171 | Navigating Difficult Conversations with Neuroscience & Compassion with Dr. David Campt
Our guest today on the pod is Dr. David Campt. With more than 25 years of professional experience, Dr. David Campt is considered a national expert in the areas of inclusion and equity, cultural competency, and intergroup dialogue. His clients have included the US Military, the White House, large corporations, universities, governments and national associations and non-profits.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Dr. David Campt Awarepreneurs Interview
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, David Campt
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode I do a deep dive interview with the thought leader in this intersection, someone who has market tested experience and is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce today's guests and our topic, I got one request. If you could go to iTunes or whatever app and you're listening to the show on do a rating and review it helps tremendously. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Dr. David camp. And our topic is navigating difficult conversations with neuroscience and compassion. With more than 25 years of professional experience, Dr. David Kamp is considered a national expert in the areas of inclusion and equity competence, and intergroup dialogue. His clients have included the US military, the White House, huge corporations, universities, governments, and national associations and nonprofits. David, welcome to the show. Great to be here. thrilled to have you here. What a timely, timely topic in so much polarization and so much need for meaningful conversation and seeing some examples of not very respectful conversation. I can't imagine a more timely topic. Thanks for making time for us. Sure. So we're called we're we're printers, David. And before we get into, like, how you do this work, one of the ways we get to know somebody, because we like to ask you about a wellness or an awareness, or a resiliency practice that you do to bring your best self and be in these conversations that are really important, but not easy, day after day, week, after week.
David Campt 01:49
So a lot of times, I've had to go for a walk in the morning. And I often will think about people who, who I care about who are older than me who are going to die. And I think about them being in a casket. And me saying goodbye to them. So for my mom, I did that my mom and my dad, and I just live with my dad. And sometimes I do it with friends of mine, and then there's always a special guest star. So then that ends with me, because so part of what I'm trying to do is to use it as a as a practice of appreciation. So for example, you should think about, like, there'll be some day in which I'm doing that, that practice where my mom would have just died. And then someday my dad would have just died, or what my various friends and so after all that I can be grateful that, that that day, when I'm doing it, I'm walking this after they die, it's not today, so I can be I focus on the gratitude for today. Because that day, it's not this other day, that's going to be really bad. And then the purpose of it is to, of course, connect myself to the, you know, the reality of how life comes and goes through us. And also the fact that it's important to be grateful for the day that we have.
Paul Zelizer 03:06
There's so much wisdom in many spiritual traditions about how when we're in right relationship with death, and we're not pretending that we're going to be here forever. We live much more quality lives, don't we? Mm hmm. What a beautiful pair. Thank you. So this work about neuroscience and compassion and difficult conversations like because that would you've always done when you were like seven years old? Did you say I want to do that for a living?
Paul Zelizer 03:37
So how do you get into this work? Right?
David Campt 03:39
Right. So I think that the core a core early experience, had to do with me waking up one evening. And one night, I'm hearing noises and I go out in my living room, my mom is crying. And I asked her what she's crying about. And she tells me that she really is unhappy. She doesn't like the way my dad talks to her. And she wishes it was different. And so we talk about that for a little bit. And of course, I wasn't necessarily happy with how they talk to each other. And so at some point, I was like, No, almost no divorce was so I said a lot, but maybe, maybe, maybe why don't you think about getting divorced if you're just unhappy. And I knew that it was weighty to even bring that up and keep proposing a breakup of a family. Uh, so she didn't want to do that. But I knew that it was a weighty thing to even suggest that as a child, so but I think that that moment kind of solidified my interest in the question of how people talk to each other better so they can be happier. So that's on the one hand, I'm on the same time I was, uh, I was in like, fourth or fifth grade, something like that. And so we were I was in my, you know, social studies course. And my teacher Mr. And find who in fact is still alive today. I just discovered him on Facebook. So Mr. Fine used to. He used to like to tell us as he teaching us about other cultures, and we're the way we learn more about them is through Can you believe in something called the encyclopedia? I'm not sure people remember that.
Paul Zelizer 05:16
What is the thing you're talking about? Why is that? I remember that in the living room. We had them up on the Yes. Over the couch. Yes. We
David Campt 05:24
all said of them. Yeah. So as he's guiding us in our cyclopedia research about different cultures that we were talking about, he would always try to remind us, you know, you know, people are more alike than they are different. He was sometimes actually make us say that as a group. So, so there's that. But I think what he was doing was to try to get us to not reflect the conflicts that were happening in the in the Detroit area around that time, the early 70s. We had a court case, that wasn't always the Supreme Court decided five for about about busing, and forced busing with the white folks, folks in the area not wanting to have black kids bused from Detroit to their suburban area. And so there was a lot there was conflicts around who was going to be the mayor, I remember the first black American elected. So basically, it was clear to me that people, those people were not talking to each other, well, the adults in our lives, we're not talking to each other well. So on the one hand, I had that in my own personal family. And I also had that I was watching that on the news. And so I think I became intrigued at that. But in that experience, by the notion of how can people talk to each other better, so they can have a better experience and work more collaboratively and be happier? So why didn't know anything about neural science?
Paul Zelizer 06:35
When did you start finding out about neuroscience and this whole kind of burgeoning field of compassion business and organizations like talk to us a little bit more?
David Campt 06:45
Yeah, my commit my I was a dialogue person way before I was a neuroscience person. So my, so just to be clear about that, my understanding of neuroscience and what and, and I'm not gonna be trading my understanding of super deep, right, I'm more of a dialogue person who has recently learned that some of the reasons that dialogue works are grounded neuroscience, I'm not, I'm not a neuroscience person, this, just clarify that. So. So I, what I just told you was the background of me becoming interested in the question of how people talk to each other. So that was happening even as a child. And then by the time I got to graduate school, I started studying issues related to cultural differences. And that that still is grounded in my experience in Detroit and looking at how different cultural groups conceptualize, you know, what they should be doing, how government operates, government, agencies should operate with respect to them. That's what I started as a PhD student. But I became interested in that point. And in like, the quality of how people talk to each other on race relations issues, I was a assistant, like a, like a TA, like a teaching assistant for this course, that was basically a dialogue course with quite a 14 students from all five racial groups, talking every week for three hours is about, you know, their racial racial issues we have sometimes that guest speakers was mostly us talking, and not my job was work with the, with the lead with the lead teacher who was not like a, he was a he ran a, a civic engagement institution like a volunteering institution. And that's where this class happened. He was with UC Berkeley. And so our job and through that whole process, I learned, like the importance of facilitating conversation and creating, creating a space for people to talk that was inviting, but still invited them to look deeper at themselves, and and perhaps, open up the possibility of collaboration or common ground. So just so I'm just trying to really be as transparent and nice as possible. So from there I did, I started using dialogue as a means to pursue the question of cultural competence in social service delivery and how people conceptualize their social service work. And you know, what, what do black social workers know about black people that their white comrades don't know? And how do they conceptualize that knowledge? And then how do they even talk about that in a useful way? Well, then from there, I went to work for the White House. President Clinton had this initiative on race project that was about dialogue. Oil is one of the things about dialogues also about policy change, and a couple other things. And they hired one person who would tell about dialogue and all that was me, which is crazy for a staff of 40. They'll have one person with a main pillar of the project. And one person who knew about that was is ridiculous, but that was that's what happened. And then, from there, I started working after that, and I started working on this I spent a lot of time on a project group with a group called America speaks was no longer exists was did a lot of large scale dialogue. But all the time I'm thinking about how this dialogue work. So just to be clear, it is only in the past few years when I've translated some of that skill to the white ally toolkit which is a project of the Dialogue company as my company's name, where I began to think about, okay, if I'm going to try to help a white folks have better conversation with each other about racial issues. How do I capture what are dialogic principles, and to persuade them to do them. And so one of the things that I discovered in the course of trying to put that together was it there's there's a, there's neuroscience around, like how you structure a conversation to make it more likely that it's an effective conversation about heart issues. So it is through it is late, relatively late in my career as a dialogue professional, that I became somewhat aware of neuroscience behind it.
Paul Zelizer 10:34
I love this, he like figured out how to engage sometimes at scale people in really hard conversations and do it effectively. And then you found some science that helped you kind of understand what was happening there. Sometimes I see people study the silence, but they can't actually have the meaningful conversation in a polarized environment. So if I was going to vote for one I'd rather like do it on the ground, and then learn how to explain it, as opposed to like, have all these great concepts, but you can't embody it. So just I celebrate the path you took. So after decades of experience, like help us first David, think about what are some of those key structures or guidelines that can help people have effective conversations about really contentious polarized topics like race and other very polarized topics that we're seeing so much of? And then I want to ask you about explaining the science but first, just like what have you learned decades of experience at like the highest level? How do we get better at structuring hard conversations?
David Campt 11:41
Sure. So the two basic principles. So the first principle is that you want to shift the conversation of ground from beliefs and concepts, beliefs, concepts, and quote unquote, facts, to storytelling. So we can we can talk about the why on that in a minute. But that's a that's a, that's a critical thing to do, if you're trying to create a better conversation is to shift the conversational ground from beliefs and concepts and facts, facts and quotes. They're to storytelling and experiences. And if you can't do that storytelling experiences and maybe values, what sort of experiences are better than values? So that's one basic principle. Second basic principle is that ABC, agree before challenging. So if you're trying to have a effective connecting conversation with somebody, and maybe even influence them, you want to agree with them, before you try to challenge them. So what that means is you focus your energy on common ground, before you try to invite new thinking out of them. So those are two core principles, or the two core principles that drive the method that I teach to people. So I think they may be most useful. I can tell I can try that method. We can talk neuroscience behind the method, but I could, how you could do it. Either way.
Paul Zelizer 13:09
Yeah. Can you give us some examples? I love what you're saying. These are the methods and like, help us like, give us some examples. What does it look like? And somebody saying like, here's a story, or here's an experience, rather than let me tell you about my beliefs. And particularly that second one agreed before challenging, I love that. I love that. I think I might have a sense our listeners are with us. But I want to make sure they're getting this and some examples.
David Campt 13:35
All right. Sure. Okay, so let's, I'll give you I'll walk you through two examples at once you leave your listener very smart. So in the I'll give you the big picture. So when I'm talking to giving people to talk about racial issues, I call the method the race method. And race stands for reflect, ask, connect, expand. When I'm when I'm teaching people this when it's not about racial issues. I call it the reach method, which stands for reflect, inquire, agree, confess and harmonize. But it's essentially the same method. So what I want to do now is to walk through two different conversations at once, and you can see how the method might work. Okay, so so let's say somebody says, one of the things I'm doing now, and we're doing now is trying to encourage people to get other people to vote through something called a personal network canvassing, that's where basically you talk to people in your circle of contacts, and you try to get you try to find out where they are on the election. And since since 40% of Americans don't vote, that's 100 million people. Everybody knows people who don't vote, even if you don't know they don't vote right now. So we need to be all thinking about trying to get more Americans to vote. Oftentimes, oh people because we're so polarized and we don't talk about politics. People don't even talk about that because they're afraid that conversation will be disconnected because people get get mad when people don't vote. So want to talk about is like it suppose that there's somebody that you Find out is not by the voter and you are a voter. So that's confidence, number one. Number two, is suppose somebody says that you are a person who, you know, you have a different racial view than somebody that it turns out that 55% of white folks don't think that racism against people of color merits more attention to racism against white people. So that means 55% of white folks are what I call racism skeptics. So the goal of one of my projects is to empower the 45% to have better conversation with the 55%. So they can be they can shift that number. So let's suppose that one of those races of skeptic says, You know, I don't know why people have as wild as protesting happens, because everybody knows if you just act right, with a when the police counter you, you'll be treated fairly. Right. So you got two different things, right. One, in one case you got I don't think I want a vote. And the second one, you got people just act right. He wasn't claimed by the police. Because if he does act, right, that's not a problem. How would you deal with that? Okay, so first thing I do, remember this ray, step into the race method, the reach method, they both start with reflect, which means calm yourself down, because a whole lot of people, because part of what happens is people get so upset, like they can't believe why saying some quote unquote, so stupid, or it makes them mad or so racist, that they get like way off center, they get way agitated, and they want to attack them, and they will and then they either attack them, or they avoid the conversation because they know they will attack them. So calm yourself down. So reflect stepped is that's what that's about. Right? So it's about relaxed, like, you know, it's useful if you have thought about like, what do I need to do to relax? So you know, I'm sure that you know about, like, let me ask you this question. So I'm not just talking here. When you're in a tense situation, do you have any techniques you do to relax yourself? When you go? You're not need to relax right now. You may go do it in the moment, go to the bathroom. Do you have anything like that?
Paul Zelizer 16:57
Yeah, totally. David. Yeah, great question. And some vocab, I'll tell you. Yes. And just some vocabulary from my mentors. We talked about take care of your own your nervous system first, right? Somebody who's highly agitated or just highly activated, is not likely to dialogue as well. And people can feel that when we're really you know, right or why our human nervous systems are like, oh, Paul is pissed. I'm like, wanting to get out of here. And I'm not listening. Well, because Paul's pissed. So yes, what a great first step and what do you what? woody? It's a couple things breath awareness. Just like back to the breath. All right, like I'm mad. Um, this person said something I'm really upset about it, you know? Oh my god. I can't believe that Campo I was literally my whole family last night was text banking with for Joe Biden as a Jewish family. And these times, that's one of the things we're doing together and you're not even voting. Oh my god, I'm so upset. You could you know, exactly right. Become the breath. Take a deep breath. Okay. Just like, you know, use the breath test center.
David Campt 18:01
There you go. Okay, that's it. That's a classic one, right? Some people, some people do like a whole body relaxation thing. They start with their toes and ankles and you know, body scan
Paul Zelizer 18:09
me they call it.
David Campt 18:10
Exactly. So that's also part of reflect can be relaxed. Right? So then the second step for reflect. I mean, that's that's that's critical. Second step might be rekindle rekindle your compassion for the person, right? So you might think about them as a think about them as a five year old child. Well think about them. And think about something you admire about them. But the point is to fill your heart up with like, positive compassion, energy and positive energy, so reflect rekindle and then remember, you are managing conversation, you're not just trying to relax you you actually because because we don't necessarily think of ourselves as managing conversations. We sometimes we do, but a lot of times we don't. But if you're trying to be effective, you want to it's useful to remember Okay, I'm gonna I'm relaxed. I'm remember I've done something to remember to rekindle my capacitor this person, and I'm gonna go Yeah, yes, I managed this conversation. I just reacted react. That's reflect right? Okay? Now enquire. Right? And on the on the race method, it's ask in the resource, it's inquire. But basically, the point is to ask questions, right? So somebody says something that you disagree with, what you need to do is to not just not tell them they're wrong, and not tell them how you think about it. But ask them about, like, what they think and why they think that and moreover, what some experience that is related to that. So because remember, remember, I said you want to go beneath astronaut values is fine, but best is to ask about experiences. So they say, um, they said, the thing about the police you go, that's injured. That's what you were looking at that you've calmed yourself down, you say, Tell me the experience that you had, that makes you know, that's true. So you're not combating with them. You're not telling them they're wrong. You just ask them for an experience. Okay. So then go back the other conversation, they say that they don't want it. They're not thinking they're voting. So you say, Oh, that's interesting. I mean, I'd like to know some exposure in the past that lets you know that voting is probably not A useful thing to do. But again, you're trying to ask for experiences. So you basically it's a Tell me a story is you trying to get them to tell you a story? Again, we'll talk about a little bit we'll talk
Paul Zelizer 20:09
about I want to talk about the neuroscience of stories, because there's so much.
David Campt 20:14
Yeah, okay, well, let me there we go now, but yes,
Paul Zelizer 20:16
keep going. Keep going. But I'm just highlighting Oh, we're gonna come back to that one. Yeah.
David Campt 20:20
So each of those, each of those is so in each step. And whether it's enquire or called Ask, you're asking them to tell you a story tell you, you should remember I said, your shift the ground from beliefs, to experiences, this is shifting the ground, right? You're asking them, you're going up, you're asking them questions to try to get them to tell you a story. And they might tell you something about, you know, they wrote the they what they heard on conservative media or some other media, maybe not conservative media, about voting doesn't matter, or that racism doesn't exist. But he might gently say, you know, even if you don't like the immediate, you might say, that's interesting that you take immediate, it's great that you're paying attention, but I bet you wouldn't believe everything, would you believe that it didn't have some resonance with your experience, you redirect them back to tell you a story. Okay. So in these cases, you've shifted the ground to that they tell you a story. Okay. So now, next next is either in the race method is connect and the reach method, it's agree and confess. So basically, what you want to do at this point is to go for the common ground, you want to find, you want to let them know that you accept them. And you have some sort of some alignment with them. And so getting in the agree step, right. So you want to work in the races Connect, you want to make the you want to feel you want to make them feel like I'm not different than you, I'm not judging you. I'm not challenging you right now. I'm trying to connect with you and find common ground. And it's best to do that through a story. So agreeing confessed means you give them the support and agreement, but you also confess a story that conveys that you understand you're not just telling them you agree to tell them you're lying, but you show them through a story. And the next step is you tell a story. So for example, in this case, somebody tell in their in the race case, in the ass step, they've told you about some, you know, I let me tell you about this thing to happen. I was I was this what they said that they I was, um, I was in a part of my town to help the homeless people. And there was a white cop, and there was clearly kind of a mentally deranged black person. And he was kind of aggressive and, and I was just the way that I just watched how the cop approached this person and calmed him down, and, and ultimately helped the person right. So that just that just shows that there's no problems around racial issues, white people complaining, so they tell you their personal experience of that observation. So you while you do think racism is real, and you're glad that happened? You might say, you know, that's interesting story reminds me of a story and you tell them about some good cop encounter that you had or witnessed, especially one that you had, right? Because you have some even though you think that racism is a real thing, you don't think that racism dominates every interaction between cops and beliefs. So you tell them about some good cop encounter? Right? And it might even be across racial situation, but you tell them that you read you agree that there's there are good cops out there. So you tell them you're good cop story. So that's on the cop on the cop one on the voting one. They tell you that they they're not going to vote because
Paul Zelizer 23:14
there's never candidates that they agree like candidates are ranked anyway. And yeah, no, it's so hard because I like the soul wish for better candidates. And I'm really frustrated too. Right. Right.
David Campt 23:26
Okay, so then you then you tell them about some story in which you don't have to be wrong voting. You tell about some story in which you felt the system was rigged, like you were disempower. You tell them a disempowerment story that has the least has some resonance with the why they're disempowered. So if they told you that they'll have enough information, tell him some information. You felt this in power, because you didn't have enough information, or it was all rigged, whatever it is, but the point is to tell them a story that basically says, I don't think you are crazy, right? I have been where you are, or even sometimes and where you are. So basically, you're meeting them on the grounds of at the heart level, at the on the grounds of like, I know what you're talking about, you're not completely a foreign or an idiot to me, but you tell them a story about your own feeling disempowerment, which might not be about voting for elections might be about how you felt disempowered from, from some club you are in or some community you are in doesn't have to necessarily be about voting, it's fine. It is, but it's fine, if it's okay, if it's not so. So the point is, you now are conveying a story that helps them align with you. And so if they know Okay, this person is not looking down on me, this person has been where I am, so they get me and that's that you're building your connection and rapport. Okay, so you've done that in, in these two examples I'm making, you've done it on both sides. And it's only after you do all of that after you hear from them. If you connect with them with the story, then you try to invite them to a different place through a story. So in the in the race case, you might talk about You know, you have a you have a friend, who, you know, a lot of people have, you know, even if they'll get one or two black friends, often those friends have had, like difficult friends with the police. So you know, you tell them about your black friend who is currently getting stopped by the cops, or you tell them about your your friend who was who is who does extra work to give their sons to talk so that they they can survive a cop encounter, or they talk about some you talk about some encounter you had with the cops were like, you know, the cops gave you like a big break? Do you think it was unlikely that the cops would have given that to less like the cops have given that to a black person. So you invite them to the possibility that maybe racism Israel. Now going back to the other case and the voting situation, you tell them about it said you can tell them how you got out of that disempowered state in that situation. Or maybe tell them some other situation in which you, you decided for some set of reasons that you were going to actively engage the social setting or the institutional setting that you're in, and it produced a positive outcome, right? And so it's the you try to basically invite them to think differently by telling them a story about how you thought differently, right? So anyway, I hope there's not been too confusing, but
Paul Zelizer 26:18
no, that's been really helpful.
David Campt 26:20
So the point is, is that there's a method to try to, there's a method that has a better chance of working and what you want people doing right now, which is they go right to expand and tell people how they run, they go right to the last step. And that is correct people. So part of the whole notion here is you want to go for the connection energy before you go for the correction energy. And people don't necessarily do that they go right to tell them telling people how they're wrong, how to think and wrong, and they need to be different. And that doesn't, that tends to not be as influential.
Paul Zelizer 26:50
Beautiful, thanks for sharing those examples, David, really, really helpful. So let's do this. Let's take a quick break and hear from our sponsor. When we come back, I want to hear like how this works and some of the scale that you're doing it, David, and how you have a social enterprise based on dialogue and neuroscience and compassion. Before we do that, just a quick word to say, where printers is a member supported podcast. And in particular, one of the things we've been getting a lot of great feedback on is our podcast success team. podcasting is an incredible way to if you have something that's about making the world a better place, and also working and making a living at it and growing it. podcasting is a fabulous way to do it. whichever side on the mic you want to be whether you want to be a guest, like David is saying or whether you want to host your own podcast or do like me, I do both. How do you use podcasting, which is one of the most relational ways of being in the marketplace ever come across, and how to use it effectively, and compassionately to grow your values based impact business. That's what we do. We have monthly master classes, we have a q&a call every month, we'll help you find podcasts that are aligned. If you want to be a guest, we'll help you launch a podcast, what microphone do you need? And how do you work on editing the sound and getting in the music and getting it on iTunes, all of that, for the kind of businesses that we're talking about on this podcast. That's what our podcast success team is all about. So if you're interested, go take a look at where printers.com forward slash podcast dash success. Thanks for the podcast success team and everything you do to sponsor this podcast. So David, in the second part of the show, I like to joke about putting on our entrepreneur glasses. Right? So you're a social entrepreneur, you're doing this work, and it's called the dialogue company, right? So it's not just dialogue in and of itself. You're a huge fan of dialogue, but you're also doing it in a container of social enterprise. Talk to us a little bit. Like how do you bring these things together? Dialogue, neuroscience and compassion. I want to come back to some of the neuroscience and compassion. But I want to make sure we touch on this is a social enterprise. How does it work as a social enterprise and become the dialog company?
David Campt 29:19
Right? Well, there's two aspects of that. So as somebody who's been doing diversity, equity inclusion work for a while, part of it is to provide services around that to none other nonprofits, companies, universities, foundations, etc. Right? So what does that look like? So that looks like sometimes it looks like speeches, right? That give keynote speeches that are designed to inspire people around the capacity for, for them to be agents of dialogue, because we can all do that. That's important to inspire people around that. Sometimes. My task is to um, To teach is to help people convene a dialogue. So like I told you, I used to work for this group called American speaks, which went around the world, providing dialogue experiences. So you know, as an example, I was I once was the leader, co leader of a meeting of 2500 people about the redevelopment of New Orleans. So there are 1300 people in the world as an It was like 500, or 400, in Houston, and some in Atlanta. And so it was all connected. Like it was like a $10 million meetings, pretty fancy meeting, too, because the goal was to try to establish priorities for the redevelopment so that the normal level of corruption they have in New Orleans wouldn't happen, because the people will have spoken, right. So, um, but the point is, is that I, since I've had that experience of convening dialogue at scale, but you know that America's reason longer exist, I still know how to do that. So part of what I can do, is to provide that log experiences for for institutions or community. So that's one, so that I'm giving keynotes to inspire, or I'm delivering a dialogue experience, or I'm trying to build a larger capacity. So I'm trying to train people so that they themselves can be as an institution, they can be as a dialogue, or have more dialogue within their setting to
Paul Zelizer 31:23
train the trainer approach.
David Campt 31:25
Exactly. So So those are three inspire people deliver a dialogue or build capacity for that. So that's that. So that's at that level now. But also, that's at the almost like the business to business aspect. But there's also sort of a consumer side. So, you know, we have various resources that people can access, much of those are in the realm of the white ally toolkit, or the people talking about racial issues. So in that I have several books that I've written several handbooks that are available on a dial company comm or on there also on Amazon, but of course, if you buy on Amazon, you're given Jeff Bezos, more than half the money but but anyway, you can do
Paul Zelizer 32:09
that I'd rather the money go to david, please just
David Campt 32:14
get a PT you got a PDF from us, and it's a fine PDF, right. So So anyway, that so one way of access people access to the material is that they buy a book, right? Another way is that we have some video courses we have a race with a one on one video course where people come to our website, and then they access the the course we're actually integrating our our sites, the dialogue company comm and white ally toolkit comm believe you can get to the race method one on one courses certainly on while I took it, we're in the process right now of integrating those websites. So again, Ray Smith, the alchemy calm and what am I talking about calm and the race method course, which is a was a self paced video course. And then we also have these cohorts that we do, we we sort of online classes, I guess, back in the real world, I say there's one time workshops, I use a love of words up because
33:09
I really am.
David Campt 33:13
But But our substitute for now is under the covert world is to do workshops that are typically last three or four sessions and they last like 90 minutes per session. And there's homework in between and people on a learning platform. And the truth is, is that as much as I missed those in person meetings, part of me thinks that people will actually learn at a deeper level with the kind of extended contact have been like three or four meetings where people have homework, and we have we get together on zoom. And then even even that there's sometimes work breaks down to small groups. So there's a high there's a high level learning that actually takes place on that. So what I'm trying to describe is that there's different ways of relating to the material, right, you can buy a book, you can look at a video itself a video series, or you can join a cohort that we typically start whenever once every couple every other month, where people can be in a group with other people. And there's still gonna be homework in between, but they're also interacting with us alive on the two meanings to again, and getting the benefit of group learning that can happen in that setting.
Paul Zelizer 34:12
A lot, multiple streams of revenue,
David Campt 34:15
multiple, multiple ways we try to make ourselves resources and provide value for people.
Paul Zelizer 34:21
And just to give if somebody is newer, and you know, that's quite an extensive set of offerings, congratulations on building such a rich body of work. It just gives somebody a sense, David, that how long you been at this, like how long has the dialogue company been up and running?
David Campt 34:39
Well, okay, so I've been doing consulting since, you know, since I was a graduate student back in the 90s. And then it became a little more official after I left the White House in the year 2000. But the dial company, so I, I formalized that like two years ago, but I mean, I was already doing that, like sort of rebranded myself I was doing consulting work. For a long time anyway, so it's not, it would be inaccurate to say I just started two years ago, right, let's
Paul Zelizer 35:04
say 20 years of consulting and then you've rebranded it and yes way, so 20 years to build a company into this point, just reference point for our lives. Thank you so much for. That's fabulous. So we'll put a link to all those different offers to website that workbooks cohorts, all that stuff in the show notes make it easy for you to find it.
35:24
Okay, thank you.
Paul Zelizer 35:26
So, as somebody who's been at this work for a long time, and now you're like, you've been doing the dialogue, like we were saying earlier, and now one of the things I just love, David, you're practicing continuous learning, you've got a PhD, you've worked at the White House, you've worked in these huge companies, go check it out, listeners, the list of who David and his team have worked with pretty impressive, right, you could easily put your feet on the table and say, Okay, I'm done, right coffee table, like, just, I'm gonna just teach my thing. And we've all seen it, like those folks who get their body of work and get their spiel down. And then they like, you know, kind of stay there. And there's something about the way you're continuously learning. And I'm particularly excited. It includes neuroscience and compassion, and just how generous you were to share that and like high five for being a continuous learner, and tell us what you're learning. That's such a fabulous, like, you learned and you unpacked and there's more resources about the dialogue part. And thank you for that. And now tell us what you're learning about the science part of it in the neuroscience part about why this stuff, we're
David Campt 36:34
sure, so I'm part of the reason that you want to shift the conversation from facts to stories, is because of something called the backfire effect. And the backfire effect, basically, is this phenomenon, where I think it's a worldwide phenomenon. And certainly, it's true in the West these days. Whereas if you basically if you try to challenge somebody deeply held beliefs, with facts, basically, that in an overall majority of cases, what they do is double down on their beliefs. And this has been shown in the hundreds of studies where, if you, you know, you put you put people under MRI machine, for example. And then you they declare that candidate is and you show them a videotape of their candidate comes in themselves, the same part of their brain that lights up when they're under physical threat lights up when they're under a logical threat. So, so it is not surprising that given that response in our brain, that what we do is we're not going to easily shift because, you know, ultimately, we're, you know, we've evolved over hundreds of years to like, protect what we put to protect what we know. And so we have a group identity associated with some fat with some ideas, and that gets attacked, we want to protect that right? And we want to further coalesce to the group and, and reject
Paul Zelizer 37:59
it's really survival kind of stuff, isn't it? into that part of the brand,
David Campt 38:03
right, the whole fight, flight or freeze situation, but we don't adapt easily. We don't change though that look at that information, right? I guess I guess what I believed all this time to connect me to this group was wrong. That's not what typically happens. There are some people who are something called scientifically curious where they get information from that contradicts what they believe they will adapt their beliefs. But that's like less than a quarter of the people and this by the way, it's the before you liberals get high and mighty is the same for conservatives and liberal right that the the small parts of people who are scientifically curious. So basically, if you if you're really trying to persuade somebody, you want to manage the conversation in a way that you're not manifesting, you're not you're not generating the backfire effect. So that's one, that's one. That's the reason why that principle of shift the conversational ground from facts and beliefs to stories is that's one reason for that. Now, there's also the case I kind of mentioned is that because we have a background as tribal beings, um, there's a way in which when people are attacking our views, we view them as other right, we view them as like, they don't we don't like them, because they're they we perceive them as in another group. And so it sort of it taps into our inherent tribalism. And so so that's that we, there's, we're at risk of that anyway. So we're trying to what we're trying to do is to try to mitigate those impacts. So in addition to not talking about things at the level of facts and beliefs, we want to make an extra effort we're trying to persuade somebody to kind of reach out to them like some people don't even do like the basic connecting flattery, like, Hey, I have a shirt like that. Or you know, I have a grandson, two people beat people are so agitated. Remember, people don't relax, right? That's why we have a relaxed that reflects that. Because it's important. We're trying to persuade somebody that you try to fill them up or since which fill up the atmosphere with a sense that you are like them that you're different than them. They're already trying to change their views. They're already gonna look at you as different than them so you put extra effort into countering that So first of all, that makes sense. Oh, that'll make sense. Totally. But let me let me give you let me let me be, I want to this is not a sidetrack, but it's an enhancement. So, most of you, I would presume it I might say, I presume that most of your listeners are liberal side of me very
Paul Zelizer 40:17
much.
David Campt 40:20
Okay. So part of what I try to teach people about these people, is something called a moral framework theory. Have you ever heard of that?
Paul Zelizer 40:29
I have heard of it. I don't know what it is to be totally.
David Campt 40:33
So you remember the book. So I'll tell you. So this is what is most popularized by Jonathan Hite ha IDT, in the righteous mind was like a best selling New York Times for like a year. Nice. So basically, I'll try to give you a quick version. But let me give you the big picture is this part of what we thought it was important to do is if you're trying to reduce barriers with somebody and have them trust you and be more likely to have you influenced them, is you want to seem less other than them. And that might mean especially if you're a progressive, they're conservative, it's useful to find the conservative within you that you can bring up atmospherically in the conversation. So let me explain what that means. So basically, I'll try to this really quickly, your leadership as you're listening, super smart. So there was there was an liberals, there's five moral frameworks. And the one moral framework is the caring and harm framework. So what's the degree to which a decision or a group or a person is operating away that is caring versus harmful? Second is the more is a justice, fairness, justice, injustice framework? And what's the degree to which an act decision is made that reflects fairness or unfairness? Third is the authority framework wasn't really wit today that a decision is showing proper deference to authority? And what's the degree to which And the fourth is loyalty? What's the greatest it's a personal decision is showing proper recognition of group loyalty. And the last one is the purity of sanctity to mention what's the degree to which a person or decision is showing proper recognition of the duty to keep things in their purest state, right in their original state. Now part of what happens is that conservative liberal people tend to focus on first two dimensions, the the fairness and the caring dimension, whereas 30 people tend to focus on the last three, or at least all five, but they don't overly focus on the first two like liberals do. So the reason we'll do that is because part of what is important to do, we usually do if you're a, a progressive person, is to try to let the person know that you have some conservative parts within you. So there's certain things that you might that there are certain aspects of yourself that admire authority you might have, like the authority of science of scientific leaders, right of scientists, or you might there's, you have loyalty to you might the fact that you're a big fan of your sports team, right? Part of what people are looking for is some signal that you are either like them, or unlike them. And so part of the reason I'm going through this more frameworks thing, is because if you're trying to connect with somebody and make them make yourself out to not be a member of the other tribe, it is useful to spend some energy trying to say, How can I let this person know, especially if they're conservative, I'm a progressive, but I'm not totally different than them. So So my point is that you can do that through things like flattery, like, I like your shirt, or I also have a grandson or these deeper issues, which are all signals that I'm not totally other than you. So hope that hope that makes sense. Totally
Paul Zelizer 43:38
does. And again, we'll put the book in the show notes, the link to the book. Thank you for that.
David Campt 43:42
Well, yes, you can go by Jonathan h book, but you also buy my book and you buy your vote. Yeah.
David Campt 43:46
My book is called compassion transforms contempt. Okay, that book is highly Tell me for this election, because I wrote that book, because I wanted to, I felt the need to write something that was trying to encourage progressive people to, to stop getting so mad. And to start something so contentious, let me do the subtitle of my book is a black dialog experts advice for white progressives, on down revving anger, creating connections and maybe changing the world. So part of what I'm trying to do is to get get your white folks to stop getting so upset and to get compassionate, not contemptuous. Because part of what's going on with this election and part of what's going on in our country. Part of what's going on, is that why progressive people get so upset and so agitated and so contemptuous in their interactions with conservative people, it actually drives that it drives that support for like a conservative causes that's we we tend not to like write or because of people we tend not to like so part of what I'm trying to encourage people to do, and is to is to combat That. Okay, so it's only way there's other neuroscience, I want to just make sure we cover totally. So,
Paul Zelizer 45:07
First of all, what a great title of your book fabulous title, by the way. So what
David Campt 45:11
next was for that? So um, so. So I've talked about the need to fight tribalism by showing similarity, I've talked about the need to fight the backfire effect by talking about telling stories, but not just using facts. So why do you tell stories we tell when we sell stories, because of something called mirror neurons, mirror neurons are parts of our brain, or at least it's unclear what parts of our brain or whether it's just a phenomenon in our in our brain, probably parts of our brain, that basically, our brain likes to line up with other people what we think of other people's states in their brain if we're connected to them. So we've all seen that, right? We see the person on the movie first in the movie, and the character movie has some bad habit we cry, right? Then we were lined up with them, or sometimes we, you know, I might my mirror neuron thing is really fired up when other people cry. So that's the movie. So people are crying, I start crying, I don't even know why they cry. So, and we've seen that with laughter, yawning. So that whole thing exists. So part of we want to do try to use for telling stories, because stories are much better at finding out people's mirror neurons than other ways of communicating. So we can so we want to convey our similarity to a person or the view that we want to invite them to through stories, because telling that they'd be they like, line themselves up with us, and we tell a good story. And then First, we tell the story that's connecting the idea Connect step or the confessed step, because we want them to connect to us at an emotional level, right? It's almost at a brains brain level. So they feel like you they're like us. We're like them. They feel that before we tell them some other story, that but basically, we try to, we were trying to leverage the mirror neurons to have them imagine that they are us and that they will come to some different conclusion about the cops or about the election. Right? So we're trying to use the power of story to fire up those mirror neurons to be more influential with them. Not all making say it's totally
Paul Zelizer 47:09
making sense. Totally making sense. Thanks so much for sharing all that, David, really appreciate it. So let me ask you this. We were talking a little bit as we're recording this episode. We're two days three days past the first election between Donald Trump in the first person I'm sorry, first debate. Did I say sorry? clickbait first election. Sorry, I'm dyslexic first debate. And it was not exactly a respectful and lots of practicing your race acronyms.
47:42
With acronyms.
Paul Zelizer 47:44
Our acronym. dyslexia is awful on today. Wow. Sorry. Yes, sir. So, you know, there's a lot of interrupting a lot of polarization, a lot of accusations, right. And here you are doing this work in this time in this moment, by the time this goes live, we'll have several other debates likely. And like, what's on your radar in this moment, David, and how your work around dialogue fits into this polarization is maybe particularly poignant here in the US, but we're seeing it all around the world. And we're seeing, you know, fascism and authoritarian governments, you know, or people who are at least wanting to go that way. In a way we haven't in many, many, many years. Like, how are you thinking about dialogue right here right now.
David Campt 48:42
So one of the things that the the awful debate raises is the difference between dialogue and debate itself. So here's what I would say. And my all my work is focused on having people be in dialogue with each other. But because I think dialogue is a period where people communicating now, in terms of terms of elections, we need debate, because we're trying to sharpen our understanding of candidates. So one way of characterizing the difference between dialogue and debate is debate, that debate setting you focused on highlighting how the difference between somebody else like highlighting how the other person is wrong, the dialogue setting is the opposite. You're trying to pay more attention to the other person is right. Right. That's it. So that's one big difference. Now, when we have candidates we got to choose from, it is probably useful socially, to have them have a debate where they're trying to sharpen our sense of their sense of differences, that's probably a useful thing to do. Because the point of debate is not really to affect the other person is to affect the onlookers. So that's why that might be a useful thing. Um, so one of the things is to notice is that we don't want to have even the best debate. We want to not necessarily do that in our private lives because we want to have a dialogue, not a debate anyway. So that's that so but anytime we there's a lot of tension, public debate, we need to lift up how that That's not the necessarily way we want to communicate US citizens anyway. Now, even with all that, that debate was so awful because it speaks, because people can follow the rules like, like debates have this this convention, there's rules as ways of doing any anything more or less well, and we saw that the President would have either made an impulse based choice or strategic choice, unclear which one to violate those rules. And so now they're, you know, who knows what happen by the time this airs, but they're talking about erecting different structures to control that. So the point, the point is, is that even the best debate is not something we should try to replicate with our brother or with our wife or with our partner or whoever, right, we need to be we need to push more for the dialogue, setting the debate. But we can also see that if we're going to have a debate, at least follow some kind of rules and structures that make that his product productive as possible, which didn't happen the other night.
Paul Zelizer 50:51
So, David, you've been at this for decades, not exaggerating, like literally, theeconomy. Why are you calling me old? Oh, no, no, I called you all.
Paul Zelizer 51:03
Hey, I think we're probably about the same age actually. So if I'm calling you old, I resemble that remark. Right? There you go. Um, you've been at this a long time, and have had conversations, a scale that, you know, was inspiring, and I think many of our listeners, you know, one mean into being able to have more dialogue when the, you know, why am I one of my favorite jokes is My name is Paul, and I'm obsessed about podcasts. Why am I obsessed about podcasting? Because it's dialogue at scale. You and I can sit down we have this conversation can go out, thousands of people can listen, you know, how the only limitation is the limit, you know, our creativity at getting out there. Right? That's who listens to podcast, people who care who's going to spend an hour. You know, this isn't just like, let me show the infographic. And then I'm going to move on. Listen, people care about dialogue. That's who our listeners are. If somebody is newer, that young social entrepreneur who cares about dialogue, who wants to have a positive impact, who knows in her cells, what you're saying that this is, I called dialogue is the most powerful way to change the world that I've ever come across. She knows that but she hasn't yet reached the scale and impact that she wants. She's She's like, I want more what David's got? What would you say that young social entrepreneur cares about these issues, understands dialogues really important, and is hungry to have more impact, have more quality of life that comes with being recognized and getting more significant contracts and selling more books, etc? What do you say to her,
David Campt 52:45
I would say that, I would follow the idea that I think Rene Brown, like I was using this phrase before I knew she already use it, the power of vulnerability. And I would say that if you're trying to invite people to the notion of dialogues important, what's useful to do is to get comfortable telling stories about your own flaws and vulnerability, that I think that's a critical thing. So for example, in this race work that I do to try to get white folks to talk to anti aspiring anti white, anti racist allies to talk to racism, skeptics, 55% of white folks who don't think racism is a problem, a core thing to do is for the Allies is to be willing to tell the story about their own racing, problematic moments, the times in which they, you know, they didn't want to get on the elevator with the black guy or cluster purse or lock the door or had like, done with that guy who came to my office was remarkably smart like that, like all the various ways that racism shows up. Because I think that part of what keeps racism in place is not admitting that. But part of but the but the bigger issue more broadly, racism, part of what makes dialogue transformative is when people like own up to not being perfect. And people people lead with the ways in which they're flawed or imperfect vessels. And I think that i think that that is more of the transformative element. So if you can, if you do that, you can create different kinds of conversations, and people can experience the power of dialogue because you've invited them to an experience that a different way typically have. So I would just say that cultivating those stories of your own flaws are a vital thing to do.
Paul Zelizer 54:36
Beautiful, such a wonderful advice I joke about in this podcast, having a spiritual highlighter and just want to highlight and cosign what you just said, Mm hmm. So I can hang out and talk to you for hours, Dave, but I don't want to do that to you. I don't want to do that to our listeners. If there is something in this topic about difficult conversations, neuroscience and compassion and you know, like really growing our impact and our businesses within awareness, all this that we haven't touched on yet you think it's helpful, and, or important? Or if there's something that you've already touched on, but you want to, you know, make sure that listeners you want to highlight it, as we say goodbye. What would that be for?
David Campt 55:17
I think what's important to lift up is that everybody can be a force that turns moments of disconnected to moments of dialogue, everybody can do that. And so it's important to remember that if they're frustrated, in you know, in their work setting, in their family, in a relationship, you can be that person that shifts things around, you can be that person that invites other people to dialogue. And as I just was talking about, a key way of doing that, is to start telling stories about the degree to which you're not living up to your own standards. And you and you have questions about yourself, and your questions about whether you're living up to our agreements that we have, and and that by, by by lifting that up and offering that with some authentic vulnerability, and some I wonder, you know, with the background questions, I wonder what I and or we can do better than you inviting people into the dialogue mentality, which tends to be transformed if you do that. So I would just say that I'm remembering that we all can be that agent, whether it's you know, as a homeowner association, it's wherever we are, like, people being vulnerable is not a natural thing to do. Because our social conventions are to not do that. But we can, we can, if we're going to have a society we want. And other ladies, we wouldn't have existed we want. We need some people taking leadership in moving us towards fuller candor, fuller disclosure, better dialogue. And that starts with that fuller disclosure.
Paul Zelizer 56:59
David, your nickname is the dialogue guy to sit down and spend an hour in dialogue with us in such a treat, thank you for your time, thank you for all the work you've done, and just just a bow in this incredibly polarized time for you to keep holding that torch that this matters, this is effective. And
David Campt 57:24
I realized the one thing I gotta say, I'm not gonna say I gotta say, because one's on the air, we all need to remember that we are being attacked by the Russians, right? So that so that, like there's about that really divisive election. So I want to encourage people, so this might so you were that was such a great closing, you were saying, but I really need to say this, which is that people, we need to remember that, you know, we're under attack. And we need to, like bone up on our dialogue skills and our compassion skills. Because, you know, we're in it, we're being attacked. And so you know,
Paul Zelizer 57:53
That if you're messing with our doubt, they're intentionally meddling with our data you got
David Campt 57:57
You got that friend, I'm thinking I'm thinking of doing this. I'm thinking about going to my neighbors with my with a Trump supporter, I'm in kind of a Trump country kind of place. I'm thinking about going to my neighbors that have like, Trump signs and like just saying, you know, like, no one's actually gonna go, but it's great that you're so civically engaged, you have a sign, and I know what's going to happen, but let us all you know, affirm that we can be good neighbors, no matter what happens after the election. I'm saying that that whole spirit is, we need more of that, because who knows when things don't go. And let's remember, we're being divided from each other, on purpose. And so I just wanna encourage people to bring that sense of compassion affirmatively to other people, because people who don't like people don't like America, don't like this country, don't want his country succeed, don't wanna see us succeed, are trying to have us other eyes each other. And we need to remember that as the book says, compassion, transformed contempt. And so we need to, we need to offer that capacity of the people to get out of the level of consent we have in society that's not helping anybody.
Paul Zelizer 59:00
David, thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you so much, brother. Again, we'll put links to all the things it's gonna be a nice link section on this episode. Enjoy. Thank you, everybody, for listening. That's all the time we have for this show. Before it go, I just want to remind you, we now have two episodes a week in May we shifted there's so many great stories of incredible social entrepreneurs doing really impactful work. Every Tuesday, and every Thursday, we drop a new episode. We love listener suggested topics or guests. So please, if you have an idea for a show, please go to the web printers website, use our contact form, take a look at our guidelines and let us know what your idea is. For now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these times. And thank you for all the positive impact you’re having.