Rules of Engagement

Well, good morning, Cadre. Good morning. It feels like a long time since I have been here to do a live stream because I was traveling for work last week and I will be traveling for the holiday next week, but I'll be back on track after that. And a few things have happened since the last time I did a live stream here. But if you're showing up and saying hi, please put a little note. Please put a little note in and say hello. Scale 1 to 10. How you doing? Maybe one word. How you doing? Yeah. We have an election in the United States of America, and I think lots of people were startled.

I know I was. By the results. Because even if I think for folks who thought that Trump would win, I think there are a lot of people who are startled by the size of his victory and the scope of his victory. I know I was. And there may be things to say about that. There are a lot of things to say about that, and people are going to be saying them endlessly for the next century, probably. Honestly, what's going on in America right now will be the subject of history texts for a long, long time. If we make it that long.

We'll make it that long. I was just being dramatic. Good morning, Jules. It's nice to see you. If you have one word that you can put in the chat about how you're doing, please put it in there. If I were to put one word in the chat, I would say contemplative. I would say I'm contemplative. But the thing I want to talk about this morning, like, when I'm done here, I've got a car coming. I'm going to go to the airport. I'm going to go to the facing race conference, St. Louis. So I'm going to be with a bunch of racial equity practitioners and professionals.

So that'll be interesting. Rejuvenated. Jules, I'm glad you're feeling rejuvenated. If you have any tips or hints about how to feel rejuvenated after daylight saving and given the mood in the country right now, please feel free to put them in the chat. But what I wanted to talk about is, well, look, if the election didn't go how you hoped, it's important to protect your peace. And if the election did go as you hoped, the invitation is to protect your integrity. I think those are some of the invitations that we're getting now.

Why do I say protect your peace if things did not go the way you wanted? It did not go the way I wanted. Full disclosure. I'VE seen a lot of people be down. I know a lot of people who work in politics and a lot of people who work in policy, all of which will be affected by this election. So I'm very. I'm surrounded by that. You may not be surrounded by that. I am. A lot of people feeling pretty down. It doesn't feel like that the way it felt in 2016 when people were shocked. Right. It's eight years later.

We aren't shocked like that. And we experienced the Trump administration, so we know at least the contours of what's happening. Although it's likely to be more dramatic this time, if that's possible. So people are feeling down and a little numb and a little checked out, or, you know, I'm just gonna chill out until it's time to figure out what to do next. And there are a lot of people just walking around under a cloud of doom and a cloud of fear. Understandable. Honestly, the invitation is to protect your peace.

I say this a lot. Do not read the news like it's your job unless it's actually your job. Keep in touch with what's going on. But then have your life, nothing in your life, whether it be your political activities, your family, relationships, anything. Nothing in your life is served well by running yourself down or overextending yourself. We can do it for short times, but it is not a way of life. It can't be. You want to know how I know? I crashed hard when I left office in 2018. I slept 10 hours a night every night for six months, and I took a nap every day.

Oh, Jules is letting us know that she signed up to run her 2025 race goal and have a new drive in your workout. That is fantastic. That's what I'm talking about. John Acuff is a writer and speaker who I follow and like a great deal. And he is big into looking forward to lists to create giant looking forward to lists because that gives you hope and hope allows us to keep moving forward. That's one way to prot your peace. Right? So this idea, nothing is well served in your life if you're feeling crummy or you are under energized.

And I'm not even going to use the metaphor of put your own mask on first before you put it on someone else. I'm not even going to use that metaphor because it's a little tired and it sort of goes over people's heads now, even though it is such a good metaphor, which is why we all use it but nothing in your life is well served by dwelling in fear. You can organize your life around that fear. You can, I have. That's what I call anxiety. We can organize our lives around that fear. But I said this before and I'll say it again.

If I'm going to use my imagination to predict future outcomes, most of those future outcomes don't come true either way. So I might as well predict positive ones. Might as well predict positive ones. I'm not saying be unrealistic. I'm just saying for the things that are inside my control in particular, might as well visualize a positive outcome rather than a negative outcome. Now for things outside of my control, I get to just let them go. The advantage of having been in recovery for 35 years is that I have 35 years worth of practice accepting the things I cannot change and trying to get the wisdom to know the difference between what I can and cannot change, you know, and the courage to change the things I can.

The entire serenity prayer is valuable here, you know, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. There's a lot about what's going on in the world right now I cannot change courage to change the things I can. What can I do? Right now I am contemplative because I'm thinking about my life and I'm also making a lot of forward thinking plans. I'm a big goal person and a big plans person. You may have guessed or noticed, maybe not. So I'm letting you know. But the wisdom to know the difference is important because if I spend a lot of time and energy worrying about things I have no control over, then I, I am spending a lot of my precious time and energy worrying about things I have no control over.

So I get to let those things go and focus back on what is inside my sphere of influence, what is inside my sphere of authority, what is inside my capacity. So the invitation, I think for those of us for whom the election did not go how we hoped, protect our peace, figure out what we can do and let the rest go. Now, if the election did go the way that you went, congratulations. I hope you're taking some time to celebrate. I also have experience of winning elections and the temptation there can be to, especially when you win so big the way that he did, because I won big more than once in my career, there's a temptation to be like, well, I have this mandate, I know who to listen to and nobody else matters.

And I think in this election environment, in particular, the temptation to think no one Else matters is pretty high. And that is a loss of integrity. Whenever we decide somebody doesn't matter, we are chipping away at the foundations of what it means to be human. And so my invitation to whoever is celebrating is to remember that half the country lost and we are all fully human. Everybody who voted for Kamala Harris is fully human. Everybody who voted for someone who you didn't vote for, and this goes either side of the aisle, is fully human.

And we get to remember that about each other. We do not. We are in the midst of learning really well how to demonize in other people. Right. And I think one of the things we're called to do as we come here is learn how to have the widest swath of humanity inside our circle of human concern. So that's the invitation of having won an election where that was not what Trump was campaigning on. Is that a judicious way to say that? Is that a diplomatic way to say that he was not campaigning on including everyone in a circle of human concern?

There are other reasons that people supported him, and I'm just so fascinated to be finding out what those are. But. But as a people, as human beings, we can still move toward including people who didn't vote like us inside our circle of human concern. Because losing our own integrity in the face of an election result is not really the point. Right. Keeping our integrity in spite of circumstance is kind of what integrity is. Right. One friend defines integrity as doing the right thing regardless of convenience or comfort.

That's a pretty good thumbnail sketch of integrity. So if we want to keep who we are as people, we have to stop othering people who disagree with us. Even though that's easy to do, even though we're taught to do that, even though millions of examples exist around us of people doing that, we get to not do it, regardless of convenience or comfort. Regardless. The Othering and Belonging Institute, John Powell, who founded that, calls that belonging is who's inside your circle of human concern. Othering is thinking someone is not inside our circle of human concern.

The tool of belonging is bridging, meaning putting our hand out to people who disagree with us. The tool of othering is breaking, meaning just withdraw from people who don't think like us. Breaking is not a great, viable long term strategy for a healthy community, let alone a healthy democracy. So all of us are at risk of losing our integrity right now by really demonizing people who disagree with us. And you can do that. People are doing it all the time. There's a way that it feels good. There is a way that it feels good to do that because not only do we thinking someone else is bad implies that we think we're really great.

Or if we're doing it because we're insecure, it sort of shores up a wall against really feeling our own insecurity. Either way, it's not a fully human response. I could go on, but the invitation right now is to maintain our integrity. Doesn't mean we can't disagree with people, doesn't mean we can't pursue with vigor the policies we care about most. It doesn't mean we can't pursue with vigor moving forward on whatever organizing strategies we have. But if we forget that other people are human in that process, we lose something vital in ourselves.

And that would be a tragic additional outcome to this election. So Cadre, no matter how that election went and how you feel about it, protect your peace and protect your integrity and then take some action on the things you can change and let go of the rest. I hope that you all have a great two weeks. I won't be here next week because of the holiday, but I'll be here the week after. I'm traveling to Arkansas to see my family for Thanksgiving, so I hope you have great Thanksgiving plans too. Hello, Speak.

Wonder if I missed you joining earlier. I am so sorry about that. I'm glad you were here. And if anybody wants to put a farewell or a parting thought in the chat, Speak now. Would love to hear any of your thoughts about integrity and elections. We got a couple minutes left before I take off. Like I said, I'm flying to St. Louis today for the Facing Race conference and that would be an interesting place. I guess there's gonna be about like 4,000 people there and some good things on the agenda and I am fascinated to see where people are at and what people are thinking about and if there are any outside the box thoughts as well as what I'm expecting.

So all right, everybody, see you in a couple weeks. Glad to spend this time and be in this space with.