The ten percent happier podcast dan harris hello, my fellow suffering beings today we ve got to do and maybe for some of you are rather provocative. Success strategies from the man has been called the yoda of silicon valley, jerry colonnas, a former that your capitalist turned practicing buddhist turned. Leading executive coach is co, founder and ceo of an executive coaching firm, called reboot, where I'm a long time, client jerry's also and of mind- and I repeat- guest on this- show he's out with a new book called reunion leaders, and the longing to belong to be super clear right from the jump. He has a very broad view of leadership, so you don't have to be a boss to benefit from his advice, whatever profession,

role you play or even if you dont work and are apparent or volunteer wherever you're coming from You do have a sphere of influence and if you don't get your shit together Jerry argument is that you're gonna pass your pathology, your ancient traumas, your ancient storylines and everybody else in your orbit? Jerry calls his process radical self inquiry and has made a huge difference for me, one of his signature questions has long been, and I love this, although it actually, it's been painful tooth mullet, but I love it anyway. How are you complicit in the conditions? You say you don't want it really such a compelling question and it's not about some blaming it's about, taking a look at whether your contributing to the stuff you're complaining about and of europe. there s a way that you might not like what you see as the old saying goes. Self knowledge is always bad news.

Gary's new book is all about adding a new and broader question. On top of that, already pretty tough and touch you won. The new question is: how have I been complicit in and benefited from? the conditions in the world that I say I dont want, in other words jerry. now arguing that it is not enough for us to just get our shit together, but that we also have a responsibility to address the problems in the larger world. Jerry freely admits is new thesis may draw some credit them and that his suggested remedies are also quite experimental. So have listened, and let us know what you think wondering, plus subscribers can listen to temper and happier early and ad free right now join wondering plus in the wondering, app or on apple pie? Outcasts, audible offers an incredible selection of audio books across every year. from best sellers to new released, is to celebrity memoirs, mysteries and thrillers motivation, wellness, business and more. As an honourable member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire cat

audible also includes thousands of podcast, including ten percent happier alongside popular favorites and exclusive new series. Some of my favorite podcast include making sense with SAM Harris the political scene from the new yorker the happiness lab with lorry santos. The powers that be gaily with peter handy have it hosted by terrorists which and former guest scott galloway. The watch with Chris ryan and anti green long, the political gab fest slate new members can try Double free for thirty days, visit, audible, dot com, slash ten percent or text. Ten percent to five hundred five hundred, that's audible, dot com, slash ten percent or text. Ten percent to five hundred five hundred to try audible, free for thirty days, audible, dotcom, slash, ten percent.

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lay some groundwork or level set for people who might not know much about your work. I'll, put links in the show notes to your previous appearances, but in case people haven't had a chance to digest that. Let's start with some definition of things you about leadership. Does that include everybody? Or am I my only in the target audience if I'm a boss? I definitely includes everybody by including Everybody too subtle way of taking our standard definitions of leadership that is association with power and helping people realise that we each have the possibility of leading and what does that mean in means being able to affect those around us in some capacity?

and even at a minimum we have the possibility of leading our selves and that's a very broad definition, but thanks for that, this is not just for sea owes right this good to get that out their red read it the jump bound not to see you, and I found your work to be incredibly helpful, so, let's what about some of the and again before we dive into the new book, because the new book really builds on your prior work, including your last book. What is radical self inquiry? Yeah? That's a sort of catch phrase I developed. Describe in some ways more, maybe because this audience they'll get it the kind of overlap between d

psychological understanding of oneself, but also the insight that comes from a dedicated practice sometime showing up his meditation. The working definition I play with is the process by which the mass that we, where are slowly compassionately, stripped away so that we have no place left to hide, and I focus on the radical piece of the self inquiry process simply because we tend not to do it. We ten, the two were persona and worse, yet we tend to believe that persona and then we get into a lot of trouble. I know people who do that affect them So how do you do radical self inquiry if you're not a jerry, calonna client? While there are simple questions that I often encourage people to ask of themselves

my most famous question, the one that almost invariably provokes tears simply dasso many how they are, and What I always add as a caviar is no really like. Stop bull shitting, stop spinning! Stop telling me what I think I wanna know stop telling me what you tell yourself but just pause and take a look at yourself, that's emblematic of a process. Yes, if we think about what happens on a meditation cushion meditation in effect is an act of inquiry. I'm noticing stuff, I'm noticing what's happening, I'm not becoming attached to that which I see, but I'm noticing it. I'm not looking away so shame arises, I look at it. Guilt arises. I look at it. I have a negative thought. I look at it and then imagine carrying that. Not

distractedly, but a carrying that throughout your day, so that when someone turns you and says how are you you actually can answer honestly the? How are you question is very powerful when you administer it and follow it, I think there is another question you asked. The people can self administer that that really I find it extremely provocative, and this is like I think, in my view, your signature question, which is how am I complicit in the conditions I say I don't want That's a powerful question right I mean I. I learn that question in psychoanalysis and to be clear. I've been in psychoanalysis now for thirty years and you longbill so fucked up its exe.

I that someday, I figure it out and when I talk about that question, there's two parts of that question that are really really important. The first is complicit as a word oftentimes. This question gets misinterpreted as how am I responsible for the conditions in my life, and I want to talk about why that misinterpretation complicit? It relates, we're accomplice, you are driving the getaway car you're, not sticking up the bank teller and that's a really important distinction because, as you know, from our work, the things that set us up the things said so to start to define our character. The things that in my techno babble speak, I sought to call things like supper. T write the technical code that runs beneath the surface. We didn't invented. We were given and that's all

really important distinction, so, for example, I might have been given the belief system that anger ai is such a negative experience that it should be wiped out, and so what do I do with that feeling I become anxious. Anxious is better than anchor right, that's a belief system, so we're complicit in that. The second half of the question is super important as well. I say I don't want not. I don't want now. Why do I make that distinction because most the time that we walk around with, let's call it that kind of whiny complaint that we have about the world? We don't tend to look at the benefit.

Of the behavior we say we don't want so a classic example is I am so busy then do you know how busy I am I am so busy. Ah, the world is such a pain, brain and a radical self inquiry. Question is mile what benefit do you get from being best, and you can see the look in people's eyes when they I answer it honest like oh, you mean I'm complicit in this or even more, oh, it's kind of a mass kissing it I'm busy busy busy, because if I sit still I may not like what I hear right for me. I use how my complicit as a nice little riddle, or a co on, or something too. Pause alone and wrestle with in my own. I find it usually apply it to this very issue right. I've quit some

the job? I was. I quit nightline that I quit a b c news altogether. Now, I'm mostly just focused on the podcast. I keep quitting things and I'm so busy, and so I I to ask myself what's going on there and I think this. The thing was helpful to to be a fine of yours, but I think this is a thing people can do at home in their absolutely absolutely and the inflection point is that moment when restart complaining quote again and we stir repeating the patterns you know. For me, I use journaling as It is what notice, what's going on inside of me. Even now, I've got thirty years of practice have like looking inwards. I still need us,

Today, with like ok, what was happening for me yesterday was a feeling. This way takes twenty minutes deanna big deal, but in that space I start to create a sense of understanding com. This is happening again. Maybe I should spend some time with that get curious about. Yes, your curious about that were is a quick tore through your previous over bethesda. What's the new book, how does it build well one of the fundamental belief Systems that I have about leadership and those who hold power is that, when they don't use, say radical self inquiry, to examine their own structures. They were the risk of their eyes bullying people or spreading their toxic shit all over people he emphasized bullying, because that's a problem, but I've had my own right work, life and bullying myself and then taking it out on other people.

That's right! That's right! Because early on you learn to people with the us so you then internalize as a means of relating to the world, so das, the basics opposition, is that in order to grow as an adult, really not just a leader but as an adult we need to start to under, damn with curiosity these structures so that we understand why and who we are- and that leads to the second declaration that I often make, which is a kind of obvious tape, better humans, make our leaders and it's an obviously

course, and yet we don't really understand why we don't have good leadership. We just think of people as like you, no good or bad good or bad. We don't really understand what motivating, and that is a really important understanding. I think it's been very useful for myself and for those who follow the work, but what I've come to understand is that that's insufficient, that is not enough and that there is a corollary to that first. Complicity question, which is: how have I been complicit If and benefited from the conditions in the world, I say I dont want and that in the world is a really important flip, because, as every wisdom tradition has taught us, we don't live in a bubble.

We interact. We have responsibilities corridor into being this call it or into dependence, but what happens in one continent impacts, another continent. What happens in another person impacts me and what happened with me impacts another person, and so I started looking at the question of how have I benefited from conditions. I use the term used in the book. Systemic other, the process by which, whom ever it is, however, they identify doesn't fit a normative structure. The d eliminate normative structure of whatever society would ever grouping people. How do I benefit from that? Because I don't want to see that happening and equally important? What might I be willing to give up?

love to see the changes that I actually want to see you, sir, to really important questions there. I think we should yet double click on them to be a little churning duty. That's not my family dinner hanging around. In our many said, art homely afford making us double click. On that, dear exactly next time. You get close to something like you get close to the point that I want to make I'll say: yeah you're in the fair way other about an expression. Your board meetings anyway. How have I been complicit and how I benefited from the conditions in the world that I said, don't want just start there. Well, how do you answer that four years of a good example? Would when I was eighteen, nineteen years old, I almost dropped out of school because I could afford to pay my tuition

and and reboot my first book, I tell the story of this really kind: english, professor robber, green burke. I was crying to one day and to be clear, might wish with seven hundred and fifty dollars a semester and went to queens college city university of new york, and I said I I have to drop out a can continue, and he said Well, that's not, and he awarded me a scholarship. He was this the judge and the scholarship paid might wish for the next two years. A great story. It's a true story: it's a really powerful start. I earned his admiration. What did the fact that I looked like him? How might that have impact it his decision, I'm nothing. It was the only reason He was in all the right man. I was a young white man, I'm not saying that. That's the reason, but isn't it

important. Isn't it incumbent upon me to ask the possibility that there may have been somebody us equally deserving and why did they do not get that and for what and that's just a simple little way of saying my enemy. I might have benefited because if I didn't get that scholarship, then I would have dropped. and if I had dropped out, I wouldn't have been your coach at any point in your life it would have been a very different trajectory for me. So once you answer that question, then what how does a change, how you do life while the second half the question right? What is is that I want to see in the world. What do I want?

I have a colleague she is a brilliant coach. She doesn't feel comfortable traveling to the state of florida, because in the state of florida she could be arrested if she doesn't use a particular bathroom what the fuck. Why? Because somebody somewhere thinks this is a threat, thus not a condition in the world I want to see, and yet I walk in too many different spaces without worrying about whether or not someone's gonna call into question my belonging in that space. My safety, I have a colleague who can travel to one of the fifty states. What and we all have colleagues friends,

family members who have experienced variations of this same theme, whether it's anti black racism, anti immigration, feelings, anti, semitism, transphobia homophobia. What benefit do I get from identify as white as male as straight as cisgender? Just to ask that question is radical, isn't it and what kind of work What do I want to see you asked? What do you do that? How about that second question? What would I have to give up so that my colleague can travel to the state of florida and feel safe? What would I have to do to make that world to at least try?

I think these are morally profound questions to ask. I think it's our responsibility that we have. What have you done about your colleague? What have you given up? She would say to you: this is virginia bowman who contributed an essay to the book. The afterword of the book takes a turn that is somewhat unexpected. I had three different friends all identifying from different social. Locations right about their experience of belonging, and I think that there are many things that I have a responsibility to do. One of them is to do what I'm doing right now is to speak up and to speak out and to raise questions. I've earned a certain amount of credibility in the world. I've earned a certain amount of trust from the work that I have done from might be

could choose to continue to do what I have always done become this likewise elders say John. The stage reckon lean into a very, very difficult space and have chosen to do the latter. That's one step! So there's it in terms of giving up a kind of giving up of comfort by waiting into these issues of or status yeah well status? How well, I could be cancelled, right right, well, who's, gonna, council, you are, you could say it I see I see I could be waiting into space tat. Other people would not be comfortable. Having me speak about we're doing this interview a couple weeks before the book comes out. Will post right as the book comes out, but are you nervous Evan, maybe

between now and then you're going to get cancelled. Is that, what's on your mind, it's on my mind clearly wouldn't have brought it up, but it's I was talking to someone yesterday and she said to me: I'm going to ask you a question that is really difficult for me to ask what right do you have to speak about these issues and it's a great question and I said I want to reframe the question. If you don't mind what right do I have not to speak about these issues? be a good reform, it is what responsibility do. I have that right. That's right, could I know with a problem of this. Problem is not on the people who bear the burden and yet part of our structured response in order to maintain a certain safety and existential safety part of our structured responses. We make those who bear the burden to the labour

so. What's the risk and my word about being cancelled, I maybe I don't know No, it's a really precious thing for me that I, about giving up, I sit down, and you tell me if this is My understanding is that, for some bizarre reason I start talking people calm down you're nodding, so makes sense to you. I like that about me. I, like being seen as a guy, who makes people feel better It answer some really the profound existential questions of my own. worthy of love, safety and belonging. Oh look what I do for this press, not great! That's how my ego goes out for a dance. What if I lose them I thought a lot about that more during a riding than now now, I'm in MIKE come on elegy. Let fuckin go, I'm not backing down. You know, but that's the fear.

yeah yeah be my fear. We talked about this privately. My fear for you with a book like this, isn't that you get cancelled, because I think the folks who generally led the charge on cancellations you're talking about this that they agree with fright. My fear would more be that some percentage of the population is just tired of having this conversation. I mean, I see it because you d ptarth no well yes, but we a lot of stuff about race and gender and social justice on the show we did it hard core, the alarm and we continue to do it, but we had negative comments every time. beyond this audiences. You would think would be very open to this stuff and I'm sure there are plenty of people who are yeah, but I do see in my personal life people? I know a real fatigue around this and say that I think, is the risk, and that may happen. I run the risk of being corrected run the risk of being told I've got

completely wrong point of view, but what's gonna happen, gonna happen coming up, jerry calonna talks about how to avoid the pitfall of virtue signal and self righteousness facts about the term reunion. What does that mean and how it relates to the stories of our ancestors and what he means by the longing to belong. It is finally sweater whether where I live in the northeast and I've been looking for, that perfect, cosy whether I can where all season long- and that is when I found quince quince, creates timeless essentials never go out of style, including fall must have like one hundred. Percent mongolian cashmere crew next sweaters from fifty nine dollars swayed bomber jackets and organic cotton sweaters. The best part, all quince items are priced. Fifty two, eighty percent less than similar brands by partnering directly with top factories quince,

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How do you manage talking about the stuff without the pitfall of virtue, signalling or self righteousness, which is so often turn off like I've mentioned before in the show. There's a tv show that I love called letter. Candidates obscure. Canadian sit come? Have you seen? It now goes very funny and this actually sequel on the air. Now you can see it on them. Hulu called shores, many of the main characters and let her kenny are white farmers, but they have. As this sought all there? Freeze, death and skill, full social justice partners is character, name squirrels, damn, who, every once in a while in conversations with his other beer drinking bodies, will talk about something he learned from his feminist studies teacher and he does in ways that are like utterly unpretentious

and I always think of like let me be squarely down like I care about these issues right, but I want to do it in a way that isn't like. Oh, my god, like guys showing off for he's trying to show a good person. He is, and you think about them, and how do you manage it? I don't and may be as a result. I come across not likes worldly dan I dont want worry about it, but I see and I know what you're talking about and maybe I'm guilty of it and If I am I'd like to know, if I'm guilty of it, because I think that performative AL ship does a real disservice to

what it is that we're trying to create and I'll go back to something. This is a quote from the book, and I tell this story about my daughter who very powerfully once said to me: dad it's not enough to be an ally, you have to be a co conspirator and emma is fierce as fuck. So I may be is the benefit of having children who just cut through your bullshit and I grew up or they grow up. Calling me out, but look the fear of that. I think. First of all, we should be aware of it but the fear of that should not. Let us stop us from saying what needs to be said. I have a thousand percent agree with that and Adam. I have no amount in your mind, I'm not speaking for at all, but I can tell you from my own mind the atom reporting live on the scene and my own psyche that there have been times I've noticed on the shore

or in meetings that I'm showing off, because I'm looking for some sort of ego gratification, I am to use the term of art in social justice spaces cookie, seeking a look of that cookie that hit a vigo grand occasion where people around the table and a meteor like that's a good guy he's. You know I've just given some lecture about how we are to do the right thing in, but part of me is looking for something, instead of actually trying to help I'm just as guilty of that of cookie. Seeking for all. aspects of life, not just in this area so guilty as charged croissant and a human being ryan, and I want to be loved yeah and I can just as easily confuse and conflate a cookie with love, but I'm also pissed, I'm also sincerely worried. I'm

also wondering what the hell is going on with our world and those a genuine feelings. Let's say as well and when I say as a parent, I do not want my descendants to think that I didn't try. You know the descendants I'm worried about are in a position to give me cookies, because not even born I'll be long gone when the people most concerned about are looking back on my efforts, those points, so the book is reunion. What do you mean by that? And I would love to talk about this process as something anybody listening could do, whether they have a coach her? I think it. I say that to reunion is the term that I came to describe what I think is the pre work that needs to be done.

Pre work is reuniting with what I refer to is not just our ancestors, but this the real stories of her ancestors. What was their expiry? It's like reuniting with the dismembered unremembered parts of ourselves. That we are locked away, so there We can then move towards reuniting with the rest of us see. I suspect that a lot of efforts, especially within corporations, to create what I would refer to systemic belonging fall short because the people have the power. Actually don't do the work. They take the actions, they tick boxes, they complete service, but they don't actually look at themselves and they don't look at their own experiences. We ve had come

patients about this before understanding from whence we came and how then influences who we are is absolutely essential in this process, for example, as I write it about in a book, I have two sets of ancestors. One acknowledged that I grew up with understanding, which were my italian, american or italian ancestors and the other were my father's biological parents. irish immigrants in the nineteen twenties in new york and his mother gave him up for adoption now, there's a whole supplied in the book about the fact that my father didn't discover this until he was twenty one on his wedding day And so I asked the question quite deeply: how could he know to whom he belonged if the woman who gave birth to him and who was his mother for eighteen months, gave him up

whatever reason and how could he belong to the people who adopted him when that mother was the one who screamed at the back of their wedding church you're, not my son you're, not my because she was so angry about who he was married, my mother well, and what did that do go to his own sense of belonging and consequently, what did it do to my sense of belonging, because I grew up knowing this, but I denied it. I didn't want to know it, and I make the point that I think that there is Where is like this? In many many families stories and what our ancestors did and did not do, what happened to them and story that they made up and oftentimes for those who look like me, descendants of europeans. It's like an

into the right movement towards resilience. We don't talk about the grandfather who was a fascist or the great grandfather? Was a fascist, we'll talk about it? We don't talk about what their experience was like we talk about, I have it ancestor who may have been transported to australia as a convict in eighteen, oh for leaving a five year old son and dying there. We'll talk about it and the lack of talking about that undercuts our ability to do what are teachings tell us to do all the time, which is to be compassionate and to be empathetic, say more about exactly how we would do this work and how that work would lead to being more compassionate

so I want to be clear: not everyone is going to have the capacity to figure out the stories of their ancestors, but everyone has the capacity to imagine certain things I was talking about my colleague virginia, who offered an essay. She ass, a very, very powerful question cushy. She spent time in her ass, a talking about the family tree and help zest the family was they had this beautifully bound book that linked all the answers. It has all the way back to switch and she has a simple question who, with a queer members of their family tree. Yet you to smile, because guess why dude we both have queer members of our family tree. It's as if entrench transgender is something that just got infected or as if b,. Queer as something that just got invented. Can that's bullshit, that's what I'm talking about is being able to connect that ok,

just expand our imagination and imagine that ten percent of your ancestors, just like temperature, of your ancestors made over head mental health issues, ten percent of urine- history may have experienced some form of other now talk to me about trans rights in the united states, talk to me about your obligations as someone who might hold power to think about that, and just for a little extra juice think about what life you would like your son, who

still forming who he is. What, if what emerges, is an identity that doesn't federer, nor how would you like him to feel thirty years from now? Okay, now do you feel the empathy did put a fine point on it by getting a sense that your family tree consists of people who were either a deeply flawed and conflicted or be part of marginalized groups and may have suffered as a consequence. You can take all that information and extrapolated out into your view of the world where you feel empathy for people who are making mistakes, or you might disagree with and, of course, empathy for people who are currently being persecuted in one way or another. I think for me cause again I put myself through a process that

because you know me, I can ask you to do something that I myself have not done. It feels false and out of integrity, and I put myself this process and I using an active imagination using some research. Imagine what my mothers mother, an emigrant from followed a call and polio southern italy. What was her experience I coming through our asylum? How close was she to having a wrong check mark on hurdle pal tat said now, you have to go back as you might have teepee and What's the difference between that person and mother from Guatemala, or venezuela on this, southern border, the united states. What's the difference between us to yeah, yeah yeah, we have broken.

creation policy, yeah yeah yeah. The system is completely screwed up, but you're a long time journalist during for twenty years ago, talking about the gang of aid and immigration. reform yeah, I do my rapid, never happens, and yet their actual human beings, including children, all the borders suffering, and you can look at them less as statistics wherever were politically and more as actual human beings. If you could interpret back into your personal and family history, I said to get a sense of the family people whose dna you're carrying around right now had the exact same expert. That's right or close enough, maybe not exactly the same but close enough, because we gotta be careful. False, equivalent, is but close enough, to be able to see the interrelationship between us, too talk about belonging before, so

one level right now we're talking about looking back and seeing that we may have had people in our family trees who are dealing with versions of the struggles that other populations in our culture right now are dealing with we also talked about belonging, which is a more diffuse idea. You talked about your father feeling of belonging on his wedding day. As the woman he thought it was. A mom is shrinking from the back of the church. what is it about this interpolation of this going back and looking at your family tree? That can teach you about belonging and why does that matter now today? Well, very specifically, the subtitle of the book is leadership and the longing to belong, and I speak about the longing to belong, because I think it's one of those base

universal experiences. So when we encounter someone saying this is unfair, this is unjust if we put it through the lens of way. Just like me, they want something just like me. What do they want one of your loved to want to feel safe and they want to know that they belong in some place, even I disagree with what they're saying they want those same things. I cause we're all him. How can we start from that proposition and then we start to explore? Who am I and in the forward to the book parker palmer? My friend and teacher wrote the course.

Secondary question is whose emma whom do ipo, because I would argue, having cut ourselves off from that story, having cut ourselves off for this myth of reason, lions, my ancestors made it through. Why can't you we actually cut ourselves off from the true story of to whom we belong for good and for it or admirable people are not admirable people by reconnecting in reuniting with that. My hope- and I dont know this is an experiment. My hope is that we concur Eight, the conditions for the longing to belong to be answered in what ever sphere. We have a diverse, yet it'd, family. It could be a business how you volunteer organization of a classroom exactly withheld we just talk about how this could work. I've done,

little bit of ancestor work, just looking back at my family, which is possible, by a remarkable amount of crooks and cowards, and I find that in giving in a little funny and but also poignant- and I can look back at you know, especially the Jews, came over from russia, and I think about a lot about my great grandfather who, in this is sort of sad and poignant in ways like his name was liebowitz, but he changed it to le bao l E b. A? U because he thought it some french and he ended up being a criminal and went to jail and then took his own life, but there's a way which you can show that to a larger narrowed, I a generally speaking these scrappy jews from eastern europe came over and by the time my dad's generation head there mainstream, very successful white white, but at this point that achieved whiteness and there's a way which you can like get up. onto the the highest wrongs of the ladder and forget about all the struggle

like I'm here, I'm done like we did this yea, and why can't you? Yes, exactly exactly so. Instead, what you're saying is look get all the messenians than the rate of this whole salary and then you can look out at folks who you might be tempted to say well What are you complaining about? We did it and be like no. No, no! No! No. There are reasons baked into the structure of our society that have held people back while and just look at the whole question: when did jews become white guy actually know some jews now, who still don't consider themselves white because of the amount of discrimination right under your right eye, zero us up what right, which means to use a termite, is in the book, sir, you became racial ized as white. Yes at some point that wasn't true, yes, and at some point just to get points about it. Your son carries the dna of people whose status was ambiguous. Yes and I

I think that there is a moral responsibility. To not forget, I think, is a self interested case for the salami just make the case see if I can build a case in point Image, often of and talk about, and that in psychology to that other route, to compassion one route to compassion is to see your own suffering. It learn to get comfortable with itself from my son is to understand that in his forebears include a lotta messy characters, you were struggling to fit in this country and word considered a mainstream and to get comfortable with that and to be able to have some equity with his own fan these history of suffering, and hopefully with his own massiveness too, and then be able to use that tender rising like we do with meat

to be able to look at other people with some degree of empathy and compassionate. Yet, as you said before, just like me, they are struggling, whether it be with interpersonal stuff or with social, political, cultural stuff. This process of I like to think of it as an extra although it can get interrupted of getting cool with your own staff and then leading, you being cooler with other people stuff, and I think this self interest there is that we as humans and people of her me bang out about this a lot. We need both net makes us abbe is the quality of our relationships, and so, if you do this work, the quality of your relationship with other human beings in your orbit and also with culture and a world writ large in how you view things on the news and in social media will warm up. So I think this is all to the good it's not like you to wear hair shirt and suffer

I guess, not allow asylum jeremy that gm things now now you know improve your life, it will improve everybody slice. Yes,. Well because your live. Your life is Yadda everybody and look. When I worked through lady, my suffering, I leave eight other suffering and when I worked to alleviate their suffering, I leave the rice offer incorrect because we're in a double helix. Thank god. We are it's part of what makes us human rights, but this is my attend squarely dan, because I like to inject self interested. Because could you want acknowledged that is a motivation yeah at me, because I see my own greed quite clear.

Sure, ah entitled to use gerry's turn and will make it bad exactly. I was just going to jump on the word. Greed you taking care of. You is not greedy. Well, it's a term of art within buddhism of you know just desire sure. Yes, so then I I can see impulses that go beyond just taking care of myself and my family. I can see impulses toward world domination icons. You know all of that. That's just part of the human repertoire. You don't have to make a bad just see that it's there. It's the organism trying to protect the

whether it's at what you know, what makes it bad pretending! It's not a yes, yes, acting it out blindly that right, that gives it all the power in the world and we all suffer as a result of denying those impulses coming up jerry talks about how we can learn to do. Our first works over the difference between equality and equity and his framing of content and container to help guide good leadership, The holiday season is here and butcher box is offering their best deal of the year with high quality protein delivered your door. They ve got a hundred percent cent, breastfed be free range, organic chicken, pork raised great free and wild caught salmon, and it's convenient the free shipping and customized box plans. We just got a big shipment and the male recently from put your box. We ve been cooking our way through the stuff. Excellent.

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agnes and anxiety. All the holiday gatherings and activities come with. Stress therapy, though, can be a bright spot, something to look forward to to help you feel, grounded and armed with some tools to manage the whole thing like any family paris. Family has its drama, so talking to my therapist can really help me both prepare for big events and calm down. afterwards, if you are thinking about starting therapy, give better help. Try its entirely on line, convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule, find your bright spot. It's holiday season, with better help visit better health dot com, slash happier today to get ten percent off your first month. That's better help, h e l, p, dot com, slash happier. So, in order to do this reunion process to make peace with our ancestors, you and I have

many of the financial advantages that allow us to hire people to help us learn about our family tree, but it could be just as simple as talking to your parents or your grandparents. It could be as simple as you said before just making imagination leaps, it's worth saying a lot of black americans don't know much about their is ancestors. Asked yes because of a university at our absolute, though you might be just that you do this work through your imagination or you do this work. In simple conversations I mean I had a client come To me, at one of our boot camps, blue cancer, these immersive experiences that we do long weekend kind of experience and was early in writing the book and describing what is going on to an he pulled me aside, and he said he was from the dominican republic and he said, durham, I'm having insight. I have grown up my entire life with a sense of overwhelming guilt, and is it ok tell me about this and he said

and what keeps flashing through my mind is that my great grandfather rate, my great grandmother, because he had enslaved her or as part of the consequence- and he just starts weeping now. Where do those tears comfort right, you can argue epigenetic trauma. So I said to him he quieted down. I said what was her name and he said my father never told me. I said I didn't ask you what your father said. I said what was her name, does that woman was dismembered from the family tree and part of bringing all of these connections back is re united, the dismembered parts, not because we can turn around and back in history and make something pour it somehow acceptable, but to acknowledge the truth

So when you talk about reunion, I mean sometimes the term ancestor work gets thrown around and for somebody like me who doesn't like jargon, I can be like oh what's this now. Is this like an howard times a day, you raise your eyebrows and glasses alive, says like my wrestling face, and so on your ancestor work on my eyes like an aura, reading or admit, but losing all on it or whatever. I know I know I actually think ancestor work easing credibly important because it is it's the same as doing like internal family systems therapy, your making peace with parts of on personality. That's right! Ancestor work Looking like who you are because, of course, you're carrying around all the stuff from the your forebears at her, and you want to look at the stuff that do your parents never really wanted to talk about, because that's the shit. That's that's in the sum crevice in your brain. That's her! driving your actions over me. The guy put his head in the oven after lost the family fortune, because it became a crook after changing his last name to fit in and all that stuff. That's

in me, hustling now in lhasa ways, okay, so looking at. That seems really help okay. So let's look at that chester, you and you don't even have to answer this question, but here's a question for you: why did they become crooks? What benefit, were they seek belonging? What long em they wanted safety? They wanted to belong. What were the conditions that those crocs relieving o apple round? Yes, pogroms, genocide, In eastern europe, and then they came here and there are treated like shit and this guy, it gets so point that he changed his name to look out there. The mai system Amy, who is an amateur geologist, she found newspaper articles, but this guy and The fbi was items. He was that it was not, and you know you view it as mildly amusing, and it is but also their something deep there and it fits in the category of reunion or ancestor work, that's exam just trying to help. You make your point that without knowing where you're going

we're making it better than me, which is great. Ah, I don't know about that. I would recommend a James Baldwin's essay, the price of the ticket- and I quote just a little bit from the essay in the book, but the price of the ticket refers to the price of the ticket of whiteness and that the price is a disconnection it's a lack of remembering from whence you came. Is that a transformation of the names it's the movement towards safety yep and the result is what you actually lose. I think it's fascinating, I mean for me. I did the work of saying await so in all of my lineage. This famine, that's fascinating. I don't know the ways in which that shows up in my life, right now, but I'm really curious about that and being aware of that makes it really

hard for me to look away from famine. We have flotillas refugees around the world. Just like me, just like my ancestor, the you know where you asked me about virtue signalling before I think that doing some of this work might under cut the virtual signal, because her wait. No, this is real stuff for me. so that I can then turn around and use the power and privilege that I have been gift it to actually make a difference, on the southern border, the united states in the state of florida on the streets of new york cause. What's the point, if you had to Anne, had what's the point, so we can have more toys at the end of our life. That's bullshit! Now I grab smilingly because sometimes somebody will say thank you for something. I've done and I'll be like there's no point making money. If you can't spend the rest, you know at absolutely, which means you're going to take me out.

Dinner should have. We are having dinner tonight. There's another phrase you in the book, which is do your first works over was yet, although that comes from deems baldwin, and it comes the price of the ticket and what he says is that it incumbent upon us all of us, but especially those who do not attend the church that he attends, meaning, especially those who identify as white to do our first works over because it look, we create these structures, we create these understanding in order to become adults in order to move forward. Right. Ok, so the family story is with laughter. Our family tree is filled with crooks and cowards,

but maybe asking why is an expression of doing your first works over? Why were they born that way? Chances are probably not that to me is what do your first works over to go back and reconsider thanks not to get stuck in the past, but seek and move forward With more clarity, so if some significant number of people do this work, the work that you're recommending in particular, I think, given your platform, you're gonna reach a lot of people who have a lot of power. What's the impact, would you want to see them do once I've done the are I a radical self inquiry and then the reunion from that place too then begin to do equity work so that equity work gets transformative. So it can actually stick

look, this is quixotic, I get it, but I literally think this is the most important work that we can do this and saving the damn planet from climate change. The epigrams from one of the chapters is from the talmud and in it rabbi, tar friend says something to the effect. It is not europe's responsibility to complete your work, but neither are you at liberty to ignore the one That's like the dalai lama talks about how you gotta think about the impact of your work over multiple lifetimes, and you have to do so. Yes, even if you will not see any difference in the world, what would I like with lie and by the way doing the work will make you. After doing it will make you happier, I would even exe and and say even more content. Yes, yet happier brought had understood. That's right! That's right!

we could give up because the work is how hard, but again, I think about my grandchildren- are great grandchildren. I dont If I'm sitting on a podcast with Dan harris in them, calling me a coward, I want them to look back and say he may have failed, but he tried that's the attitude I want to go out with, or he helped build what eventually became a more equitable culture. That's it belonging for all. What's the difference between the quality and equity, I was ghek. If I know this is controversial, but we ve moved, in our vernacular from equality of opportunity to equity of opportunity. Equity addresses disproportionate, opportune. De equity address as disproportionate power? So if we look at, for example, in I am not a d, I expert by any stretch of the man,

intonation, and I am not positioning myself as that. I am a curious human when it comes to all of that, but my understanding would be that the language around equality can get sick. whom into numbers How many about this demographic versus? How of that demographic, where when we look at well who actually hold power in an organization them. We start to look at the question of equity and equitable opportunity. for advancement. How do we create a levelling of that opportunity right? So you can be a major corporations say we have got equal employment because we ve, got x number of people of color, but they're all mailroom caress, not equity. That's right many are in the boardroom right and we have huge problems with equity in corporate amerika. Oh yeah, erin. How many sea owes a win while just because they have not just people of colored not or to an ice,

some data that sea owes of public companies who are female, have better stock price performance then the man seen the same data. I dont know the stats behind dad, I don't know the sources the dad, but I've seen the same. Dad it's interesting. I just turbulent back to my own life? Many, if not most, of my best bosses were females. So if people have this long, their buying jerry's message. They're gonna do that as I and they're gonna, do the reunion and they're gonna try to create more equitable, either. Workplaces are homes are clear, firms are organizations whatever their sphere of influence is having said that, sometimes, even as you try to is the sense of belonging on a team which I have in fits and starts with a lot of time. Thinking about my own little world. Sometimes somebody's got go? You have to let somebody go because there are underperforming, so you're not saying yo yo.

Having everybody in a warm like it. If you can do no wrong, you still have clear eyes. You still are trying to hate your cavy eyes to use another. Do she business term? Your keep from its indicators, right you're still trying to get your revenue goals, but you're doing it, the different lands, but that doesn't mean you're, letting people off the hook forever right. So a simpler way to understand this, as I often talk about continent container every person who runs a business has a responsibility to create a healthy container. That means fiscally sound at the business can operate in a sustained self perpetuating way, and in a similar fashion, that means holding people accountable to their own aspirations to do their job to creating the conditions for them to do really excellent work. But if we only focus on that aspect,

then we create a container that is meaningless. We also have a responsibility to create the content in a way that gives meaning and purpose to the container and We can apply. That's thinking to how we lead how we work with our colleagues, it belonging doesn't mean you're not expected to do your job. In fact, you could argue that holding people to the standards that are out there about doing that job is really important and it helps them. But it's an important version of the content is where my creating these content, the standards of behavior. Where did they come What am I expectations? Is there an unconscious bias that exists within that? An even more and my over indexing on, say, profitability, because

I have unresolved fears about money, I'm laughing because that's exactly the kind of shit I would do sure, but here's the thing didn't all of this is heart. All this is hard for business people I get it but, as I like to say, I believe people can walk and chew gum. That was just going to say that you can build a inevitable company that doesn't treat people like shit, that's right and you can be a really good leader without being an asshole yeah. These are not mutually exclusive objectives. Well, actually think they're mutually supportive objectives. Well, that's because you've had a good coach, yeah, that's actually true, or to give you credit, because I don't think viewed the world that way before I met you, but I think that none of us view the world. I remember socialized to think it and either or either kind of contract. It is jury this are you that your this review that and I

human beings are much more capable and their much more complex and they're much more pleasant, and so you might sacrifice a little profit. Ok, but it doesn't mean that the ability of the organization to sustain itself goes away because you somehow made it safe. everybody to belong. You ve, given me slush us a lot to think about. Is there something I should have asked but failed to ask in this discussion? No europe good to know. Thank you. I won't get mad at myself. Actually, as I think back during this interview cause, I interrupted you a few times, so I apologize. Oh, I loved it. Okay, I try not to do that. Usually, but maybe it's because I'm so comfortable with you that I did it while it's it's our friendship, yes, yeah before I let you go Will you just shamelessly plug reunion and reboot and anything else, another. Thank you for giving me the permission to be shameless, has had on we're. Comes my servant. S at the outset reunion leader

I ve been a longing to belong and the first book was called reboot leadership in the art of growing up and all of this is really emblematic of the work that we do at rebate. Dad I'll, which is neat little band of be warriors who are trying to make a positive debt in the world. The deaf limit positive dent in my world some thank you. Thank you, yeah, thanks again to jerry. It is great to see my mandate calonna, thank you for listening. Please go give us a rating or a review. I know I say that all the time it actually really does help thanks most everybody who worked so hard on the show. Ten percent happier is produced by Lauren smith, Gabriel's, ackerman, justine, davy and terror, Anderson, J cashmeres, our senior producer, marisa schneider meant, is our senior editor kevin, o connell is our director of

yo and post production and can be regular. Is our executive producer, Alisha Mackey leads our marketing and tony magyars. Our director of pot casts are fearless leader nick thorburn. of islands or road. Our theme was you all on friday for a special episode, a little nugget of goodness from a friend of the show friend of the pod krista tippett. If you like ten percent happier, I hope you do. You can listen early and ad free right now, by joining wondering plus a wondering app or on apple pie casts prime members Listen ad, free on amazon music before you go, tell us about yourself by filling a short survey at wondering dot com slash servant

hey everybody its dan on ten percent happier. I like to teach listeners how to do life better. I wanna try, oh hello, MR grinch. What would make you happy? Ah, let's see out of business sign at the north pole are a nation wide ban on carolyn noise. Noise knows what would really Make me happy is if I didn't have to host a podcast. That's right. I got a podcast too hi. It's me that grand pooh bah bah humbug, the o g, great grub that grinch from under a chance. The brainchild eight october is a pathetic attempt by the people of all bill to use my situation as a teacher, told movement. So joy may the bridge Lastly, as I launched a campaign against christmas, jeer, grilling celebrity guests like chestnut that an open fire your family will love the show. As you know, I'm famously great, with kids follow Tis the grandfather data.

On the one to react, or wherever you get, your pop gas hey there I know that life is full of challenges, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Mr philosopher once said that no man is unhappy than he who never faces adversity, for she is not permitted to prove himself. I'm rhine holiday. The best selling author and host to do is to progress to progress where breakdown the ancient teachings from the stoic philosophers. So you can apply there thinking the problem, a modern life on the daily stood you'll find everything from insightful conversations to people like matthew, mokanna, aim gary v and how they have used stoicism in their own life. Turkish. Ten minute teachings on how to deal with fear and build better habits, ancient below It doesn't have to be this inaccessible and practical thing. On the daily stew, you can learn how to bring the values of stoicism into your own life one day at a time. Follow the daily stoke on the wondering app or wherever you get your part gas and you can listen to the daily stood early. An ad free right now on wondering plus.