The Jordan Harbinger Show - 539: Daryl Davis | A Black Man's Odyssey in the KKK Part One

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

Daryl Davis (@realdaryldavis) is a musician, author, lecturer, host of the Changing Minds podcast, and anti-racism activist featured in the documentary Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America. What We Discuss with Daryl Davis: How Daryl Davis, a black musician who was once told by a Ku Klux Klansman that he played piano "just like Jerry Lee Lewis," leveraged the encounter into a teachable moment that has led to more than 200 KKK members hanging up their robes for good. Why racism was such an unfathomable concept when Daryl first experienced it as a 10-year-old Cub Scout. How traveling around the world as a child with his diplomat father gave Daryl the tools he needed to sit down and relate to people vastly different from him. Why Daryl considers a missed opportunity for dialogue to be a missed opportunity for conflict resolution. The five values all humans have in common that Daryl uses to positively navigate (almost) any conversation. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/539 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. If you find yourself in a culture or society with which you're unfamiliar, and you apply those five values to those people, I can guarantee you the navigation will be much more smooth and much more positive. So essentially, I just viewed white supremacist as another culture, and I applied those values. And that's what allowed me entrance into that world. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories,

secrets, and skills are the world's most fascinating people. We've got in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game, astronauts and entrepreneurs, even the occasional mafia, neuroscientist, or undercover agent. And each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. If you're new to the show or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about the show, we've got episode starter pass. The starter packs are collections of top episodes organized by topic. That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything that we do here on the show.

Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start to get started or to help somebody else get started. And of course, I always appreciate it when you share the show. And one of the ideas behind the show is not just waiting to see what our society becomes, but actually shaping our society. And today's guest is doing just that in a way that's pretty damn unique. Daryl Davis is a jazz musician whose hobby is making friends with Klu Klux Klan members. And it's a bit of a strange pastime,

even more strange, because Daryl is black. You don't have to know much about the KKK to know that typically being friends with people of color not really towards the top of their list. Daryl is an incredible guy. He played piano for Chuck Barry, the inventor of rock and roll, by the way, for over 30 years.

He's been in that scene for quite a long time, made his mark there. And in his closet, next to sheets of music and probably some sparkly sequin shirts or pants, he's got clansmen robes given to Daryl after his friendship with those clansmen inspired those men to leave the clan. To date, Daryl is at least partially responsible for over 200 members turning in their hoods and we're going to hear how this all came to be.

Now, how many people of color do you think have a certificate of friendship from the Klu Klux Klan? I'm guessing just one, and he's here with me today. This is a phenomenal conversation that I really enjoyed. Daryl is one charming dude, as you'll soon see. And if you're wondering how I managed to book all these great folks, these people are in my network. I reach out, I get to know them. I know you probably don't have a podcast of your own,

but if you want to learn these same networking skills for business or personal reasons, I'm giving them away for free. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course is where you can find it. The same system, software, and tiny habits that I use. And by the way, most of the guests on our show, they subscribe to the course, they contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong.

Now, here's Daryl Davis. I looked at the documentary and I watched all those videos that you sent me and I just have to say it is, I've been wanting to do this for a long time. In the meantime, you've really like blown up big time and I love to see that. I mean, it makes sense because who doesn't want to meet the man who's so goddamn charming that people leave the Ku Klux Klan to become friends with them. I mean, that's, although technically they become friends with you before they leave the clan, which is kind of, that's probably even the most interesting part, right? It's not that they come out and go, oh, I'm going to meet somebody who's open-minded to my, I mean, you're the catalyst for them leaving. Well, I'm the impetus.

I give them different ideas that they can work out themselves. I don't want to tell anybody, hey, you know, you need to get out of this. This is wrong, blah, blah, blah, give me your robe. Oftentimes in the media, they'll say a black musician converts X number of KKK or white supremacists. No, I didn't convert anybody. I am the impetus for over 200 to make up their own minds to convert themselves because I've given them reason to think about other things.

you know, that make more sense than what they're currently doing. So over 200 have announced their membership, in part because of you. So does that count the chapters of the KKK that have sort of fallen apart and disintegrated because you've befriended their leadership? Exactly. Okay, so that's because what people don't, I've heard some critics say, oh, well, you know, one person at a time that doesn't do anything, but that's not really how it works. I mean, if you're becoming friends with a grand dragon or an imperial wizard or these other

higher ranks, there's dozens of people below them that go, if that guy that I looked up to for the last 15 years, if he's saying this is kind of horseshit and he's friends with Daryl Davis, what am I doing right now? You know, like this is- Exactly. You know, Simon says. Right. But also, I mean, some of the leaders are when they leave, they dissolve the group. Others, you know, they leave and, you know, the second in command takes over or whatever. So, you know, they may retain some of the membership. But I do believe in one at a time because even with one out of time, you know, this guy joined because his buddy joined, his buddy talked him into it. And now his buddies left. So I might as well leave. That happens also. It becomes like a snowball effect.

While there have been quite a number of them as individuals, you know, there's also been that attrition, you know, amass or more than one because the leader left or some friend left. And then, you know, dad gets out, then his kids get out. Right, yeah. There's been a couple of interesting stories there that I've researched. And we'll get to those in a second. We should probably back up a little bit because the movie, the documentary, accidental courtesy, and we'll link to that in the show notes, is a great watch.

It starts off with a story of you lending a guy your bus so that him and his friends can drive down to a clan rally. So you, like, just to paint the picture of everyone, you, an African-American man, lent your bus, to a group of KKK members so they could get to a clan rally. And, you know, just maybe explain, you know, your thought process here. Listen, I don't support the KKK at all. I don't support that ideology. But I support people having the right to believe as they want to believe,

as long as they don't cross the line and hurt people. And to show, to prove that I will stick up for somebody else's rights, has also led to people just like that sticking up for mine. So to give you a little background, that Klan group was based in a city called Frederick Maryland, which is about an hour and 20 minutes outside of Washington, D.C. So they would usually go to some bus rental company up there and rent a bus to go out of town. So that way they all could ride together for one of their out-of-town rallies or something in some other city.

What had happened was the leader called me and he said, hey, do you know of any bus companies down your way in your county that rent buses. I said, no, I have my own bus, you know, what's going on? Because I have a bus from, you know, from my band. He explained that the company that he would normally rent from him now, because every time they got the bus back, they were dents in it from people throwing rocks and putting on the glasses. You know, everybody knew was a clan in that bus. So, you know, for insurance purposes, you know, they didn't want to rent it anymore to him. And so he's going to try to go to another county where maybe his name might be a little lesser known or something. Yeah.

You know, so he's asking me. I said, well, you know, where's your rally? And he told me, and then I said, what day? And he told me, I looked at my calendar, and I wasn't doing anything that day. And I figured, okay, well, I'll go watch the rally. I said, listen, why don't you just take my bus? And he started laughing because he thought I was joking with him. And I said, no, I'm serious.

He goes, you're going to lend me your bus to take my clan to a rally. I said, yeah. He says, I never heard of such. I said, I'm not joking. And he goes, well, what do I owe you? You know, I'll rent it from you. I say, no, you don't owe me anything. Just, you know, bring it back with the gas as all.

He said, okay. So then he and one of his guys came down and got the bus. There were a lot of funny things surrounding that because this was an unpublicized rally. They were just going to show up and walk down a main street in their robes and hoods, you know, and so forth. So nobody knew they were coming except the police because you have to have a permit to do any kind of like little parade thing. That makes sense, yeah. My secretary, who was white at the time, I only mentioned that, not that it matters to me. And my girlfriend at the time, we had gone down to the spot where they were going to come.

Well, the police were all like on every corner up and down this parade route. So we show up. I'm standing around. My girlfriend and my secretary walked away because they both smoked or something. And so they walked away out of because I don't smoke. They went over there. And so I'm standing there on the corner and a couple of cops behind me. And they're like talking to each other and keep looking back at me.

And I know what was happening. They were hoping that I would cross the street and go on about my business wherever I was going before the Klan showed up. Hope this guy doesn't see the KKK walking down the road. That would be awkward, right? Exactly. Exactly. And here I am just standing there. The light's changing you.

I'm still standing there. So one of them, you know, walks over to me and says, how you doing, sir? And I said, I'm doing fine. How are you? And he says, are you waiting across the street? I said, no. And he says, what are you waiting for?

I said, the same thing you are. I'm here for the Klan rally. What do you do? Yeah. I'm the driver. And he says, what would that be? I said, don't you know what you're waiting for? and he said, well, I'm trying to find out why you're here.

Yeah, I'm trying to be vague deliberately, Darrell. Come on. Yeah. And so he wasn't getting anything for me. And I said, I'm waiting for the clan. And he like, looked at me like, like I was crazy. How did this guy know, right? Yeah. So then he walked over to my girlfriend and my secretary. And he says, ladies, how are you all? You know, what are you waiting for? And they said, the clan. And he said to them, how did you find out about that? And they pointed at me. So he didn't know what to do.

He just walks on back to his partner because he wasn't getting anything out of me. And then this lady, she was a sergeant at the time, she knew who I was. She shows up. And they all, you know, hey, serge, blah, blah, blah, blah. So another officer who knew who you were showed up to join the other two cops. Okay. Yeah. She's checking all the points, make sure everybody's in place.

And then cars were going by, vans were going by. They're like looking to see if it's the clan, you know. I knew it wasn't. I know what my bus looks like, right? So here comes my bus. And there are all these guys in it, and the guy who I lent it to, the leader, he's driving. I wave, he toots his horn and waves back.

And go by, I said, that's the clan to the cops. And then I looked at me, why are they blowing the horn and waving at you, you know? And then they look at her, you know, their sergeant. And she says, if he says, that's the clan, that's the clan. And they all get on the radio, and the radio, each other. Okay, they're here, blah, blah, blah. And what they did was they went down to the end of the parade route, looped around and came back up. They were just checking out the route first before they get on and start marching. So they come back to the parking lot right across where we're standing,

because that's the beginning of the route. And then they all get out of the bus, or they all put on their stuff, and then get out of the bus, and they perceived to do the march. And it was pretty interesting thing. But after the rally was over, about 15 of them, they brought the bus back and they came in their car and they came to my house. I invited them back to my house. So they're all sitting back here in my living room. I bought beer for them. I knew what they liked. I bought all this beer. I don't drink, but I bought, you know, give them beer. All but two of them would drink and talk. These two were like very quiet, very like this. You know, you could tell they were like out of their place. Uncomfortable. Very, very uncomfortable. And they did not understand

why everybody else was so comfortable with me and why they're a leader. allowed this. They couldn't get their head around that. They didn't say anything to me other than, you know, you want to be, no, no, I'm good. You know, that kind of thing. So I might poison them or something. Right. So anyway, they eventually quit the plan shortly thereafter. And mysteriously, the leader began receiving hate mail. Sure, mysteriously, yeah. Yeah. The same kind of hate mail. He used to send out to other people. He was now on the receiving end, probably from those two members and some others, you know, who did not approve of him with me. Yeah. And so he, he's, and I have grown a lot closer. And each clan group has a little newsletter they distribute to their

members. You're just, you know, local activities that was going on in the group. Sure. You know, who got promoted, blah, blah, blah, blah. So anyway, he had put one of his guys from his Tennessee chapter, one of the guys down there had found a bus, an old school bus that was for sale. And he told that, you know, the leader, so the leader, you know, looked at it, sent pictures, whatever, and decided, you know, they're going to buy it. So they bought the bus and drove it back up from Tennessee to Maryland. In the newsletter, he had put, he wanted some of his members to contribute names that they could put in the marquee of the bus that identified who they were, but coded so only like-minded folks would know that's the plan, right? Not you and I.

That makes sense. Yeah, I was going to say, that seems a little antithetical to wearing a hood to put your name up on a marquee, but whatever. Exactly. So he calls me and says, like, tell me, you know, what he's doing, and he asked me if I had any suggestions. You'd have to name the bus, right? So I'm telling you, the relationships are funny. So anyway, I said, well, let me think on it. You know, he had all kinds of different names. You know, he didn't like and so forth.

And I said, well, you know what? Because, see, the clan considers themselves to be a fraternity. Right. Right? Even though they have women in there. But also the name Ku Klux Klan is a combination of a Greek word and an Irish word, Irish-S-K-L-L-O-S, is the Greek word for circle. All right. And clan, C-L-A-N, is the Irish word for, you know, a close family or close friends. Like you would be the Harbinger clan. I did the Davis clan over in Scotland,

Ireland, right? So what they did was, and the original clan members who founded the organization, they were of Irish, Scottish descent. So they took the Greek word Ku Kl-K-K-L-U-S. They couldn't spell. They spelled a K-U-K-L-U-X instead of the S. And then they took the C out of the clan, and change it to a K for uniformity, KKK. So it means circle of close friends or circle of family, family circle. All right. So given that they considered themselves to be a fraternity, and of course, you know, Greeks were very big in the fraternity.

In fraternity, if you were in college, you know, all the Greek fraternity. Yeah, the letters and everything. Yeah, exactly. And plus the name came from a Greek term. So I said, you know, how about tri-copa, TRI, meaning three? the Greek letter for K, try K. Well, he'd never been to college. He couldn't get the concept. Sure. Yeah. I don't know, Darrell. That doesn't make any sense to me. Okay, oh well. So then they named it Special K. I said, you can't do that. It's like a drug. You cannot do that. Party drug.

Well, actually, no. It is. Right. So I told me, you know, I would avoid that. They kept the name Special K. And about four weeks later, a month later, they got a cease and desist letter from Kellogg's. in Battle Creek, Michigan. Yeah. We don't want our serial named after a racist hate group. Call us crazy. We're just going to keep that reserved for the cereal. Thanks, guys.

Well, the KKK making friends all over the place, right? I mean, what's another cease and desist letter to a group like that? Although, I guess they do want to stay on the right side of the law wherever they can, especially given their... Yeah, but they also consider themselves the law. Yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting. Although, it is ironic, though, that...

I could be wrong here, but I thought that the Irish were not considered white by the English. So it's interesting that they decided that they were going to be the sort of arbiter of who is white in America after not being considered white in their own in the United Kingdom earlier. Yeah, earlier. But then when you come over here, they look more like each other than they look like people like me. That should inform their entire ideology as bullshit, though, right? Like, oh, hey, now that we've moved over here, we look white and now we're just going to redraw this whole thing because it's all arbitrary. No, we're going to set the lines in stone. again just like they were back in the old country that was totally unfair for us when we were there.

What? That just like... Look what they did to the Native Americans, right? Yeah, of course. Yeah, man, the whole thing, it just so, the irony is like so thick you can wade through it barely. Maybe we back up a little bit as well. Tell me about growing up, Darrell. I mean, when you were a kid, you had a bit of a unique childhood as well. I did. So I'm age 63 now. And I was the child of parents in the U.S. Foreign Service. So my dad's job of the State Department was to go to foreign countries and foster better relations between the foreign country and the U.S. government. He was a diplomat.

And so I started traveling in 1961 at the age of three. Wow. And you go to a country, you're there for two years, and you come back home, you're here for a little while, you go to another country for two years, back and forth, back and forth. So, you know, my first exposure to school was overseas. I went to kindergarten, first grade, third grade, fifth grade, seventh grade. My classmates at these schools overseas were from all over the world. Anybody who had an embassy in those countries, all of their kids went to the same school. So that being my first exposure to formal education, that was my baseline.

That's the first classroom I saw, was this multicultural environment. That's all I knew. Now, each time I'd come back home here to my own country, I would either be in a little, in all black schools or black and white schools, meaning the still segregated or the newly integrated ones. And there was not the amount of diversity in our classrooms back in the 60s here, right? Yeah, yeah, sure.

So essentially, picture this. You're kind of young, so I don't know if you remember black and white TV. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah, because we had, my parents were the ones that were like, we're not getting one of those new TVs for our, you know, for this room. Right.

You can use the old one and it's like, it takes a while to warm up, so you basically like, you turn it on, leave, go get a snack, go to the bathroom, come back, and it's sort of like fading in slowly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

You know, when we went from black and white TV here to color TV, it was like, wow. It just opened up a whole new dimension, sort of like 3D today or something, you know. That experience was reversed for me when I came back home, you know, as far as school goes, because I was going from color to black and white. Right, right. You know what I mean? Yeah. I was living in the future 10 years ahead of my time when I was overseas.

Because all this multiculturalism, in fact, that word didn't even exist back then. Yeah. You know, I remember when the word first came out, it was multi-hifun cultural. Now it's all one word, you know. To me, it was just the norm. So I was already living 10 years ahead of my time. Today, of course, you walk into any major city, USA classroom. see people from all over. But that was not the case in the 1960s. So I was prepared for it. And I realized a

few things when I would be back here and we would be in junior high school or a grade school or whatever in world history class, we would be studying the Mona Lisa, the Eiffel Tower, the Berlin Wall, the pyramids, the sphinx and all these other things. I've been to all those things. I've been inside the pyramids and the sphinx. I've been up the Eiffel Tower. I stood five feet from the Mona Lisa in Paris in the Louvre Museum. You know, all. all that kind of stuff. And I realized that most of the people sitting around me would never see those things other than the pictures in our textbooks.

So then I really began to appreciate the fact that I had traveled so much. It didn't make me better than anybody else by any means, but it gave me a broader perspective. And I even saw some things in the history books that weren't true. They were not accurate because I've been there, and that's not what it was in the book, you know. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Daryl Davis. back. Now back to Daryl Davis on the Jordan Harbinger Show. What's an example of that that you remember to this day? There's got to be something. I'd have to think about it. I'd have to think about it. But some of the contexts about people in certain countries and how they felt about their

leaders or whatever, no, I lived in those countries. They didn't feel that way at all. You know, something like that. Where did you live when you were overseas? Where were you? Well, yeah, we were stationed in Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, Austria. He was stationed in Moscow, in Jamaica. That's so awesome. That must have been incredible. But here's the thing. You're there for two years.

And during those two years, you get home leave and you get R&R, rest of recuperation. So, you know, most Americans who are overseas, they would take both home leave and R&R and come back home here to the States. The government's paying for it, right? Right. We wouldn't come back unless something was going on, unless, you know, somebody died or whatever, you know, then we'd come back. Because you're going to come back anyway at the end of the two years. So my father would take the home leave and R&R at the government's expense. We'd go to Asia,

we go to Europe, we go to South America. We see all kinds of different countries. Wow. Why not, right? And so when you combine my travels as a child with my parents, with my adulthood travels now as a professional musician who tours around the world, I've been in 57 countries on six continents. Wow. So, you know, that exposed. me to a multitude of ethnicities, colors of skin, races, religions, whatever you want to call it, beliefs, ideologies, and all of that helped shape me. And I believe, truly, that those were the stepping stones that have given me the ability to sit down and talk with people who you would never picture me sitting with. Not that I respected their ideology, all right? But here's what I

noticed. No matter how far I go from this country, whether it's right next door to Canada or Mexico or halfway around the globe, no matter how different the people I encounter may be, what I bring back is that we all are human beings. And as such, everybody I've met anywhere in the world, they all want these same five things in their life. We all want to be loved. We want to be respected. We want to be heard. We want to be treated fairly. And we want the same thing for our family as anybody else wants for their family. And if you find yourself in a culture or society with which you're unfamiliar, and you apply those five values to those people, I can guarantee you the navigation will be much more smooth and much more positive. So essentially, I just viewed

white supremacist as another culture. And I applied those values. And that's what allowed me, you know, entrance into that world. Now, of course, I've had my share. share of violence. People attack me for, you know, they just don't like you. You're black or you're Jewish or you're a gay or you're Muslim or whatever it is they don't like. They don't want to hear it. Boom, they're on you. Like you see a cockroach. You just go over there and step on it without wondering why he's there, you know. Yeah, you don't ask him what he's doing. Yeah. Right, exactly. So, you know, I've had a few occasions like that where I've had to hurt some people and put them in the hospital and then take him to court and beat them there as well.

But fortunately, yeah, fortunately those instances were few and far between. You know, not everybody's welcoming. There'll be those who don't want to talk to you. Sure. And that's fine. But for the most part, my experiences have been pretty positive. I'm hung up on this. What was it like in Moscow in the 1960s, 70s, whatever? I mean, there couldn't have even been that many black diplomats from the United States or the West in general during that time. I mean, they must have, I assume people thought your dad was, and you were from Africa in those years, in those countries. Well, my dad was there. I stayed here with my mom, and then we went over to visit with them. Okay. Gotcha. You know, they were together. You know,

They weren't divorced, something like that. Right. But I stayed here for high school and all that kind of stuff. So in the 70s, let me give you a little bit of history of my dad. My dad was one of the first black Secret Service agents in this country. He wanted to be an FBI agent. But the head of the FBI, this guy, J. Edgar Hoover, was a terrible racist and male chauvinist, as well as much of other things.

No women, no blacks. And so my dad went to the Secret Service. And Harry Anslinger, who was the head of the Secret Service, on the same day, hired five black men. all of the same time for the first time in the history. Wow. And my dad was one of those five. And my dad rose to the ranks. He went as high as they would let a black person go.

So my dad had a knack for languages. He was just a natural. He was picked linguistics. He's picked them up. You know, I can't explain it. My dad spoke nine languages fluently. That is incredible. I know how hard that is.

I speak a couple languages. And nine is an unbelievable number just to even keep in your head at the same time. is incredibly difficult. I couldn't fathom it, but he spoke nine and could read and write and four of them. Wow. And so Vice President Richard Nixon would later go on to become president. At the time, he was vice president to Dwight Eisenhower.

He was going to have this famous kitchen debate with a Nikita Khrushchev over in Moscow. So the State Department advertised for any Americans to apply who could speak fluent Russian they went to hire one as an interpreter, translated to go with Nixon. So my dad spoke Russian. Wow. He spoke, you know, so he applied for the gig and he got it. So he went to Moscow with Nixon and a few other interpreters and his entourage. And he did such a good job that Nixon told Eisenhower about it.

And so they called him into the White House. And President Eisenhower told him they'd done all their background check on him. Eisenhower told him, you have gone as far as you can go in the Secret Service. You could probably go a little bit further in the Foreign Service. So my father went and took the Foreign Service exam. Yeah, crushed it. Yeah. He probably did great on that exam.

A guy that well-traveled that speaks all those languages probably could take that exam while juggling. It must be cool to have a dad like that. Like, that's a really incredible, unique upbringing. But, you know, as a child, you know, you think that... Everyone's dad's like that? Exactly, exactly, you know. And everybody does all the travel that you do.

Because, I mean, granted, you know, other than the natives of whatever country we were in, all my classmates were children of diplomats or military, whatever, that was there, and they were always traveling. Yeah, that makes sense. Right. So your pure group is, oh, you haven't been to Paris yet this year, and you're like, oh, I'm the odd man out. Meanwhile, you come back here. I mean, the people that you're, to bring it home, the people that you talk to now, I would imagine that there is a wide gamut of people who are in the Ku Klux Klan, but I would imagine it is weighted heavily towards people that don't travel a ton internationally. Is that accurate? Absolutely. Yeah. Tell me about the first time you'd experienced racism, because this is kind of a unique way to find out about it, I suppose, as a young man, as a child. Right. So one of the times we came back from overseas was 1968. I was age 10. And I went to school in a place called Belmont, Massachusetts, which is a suburb of Boston. Belmont borders up against Cambridge and Lexington Concord right there. And so there were two black kids in the whole. whole school, be in fourth grade and a little girl in second grade. I never really saw her

except for like recess or lunchtime. All of my friends were white, fourth and fifth graders. And my male friends, some of them were Cupscouts, and they invited me to join. And I joined. Had a great time. Everybody was very nice to me, no problems. And we had a parade from Lexington to Concord, the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Couts, Cupscouts, Brownies, 4-H Club, whatever, to commemorate the ride of Paul Revere. And the streets were blocked off, sidewalks were aligned with nothing but white people, waving and cheering and smiling. And we got to a certain point in the route when suddenly I'm getting hit upside the head with soda pop bottles, soda pop cans, debris from the street, things like that, by just a small group of maybe four or five people mixed in with a larger crowd of white people.

I remember it being a couple kids, maybe a year or so older than me, and a couple of adults were throwing things. Now, it came from my right side. They were over here on the sidewalk. And my first thought was, oh, these people over here, they don't like the scouts. That's how I was, right? I never had anything like that happened to me. And it wasn't until just moments later, all my troop leaders, Den Mother, Cubmaster, troop leader, all came running. covered me with their bodies and like squirted me out of the danger. So now I'm looking around.

Nobody else is getting this treatment except for me. And so I'm now I'm trying to blame myself. Like, what did I do? But, you know, I didn't say anything to them. I didn't do anything to them. Why are they doing this to me? What did I do? They wouldn't answer. They just kept shushing me and rushing me along telling me everything's going to be okay. Just keep moving, keep moving. I never got an answer. So at the end of the parade, I went home. And my mother, and father who were not in attendance, you know, they're looking at me and cleaning me up, putting alcohol and a cure-chrome and band-aids on me, and asking me, how did I fall down? How did I trip and fall down and get all scraped up?

And I told them what happened. I didn't trip and fall down. When I told them what happened, for the first time in my life, I'm an only child. For the first time in my life, my mom and dad sat me down at the age of 10 and explained to me what the word racism was. Now, get this. You might find this incredible. But at the age of 10, I had never heard the word racism.

I had no clue what you're talking about. It wasn't part of my world. I had no reason to know what it was. When they told me this, literally, I did not believe them. I thought they were lying to me. Like, that can't be right. That's too stupid and ridiculous. Why would anybody think like that?

Yeah. Exactly. And my 10-year-old brain could not process it. And to reinforce what I'm thinking was the fact that the people who were doing this to me, they looked just like my friends at school. They were just as white or overseas my fellow Americans from the embassy or my little French or Swedish or German or Austrian friends. So it had nothing to do with skin color. My parents are wrong.

You know, that doesn't happen. You know, because if that happens with them, why wouldn't have it with my other white friends? It just made no sense. And, of course, racism doesn't make any sense. So I didn't believe them. Well, between a month and a half to two months later, that same year, 1968, on April 4th, Martin Luther King was assassinated. Every major city, my hometown, Chicago, nearby Boston, where I am right here at Washington, D.C., everywhere, Los Angeles. They all burned to the ground in the name of this new word that I had learned, racism. So then I understood my parents had not lied to me, this phenomenon,

exists, but I did not understand why it existed. Okay, I accept that it does, but why? So I formed a question at that age, age 10, which was, how can you hate me when you don't even know me? And I've been looking for the answer to that question for 53 years. So who better to ask than someone who would go so far as to join an organization with over a hundred year history of practicing hating people who don't look like them or believers they believe. That's where that led to. So how did you meet your first clan member face to face? I mean, well, on friendly terms anyways, or at least, you know, peaceful terms.

I'm sure you came across them accidentally before without the handshake involved. I did. I mean, the very first one that I met, I didn't know he was a Klansman, but I beat him up. He was beating up a lady on a sidewalk outside of a restaurant. And I intervened. I found out later who was a Klansman. Not that it bothered me, you know. He was somebody beating up a lady.

But anyway, so I had joined a country music band. Country music had made a resurgence. And there had been a movie out, Urban Cowboy, with John Travolta and this mechanical bowl and all these line dances. So country was popular. So I joined this country band. They were established in the area. And we played a place called the Silver Dollar Lounge

in a town called Frederick Maryland, just over an hour outside of Washington, D.C. The Silver Dollar Lounge was known as an all-white lounge. There were no signs, but black people did not go there. And they did not go there because they were not welcome. And when you go somewhere where you're not welcome and alcohol is being served. Yeah, not a great mixture. Not a great mixture.

So here I was in this place. Now, the band had played there before, my first time there. And after the first set, we're taking a break, come down off the stage, going to go sit down to the band table. and I feel somebody come up from behind me and put their arm around my shoulder. Now, I don't know anybody in this place, so I'm turning around to see who's touching me.

This is this white guy. He's like 15 years or so, more older than me. Big smile. And he said, man, I sure like your piano playing. I thanked him, shook his hand, and he says, this is the first time I ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis. And now, I was not offended,

but I was surprised because this guy is older than me, he should have known the black origin of Jerry Lee Lewis's style. And I said, well, Jerry Lee learned to play it just from the same place I did. From black blues and boogie-woogie piano players, that's where rock and roll and rockability evolved. Well, he was incredulous, you know, he did not believe that. Jerry Lee invented that. He'd never seen a black type of piano like that. So I guess he never saw Little Richard or Fats Domino.

Same style, you know. I guess if you never go to a bar and don't let black people in your bar? Exactly. Then maybe you haven't seen that, but that's your fault. That's a you problem at that point. Exactly. So he didn't believe that. And I told him. I said, listen, man, I know him. He's a friend of mine. He's told me himself. He didn't believe that either. But he was so fascinated. He wanted me to come back to his table and let him buy me a drink. So I don't drink, but I went back to his table

and I ordered a cranberry juice. He pays the waitress. He takes his glass. He clinks my glass and cheers me. And then he says, you know, this is the first time I ever sat down and had a drink with a black man. I mean, he's telling me all this. You know, I was baffled because at that point in my life, I had sat down with thousands of white people, had a meal, a beverage, a conversation. How is it that this guy had never done that? And so innocently, I asked her. I said, why? And he didn't answer me.

He, like, looked down at the tabletop. I asked him again, his buddy elbowed him and said, tell him, tell him. He says, I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Man, I burst out laughing. Like, this guy, not for real, man. What's wrong with this man? And I'm trying to rationalize what he's telling me. In my mind, I'm thinking, okay, he thought,

I was BSing him about knowing Jerry Lee Lewis and Jerry Lee learned from black people. And so he's going to BS me about the plan. Right. He's pulling my leg. Yeah. Like, come on. And so while I'm laughing, he goes inside his pocket, pulls out his wallet, and hands me his clan membership card. I recognize the clan insignia, which is a red circle with a white cross and a red blood drop in the center of the cross. This thing was for real, man. I'm like, whoa, I stopped laughing. It wasn't funny anymore, and I gave it back to him. And now I'm wondering, in my mind, why am I sitting here with the Klansman and what's going on here? But this guy was

very, very friendly and very curious about me. And so we talked a lot. And he gave me his phone number and wanted me to call him whenever I was to return to this bar with this band, because he wanted to bring his friends, Klansmen and Klanswomen to see the black guy who plays like Jerry Lee. That must have been kind of an interest that you're like, do I want to call the guy to have him bring a bunch of Klansman over to the bar while I'm playing? Like, there must have been a part It's like, is that a good idea for me to do that? Well, I figure, you know, if they were as friendly as he was, you know, they wouldn't pose any problem. Right.

And so I said, okay. And so I'd call him every six weeks, you know, when the band was on a rotation there. I called him on a Wednesday or Thursday and say, hey, man, you know, we're down to the silver dollar Friday and Saturday. Come on out. He'd come out both nights. And he'd bring Klansmen and clans women. And they'd gather around the stage and watch me play and get out on the dance floor and dance. and then on the brakes, I'd make my way over to his table, say hello.

Some of them were curious about me. They wanted to meet me. Others would see me coming, and they'd get up and scurry away. So they didn't have to touch me or talk to me. And that was fine, too. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Daryl Davis. We'll be right back. Thanks so much for listening to and supporting the show.

I know that you're loving this conversation as much as I enjoyed recording it for you. And by the way, all those URLs, all those sponsors, they're all on one page. Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can find all those promo codes. Please consider supporting those who support this show. And don't forget, we've got worksheets for many episodes of the show. If you want some of the drills, the exercises talked about during these podcasts, those are in one easy place as well. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. And now for the conclusion of part one with Daryl Davis. It's amazing that it was that kind of simple and easy. And I know that you dug a little bit deeper after that. I mean,

And you eventually got a meeting with a guy who was supposed to be kind of dangerous, right? Tell me about that. Okay. So at the end of that year, I think I played through December through Christmas. Then I quit the band. And I went back to playing rock and roll and blues and R&B and whatever else was going on. And so I lost track of the guy. You know, it wasn't like I was going to stay in contact with the KKK.

Well, sometime later, it dawned on me. Hey, Daryl, you didn't realize it. But the answer to your question, how can you hate me when you don't even know me that's been plaguing you since the age of 10, it fell right into your lap. Who better to ask that question of than somebody in the KKK? Get back in contact with that guy. And so I was going to do that. I decided I'm going to write a book. I have tons of books on the Klan and all kinds of white supremacy, black supremacy, all that ideology.

I have tons of books on it. No book had been written by a black author on the KKK from the perspective. of in-person interviews. So I decided, I'm going to do that. I'm going to get back and kind of with that guy. Well, then my mom passed away. And so I put things off for a couple years. And then I finally got into it.

So long story short, I did get in contact with him. He did not want to turn me on to the clan leader. I knew who the leader was, but I didn't know him personally. He said, no, no, I can't do that. You know, I'll get in trouble. And he didn't want to get in trouble. He didn't want me to get in trouble. He really liked.

And I said, well, listen, give me the guy's address and phone number. He didn't want to do that. but I finally persuaded him to do it. And he did it on the condition that I not tell this guy where I got his personal information. I said, okay. And he warned me, said, Darrell, do not fool with Roger Kelly. That's the guy's name. Roger Kelly will kill you.

I said, well, that's the whole reason I need to talk to him. I want to talk about this. Why would he do that just because of the color of my skin? It makes no sense. This is what I need to understand. So he warned me again, but he gave me the number and implored me not to tell Mr. Kelly where I got his information. And so that's where that started. So then I decided, okay, my secretary is white. And I only mentioned that, not that I care, but it's because it's an integral part of the

story. That's part of the story, yeah. Yeah. I could have called Mr. Kelly myself. I'm the one who had the phone number. But I thought if I called him, he might recognize in my voice that I'm black. I said, I'm not talking to you, click. The whole project would have ended before it ever got started. So I told her Mary, I said, listen, call this guy Roger Kelly. I said, do not tell him that I'm black unless he asks. If he asks, don't lie to him, but don't give him reason to ask. Tell him that you're working for your boss who's writing a book on the plan. Would he consent to sitting down and giving me an interview?

She said, okay. I see, back then, nobody in the clan knew who I was. I was more involved in music. So she called, and he did not ask what color I was. and he agreed to do the interview. So we arranged to meet at this motel. Mary and I got there super early, I mean, several hours early. And I gave her some money and sent her down the hall to get some soda pop out of the vending machine,

put it in the ice bucket, get it cold. So I could be hospitable and offer my guests, you know, a cold drink. I had no idea what this man was going to do when he saw me. Would he attack me? What do you say, I'm not talking to you and walk away? Or would he come in the room and do the interview? But in any event, I knew what I was going to do. I was going to be hospitable.

So, you know, she got the soda, put it in the ice bucket, filled it with ice, and we waited. And right on time at 5.15 on a Sunday afternoon, there was a knock on the door. So now the room is situated where you cannot see who's in the room from the doorway. You've got to come in the room and turn around the corner, and then you'll see the room laid out. So I'm sitting in the most obscure corner of the room at this little lamp table thing.

I've taken the lamp off. I had a black bag by my chair. I pulled a cassette recorder out of there, set it on the table. In the bag, I had some blank cassettes and a copy of the Bible because the clan claims to be a Christian organization. And they say that the Bible preaches racial separation.

Now, I've never seen it in there, so I want to be able to say, hey, please show me chapter and verse where it says that. So I'm all prepared, right? Knock, knock, knock. Neri hops up and runs around the corner, opens the door. in walks this clan bodyguard and he's in military camouflage that red circle white cross blood drop patch right there

the letters kKK here and knights of the Ku Klux Klan embroidered on his cap so he's not like undercover at all he's just repin yeah and he's he's got a semi-automatic on his holster he comes in mr kelly is in a dark blue suit and tie walking right behind him and this guy turns the corner and sees me and just freezes. They just stopped short. But Mr. Kelly did not realize that his bodyguard had stopped short. He slammed into his back and knocked him forward. So now they both were like stumbling around. It was like, you know, it was a comedy. It was like a Laurel and Hardy thing. And I'm just sitting at the table, like, you know, looking at them. I could see in their faces all the apprehension. You know, they're like looking all around, regaining their balance. And I could read their faces. Their faces were

saying, did the desk clerk give us a wrong room number? Yeah. Or just an ambival. So I realized that I stood up and I went like this. I displayed my hands to show I had nothing in them. And I walked towards them and I put my right hand out. I said, hi, Mr. Kelly. I'm Darryl Davis. And he shook my hand. And the bodyguard shook my hand.

So far, so good, right? Come on him, please have a seat. Mr. Kelly sat down and the bodyguard stood at attention on his right side. And before I could sit down, he wanted some ID. So I gave him some ID. And then I sat down. We began talking. Every time he would make some biblical reference or the cassette ran out of tape,

I'd reach down to get the Bible or get a fresh cassette. Whenever I'd reach down, the bodyguard would reach up, you know, to his gun. He never drew it, but he put his hand on the butt on the handle. I understood that because that's his job. He does not know me. He does not know what's in my bag. His job is to protect his boss. So he's doing what he has to do.

I got that. So I was fine with that. And this went on every time I went in and out of the bag for a while. Why did he want your ID? I mean, who cares? Like that part I didn't. Well, here's what happened. So he asked me if I had any ID.

And so I gave him my driver's license. And then he looks at it. He goes, oh, you live on such and such street in Silver Spring. That had me concerned. Yeah, like it's like a subtle threat. Like, oh, now I know where you live. Yeah, exactly. So I'm thinking, okay, if you got to come by and, you know, burn across in my yard.

Would he grow up next door to where you live or something? No, no. But, you know, it had me concerned. But I did not want to let him know, you know, that I was concerned. So I said, yes, Mr. Kelly, that is where I live. And you live at. And I named his house number of his street. That when he knew, I knew where he lived too, right?

Right. So now I'm leveling the playing field. I did not realize it that day. But the reason why he made note of my street was because one of his members lives right down the road here. He's no longer there. He's in prison now. Oh.

So Mr. Kelly would have to drive down my street, which runs through two neighborhoods, to see this guy. And so it was just pure coincidence. But I had no way of knowing that. I didn't even know the guy lived down there. So I found that out much later. Anyway, so the Viterard kept reaching for his gun. Well, after a while, he relaxed. He realized there was no threat in the bag.

I went in and out. He didn't do anything. We just stand there. About a little over an hour maybe into this interview. Mr. Kelly and I were just talking casually. and there was a very quick, sudden, short noise that came out of nowhere, like a, that was it. But because it happened so out of nowhere, we all jumped. And I came up out of my seat.

I was ready to dive across that table and attack. I feared for my life. Now, why did I fear for my life? Well, A, my ear could not discern the noise. It happened too fast. It was gone. I'm sitting in the room with the head of the clan for my state. I'm black.

I've already been told by one of his members that he would kill me. So I got all that going on in my head. And so you go into survival mode. And the survival mode, you can only do basically one or four things. Some people just think they pass out because the fear is so great their brain cannot process it. And it shuts down and you fall out. I don't do that. Other people, their muscles would tighten up and they'll start shaking and they can't move.

They're constricted. That's called paralysis by fear. They can't move. You can be hitting them, whatever. They won't even be deflecting the blows. I don't freeze up like that. Another thing people will do is to run away. You get scared, you run away.

That is the best option. And that's the option that I would have chosen had it been available to me. But you cannot outrun a bullet in a motel room. Right, yeah. So the last option was to do a preemptive strike. Get them before they get you. And that's what I was going to do. I was going to dive across the table, grab both of those guys and slam them down to the ground,

and immobilize that guy's gun. But when I hit the table, I'm looking right into Mr. Kelly's eyes. I didn't say a word. My eyes were conveying everything I was thinking, because I knew he made that noise. There was no doubt in my mind, he made that noise. And I didn't know what it was. And because I didn't know what it was, it caused fear. And I perceived it to be ominous and threatening.

And I knew you could read my eyes. my eyes were saying to him, what did you just do? Well, his eyes had locked with mine. He didn't say a word either, but I could read his eyes as well. His eyes were asking me, what did you just do? And the bodyguard had his hand on his gun, looking back and forth between both of us like, what do either one of you all just do? Well, Mary, she was sitting on top of the dresser to my left, because there were no more chairs, and she realized what had happened, and she began explaining it when it happened again. what had happened was the ice in the ice bucket had melted and the cans of soda were falling down the ice. Oh, God.

That was it. Somebody almost got shot over an ice cube. That's how crazy this thing was. But this was a teaching moment because all in that same moment, it confirmed the fact that we all were human and we all had something in common. we all felt fear in the same moment. He didn't know what it was. He thought I did it. So did the bodyguard, right?

I didn't know what it was. I thought he did it. We both feared one another because of some things that we didn't even know about, we were ignorant to it. And at the same time, in that same moment when Mary explained it, when the fear was addressed and gone,

we all began laughing about it. I bet. I can imagine the tension got had to get diffused somehow. Yeah. And we were laughing at our ignorance. So this is a very important lesson that I think needs to be taught in every classroom anywhere USA. All because some foreign, underline circle highlight the word foreign entity of which we were ignorant, being the bucket of ice, Kansas soda, had entered into our little comfort zone via the noise that it made.

We became fearful and accusatory of each other. ignorance breeds fear. If we do not keep that fear in check and address it, it will escalate to hatred because we hate the things that frighten us. Then if we don't address the hatred and keep it in check, it will escalate into anger and breed destruction. We want to destroy the things that we hate. Why? Because they frighten us. But guess what? They may have been harmless and we were simply ignorant. We saw that whole chain almost unraveled to completion. Had the night hawk, the bodyguard, shot me or my secretary, or had I jumped across the table and hurt one of them? It stopped just short of that, fortunately.

You did see exactly what I'm talking about four years ago, August 12th, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, where at that big supremacist rally, on that day, there was a lot of ignorance in Charlottesville. there was a lot of fear, which escalated to hatred, which culminated in destruction when a white supremacist got inside his vehicle and tried to murder as many people as he could by driving full force into the crowd. He succeeded in injuring 20 people and murdering one young lady named Heather Heyer. Ignorance breeds fear, fear breeds hatred, hatred breeds a destruction. And this is universal. You know, when I speak to little kids, like in elementary school, middle school, things like that, and I'm talking about this kind of thing, of course, I camp it down a lot, you know, for that age level. Yeah. But I'll give you an example of something.

I'm in a classroom. I'm standing at the top of the classroom. You hear these little kids are sitting in their little desks, you know, five rows of them. And I'll be talking casually and then suddenly out of the book, say, hey, hey, there's a snake under your chair. and I'll point down between some kids' feet. And just at my suggestion and pointing that there's a snake under somebody's chair, not only does that person scream, kids five rows back scream, you know, ah, right? And then they realize there's no snake there, and they all start laughing.

And I asked them, I say, you know, why did you all scream? I hate snakes. I'm afraid of snakes. Well, there's your hatred. There's your fear. Why do you hate snakes? Well, they're slimy. They're poisonous.

Well, there's your ignorance. Snakes are not slimy at all. They're dry. And not all snakes are poisonous. So, you know, you're making assumptions. That's the ignorance, right? So I said, okay, there was no snake under your chair, obviously. However, let's just pretend that there really was a snake under your chair.

What would you want me to do about it? You know what they say? Kill it. There's your destruction. Ignorance, fear, hatred, destruction. Kill it. And these are coming from little kids, you know, pre-teenage. That's something that we have to address in this country.

Learn how to deal with things that we don't understand. I mean, you know, we can be cautious. I understand that. Self-preservation and stuff. But let's not always seek to destroy. A missed opportunity for dialogue is a missed opportunity for conflict resolution. I'm a firm believer in that. gets resolved without talking about it. When I was a kid overseas, I was probably six years

old, five or six. I remember the occasion. I remember the age, but the American ambassador would always do things at his residence in line with American traditions, like Easter egg hunts and all that kind of stuff for the kids of the embassy. And so my parents were taking me to do an Easter egg hunt at his house, and a bunch of kids there were coming up the driveway. And There was a kid who I didn't recognize, older kid, standing at the top of the driveway. And he had something white on his arm. And when he moved around, his arm didn't move. And I'd never seen anything like this.

I didn't know what was wrong with his arm. And when we got there, you know, it was time to get out of the car. I wouldn't get out. I was afraid of that kid because I'd never seen an arm like that before. And my parents just kept trying to explain to me. It's a cast. He's injured his arm. You know, you put it in a cast.

I'd never seen a cast before. You know, so it was foreign to me. I didn't want anything to do with that kid. And my parents literally had to drag me out of the car, kicking and screaming and crying. Because I did not want to go anywhere near that kid. I would have had to walk by him to go play with my other friends. They dragged me out of the car, and I ran to my friends, man. You know, and over time that day, I remember some of my friends,

going up to the guy. And they were like touching his cast, and they were writing something on his cast. And so I was curious, I kept my distance, but I'd get closer and closer, and I'd look. And then he asked me,

do you want to write your name on it? I saw everybody else doing it, so I figured, okay, and he handed me a marker. I took it from afar. I touched the cast, and then I began writing my name on it. And, of course,

he and I became friends later. But it took that experience of not knowing what it was, it put fear in me. So I can understand how ignorance can breed fear. If you found this episode interesting, here's a trailer for another episode of the Jordan Harbinger Show. Bob Sagitt shares how humor can be used as a coping mechanism for pain and the necessity of reinvention for career longevity and fulfillment.

Here's a preview. When did you know that you were funny? Like, were you a class clown the whole time? Or was it? Last year. Last year. Yeah. Fame is bullshit.

To let it go to your head, the moment you're cocky is the moment you've lost me as an audience. And a lot of people are attracted to it. You know, if I had known that secret as a teenager, I would have had a lot of girlfriends or just been quite a stud because the key was not to care. I'm calm with my skin now. I don't know if it's evident during this thing. If I'm so calm, why the hell was I clicking this chapstick? I'm demonstrating.

Yeah, man. This is what you were hearing. But you were hearing it in a much. slower clicking. It's like a hypnotic pattern for the listener. So I put your listeners to bed. For me to walk around, scared or thinking about people that are trying to hold me back, nobody's holding me back.

If anybody's holding you back, it's you. You know, not you. Yeah. Not you, Jordan. If anyone's holding me back, it's you, Jordan. This podcast is going to, you're going to see a massive onslaught of listeners for your show. I'm talking Bob Saggit's here for you. It's going to get eight more people.

Provided we don't blow it in the last quarter here or the last 10th. 10 minutes here or whatever that's impossible well we got more than that we're in an hour and 12 and two of those minutes have to be cut you're standing there with john stamos dave coolie and you think no one can see you and i heard that there was a life-size doll yeah let's let's forget this one this one's painful uh you know too much i'm gonna have to kill you i know i read your book when i can't hear you i have to kill you yeah we can hang out when the plague lifts i can't wait maybe on alone here but i don't like coronavirus we don't have wet markets in downtown l.a right No, we don't. At least not with like bats and pengolins and other stuff that you haven't heard of.

No. Oh, what the hell happened? For more with Bob Sagget on how the big breaks can come from one of life's worst disappointments and Bob's proven remedy for dealing with the haters and we all have haters, check out episode 372 on the Jordan Harbinger Show with Bob Sagitt. All right, this is the end of part one. We got part two coming right up. Links to Darrell's stuff's going to be in the show notes. Please use our website links when you buy books from any of the guests.

That does help support the show. Workseats for episodes are also in the show notes. Transcripts are in the show notes, and there's a video of this interview and many others, all up on our YouTube channel at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. We've also got a brand new Clips channel with cuts that don't make it to the show, highlights from interviews that you can't see anywhere else.

Jordan Harbinger.com slash clips is where you can find that. And if you want to get in touch, I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, where you can hit me on LinkedIn. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships using systems, software, and tiny habits. That's in our six-minute networking course, and that course is free. That's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.

Dig that well before you get thirsty. And most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course. They contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company. Don't forget to join us for part two here coming up next. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, J. Sanderson, Robert Fogarty,

Millio Campo, Ian Baird, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. Look, this is a fascinating story. Y'all know somebody who's going to be interested in this. Please share this episode with him. I think it's a good intro to the Jordan Harbinger show as well.

I hope you find something great in every episode of this show, so please share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way.

Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not, the through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews

because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that, I want to understand how people in the world really work, itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.