Rules of Engagement

Good morning, Cadre. It is 11:00 Eastern Time and I'm here. My hair is still a little bit wet after my workout. I am wearing one of my favorite sweatshirts from Springsteen on Broadway because I'm a Springsteen fan. If you didn't know, and if you didn't know, you should know. It's a key fact about me. And I'm excited to be here with the Cadre Sphere and hang out with everybody. If you're here, please give a shout. Let me know. Tell me something good. Most of the meetings that I go to, that I run, I go around the room and everybody gives a bit of good news.

I did that when I was mayor. I did that when I was chair of city committees when I was a council member, because it just helps get our brain in a good place. So I'll give you all a new and good. What would an example be? Well, I had a great workout this morning. I went to Orange Theory Fitness and I just really was on, which surprised me because I have gone for a couple days in a row. So that's just a bit of good news. It doesn't have to be something major. It doesn't have to be some huge deal. It could be.

I got out of bed this morning, so try it on for size. Here's what I've been thinking about. I am a big believer in and a big collector of what are called profound truths. A profound truth is a truth whose opposite is also true. And it comes the idea from a scientist named Niels Bohr, who gave one of the biggest examples, which is light is a wave and light is a particle. Those are opposites, right? Light can't be both of those things. And yet you cannot fully understand light unless you treat it as 100% a wave and then treat it as 100% a particle.

Only in that way can you really understand the depth of what light is scientifically. And when I was governing and I gave a State of the Union speech, I used profound truth. Truth. The profound truth about Minneapolis. I won't go into it too much, but the profound truth of Minneapolis was what an extraordinary city. All the good things everybody says are true. And it's an extraordinarily challenged city, particularly regarding issues of race, that you can't fully understand Minneapolis unless you grapple with both of those things.

Profound truth in this week, I've been thinking about the profound truth of the question why. Good morning, Jules. Welcome. I'm very glad you're here. I'm talking about curiosity today, but the profound Truth of the question, why, really? And because it is one of the most pointless questions in life. Why? Why did this happen? Why is this person, like, at a certain point, right, the question why doesn't matter. We get to accept the reality of the situation. Start from where you are, not from where you wish you were or where you think you should be.

That is my profound truth of my life. Number two, right? That not profound truth, sorry, that is my rule of engagement number two on my list, which I can see over there, which is why I'm looking across my phone. Huge, huge truth for me. Start from where you are, not from where you wish you were. You gotta face reality, and you have to start from where your feet are planted in reality. You can't start from someplace you think you should be or someplace you wish you were. And asking why you're not there at that level.

Not a useful question for people of faith. And I include myself among them, asking, God, why? Why is this happening? Not a particularly fruitful question, especially when it prevents me from taking action or facing reality. So that's one side of the question, why? It can be a little pointless. The flip side of the question, why is that it can be the most important question we ask. And that's where curiosity comes in. When I ask, why in a curious way, and excuse me, I have a cat who may be coming over soon.

When I ask why in a curious way, it can change everything. It can change everything. One of my superpowers is asking this question, what's getting in the way of the right thing happening? And I do that a lot at the city. You know, what is getting in the way? We know what good policy is. Why aren't we doing it? We know what we'll get, the results we say we want. Why aren't we doing it? It is absolutely the core of my work around white. Because the white people I focus on as the focus of my work are those of us who believe racism exists and think it's bad because we are not acting into that belief particularly effectively.

And so I ask the question, why? What is stopping us? We know lots of good things that we could be doing right now. Why aren't we doing them? So that question, why? Is important, and it accrues on a personal level as well. Like, I'll set a goal, and it's a very useful question to ask, why didn't I follow through? Or why isn't this working? Often for me, the answer is, because I have a set of feelings around this behavior I was choosing for myself that I haven't worked through and I need to work through it.

But that kind of curiosity or for people we don't like or for government, you know, huh? Instead of being like, judgmental or in addition, I guess to being judgmental and mad, we could also decide to foster and nourish curiosity. Huh? That is a seemingly nonsensical decision that that person just made. I wonder why they made that decision. If you believe, like I do, that almost everybody makes sense, you know, everybody makes sense if we know their entire story. Because even people who are behaving in incredibly erratic ways, once I know that they have a major mental illness or that, you know, that they're not treating, or once I know that they're an addict or an alcoholic, you know, 35 years sober, I now am not mystified by most, for the most part by the behaviors of addicts and alcoholics, particularly ones that I'm not close to, but I can still get, you know, ah, that person.

Why are they behaving so badly? I have a person in my life actually like that. Come to think of it, this just off the top of my head, a dear friend of mine, after many years of worrying about her, got sober. And now she's very mad at me for reasons that are not particularly. She has her reasons and I disagree with them, let me just put it that way. And why is she doing this? You know, she wants to stay sober. Why is she fostering this resentment? And I'm sure if I understood more, I would understand more if that makes sense.

And I'm doing my best to foster that curiosity and that compassion, because somebody who's relatively early in recovery is just a mess usually. Usually we're just a freaking mess for anywhere from six months to five years, depending on who we are. So if we stay in, for that matter. So curiosity is a solution, but it's that profound why, right? And part of life is learning of when to ask why and when to let go of why, or learning to ask the right why and let go of the wrong way, right? Because why is such a useless question.

You know, it's just like, I don't know why, but the flip side is it's such an important question to ask myself and to seek answers. And it has led me down very, very interesting roads, right? I've learned a lot about myself. Like, eventually I had to stop asking why I do not work out in the afternoons. It, you know, it's like, why can't I just get myself to work out at 4 in the afternoon? It would be so much more convenient, but it wrecks my life. I worry about it all day. Am I going to do it? Am I not going to do it?

Am I going to do it? Am I not going to do it? And once I realized, I don't know why it's so hard. Yeah, I don't know why I make myself miserable about it all day. But I do start from where I was, not from where I thought I should be. So if it doesn't happen in the morning, it doesn't happen. If I don't work out in the morning, I don't work out. And then I just don't stress about it all day. We'll try again tomorrow, that kind of thing. It meant I had to plan my workouts and my life pretty carefully to make sure that I could do them.

But I do them. I have been working out consistently for 55, 30 years. It's a long time. And I've been doing Orange Theory Fitness for I think nine years, maybe 10. I can't for, I can't remember if I started in 2014 or 2015, but I just hit the nine year mark, at least maybe the ten year mark. And I could do it in the morning, and I still do it in the morning. Curiosity changes lives. If there's someone we loathe, why? What happened to them? And for me, at this point in my life, I don't even have to answer that question.

Asking it is enough to get my head in a better place. And as someone who works with white people, and as someone, I am a Democrat, your mileage may vary. I am not a fan of Donald Trump. Your mileage may vary. I understand that. But looking at the results, the good news is now that all the results are tallied, we only lost by 2 million votes, not 9 million votes. That's a big difference. That's a different set of people to ask questions about. And basically I think it's still true that those are people who just didn't show up to vote.

And when you're in my world and my line of work, I want to know who didn't show up and why. But it's also very, very true that the majority of white people voted for Donald, who voted, voted for Donald Trump. And for me, I'm very curious about why in a genuine way, like what is it that they're getting there that they're not getting from the messages Democrats are sending? And I have ideas about that. I'm gonna be doing some writing about that. But that curiosity, once I'M curious about a problem once.

I'm curious about why the solutions at hand are not working. For every problem, there is a solution better than the one that didn't work. And my curiosity will help me find that new solution and maybe one that will work a little better. And this is true with people, and it's true with entities and governments and processes, and it's true with myself. So curiosity is an incredibly important factor of life for me to nurture. And I recommend it for you as well. So, Jules, is there anything you're curious about?

If you want to put it in the chat, we can talk about whatever you're curious about. Or is there something you wish you were curious about that you're not? Or is there a place where you've let go? This is for everybody. Is there a place where you've let go of your of asking why and just forged ahead? Because new ground means new questions and new curiosity and new why. There is a there. There comes a point healing and recovery where you have asked. I'll say for myself, where I have asked all the questions I can about where I'm at.

I just have to move to a different spot and see what I can see from there. And often it gives me perspective about where I was. But answering but it helps answer all other questions. Lots of things you love learning, great. That's the other thing being curious can help with hobbies. I'm not much of a cook. You know, I've been making meal kits for the last few years and that's been good, right? That's helped me get more nutritious food more regularly and cooking. And I'll say it here first Cadre, you're the first people to know I am going to do some more sort of free range cooking, not meal kit cooking next year.

That's going to be one of my goals and one of my curiosity. One of the things I'm curious about is why don't I do it and what. Here's, here's. I'll end on this. One of the ways to answer a question about why you're not doing something is to do it. And then every feeling you have and every negative soundtrack you have about that activity will make themselves available for examination. You know that transition trough, that's part of the transition trough for behavior change, as far as I can tell, is that when I start to change, the mean voices in my head start yelling.

But if I listen closely to what they're yelling, I can answer them. I learn a lot of good information and I can go from there. So, Cadre, I will be here next week. I'm looking forward to being here next week. Please let me know what you'd like to hear more about these rules of engagement I've got. I just added another one. Maybe next week I'll talk about the one I just added. And I look forward to it. Have a good one. I hope you all have a really, really great week.