The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening by Tim Shriver, Tom Rosshirt

Episode Date: March 20, 2021

The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening by Tim Shriver, Tom Rosshirt From some of our most prominent spiritual and religious leaders, poets and thinkers, singers and writers, a book of wisdom to light our way in dark times. At the start of 2020, in what felt already like an age of disorder, our world faced one of the gravest global challenges in a century. Covid-19 raced around the earth, and chaos erupted. Yet in the midst of this crisis, billions of human beings responded with love. Across the globe, people sought to connect, whether in person from a socially distant six feet or via a screen from 10,000 miles away. In that moment, Tim Shriver saw an opportunity for those hungry for community to answer a call to heal, a call to hope, a call to unite. He asked monks and nuns, artists and activists, nurses and doctors, ex-presidents and ex-cons to come together to share messages of inspiration, transformation, and love. This book captures the spirit of that 24-hour event. Featuring stories and insights from Bishop TD Jakes, Elizabeth Gilbert, Van Jones, Amy Grant, Dr. Rheeda Walker, Pastor Rick Warren, Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Jewel, Deepak Chopra and many others, The Call to Unite offers readers a book of wisdom to turn to in hard times - filled with prayers, poems, spiritual insights and lessons to live by that will stand the test of time. Those seeking affirmation, solace, and inspiration need only look inside for guidance in finding the light in any crisis. Only in embracing each other can we amplify the love that creates our global community. Only in coming together can we be our happiest, and our best.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks this boss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming here with another great podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in we're gonna be to be talking with Timothy Shriver today. He has co-written the book, I believe, with another gentleman, The Call to Unite, Voices of Hope and Awakening. And man, is that something we need these days. So we're going to be talking about his

book and his cause, Unite, and all the wonderful stuff that he's doing to make the world a better place. To see the video version, just go to youtube.com forward slash Chris Voss, hit that bell notification. Go to goodreads.com forward slash Chris Voss and all the massive groups we have on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and all that good stuff. His name is Timothy Shriver. He is an American disability rights activist, film producer, and former educator who has been chairman of the Special Olympics since 1996. He currently serves as the CEO of Unite. He is a member of the Kennedy family. He's the third child of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics, and Sergeant Shriver, who founded the Peace Corps. Welcome to the show, Tim. How are you?

Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm feeling good. We've had a really wonderful time with this book. The response from people has just been overwhelming. And it's buoying my spirits as we hopefully turn the corner towards spring and reopening and maybe a new sense of possibility for each of us individually in our country. I know we're not out of the woods yet, but I'm feeling like my shoulders are stretching a little bit and my neck is feeling a little looser and I'm excited. Definitely. And you've got a whole list of the books behind you. They're just enticing people to go order that baby up.

What, what.coms or what links can people go to, to find out more about what you're doing? Our little small organization is called Unite and we're at unite.us. And, uh, you'll find everything from the streamcast, from you'll find the videos of President Bush and Common and T.D. Jakes and Amy Grant and Oprah and my sister Maria and everybody in between. The Alvin Ailey Dance Company, just some extraordinarily generous

and gifted contributions that if you're looking for a moment where you're thinking to yourself, I'd like a pick me up. I'd like someone to help me figure out what to do with this, the anxiety or the pain, the tension in my family. People say this all the time. What do you do with the tension in your family? It's there. Your fellow citizens are ready to lend a hand. And that's what this book is about. It's a beautiful, I think, I hope, I think it's a beautiful hardcover book and it's the kind of thing you could bring

to a dinner party if you want to bring a gift instead of a bottle of wine. Bring some inspiration. If you've got someone coming up on a birthday or a graduation where maybe it's been a tough time for them, I think this is the kind of thing where you give it to someone, they put it at their bedside table

and you only have to read a page at a time, right, Chris? I think you told me you've listened to parts of it. Yeah, I got the audio book. But the written version, most of the contributions are just a page or two. And I almost give you a money back guarantee. Almost would give you a money back. If I knew how to do a money back guarantee, I'd do it.

Because it's a real companion for the soul and for the heart. And I think it's something we're all looking for now. We get so much bad news. Well, how about a little bit of news about what's good about us? That's what this book is. And it reminds us of a better time. Whereas whether we're Americans or whether we're people of the world, we were certainly more united, at least at what we thought for the most part. We have our moments, but for the most part, what we felt was right or wrong or standing up for people that were marginalized or trying to do the right thing.

It's an imperfect union. But I think this is a good book for its time because there's been no one that's been exempt from this sort of tragedy. It touches everybody. In fact, some of the stories I was listening to on the audio book, it starts out with a lot of stories from nurses. And I was going to mention too, I really liked the intro you had from Martin Luther King. That was really moving. It really spoke to the time and laid a good foundation for the book. And then you're forward. But listening to some of the nurses talk about their experience and the complexity of what they've had to deal with, because they're not used to not only they're used to providing care, but they're also used to exposing themselves to target and other diseases as viral and crazy as this one is. Yeah.

It's touching and moving, heartbreaking. But I think it's also necessary because it helps share with us their experience and realize the gravity of their stories and situations. People say, well, is it depressing? I say, oh, no. It's not depressing at all. In fact, it's the opposite. It actually allows us to go. The selection you're referring to, Danielle Schmall, she writes in the book about day after day, seeing more and more people coming in and then running out of ventilators and then not being able to let families in and then accompanying people

through their last breaths, then one and then another and then another and then another. And she goes home. This is in the thick of a disaster. And she can't even go home. She has to go to a hotel. She gets in the Uber and she just loses And she can't even go home. She has to go to a hotel. She gets in the Uber and she just loses it. She just breaks down. She's sobbing. And she mutters, I don't think people understand what we're going through. And the driver turns to her and says, how could we, if you don't tell us? I feel like at that moment, Danielle Schmall, she went home and she did a video and it went to millions of people. But the advice that driver gave her, how can we understand what you're going through if you don't tell us? Imagine if as a mom or as a dad, your kids will say to you, I'm a dad. How many times

my kids have said to me, you don't understand what I'm going through. I wish I'd had the wisdom to say, how can I, if you don't tell me? Yeah, that's very powerful. I wish as we talk about our politics, when you see these stride in politicians, you're an outrage, you're disgusting, you're contemptible, you're a bad person. How about if they just stopped and said, could you help me understand what you're going through? What if that was the first part of the debate, just so, you know, there's a beautiful selection in here from Dr. Rita Walker. And she says, practice the ABCs. A is assume you can help. B is be a good listener. And then the zinger is C,

cancel judgment. Imagine assuming Chris, you can help that person out there, because a lot of times we think I can't help. What can I do? But maybe you can help by doing something as simple as being a good listener. As long as you're willing to cancel judgment, just let the person's story be told and without judging, be a good listener. My goodness, what we couldn't learn from each other and how much change we couldn't have if we just practice what Dr. Rita Walker says. But the book, so this is what the book does. I get going and I'll tell the stories and you see these beautiful pictures in the book. A Franciscan father, Richard Rohr, this is an apocalypse, but he doesn't say that, meaning it's the end of times. He says it's the

pulling back the veil for a new time. And our challenge is to define what the new time will be. It's quite a beautiful selection. We have doctors here who write poetry in tribute to the experience they've had. We've got people who are, you got Pastor Rick Warren, you got Oprah talking about our country has an inner life. I never thought of that. That's interesting. I think of me and you as having an inner life, maybe even a family, but how about a country? If our country has an inner life, maybe we need to spend a little time in detox. I was talking yesterday to the great singer Jewel, who's got a beautiful selection in this

book where she talks to a young person. A lot of us know young people who are struggling. There's young people in here who say, Hey, I'm struggling. And they hear back. Here's how to get support. Jewel says most of our media, this is, this is her language. I just love it is fear porn. Yeah. We spend so much time just channel surfing, looking for things that scare us and feed our fears. This is the book. This is, I'm not going to use the word porn, but this is the opposite.

This is because Arthur Brooks, who's got a beautiful selection in here, the great conservative scholar, it reminds us the opposite of love is not hate to Arthur Brooks, who's got a beautiful selection in here, the great conservative scholar, it reminds us the opposite of love is not hate to Arthur Brooks. The opposite of love is fear. And so if you're feeling fear, you need more love. And what you speak to is so important. Being very large in social media in my early days, I used to put out quotes of different people across Twitter.

And they're just random and I'd send them out. And I've had two people that wrote me over the last 12 years saying I was going to commit suicide today. And what you put up changed my mind and pulled me back. And we don't know sometimes how much we have that effect on other people. There was also a time where when my dog passed just overnight from a seizure and I didn't want to share the private hell that that felt like. And I, I finally, I just put it on a Facebook post and I just bled it out, just all the pain and the hurt and the loss. And I had people write me and thank me because they, they, they took being able to live through my experience. They learned from it and, and they found that they hadn't gotten closer with their parents' death or dog's death, that there were things that they'd skipped. And it's interesting, like you say, how sharing our experience and listening to each other and talking, communicating, is a way for us all to realize that we're from that same concept of humanity and decency to another. See, Chris, I just think you've got this, but I think when you tell that story about you posting something,

maybe just retweeting or reposting a quote, and someone says to you, I was thinking of taking my own life, and you found me. You met me where I was and gave me a reason to not be as lonely as I was. Now, first of all, many blessings to you for that, at least for being the channel, if not the architect of that moment. But even more, let's remember, every one of us has that gift, that possibility every day. So when you get on your social media channels and you just throw hate at everybody, and I can't believe this person, and this person has done something so outrageous. Maybe, I don't want to tell you not to believe what you believe, but maybe post one of

those moments of vulnerability. Maybe post one of those moments of compassion. Maybe post one of those moments of inspiration. And before you know it, you might find someone who just needs to hear from you with a positive message on that day. What you did, what you do is what we're trying to make into a book, but we're also trying to make it into a way of life. Like how about if that's the way we lived instead of looking over our shoulder all the time and who's going to attack me and who's going to hate me and who's going to excuse me and who's going to ridicule me and who's going to have contempt for me and who are those people anyway? How about if we just started with everybody deserves dignity?

There you go. There you go. We have that in a lot of our politics. We have that. They go, fear those people over there. It's always the other people. This thing's been going on for 10,000 years and we need to just learn and listen to each other and stuff I was having a discussion with this from somebody last night where they weren't listening to so they're trying to tell

somebody else their experience especially in the south if you get my drift and I'm like you're you need to listen to what their experience is because what you think it is isn't and from a point of privilege and we need to do that more. We need to listen to each other. We need to unite and tell us about unite. I guess unite is quite a movement you guys are building and the book is a part of it. It is a part of it. And we're already seeing some of the folks who will say exactly what you just said. Not with those people. Not with them. I'm not uniting with them. How could you equate what they're saying with what I'm saying? It's not the same. These people are so horrible. I'm not like that. Uniting is not agreeing. Let's make that first step.

That's a good point. Uniting is not agreeing. You can be united with your partner, with your kids, with your next door neighbor, with the people in your faith community, with the people you go bowling with or play tennis or golf or whatever with. You can be united with people. You don't have to agree with people to be united. You have to do one thing. You have to believe that showing them dignity is more important than showing them hatred.

There you go. I like that. I'm going to put that on a shirt. Okay. So I remember it. I think, I think this is, this is what we've learned, Chris. It's quite, it's quite interesting to hear people who want to change someone else, think they can change them with contempt, but contempt constrains change. Contempt creates defensiveness. Whereas dignity allows

change, it opens the aperture of possibility, right? We've seen this over and over again. It's sometimes it seems, wait a minute, how could I not show that I have boundaries with that person? A uniter would say, show the boundaries, but show them with dignity, because that's the way in which you might have a chance of finding a way around the boundary. We don't want people to think that the call to unite or unite.us is a movement designed to erase difference. It's not. Uniting is all about celebrating the diversity of all of our differences. And uniting is not about everybody should agree because that's not that's not that's that's crazy. That's not going to happen. But uniting is about creating a new foundation.

Like you can be a Democrat or Republican. You can be from this part of the country or that part of the country or this particular orientation or that particular ethnic group, what we say is add one more identity to whatever are yours. Add the identity of a uniter. There you go. And that gives you the chance to actually, just as you said, understand and maybe an understanding, be a much more effective agent of change. This is a great message too. When I first was going through the coronavirus experience of lockdown and everything was collapsing and events and stuff, I was initially fairly depressed. And one of my friends wrote on Facebook, he wrote, there's two things you do right now, either be a lifter or find a lifter, but that's what you do. And so I sat down with my assets and I went, what do I do? I've got a podcast and let's, let's try and lift. And it was hard. I had to fake it till I made it

the first four or five shows, but this is a great concept that you guys are doing because be a uniter, be a lifter, inspire people. So many people. And let's be honest. I completely agree, Chris, that a lot of people are still struggling. It's not over. There's a lot of depression out there. It's okay. That's the first message. Don't deny it. Don't be ashamed of feeling down in these times. There's a lot of anxiety and fear about the future.

It's okay. What this book says is there's somebody out there ready to listen. And there's someone out there who, if you give them a chance, is probably willing to carry a little bit of the load for you. And you've got some great names in this book. Do you want to read some of them off? I'm just looking at the Amazon page. Just a helpful group of people.

People are so excited about reading Oprah's selections, and they're beautiful. They really are. She was so generous with her time. She did almost two hours on the show. Interviewed Eckhart Tolle, who's one of these great authors. Rick Warren is the, I don't know, second or third most selling, sold more books than anybody else in history. Rick has a beautiful selection in here about grief and about gentleness. And Rick includes his email. Wow.

And he says, the reason he puts it in there is just what you said before, Chris, he said, if you're down and if you're depressed and if by chance you're at a point where you may be thinking of taking your life, don't write me, call me. We'll have people that will respond to you right now. And so right here in the book,

there's that level of compassion coming from people. Jay Shetty's got millions of followers. He has a beautiful selection. Never diminish someone else's suffering, but don't stop celebrating. There you go. I love that. That's beautiful. Just beautiful. So Common, the great hip hop star, Common has wrote music, but he's got a beautiful poem in here about finding and listening to the sounds of angels that play in our souls. And then he plays. I mean, it's spectacular. Amy Grant, the great country star, crossover star, leads a beautiful meditation. Jewel, as I said earlier, teaches a lesson on mindfulness. It's almost as though no matter what you're going through, there's someone in here, there's someone in the human community. What this book is saying is, even if they're not in this

book, there's someone out there who's offering and ready to help you. Most definitely. Just Van Jones, Elizabeth Gilbert. You mentioned Amy Grant, I think. The videos too that you guys have on the website. We talked before the show about how I watched the George Bush video. And wow, that's just wow. If you don't tear up listening to that and how moving that is, I don't know what to tell you. It's amazing. And what I love about it is that a lot of the people that watch it are not necessarily George Bush fans. And I don't tell them, I don't say, hey, you should agree with George Bush or you should, Bill Clinton is in the book also. You don't have to agree with Bill Clinton. You don't have to think he's this or that. Just hear him out. Just listen to the

voice of another human being first. And then you can say, hey, but I didn't like what you did on this, or I didn't like what you did on that. But at the first level, you hear is a human being giving everything he can to the idea of us rising together. That's President Bush in this. It's just beyond beautiful. And it's a reminder, you do this on the podcast all the time, Chris, if you give people a chance, they'll show you something beautiful. If you give them a chance, almost everybody, maybe not everybody, maybe there's some folks who are just in a place that's too far gone. I don't know. I'm a person of faith, so I don't think anybody's too far gone. Most people we have on the show, lately we've been having a lot of Brian Gumbel's real sports moments where we're all

crying. So we try and get that. And it kind of got to a point where I'm like, I don't know. I should probably warn people before they come on the show, but we try and we have lots of great people like yourself on the talk about this. I think this is really great because this is a moment like I,

I was anticipating that this would be a mess until the end of this year, September maybe. And of course, it looks like we're really advancing and stepping up. And I remember getting my appointment for my first Moderna shot at the beginning of this month because I got a couple extra pounds on me. And I've started to feel this essence of hope that i i've lost for the past year it's it's felt like darkness and you don't know when it's going to end and you wake up every day and you're like oh shit we're in this space like sometimes you wake up and you think you're like two years back and you but yeah we're starting to feel hope and this is what's great about this book

is it's a great handbook to take and get that journey jump started if you're in darkness that's struggling i love that it's a jump starter for the journey forward there you go you just gave me a good brand now i'm gonna get a t-shirt you're talking about t-shirts you just gave me a t-shirt there you go a jump starter for hope for the future and everything else that's it it. I think it's great. In fact, on the PR thing here on Amazon, for those seeking affirmation, solace and inspiration.

And I think we all need to share this. Like what you say, give the book to a friend, give it away, share it, motivate other people, be a lifter, be someone who helps unite. And I'm hoping that between politics and remember that we're all Americans,

I'm a big John Lennon fan. Imagine that's another set of things I live my life to and just realizing we're all human beings. We're all trying to do this together. But look how successful you've been, Chris. This is what I remember. People say to me, oh, the country's the worst, but look how successful you've been

with a message basically, and I don't want to characterize it more than you already have, but it's basically a message of being honest and true to a positive and hopeful outlook. Between you and your fellow messengers of that sort, there's more people watching and listening to you than there are listening to the hate people once gave a speech and he said, people always say evil is more powerful than good.'m just saying, I believe in the goodness of people. We got to be organized. And that's what you're doing. You're organizing your listeners. You're organizing your viewers around messages that can inspire and elevate their hearts and minds and make them into the best versions of themselves and the best versions of themselves for each other. But we shouldn't, sometimes we get more discouraged than we should, I think. And what I hope this book, this is why I hope people will, don't look at this as just a book you read. Look at this as a book you give. There you go. Because there's someone, in the

same way you give your voice and you give your story on the podcast, this is like a way of channeling the same kind of gift, right? I want to, when I come over to your house to visit, when we finally get back together, I want to give you something that I hope will help be your jump starter for the future. That's, that's, that's what we hope. And, and the contributors in here are so generous. All of them, all the proceeds, by the way, from the book go for, to continue the work of Un Unite to try to create this collective of the human spirit, put love into action and bring us closer together. I hope people will find in it a real sense of support and fun. There's laughter in the book.

There's tears in the book. But most of all, there's inspiration. And then you've got a lot of great projects on the Unite.us page, too, as well. And then, of course, the videos are just extraordinary to watch. Yeah. I mean, here's the unite.us page too, as well. And then of course the videos are just extraordinary to watch. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. People came to us after we did the show and said, look, can you help us unite people around COVID? And my first reaction was, we're not experts on COVID. And they said, these were people in doctors and nurses. They said, we don't need you to be experts in the science. We need your expertise to help bring

people together. So we launched something called the COVID Collaborative. I don't know if you saw last week, we launched our ad campaign with the COVID Collaborative. Guess who's in it? George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter. What is he, late, mid-90s, right? He's still doing those homes that getting his COVID shot and telling people to get their shot. So we're, we've launched an initiative around COVID. We've launched an initiative around changing the relationship between the law enforcement communities and the communities in which they police. And we're, there's more coming. The truth is that uniting is a really good problem-solving strategy.

It's not just a good feeling strategy. And the book has that too. The book has examples of one author writes in here about the value of writing a love letter. Even if it's someone that you haven't talked to in a while. So you can imagine, Chris, go back 5, 10, 15 years in your life. There's someone whose path you crossed that you haven't kept up with. So one of the selections in here is to take out either a piece of paper, and now I suppose we could do it by email, and take two sentences.

Dear, if it would be me writing to you, Dear Chris, we haven't seen each other in forever, but I just want you to know how much I valued your friendship, and I love you. Best wishes, or love, Tim. Put it in the mail. There you go. Extend the energy of, so there's ideas in here about how we can not only think and feel differently, but do differently too. And use those tools to unite us. So there's that. Exactly. The, I was thinking about writing a letter to my dad who's passed, of course. Maybe tell him I love him. It's been really an interesting experience when COVID came around

because it has a very interesting dynamic. No one's immune to getting attacked from it. No one's immune to losing family members from it. It doesn't target any certain sociology or people of any different level it's it's like everyone's expendable by this thing or potentially expendable and everyone can get it it's highly contagious and it's just insidious in in the way that it's built and designed and i remember sitting down at the beginning of covid and thinking i really need to try and figure out what's important in my life right now. And it really gave me this focus.

And I said, what's important? And I go, I love my mother and my two sisters and two of my sisters were in care centers. One still is. And I said, these are the people that I want to come out of this with on the other side. These are the people that I want to protect. These are the people that I want after. And, and hopefully a lot of other people had that same focus where they looked around and said, who gives a shit about the car and the whatever else, the people that I love, the people I care about. This is, you had to look at them and go, these people are expendable. They could disappear tomorrow, especially with the insidious nature where you can even hold the hands of your loved ones.

And some of the people in the book talk about this, where they had to do the call where they called. I think there's one story where they call the loved ones from the hospital bed and she tells them how much she loves them and they're putting her into a ventilator. Yeah. I love you. I love you. I love you. Now they're putting the ventilator in. Yeah. It's just so heartbreaking. Some of the different stories that came out of this. So heartbreaking. And we just have to acknowledge that pastor rick warren says we're we've been living a tsunami of grief and his what he says is be gentle gentle with yourself gentle with others maybe people always say these things fade away and everybody goes back to the way they were i i guess that's probably the true of human history. But goodness, maybe just a little more gentle with each other.

Yeah. Does that sound like soft or does that sound silly? I don't know. To me, it sounds like, wow, that would make me happy. My sister Maria, she writes a beautiful essay in the back of the book. And she's got hundreds of thousands of followers and people who really count on her for inspiration every week with her Sunday paper. She writes about how COVID has helped her. Just the exact words, what matters most?

And she said, you know, what matters most is my happiness. And maybe I've been looking for it in the wrong place. And almost the same journey you just described. Maybe, maybe I've looked at it, look for my happiness in my achievements, in my success, in my Emmy awards or my Peabody awards or my house or my cars. And maybe it's been hiding in plain sight the whole time in my relationships. One of the things I wrote about my mom, uh,

in spending more time with her, with the coronavirus is, as I wrote down something the fact of of don't take her for granted and appreciate her more because I realized how expendable she suddenly had become she was 77 at the time and she's got really bad asthma diabetes she was falling a lot and perfect target for this evil virus I've got a sister who has MS and dementia in a care center. And then my other sister at the time had cerebral palsy. She was pretty much challenged from the age of three,

sent home to pass away. And she's unfortunately spent her life in care centers. But I had all three of these people in my life and I went, these are the three most important things I have. Nothing else matters. And that's been my whole goal is to get through this and fortunately both of them have now gotten their vaccines we are lucky with my one sister who had ms she got she ended up did getting in covid we're in utah and they're not really excited about wearing masks and stuff but she got covid and we just got the luckiest experience where she she was just she didn't even know she had it. Wow. So that was some luck.

But everyone's got their shots now. So I think this is great. I think it's beautiful. I've been joking, half joking, that we need to have a national mental health thing. But actually, I love the idea of your book because it really gets down to it. And we all have to realize, too, like you say, right now, we're all struggling. We're all dealing with kind of almost the PTSD of this coronavirus. The other day I saw that, in fact, today we just got the call that I can actually go hug my sister for the first time in a year. Oh my God. Will you post pictures? I hope you'll post pictures.

I will. I will. I will. And, but just being able to realize that. And there's so many grandparents and so many parents that haven't been able to touch their loved ones, to put their arms around them. And a lot of my friends now are posting on Facebook.

They're like, I get to hug my grandkids now. And that's wonderful. So I'm hoping that we all learn from this because I don't ever want to forget focusing on what's important. And whether someday it's a car or the house or whatever sort of silly boat, whatever I'm chasing. Hey, remember the important people and the difference they're making in your life. And hopefully I'll get the book, share the book and share the message. I'm super grateful that you're having me in this conversation, Chris. I'm super grateful that you're carrying that message because I don't know what it is about us humans, but we just seem to

trip over ourselves sometimes. When you mentioned that boat, I got to be honest. I have a soft spot for... Sometimes when I'm bored, I look at boats on the internet. I know that sounds ridiculous. No. Everybody has their thing. I just love being on the water. And sometimes I'll look at 100-foot boats. I just look at boats. I just, you know, I like the pictures. Crazy.

But, you know, when you just said that to me, I thought to myself in the back of my head, you know what I'm thinking? If I had that boat, I'd be happy. That's what I'm thinking. I never get the boat. I just look at them. But I'm thinking if I had that boat, I would be happy.

What a silly thing. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with the boat. Don't get me wrong. But you mix up the source of your happiness, which is your capacity to give and be connected to the whole, to the people that matter, to those you love. You mix up that with the boat.

What you really want is to be able to take those moments when you're with people you love and enjoy them in beautiful settings. There's nothing wrong with that. But don't think the boat's going to make you happy, pal. It's not the boat. It's the relationships. It's each other. It's going to make you.

Anyway, thank you for that. Because as recently as yesterday, I think I probably spent 20 minutes looking at a boat site. And you just reminded me to calm down, refocus. I've loved sailboating in the past. We used to have an old Thunderbird. And being on the water and not having an engine, being in that sailboat and the silence. There is here, this will help you. There is a rule that I learned from my friends who own boats and me from owning a couple of boats and motorcycles.

The first day you buy it, there's two happy days when you buy a boat or motorcycle. The day you buy it, the day you sell it. Because it ends up being a money pit. No, what you talk about is really important. And we try to share a lot of that inspiration on the show. When we had Eddie Glaude Jr. on, we talked about his book, Begin Again, James Baldwin. And we had a really open, heartfelt listening conversation. We talked very openly about race.

And I sat and listened to Eddie. And Eddie's just so brilliant at sharing his stuff. Yeah, yeah. And I had people write me after that show and hopefully this one too and they go i was so moved i was so i learned so much and i tried to do things so we try and make the world a better place in everything that we do and and get going on anything could i could i read one of my favorite sections please do one of my favorite sections comes from amy grant the the singer songwriter Please do. left. And somehow a particular version of a meditation came to her. And when it came to her, she decided to make it what she would call her practice. And so she does this meditation every day. And she said, I'm sharing this. And she says something which I think is very

interesting. So she shares this meditation. As far as I know, she had never shared it before. But she says in sharing it, I'm already anxious because I'm afraid people are going to make fun of me for it. Now that's the courage of a uniter. Even though she worries that people might make fun of her, she still gives it a shot. So here's, here's how it goes. And I'll just read it. It's just a short paragraph, but I hope you and your listeners understand why it means so much to me because I've started using this practice too.

So she writes at the end of her, just as two page selection, join me if you'd like and speak whatever is your chatter. Because this is how we live, wondering if we're doing enough. This is how we live, full of longing, emotionally isolated, fearful. This is how we live on an empty tank, flying by the seat of our pants, wasting precious time, not knowing what to do. This is how we live, all of us around the globe. But this is who we are. We are loved, loved, loved. Let your body be your prayer,

prostrate and surrender, and just say to yourself, we are loved, loved, loved. I just thought to myself, when she shared that, how vulnerable it was for her. But what she said meant so much to me is this is how we all live. We're all got an empty tank. We're all wondering if we're enough. We're all struggling.

And yes, that's part of life, but the game changer is what you said about your sister, that she's loved. And I know you're loved by her and by your mom, by both. These are just beautiful little practices in the book that I feel like, this is why I have 20 copies behind me, which I'm going to be sending out to people that are important to me. And it's about the price of an expensive or a medium expensive bottle of wine but it's got the companionship of a lifetime again not because i wrote it i didn't write it it's

just because we've assembled these voices for readers to be able to find the places where they too can practice these abcs where they too can travel with Common into music, where they too can have a meditation with Amy Grant, where they too can join with Oprah in addressing the inner life of our country. And the list goes on and on. And express solidarity with those who are suffering and know that people are expressing it back to you. Definitely.

And the sharing is so important, the listening. And especially for people that like you said that where we have different whether it's news or whether we have politicians or anybody saying you need to fear that person we need to listen more we need to reach out we need to hug more i can't wait to hug everybody i've been i've been telling the joke that once this once this pandemic is over i'm gonna go live at Denny's for a month. I'm just going to take out a corner. I'm going to go to malls and lick all the glasses,

the glass walls and all the handles. Be careful. Be careful with some of that. It's a new day now. You got to be a little careful. I'm just going to walk up to strange people and go, do you want to make out? Don't do that, Chris.

Don't do that. We don't want you off the air. We want you okay. Don't do that. Don't do that. We don't want you off the air. We want you okay. Don't do that. But offer, offer, offer yourself. I'm just going to get a free hugs t-shirt. Look, the Special Olympics movement is a movement predicated on what it is. It's the physical posture of Special Olympics.

Some organizations, it's the three-point stance. That's football. Or basketball is rising up with your hand in the air to do that great layup or dunk. And other organizations have their postures. In Special Olympics, the posture is the open arms of somebody waiting to give you a hug. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that it was easy. Most of our athletes struggle to get to where they are.

Most of them deal with humiliation and rejection every single day. I'm heartbroken to say hey let's everybody let's let's give everybody a big hug right now tim you and i hug each other we'll give a big hug to everyone if you're watching this on youtube big hug from me and tim on the show just we'll give we're wearing masks too right now during this hug part kind of yeah i'm isolated don't worry i'm i'm we're're, we're mass protocoled up, but thank you for that. Thank you for, thank you for sharing this book with your listeners and thank you for encouraging them, not just with this book, but every day. Yeah.

That they get the chance to tune into you. It's a chance for them to have a friend that they can count on to pick them up. We'll be talking about your book and inspiring and sharing it out to people for a while. I already, I already put up the MLK thing earlier today. I was really inspired by that. Anything more you want to talk about as we go out? I feel really grateful to you. I feel grateful to listeners who have stayed with us. And I feel hopeful about the future. And that's maybe the hard part. Being hopeful. Let me just close with the dedication. And that's, that's that may be the hard part being hopeful.

Let me just close with the with the dedication. Because this might this might surprise some of your listeners, we, we open the book with a dedication. And this is by the way, is the first book, my sister has an imprint. Now it's called the open field. This is a book from her publication, her publishing house, It's called The Open Field. And we dedicate it here. So tell me what you think of this. To the prophets and dreamers dismissed as traitors for seeing unity in humanity. That's beautiful, man.

That's beautiful. To the prophets and dreamers dismissed as traitors for seeing unity in humanity. I just want to say to folks, if people make fun of you because you see unity in humanity, if people tell you you can't cross the line and talk to people on the other side and see unity in humanity, if people say to you, that's ridiculous, that's naive, you're going to get burned. You're going to get hurt if you see unity in humanity. You're one of the prophets and you're one of the dreamers and you may be dismissed as a traitor, but don't stop seeing unity in humanity. In my view, that's who we are.

That's who we are. That's what we need to get back to too. And so I love how this is a journey coming out of this. As we go out, there's, there's one thing I like, I like to cover and close on my side. Now that you've closed on your side, I got to close around my side. One of the things that did get me through this was your uncle Bobby and his ripples of hope speech in South Africa. And of course I've watched a bunch of his speeches, his speech, I think it was Philadelphia at Martin Luther King's passing, but hit the line from that speech. May you live in interesting times. I, that as echoed in my head for the last year and his ripples of hope speech where he says it is from numberless diverse attacks or acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve a lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring. These ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. And I think those words are so important now because that's what we need to do. We need to break down our walls, hug each other, come together and build a better society in these interesting times that we live in. You have the last, I could go i i just want to say thank you thank you for uh for the love you've shared with my uncle bobby uh who's still in in his own way with us and through his kids and through all the people he inspired reminding us and i think at the beginning of that sequence at

the end he says not just uh strike out injustice, but stand up for an ideal. And from where I'm sitting, the ideal that we need to, that I feel called to stand up for is the ideal that we are one. We are one people, one humanity. And I just will stand for that. I hope as long as I live. And I think I have a lot of friends and people who are inspired showing me how to do it. And a lot of people who want to do it with me. I'm excited about this book as a way of giving a small degree of life to that beautiful speech, that selection from Robert F. Kennedy that you shared. There you go.

And a lot of great, beautiful stuff that's in your book. Thank you very much, Tim, for spending time with us. Hopefully you love much. People are touched, inspired. I am. People order up the book and share it with their friends, neighbors, relatives. This is definitely a blueprint for us, for hope and coming out of this, what we've gone through in the next year.

And hopefully we'll never forget the way this moment taught us that what's important. Amen. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, sir. Thanks to my audience for tuning in. Be sure to go to youtube.com and Goodreads, Facebook, all those other different places. Do you want to give us the.com to Unite? Unite.us. Unite.us. It's what could be a better URL. Unite.us is the site for all the videos, all the programming that we're doing at Unite, and to find out more about the book and join us in sharing it with as many people as you can. Unite.us.

And of course, if you've got the time and you've got the disposition, put some comments up on Amazon. The more we reinforce each other in this work, the more likely it is that people will see it as a community they want to join, not just as a show or a book that someone's peddling. So please take the time on Facebook, at Amazon to share your comments on the book. And if you're so disposed to share the book. Thank you. There you go. Thank you, Tim, for your inspiration and your book. To my audience, be sure to wear your mask, stay safe, take care of each other, and we'll see you next time.