my head. It was, like, oh, I wonder if growth is a factor.

850
00:53:38,760 –> 00:53:42,515
So just keep finding reasons to grow as a person

851
00:53:42,575 –> 00:53:46,275
and grow closer together. I wonder.

852
00:53:46,895 –> 00:53:50,575
Yeah. And I yeah. And, again, I’m saying I I I don’t know what the

853
00:53:50,575 –> 00:53:53,635
answer is. This is one of those areas where

854
00:53:54,895 –> 00:53:58,710
I think the questions are a bottomless pit. And yes, I

855
00:53:58,710 –> 00:54:01,770
want you to put that image in your head. It’s a bottomless pit of questions

856
00:54:02,150 –> 00:54:05,910
because, and I’ll use an example here. I

857
00:54:05,910 –> 00:54:09,750
once had a business conversation with somebody, interestingly enough, on a

858
00:54:09,750 –> 00:54:13,495
networking platform, which I won’t say the name of. And it was

859
00:54:13,495 –> 00:54:17,255
during the business day and we had her having this conversation. And I

860
00:54:17,255 –> 00:54:20,935
don’t remember how we got into this. It was a 45 minute long sort of

861
00:54:20,935 –> 00:54:24,615
interaction. And she was talking about how her and her

862
00:54:24,615 –> 00:54:28,349
partner, which by the way, anybody who uses that term in

863
00:54:28,349 –> 00:54:32,109
the modern context, I’m like, oh, my my my radar starts

864
00:54:32,109 –> 00:54:35,390
to go the back little thing in the back of my head goes up, because

865
00:54:35,390 –> 00:54:38,029
I don’t know where I don’t know where they’re going. Right? With this. I don’t

866
00:54:38,029 –> 00:54:40,910
know if that means they’re cohabitating. I don’t know if that means they’re cohabitating in

867
00:54:40,910 –> 00:54:44,615
the same sex, you know, relationship. I have no clue. So now my radar

868
00:54:44,615 –> 00:54:48,295
goes, okay. What are you talking about here? And she

869
00:54:48,295 –> 00:54:52,135
says her and her partner, decide not

870
00:54:52,135 –> 00:54:55,930
to get have decided not to get married. And, you

871
00:54:55,930 –> 00:54:59,710
know, they’ve been together for almost the same amount of time that you’ve been with

872
00:55:00,250 –> 00:55:03,230
your husband, right, 20 years. And

873
00:55:07,464 –> 00:55:11,065
she said it works for us. I wouldn’t recommend it for other people. And I

874
00:55:11,065 –> 00:55:14,365
thought, that’s an incredible insight.

875
00:55:15,385 –> 00:55:19,165
That’s incredible insight because what we say

876
00:55:19,224 –> 00:55:22,850
very often is I’ve been married for X number of years,

877
00:55:22,850 –> 00:55:25,970
or I’ve been with this person for ABC number of years. And then we go

878
00:55:25,970 –> 00:55:29,810
around using shoulds after that. You should, we should, he, she,

879
00:55:29,810 –> 00:55:33,490
or it should. Now, is there an

880
00:55:33,490 –> 00:55:37,305
ideal? Yes. There is an ideal. I was gonna say because you

881
00:55:37,305 –> 00:55:40,825
could go around interviewing. I’m sure it’s been done. Like, there’s gotta be through lines

882
00:55:40,825 –> 00:55:44,585
of the people, like, who have been married for forever and has still

883
00:55:44,585 –> 00:55:48,359
have romance. Like, they have to exist. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Like Oh,

884
00:55:48,359 –> 00:55:52,119
absolutely. Information has to be out there. This is the information age. It exists.

885
00:55:52,119 –> 00:55:55,400
Oh. Yeah. And you can actually weirdly and interestingly enough, you can go to the,

886
00:55:55,640 –> 00:55:59,480
national it’s the National Research Council. They have a ton of

887
00:55:59,480 –> 00:56:03,175
graphs. And I did some of that looking into for this particular podcast. They have

888
00:56:03,175 –> 00:56:07,015
a ton of graphs on divorce rates, marriage rates, cohabitation rates, same sex

889
00:56:07,015 –> 00:56:10,695
marriage rates, black, white, Hispanic, Asian. Like, they

890
00:56:10,695 –> 00:56:14,455
bring it all down, and they’ve got graphs and charts. It’s it’s it’s great. You

891
00:56:14,455 –> 00:56:17,910
can go look at the National Research Council and find out all of this information,

892
00:56:17,970 –> 00:56:21,490
more data than you could possibly, know. And

893
00:56:21,650 –> 00:56:25,170
Yeah. But I’m talking about, like, qualitative data. Right. And this is my

894
00:56:25,170 –> 00:56:28,690
point. And yet when you dig into the bottomless pit of

895
00:56:28,690 –> 00:56:32,525
data, you have to find individuals. And the point

896
00:56:32,525 –> 00:56:34,925
that she was making, and this is why I thought it was a good insight,

897
00:56:34,925 –> 00:56:38,605
is when someone decides to break from the ideal, in

898
00:56:38,605 –> 00:56:41,805
general, what we do in our culture, and this is a lesson for leaders, in

899
00:56:41,805 –> 00:56:45,310
general, what we do in our culture is we say, well, my break from the

900
00:56:45,310 –> 00:56:49,150
ideal should be the thing that everybody else does. And so let us go let

901
00:56:49,150 –> 00:56:52,750
us go mold state policy so that it will be the ideal.

902
00:56:52,750 –> 00:56:55,390
Because it made me it worked for me, and I see all this other dysfunction,

903
00:56:55,390 –> 00:56:58,980
so it must be something that I must have the solution. I

904
00:56:58,980 –> 00:57:02,792
must have the silver bullet that everybody else needs in order to

905
00:57:02,792 –> 00:57:06,603
solve this problem. When in reality, what she was saying was, and

906
00:57:06,603 –> 00:57:09,780
she didn’t really know this, what she was saying was

907
00:57:10,420 –> 00:57:14,260
the ideal didn’t work for me. And so I found a compromise, but I don’t

908
00:57:14,260 –> 00:57:16,520
want this to go to scale for everybody else.

909
00:57:18,340 –> 00:57:21,880
That’s incredibly insightful. That’s

910
00:57:22,420 –> 00:57:26,055
maturity. That’s looking at

911
00:57:26,215 –> 00:57:29,975
forget romance and love. That’s looking at the specifics of their

912
00:57:29,975 –> 00:57:33,415
situation and saying, we figure out our negotiation around

913
00:57:33,415 –> 00:57:36,395
this. Do what you want.

914
00:57:39,710 –> 00:57:43,550
And while I may not agree with that because I want

915
00:57:43,550 –> 00:57:47,310
people to pursue an ideal. Right. I do. I want

916
00:57:47,310 –> 00:57:50,050
people to pursue an ideal. I’m a partisan for an ideal.

917
00:57:51,494 –> 00:57:55,335
If you can’t get there from here, to be intellectually and and more

918
00:57:55,335 –> 00:57:59,095
morally honest with yourself about that and with the other person that you’re

919
00:57:59,095 –> 00:58:02,934
engaged with, to me, is hugely important. And

920
00:58:02,934 –> 00:58:06,640
and that’s another failure of our time. We don’t have people who are intellectually and

921
00:58:06,640 –> 00:58:10,320
morally honest with themselves or with the other party that they’re involved

922
00:58:10,320 –> 00:58:12,900
with. Right. So,

923
00:58:14,400 –> 00:58:17,895
okay. We’re gonna talk about marriage here in just a second.

924
00:58:18,994 –> 00:58:22,835
Is it possible to take a very small break? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We

925
00:58:22,835 –> 00:58:26,475
can pause right here. Absolutely. We’ll pause here. We’ll go cut right here.

926
00:58:26,835 –> 00:58:29,655
Right back. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll pause right here, and you’ll come right back.

927
00:58:31,299 –> 00:58:34,900
Alright. Yeah. We’re back from break. That’s good. Alright. Well, we’ll actually put a we’ll

928
00:58:34,900 –> 00:58:37,859
actually put an ad right there. So we’ll do it. Perfect. Actually, we put an

929
00:58:37,859 –> 00:58:41,700
ad right there. So there we go. Yeah. Back to

930
00:58:41,700 –> 00:58:45,325
the sonnets. Back to the Folger

931
00:58:45,385 –> 00:58:49,145
Shakespeare Library edition of the sonnets by William Shakespeare. We’re gonna turn the corner

932
00:58:49,145 –> 00:58:51,944
here. We’re gonna talk a little bit more about marriage, but then we’re going to

933
00:58:51,944 –> 00:58:55,785
get into sort of some solutions to problems. And how do

934
00:58:55,785 –> 00:58:59,440
you how can you be a romantic right in our culture

935
00:58:59,440 –> 00:59:03,200
today? Because I I think there’s there’s romance, there’s love, and then there’s being a

936
00:59:03,200 –> 00:59:06,579
romantic, which is a totally different kind of thing. Alright.

937
00:59:06,960 –> 00:59:10,525
We’re gonna pick up here with Sonnet 116, and I

938
00:59:10,525 –> 00:59:14,045
quote, let me not to the marriage of true

939
00:59:14,045 –> 00:59:17,565
minds admit impediments. Love is not love which

940
00:59:17,565 –> 00:59:21,245
alters when it alteration finds or bends with a remover to

941
00:59:21,245 –> 00:59:24,700
remove. Oh, no. It is an ever fixed

942
00:59:24,700 –> 00:59:28,460
mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken. It is

943
00:59:28,460 –> 00:59:31,920
the star to every wandering bark whose worth’s unknown,

944
00:59:32,140 –> 00:59:35,980
although his height be taken. Love’s not time’s fool, though

945
00:59:35,980 –> 00:59:39,705
rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickles compass come.

946
00:59:40,405 –> 00:59:44,244
Love alters not with his brief hours weeks, but bears it out

947
00:59:44,244 –> 00:59:47,925
even to the edge of doom. If this be error and

948
00:59:47,925 –> 00:59:51,365
upon me proved, I never writ nor no

949
00:59:51,365 –> 00:59:52,905
man ever loved.

950
00:59:59,580 –> 01:00:03,280
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Interesting.

951
01:00:03,500 –> 01:00:07,180
Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds or bins with the

952
01:00:07,180 –> 01:00:10,994
remover to remove. Interesting. And the point here, I think, that

953
01:00:10,994 –> 01:00:14,755
Shakespeare is trying to make is this. And let’s talk a little bit about

954
01:00:14,755 –> 01:00:18,515
marriage. So the practical container well, practical. One of the many

955
01:00:18,515 –> 01:00:22,135
containers that we decide we’re gonna cram love and romance into

956
01:00:22,435 –> 01:00:26,070
in our in our and I’m only gonna talk about our American culture.

957
01:00:26,690 –> 01:00:30,290
If you are listening to this in another country, we have fans globally. So if

958
01:00:30,290 –> 01:00:32,930
you were listening to this in another country, just know I’m speaking out of an

959
01:00:32,930 –> 01:00:36,610
American context, and you can see all of our dirty laundry live on TikTok and

960
01:00:36,610 –> 01:00:40,025
YouTube. So you know what’s going on because that’s where

961
01:00:40,325 –> 01:00:44,085
we put it. Oh, we do. We we do a

962
01:00:44,085 –> 01:00:47,145
really good job of exporting our dirty laundry to literally everywhere.

963
01:00:47,845 –> 01:00:51,385
There’s no one who is not who did not know what is going on here.

964
01:00:51,750 –> 01:00:55,590
All in the name of authenticity. Oh my gosh. And transparency. Yes.

965
01:00:55,590 –> 01:00:57,690
There. Yep. Yes, ma’am.

966
01:00:59,110 –> 01:01:02,490
So in case you didn’t know, in other countries,

967
01:01:02,950 –> 01:01:06,665
44% of millennials, 53% of Gen Xers, and 61%

968
01:01:06,885 –> 01:01:09,145
of boomers are married as of 2020.

969
01:01:10,485 –> 01:01:13,705
Now, there’s an interesting thing that happened during 2020 called COVID.

970
01:01:14,005 –> 01:01:17,845
And during that time, divorce rates actually spiked because

971
01:01:17,845 –> 01:01:20,770
of lockdowns. I fundamentally believe because of lockdowns

972
01:01:21,630 –> 01:01:24,590
and people couldn’t leave to go to work. And I do think that absence makes

973
01:01:24,590 –> 01:01:28,430
the heart grow fonder in weird kinds of ways. And then when people were locked

974
01:01:28,430 –> 01:01:32,125
down and could not be absent, well, marriages fell apart.

975
01:01:32,125 –> 01:01:35,005
And by the way, the most famous example of this is Bill and Melinda Gates,

976
01:01:35,005 –> 01:01:38,845
who were in a 6,000 square foot home in

977
01:01:38,845 –> 01:01:40,704
Seattle and couldn’t stay married.

978
01:01:42,960 –> 01:01:45,540
There just wasn’t enough space between Bill and Melinda.

979
01:01:47,840 –> 01:01:51,359
I’ll leave you to wrap your brain around that one as Kristen’s mouth just drops

980
01:01:51,359 –> 01:01:51,859
open.

981
01:01:56,075 –> 01:01:59,755
Oh, it wasn’t the Epstein Island thing. It wasn’t that. It wasn’t the the

982
01:01:59,914 –> 01:02:02,974
it wasn’t she didn’t have a problem with any

983
01:02:03,515 –> 01:02:07,135
of that. It was a lockdown that killed that marriage.

984
01:02:10,730 –> 01:02:14,330
Now the long standing feet. 6,000 square feet. I’m trying to think of how

985
01:02:14,330 –> 01:02:17,550
many how big the apartment that I was stuck in

986
01:02:17,930 –> 01:02:20,750
with 3 other men, one of which was my husband.

987
01:02:24,005 –> 01:02:27,685
Sure. One of which was living in the living room. So I didn’t have any

988
01:02:27,685 –> 01:02:31,525
space. And I like, if my friendships and marriage made it through

989
01:02:31,525 –> 01:02:34,425
that, and she what are you gonna see?

990
01:02:35,160 –> 01:02:38,920
Your your hashtag winning. That’s all you gotta put in your hashtag winning.

991
01:02:38,920 –> 01:02:42,520
We did it. We did it. Yeah. There’s a long

992
01:02:42,520 –> 01:02:46,119
standing idea about marriage rates, the 50% of them end in divorce, and

993
01:02:46,119 –> 01:02:49,934
that’s not actually proven out by the numbers. And people, by the way, from

994
01:02:49,934 –> 01:02:53,555
Bill Maher, famous people from Bill Maher, all the way to academicians

995
01:02:53,934 –> 01:02:57,775
and professors who you’ve never heard of make this

996
01:02:57,775 –> 01:03:01,454
claim, and have, by the way, been making this claim culturally since the

997
01:03:01,454 –> 01:03:05,150
1970s. Now, the reality is that among

998
01:03:05,150 –> 01:03:08,829
people who are working class, poor, and increasingly middle class,

999
01:03:08,829 –> 01:03:11,730
yes, divorce rates up until the point of the 2020s,

1000
01:03:12,670 –> 01:03:16,450
were up, particularly through the 1990s. But guess what?

1001
01:03:16,914 –> 01:03:20,535
If you make more than, I believe, combined,

1002
01:03:20,595 –> 01:03:24,375
it’s like $75,000 a year. If you make more than that,

1003
01:03:25,795 –> 01:03:29,315
you’re not getting divorced, which tells me

1004
01:03:29,315 –> 01:03:32,810
something, by the way, about marriage. Marriage is still

1005
01:03:33,590 –> 01:03:37,430
about property, not primarily or maybe even almost

1006
01:03:37,430 –> 01:03:39,850
exclusively, about love.

1007
01:03:41,190 –> 01:03:44,790
Now You just People do split up.

1008
01:03:44,790 –> 01:03:48,164
People do I mean, I’ve known people who have gotten divorced in my

1009
01:03:48,164 –> 01:03:51,684
life, for what I think might be the

1010
01:03:51,684 –> 01:03:55,144
thinnest of reasons. And

1011
01:03:56,085 –> 01:03:58,964
there has been a rise. I would be remiss if I didn’t say this on

1012
01:03:58,964 –> 01:04:02,300
this podcast because everybody can see it around them in cohabitating

1013
01:04:02,520 –> 01:04:05,580
and dating, particularly long term cohabitating,

1014
01:04:06,600 –> 01:04:09,500
and long term dating even without cohabitating.

1015
01:04:10,440 –> 01:04:14,200
And I think personally, and this is just my opinion,

1016
01:04:14,200 –> 01:04:17,045
not the opinion of the place where I got the statistics from, which by the

1017
01:04:17,045 –> 01:04:20,405
way, was the National Research Council. You can go look them up yourself. I think

1018
01:04:20,405 –> 01:04:24,085
the cohabitating and dating are far stronger drivers for reduced marriage rates in

1019
01:04:24,085 –> 01:04:27,765
America than anything else. And, again, I have no numbers on

1020
01:04:27,765 –> 01:04:29,865
this. I merely have observations

1021
01:04:31,740 –> 01:04:35,580
of note. And I’m sure that I could find some numbers that would bear

1022
01:04:35,580 –> 01:04:39,420
these observations out. There’s another factor that has

1023
01:04:39,420 –> 01:04:42,640
occurred, which has opened up options, and that’s the factor of technology.

1024
01:04:44,620 –> 01:04:48,235
And this has opened up options for both men and women in the

1025
01:04:48,235 –> 01:04:52,015
world. And you combine the availability

1026
01:04:53,035 –> 01:04:56,635
of individuals who want to titillate both men and

1027
01:04:56,635 –> 01:04:59,900
women, as well as I believe fundamentally,

1028
01:05:00,040 –> 01:05:03,880
and this is an unpopular opinion, but it is opinion that

1029
01:05:03,880 –> 01:05:07,500
I hold. Nonetheless, I do believe that the opening up of workplaces

1030
01:05:08,440 –> 01:05:11,580
to women and the integration of spaces that were formerly

1031
01:05:12,245 –> 01:05:15,625
men only has also driven some of this.

1032
01:05:15,925 –> 01:05:19,625
Now, my more feminist listeners, both men and women will object

1033
01:05:19,685 –> 01:05:23,445
and that’s fine. We can have that discussion. But I do believe that it

1034
01:05:23,445 –> 01:05:27,160
is a factor that putting all the motion aside, we do

1035
01:05:27,160 –> 01:05:30,920
have to admit has done something. It’s not

1036
01:05:30,920 –> 01:05:34,060
a value neutral fact. It’s not a value neutral

1037
01:05:34,280 –> 01:05:37,994
advancement. Particularly if we’re to claim the technology

1038
01:05:38,055 –> 01:05:40,475
that has done all these things, we have to look at all the human factors

1039
01:05:40,535 –> 01:05:44,075
as well. So I do think those areas have contributed

1040
01:05:44,375 –> 01:05:47,975
to how we think about marriage and divorce in the

1041
01:05:47,975 –> 01:05:51,095
21st century and the milieu that we are in, which we just came off of

1042
01:05:51,095 –> 01:05:54,910
discussing before the break, where love we would

1043
01:05:54,910 –> 01:05:58,750
like to have as a primary driver. But then there’s all this other

1044
01:05:58,750 –> 01:06:02,350
stuff. There’s all these other things. And I’m gonna use

1045
01:06:02,350 –> 01:06:06,190
myself as an example. Actually, no, I won’t use myself as an example.

1046
01:06:06,190 –> 01:06:09,855
I’ll use a couple I know. So they were married. They got

1047
01:06:09,855 –> 01:06:13,615
divorced. And the biggest impediment to the

1048
01:06:13,615 –> 01:06:17,215
divorce in the state that I live in was how the

1049
01:06:17,215 –> 01:06:20,675
property was going to be divided, specifically the home

1050
01:06:21,020 –> 01:06:24,079
and who was going to get most of the profit from the home sale.

1051
01:06:25,500 –> 01:06:28,480
That was the biggest impediment. And by the way, that’s not unusual.

1052
01:06:32,140 –> 01:06:33,839
Did someone get divorced, though?

1053
01:06:38,685 –> 01:06:42,285
No. How does this relate to leaders? Because I know all of you who

1054
01:06:42,285 –> 01:06:44,765
are listening to this have been listening for an hour, and you’re like, okay. The

1055
01:06:44,765 –> 01:06:48,465
sonnets, love poems, marriage, romance. Got it, Pason.

1056
01:06:48,605 –> 01:06:52,060
Okay. Can we get to something on the other side of the break here?

1057
01:06:52,200 –> 01:06:54,860
Yes. Let’s get to something on the other side of the break here.

1058
01:06:56,040 –> 01:06:59,720
When leaders are leading in workplaces, if the

1059
01:06:59,720 –> 01:07:03,165
marriage rates are to be believed, at least

1060
01:07:03,165 –> 01:07:06,685
44% of their millennial staff, the

1061
01:07:06,685 –> 01:07:09,185
millennial age staff will be married,

1062
01:07:10,205 –> 01:07:13,965
but at least 60% of them will not be will be in some

1063
01:07:13,965 –> 01:07:17,740
sort of cohabitating dating relationship. 53% of gen

1064
01:07:17,740 –> 01:07:21,260
xers will be married, but somewhere around

1065
01:07:21,260 –> 01:07:25,040
40 some odd, 47% of them will not be. And then 61%

1066
01:07:25,180 –> 01:07:28,700
of boomers will be married, and they will probably working on their 2nd or third

1067
01:07:28,700 –> 01:07:32,455
marriages, but they are graduating or graduating, retiring out of

1068
01:07:32,455 –> 01:07:35,815
the system and out of the team. If I am leading a team of Gen

1069
01:07:35,815 –> 01:07:39,575
Xers and millennials, which more likely I will be Ryan and Gen Zers who

1070
01:07:39,575 –> 01:07:42,935
will not be married, by the way, they will be primarily cohabitating and

1071
01:07:42,935 –> 01:07:46,670
dating. And they come to me with the state of their personal

1072
01:07:46,670 –> 01:07:50,510
relationships, which they will, because we

1073
01:07:50,510 –> 01:07:54,270
are now transparent about everything. What do I do about

1074
01:07:54,270 –> 01:07:57,329
that as a business leader?

1075
01:07:59,875 –> 01:08:02,194
And by the way, I just saw a story the other day just to layer

1076
01:08:02,194 –> 01:08:05,875
on one more thing. I saw a story the other day on LinkedIn about how

1077
01:08:05,875 –> 01:08:09,635
organizations are now hiring coaches and mentors to get Gen z’s

1078
01:08:09,635 –> 01:08:12,595
to be more loyal people in the Gen z generation to be more loyal to

1079
01:08:12,595 –> 01:08:16,109
workplaces. And by the way, if I’m coaching or mentoring, what am I going to

1080
01:08:16,109 –> 01:08:19,489
be talking about? It ain’t gonna be all about work.

1081
01:08:22,029 –> 01:08:25,790
Thoughts. Because this is a real problem for real problem for modern

1082
01:08:25,790 –> 01:08:29,489
leaders. Boomers never talked about any of this stuff ever.

1083
01:08:29,765 –> 01:08:33,205
They thought it was all private over there. Don’t talk to me about any of

1084
01:08:33,205 –> 01:08:36,805
it ever. But what we’ve seen because of technology, because of

1085
01:08:36,805 –> 01:08:40,645
cultural changes, we are now seeing the c shift, and leaders

1086
01:08:40,645 –> 01:08:44,265
have to address people’s personal relationships. And this makes leaders,

1087
01:08:44,420 –> 01:08:47,239
particular leaders of a certain generation, extremely uncomfortable.

1088
01:08:49,699 –> 01:08:52,099
And I get this question quite a bit. Matter of fact, I actually got it

1089
01:08:52,099 –> 01:08:55,939
last week when I was working with a client, a variation of this question.

1090
01:08:55,939 –> 01:08:58,439
So I’m gonna ask you, Kristen. Go ahead. Well,

1091
01:09:01,455 –> 01:09:04,515
as someone who’s been working as a freelancer entrepreneur

1092
01:09:04,895 –> 01:09:08,595
for 12 years now,

1093
01:09:08,735 –> 01:09:12,575
which, you know, is it isn’t a lot, depending

1094
01:09:12,575 –> 01:09:16,029
on how you look at it. But one of the things that you have to

1095
01:09:16,029 –> 01:09:19,390
figure out as a freelancer is to and I have a

1096
01:09:19,390 –> 01:09:22,370
coach is how to process

1097
01:09:23,790 –> 01:09:27,495
and be mentally healthy, mentally and emotionally healthy with

1098
01:09:27,495 –> 01:09:31,095
all the personal stuff going on and still show up for your

1099
01:09:31,095 –> 01:09:34,774
business. Because if you don’t, no one

1100
01:09:34,774 –> 01:09:38,395
else will because you are the business.

1101
01:09:40,080 –> 01:09:43,920
Right? So part of me is like, if

1102
01:09:43,920 –> 01:09:47,679
I can do it, so can the bosses. Be a

1103
01:09:47,679 –> 01:09:50,899
boss, care about someone else, have a heart.

1104
01:09:51,679 –> 01:09:55,505
Because that’s the thing. Right? I think there’s a lot of language out there

1105
01:09:55,505 –> 01:09:59,045
in in What’s the name of the lock down? The wholesale culture.

1106
01:09:59,425 –> 01:10:03,185
Right? That’s like, lock down the the feelings. Shut

1107
01:10:03,185 –> 01:10:06,865
up. Show up. Shut up and show up. That didn’t work for

1108
01:10:06,865 –> 01:10:10,599
me. Right. That that that was a recipe for disaster. It led

1109
01:10:10,599 –> 01:10:14,360
to a lot of burnout, kind of re recurrences of depression. It

1110
01:10:14,360 –> 01:10:16,780
was just like, oh, I’m regressing. This is wonderful.

1111
01:10:18,119 –> 01:10:19,980
Yeah. But but so

1112
01:10:21,865 –> 01:10:25,625
there is I think there’s a both and here. Right? So if, you

1113
01:10:25,625 –> 01:10:29,344
know, you’re a a leader and you’re running a business Mhmm.

1114
01:10:29,625 –> 01:10:33,385
Then have the

1115
01:10:33,385 –> 01:10:37,070
resources for them to to care for

1116
01:10:37,070 –> 01:10:40,610
your people. Mhmm. Like, care about your people. Their their

1117
01:10:40,829 –> 01:10:44,429
their their lives. But but but but so that they

1118
01:10:44,429 –> 01:10:46,449
can get back to work.

1119
01:10:48,495 –> 01:10:51,695
Because that that that I think that has to be the boundary or not the

1120
01:10:51,695 –> 01:10:55,375
boundary, the balance. Because it’s it’s like, hey. The

1121
01:10:55,455 –> 01:10:59,155
we’re not just friends. We’re not friends, actually. I’m your boss.

1122
01:10:59,295 –> 01:11:03,130
Mhmm. And while I do care about you, get back

1123
01:11:03,130 –> 01:11:06,730
to work. I and the trend that I’m seeing is almost like you

1124
01:11:06,730 –> 01:11:09,870
can’t fire people anymore because anything

1125
01:11:10,970 –> 01:11:14,810
like, if they’re not showing up, oh, it’s because my boyfriend broke up

1126
01:11:14,810 –> 01:11:18,475
with me. And I was like, well, but you’re still not doing your job. It’s

1127
01:11:18,475 –> 01:11:22,155
like, oh, but if you fire me, it’s because I’m you know? I don’t know.

1128
01:11:22,155 –> 01:11:24,415
It’s a personal attack on me. I’m like,

1129
01:11:26,075 –> 01:11:29,915
no. Not that either. You just are not you’re not

1130
01:11:29,915 –> 01:11:33,750
doing your job. So I I I don’t I

1131
01:11:33,750 –> 01:11:37,429
don’t know if I have, like, practicals. Do a b c. I I don’t but

1132
01:11:37,429 –> 01:11:40,869
that that’s the The the overall strategy. The word

1133
01:11:40,869 –> 01:11:44,469
vomit. Yeah. That’s the word vomit. There you go. There’s the word

1134
01:11:44,469 –> 01:11:48,195
vomit. Find something in there. Right. Well, I think of

1135
01:11:48,355 –> 01:11:51,635
so I think of here’s here’s how I here’s here’s the pushback on this. I

1136
01:11:51,635 –> 01:11:55,395
think of the and it is floating around Instagram reels, and

1137
01:11:55,395 –> 01:11:58,835
I see it occasionally, not as often as I used to, but I see it

1138
01:11:58,835 –> 01:12:02,460
occasionally in the last year when I dip into

1139
01:12:02,460 –> 01:12:06,300
Instagram and then dip out again. My Instagram is

1140
01:12:06,300 –> 01:12:09,099
all about Dungeons the Dragon, so I don’t see anything else. You don’t see anything

1141
01:12:09,099 –> 01:12:12,639
else? Okay. Great. It’s great. The d and d memes are the best.

1142
01:12:13,900 –> 01:12:17,514
So, the the the real

1143
01:12:17,574 –> 01:12:20,935
clip that I see is the one from Mad Men where Don

1144
01:12:20,935 –> 01:12:23,675
Draper is yelling at the female

1145
01:12:24,375 –> 01:12:28,215
individual or whatever. And she’s like, you don’t say thank you for any of my

1146
01:12:28,215 –> 01:12:31,820
ideas. And he’s like, the money is the thank you. Like, you’re young.

1147
01:12:32,040 –> 01:12:35,880
You should just take the money. Your ideas will be honored at a

1148
01:12:35,880 –> 01:12:39,719
certain point, but just take the money and get

1149
01:12:39,719 –> 01:12:43,480
out. Now, that’s very much a boomer attitude, by

1150
01:12:43,480 –> 01:12:46,895
the way. That’s very much a baby boomer attitude. The money is the thank

1151
01:12:46,895 –> 01:12:50,435
you. The money is the thing I pay you

1152
01:12:50,975 –> 01:12:54,735
in lieu of having a relationship with you. And so the pushback on

1153
01:12:54,735 –> 01:12:58,495
that is, and this is the pushback and it is legitimate. Here’s

1154
01:12:58,495 –> 01:13:02,150
legitimate pushback. Inflation

1155
01:13:02,150 –> 01:13:05,750
is at 2.9% in the country. Groceries that used to cost

1156
01:13:05,750 –> 01:13:09,510
me, you know, $400 a month now cost me $800 a month.

1157
01:13:09,510 –> 01:13:13,270
Yep. This money isn’t the thank you ing. If I’m going to keep showing up

1158
01:13:13,270 –> 01:13:17,074
for your BS job where you’re only paying me $15 an

1159
01:13:17,074 –> 01:13:20,375
hour and I’m scraping by and you want me to be grateful for that,

1160
01:13:21,715 –> 01:13:25,475
there’s a word that I could say, and you’re not

1161
01:13:25,475 –> 01:13:29,280
gonna fire me because you can’t get anybody else. So what are you

1162
01:13:29,280 –> 01:13:32,640
going to do? Well, you’re going to care. And by the way, you will be

1163
01:13:32,640 –> 01:13:36,480
made to care. You will be made to bend. I’m

1164
01:13:36,480 –> 01:13:39,920
not the organization. That’s a different thing. I will make you

1165
01:13:39,920 –> 01:13:43,485
manager, you supervisor bet. And I’m going to make you

1166
01:13:43,485 –> 01:13:47,005
bet by just deluding you with my personal

1167
01:13:47,005 –> 01:13:50,605
problems because I don’t have I can’t give it to my I was

1168
01:13:50,605 –> 01:13:54,145
raised by parents who allowed me to delude them with

1169
01:13:55,090 –> 01:13:58,770
personal problems and they solved many of them. And now you’ve

1170
01:13:58,770 –> 01:14:02,550
stepped in para familias because you’re paying me.

1171
01:14:02,690 –> 01:14:05,510
Well, paying me means you’re mom and dad now.

1172
01:14:06,545 –> 01:14:09,445
That’s the pushback. Fascinated. That’s the

1173
01:14:11,264 –> 01:14:14,705
psychological, I think, the sociological pushback to your to your

1174
01:14:14,705 –> 01:14:18,465
assertion. Now, do I think that everybody within a

1175
01:14:18,465 –> 01:14:21,824
particular generational cohort believes that? No. There’s individuals. Give me a

1176
01:14:21,824 –> 01:14:24,860
break. You know, there’s something like, what, like 85,000,000

1177
01:14:25,400 –> 01:14:29,080
millennials, and there’s something like 65 or 70,000,000 Gen

1178
01:14:29,080 –> 01:14:32,760
Z ers. Like, it’s it’s it’s insane. There’s too many individuals inside of

1179
01:14:32,760 –> 01:14:36,380
that that those 2 group cohorts for it to be everybody. Right?

1180
01:14:37,165 –> 01:14:40,945
However, there is a media driven, potentially,

1181
01:14:41,405 –> 01:14:44,465
idea that

1182
01:14:45,245 –> 01:14:48,145
the industrial revolution boss, boomer,

1183
01:14:50,320 –> 01:14:53,199
is the greatest thing to be overcome, and the only way that you can overcome

1184
01:14:53,199 –> 01:14:54,980
that is through a deluge of feelings.

1185
01:14:57,440 –> 01:15:00,420
By the way, this is where you Why are we overcoming the boss?

1186
01:15:01,040 –> 01:15:04,565
Well, because the boss What does that mean? Because the boss is

1187
01:15:04,705 –> 01:15:08,145
the avatar for the man. You know how in the sixties

1188
01:15:08,145 –> 01:15:11,525
seventies, when they were young, they talk about the man? Yep.

1189
01:15:11,745 –> 01:15:15,265
We’ve bumped out the man for

1190
01:15:15,265 –> 01:15:19,050
corporations. We’ve bumped out the man for big pharmaceutical companies. We’ve bumped

1191
01:15:19,050 –> 01:15:22,730
out the man for climate change. We’ve bumped out the man for all these other

1192
01:15:22,730 –> 01:15:26,490
things that stand in for the man. But it’s the same idea. There’s this

1193
01:15:26,490 –> 01:15:29,765
system that has to be overcome. Yeah. And so we have to use tools to

1194
01:15:29,765 –> 01:15:33,525
overcome it so that the glorious revolution can come that we as

1195
01:15:33,525 –> 01:15:37,125
the youth believe that we are responsible for bringing forward. Except the

1196
01:15:37,125 –> 01:15:40,585
problem is there is no glorious revolution, and you’re all gonna get old,

1197
01:15:41,580 –> 01:15:44,860
which, by the way, the older millennials now understand this. Once we’re closer to we’re

1198
01:15:44,860 –> 01:15:48,060
in their mid forties, they now get it. They now get that there’s no glorious

1199
01:15:48,060 –> 01:15:50,860
revolution, and I might want to buy a house. I want to get out of

1200
01:15:50,860 –> 01:15:53,500
that I want to get out of that 2 bedroom apartment I’m sharing with 4

1201
01:15:53,500 –> 01:15:57,195
people. People. Right. When I was 35. Or 25 even.

1202
01:15:57,195 –> 01:16:01,035
Sorry. When I was 25. But, you know, like, I gotta leave

1203
01:16:01,035 –> 01:16:04,255
now. Well, but kind of back to your point. Like,

1204
01:16:05,355 –> 01:16:09,120
you you were mentioning, you know, that the not

1205
01:16:09,120 –> 01:16:12,000
boomers. I hate that phrase. I do too, but I’m just using it because it’s

1206
01:16:12,000 –> 01:16:14,820
whatever you got. Baby boomers. Yeah. The baby boomers are retiring.

1207
01:16:15,520 –> 01:16:19,120
Something that I don’t read, like, the news. I don’t do any of this.

1208
01:16:19,120 –> 01:16:22,335
Like, I just kind of off in my my own little world. And I know

1209
01:16:22,335 –> 01:16:25,474
people are like, oh, you should be informed.

1210
01:16:26,335 –> 01:16:30,014
Like, that’s fine. No. You shouldn’t. My my husband stays informed. You’re

1211
01:16:30,014 –> 01:16:33,614
doing you’re doing fine. You’re not missing anything. Right? And so well, but

1212
01:16:33,614 –> 01:16:36,510
somebody some one of the things that I keep hearing, and I don’t know if

1213
01:16:36,510 –> 01:16:40,270
this is accurate, is that boomers aren’t retiring. And

1214
01:16:40,270 –> 01:16:43,869
it’s harder to find promotions. So it’s it’s to your point where, like,

1215
01:16:43,869 –> 01:16:47,230
$15 an hour. Like, how with prices

1216
01:16:47,230 –> 01:16:50,265
skyrocket is how are we supposed to buy a house? Right.

1217
01:16:51,925 –> 01:16:55,065
How are we supposed to do this? Which is which is also where

1218
01:16:55,525 –> 01:16:59,125
the Oh, and that’s not even talking about student

1219
01:16:59,125 –> 01:17:02,725
debt. Yeah. Yeah. We whole another conversation. It’s a whole another

1220
01:17:02,725 –> 01:17:06,489
conversation. The the challenge that

1221
01:17:06,489 –> 01:17:10,330
we are seeing for leaders, and it is one that I see

1222
01:17:10,330 –> 01:17:13,630
articulated when they come to me, is

1223
01:17:15,290 –> 01:17:18,755
leaders feel as though and I’m talking about managers and

1224
01:17:18,755 –> 01:17:22,594
supervisors at the mid level in organizations. They feel

1225
01:17:22,594 –> 01:17:25,735
as though they are already in a deluge between

1226
01:17:29,155 –> 01:17:32,710
demands and pressures placed upon them by the upper echelon folks of the organization that

1227
01:17:32,710 –> 01:17:36,470
they can’t meet. And then all of the knock on effects of COVID

1228
01:17:36,470 –> 01:17:40,150
and all the bad behavior we opened doors for during the last 2 to

1229
01:17:40,150 –> 01:17:43,830
3, I would even argue 4 years, because there are certain bad behaviors that are

1230
01:17:43,830 –> 01:17:47,535
just continuing that are among folks who are

1231
01:17:47,535 –> 01:17:51,215
below them in the structure. And so they are squeezed in the middle and asked

1232
01:17:51,215 –> 01:17:54,815
to do an impossible job. And to

1233
01:17:54,815 –> 01:17:58,275
compound it, the folks who are rising up from the bottom

1234
01:17:59,460 –> 01:18:02,600
are not exactly folks that are mentally strong

1235
01:18:03,060 –> 01:18:06,680
Right. In order to deal with the nonsense

1236
01:18:06,740 –> 01:18:09,700
that’s going to occur at that level. And by the way, probably the most mentally

1237
01:18:09,700 –> 01:18:13,080
strong generation is the Gen Xers, probably, individuals

1238
01:18:14,455 –> 01:18:18,075
primarily between the ages of 46 and now 64,

1239
01:18:18,215 –> 01:18:20,715
right, or 46 and 58, somewhere around there,

1240
01:18:21,575 –> 01:18:25,355
who grew up in literal who have grown and worked

1241
01:18:25,655 –> 01:18:28,680
literal in the last 20 years of chaos. It’s just been chaos all the time.

1242
01:18:28,680 –> 01:18:32,440
And so it’s like pressure, fizzy it’s fizzy, fizzy water all over their

1243
01:18:32,440 –> 01:18:36,200
brain all the time. And it’s just how you live. Right? This is

1244
01:18:36,200 –> 01:18:39,900
just it. Whereas, generations

1245
01:18:40,040 –> 01:18:43,835
subsequent to them, the

1246
01:18:43,835 –> 01:18:47,355
impression is that that pressure is a new thing.

1247
01:18:47,355 –> 01:18:50,955
This economic pressure is a new thing. And it’s not

1248
01:18:50,955 –> 01:18:54,635
because people don’t understand history, the cycle thing. People don’t understand the cycles of history,

1249
01:18:54,635 –> 01:18:57,190
much less the cycles of romance. People don’t understand the cycle of history. And so

1250
01:18:57,190 –> 01:19:00,950
because they don’t understand the cycle of history, they have no anchor

1251
01:19:00,950 –> 01:19:04,630
point for what this is. Like, everything that we’re looking at Life is hard.

1252
01:19:04,630 –> 01:19:08,475
It’s so much harder now. It’s unfair. It’s like, no, life is just hard. This

1253
01:19:08,475 –> 01:19:12,275
is too hard. Right. Like, I I I tell young people that I talk

1254
01:19:12,275 –> 01:19:15,635
to who are in the 19 to 34 year old age

1255
01:19:15,635 –> 01:19:19,155
range, it was just as equally hard to people in the

1256
01:19:19,155 –> 01:19:22,810
19 seventies when inflation was on par with

1257
01:19:22,810 –> 01:19:26,170
what it is now. But they’ll be like, oh, but this thing and this thing,

1258
01:19:26,170 –> 01:19:29,530
this thing. I’m like, but you’re judging it through now’s lens. Right? If you had

1259
01:19:29,530 –> 01:19:33,370
to go back to like 1974, it would be just as hard to buy

1260
01:19:33,370 –> 01:19:34,270
a house then.

1261
01:19:37,035 –> 01:19:39,675
This is hard. And by the way, they were getting paid less. They were gonna

1262
01:19:39,675 –> 01:19:43,514
pay, like, $2 an hour, 2.50 an hour, where

1263
01:19:43,675 –> 01:19:47,355
and and a loaf of bread, which used to be 15¢ and was made in,

1264
01:19:47,355 –> 01:19:49,535
like, Wisconsin somewhere at some white bread factory,

1265
01:19:51,270 –> 01:19:54,570
is now immediately skyrocketed to being a dollar

1266
01:19:56,070 –> 01:19:58,790
a dollar for a loaf of bread, and you’re making 2.50 an hour. And you’re

1267
01:19:58,790 –> 01:20:02,630
gonna tell me that it was better back then? The whole reason that

1268
01:20:02,630 –> 01:20:05,465
house values went up is because when you could grab a house, you stayed in

1269
01:20:05,465 –> 01:20:09,145
it as long as you possibly could. Yeah. You learn

1270
01:20:09,145 –> 01:20:12,844
those skills that now we all have to learn off of YouTube.

1271
01:20:15,400 –> 01:20:18,700
As the older leaders who understand this and have historical

1272
01:20:18,840 –> 01:20:22,460
knowledge are going, I don’t know what’s wrong.

1273
01:20:23,080 –> 01:20:26,780
What are we doing here? Like, you’re coming to me

1274
01:20:27,480 –> 01:20:30,380
and you’re telling me that you’re having a you need a mental health day?

1275
01:20:31,594 –> 01:20:34,975
Why? For what? Like, life?

1276
01:20:35,915 –> 01:20:39,275
Which is which is to your point, you know, if you don’t show up because

1277
01:20:39,275 –> 01:20:42,895
your boyfriend broke up with you okay.

1278
01:20:43,500 –> 01:20:47,340
I’m gonna go a step deeper here. What does the leader do with the

1279
01:20:47,340 –> 01:20:51,179
person who is solid? This is a challenge question. The person who

1280
01:20:51,179 –> 01:20:54,719
is solid, they show up every day. They’ve been doing the work.

1281
01:20:54,940 –> 01:20:58,755
They appear to be solid family people. And then, like, they show up one day

1282
01:20:58,755 –> 01:21:02,475
and they’re like, my I gotta move out of my house. I’m getting a

1283
01:21:02,475 –> 01:21:06,315
divorce. Oh, and by the way, I’m gonna need to work more

1284
01:21:06,315 –> 01:21:09,455
hours. I’m gonna need to pick up a second shift because,

1285
01:21:10,110 –> 01:21:13,570
yeah, this is gonna suck. Lawyers and everything. This is gonna be terrible.

1286
01:21:14,590 –> 01:21:16,370
What does a leader do with that?

1287
01:21:19,710 –> 01:21:23,390
I’m probably the wrong person to ask. I don’t know. Right. Right. Well, but but

1288
01:21:23,390 –> 01:21:24,285
you’re the person on the

1289
01:21:37,260 –> 01:21:40,380
We’re like, well, can can you give him more hours? Is that even a possibility?

1290
01:21:40,380 –> 01:21:44,219
Do you have the coverage? Like, sometimes the answer is no just by

1291
01:21:44,219 –> 01:21:47,820
the numbers. Like, sorry, dude. Can I help you get a

1292
01:21:47,820 –> 01:21:48,639
second job?

1293
01:21:52,355 –> 01:21:56,054
Well, and on the female side, no, that’s the dude side. On the female side,

1294
01:21:56,435 –> 01:21:59,735
it’s my husband’s moving out. I’ve got to go get childcare now,

1295
01:22:00,995 –> 01:22:04,275
and I’m going to need to be I’m not going to need to take on

1296
01:22:04,275 –> 01:22:07,074
another shift. I actually need to do less work so I can go pick up

1297
01:22:07,074 –> 01:22:10,660
my kids now. Yeah. Because I actually have less

1298
01:22:10,660 –> 01:22:14,260
coverage. That’s the practical consideration on the female side

1299
01:22:14,500 –> 01:22:18,260
Mhmm. Of the equation. And I don’t know what what and and increasingly, we’ve

1300
01:22:18,260 –> 01:22:21,780
seen calls from government, not just in this country, in the United States, but all

1301
01:22:21,780 –> 01:22:25,295
across the world for paid maternity, paid

1302
01:22:25,295 –> 01:22:28,995
paternity, these kinds of leave policies. But the leave policies

1303
01:22:29,054 –> 01:22:32,735
don’t actually address what happens in the event of a divorce. They don’t actually

1304
01:22:32,735 –> 01:22:36,415
address that. No nation state currently is even remotely

1305
01:22:36,415 –> 01:22:39,830
interested in addressing that challenge. Oh,

1306
01:22:40,130 –> 01:22:43,570
interesting. At least none none that I’m aware of. Most nation

1307
01:22:43,570 –> 01:22:47,250
states are desperate to get men and women together to have

1308
01:22:47,250 –> 01:22:51,010
babies. Please get together and have babies. We don’t care

1309
01:22:51,010 –> 01:22:54,784
whether they’re in wedlock, out of wedlock. Just have babies. And if you won’t have

1310
01:22:54,784 –> 01:22:56,565
babies, then we’ll import people who will.

1311
01:22:59,344 –> 01:23:03,185
I mean, that’s I mean, I hate to be that

1312
01:23:03,185 –> 01:23:06,945
direct, but I mean, that’s the policy of the World Economic Forum and

1313
01:23:06,945 –> 01:23:10,680
all those people who go to the Klaus Schwab meetings every quarter. Like, that’s that’s

1314
01:23:10,680 –> 01:23:14,219
the policy. If you won’t have babies, we’ll import people who will

1315
01:23:14,760 –> 01:23:18,520
because Oh. We

1316
01:23:18,520 –> 01:23:22,140
need live bodies to work. Oh, wait. What happened? Okay. You’re back now.

1317
01:23:22,440 –> 01:23:26,085
Yeah. That was strange. Yeah. My mic cut out a little

1318
01:23:26,085 –> 01:23:29,305
bit. Yeah. I bought my I bought my mic. Anyway,

1319
01:23:30,645 –> 01:23:34,245
so we need live bodies. Like, we need people who will do the act

1320
01:23:34,245 –> 01:23:37,925
of increasing our population. Not to be prurient or

1321
01:23:37,925 –> 01:23:40,185
salacious. We just we need taxpayers.

1322
01:23:41,880 –> 01:23:45,080
Yeah. Right? Because how else are the social programs gonna get funded? Where else are

1323
01:23:45,080 –> 01:23:48,199
we gonna get the money from? We can’t print our way out of it. The

1324
01:23:48,199 –> 01:23:51,640
United States tried that. Didn’t work. So we can’t print our way out of it,

1325
01:23:51,640 –> 01:23:55,000
so we’re gonna need more bodies. And by the way, in the United States, we

1326
01:23:55,000 –> 01:23:58,815
now have an immigrant population. We’re not gonna talk about how they

1327
01:23:58,815 –> 01:24:02,415
got here. We have an immigrant population that is increasing and that

1328
01:24:02,415 –> 01:24:05,155
immigrant population does what? They have babies.

1329
01:24:08,735 –> 01:24:12,090
Most nation states are focused on how to get people to have babies. They don’t

1330
01:24:12,090 –> 01:24:15,850
really care what happens at least not at a national policy level

1331
01:24:15,850 –> 01:24:19,610
from what I’m aware of what happens when that

1332
01:24:19,610 –> 01:24:21,949
relationship breaks up. They don’t really care about that.

1333
01:24:25,955 –> 01:24:28,455
And, fundamentally, I think that’s a blind spot in leadership.

1334
01:24:30,595 –> 01:24:33,315
By the way, I’ve been a freelancer. I haven’t worked a regular job in, like,

1335
01:24:33,315 –> 01:24:36,955
15 years either, so it’s fine. Right. But I’ve but I but I’ve

1336
01:24:37,395 –> 01:24:41,020
your world. So you But I’ve led other people. Right. I I’ve met other people,

1337
01:24:41,020 –> 01:24:43,659
and I’ve put put teams together. And I have had team members come to me

1338
01:24:43,659 –> 01:24:46,380
and say, I need to work a few hours because I gotta pick up my

1339
01:24:46,380 –> 01:24:49,900
kid. Or, I’m thinking about a

1340
01:24:49,900 –> 01:24:53,440
particular individual in person in particular where, like, he did break up with his girlfriend,

1341
01:24:53,500 –> 01:24:56,824
and it was a lot of drama for him, and he brought that drama to

1342
01:24:56,824 –> 01:24:59,864
work. Yeah. See, that’s not that

1343
01:25:00,905 –> 01:25:04,665
that’s that’s what can’t I feel like can’t be okay.

1344
01:25:04,665 –> 01:25:07,965
You gotta oh, that that was the you you said, you know,

1345
01:25:08,660 –> 01:25:11,940
I need to work less hours Mhmm. Because I have to go pick up the

1346
01:25:11,940 –> 01:25:15,240
kids. Something that I really admire

1347
01:25:15,540 –> 01:25:19,320
about a gal that I coached with for a long time, she coached me.

1348
01:25:19,380 –> 01:25:22,120
Mhmm. And her company, she doesn’t,

1349
01:25:23,565 –> 01:25:27,005
like it’s it’s it’s the idea that you your the

1350
01:25:27,005 –> 01:25:30,685
value that you produce is not tied to

1351
01:25:30,685 –> 01:25:34,285
the hours that you work. Mhmm. So as long as you’re

1352
01:25:34,285 –> 01:25:37,345
doing the thing that I need you to do, I do not care

1353
01:25:38,630 –> 01:25:42,309
how long it takes you to do it. Right. So and that’s how she structures

1354
01:25:42,309 –> 01:25:46,150
her company. She doesn’t pay people, like like, I

1355
01:25:46,150 –> 01:25:49,989
think, like, obviously, I think she pays everything. Everything’s above board. She’s not

1356
01:25:49,989 –> 01:25:53,775
doing Right. Right. Anything shady or anything, but

1357
01:25:53,775 –> 01:25:57,375
she she she talks about paying people for the value of the job that they’re

1358
01:25:57,375 –> 01:26:01,215
doing Yep. Versus and she’s like, I don’t care what hours you clock in.

1359
01:26:01,215 –> 01:26:04,515
So as long as you’re doing the stuff that I need you to do.

1360
01:26:04,655 –> 01:26:08,489
Mhmm. And so that’s kind of how I think

1361
01:26:08,489 –> 01:26:12,329
about that that quandary. We’re like, well, I okay. As long

1362
01:26:12,329 –> 01:26:14,909
as you get your job done. Yeah.

1363
01:26:18,170 –> 01:26:21,530
I know that’s not, like, a perfect solution, especially for, like, a lot of

1364
01:26:21,530 –> 01:26:24,785
our structures right now. People are paid hourly.

1365
01:26:26,685 –> 01:26:30,285
But I I would love to see that’s an

1366
01:26:30,285 –> 01:26:33,905
ideal. And I know we’d we’d we’d we we move into that later.

1367
01:26:34,125 –> 01:26:37,850
Yeah. The idealistic and romantic and, like, ideally,

1368
01:26:37,989 –> 01:26:41,449
romantically, like, I would love to see us move away from the hourly,

1369
01:26:44,310 –> 01:26:47,449
like, paid hourly. Ideal

1370
01:26:48,230 –> 01:26:51,985
structure. What’s the format? Well, what I wonder if

1371
01:26:52,125 –> 01:26:55,724
part of what I wonder is happening is or I wonder the

1372
01:26:56,685 –> 01:27:00,445
no. Let me frame it this way. I think that we

1373
01:27:00,445 –> 01:27:03,505
are in the mid, the midst, the cusp of,

1374
01:27:05,100 –> 01:27:08,940
and I I’m not gonna use the term 4th industrial revolution because it’s used by

1375
01:27:08,940 –> 01:27:12,780
the World Economic Forum, and it implies a whole bunch of different things that I

1376
01:27:12,780 –> 01:27:16,620
don’t think will happen. And some that I do if if people

1377
01:27:16,620 –> 01:27:19,360
in power and organizations in power get their way.

1378
01:27:20,945 –> 01:27:24,485
But I think underneath there is a core conception

1379
01:27:24,785 –> 01:27:27,925
that is true, and the core conception is this.

1380
01:27:30,465 –> 01:27:34,305
The industrial revolution that brought us everything that

1381
01:27:34,305 –> 01:27:37,570
we are looking at, including, by the way, our modes of leadership

1382
01:27:38,510 –> 01:27:42,270
and our modes of marriage and habitation and family raising, because

1383
01:27:42,270 –> 01:27:45,010
it’s all even schooling, it’s all part of it.

1384
01:27:46,190 –> 01:27:49,945
That no longer works. And it’s

1385
01:27:49,945 –> 01:27:53,705
not because we aren’t getting the same outcomes that we were getting

1386
01:27:53,705 –> 01:27:57,485
from it previously. It’s because those outcomes are matching

1387
01:27:57,865 –> 01:28:01,385
and aren’t useful in the reality that we live in. So I talk about

1388
01:28:01,545 –> 01:28:04,890
sometimes I went to the schooling. Right? Why did the kid have to go to

1389
01:28:04,890 –> 01:28:08,270
school from K through 12 in America

1390
01:28:09,050 –> 01:28:12,890
and sit in rows and be educated from the sage on the stage at the

1391
01:28:12,890 –> 01:28:15,950
front of the room? Does it make any sense?

1392
01:28:16,855 –> 01:28:20,635
And so COVID broke open that. And I believe that fundamentally

1393
01:28:20,695 –> 01:28:24,375
we should have a basket of educational options that people can take advantage of. And

1394
01:28:24,375 –> 01:28:27,975
the state, quite frankly, should be agnostic about which

1395
01:28:27,975 –> 01:28:31,620
option a parent picks. Just

1396
01:28:31,620 –> 01:28:35,380
like, by the way, the state should be agnostic about who the parent marries or

1397
01:28:35,380 –> 01:28:38,820
doesn’t marry or whatever. The state should have zero interest in any of

1398
01:28:38,820 –> 01:28:42,500
this. But I understand at a taxation

1399
01:28:42,500 –> 01:28:45,905
level why the state does. On an educational level, I understand that an

1400
01:28:45,905 –> 01:28:49,664
ideologically an ideological level why the state has

1401
01:28:49,664 –> 01:28:53,344
an interest in that. Right? But education is

1402
01:28:53,344 –> 01:28:57,184
just one area. Right? And so we’ve noted, but

1403
01:28:57,184 –> 01:29:00,699
what we would do, we don’t have enough, what do you call it, will,

1404
01:29:00,760 –> 01:29:04,520
maybe it is, political will, small p political will, to break the

1405
01:29:04,520 –> 01:29:07,900
structure and go through to the other side, which is part of what’s happening,

1406
01:29:08,120 –> 01:29:11,880
I think, or part of what’s building in our time, right? So

1407
01:29:11,880 –> 01:29:15,665
while you’re correct in outlook at current events, I believe I believe fundamentally

1408
01:29:15,885 –> 01:29:19,505
that there are fractures in the system and in the structure

1409
01:29:20,605 –> 01:29:24,365
that everybody can see, but no one has a clue what this is

1410
01:29:24,365 –> 01:29:27,905
gonna look like on the other side of the structure breaking apart.

1411
01:29:28,770 –> 01:29:32,530
However, there are some people who are proposing ideas, like a basket of

1412
01:29:32,530 –> 01:29:36,369
educational options or like like in health care. Like,

1413
01:29:36,369 –> 01:29:39,650
why would we go to this one hospital in this one town when I can

1414
01:29:39,650 –> 01:29:43,270
do this basket of health care options, right, that are available to me?

1415
01:29:44,235 –> 01:29:47,775
Which puts more power, by the way, distributed power in the hands of individuals,

1416
01:29:47,995 –> 01:29:50,795
less hands in the power of a centralized state, which is why the state pushes

1417
01:29:50,795 –> 01:29:52,495
against all of this. K?

1418
01:29:55,035 –> 01:29:58,255
Well, when we talk about marriage and child raising,

1419
01:30:01,910 –> 01:30:05,590
I’m opposed to the state issuing marriage certificates for

1420
01:30:05,590 –> 01:30:09,350
anybody, by the way. I think marriage certificates should be issued by

1421
01:30:09,350 –> 01:30:12,804
religious institutions. Religious institutions should be left alone by the

1422
01:30:12,804 –> 01:30:16,244
state, be done. Now that doesn’t work for

1423
01:30:16,244 –> 01:30:20,085
everybody. It doesn’t work for same sex folks, it doesn’t work for folks who

1424
01:30:20,085 –> 01:30:23,764
have more progressive ideologies, it doesn’t work for folks that believe in

1425
01:30:23,764 –> 01:30:27,520
glorious Marxist revolution, it doesn’t work for them. And I get it. It doesn’t work

1426
01:30:27,520 –> 01:30:30,000
for you and where you want to your outcomes and things that you want. I

1427
01:30:30,000 –> 01:30:32,900
get it. I understand. It doesn’t work for you. Cool.

1428
01:30:33,440 –> 01:30:37,120
But the state should be neutral on

1429
01:30:37,120 –> 01:30:40,935
this. By the way, the state should also be

1430
01:30:40,935 –> 01:30:44,535
neutral. Or not, it should be neutral. The state should be as neutral on this

1431
01:30:44,535 –> 01:30:48,295
as it is on divorce. Now, if you go look at divorce laws in various

1432
01:30:48,295 –> 01:30:51,835
states, divorce laws tend to favor

1433
01:30:51,895 –> 01:30:55,380
women and children over men because the

1434
01:30:55,380 –> 01:30:59,000
state steps in in the role of protector and provider

1435
01:30:59,140 –> 01:31:02,980
that a man would traditionally be in. If the state got out of caring about

1436
01:31:02,980 –> 01:31:06,675
that, I think more men and

1437
01:31:06,675 –> 01:31:10,295
women would make I think men and women both

1438
01:31:11,235 –> 01:31:13,815
would would shift in how they make their choices

1439
01:31:15,155 –> 01:31:18,770
about who to cohabitate, have relations with,

1440
01:31:18,770 –> 01:31:22,150
have romance with. And I think it would be much more transactional

1441
01:31:22,610 –> 01:31:26,450
in a way where it’s not transactional now. It’s it’s sort of a

1442
01:31:26,450 –> 01:31:30,230
faux romantic kind of thing versus a transactional

1443
01:31:30,370 –> 01:31:31,430
thing. Because, look,

1444
01:31:36,755 –> 01:31:40,595
if I’m getting married, I should be looking at whoever it is

1445
01:31:40,595 –> 01:31:44,275
I’m going to be married to, yes, as a person who I can grow with,

1446
01:31:44,275 –> 01:31:47,155
to your point earlier, who I can grow with and and all these kinds of

1447
01:31:47,155 –> 01:31:50,810
things. By the way, grow within a practical kind of way

1448
01:31:50,810 –> 01:31:54,570
across all spectrums of agreement, understanding that that person may grow into

1449
01:31:54,570 –> 01:31:58,190
something that I might not like. And so I have to be okay with that

1450
01:31:58,250 –> 01:32:01,625
over the long term. And by the way, I may grow into something that they

1451
01:32:01,625 –> 01:32:05,245
may not like. I have to be practical about this.

1452
01:32:05,625 –> 01:32:09,465
But if the state is the backstop to me making a bad decision,

1453
01:32:09,465 –> 01:32:12,265
which by the way it is in divorce, and it is in divorce laws, the

1454
01:32:12,265 –> 01:32:14,900
state’s the backstop for women, well,

1455
01:32:16,560 –> 01:32:19,060
then I can just be romantic because there’s no

1456
01:32:21,760 –> 01:32:25,440
what’s what’s the downside? And, by the way, this is a

1457
01:32:25,440 –> 01:32:28,480
very red pill argument. It is. It is a very red pill argument, and the

1458
01:32:28,480 –> 01:32:31,675
red pill community will probably be clapping for me and be like, hey. You didn’t

1459
01:32:31,675 –> 01:32:34,955
go far enough. Shut up, boys. Sit down. And then I got problems with you

1460
01:32:34,955 –> 01:32:38,715
too. You’re not making decisions based on romance. You’re

1461
01:32:38,715 –> 01:32:42,550
basing decisions based on sex, which no one wants

1462
01:32:42,550 –> 01:32:46,070
to talk about that out loud, but that’s true. You’re making decisions based

1463
01:32:46,070 –> 01:32:49,590
on how this woman looks, you know, in a tight

1464
01:32:49,590 –> 01:32:52,949
dress, which is great, except here’s the

1465
01:32:52,949 –> 01:32:56,715
problem. When you get what it is you wanna get from

1466
01:32:56,715 –> 01:33:00,555
that woman and she has a baby, her body ain’t gonna look

1467
01:33:00,555 –> 01:33:03,615
like the same way it looked in that tight dress when you first got her.

1468
01:33:03,915 –> 01:33:07,275
It’s just not. And are you willing to live with that? You’re not. Because you

1469
01:33:07,275 –> 01:33:10,650
have this weird ideal in your head and the ideal judges you, and the

1470
01:33:10,650 –> 01:33:14,410
ideal stop. So stop it. And so I think if you’ve got

1471
01:33:14,410 –> 01:33:18,170
the state out of part of that process, what would

1472
01:33:18,170 –> 01:33:21,470
happen is men and women would adjust naturally.

1473
01:33:22,010 –> 01:33:25,805
And by the way, it would happen organically. And in 5,

1474
01:33:25,805 –> 01:33:29,325
10 years, we have a totally completely different system and structure because it’ll happen quite

1475
01:33:29,325 –> 01:33:32,845
quickly. Men and women are gonna make those negotiations quite quickly at a very practical

1476
01:33:32,845 –> 01:33:36,605
level. Women would start withholding sexual favors, all

1477
01:33:36,685 –> 01:33:40,369
for all kinds of different reasons, they would make up the 10,000 reasons women have

1478
01:33:40,369 –> 01:33:43,409
in their heads for withholding. They would make up all those reasons, and men would

1479
01:33:44,530 –> 01:33:47,810
come on. And men would make all the reasons for why we gotta storm the

1480
01:33:47,810 –> 01:33:51,409
castle, and history would move on.

1481
01:33:51,409 –> 01:33:55,175
Right? But the state would be agnostic. And by the way, I think if

1482
01:33:55,175 –> 01:33:59,015
Russia did this, Russia’s fertility rate would go up. If Vladimir

1483
01:33:59,015 –> 01:34:02,855
Putin stops talking about this and just got the state out of the

1484
01:34:02,855 –> 01:34:06,550
way. Does Russia ever get the

1485
01:34:06,550 –> 01:34:10,310
state out of the way? Well, you know, this is a challenge. Right? This is

1486
01:34:10,310 –> 01:34:13,830
a challenge for nation states. Right? China, perfect example. One

1487
01:34:13,830 –> 01:34:16,810
child policy. The state

1488
01:34:17,435 –> 01:34:21,055
explicitly made a made a policy about fertility

1489
01:34:22,875 –> 01:34:26,655
and, quite frankly, in areas even they didn’t touch on, marriage, cohabitation,

1490
01:34:27,435 –> 01:34:30,475
divorce. They made they made a by making a one child policy, they made a

1491
01:34:30,475 –> 01:34:32,790
statement about all those things and look at how well that

1492
01:34:34,710 –> 01:34:38,550
worked. They don’t even report their population numbers anymore. They’ll

1493
01:34:38,550 –> 01:34:42,250
probably be at 800,000,000 people by the end of this century,

1494
01:34:42,710 –> 01:34:46,505
maybe, we think. For what?

1495
01:34:47,525 –> 01:34:51,285
Because you’re trying to prevent overpopulation? You’re trying to prevent

1496
01:34:51,285 –> 01:34:54,245
whatever is gonna happen naturally between men and women who couldn’t negotiate it, by the

1497
01:34:54,245 –> 01:34:58,020
way, on their own without the state interrupting. And that’s my objection.

1498
01:34:58,020 –> 01:35:01,380
I do not think the state has an interest in this. Just like I don’t

1499
01:35:01,380 –> 01:35:05,060
think the state has an interest in or should have an interest in education or

1500
01:35:05,060 –> 01:35:08,820
health care. All these areas, the states involved in

1501
01:35:08,820 –> 01:35:12,525
why why are you there Right. When people who just

1502
01:35:12,525 –> 01:35:16,365
negotiate those things independently. My word vomit

1503
01:35:16,365 –> 01:35:19,805
over. There you go. Okay. Rant

1504
01:35:19,805 –> 01:35:23,405
over. Just push the box out of the

1505
01:35:23,405 –> 01:35:27,070
room. You may all send me don’t

1506
01:35:27,070 –> 01:35:30,830
bother, Kristen. She’s the guest. You can send me all your dirty

1507
01:35:30,830 –> 01:35:34,190
emails at I don’t really care to hear your

1508
01:35:34,190 –> 01:35:37,950
feedback.com. No. No. It’s fine. No. No. Please tell

1509
01:35:37,950 –> 01:35:41,605
me that I’m wrong. Really? I mean, mark it up

1510
01:35:41,605 –> 01:35:44,324
in LinkedIn, wherever it is. You get this, my guest. Tell me if you’ve made

1511
01:35:44,324 –> 01:35:47,364
it this far, tell me that I’m wrong. Tell me that I’m like, this is

1512
01:35:47,364 –> 01:35:51,205
not correct. Because I think at the root of this is that ideal of

1513
01:35:51,205 –> 01:35:54,679
romantic love, like we’ve been talking about with the sonnets, but then it grows into

1514
01:35:54,679 –> 01:35:58,520
all these other areas because people are trying to scale their experience,

1515
01:35:58,520 –> 01:36:02,040
and I think it’s a real challenge for leaders. Okay. Back to the

1516
01:36:02,040 –> 01:36:05,260
sonnets. Less of me and more William Shakespeare.

1517
01:36:08,105 –> 01:36:11,625
Sonnet 73. From sonnets by William

1518
01:36:11,625 –> 01:36:14,845
Shakespeare from the Folger Shakespeare Library.

1519
01:36:15,545 –> 01:36:19,145
And I quote, that time of year thou mayest in me behold when

1520
01:36:19,145 –> 01:36:22,630
yellow leaves or none or few do hang upon those

1521
01:36:22,630 –> 01:36:26,330
bows which shake against the cold, bear ruined choirs

1522
01:36:26,390 –> 01:36:30,070
where late the sweet birds sang, in me, thou seest

1523
01:36:30,070 –> 01:36:33,590
the twilight of such day as after sunset fadeth in the

1524
01:36:33,590 –> 01:36:37,265
west, which by and by black night doth take

1525
01:36:37,265 –> 01:36:40,945
away death’s second self that seals up all

1526
01:36:40,945 –> 01:36:44,705
in rest. In me, thou seest the glowing of such

1527
01:36:44,705 –> 01:36:48,405
fire that on the ashes of his youth, not lie as the deathbed

1528
01:36:48,545 –> 01:36:52,059
whereon it must expire consumed with that

1529
01:36:52,920 –> 01:36:56,520
which it was nourished by. This thou perceivest

1530
01:36:56,520 –> 01:37:00,280
which makes thy love more strong, to love that well

1531
01:37:00,280 –> 01:37:03,340
which thou must let you leave long.

1532
01:37:10,255 –> 01:37:14,014
That’s a good one. It’s a very good one. Being

1533
01:37:14,014 –> 01:37:16,915
a romantic in a cynical,

1534
01:37:17,534 –> 01:37:21,235
skeptical, as I just ranted, mechanistic age,

1535
01:37:22,860 –> 01:37:26,460
surrounded by the results of and and by the way, they are the

1536
01:37:26,460 –> 01:37:29,600
plentiful results of a scientific materialistic aesthetic

1537
01:37:30,140 –> 01:37:33,820
is a real struggle. When we

1538
01:37:33,820 –> 01:37:36,800
talk about being a romantic, we’re typically referencing

1539
01:37:37,744 –> 01:37:41,585
the culture and ideals of the Romantic period. And the Romantic period in

1540
01:37:41,585 –> 01:37:45,425
English literature was a direct response, a revolutionary response, such

1541
01:37:45,425 –> 01:37:48,565
as it were to the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

1542
01:37:49,105 –> 01:37:52,860
The Romantic period began in 1798 and continued into

1543
01:37:52,860 –> 01:37:56,460
some will say 18 37 or even 18 50. And

1544
01:37:56,460 –> 01:37:59,440
that famously covers a time that encompasses

1545
01:38:00,140 –> 01:38:03,820
the American Revolution, the British Industrial Revolution, and the

1546
01:38:03,820 –> 01:38:07,255
French Revolution, as well as Napoleon.

1547
01:38:08,034 –> 01:38:11,715
And it was also a time of the painters like Eugene Delacroix, who

1548
01:38:11,715 –> 01:38:15,014
painted in a particular kind of way, and the poet William

1549
01:38:15,155 –> 01:38:18,755
Wordsworth, who wrote in a particular kind of way, and of

1550
01:38:18,755 –> 01:38:22,340
course, the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

1551
01:38:23,040 –> 01:38:26,580
the German who wrote in a particular kind of way.

1552
01:38:27,680 –> 01:38:31,380
Now, in our time, almost no one is a romantic anymore

1553
01:38:31,520 –> 01:38:35,325
due to the fact that romanticism requires a connection to the land

1554
01:38:35,325 –> 01:38:38,945
as opposed to a connection to technology, a love for the individual

1555
01:38:39,565 –> 01:38:43,025
rather than a love for the revolution

1556
01:38:43,405 –> 01:38:47,085
of the masses. For the romantics, the critic

1557
01:38:47,085 –> 01:38:50,640
Isaiah Berlin says this, and I quote, in the realm of

1558
01:38:50,640 –> 01:38:54,320
ethics, politics, and aesthetics, it was the authenticity and

1559
01:38:54,320 –> 01:38:57,920
sincerity of the pursuit of inner goals that mattered. This

1560
01:38:57,920 –> 01:39:01,460
applied equally to individuals and groups, states, nations,

1561
01:39:01,520 –> 01:39:04,945
movements. This is most evident in the aesthetics of romanticism

1562
01:39:05,245 –> 01:39:08,845
where the notion of eternal models, a platonic vision of

1563
01:39:08,845 –> 01:39:12,525
ideal beauty, which the artist seeks to convey, however imperfectly on

1564
01:39:12,525 –> 01:39:16,305
canvas or in sound, is replaced by a passionate belief in spiritual freedom

1565
01:39:16,605 –> 01:39:20,420
and individual creativity. The painter, the poet,

1566
01:39:20,420 –> 01:39:24,020
the composer do not hold up a mirror to nature, however ideal,

1567
01:39:24,020 –> 01:39:27,719
but invent. They do not imitate the doctrine of mimesis,

1568
01:39:28,020 –> 01:39:31,380
but create not merely the means but the goals that they

1569
01:39:31,380 –> 01:39:34,955
pursue. These goals represent the self expression of the artist’s own

1570
01:39:34,955 –> 01:39:38,554
unique inner vision to set aside, which in response to the

1571
01:39:38,554 –> 01:39:41,915
demands of some external voice like the church, the state, the public

1572
01:39:41,915 –> 01:39:45,275
opinion, family, friends, or even those arbiters of

1573
01:39:45,275 –> 01:39:48,780
taste, is an act of betrayal of what alone

1574
01:39:48,780 –> 01:39:52,560
justifies their existence for those who are in any sense creative,

1575
01:39:53,579 –> 01:39:56,619
close quote. But,

1576
01:39:56,940 –> 01:40:00,699
Berlin also notes in his essay from which I pulled that quote that in the

1577
01:40:00,699 –> 01:40:04,145
20th century, the Marxist revolutions,

1578
01:40:04,685 –> 01:40:08,445
Hitler and fascism, and, of course, all of

1579
01:40:08,445 –> 01:40:11,985
the communist revolutions that killed almost a 100,000,000

1580
01:40:12,125 –> 01:40:15,965
people in the very bloody 20th century knocked the hell out of

1581
01:40:15,965 –> 01:40:19,730
the innocence of the romantics. And of course, the moral and

1582
01:40:19,730 –> 01:40:23,250
political power of romanticism has declined over the last declined

1583
01:40:23,250 –> 01:40:26,770
precipitously over the last 100 years. I would

1584
01:40:26,770 –> 01:40:28,950
assert that in our era

1585
01:40:32,495 –> 01:40:36,015
in our era, it might be time to resurrect the power

1586
01:40:36,015 –> 01:40:39,475
of the romantics yet again,

1587
01:40:40,015 –> 01:40:43,535
where the artist seeks to convey, however imperfectly on canvas or in

1588
01:40:43,535 –> 01:40:47,075
sound, a

1589
01:40:48,290 –> 01:40:51,830
passionate belief in spiritual freedom and individual

1590
01:40:52,370 –> 01:40:52,870
creativity.

1591
01:40:57,570 –> 01:41:01,085
I think at the end of the 4th turning, where we are

1592
01:41:01,085 –> 01:41:04,605
surrounded by the benefits of technology I mean, heck, look at this

1593
01:41:04,605 –> 01:41:07,745
podcast. Right? I would not be talking to you without mechanistic

1594
01:41:07,965 –> 01:41:11,324
engineering technology. And I think that artificial

1595
01:41:11,324 –> 01:41:14,540
intelligence is going to prove that we’ve kind of

1596
01:41:14,719 –> 01:41:18,060
hit dead end on some of this. Not that there won’t be technological

1597
01:41:18,200 –> 01:41:21,880
wonders on the other side. There will be because people are creative,

1598
01:41:21,880 –> 01:41:24,620
but I think we’ve currently hit a dead end.

1599
01:41:25,480 –> 01:41:29,015
Peter Thiel, the investor, invested in Facebook

1600
01:41:29,075 –> 01:41:32,755
and owns Palantir, and who also was part of the PayPal

1601
01:41:32,755 –> 01:41:36,135
mafia along with Elon Musk and Reid Hoffman infamously

1602
01:41:36,435 –> 01:41:40,114
has said, and I’m going to rough quote this, we

1603
01:41:40,114 –> 01:41:43,760
were promised houses on the Moon and vacations to

1604
01:41:43,760 –> 01:41:47,520
Mars and instead we got Facebook and tweeting in

1605
01:41:47,520 –> 01:41:51,119
280 characters. A

1606
01:41:51,119 –> 01:41:54,340
mechanistic mind gives you tweeting in 280 characters.

1607
01:41:54,995 –> 01:41:58,755
A romantic mind gets you to Mars, no matter how

1608
01:41:58,755 –> 01:42:02,275
mechanistic that mind may be. So I would

1609
01:42:02,275 –> 01:42:05,415
argue that Elon is probably a romantic.

1610
01:42:07,090 –> 01:42:10,130
By the way, he’s got he’s got 12 kids and 4 marriages, I think, and

1611
01:42:10,130 –> 01:42:13,890
5 relationships under his spouse. So, I mean, he’s doing his job. He’s

1612
01:42:13,890 –> 01:42:17,170
doing his part for I’m doing my part.

1613
01:42:17,250 –> 01:42:20,390
Increasing the increasing population of the country.

1614
01:42:21,170 –> 01:42:24,835
He’s doing his part. But I think we

1615
01:42:24,835 –> 01:42:28,675
need to resurrect the ideals of romanticism. I think we

1616
01:42:28,675 –> 01:42:32,435
need to set aside the the demands of the external voice, church, state,

1617
01:42:32,435 –> 01:42:36,160
public opinion, family, friends, arbiters of taste, in exchange

1618
01:42:36,160 –> 01:42:39,620
for a perception of not a perception of pursuit of quality

1619
01:42:39,840 –> 01:42:42,740
first, a romantic pursuit of quality.

1620
01:42:44,000 –> 01:42:47,760
Not idealistic, not in a John Lennon kind of imagine there’s no heaven

1621
01:42:47,760 –> 01:42:49,860
kind of way, which by the way is a terrible song.

1622
01:42:51,155 –> 01:42:54,855
But a oh, it’s terrible. Everybody knows it’s terrible. Come on now.

1623
01:42:55,635 –> 01:42:59,395
But but I think we need to set it I think we need to

1624
01:42:59,395 –> 01:43:02,775
pursue quality in opposition

1625
01:43:03,155 –> 01:43:06,320
to a merely mechanical mind, a merely evolutionarily

1626
01:43:06,860 –> 01:43:08,800
driven AI produced

1627
01:43:11,020 –> 01:43:14,700
automaton vision of the future, which I think a

1628
01:43:14,700 –> 01:43:17,440
lot of people want to push us towards.

1629
01:43:19,675 –> 01:43:23,355
As we close here, because it’s time for me to let Kristen go. She’s been

1630
01:43:23,355 –> 01:43:27,055
with me long enough today. How can romantics operate

1631
01:43:27,114 –> 01:43:30,555
in our mechanistic time? And I ask you this as a writer specifically, but that’s

1632
01:43:30,555 –> 01:43:33,840
kind of why I came up with this question here for you. Well, I have

1633
01:43:33,840 –> 01:43:37,600
been thinking about the definitions. Like, how how are

1634
01:43:37,600 –> 01:43:41,120
you defining romantic? Because you did you did just distinguish it between

1635
01:43:41,120 –> 01:43:44,880
romantic and ideal. Or just you did did just

1636
01:43:44,880 –> 01:43:48,625
make the distinction between romantic and ideal. So I’m trying to figure

1637
01:43:48,625 –> 01:43:52,385
out what does it mean to be a romantic? Well, I

1638
01:43:52,385 –> 01:43:55,985
think I think to be a romantic is to acknowledge that there are

1639
01:43:55,985 –> 01:43:59,505
eternal models. Right? And I think that that there

1640
01:43:59,505 –> 01:44:03,230
are, I think it is also to acknowledge and to

1641
01:44:03,230 –> 01:44:06,849
pursue quality. I think that that is a romantic

1642
01:44:06,989 –> 01:44:10,530
pursuit and not quality in sort of a, again, a mechanistic

1643
01:44:10,989 –> 01:44:14,605
conception of quality. But quality in terms

1644
01:44:14,605 –> 01:44:18,305
of we are pursuing a platonic vision of, of, of,

1645
01:44:18,305 –> 01:44:21,725
of an ideal, a platonic ideal of beauty or a

1646
01:44:21,725 –> 01:44:25,405
platonic idea of capital T truth. And we’re

1647
01:44:25,405 –> 01:44:29,250
going to do that, with spiritual

1648
01:44:29,250 –> 01:44:32,790
freedom and with individual creativity in direct opposition

1649
01:44:33,329 –> 01:44:36,070
to a mechanistic, framework.

1650
01:44:37,010 –> 01:44:40,210
And we’re going to do this ruthlessly, and we’re going to do it with a

1651
01:44:40,210 –> 01:44:43,465
smile on our face, or maybe we’re gonna do it frowning, it doesn’t matter, But

1652
01:44:43,465 –> 01:44:47,145
we’re going to do it ruthlessly. And, by the way, I think there are romantics

1653
01:44:47,145 –> 01:44:50,905
in our time. I think we’ve got or people who have a romantic bent

1654
01:44:50,905 –> 01:44:53,805
in our time. So I mentioned Elon Musk already.

1655
01:44:55,480 –> 01:44:59,020
I think, Jordan Peterson is probably a romantic.

1656
01:44:59,560 –> 01:45:02,860
I think that, weirdly enough,

1657
01:45:03,800 –> 01:45:06,860
the writer Jack Carr is a romantic.

1658
01:45:07,895 –> 01:45:11,335
I think that as far as directors go, like if we’re talking

1659
01:45:11,335 –> 01:45:15,015
about film directors, you’d be hard pressed to find a romantic film

1660
01:45:15,015 –> 01:45:18,775
director in our time. I think Christopher Nolan is probably about as close

1661
01:45:18,775 –> 01:45:21,515
as we’re going to get right now. You’re with del Toro?

1662
01:45:23,239 –> 01:45:26,360
Yeah. He just doesn’t do enough work, but, yeah, I would throw Del Toro in

1663
01:45:26,360 –> 01:45:30,040
there. He just doesn’t. He just doesn’t do enough work, you know? I mean,

1664
01:45:30,040 –> 01:45:33,719
you’re muddling around Pinocchio on Netflix. Like, what are we doing? Did you

1665
01:45:33,719 –> 01:45:37,515
watch that? I I so I’ve I’ve seen the trailer for it, and

1666
01:45:37,515 –> 01:45:41,114
I kinda go, well, okay. I mean, I see what you’re doing. It’s amazing. It’s

1667
01:45:41,114 –> 01:45:44,715
amazing. Okay. It’s amazing. Okay. Amazing. It’s amazing.

1668
01:45:44,715 –> 01:45:48,315
Okay. Alright. I loved it. I loved it. I will take it up on

1669
01:45:48,315 –> 01:45:51,995
your recommendation. Yeah. But I also see it in Craftsman. So there’s this

1670
01:45:51,995 –> 01:45:55,660
show I watch on, oh,

1671
01:45:55,880 –> 01:45:59,480
on HBO Max, which comes through either TLC or the

1672
01:45:59,480 –> 01:46:03,100
Discovery Channel, whichever property they own, called Restoration

1673
01:46:03,240 –> 01:46:07,025
Road where this guy named Clint Harp, and it was on for about 5

1674
01:46:07,025 –> 01:46:10,385
seasons, where basically he goes around the country working with people who are trying to

1675
01:46:10,385 –> 01:46:13,045
restore barns and restore,

1676
01:46:14,705 –> 01:46:18,465
and restore, what do you call it, old buildings, right, and literally taking

1677
01:46:18,465 –> 01:46:21,480
them out of the northeast. Like, he’ll take a barn out of upstate New York,

1678
01:46:21,480 –> 01:46:24,840
where I used to live, where they don’t care about it. It’s just rotting in

1679
01:46:24,840 –> 01:46:27,099
a field somewhere because it doesn’t fit the mechanistic

1680
01:46:28,199 –> 01:46:31,960
mentality of our current time. And then he takes that to, like, Idaho and turns

1681
01:46:31,960 –> 01:46:35,800
into a cheese factory where people are being taught how to make cheese and do

1682
01:46:35,800 –> 01:46:39,505
weaving and and do, you know, handcrafts and all these kind of amazing

1683
01:46:39,505 –> 01:46:42,945
things. And he does this repeatedly. He’s on 5 years of

1684
01:46:42,945 –> 01:46:46,545
content, you know, on this. And it’s not

1685
01:46:46,545 –> 01:46:49,825
just Barnes, it’s also silos and things like that. He’s getting into the history, and

1686
01:46:49,825 –> 01:46:53,400
he’s understands that. And you can tell when he shows up that he cares about

1687
01:46:53,400 –> 01:46:57,100
the Platonic vision and the ideal of truth,

1688
01:46:57,239 –> 01:47:00,219
and his carpentry skills that he brings to the game

1689
01:47:00,920 –> 01:47:03,820
are secondary to pursuing that with quality.

1690
01:47:05,945 –> 01:47:09,304
That’s what I’m talking about as being a those are people who I believe are

1691
01:47:09,304 –> 01:47:12,925
romantics. Those are examples that I would that I would call on

1692
01:47:14,985 –> 01:47:15,885
in our time.

1693
01:47:19,090 –> 01:47:22,850
So how do you do that? Yeah. How do you operate? How do we get

1694
01:47:22,850 –> 01:47:25,510
more of that and not less of that? How do we get more of that?

1695
01:47:28,130 –> 01:47:30,850
That’s really the question. How do we get more of that? How do we squeeze

1696
01:47:30,850 –> 01:47:34,665
more of that juice out of the body politic? Because I think we need more

1697
01:47:34,665 –> 01:47:36,045
of it. Yeah.

1698
01:47:38,745 –> 01:47:39,245
Well,

1699
01:47:43,065 –> 01:47:46,445
my brain just went all the way back to, like, child formation.

1700
01:47:48,469 –> 01:47:51,929
School. You just have to completely

1701
01:47:51,989 –> 01:47:55,690
change the format of school because right now, like,

1702
01:47:55,989 –> 01:47:59,290
what gets pushed in school? Oh,

1703
01:47:59,590 –> 01:48:03,275
nonsense. Science. That’s

1704
01:48:03,495 –> 01:48:07,035
physics and But even there, it’s not good STEM.

1705
01:48:07,415 –> 01:48:10,795
It’s the most basic level STEM stuff because

1706
01:48:11,175 –> 01:48:15,015
because And kids are doing calculus before high school now. It’s just like

1707
01:48:15,015 –> 01:48:18,660
what They’re doing they’re doing calculus before high school so they can think

1708
01:48:18,660 –> 01:48:21,640
like computers, but they’re not being taught literature

1709
01:48:22,500 –> 01:48:25,719
in high school. That’s They’re trying.

1710
01:48:26,020 –> 01:48:29,239
Yes. It is. It is. It is. And so,

1711
01:48:30,545 –> 01:48:34,385
yeah, start there. But but but that doesn’t really answer the question.

1712
01:48:34,385 –> 01:48:37,745
That that’s, like, long term. Right? You have to you have to you have to

1713
01:48:37,745 –> 01:48:41,105
shift things, when when children are

1714
01:48:41,105 –> 01:48:44,720
forming. But how like, romantics because I

1715
01:48:44,720 –> 01:48:46,740
consider myself a romantic. Mhmm.

1716
01:48:48,320 –> 01:48:52,160
And how do I my my first thought was that, well, I have to

1717
01:48:52,160 –> 01:48:55,920
have my needs met first. Mhmm. Right. So

1718
01:48:55,920 –> 01:48:59,695
it’s kind of like, well, how do you do that without forcing yourself

1719
01:48:59,695 –> 01:49:03,395
into the the utilitarian mechanistic system?

1720
01:49:03,695 –> 01:49:07,375
Mhmm. That’s that is one of those questions I think

1721
01:49:07,375 –> 01:49:11,215
the answers will be different for everybody. I think I I’ve said this before

1722
01:49:11,215 –> 01:49:14,730
on the podcast. I feel like I gotta get lucky where, like, I had to

1723
01:49:14,730 –> 01:49:18,570
have a couple. I’ve, you know, multi passionate. Like, I’m I’m I’m

1724
01:49:18,570 –> 01:49:22,250
a classically trained musician, and I can travel pretty

1725
01:49:22,250 –> 01:49:25,690
closely to a fairly affluent neighborhood and teach private music lessons

1726
01:49:25,690 –> 01:49:29,145
there. But wait a minute. Wait. And that doesn’t take a whole lot of time.

1727
01:49:29,145 –> 01:49:32,665
So now I can work part time for a pretty full time

1728
01:49:32,665 –> 01:49:35,945
income. And then But let me push back on that a little bit, though. I

1729
01:49:35,945 –> 01:49:39,550
don’t think that’s luck. I think that’s a series of tiny

1730
01:49:39,550 –> 01:49:43,230
decisions that you made based on your talent, skills, and competencies that I

1731
01:49:43,230 –> 01:49:46,270
couldn’t have made. If I tried to make those exact same decisions, I would not

1732
01:49:46,270 –> 01:49:48,430
have wound up in the same clearing at the end of the path that you

1733
01:49:48,430 –> 01:49:52,270
wound up at. Just like if you had made the same decisions

1734
01:49:52,270 –> 01:49:55,844
that I had made, you would not have wound up here. There’s no

1735
01:49:55,844 –> 01:49:59,625
way. We were different people. So people what we call luck

1736
01:49:59,684 –> 01:50:03,445
or what people call fortune, I really think we

1737
01:50:03,445 –> 01:50:06,425
need to use an older term, and it is a religious term,

1738
01:50:06,885 –> 01:50:10,585
so it’s a term of the romantics, like, particularly the American romantics,

1739
01:50:10,840 –> 01:50:14,440
providence. Mhmm. It’s this idea that there is

1740
01:50:14,440 –> 01:50:17,820
this entire superstructure called God that

1741
01:50:18,120 –> 01:50:21,480
cares about who you are at an individual level, at a

1742
01:50:21,480 –> 01:50:24,915
microscopic decision making level, and is pushing

1743
01:50:24,915 –> 01:50:28,355
you and or or in some cases, you are you are

1744
01:50:28,355 –> 01:50:32,195
allowing yourself to be taken down a particular path that’s going to

1745
01:50:32,195 –> 01:50:35,975
wind you up at a particular clearing, but no one else can go

1746
01:50:36,515 –> 01:50:40,330
can go on that river other than you. The

1747
01:50:40,330 –> 01:50:44,010
guy across the street can’t. And by the way, it’s brutal

1748
01:50:44,010 –> 01:50:47,450
because the guy across the street might be homeless. He missed his

1749
01:50:47,450 –> 01:50:50,750
river, and we can have compassion for him and we can

1750
01:50:51,315 –> 01:50:54,675
wanna feed him and take care of him, and Jesus said the poor you will

1751
01:50:54,675 –> 01:50:58,435
have with you always, which is a brutal truth, by the

1752
01:50:58,435 –> 01:51:01,415
way, that no modern nation state wants to hear. But

1753
01:51:02,355 –> 01:51:05,715
that person rode down the particular river they were on and they wound up in

1754
01:51:05,715 –> 01:51:07,930
a clearing at the end of the path. There’s no guarantee that you would have

1755
01:51:07,930 –> 01:51:11,690
wound up there either. So we call it luck. I would push

1756
01:51:11,690 –> 01:51:15,450
back on the luck piece. I I I No. That’s fine. That’s fair. I that’s

1757
01:51:15,450 –> 01:51:18,730
just usually it’s, like, the easiest turn of phrase. We like Sure. Through all of

1758
01:51:18,730 –> 01:51:22,525
this craziness. Sure. I never would have guessed that this is where and now

1759
01:51:22,525 –> 01:51:25,985
I’m like so kinda to your point about being a romantic, I,

1760
01:51:26,925 –> 01:51:30,305
back in November, I, purchased the

1761
01:51:30,765 –> 01:51:34,469
music store that I teach out of. Mhmm. And

1762
01:51:34,469 –> 01:51:38,150
the model that that store runs on

1763
01:51:38,150 –> 01:51:41,750
is not was it mechanistic? Util like,

1764
01:51:41,750 –> 01:51:45,590
it’s it’s in terms of profit, it’s terrible idea. And when we

1765
01:51:45,590 –> 01:51:49,365
were trying to raise money to preserve that model, everybody kept calling in. They

1766
01:51:49,365 –> 01:51:52,165
were like, you have to change your model. You have to change your model. And

1767
01:51:52,165 –> 01:51:55,525
we were like, no. We’re not gonna do this because this

1768
01:51:55,525 –> 01:51:59,365
model, romantic, ideal, whatever, like, this model

1769
01:51:59,365 –> 01:52:03,079
serves music education the best. So we’re going

1770
01:52:03,079 –> 01:52:06,860
to figure out a way to preserve it. So I think it’s like

1771
01:52:07,239 –> 01:52:11,000
sorry. The phrase both and comes to comes to mind again. Mhmm. Because,

1772
01:52:11,000 –> 01:52:14,840
like, we don’t like, we we are

1773
01:52:14,840 –> 01:52:18,675
adjusting our model and that we are taking ideas that

1774
01:52:18,675 –> 01:52:22,435
people suggested to create revenue in

1775
01:52:22,435 –> 01:52:26,195
a different area so that we can support and

1776
01:52:26,195 –> 01:52:29,655
keep the model that supports our teachers,

1777
01:52:30,530 –> 01:52:33,750
our music teachers, and therefore, our music students,

1778
01:52:34,370 –> 01:52:38,130
and therefore, our entire community so well. So

1779
01:52:38,130 –> 01:52:41,430
there’s a chance a romantic vision. That’s a romantic vision. 100%.

1780
01:52:41,650 –> 01:52:45,435
100%. Because the other like, the the the suggestion that we got

1781
01:52:45,435 –> 01:52:49,035
was turn all of your teachers into w two and pay them less. And I

1782
01:52:49,035 –> 01:52:52,315
was like, what? I wouldn’t have like, I wouldn’t be at this store

1783
01:52:52,715 –> 01:52:56,315
Mhmm. If that’s if that’s why if that’s how the store

1784
01:52:56,315 –> 01:53:00,030
operated. So, like, we’re not doing that. Right. But

1785
01:53:00,030 –> 01:53:03,550
that is the best way to, like or not best way.

1786
01:53:03,550 –> 01:53:07,010
Sorry. Some would say that that’s the easiest, most efficient way

1787
01:53:07,230 –> 01:53:10,995
of getting to higher revenue, of making the business more sustainable. Well,

1788
01:53:10,995 –> 01:53:14,835
in part of what the Romantics historically between 1798 and 18

1789
01:53:14,835 –> 01:53:18,514
37 did right around 1848, 18 50, what they

1790
01:53:18,514 –> 01:53:22,355
were pushing back against was capitalism. They were pushing

1791
01:53:22,355 –> 01:53:26,199
back on the growing accumulation of capital

1792
01:53:26,260 –> 01:53:28,120
via industrialized mass.

1793
01:53:30,500 –> 01:53:33,719
And the response that you’re getting is the hangover

1794
01:53:34,580 –> 01:53:37,560
from that ideal.

1795
01:53:38,925 –> 01:53:42,224
The problem is on the other side of the industrial

1796
01:53:42,364 –> 01:53:44,545
revolution that we all now live in,

1797
01:53:47,244 –> 01:53:51,005
we’ve gotten to the edges of that model. We financialized all the

1798
01:53:51,005 –> 01:53:54,250
way out to the edges of that model. This is what this is why when

1799
01:53:54,250 –> 01:53:58,090
MBAs run Boeing Airlines, engines fall out of planes in

1800
01:53:58,090 –> 01:54:01,450
the sky and you can’t get astronauts back from where you put them on a

1801
01:54:01,450 –> 01:54:05,130
space station. This is why. Because the

1802
01:54:05,130 –> 01:54:08,775
MBAs are running things and they financialized out the

1803
01:54:08,775 –> 01:54:12,215
system, all over the system, the organization, all the way out to the

1804
01:54:12,215 –> 01:54:16,055
end to drain the last piece of capital from

1805
01:54:16,055 –> 01:54:19,595
it for shareholders or for,

1806
01:54:20,800 –> 01:54:24,400
or for executives or whoever or even for just

1807
01:54:24,400 –> 01:54:27,920
regular people. And, by the way, people like to bag on executives. Usually, those

1808
01:54:27,920 –> 01:54:31,600
executive compensations are usually stock options, usually not

1809
01:54:31,600 –> 01:54:35,295
salary. And by the way, most of your salary utilization also

1810
01:54:35,295 –> 01:54:37,934
goes up. Yes. Not as much as the CEOs, but also goes up every time

1811
01:54:37,934 –> 01:54:41,534
the stock price goes up. So I don’t even wanna hear about it. But, please.

1812
01:54:41,534 –> 01:54:45,155
It’s everybody in the ship together. Okay? But they financialize

1813
01:54:45,295 –> 01:54:49,110
all the way out to the nearest to the to the nth degree, And

1814
01:54:49,110 –> 01:54:52,630
a romantic view says we can leave

1815
01:54:52,630 –> 01:54:55,770
something on the table. Yeah. That’s okay.

1816
01:54:56,710 –> 01:55:00,230
But and as you were talking, what came to mind was, like, what is the

1817
01:55:00,230 –> 01:55:04,014
point of accumulating all of that? Like, could people literally have more

1818
01:55:04,014 –> 01:55:07,695
money than they can spend? Right. And it’s not us,

1819
01:55:07,695 –> 01:55:10,994
but it it doesn’t matter. Like, it I think part of

1820
01:55:11,375 –> 01:55:14,850
clinging to the romantic view is realizing

1821
01:55:14,989 –> 01:55:18,750
that before you scrape and fight to get there and you

1822
01:55:18,750 –> 01:55:22,110
realize this wasn’t worth it. Right. Like,

1823
01:55:22,110 –> 01:55:25,790
what am I going to do with the

1824
01:55:25,790 –> 01:55:28,935
resources that I have now and, like,

1825
01:55:29,475 –> 01:55:33,315
the training in my brain and, like, what what value can

1826
01:55:33,315 –> 01:55:36,755
I give to people? What’s what’s meaningful to me? So maybe

1827
01:55:36,755 –> 01:55:40,595
that’s maybe that’s a a decent answer.

1828
01:55:40,595 –> 01:55:43,015
Like, find figure take the time

1829
01:55:44,329 –> 01:55:47,630
to slow down. Go walk at a beach

1830
01:55:47,770 –> 01:55:51,530
or in a forest or next to a river, because I

1831
01:55:51,530 –> 01:55:55,369
do. I go to the beach once a week at least just to walk and

1832
01:55:55,369 –> 01:55:58,775
listen and pray. Mhmm.

1833
01:55:58,775 –> 01:56:02,455
Yeah. Absolutely. I get lots of

1834
01:56:02,455 –> 01:56:06,135
ideas. See, that’s part of

1835
01:56:06,135 –> 01:56:09,895
riding that river that the transcendent is sending

1836
01:56:09,895 –> 01:56:13,489
you down. It’s providence, not luck. And so that providence is

1837
01:56:13,489 –> 01:56:16,690
carrying you to the next thing too. And and I think I would I can

1838
01:56:16,690 –> 01:56:20,369
hear the cynics being like, I don’t have time. Like, I have to work. I

1839
01:56:20,369 –> 01:56:23,909
am so exhausted. And I’m like, I was there too. Mhmm.

1840
01:56:23,969 –> 01:56:27,784
So the hard part is, you know,

1841
01:56:27,784 –> 01:56:31,485
doing all the math, making all of the making sure, you know,

1842
01:56:31,705 –> 01:56:35,225
your bills are paid or or crashing with mom and dad for a while

1843
01:56:35,225 –> 01:56:39,065
because we did that. Mhmm. Just it’s kinda doing what you have

1844
01:56:39,065 –> 01:56:42,900
to do to get to what’s worth doing. Well and what

1845
01:56:42,900 –> 01:56:46,500
is what is doing with less look like? Does doing with

1846
01:56:46,500 –> 01:56:47,560
less look like

1847
01:56:50,980 –> 01:56:54,280
does doing with less so you can homeschool your children look like,

1848
01:56:55,365 –> 01:56:59,205
you know, all the weight of, making money

1849
01:56:59,205 –> 01:57:03,045
falls on one person, and that other person

1850
01:57:03,045 –> 01:57:06,585
takes on all of the weight of the other pieces of running the household.

1851
01:57:07,285 –> 01:57:11,110
Period. Full stop. Period. And

1852
01:57:11,110 –> 01:57:14,630
there’s no resentment, by the way, in that. There’s no room for resentment in that

1853
01:57:14,630 –> 01:57:18,170
because what is happening is occurring at a particular

1854
01:57:18,230 –> 01:57:22,070
quality level that could not have occurred in order

1855
01:57:22,070 –> 01:57:25,775
to pursue a platonic vision of truth to educate

1856
01:57:25,775 –> 01:57:29,475
the next generation. Most people think that and I I think this is a tragedy.

1857
01:57:30,095 –> 01:57:33,615
I think many people, not I think most, many people I

1858
01:57:33,615 –> 01:57:36,755
believe are operating on the idea

1859
01:57:36,975 –> 01:57:39,880
that a child’s decisions

1860
01:57:40,820 –> 01:57:44,580
that they make when they’re 19 20 are a reflection on them as

1861
01:57:44,580 –> 01:57:48,420
a parent. And the reality is

1862
01:57:48,420 –> 01:57:51,320
the decisions they’re making at 19 20

1863
01:57:52,515 –> 01:57:54,054
after you’ve dumped $375,000

1864
01:57:56,755 –> 01:58:00,355
for a year, every year for 20 years into them, the

1865
01:58:00,355 –> 01:58:03,810
reality is and by the way, that’s

1866
01:58:06,370 –> 01:58:07,570
at the top level. Like you can raise a child on not $375,000 a year.

1867
01:58:07,570 –> 01:58:11,250
Like, please give me a break. But if you’ve done that, if you’ve bought

1868
01:58:11,250 –> 01:58:15,030
into that idea, then the decisions that they make are a return on your investment.

1869
01:58:15,650 –> 01:58:19,465
But the reality is the decisions that they make have nothing to do with

1870
01:58:19,465 –> 01:58:22,845
you. And the romantic ideal,

1871
01:58:23,385 –> 01:58:26,845
which by the way is very practical, not soft, the practical

1872
01:58:26,905 –> 01:58:30,364
romantic idea is we will, for less than $375,000

1873
01:58:31,545 –> 01:58:35,250
a year, put into this child the

1874
01:58:35,250 –> 01:58:39,030
ability to make decisions that will impact the 3rd 4th generation

1875
01:58:39,170 –> 01:58:42,930
down rather than worrying about how much money we’re making or not making

1876
01:58:42,930 –> 01:58:46,690
right now. Because this is temporary and we are temporary and we

1877
01:58:46,690 –> 01:58:50,355
will not be here forever. We have to continue somehow.

1878
01:58:50,975 –> 01:58:54,735
That’s a romantic aesthetic that now we can link back

1879
01:58:54,735 –> 01:58:58,495
to practical considerations of marriage. Who do I marry that’s going to have the

1880
01:58:58,495 –> 01:59:01,535
same aesthetic as I do? And if that person doesn’t have the same aesthetic, which

1881
01:59:01,535 –> 01:59:04,190
by the way, I should probably be asking this by them on like date number

1882
01:59:04,190 –> 01:59:08,030
3, and after date number 3 probably should be like move on.

1883
01:59:08,030 –> 01:59:11,630
If their non aesthetic isn’t matching, then I’m not going to be

1884
01:59:11,630 –> 01:59:15,150
engaged in the immediate hedonistic gratification of my base

1885
01:59:15,150 –> 01:59:18,930
desires, and we all know what that is. Instead, we’re going to wait till

1886
01:59:19,285 –> 01:59:22,825
we actually have some meaningful connection on all of these levels.

1887
01:59:24,085 –> 01:59:26,805
Whether or not the state agrees with us is irrelevant. We’re going to have some

1888
01:59:26,805 –> 01:59:30,485
meaningful connection on all these levels because we’re actually in charge of creating the

1889
01:59:30,485 –> 01:59:34,085
future state, not the current state that the state

1890
01:59:34,085 –> 01:59:37,500
is in. But that’s a romantic ideal all

1891
01:59:37,500 –> 01:59:41,260
wide to marriage and family and childbearing and

1892
01:59:41,260 –> 01:59:45,040
all of this. So with that

1893
01:59:46,460 –> 01:59:48,960
Kristen, do you have anything you’d like to promote today?

1894
01:59:50,085 –> 01:59:53,605
Yes. I know you’re working on a book. We are. You’re grinding towards the end

1895
01:59:53,605 –> 01:59:57,045
of it. What what would you like to say about that? And, of course, we

1896
01:59:57,045 –> 01:59:59,525
we would love to have you back on. I keep I said this last episode.

1897
01:59:59,525 –> 02:00:01,765
I’ll say it again this other, though, we would love to have you back on

1898
02:00:01,765 –> 02:00:05,120
when you have the book and talk all about that and the process and Yeah.

1899
02:00:05,120 –> 02:00:08,800
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How all that came together. And so those

1900
02:00:08,800 –> 02:00:11,280
those where we’re at with the book and what’s happening with that. Give us an

1901
02:00:11,280 –> 02:00:14,719
update. If you like if you like the conversation on romantic

1902
02:00:14,719 –> 02:00:18,255
love or love in general, it that our first this the

1903
02:00:18,255 –> 02:00:21,795
novels that we’re working on right now is a trilogy, and it is a romance.

1904
02:00:22,094 –> 02:00:25,155
So it’s we explore a lot. I’ve had lots of thoughts

1905
02:00:26,175 –> 02:00:29,949
about relationships and love. And so it’s I think it’s very interesting and very

1906
02:00:29,949 –> 02:00:33,790
different. It’s very different for a romance, because I think a lot

1907
02:00:33,790 –> 02:00:37,630
of romances focus on the will they, won’t they. And then, kind of a

1908
02:00:37,630 –> 02:00:41,090
spoiler. We we we ditched the will they, won’t they.

1909
02:00:42,705 –> 02:00:46,145
Not not not halfway through really, but, like, buy book 3. It’s

1910
02:00:46,145 –> 02:00:49,905
like, no. We’re into, like, hey. How do you make 2

1911
02:00:49,905 –> 02:00:53,665
very different people to have fallen off? Like, how do they make

1912
02:00:53,665 –> 02:00:57,390
their relationship work? Mhmm. So it’s just been so much fun to

1913
02:00:57,390 –> 02:01:01,150
explore that psychologically. It is fantasy though,

1914
02:01:01,150 –> 02:01:04,830
I will say. I’m just I grew up playing or not playing, sorry,

1915
02:01:04,830 –> 02:01:08,590
reading fantasy. Mhmm. I love fantasy. I play D and D. So if you

1916
02:01:08,590 –> 02:01:12,245
like that sort of thing, we are posting our chapters. They are the rough drafts.

1917
02:01:12,305 –> 02:01:15,745
But if you would like to check them out and just see, hey. Do I

1918
02:01:15,745 –> 02:01:19,265
like this? Please let us know. Also, if you like, this chapter sucks, we’re like,

1919
02:01:19,265 –> 02:01:22,900
cool. Why? Why does it suck? Please tell us.

1920
02:01:24,239 –> 02:01:27,920
We are at world of Orda. So world of Orda

1921
02:01:27,920 –> 02:01:31,679
is urda.com. And we’re also

1922
02:01:31,760 –> 02:01:35,565
I’ve I apologize for the state of our website. We’re trying to update

1923
02:01:35,565 –> 02:01:39,405
it. I threw it together, a couple years ago, and now I

1924
02:01:39,405 –> 02:01:42,465
look at it and I’m like, oh my gosh. It’s so bad.

1925
02:01:43,165 –> 02:01:46,305
My websites can be updated. I might have a look at that point. Yeah. Yeah.

1926
02:01:46,445 –> 02:01:50,280
So can be updated. We do need to update our website. But the posters are

1927
02:01:50,360 –> 02:01:53,960
posters. The chapters are there. That’s probably the

1928
02:01:53,960 –> 02:01:57,639
easiest place to go find them unless you’re on, like, Wattpad, which

1929
02:01:57,800 –> 02:02:01,559
who’s on Wattpad? Not I. There’s a lot of people on Wattpad,

1930
02:02:01,559 –> 02:02:05,079
but probably not your audience. They’re probably not. No. They don’t know what Wattpad

1931
02:02:05,079 –> 02:02:08,775
is. That’s okay. That’s alright. I know a Wattpad is, and I’m not even

1932
02:02:08,775 –> 02:02:12,235
on there. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Awesome. Well, we will

1933
02:02:12,455 –> 02:02:15,895
post a link to world of Urda. Right? Did I say that

1934
02:02:15,895 –> 02:02:19,435
correctly? Awesome. I mean, I think I put, like, a German pronunciation,

1935
02:02:19,575 –> 02:02:23,310
not, but it’s fine. Yeah. Urda. My coauthor says Oder. It’s

1936
02:02:23,310 –> 02:02:26,750
fine. Urda. I cringe a lot. We’ll we’ll have a link to where you can

1937
02:02:26,750 –> 02:02:30,430
find it. Yes. We’ll have a link in the show notes where you can go

1938
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and check out all the chapters of her new book. And, of course, when she

1939
02:02:33,150 –> 02:02:36,925
has her book out, we will invite her back to talk about

1940
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her book and the writing process because I’m fascinated by all of that, and

1941
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I think that you all should be fascinated by that too. And

1942
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so, well, with that,

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we’re out.