This episode serves as a wake-up call for all of us to harness the power of our voices in navigating the complexities of human interaction. Hosted by Kat Stewart and Kevin Ribble, the discussion features Dr. Don Shafer, who passionately advocates for radical vulnerability in dialogue. The conversation unfolds with an exploration of how our voices can shape the narratives surrounding pivotal issues, from personal relationships to societal challenges. Don, a seasoned broadcaster and storyteller, delves into the concept of 'beautiful questions', which foster meaningful exchanges and cultivate deeper connections between people. Through anecdotes and reflections, the discussion reveals how the emotional baggage we carry influences our interactions and how intentional dialogue can bridge divides, especially in today's polarized environment.

Takeaways:

• The essence of effective communication lies in the ability to connect deeply with others.
• Our biases and emotions significantly influence the conversations we engage in with others.
• Compassion and curiosity are pivotal in transforming difficult discussions into meaningful dialogues.
• As we navigate polarization, it is essential to approach conversations with an open heart and mind.
• Understanding the impact of our words can create ripples of change in our communities.
• Embracing radical vulnerability allows for honest and enriching exchanges between individuals.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Ignite Voice Inc.
• Kirk
• Fox News
• Veterans Association
• Trump
• Rebecca Solnit
• David White
• Thun Van Dyke
• Corey Nathan
• Brian Adler

Your voice is your superpower.

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Welcome to Ignite My Voice Becoming Unstoppable, powered by Ignite Voice Inc. The podcast where voice meets purpose and stories ignite change. Deep conversations with amazing guests, storytellers, speakers and change makers.

I mean, whether it's climate change, whether it's a 2,000 pound bomb, or whether it's natural causes, we're all going to die. So how do you want to live your life?

Welcome to Ignite My Becoming Unstoppable. I'm Kat Stewart. Today we're leaning into the messy magic of human conversation.

And I'm Kevin Ribble.

We're joined by broadcaster PhD and master storyteller Don Shafer, a man who spent whose life exploring what really happens when we talk to each other and what.

We bring into those conversations without even realizing it. Not just what we say. It's the emotion, the bias, and yes, the stuff we carry into the moment that shapes how deeply we connect.

This is a conversation about compassion, curiosity, and what Don calls beautiful questions, the kind that give as much as they ask.

So take a breath, open your heart. Here's our chat across topics from rage, curiosity, hope, and so much more.

You know, I'm a kid from Pittsburgh who barely got out of high school and somehow along the line in my later years was able to do a master's and do a PhD. And I've always worried about anything I've done not being academic enough. And I never wanted to be an academic.

I always wanted just to understand stuff better. What led me down this path was an argument between my sister and I and an open heart surgery.

And the connection between the two is that I stopped talking to my sister for almost a year because of our personal and political differences.

When I went in for open heart surgery, I was struck and it was like a light bulb went off because of the caring that the cardiac team gave to me and everybody else on the ward. And it was like a light bulb moment when you realized just by caring, you can change the conversation.

And so that kind of started me down this track of, well, what does that look like with my sister?

What does that look like with difficult conversations that I have with the people that are closest to me and those that are maybe a little bit more distant? So that's what this dissertation or this journey conjured up.

So, you know, it goes into a whole bunch of places in terms of what we say to each other, how we say it, how we open up or shut down conversations, the words we use, the emotion and the baggage or the shit that we bring into our conversations. So it's been quite a. Quite the road. You know, I've just really tried to keep it simple.

That was a moment in time, a crisis that brought about an openness, a change in behavior. Does. Do other people have that opportunity? When we talk about polarization, you get so entrenched in a particular bias.

Well, I think we all do. You know, David Brooks goes down a road and he talks about the scene or the unseen.

So what we bring into a conversation and what we leave out and based on.

Based on how comfortable you are in this moment and how comfortable you are, it really opens up how much you're going to give me or how much we're going to give each other, how much we're going to share. And I think that has a lot to do with, you know, Kevin, you talked about social media, and it blows me away. The outrage that happens on social media.

That doesn't happen when we're sitting in front of each other, which is so. I mean, if I had another piece of research I could do, I'd probably want to go down that rabbit hole and ask why.

Why is it okay to treat each other so badly online? But we don't do that in person.

And if we don't do that in person, can we learn those skills and take them online and change the way we have conversations with each other when we're not sitting in front of each other?

Indeed, that could be a major contributor. So do we think, we agree that polarization has become dramatically worse in a certain amount of modern time?

That we can say, if I look politically at the change that's happened in, what, 30 years or something, there's been a dramatic shift. Would we agree?

You know, that was my premise when I started this work, that my premise was that we are more polarized now than we've ever been in history. And one of my committee members said, are you sure about that? And I said, no.

So when you go back over time, media, whether it's going back to the ancient Greeks or going to the printing press or going to the early days of radio and television, media of some sort has always been available to amplify the voices of the time. One of the interviews I did with Corey Nathan said, you know, he's a martial arts expert.

He said, you know, an open hand or a fist has been around for centuries. It's how you. How you. How you come into a discussion with an open hand or a fist. So powerful.

So you have to wonder, are we more polarized than we've ever been. Probably not. We probably always have been polarized.

It's just that it's amplified now because of social media or because of the communication platforms that exist. So we've always, we've always, we've always been, we've always had differences of opinion.

We've always been manipulated or bought into programming that created the various biases that we hold dear. And true.

I mean, you can go back, way back, right to, to early human and, and tribes and tribalism. And you could argue it's in our roots to have an us and them.

Yeah, no, I, I think so. I mean, and again, that's based on. It's based on culture. It's based on.

I mean, for, for me, you know, I really struggled with, with this argument with my sister because we grew up in the same household, we had the same values and beliefs, and yet, you know, in later life, we are two different people. And I really struggled with that.

But when you look at the way we grew up, you know, the age differences, the different times, the different associations, male, female, perspective. Yep.

But that's one small family in a little town in the US So imagine now what it's like if you grew up in a different country, if you have a different political, different religious pick. The nuance. So the influences that we grow up with influence how we think, how we feel, how we talk, how we act, what's good or bad.

And we all bring that stuff into these conversations and sometimes we share it and sometimes we don't.

Well, and doesn't social media perpetuate that through algorithms? So we talked to Brian Adler a while back and he was talking about algorithms. And you talk about it in your PhD.

It's designed to maximize engagement and now prioritize conflict driven content because that's what keeps people hooked, that's what grabs attention. And how do we get ourselves out of that? Because that contributes to the polarization.

Yeah, I have, I have an issue with that. And I'm as guilty as anybody else is. If I see something on Facebook, it's hard for me to resist.

And it's kind of a new version of me or another version of me where I have to really think about, do I really want to say something? And if I want to say something, how do I make it positive as opposed to just doing some crappy one liner? How do I.

How do I make it a thoughtful comment that might actually add to the discussion as opposed to just continue the discussion? Rage meeting. What are you going to bring into a conversation? Whether it's in person or whether it's online.

And you talked about that open hand, right?

Yeah.

What do you call one of the things I learned a long time ago on the air was, was usually when I got in the way, when I brought my stuff into a conversation, it usually went badly. When I got out of the way, when I maintained a compassionate curiosity in the conversation, it usually went well and it was actually interesting.

So I think it's, I think there's a, you know, if we're going to bring all of our biases, beliefs and stuff into a conversation, it could be a charged conversation.

If we're going to come into a conversation with an open heart, with an open hand, with compassion and curiosity, and even if, even if the person is completely different from us, it changes the mood, it changes the way the conversation develops.

Isn't that where empathy comes into play as well?

Yeah, I think it's empathy as much as it's. Rika Nygaard talks about radical vulnerability. David White uses a phrase about beautiful questions and being able to ask beautiful questions.

And I'm still working on what is a beautiful question. In his mind, a beautiful question gives as much as it asks for. So there's a reciprocity in the questions that we're sharing and giving to each other.

And when we can do that, we open up a conversation, we open up an honest conversation.

But with that you have to have radical vulnerability because if you don't have that, then you are in a fear based body and you're not ready to listen to somebody else's opinion that is counter to yours. You have to be very open to that. That's a struggle, isn't it?

Absolutely. Yeah. No, I totally agree.

How do we help people with that? Because again, we go back to this polarization.

You know, if we're in fear, we're not going to be open to hearing conversations that are counter to what we believe and our biases and then we're not going to have the ability to connect.

I don't want to get too academic, but I'm going to go back to.

It was really funny because I wanted to try and understand polarization and I wanted to try and understand how to navigate difficult conversations based on what had happened with my sister. And so I talked to 16 people, academics, artists, change makers in all sorts of different professions. The first person I talked to was Thun Van Dyke.

And Thun Van Dyke is probably one of the foremost linguists and discourse analysis in the world.

And when I said to him, when I asked him the question, I said, so tune, tell me, how do you navigate difficult questions, difficult con, different difficult conversations? He said, I don't know, you know, just keep talking, keep talking.

The minute we shut the conversation down, the minute we say we're out, I'm out of here like I did with my sister. The conversation was over. There is no, no room for repair.

So I'm. I have a confession, Don.

Uh oh.

My confession is I have a 7 year old and 11 year old and I watch the crises unfold in the news every day these days. And I really worry about the world as they grow up. And so let me take events that we have watched unfold in front of us in the last while.

Let's look at the Kirk shooting. Let's look at Kirk in theory, attempting to engage at university campuses across the US and get that dialogue going that you're talking about.

But my impression from watching him is that there was no desire to actually have an open dialogue. There was a desire to pound my view over the other group of people and look what happened in that whole environment. And I see that a lot.

And so that's. My confession is I'm very worried as I watch the news unfold every day right now.

Then my question to you, I'm curious, you, as somebody born in the US and watching this like I am, what strikes you?

There's lots of questions in there. Again, I have five kids, so I share your concerns. Most of my kids are over 30 now, so.

But they're still greatly impacted by what's happening in the world around us. So. And we live in unprecedented times. None of us ever anticipated we would be watching what's happening in the world that we're seeing.

The Kirk issue, I'm glad you make sense of any of it. What happened, what he said, how he said it, the hate that comes with all of that. So it's pretty disturbing and has a huge impact on our kids.

And, you know, and I'm going to go back to Toon Van Dyke because Thune also said, keep talking. But he also said there are times to walk away from conversations.

There are times to, you know, his quote was, I'm not going to have a conversation with a neo Nazi because there are some people we don't want to talk to. There are some people to shut it down.

I think one of the things that really called to me to do this work was I have no illusions that I'm going to change the world.

But I think it was Rebecca Solnit who talks about the conversations we have are like ripples on our, on a lake where the things that we say to each other today, we have no idea what kind of impact they're going to have tomorrow or 100 years from now.

But, but again, if we, if we bring our hearts into the conversation and we can keep it, we may retain that, that compassion and curiosity, then I think we can be comfortable in the moment knowing that we gave our best intentions and our heart in that moment and that something will carry forward out of that. And maybe that'll, maybe that's what, what your kids take with you or take from you as they go forward and they carry that on.

So, you know, it's, it's, it's. I don't think it's all doom and gloom, but we're definitely in precarious times.

I mean, Kevin and I, we started our business because we believe in people and we want to help make the world a better place and people make a positive contribution. And part of that is intentional dialogue. And we want to help people bring intention into their communication because that is really important.

What you say, as you said, does have a ripple, and you don't know where that ripple is going to go. But how you structure communication can have a positive effect and can have a negative effect.

And how do we help people become more aware of that intentional dialogue?

I think you just got to live it. I think you have to do what you're doing and keep it real.

Yeah. We talk about being authentic and charisma and being real. I mean, being authentic is real.

And I don't think you can have connection without being real.

Well, I think there are times when, you know, I don't know everything. I can't be everything. No, no. It's funny, the older I get, the less I know.

Isn't that true?

Yeah.

So it's, it's strange to watch. And especially having family and friends in the US and just watching it fall apart, it's quite bizarre.

It's the fall of Rome, the Roman Empire.

Well, and, you know, I try to be hopeful, but I'm torn. Depends what I feel like at any particular moment in the day. You know, is this built into Our DNA, as you said.

You know, we've gone through cycles of this for all of human history.

And.

In some capacity, the media often feeds it to the positive or negative. And so, you know, the doom and gloom part of me goes, well, this is just the part of being human. It's our fallacy. We're doomed for destruction.

We just don't have the tools to make this work. So on a bad day, that's my depression, if you will. On a good day, I go, well, wait a second, let's look for hope.

Let's look for how do we dig ourselves out of this? And of course, your thesis points in that direction. Give me some hope, Don. Where do we go to try and turn this for the better?

Well, I actually wrote a paper at a conference for a conference about hope. And there was Mary Oliver, who wrote the poem, and in the line, she says, do you need a little darkness to get you going?

And there's a lot of darkness out there, profound.

So when you look at that and you think about all the darkness, you can, you can stay in the dark, or you can, you know, go for the light or be a beast. I mean, we're all going to die.

I think for all of us that have traveled and been humbled by the conversations we've had, the difference in how people live and the things that they go through, I mean, it opens up our world. I'm still thinking about Kevin's question about the us.

A friend of mine said, you know, America got the government it deserves because the majority of the people voted for Trump. And he just kind of walks away, puts his hands up in the air and says, I'm done with it.

Harder for some of us to do that because there's a lot of love and compassion for those of us that have family and friends or people we know in the US that are now in this unbelievable world of hurt, in chaos, but picking on the U.S. you know, less than 50% of U.S. citizens have passports. They don't go anywhere, which is bizarre. So it narrows their worldview of how other people live. It narrows that empathy and compassion.

And we're watching that in real time.

Yeah, and I've talked with Kevin, so.

I thought this was going to be a nice, light, easy conversation. Well, you guys are gonna ask me about my old radio days or something, you know, Fluffy, come on.

Come on, Don, you know us better. Life is in crisis. We're trying to get hope out of the crisis in front of us.

And you brought up something I like, and that is looking towards a light at the end of the darkness, and the darkness might be useful. And then I go, you know, while we are different as humans, there are core things we're all looking for, isn't there?

There are things that, you know, we talk about our kids. I want the world to be here when my kids are older.

Me, too.

I want to feed my family well. These core things we all have in common.

And maybe if we start there, maybe if we start what are our core beliefs that are similar and then grow the conversation from there may be a way to grow out of the darkness.

You're walking with somebody, you're still talking. You're trying to understand each other.

And doesn't Maslow's hierarchy of needs somehow come in there? If we can help people be safe and secure, they can walk up the level of enlightenment, so to speak.

You can't understand other people if you're worried about survival. If we are in survival mode, there's nothing more. There's nothing to discuss.

This is a bit of a bird walk, but my nephew in the US Works for the Veterans association, and this is the same nephew that told me years ago he only watches Fox News and is a Trump supporter. So, you know, for me to call him an idiot doesn't really take the conversation very far.

And even in the second term of Trump, it was difficult for me to find a common place for. For a conversation. And I said to him, as the cut started to happen in the, in the va, I said to him one day, I said, so, how you doing?

He said, I'm pretty good. How's the gig? Have any of the cuts impacted your job? He said, no, no, no, they're not going to bother me.

They're just going after the guys in Washington. You know, I asked him that question 60 days later, and it was a different answer. He said, you know, I'm not so sure.

You know, it's getting a little close. Some of my buddies are getting cut.

And I didn't have to say, you were an idiot for voting for Trump, but you could hear some remorse and you could hear some doubt in his voice about what he had done or what he was part of. And I think more Americans or more people that voted for the dark side are realizing what they've done.

The question is Is there enough support and will times change enough to get them out of it? Will they actually get to another election? Will they get to a midterm? Are questions that we ask ourselves.

And I think we're all optimistic that it will be better somehow one day. And again, back to your points.

Given the choice of going down that road or going down a darker road, I'd rather opt for a positive, enlightened, more humane and human touch or road, though.

Hope is. Hope is a useful thing, but I suppose darkness is a useful thing too.

Is what I walk away from the conversation a reminder that, well, you know, to get where you're talking, we need that darkness to. To push elements along so we are reminded what we have in common. You know, maybe it's a benefit.

Can't see darkness without the light.

I think lived experience, you know, is. Is definitely helpful.

I mean, I look, I look at the world a lot differently today at 78 than I did when I was 50 and certainly different than I was at 25. And my, you know, having kids from different marriages of different ages.

They've all, They've all got their own variation of, you know, fat dad, skinny dad, bad dad, good dad, enlightened dad, dumb dad, educated dad, stupid dad. Yeah. No, so, so they've all got their, Their. Their acronyms for what kind of dad I was at different stages.

Thankfully, they've all acknowledged that I've gotten better over time. How do I find out more about you that I don't know.

The only way I can do that is probably by giving you more of me so you feel more comfortable sharing radical vulnerability. Yeah.

And walking in with an open hand, as you mentioned.

So I, I mean, I guess that's, you know, when I, When I look at, you know, six years worth of work, open heart surgery, Covid, and a rupture in my family, that's kind of where I've ended up, is. And so, you know, what do you do with that? And how do you. How do you. How do you do more good work? How do you. How do you.

How do I bring less rage online and more. And more curiosity?

Yeah, well, I think accountability.

You're taking accountability for your actions, your behavior, behaviors, your thoughts. You're looking internally at who it is you are.

But to do that. I think Dawn's life has been a wonderful example of curiosity. Like you just said, curiosity has brought you to where you are, hasn't it?

Well, I think that's probably why we're all in media and we're all, you know, teaching Or, I mean, you guys are teaching, you know, and have media backgrounds. I've always loved talking with people. And again, whether it was on the road or who are you, what do you do? Why do you do it? What lights you up?

I mean, you just never know where that's gonna go, which is fun. But in many ways, it's like this conversation. We've never sat down and had this conversation. So it's been fun.

I love it. I'd love to keep talking, but I.

Do know that the academic stuff I'm not so sure about.

No, but it's. It's fascinating because it opens up a door to another way of thought that other people might not have thought of, that I might not have thought of.

And again, that gives us something to work with and find that common ground.

You know what I love? I love the irony of the three of our lives. That we are curious and aware and we sense the dark area that we're in right now. Yet we all love people.

Isn't that interesting?

Every dialogue is a ripple on the lake. We may never see how far it travels, but when it's rooted in compassion and curiosity, it leaves a mark.

No kidding. Dawn said it perfectly. When you come in with a closed fist, you get resistance.

But when you come in with an open hand and an open heart, everything shifts.

In a world of noise and division, that's what we need more of, right? People brave enough to keep talking, to keep walking together, even when they disagree.

Big thanks to Dawn Shafer for reminding us that radical vulnerability and empathy are the true power moves.

So here's to less rage, more listening, and a few more beautiful questions. Join our community.

Ignitemyvoice.com book a session with one of our talent developmenter coaches and empower your voice.

Until next week. Enjoy.

Ignite my voice. Becoming unstoppable. Your voice is your superpower.

Use it.