A Bit of Optimism - Respect with Nicole Avant

Episode Date: May 11, 2021

In a world that’s increasingly polarized, it’s harder and harder to bridge the divide between ourselves and those we disagree with. Filmmaker and former US Ambassador, Nicole Avant and I chatted about the importance of reaching out beyond the divide and showing fellow humans a little respect. This is… A Bit of Optimism.YouTube: http://youtube.com/simonsinekFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonsinekLinkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/simonsinek/Instagram: https://instagram.com/simonsinek/Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsinekPinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/officialsimonsinek/ 

Respect is something more than Aretha Franklin sang about. It's something we're all demanding these days. But can we ever feel respected until we can learn to respect others? I sat down with documentary filmmaker, former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, and philanthropist Nicole Avant to discuss the importance of showing respect. This is a bit of optimism. It really is such a pleasure to meet you. I've heard so many wonderful things about you from some of our mutual friends.

I know. I've heard the same. And it's about time that we've met. I know. I know. And I think it's funny that we're meeting for the first time like this, like on a podcast. On a podcast, of course. Very au courant. I won most talkative in the eighth grade for a reason. Is that a good idea to tell kids what they're the most of when they're young? Like, is that it from now on from the eighth grade? That's your identity? You're the most talkative kid. I know. It's not very good. It's funny. My dad was not happy. He said, oh, that means you're talking too much in class. That means you're doing this. And he took it very in a negative. And my teacher said, no, we gave it to her because she can converse with anyone. She converses with the athlete. She converses with the nerd.

She talks to the science nerd. So in that way, I thought, oh, I like that. I'll take that. So technically most conversant. Yes. And it actually gave me, when my teacher said that, it gave me a sense of, oh, right, I can't talk to anybody, which then gave me a responsibility of trying to find the common good in people. So it actually turned out to be a good thing. You know, I was very similar.

I wasn't sort of in a clique. I was friends, I guess if you really had to force me into one, I was probably in the nerds. But I was friends with everybody. I mean, I had friends in the theater crowd and I had friends who were jocks. And that sort of ability to go between tribes has served me for my entire life. Me too. And that's a really beautiful way to put it, which is because we are tribal as humans. And to be able to navigate through each tribe and learn something about someone in each tribe helps you break down barriers, I think, I mean, it served me for that purpose in my life and how I moved forward in my life. I always thought, oh, I understand that person. Oh, I know what that person's feeling only because I had played in their sandbox for lack of a better

term of, I just went into their sandbox for a minute and understood kind of how they behave and what they think and what they believe. And even if it wasn't really aligned with me or I didn't have a lot in common, at least I could say, oh, I've been there. This is interesting. I think that the solutions we find to the challenges we have when we're kids become our strengths as adults. A hundred percent. One of the reasons cliques and tribes exist

is they give those in the tribe a sense of belonging and psychological safety. And it helps give us an identity, right? It helps us define who we are. And so what's your identity if you're a member of no tribe? Because you can understand them and be with them, but you're not really of them. And then you go to the next one and you can understand with them. So for your ability to go between the tribes and understand, yes, it served you well and it served you in your career and your life. But then that raises the interesting question, where do you belong? I always knew one thing that wherever I go,

you know, cause I try to tell my kids this, wherever you go, there you are. So you need to at least like yourself. And I remember thinking, for some reason, I knew at a very young age, my purpose was to heal through inspiration. I don't know where I got that from. I don't know if it was me moving in and out of different pods or groups of tribes or something like that. I think I created my identity out of being able to move around so much and really realizing I can be a connector to people. And that's really all I saw growing up. People always ask me, what's my purpose? How do I find my purpose?

I think everybody's purpose is to serve. If we're operating at our best, yes. Yeah, exactly. If we're operating at our best. That's the ideal. Exactly. If we're operating at our best. I think what's happening with a lot of younger generations is that they've been not given the opportunity to develop a muscle of resilience. And you've got to go through ups and downs and highs and lows. And you have to figure out things and start over again, start and stop, start and stop and learn. stop and learn. And when you coddle people too much, any human being, I'm not judging anybody. Thank God. I mean, I thank my mom now every day for making me do things that I was not comfortable doing, making me finish things that I didn't like. I didn't like the violin after five times. My mom said, well, you've got six more weeks and then you don't have to do it again, but you have

to finish. I couldn't quit my lessons until I just finished. It's a muscle that I've developed over time that, thank God, that has allowed me to really look at the reality and give me perspective on things. You talk about sort of the over-coddled, and much has been written about this, and you and I are not the first to talk about this for sure. This generation of young people who experienced September 11th and then went on to have kids. And there was this real fear for our children, for a new parent in that generation. And the theory is it became unbelievably overprotective. And is there an entire generation of kids now growing up without the grit necessary

to really thrive in life? And we see higher rates of anxiety and depression in a younger generation. I mean, you hear these stories, and it's one thing for a parent to call up and say, why didn't my kid get an A at school? We hear these stories of like 25 and 26-year-olds of their parents calling up and say, why didn't my kid get a promotion? And. And like, at some point, when do we let go and allow somebody to scrape their knees? I was born in 1968. I am the first person in my lineage in America that was born with all my rights. So it's a long time of people not having any right. And my father was born into segregation, born into Jim Crow, had everything against him and saw the most atrocious things and dealt with atrocities that no one should experience. I'm just talking about

his experience. This has happened around the world, obviously through centuries. But for me, I think what's helped me is I was so proud of my history, whether it was people in my family or whether it was people that I read about, whether, you know, I always mentioned Ruby Bridges or Ernest Green, who was part of the Little Rock Nine. I'm trying to say my parents really gave me all that not to scare me and they didn't really coddle me, but it reminded me life can be both things. It is great and it is beautiful and it can be tough and it can be mean and you do have to scrape your knees and people aren't always going to like you and people aren't going to treat you with respect.

And if you want to be great at something, you have to keep practicing and someone's always going to outdo you. Someone's going to practice more. And so I think that by not allowing a human being, regardless of their child, a human And by not allowing a human being, regardless of their childhood, a human fall or scrape their knee or be offended or have something rude said to them, it's very detrimental to the human soul to not have a tool to respond. Your dad is the personification of grit. Yes. dedication of grit yes i mean he came as you said he came with everything against him including the law and then rose up to be one of the most powerful music executives in the business at a time when there were i mean he was he was the first of many things he did there were no black music executives

i mean he was it yes with an eighth grade education which is astonishing and was able to give you a life that was very different than the life he had. Very different. So you could have been coddled. Oh, yes. I could have been coddled. And I mean, yes, did I have nice things? Of course. But always had a strong work ethic because I always had to work and I've done every type of job like everybody else. And I've gotten fired from a few things. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I tried and I worked at it. And for my father, it was, you know, figure it out.

That's what my dad would always say to me. You're wanting this easy path where it's all smooth. And some roads are paved with rocks or some roads are paved with pebbles and some roads are paved with sand. You don't know. When I was writing Leaders Eat Last, I was doing research into parenting. And, you know, the question is, is like, how do we become ourselves?

You know, what role do our parents play? Yeah. And the research was pretty clear that our parents actually are not solely responsible for who we become. You know, our friends and our teachers and our experiences, they mold us into who we are. You know, two parents doing the same thing and a brother and a sister

turn out completely differently. But the one thing that every child learns from their parents across cultures is how to treat yourself and how to treat others. A hundred percent. Every child gets that from your parents. A hundred percent.

My friends would laugh at me. We'd go to clubs when we were in college and I would always clean off the basin at a club, right? The worst bathrooms you could possibly find. And I'd clean my hands. And then here I was pulling down more paper towels and cleaning down the basin. And my father was looking at me, what are you doing? And I said, well, you have to leave it clean for the next person. And they were looking at me, yeah, but we're in a club. No one cares. Someone's going to vomit. It doesn't matter. But it was a habit of look out for the next person, holding the door open for somebody. I mean, I remember my father yelling at me and I was so

hurt by it and I didn't do it on purpose, but I wasn't paying attention. And I let the door slam on somebody coming behind us in a restaurant. And you would have thought that I created the most heinous act. To my father, it was, pay attention. There's somebody coming behind you. There is a fellow human being behind you. Pay attention. But this goes right back to where we started in high school, which is the ability to go between groups

and be considerate of the fact that there are different people who look different and sound different and see people for who they are. But it raises the question, again, which tribe do you find safety? If you're the one always thinking about other people, where can you just go and somebody says, it's okay, you're one of us. We got you. Where is that place for you? Where is that place for you? So I definitely am a misfit. And I do well where the misfits go. Interesting. So I love New York, because New York is the island of lost toys, the island of misfit toys. Me too, and I have a test. It's really funny when somebody first moves to New York, you know, wherever they're from and they're all starry

eyed and like, I made it to New York. I have, I can ask them one question and a hundred percent, I'll find out if they're going to survive or not. And the question is wherever you grew up, you know, Boise or Chicago, like wherever you're from, were you the black sheep? You know, were you the ones that people like didn't really understand? And they would look at me like, no, I fit in fine. I'm like, you're not going to last. Right. But if they go like, you know, yeah, I never really fit in where I grew up. You know, I grew up in whatever place and I never felt like I belonged. I always felt like an outsider. I'm like, you'll do just fine here. And that's sort of a funny thing. So I love hanging out with artists. They're some of my favorite people, you know, and I love subcultures. And I find all these little subcultures where, you know,

a group of people, like Comic-Con, you know, that sort of nerdy crew, all the people who are like laughed at and made fun of because they like to dress up as Superman, not for Halloween. laughed at and made fun of because they like to dress up as Superman, not for Halloween. And all of a sudden, you're amongst all the same weirdo misfits who've been made fun of their whole life. So I'm good with the other misfits. Interesting. Now that you say that, I loved living in New York, by the way. It was the best time of my life. And I actually talked to one of my best friends, Susanna, the other day. And I said, I was 24 and I felt like I could, I was on top of the world. I felt that I was the smartest at 24. And she said, because you had an unshakable faith that everything was going to work out.

I said, I did? She goes, unshakable. You were in New York, like doesn't matter, whatever happens, this and that. But it's funny, you asked that question now that I think about it. It's always with artists and mostly musicians, because that's my tribe of people that I understand the most because we could speak in silence. I grew up around musicians. I studied musicians. I can sit with them all day long I understand and even if we don't say anything I can sit there for hours and I feel very safe and I can let my guard down because musicians I think and beautiful songwriters are the most vulnerable and I learned about life and

I still learn about life more through music than anything else because there are beautiful stories that allow my imagination to see the person they're talking about to feel the pain that they're talking about to feel the heartbreak to feel the joy to feel the confusion and then what musicians have always given me is a sense of not being alone. That's that tribalism. Yeah, that made me feel, oh, someone does know what I'm feeling. I don't want to call it tribalism because tribalism has pejorative connotations. That's the feeling of being in a tribe, of finding your tribe. Yes. So it begs the question then, how can others find their tribe?

Because a lot of us, you know, sort of go through life feeling uncomfortable or like we don't belong or like we don't fit. And that's what every human being wants. It's a basic human instinct. We want to feel like we belong. We want to belong and we want to be seen. We want to be seen. I mean, basically, we want to be respected. Seen, heard, and understood, yeah.

I think respect is the highest form of love. So everyone's like, love your neighbor. It's really, for me, it's just give somebody just their basic right of respect. Doesn't mean they're always going to behave in the same way. Doesn't mean you have to like people. Doesn't mean any of that. But at least show up with respect.

Try to. And we all fall from that from time to time. But the beauty is, if you have that baseline, so to speak, even when you're off and you miss the mark, you'll know it. Your spirit will tell you, that wasn't cool. You were just so disrespectful or so rude or unconscionable. And you come right back and then you're able to start over because you're able to check your own spirit. This is very interesting. I want to underscore this. When we are disrespectful, we know it. And it immediately went to sort of an extreme example that I just learned very recently. I was talking to Dia Khan, the documentarian, who made a remarkable documentary called White Right. She is a Muslim woman who was trolled by white supremacists to the point where the police told her stay away from open windows. It got really dangerous. And what she decided to do was move to the United States and spend time trying to get to know white supremacists and giving them a safe space to feel heard, which is sort of a remarkable thing. And she made this

documentary where she shows it. But the story that's not in the documentary that I just learned recently was a number of the white supremacists, through getting to know Dia, dropped out of the movement because they started to trust her and view her as a friend. And one of them dropped out of the movement after they saw her documentary. And he called her up and said, I'm leaving the movement because I saw the movie and that's not me. And she said, did I unfairly represent you? Like, did I depict you as you not are? Is that what you say?

That's not me. He says, no, no, your documentary is fine. He said, but I'm looking at myself the way I'm speaking, the way I'm acting. That's not me. That's not who I am. the way I'm speaking, the way I'm acting, that's not me. That's not who I am. So he was shown this mirror where he was displaying a lack of respect, where he viewed himself as a highly respectful, and he couldn't reconcile that. And so the only recourse he could find was to leave the movement. But I find that so interesting. And so again, it's such an

interesting point you make, which is we know, like we know when we're frustrated and short-tempered and we're rude to the customer service agent on the other side of the phone. Yes. We know. Yes. Some of us have the wherewithal to apologize in the moment, and sometimes we hang up and try and pretend that they should have done this for me, and I'm the, you know, but we know. We know. I think that's such a fascinating thing that people know when they're being disrespectful. And you have to, we have to be able to get to the point to self-correct. So how do we do that, Nicole?

How do we do that? We live in a world where the conversation is how are you treating me? But the conversation is not, how am I treating others? Exactly. And I think the focus, you know, self-idolatry, it's ridiculous. Everyone's

focused on the self as opposed to looking outward. And we all belong to this one world. There's only one. Where are we going anyway? Everyone's trying to get rid of everybody. Where are you going? Really? Where the hell are you going? Where do you want everyone to go? There's one world. And I live by the golden rule, right? At least that's my intention. But you are going to err. And you will, you may not do it on purpose, but you'll lose your patience. You'll be short. And you're going to have to reconcile with yourself and at least admit to yourself, you know what? That wasn't cool. When I was thinking about what I want to talk to you about, you know, I wanted to talk to you about how you find your tribe. I wanted to talk to you about, you know, I wanted to talk to you about how you find your tribe. I wanted to talk to you about identity and belonging because your, your story is such

an unusual one and your experiences, I think very unique. And the more we talk, the more I'm learning what your perspective is. It's magical actually, which is I'm trying to get you to sort of talk about identity and where you come from and what your tribe is. And what I'm hearing is that you see yourself as a member of the tribe called human being. Yes. And you express concern at this new, exaggerated, it's not new, but it's definitely exaggerated in our time, us and them, right and wrong. And it leads to this terrible self-righteousness. And this is what I think the sides miss, which is both sides think they are right.

The self-righteousness is the problem. I heard somebody say, it's really great, he said, he has to remind himself sometimes, he says, I look in the mirror and I say to myself, there is a throne, there's somebody on it, and it's not you. You know, and I look at that and I think we're all attacking each other because everyone, to your point, thinks that they're right and their belief is the only belief. Their way is the only way. And what that says to other people is your opinion doesn't matter. Your feelings don't matter.

You don't matter. Respecting you doesn't matter. Honoring your soul doesn't matter. And those are all lies we've seen throughout the beginning of time that societies do well when they're and that's what i think the beauty of america is with all of its faults and everything else the reason we're still the the beacon to everybody is at least self-correct. At least you turn around and you make things right. And it takes a lot. And I think this generation

doesn't realize things take time. Oh, that's that thing that your friend said about you, which is, you know, you have this undying belief that everything will work out and this, you just glow with optimism. But I want to know

what the first step is. I agree with you. I think it can and will work out. But when a group of people storm the Capitol and believe that they are right, the next day, the self-righteousness, or somebody who spits on a racist at a rally, there's self-righteousness in that too, that I feel that I did right. I yelled at that person and I go home and feel good about myself, but it did very little to anything. I'll even go so far as to say nothing

to move the needle, solve the problem, or bring humanity back together. Yeah, because it's never okay, again, going back to that basic golden rule, it's never okay, ever, to disrespect another soul on purpose. We do it all the time, but not on purpose. To hurt someone physically, emotionally, spiritually is never okay. So, Nicole Avant, what's the first step? I think the first step is you have to see the other person as yourself. How? How do you do it?

I honestly look at everybody like this is a human being who has the basic human rights, the same exact human rights, and the same 24 hours every day that I do. We are the same. We belong to the same tribe. We belong to the same race, which is called the human race. That's where I start. Because we live in a world right now where we're starting to see each other as lesser. I know. That one group of people is undeserving of dot, dot, dot. Right. And it's

not true. And it is a lie. You have to stand on truth. We're all standing, everyone's standing on quicksand. You have to stand on concrete. It is not true. Would you, everyone says, I was right. I could spit in that person's face. i could spit in that person's face i could spit in that cop's face i could spit in that racist face really is it okay if they spit in your face i don't think so but really but let me play devil's advocate right yes but they've been oppressing me for years that it doesn't matter what they've been doing because an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind we all know that too, the idea of being so self-righteous to say, well, they hurt me so I can hurt them. Well, they did this so I can do this. No,

you've just become that person. So what's the difference? You're the same. Now you've become them. And I think your example was great. That man who dropped out of the white supremacist group, he didn't want to identify as that person. I think for me, what do I want to identify as? What type of human being do I want to be to my fellow man? I asked Dia how she got the courage to go spend time with white supremacists and give them a safe space to speak, you know, to empty their bucket, as she calls it. And she said, leading up to that moment, it was all about them, trying to convert them and convince them and put them down. You know, and she went to the rallies and yelled at people and had that sense of

self-righteousness. And she realized that she was accomplishing nothing except making herself feel better about herself. And she said it was nothing about them. It became about her, which is she didn't go to see them to convert them or change them or convince them they were wrong. She went to see them because it's the kind of person she wanted to be. She realized that she wanted to be the person who was capable of listening and holding space

and not try to convince them that they needed to be the kind of people to listen and hold space. Right. I think I've learned in my life, and I'm sure you have, the more I listen and I just let people go, even if I disagree with them completely, all right, just let me hear you out. My dad was very good at that. Let me just hear it out. And you might get one kernel of something, but the more and more people start to become more and more vulnerable. And then a solution usually comes out without you having to do anything. The person changes is curating our own echo chambers, where we're making our own CNNs and our own Fox Newses, where we are literally excluding people from our friend group

who disagree with us or don't share our exact point of view. So the only people we're surrounding ourselves with are people people reinforce sometimes our worst tendencies. And the question is, how do you be friends with someone that you could, like, I have one friend in particular that I'm thinking of who she and I are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. And we have very different opinions of how the world works and should work. And I remember once we were walking somewhere and one of us brought something up,

and she started to explain some of her points of view. And I think I actually said the word. I definitely thought it, but I think I actually said, how can you be so stupid? And she stopped, and she didn't attack me for my argument. She attacked me for calling her stupid. And I realized I just called my friend stupid and completely dismissed any opinion or point of view she has. And I took the first step to destroying a friendship because I loved her and she was good to me and kind, you know? And we realized that we could piss each other off when we didn't listen to each other. And so I learned from that friendship, instead of dismissing and walking away from the friendship, I had to learn to ask her questions with curiosity as to how she came to her point

of view and why that point of view matters to her with genuine desire to understand. And what I learned was, though we still disagree on many things, we're always able to find a kernel that we can agree on. Exactly. And find common ground. When we find that kernel, we become very interested in the other person's point of view to teach us not to convert the other. Because if you think about it, when we surround ourselves with only those who agree with us, when we create our own echo chambers, right?

And that goes for almost everything. We follow the people we agree with. We watch the shows we agree with. We listen to the podcasts we agree with, right? And if that person says one thing we disagree with, we unfollow, right? Like I've actually had it happen where I posted something on Instagram

and somebody wrote in the comments, I've loved your work for years. I've read all your books, but I completely disagree with this. I'm unfollowing you. Yeah. When we surround ourselves only with people who agree with us, we become so sensitive to anything that is dissonant. Right. the skill to include, accept, respect. I love your word, respect. What we actually do is we become better friends.

My dad now, if I go to his house, if I go to my parents' house, he's flipping channels. You know, I got to watch CNN and I got to watch Fox and I got to watch what everyone's saying. You have to listen. And he will.

And he gave me that, which is you got to listen to what everyone's saying. You want to be able to say, hmm, I didn't think about it that way. I never thought about that. Oh, I understand that. You know, try and listen, even if it's polar opposite. You know, I think that was, again, going back to the civil rights movement and exactly what Dr. King did. You know, I always say he was one of the best strategists I have ever ever been inspired by this whole idea of everyone thinks oh non-violence oh which is love everybody this was strategic thought out process and sending people to meet gandhi in india so that they knew bring this back we need that teaching

here this is going to be the arc this non-violent movement that Gandhi started, we can now take that and bring it to Black Americans here and use that. That was the driving force. Do we think that Dr. King agreed with everybody he tried to make deals with all the time? Obviously not. Do you think that him and LBJ just sat there all the time and, oh yeah, sure, no.

And yet they're there, They're next to each other. It's back and forth and up and down and around and about. And you know what? But the result, we got it. And to underscore the movement, the movement was bigger than the people and the movements take time. Movements take time.

Every single founding member of the women's suffrage movement had died before the first woman voted. people that didn't quit because they knew that they were planting seeds and that one day something would sprout and they will have all these things that they are fighting for. And that sprout is me. And that's why I don't take my life for granted. I'm one step removed from people that literally didn't have any rights at all. And it takes time. My grandmother, her mother, her mother, her mother goes all the way back and beatings and lynchings. Imagine living a life like this, of not looking up. She said, oh, some days I just walked home from work, which was God knows how

many miles, because I didn't want to look up because I didn't want to see anybody that I knew hanging from a tree. And I thought, what? But that was her reality at that time. And she never gave up. She went to try and vote God knows how many times, turned away each time, laughed at each time, spit on each time. And now for me, that's why I look at people like, you have no right not to get up and vote. Are you kidding me? It doesn't matter if you believe in this. Get up and go and vote for the simple reason of just somebody actually literally died for you to have this right. And freedom is not free. And freedom takes time. And laws take time. And work.

Work. It's like any relationship, right? You talk to the best marriages, and you say, what's your secret? They say, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And all of this stuff that we're talking about called humanity and society and freedom, all of these things are not prizes to be won. They're relationships to be managed. They all require huge amounts of work all the time. You said the perfect point, which is our whole reason of being on this earth is about human relationships. Everyone has a relationship

with each other. And it's imperfect and messy and human. Life is messy and life is beautiful. It's always an and, you know, and, and, and there's good, there's bad, there's ugly, there's happiness, there's sadness. It's all together, but that's what it is. And there are mountains and there are valleys. And I'm telling you the only time that my character has ever been tested as yours or anybody else is it's not on top of the mountain for Christ's sake. It's always in the valley.

It's always in the weeds. And in the weeds is where you grow. And in the weeds is where you learn. And in the weeds is where you get hurt. And in the weeds is where you hurt somebody and you learn or hopefully, and you grow. And then when you get to the mountaintop, then that's the time to pull people up. And that's the time to pull people up. And that's the time to turn around and look who else is climbing up the mountain and try to bring them

along. And I think it's the human process of life. Here's what I've learned from you today, which is to think about human society like recycling, which is, you know, when you take something and you put it in the garbage and we literally say, I'm going to throw this away. Where exactly is away? It's like blowing the leaves from your yard onto your neighbor's yard. Look, I've gotten rid of the leaves, right? And that's what we do with garbage. I move it from here to there, but it's still on the planet.

It hasn't gone anywhere, right? Right. We've just removed it from my site is basically what we've removed this garbage from my sight is actually more accurate. And this is the same with people. And you said it, which is, where exactly do you want them to go? We want to get rid of all of these people. Where exactly are they going to go? You know, which is, it's all on the planet. The thing we have to do is learn to be with each other, learn to take care of each other, learn to use the talents and skills that each other have. And it's not all pretty.

And it's not about changing them and converting them. It's about who do we want to be? What kind of person do I want to be? And we're all so busy trying to hold on to our tribe and compare the value of my tribe to the value of your tribe. And my tribe is more valuable than your tribe. And to your point, we are all a member of one tribe called the human race. And we better take care of our tribe because otherwise we all lose. Nicole, I am proud to be in your tribe with you.

Thank you. I'm so happy to be in your tribe with you. Thank you. I'm so happy to be in your tribe. Thank you so much. So great. If you enjoyed this podcast and you'd like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.