Reaching Common Ground

0:01 At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better, It's about what you've given back. Denzel Washington, Welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Frett Welcome to the show. Well, I'm glad to be here. It's kind of amazing how I got to write this book, Reaching Common Ground. And as I said, I have one foot in the attic academic world and one foot in the real world. And sometime around twenty fifteen or thereabouts, I said, what's going on? The world seems to be getting crazier every day.

0:53 And remember now I had been practicing and teaching conflict resolution now for twenty five years, and I started to wonder what is happening. And so, because I have a foot in the academic world, I went to some of my colleagues who teach biology, genetics, evolution, emotion, psychology, personality, and they gave me some amazing books to read. I did a lot of research and after about almost six years of research, I put all the thoughts together and I said, now I understand what's going wrong, and I have a theory on how to fix it. So we can talk about this craziness and we can talk about I think some ways to make things better, to make things less polarize, and get people talking to each other and stop confronting each other and learning to listen to each other and find common ground.

2:00 I'll reach common Ground, which is the title of the book. Well, and you know, it's interesting because as you look at this, there's all sorts of aspects to this. You start in the early childhood in school, and you have this conflict going on between kids, and then you have this also bullying, this going on where someone will start to bully a child, which is something that we may get into a little bit. But then, as you say, as we're looking about what's going on in the world and particularly in the US now, the anger and everything that's going on that just is causing such great conflict, and we were seeing it all of the time, it amazes me as you've been researching and so forth, I guess the question I have is what is the basic cause of this in your opinion and your research, what has started this out? Because I remember growing up as a child, I never I never experienced this. Now, obviously at that time, you know, we didn't have as much social media, we didn't have as much things going on. The Internet wasn't quite as strong, and so forth. And now we're aware of everything, whether it's true or not.

3:23 We're aware of everything. But the question is what what based on your research, what is the cause of all of this behavior beginning to come up where there's such anger and bitterness against each other. Okay, there's a lot of reasons. It's there's not just one reason, but there's a many different reasons. And what I discovered and if you people don't think about this, but we have genetic differences, every one of us. We're all genetically different. We're similar, but were genetically different, and that's our nature. And we also have environmental differences. We all grow up in different environments and those environments, coupled with our genetic differences, make up our personality differences. And what we think is what everybody should think is not actually how it works.

4:24 So if I'm brought up in a cultural environment that is perhaps I have two parents. I've been nurtured in a particular way, So I think that becomes part of my personality and it really shapes the way I see the world. The other thing that really causes a lot of difference is is we have biases, prejudice and stereotyping that goes into this and these some of these are hidden from us. We have these hidden biases that impact the way we the world. And those are some of the real major differences. Now you might ask me, okay, we got all these differences. We have different genders, different skin colors, different sexual orientations. Uh, we have different ways of thinking depending on what age we are. When I grew up, I was pretty much on my own. I didn't have helicopter parents. I didn't have how shall we say this, I didn't have I wasn't in a uniform place.

5:33 I was in a diversified place. I played basketball. Some of the kids had dark skin, some of the kids had light skin. Some of the people that were players were women, young young girls. So we all shared a common environment and we grew up that way. And those are the things that make us different. And we think because of the way we've brought up and because of our culture environment that it's the best culture environment without thinking that, you know what, maybe the way to deal with the difference is is to learn from each other as opposed to thinking that we have the answers to all the questions. Well, and you bring up an interesting point, this hidden bias, and you know, I think that's probably one of the major contributors to all of this conflict that's going on, just the emotional contact, the verbal conflict and so on. What in your opinion, what in your research, and you know, as a behavioral specialist, what do you think has caused that innate bias? Because that is not something that if we were to remove all of what you were just talking about, all of the influences, all of that type of thing, What, in your opinion causes that innate bias that people have, whether it's skin or as you say,

7:08 sexual orientation, or religion or whatever that happens to be. Okay, So here's what happens, Doug. We all have confirmation bias, every one of us to some extent. And if you go back to evolution, and I did go back and study some evolution, we're tribal, we belong to different tribal groups, It's just part of who we are as humans. It caused us, it helped us survive. Being part of a tribe helped us survive to the next generation. And the confirmation bias that I'm talking about is we have a tendency every one of us does to stretch for information that confirms our belief and to ignore things that doesn't. And it's just one of the things that is part of who we are. Now. If you are are mindful of the confirmation bias that you know exists, you're in a much better position to say, you know what, I have this confirmation bias. I know it exists. I'm not even consciously aware of it. But if I make myself consciously aware of it, I can then start to look at other possibilities and say, you know what, I think I'm right, But if I keep an open mind, I might actually find out something that is different and maybe better in terms of how I can live my life. We also have what they call the in group outgroup bias, which is part of the tribal

8:41 instinct that we have. So anybody that belongs to my tribe, the in group is better, and we're all different from each other, but the people in the outgroup. The other they're not as good as we are. They have different ideas. Gus us strange. But the thing is the people in the outgroup they think the same way that we do. They have an in group and they say, well, the other is the outgroup. And that's one of the things that keeps us divided. And I think the Internet has contributed to that. See, we didn't have internet when we were growing up, so we never had a place to go that would continue to confirm what we already believed instead of looking at things that well, maybe there's a different way to look at it. That's what the Internet has done. It's given a people an opportunity. For example, if you're a Trump fan, you can go to many places that will confirm your belief about Trump. If you're a Biden person, the same thing. You can go to a place and they'll be talking about Biden and you'll get that confirmation bias, and the confirmation bias. When it's positive, we can call it the halo effect. And if it's a negative, which is often the case when they're dealing with in group UG group, I call it. They call it the demonizing effect.

10:11 So anybody that's not like you is you demonize, even though to them it's the other way around. Well, and you know, it's interesting. I'm on various sites and I enjoyed. You know, my mind is very analytical, and so I love to get in and look at things, and so every once in a while I'll get on TikTok just because I find it fascinating, and there's you know, I follow some Buddhist monks that I find to have some great philosophies and so forth. But every once in a while I'll watch this real quick reeal and what they are saying I know, and I'll stop and actually research this out. They're boldly lying. It is not true.

11:01 There is no truth or essence of truth to what they are saying. And yet here's something that people are watching and listening to and assuming naturally that it's got to be true. And so here's my question for you. You know, you talk about genetic makeup, and that's one thing that that's one of the factors that affects our filtering system. Tell me on your research, if you've researched this aspect of it, how does genetics literally affect our bias and affect our behavior Okay, this is kind of interesting because when I first heard about it, I said, this doesn't make any sense that your gene should something. I had no problem understanding environment, the culture you brought up, and absolutely no problem thinking about that. But there's a colleague of mind who teaches at New York University and wrote a book about people who lean left and people who lean right based on genetic differences. And I don't know if you've heard of the Big five personality traits, but the first Big five personality traits, one is openness, another one is called consciousness, conscientiousness, another one is called extraversion, another one is agreeableness, and another one is neuroticism.

12:33 And these five personality traits that we all have in one degree or another some of it. As they've done testing, particularly with twins, have found that there's actually a genetic predisposition to be open, ought to be less open, to be very conscientious, to be less conscientious. Now, it's obviously not a one to one regio, because it's not just simply those genetic predispositions, but it's also the environment that you grow up in that we refer to as epigenetic. So it's not just that you have the personality or the genetic trait, it has to be exposed or it has to be generated by your cultural environment. For example, if you happen to be alcoholic, you have to happen to have a genetic predisposition to be an alcoholic. If you never touch a drink of alcohol, you'll never have a problem. So it's a genetic predisposition, but then it's also triggered by your environment. Okay, so I want you to define epigenetics. Then you'll find me. You'll find me asking this a lot because what I have found is a lot of times as listeners are listening, if we start to use words that they don't understand, as you know, they tune out. So as you go on, yeah,

14:03 anyways, you go on. If you if you use the word that I think, you know what, let's define for the audience going to have you and define that. So in your mind when you're talking about epigenetics, what do you mean? Okay, that's absolutely we've gotta have the audience in tune. It means that you have a genetic predisposition, but it doesn't come out unless you're exposed in your environment. So it really too It takes the genes coupled with the environment, the cultural environment you're brought up in, that brings it to the fore. So just think of it as it just doesn't happen by itself, but it has to happen along with your cultural environment.

14:48 For example, if you're brought up in an Asian culture, you're going to have a different outlook, You're going to have a different way of looking at the world than if you are brought up, for example, in the United States or perhaps in an African country, or perhaps in the South American country. Now, you take the same person born in any country you want, but if that person is brought up in an Asian culture, the United States culture, South American, that will be a different That person will be a different child, will be a different adult, will be a different person. Okay, And for me, epigenetics really, you know, and I look at this from an interesting perspective. You know, you see so many children that have grown up with alcoholic parents that become alcohols all you know, struggle with alcoholism also. And as you look at that, what I have anticipated and found is that when I think of epigenetics, I think about as You're right, you know, there's the genetics aspect of it, but there's also this tendency towards because of the activity that has been inbred within an individual that then gets passed on to us, not necessarily as a genetic, but as an epigenetic. For instance, you know, I know that in my family, my dad was I think, you know, growing up probably I think

16:22 his father used to belt occasionally. And I watched my dad and my mom specifically, now I observed it as an adult that they never they never ever spanked us per se. We never experienced that. And then as I've watched my brothers, my sister, and now with their children and grandchildren and so forth, I've noticed that what my dad and mom were able to do was to take that epigenetic situation that they had experienced and remove it. And now as we go down generations, that has been removed, and that does not occur within my family environment. And as I look at that, I say, you know what, in my mind, that is where we have taken because we can't change genetics, but we can change epigenetics. And as you say, that may be behavior that goes on, it could be somewhat environmental also, and maybe the environment is a result of the epigenetics. That's right.

17:29 So you have taken it out because your environment has created a different person and it'll happen to the next generation. Even though you have a gene. It's been silence, so to speak. The cultural environment you brought up in silence? Is it so it never gets to express itself in this life, which is great, it's yes. But also, as you say, and I think this is important that we understand this is that sometimes our behavior, our thoughts, our belief system, our ego. And I like the word ego because I think it's the ego that creates a lot of these issues has been affected by our environment, and that becomes, as you say, our personality. And when that happens, all of a sudden, we have to prove to ourselves that we're right. It's very interesting. Is that studied behavioral behavioral management also and so on. What I recognize is that we all have to be right. We all have to be right. And as you say, as you have those inner belief systems that are developed or are you know, epigenetically there, we prove ourselves right only by the behavior that we exhibit.

18:56 Sure, and this is interesting. We are so sure that we're right, that we keep going down that road, and when we discover that we're wrong. The only way we can do that is by listening to other people, listening to other viewpoints, and then saying, you know, I've been doing it this way. I've formed a pattern of behavior based upon all of these things that are going on, and my patent of behavior I form opinions, and my opinions are so difficult to change because they become me. They're part of me. It's part of my ego as you suggest it, it's an ego thing, and I can't somebody attacks my ideas, they attack my opinions. They're attacking me, which is why it's very, very difficult to change one's opinion once it's been formed, because you've had this opinion for years, sometimes twenty years, because it becomes almost a sacred value to you, and you don't want anybody to attack your sacred values or your opinions that it deeply held. It just that's how it goes well. And you know, I just finished a behavioral analysis with an individual, and so it reminds me again about how often each of us, based on what our personality is and

20:27 our behavioral patterns are we have. We have tremendous feares and it's interesting to see how different personalities have different fears. So, for instance, someone may have a fear of criticism, and when they feel criticism, all of a sudden, those emotions are going to come up and they're going to defend themselves, they're going to be angry, they're going to be hurt whatever that happens to me. For others, it's you know, maybe fear of being abandoned emotionally, and so you have all that type of thing going on. So the question then becomes, how do we first of all, what causes besides the epigenetics and you know, what is causing those fears, What is causing those subconscious emotions that bring about our conscious emotions and our personality that can create anger, upsetness in those type of things. Okay, we as humans are emotional animals. In fact, it's the emotions. If you look at evolution, it's the emotions that allowed us to survive to the present time, to have offspring. Three hundred thousand years ago in the African savannah, those emotions saved your life. You were put in fear. There was the fight or flight syndrome. That was essential to survival because if you didn't react instantaneously to a threat, we were not going to have children to the next generation.

22:03 So those are the kinds of things that caused us to survive generation after generation after generation. So they were essential for survival if you think about it. And today we are not threatened the way we were threatened when the sayertooth tiger was chasing us. But the brain reacts the same way. So when someone insults us, we have the same reaction as if a tiger is chasing us, and we react the same way. We don't react rationally, react we react emotionally, and that creates the problems because I'll say something that insults me, and I'll react emotionally, and pretty soon you've got an escalation of emotion.

23:00 Now how do you stop it? Well, the way to do it is to be mindful of this and say, you know what, I'm going to count to ten. I'm not really under a threat. My life is not threatened. I'm not being chased by a saber tooth tiger. Somebody has called me a name, somebody has insulted me, but I don't have to accept it. If someone says that I'm stupid. I don't have to accept it. I can count to ten and I can say instead of being insulted and react, I can say thanks for sharing that opinion, and I can move on and have another conversation. So the way to avoid it is to really be aware, to be mindful, and to reflect and say, Okay, he said something. If it's true, I might say, well, thank you for sharing that with Maybe I can find a way to make to improve myself. And if it's not true, I don't have to pay attention to you. Right, I can't change a rock by saying you're not a rock. And if somebody calls me something, and the way to avoid bullying really is the same thing if it's a verbal attack on me and not a physical attack on me, which it couse is much different. But somebody if verbally attacks me, I have a choice. I don't have to respond in a way that is negative. I can react in a different way. Well,

24:34 And I like what you talk about as far as mindfulness because as we talk about that, and that's not necessarily easy to achieve, but I think that it becomes a goal that each of us need to have or hopefully would have because when we're mindful, as you say, you say something to me, and quite interestingly, you may say something to me. I've experienced this with my kids. I will say something to them with a very specific content, and occasionally they come back taking it as a criticism or those type of things. I have learned with my children and with others now that before I ever offer an opinion, I asked the question, is it okay for me to offer an opinion or do you just want me to listen and really not respond, And they'll tell me. And that's made a huge difference. So it's interesting though that as we become mindful and as those emotions come up, and recognizing that those emotions are not necessarily correct emotions. You know what we you know, as you say, we've been influenced by our genetic makeup, by our our environment. To be mindful to see those come up and recognize at number one, that's just an emotion that may or may not be true for us. I mean, it is true for us, but it may not be a valid emotion and be able to put it to the side.

26:06 Number one. But number two, and this is something that I taught my kids through some of their experiences. You know, when someone is unkind to you or says something to you, it has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with them and those emotions that they're experiencing that they are then expressing in the only way that they know how correct, which is why mindfulness is key. And as you suggest, it's not easy. But the more you are mindful, the more you practice the skill of being mindful, the better you're going to be able to cope with people when they say things that you may consider it to be offensive. You don't have to take it in that way, as you suggest with your children. Now, one of the keys when you have any communication with another person is active listening skills, which we can learn. We can all learn active listening skills. And unfortunately, when we're having communications, oftentimes we're making judgments instead of listening, and we can't really learn anything when we're not listening. And I like to call it learning conversation. So when I'm having a conversation, I try not to judge, I try to learn. I call it a learning conversation.

27:32 Well, and yeah, and so many times you know you're ready, you're ready, You're already formulating your next response. And not listening because you're just you're not listening. And I think you've hit on a really key thing, and I'd like you to maybe expand on this, this concept of communication not only listening, but once you've listened and heard whatever message they've given you, then what do you do in order to start to develop a relationship of understanding and mutual understanding and respect. I think part of it is to ask open ended questions instead of questions that call for yes and no, to give the other person an opportunity to express themselves without judging. I'm not here to judge you. I'm here to learn from you. So when someone says something, instead of attacking or instead of responding, I say, that's very interesting.

28:33 I'd really like to know more. Could you explain what you mean by that? And sometimes you do it by summarizing, sometimes paraphrasing, but always the goal is to learn, because if someone knows that you're listening to learn from them, they're going to be more responsive to you. Nobody likes to be judged. Everybody likes to be listened to. They like to be respected, and when you listen to them and they feel respected, you build trust. And when you build trust, you can have a much more constructive conversation. That's part of what it is. How are we going to teach the population of the world today to be able to learn to do that. You've got one quote that I found that I really love that talks about reaching common ground will teach you how to turn confrontation into dialogue, dialogue into understanding, and understanding into the effective resolution of conflicts. And you're right, I mean, we all have different opinions, but the ability to not judge, the ability to listen and understand and not make a judgment but rather respect that that's the person's point of view, and I can respect that. And remember, now, Doug, respect doesn't mean agreeing exactly. I disagree, and let me

30:07 explain why I disagree, and then even after that you can come to an agreement to disagree. But you're right, all of a sudden, when we talk about communication, you know, there's so much that goes into that, because there's there's number one, as you say, listening, Number two, asking curious type of questions to understand more, being willing to listen without judgment, and then also being able to explain and communicate. You know what you're hearing and is that what you really meant? Please help me to understand. And then when it's all said and done, eliminate that ego and realize that, you know what, Everyone's going to have their own personal opinion for whatever reason. But the point is is that we don't have to be unkind, we don't have to judge, we don't have to do any of those type of things, which I would assume then starts to resolve some of those conflicts.

31:10 Correct. Now, let me just I've come up with some when I'm in communication, when I'm trying to help people solve their problems, resolve their conflicts. I have traps to avoid for our listening audience. They should know about the traps to avoid. And you mentioned it earlier when you're dealing with your own children. And the first trap to avoid is the intent impact trap. Because it has an impact on you that's a negative or an adverse impact. Don't make the assumption that that was the intent. Always think about intent impact, what's the I know what you said to me, but I don't know what your intent was. I know what the impact was because I felt it, but I don't know what your intent was. So one of the things to think about as a trap to avoid is the intent impact trap.

32:09 The second I like to call the judgment assumption trap. And we oftentimes make assumptions and then we form judgments from those assumptions, and we may be way off base. We may make an assumption and then from that form a judgment and it may be totally not true. And the only way you can prevent or avoid that trap is by the kind of act of listening, asking questions, not making judgments, but learning, and when you go to a learning conversation, you can avoid that judgment assumption trap. And the last trap that I like to talk about to avoid is the binary trap, the either or either you're with me, are you're against me. Either you support Biden, support Trump, either you afar this policy, or you're against the policy.

33:07 And that's a trap because there are very oftentimes many different ways to look at things. It's not either off, but there are many different ways, and if you think about it, you can come up with, well, it doesn't have to be either off. I can actually look at find some other alternatives. Maybe there's a half a dozen, maybe there's a dozen, maybe there's twenty alternatives that I might be able to use. So I want to get away from that trap, and then I give tools to use. So every time I have this conversation, the tools to use one very key, being open minded. My second tool that I use in conversations curiosity. I'm curious, I truly want to know, I truly want to learn. That's my curiosity tool. And finally I have my empathy. I want to try to think about putting myself in the shoes of the other person. Those three tools are very helpful. In fact, when I talk about curiosity, I think it was Einstein that said curiosity is more important than almost anything to have a curious mind. That's why he did so many things and learned so many things because he was curious. Well, and that becomes key. So here's a question that comes in my mind, and this is something that I have asked myself with my podcasts and other things that I've done in my life.

34:39 You know, as I have personally reached a point in my life where I'm really focusing on trying to make a difference in other people's lives when I have an opportunity, obviously that's what you're doing. So the question is, how do you really change the world. How do you reach the piece people that are so angry, that are you know, and we're seeing it all the time now, how do we reach them to the point where you know, they will actually literally start to become aware of the issue and become curious enough and courageous enough to really do that introspective work and to learn that communication skills and the things that you're talking about. How do we do that to the point that we're literally going to make a difference. We do it by what we're doing right now. Were having a conversation that we're sharing with people that are listeners. We do that as often as we can in as many place as we can. Educating our children to educate their children. That's what the process is. The more people that start to use this process, the more we're going to get to a place where people are going to do it as a normal way of doing things, as opposed to fighting each other, because

36:10 nothing happens when people are in conflict, and conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing, because conflict is almost like friction. You need the little conflicts so people can work together. But we can learn the skills. We realize that it's not going to happen overnight. But if we keep talking about it, if we keep teaching it, and people start realizing it, it's more effective to get where we want to get, to make our lives richer, to make our lives fuller. That's what we have to keep doing. And the more we do it, the more people we teach, they can go on to teach other people the same skills that we're talking about. Now. Okay, so you mainly have been working with adults. I would assume with what you're doing. I'm going to ask you some questions now that go to one of the reasons that I actually was focusing for the last little while. I'm bullying is because I have observed that going on in some of my friends' lives with their children. And one of the things that I've asked different people, and I'm not sure I've totally got a resolution to this, but I'm a parent, and all of a sudden, I discover that one of my children are being bullied in school. How do I handle that and how do I approach that in a way that will number one, help my child to not really

37:47 experience that, but number two, to be able to approach the school to be able to approach the teacher, maybe even being able to approach the parents of the child that is bold. How do we do that in a way that we can literally start to change that situation That is universal not only in the business world, but also in the schools. I think that as parents we have to be really careful about being overprotective of our children, because if you're overprotective, sometimes it creates it doesn't create resilience, and sometimes if children are allowed to deal with conflict at a very early stage and solve the problems themselves. I know when I was growing up, my parents weren't around all the time. I would very oftentimes go out to play. I'd be in the playground with other kids, and we'd have our disagreements. In fact, there were times when we would have our fights and skirmishes, but we learned how to deal with them at our level, and it insulated us as we get older. And it's sort of like, you can't there's a difference between physical bullying and verbal or emotional bullying. If someone calls you a name and

39:24 it's a verbal bullying, you say, okay, if it's not true, then you don't have to really be concerned about it, we just ignore it. It's not an easy by any stretch of the imagination. But I think that the more we allow our children to deal with these issues as opposed to jumping in and serving as the helicopter parent. I think the more resilient we make our children, the stronger we almost inoculate them against being bullied, at least verbal bullying. If we explain to them the things that you and I are not talking about. Okay, Fred, you're talking from your environment, You're talking from your growing up and pattern. Okay. I am aware, totally aware personally of children that have been bullied to the point that they're ready to commit suicide and no level of you know, all right, business, you know, you can just be strong, you can just learn how to do this. What do those parents do when they have a child that is being bullied emotionally, not physically, but emotionally to the point where it is literally affecting the well being of that child. You know, as you direct people from a adult standpoint in business and so forth, and what you tell

40:59 them, how would you how would you take that and correlate that to talking to a parent whose child is not resilient and who is emotionally just really being bullied to the point that they're they're getting to a point that we don't even want to talk about. How do you how do you advise those parents to help that child to start to experience a different experience. It's very difficult once the child has get to a certain age. If the child at a very early age is given put in in in not serious risky situations, but in putting risky situations, and learns to cope. I I know it's a tough, tough topic. I don't like the bullying inter of I'm a victory.

42:00 You've bullied me, so I'm a victim, you're a perpetrator, and people that don't do anything about it are bystanders. I mean, those are the three parts of bullying. You've got the perpetrator who's probably he has been bullied and has had a terrible upbringing to be in that situation. Bullies are really children that have been abused in one way or another. You don't become a bully unless you've been taught, unless you've been abused yourself. I agree. Uh, Now, then you start to attack the bully, and then he becomes the perpetrator, and then you've got the victim, who is the person being bullied. The trick is too And there's a there's a colleague of mine, and maybe you should have a conversation with my college who has a program that changes bullies into buddies. He has an approach which essentially says, Okay, we are going to teach how to change bullies into buddies, and I'm gonna I'll give you the information that he asked me. Yeah, please have him connect with me, and that would be great. He has been doing this for years and he can explain it in a way better than I can explain it, because that's all he does is teaches children not to consider themselves

43:36 to be victims and to teach them how to be resilient and to take the person who has been a perpetrator, who we call bullies or has been labeled as a bully, to teach the bully different skills so that he doesn't become a bully, rather that he learns new skills. Of course, it's difficult when you grew up in an environment where you have been bullied, you've been abused as a child, it's very difficult for you to change from that pattern of behavior to a patent of behavior where you're going to learn how to work together with the person you've just bullied. Yes, and you know that can be a great conversation, So I would look forward to that connection. So as Fred, let's go back now to the original conversation that we had.

44:35 We as we're closing, if you were to come up with a succinct message that you'd like to share with the audience in less than a minute, what would that message be? Okay, I'm going to give you six mindful remain reminders. These are things Number one, bias effects our opinions. Emotions impact our decisions. Everyone. We are all different and unique. We see things through our own filtering lens. You can't change anyone's opinion. And finally, you choose how to respond if someone insults you, you can choose how to respond. Wonderful man, those are such important messages, Fred, thanks for being on the show. This has been a fascinating conversation. Thanks for having me and I will definitely have him get in touch with you well, that would be great. And folks, thanks for listening. I hope this is make a difference. Fred, how do they find your book, reaching common Ground. Reaching common ground, you can find it wherever books are sold, Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Anywhere there are books you'll find common you'll be able to find each in common ground. Wonderful folks, thanks for listening.

46:04 I hope you'll join us again soon. It'll make your life better