Think Differently. Solve the Impossible.

 

Show Notes

Website: https://www.peacebuildersunite.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-reiff

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e81am0G48qc

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielle.m.reiff

Transcript

My guest today is Danielle Reiff.

She has a graduate degree in international relations and peace.

For 20 years as an American diplomat, she promoted democracy and peace in countries such as Uganda, Colombia, and South Sudan, and was also involved in democratic transitions in the Republic of Georgia and Sri Lanka.

She serves on the board of a nonprofit, which provides support for those seeking asylum and safety in the United States, and another that conducts research with communities affected by violent conflicts.

For three years, she served as a violence prevention expert on Washington, DC's Concealed Pistol Licensing Review Board, an independent body that reviews appeals when police deny or revoke a concealed carry license.

In 2022, Danielle rated the Peace Builders Initiative to inspire citizens to come together to build the collective against attempts to divide us.

Her book, Overcoming Information Chaos, A Guide to Cultivating Peaceful Communities in the Digital Age will be published this coming July.

Welcome to my show, Danielle.

Thank you.

It's a pleasure to be here.

So, I want to talk a lot about peace building and nonviolent communication, but first, since we had the recent presidential election, how do you think the presidential election in America could affect peace in America and the rest of the world?

Wow, that's a great question.

So, I believe that there are a few important elements of ensuring nonviolent conflict resolution in any country.

One are the democratic institutions.

So, to the extent that we have institutions that are behaving professionally, that are operating from democratic principles, like participation, transparency, inclusiveness, accountability, those institutions help to ensure that we can resolve our conflicts without having to fight each other.

So, we're talking about ones in America, institutions?

Yeah, America or anywhere, democratic institutions, one of their fundamental roles is to help with the resolution of conflict in a country.

So, that's one way.

Oh, speaking of which, on your website, I noticed there's democracy development.

I didn't know the United States offers multiple kinds of monetary assistance to other countries.

Besides weapons, I know we give money for weapons.

One category for assistance is promotion of democratic principles.

Tell me about the United States democracy development assistance program and how that might help other of these countries you're speaking of that are trying to work things out peacefully.

Yeah.

Well, if we agree that democratic institutions are or can be, should be helping us to resolve our conflicts without resorting to violence, then helping to strengthen those institutions and build and strengthen institutions that promote democratic principles in other countries is one way to help reduce violence and.

So a country that do they ask for it or do we offer it?

And how do we decide how much money to give them and not be in a conflict of interest ourselves if Congress votes to give it or not?

That's probably already a conflict of interest.

Well, the the United States Development Assistance infrastructure is quite complex.

There are lots of different categories and approaches that we use to help and support other countries.

We support public health.

We support economic growth.

We support public education in the countries where I've worked.

And so supporting democratic institutions is really just one stream of many that we support as a part of our foreign assistance.

But there's a principle that if you're supporting peace in other countries and doing this work, then it actually helps to support peace in the US as well, because it reduces sources of, yeah, sources of conflict, globally speaking.

Well, I think we'd have less wars.

We'd have more money to spend on our own people than spending it on wars.

Yeah, it's strategic.

I know there's a lot of people who don't understand foreign assistance, and it doesn't make sense why you would give hard-earned taxpayer dollars to people in countries outside the US.

But yeah, development assistance in particular, where you're helping other countries build their own capacity, it helps us in the long run.

I think people would support it more if it was working more, if they knew that it was actually solvent.

We're still at war and we're still spending more money than ever in the history, probably, of the world to fight wars.

So, it's kind of like the fire retardant is not working.

Why bother?

But not to be negative, because I like to focus on solutions.

I'm just trying to understand the program better.

You know, it almost sounds like fluff.

Are we giving it to the right people?

And are we giving enough of it to the right people?

Or are we picking our battles and we're not picking the right ones?

With the democracy program?

Yeah, development assistance, including in the democracy promotion realm, is it's all about finding the real champions of democracy and the people who can create positive change in their countries and supporting them.

So sometimes that's champions inside governments.

Sometimes it's champions in civil society.

But you mentioned the amount of money.

You know, the amount of money that the US spends on development assistance is just a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money that we spend on our defense.

Yeah, I know.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

So, I mean, you can't really expect.

It's like if my neighbor, if I was peaceful with my neighbor because I spent the money, I took him to lunch, I accidentally scratched his car, so I fixed it, I spend the money.

I don't think I need to buy a new gun to protect myself and my neighbor, but instead America is buying more and more guns.

It's not even, something's not believable.

But anywho, another, I want to ask you about immigration, because that's something else I think you talk about, immigration problems while protecting legitimate people seeking asylum.

What is your solution to that?

So there are, obviously, immigration is a critically important issue for the country.

Voters cited it as something that they voted on.

It's also an issue where we have real deep divides in this country.

Our immigration system is different than a lot of countries.

So you take Canada, for example, and their immigration system is structured quite differently.

So for example, they do analysis of what are strategically the needs in the labor market, and then they open up immigration to people who have the skills that meet the needs that they have.

And then they allow immigration based on skills to meet the needs that the country actually has.

Whereas in the US, obviously, we don't do it that way.

A lot of people, they're very limited avenues for legal immigration into the US.

I was speaking more of illegal immigration.

Yeah.

Well, because there are such limited avenues for legal immigration, I think a lot of people do seek out alternative.

I grew up in Arizona.

I mean, bottom line is, our immigration system needs to be armed in a very thoughtful way.

People who are unhappy with it have good reason, but also I believe that we are a nation of immigrants.

We were founded by immigrants, and we have this beautiful reputation of being the melting pot in the place where people who seek freedom and prosperity can come and achieve the American dream.

So somehow, we have to find a way to...

And what about them?

I don't want to dig too much deeper into this issue, but just one of the, I think the issues is people say we're not actually following the laws we have on immigration.

We're not enforcing immigration laws that we have because there's this debate.

Do you think we should follow our own laws and force the laws we have, or you don't think they're...

Yeah, of course.

No, of course.

Of course, I believe in the importance of the law and the rule of law.

Which gets me back to my question.

There's also a lot of misperception and misunderstanding about what the law is.

Well, basically, if I understand it, keep it simple, as you hear illegally, no papers whatsoever, no green card, you entered illegally, you should be deported, right?

Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

I...

Then we argue amongst ourselves, apparently, that, no, that's not fair.

And that's what I mean is, we're arguing whether it's fair or not.

Are we going to enforce the law or not?

If you want to change the law, we have a process.

You go to Congress, you change the law or not.

And it seems we're stuck on, can we even enforce the existing law?

Which was my question to you, is if we did, we would deport them.

But what if there is somebody who, they did come, honestly, not from Mexico just to do drugs and illegal stuff and hurt people.

But honestly here, because they were trying to escape persecution, how do you, I think that's where people get pulled into the argument, let's not enforce the law.

What would you suggest to fix that debate that hanging, you know, it's not real clear cut.

Or is there, you know, you would know, isn't, is there probably a process to seek legal asylum?

There is, and that's what a lot of people don't understand.

So a lot of the people who come through the southern border pass through US immigration, customs and immigration.

They come, they meet with a US official.

They say, I'm here to seek asylum.

They're registered in the database.

They're given paperwork.

And then they're released into the US with a court date.

You know, so they have paperwork, they have a court date.

And then some people go to their court date and follow the legal process.

And some people don't show up for their court dates, and they become illegal.

So the real difficulty, I mean, I'm not against deportation of people who are here illegally and not following our laws and not, yeah, not contributing to our system.

We have a process.

So someone jumps the wall at the border, or crosses, you know, sneaky.

They're being sneaky because they don't want to go through the process.

We should send them and enforce the law, basically.

Yeah.

But I do think that the border patrol does pick up a lot of the people who are-

Oh, no, it's a problem.

So I'm from Arizona and my nephews would have to go to school in the nice city.

You know, we're talking Chandler.

And of course, they got to get up, catch the school bus, do what they're told.

They get there and guess what they have to wait before they can be in class?

The illegals to eat breakfast.

They feed the illegals.

They're completely illegal.

They know they're illegal.

In New Mexico-

Are you talking about students in the school?

Yeah, students.

Or people in the community?

Students.

You even get free health care.

I don't.

I have no health care coverage.

I paid for my recent surgery and I broke my hip rock climbing $20,000 out of pocket.

Yeah.

If I was illegal, I just go in and get free health care.

Won't get deported.

And yet there's a debate.

In Phoenix, they don't speak English, some of them.

So they go on the freeway the wrong way.

They try to enter the freeway by the exit.

And there seems to be no way to engineer that, so it can't happen.

Kill people.

Anywho, moving on, because I really want to hear some of your more intimate ideas for non-conflict conversations.

Tell me about non-violent communication in general.

Everybody, like how I'm doing now, I get excited about something.

I have a kind of, you know, passionate about while my family lives there.

How do you engage?

I respect people's opinions.

Let me have my say.

You have yours.

I don't need to get argumentative to let you know.

I'm not, just because I don't get arguing doesn't mean I agree with you.

I'm just letting you say what you want to say.

But seems most people, you know, you turn on the news, you can't watch the news without the orders totally like who's going to win, who yells the most, it cuts the person off.

Yeah.

It's not a healthy culture of communication that we're in right now.

It's quite unhealthy, actually.

How do people communicate better non-violently?

Yeah.

So I'm a big proponent and a practitioner of non-violent communication in the way that it was conceived by Marshall Rosenberg.

Non-violent communication is really about focusing on underlying needs.

So rather than talking generally about policies and what's going on, and what other people's experiences are, and big picture things, it's about really when you're speaking to someone, focusing on what their personal experiences.

What are they feeling?

What are they thinking?

What are their underlying needs?

And the concept is that the feelings that we're having are reflective of underlying needs that we have.

So when we're lashing out at people, perhaps there's a need we have that's not being met.

Whereas if our needs are being met, we're able to-

So back to walk me through a real example.

I'm going to pretend to.

I'm not that passionate about this issue.

But just let me pretend.

Well, I'll use my health care.

I go to the hospital and I notice that the illegals are going to, literally, no hablas ingles, no papers, go that way, pre-health care.

And me sitting there, I'm like, so I'm going to get angry about the immigration issue.

And really, what would you ask me?

Dan, what's really the problem?

Is that what you would ask me?

Well, so in that particular instance, non-violent communication would engage you to figure out, you have an unmet need, I'm hearing an unmet need, which is you have health care needs that you are struggling with.

And so it would be about helping you figure out what your unmet needs are and what you can do to get your needs met.

It will be simple.

Let me go down the same hallway, and don't give me a bill on the way out.

That's all they do.

I can't speak to the specifics of what's happening in your hospital or any hospital.

You do this all time.

Give me an example, a story, a little story.

But the question is, so a story about...

Your needs are unmet.

So let's think of a conflict that people might get at work.

Work, there's always arguments, right?

Even, you know, you cut me off on the freeway.

You know, there was a violent communication.

There was a lot of...

I hear what you're saying.

People don't feel they're being recognized.

And there's really more of a...

Yeah, people are being seen and heard.

And I think a lot of people feel like their voice doesn't matter, that they don't really have agency to create change around them.

Because why?

I actually appreciated, you know, when I read about your podcast and your book and the things you're doing, you seem to...

You seem to believe that we all have a sense of agency and we can do hard things.

And so that was one of the things that inspired me about your approach.

And so, I mean, would you agree?

You believe we have agency to create change, and we can do hard things?

Well, we built America, right?

Yeah, exactly.

You put a man on the moon, if you believe it or not, either way, it's...

How many mountains have you climbed?

Yeah.

That's 30 at least, or I lost count.

I've climbed mountains that had never been climbed before, some of them myself.

I'm not the best climber.

I just don't give up, and I try a different way.

I come down, people are like, what do you do when you get terrified?

I'm like, I come down.

There's a reason you get scared.

It means pause, think about it.

Yeah.

Go for it or no, you don't always go for it.

You don't always want to cross the street when there's cars coming.

Yeah, you make choices.

You make choices.

So this is the intentionality that I think we're missing in our culture, where we're really tearing each other apart, going after each other, and it's a culture, you know, blame and it's, it's, it's tough.

Whereas I think if we cultivate this, this sense of at every step of the way, we can stop, we can pause, we can reflect and let's make intentional choices and let's make choices that do no harm to others, and that actually help to meet our own needs.

Do you think it's a psychology issue like the Arnold Schwarzenegger type, which I have a lot of respect for him in his recent book, but him in the Rambo types, which is America tougher, men tougher, people just be tough.

If you're going to advance in your career, be tough.

But get about the other guy, like it's a win.

It's a dog eat dog.

I mean, academics are that way.

You can't really get tenured unless you do the dog eat dog.

We're very competitive as a society.

We're very competitive, yeah.

But I don't see a problem with competition.

I think it can be healthy.

It can.

It can spur innovation and push people to go further, do better.

There's not an issue with competition, but we can't always be in competitive mode.

There's actually a lot of research that suggests that when we work together to solve our problems, if you and I disagree about something, but we can bring your best ideas for how to solve it together with my best ideas for how to solve it and find work on that until we can figure out a way to solve the problem, we're going to come up with a better solution than if you're doing it by yourself or I'm doing it myself.

Yeah, it's a recognition promotion, more money for me thing, or I don't want to starve thing.

I need this job or I need recognition versus if we solve the problem, we're a team, like we all win.

Yeah.

The idea is not built that way.

That's maybe part of that.

That's the cultural change.

Yeah, that's the cultural change that we need to create.

That's true.

That's my unclimbed mountain.

This is-

Yeah, you seem to be.

Yeah.

So tell me about your story.

You started in the-

did you start in the Peace Corps?

Yeah.

After undergrad, I went off to the Peace Corps.

I was in a rural village in Burkina Faso in West Africa, teaching English to middle schoolers and learning a lot about how to live in another culture.

So learning about how things are done in a completely different part of the world.

And then you were an ambassador to other places around the world.

I've never been an ambassador, but I was in the Foreign Service for 20 years.

So I served in US embassies.

So out of the Peace Corps, you joined the service?

No.

So I went back to the US.

I actually worked at the UN for a few years, and then I went back to graduate school, and it was after graduate school that I joined the Foreign Service.

So tell me about disinformation.

I would just, this just came up on my news feed the other day.

And I'm afraid to talk about it, because it's almost like people think you're a conspiracy theory guy.

If you talk about misinformation, like you can't be any misinformation, there's no such thing.

It's nice to actually see the word in print someplace these days.

But how do you tell?

Do you have some tips?

Can you explain real quick the definition?

What is misinformation and how you can tell it from something that's real true?

Yeah.

So in my book, we talk about information disorder is the term we're using.

It's sort of all encompassing.

It includes information, disinformation in different forms.

So misinformation would be someone sharing information and they got some of the details wrong.

They weren't intending to deceive, but they communicated incorrect information, and now people are operating on incorrect information.

So that's misinformation.

And there's a lot of that out there.

There is a time.

That's avoidable for human beings.

This disinformation.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Disinformation is information that is created with the intent to make you believe something.

I see.

There's miss and dis.

Yeah.

Miss is accidental.

Didn't mean it didn't imply bad communication skill.

Didn't do my research.

Wanted to go to bed early instead of staying up later and doing the research.

Dis is on purpose.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, why would somebody do disinformation?

Who would do that and why?

Well, yeah, that's the key question.

Very important question.

So people who, sometimes people do things like that.

They create disinformation.

They spread disinformation because they have some narrow interests, and they want people to believe certain things in order to further their own interests.

Which is pretty much almost everybody in the population would, if they'd given the chance.

Well, maybe not.

They'll skew it.

Maybe that would be misinformation or not telling the whole truth.

Disinformation, though, it might correct if I say it's completely not true.

That's right.

That's right.

Made up.

You know it's false.

You know you're trying to say something that's false.

It's intentional lie.

It's lying.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why don't we just call it lying?

Well, it's, yeah, maybe it's just a technical term that, yeah, why don't you just call it lying?

But it's a form.

It's like, I can lie to you.

I wouldn't because I don't lie, but I could say, you know, I, yeah, I could say my grandmother spoke Chinese.

My grandmother didn't speak Chinese.

You know, so that was lying.

You know, anybody can do it.

It's a very interpersonal thing, whereas disinformation is more systematic.

It's the creation of false narratives and then spreading them systematically.

Give me an example, example in terms of world peace and whatnot.

Oh, it's a good, I'm going to struggle to come up with an example right now.

Well, let's think about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

I know, that was the conflict that came to my mind.

But I mean, I-

It seems these days you can talk about stuff you couldn't five years, even five years ago, certainly not 10 or 15.

You would have the plug pulled on you if you even mentioned any, like there's another side of the information.

So I'm really shocked at what's happened recently.

I don't think we can do any ruffle too many feathers by using that, because I think that's a strong example, right?

It is, yeah.

So you have to ask, I'm not going to point to specific examples.

You have to ask if you're supporting the Israeli side, is the information that you're getting accurate about what's happening in the Palestinian territories?

If you're on the Palestinian side, and you have a certain worldview and perspective about what's happening in that conflict, you have to ask yourself, is the information I'm receiving accurate?

So everybody, we all on all sides of any conflict have to be asking ourselves more often, we have to be more critical about the information we're consuming and asking, is this true?

Is this the full story?

What is the full story?

Exactly.

What am I not being told?

What information am I missing?

What is the project?

I would say follow the money.

Is it rational?

Follow the money.

It's a piece of pie.

Yeah.

Nobody does anything because they're trying to be hero or do the right thing.

There's always money behind it somewhere.

Well, I do believe in my piecebuilders' work is really about cultivating an inner sense of peace as well based on integrity.

I mean, if we're caught in this society where the values of, I would say like toxic levels of competition or a sort of hyper interest in money making, and all we see, all anybody wants is fame and money, and to the expense of other people.

They really just want to be happy, but they think that's what will get them to be happy, is more money and.

Yeah, whereas, you know, you asked about my Peace Corps, when I lived in a rural African village, there was a greater sense of community and interdependence, and reliance on each other.

And people felt loved.

Well, there was a greater sense of community.

Some people, social love, I would say.

Social, so for example.

That's what I meant, social love.

Yeah, somebody who wants to go out and to sow some fields, grow some crops.

You can count on the fact that your neighbors, when it comes time to harvest, you will be able to get together a group of your neighbors who will help you harvest your crop.

So for example, in the US, if I wanted to do that, I would be sitting here trying to figure out, oh my God, I want to start, I want to grow some crops.

I don't really know 100% how to do it.

I don't know that I'm going to be physically able myself to harvest all the crops myself.

How am I going to do it?

What am I going to do?

And then I'm stuck figuring out, okay, well, I can hire some help, I can buy some guidance.

How do I find the money to get the help I need?

Whereas on some level, you'll be successful to the level that some big, bigger business sees you successful, and you're taking away from their services, and then they squash you by pulling some law, like you don't have a permit, or you're like Monsanto with the organic farmers.

But again, in my Peace Corps village, I wouldn't have to worry about that because I'm helping other people harvest their crops, and of course, they're going to show up and help me harvest mine.

We're helping each other, so we don't actually need to come up with some big investor to help us do this business.

We're just helping each other.

And there's so much we can do to help each other, but everybody's so focused on their own issues.

They're trying to survive.

People are just trying to, you know.

But trying to survive alone, and I guess my point is that we can survive and thrive more easily when we're working together.

There are a lot of ways we can help each other to survive and thrive.

And if we're in hypercompetitive mode, maybe we're undermining some of the options.

Smaller villages, the money is not such a big deal.

They probably don't have any money, any of them.

Yeah, there's very little money there to begin with.

So they use what they have, which is their time, their energy, their neighbors, their support.

What I mean is when you put money in the picture, then that's when the big business or the personal interest comes into mind.

Well, now I'm helping you do your crops, so I can't go to work, which means I can't make money, and I need money.

And then if the bigger farmers or whoever see you're doing a great job, and you're not going to need to buy food from the grocery store anymore because you're growing their own food, then they're in fear because they're going to lose money.

And so how do they react?

They find some way to shut you down, misinformation, tell, or just make up a regulation that you're not following or something to shut you down because of fear because they're not going to make money.

It comes back to the money, which is quite a deep issue that we can't solve.

In terms of inner peace myself, I come back to my own brain.

Danielle, you can't change the world by making a law, or protesting I think is the worst thing, waste of time, getting yourself arrested.

You can spread information, not disinformation, spread information.

Like if everybody knew how money was created, for example, and how the money system really worked, and where corporations get more money than we do, and stuff like that.

But don't get angry about it.

Just pass knowledge, because I think if enough people know about something, then things will change on their own.

But in the meantime, back to your skills and how you can help us.

Well, no, I actually want to respond to that, because I think it's a really important issue.

It really gets to the heart of the matter.

So you asked in the beginning, how do you bring peace to your community, your society, to the world?

And I talked about democratic institutions, and I do think that's a really key pillar of it.

Like you said, there's a piece of it that can't be legislated, and it's about us as individuals focusing on what we can build, what we can create, how we can work together.

And that's something that requires us to have sort of a mindset shift.

Yeah, rather than getting all angry and lashing out about what other people are doing or what you don't have, or, you know, if people could just pull in a little bit and spend their energy trying to create something new and better, starting within their own lives, and then working within their own communities, if we could get to a critical mass of people doing that, then things would change.

Things would really change.

Do you have an example?

I'd love to talk about a man and a community in South Sudan, for example.

So when I was in South Sudan, I was there from 2015 to 2016.

There was a peace process ongoing.

South Sudan has known more war than most countries, and Sudan's in general.

So Sudan, South Sudan has known more war than most countries in the world.

There are a lot of military figures in government, it's a very militarized society, and even the peace process that I was supporting fell apart, and the factions went back to fighting.

But even within this very violent war affected country, there was a guy, he was a Catholic bishop, and when he retired, he decided to go and create a peace village.

It was called the Quran Peace Village.

And he went to a part of South Sudan where the local groups were systematically fighting each other.

There were cattle herders who would raid the neighbors and steal their cattle and steal their women, and it had been going on like that for a long time, you know, fighting amongst the groups.

And he decided to create a space and a system and a community where people could actually live together.

And he created different structures.

So he, for example, created a dialogue structure where when problems arose, when people disagreed, when somebody stole from someone else, he could actually bring people together in a timely way and actually talk through it.

And he facilitated conversations that help people resolve their issues and get their needs met without having to resolve them.

With people stealing the cattle, how did they solve that problem?

You know, so I don't want to go into the details.

It would be a lot.

But the bottom line is...

Besides getting a bigger gun, and the older alternative is to invite the cattle people down to the town, right?

Do you have a conversation?

Yeah, exactly.

So they have conversations and they work it out.

And over the course of years, that's just one thing he's done.

For example, the research always shows that when people can...

Walk me through this for non-violence.

Let's just pretend.

Because you could apply this to a lot of theft.

You know, call the police.

Yeah.

Instead of calling the police, what would a community...

I mean, community would be the police.

How would you have this conversation non-violently with the people that stole your horse?

So there's a lot of...

There's a lot of experience with mediation and facilitation.

I actually would like to talk more about the structures.

So, for example, there's a lot of research that shows that when people who are different, they're divided, they believe they're different from each other, come together, and they can work towards the common goal, like on a project together, then there's some bonding that takes place, because they have to work together to figure out how to do the project.

So if they've got a demonstration farm, and they're trying to grow crops together, actually have to sit and talk about, okay, how do we do this?

How would you do it?

How would I do it?

How are we going to do it?

Then they have to work together, and if they want to achieve this common objective, both groups or both people need to get involved.

So there was a lot of that kind of thing in the village.

In the mornings, he would bring people together and set intentions.

He cultivated emotional intelligence and the ability of people to apologize when they did wrong things, to say that they loved each other, to ask for help, to ask for forgiveness.

He normalized those kinds of things.

And so between all of this, he managed to create within this otherwise very war-torn country, a whole community where people with a different culture, with a more peaceful culture, where people who without the structures would be hurting each other and stealing from each other.

But within these structures, we're able to live peacefully together and do a lot of work together and educate their children and feed their kids.

Maybe part of the issue with America is even though we have Congress and we have a lot of effort and money and time going into politics.

Politics should be a way that we come to an agreement on a common goal, like going to space with John F.

Kennedy, common national goal.

Yeah.

Maybe we don't.

We definitely, if you ask a Republican or a Democrat about an issue, it seems like they have a separate goal.

But it really shouldn't have the same common goal.

Why is that?

I mean, why wouldn't they not have the same common goal, which is peace and wealth and liberty?

You know, I think people do generally, I believe people are fundamentally good, and I do believe most people wake up in the morning, and they just want to do their best, and they want wellness and prosperity for themselves, and their communities, and their country.

I mean, I don't think many Americans want the US to be divided, or want the US to be poor, or want the US to be in conflict.

Don't put me in the picture on the spot.

And it's, you'd be a miracle if you could really do this justice.

An issue that I thought of where just people don't have the common goal.

If we use non-violence and ask, hey, what are your needs?

I don't know if we could still come, is abortion.

Yeah.

So there you have an argument, a conflict.

Go for it.

Yes.

But there are ways.

So yeah, so exactly.

So I think you're absolutely right.

Despite our system or maybe because of it, maybe our system is actually contributing to it.

We've become so polarized that we're not, our space is to come together and actually solve problems together, to come together and debate and discuss and actually develop common goals.

They're not working in that way.

So you're right.

I think you're right.

I think-

We'll break it down.

But I want to talk to the abortion issue.

I want to talk to the abortion issue.

So those spaces are broken, but there are a lot of innovations in deliberative democracy, for example, a lot of new kinds of institutions and processes and approaches where other countries are experimenting with how do we do this better?

How do we bring people together across divides and actually facilitate policy conversations where we can understand each other and actually develop a common vision?

So in Ireland, they are a pioneer in something called a citizen assembly.

Have you ever heard of a citizen assembly?

No, I have this thought on how to solve the problem that I'm trying to stick with.

Because you inspired me, you inspired me, actually.

Something you said inspired me to think.

At first, I was like, we can't solve it because it's a belief issue.

People that believe it's killing an unborn child is wrong for religious purposes or moral.

We can't solve that.

Actually, the problem, something you said that inspired me to think of the solution is technology.

You said something about technology as well.

Well, the real problem is a woman has an un...

Of course, it wouldn't solve the rape issue.

But, I mean, there's birth control.

I mean, the real issue is like some kind of advanced birth control or prevention method.

Like, I'm going to be raped, so let me shut down so I can't become pregnant.

Because as long as we get stuck on it's wrong or it's right to kill a fetus, we're never going to solve that problem.

Yeah, when people become entrenched in their views, it becomes very difficult.

And that's why-

Focus out, like, what's the bigger problem?

It is prevention, the solution.

Solution.

And I don't know anyone that wouldn't agree on that, except the one thing I was a Catholic.

I mean, you can never quit, right?

Something, unless you could go back.

Anytime.

I never understood the Pope's stance on birth control.

It's, we can't have it.

That makes no sense to me.

Here's a solution, and now you're saying, no, we can't do that.

Because there was a valid solution to the problem.

Well, let me tell you how Ireland figured this out.

It's actually genius.

It's an innovation that we could do more of, that people are doing more of.

So for a citizen assembly, you have the government convening a representative sample, or as close as you can get, a representative sample of people in the society.

So people have all different viewpoints, different demographics, men, women, Catholics, Protestants, atheists.

Nice.

I like that.

Yeah, all different, because you can't come up with a societal solution without everybody being at the table.

So they bring up representatives.

It's the person you think is the least qualified, the farmer, not the engineer who has this idea, you haven't thought of because you're in your own little world.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

So how do you get that farmer into the process?

So then you get all these people into a room, and sometimes it's a couple of days, sometimes it's a week, and then they bring in policy experts and researchers from across the game.

And they, once you have this group of people assembled, you give them all of the most current research and information on the topic.

So they did this around abortion in Ireland.

So they had the conservative think tanks and the liberal think tanks.

I would think this would be like going to a mediator, too.

If you're going to participate ahead of time, you agree to accept the outcome.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's an important piece.

That's an important piece.

Continue, please.

Yeah.

So then everybody gets the same information, right?

So you have all different people who get the same information, including from different points of view.

And then they have a process for facilitating groups within this meeting to debate.

Sometimes it takes days.

They debate for days.

And this is not like the Congress in America, where instead of actually trying to come up with a solution, they're going to try instead to force their way, argue and force, instead of let's work together.

It's discussion-based.

It's not the grandstanding that you get by elected representatives who need to be re-elected.

Oh, good point.

Yes.

There's the conflict interest.

I need to be re-elected, yeah.

These are people who've just showed up for a couple of days, and then they're going to go back to their everyday lives.

And so they really just, their interest is perfect.

Can we come up, and how can we meet our collective need?

And by the end of a citizen assembly, the group itself has come up with some policy recommendations, more nuanced than you would get in Congress, or much more nuanced than you would get from any one group, because they've talked through all the points of difference, and they've talked through it using the most recent knowledge and information available, and they make recommendations.

So in Ireland, they actually came up with a policy package that says, if we do it this way, we think after days of deliberation, we think that this might just cut the pie in a way that everybody can live with.

That everybody can live with.

And so they took the policy proposal and they put it to a national referendum.

They asked everybody to vote on it, and it passed.

There you go.

I was going to say, what's the outcome?

Because you're still going to have some conflict.

The decision makers are still going to have some personal bias.

So then you throw whatever you created back to the voters.

Perfect.

Yeah, exactly.

That would encourage me to vote more.

Yeah, it does.

It encourages people to vote more.

But the fact, the process itself, because of the way it's designed, is designed so that no matter how different your opinion is or what side of the aisle you're on, your views or the views of somebody in your demographic have been integrated and they've been addressed.

And so the outcomes are generally much more acceptable.

Yeah.

It almost reminds me, my dear, why do we even need Congress?

Because with the Internet, we should all be able as a community to go vote on every single little issue.

But then I'm reminded, you know what?

I have a job.

That's why we hired these people.

They're supposed to be doing this.

There's going to be a middle ground.

I do think that we are much more connected.

We have much greater communication capacity now than we did when the country was founded 250 years ago.

And so we should and can be much more engaged.

The campaign finance laws won't get passed.

So your representatives, you're electing, you're doing disinformation to get re-elected.

And the only way to break that cycle is to break the money that re-elects them, but they won't pass that because they'd be voting themselves out of office.

It's the same old.

And or it's pull up politics in general.

And that's why I think we need to come together in our own communities and start to work more together across our divides in our own communities.

Start local.

Yeah, start local.

And do what you can do without institutions.

You know, like rather than getting upset about what's happening across the country or in Washington, spend that energy building something better in your own community.

Yeah.

And then if we all do that, we're all more focused on our own communities.

And we're growing civic strength.

We're becoming better citizens and we're learning how to work together.

We're learning how to create change together.

The wonderful example, the one on a pretty serious topic that we just went through.

So before we close, for people like going to work, doesn't matter where you work, you get in a conflict with your boss, whether it's at the burger joint or Intel.

Walk us through basic, non, back to when you mentioned earlier the principles of one of the founders of nonviolent communication.

Walk, tell people the simple steps to have a conversation without getting violent and angry.

Yeah, so my recommendation is always before lashing out at other people, before blaming other people, before you go spreading whatever thoughts you have, it's really important for us all to just step back, calm our own selves and think carefully about what is it?

Why am I upset?

Why do I feel aggrieved?

And what need am I trying to meet?

What need of mine am I trying to meet?

And is there a constructive way that I can go about trying to meet that?

So rather than butting heads with people, which is often a reactive thing, people are very reactive, operating out of their own traumas, or their nervous system responds involuntarily, and suddenly they're butting heads with people.

If we can step back, be thoughtful about what our own needs are, and then be very intentional about how we move forward.

What is my next step?

What is going to make the biggest difference for me?

What is the step that I can take that is going to get my needs met?

Is it fighting with my colleague, or is it actually like going to my boss and asking for something that I need?

I think that's why we're in a conflict to begin with though, because everyone's thinking about their own needs.

What about the other person?

Well, right.

So, yeah.

And then caring about other people.

Like me, work, for example, my boss asked me to do something that's ridiculous.

My needs are, I don't want to do it because it's going to take away from my time to get out of the office or we're going to go rock climbing.

And it's a waste of time.

His needs, which I don't realize what his needs are, because I haven't considered him, are he needs to look good because he's the old guy, and people are passing him up.

He needs to be a big shot.

He needs a big win.

But he didn't realize this is not the win.

This is not what he wants to play.

So you see, if you can go to your boss and say, my need is, I can't be working more than eight hours a day.

I've got a personal life.

I've got other plans.

I have a need to keep my work within my eight hours and have to work like balance.

What is your need?

If your need is to have a big win and look good in the office, how could we do it?

So that's-

We don't know that that is his need, is the problem.

Well, so you have to ask, right?

That's the conversation, is what is the other person's need?

You have to dig deeper.

It's not always obvious.

It's never obvious.

So how do you ask someone to communicate?

His first reaction, I'm going to get defensive and angry like really again.

And how do I-

what words need to come out of my mouth so I can memorize them?

And remember, when Daniel and Daniel was talking about this, this is what they said.

So pause for a moment and then ask my boss, what do you really need?

Yeah.

Why, why is this important?

I mean, why, why is this, why is this important for you?

What is, what is, what is it you're, what is it that you're trying to accomplish?

Is there another way?

That's key.

Like, are there other ways that we can meet, that we can do this?

I understand that X is important to you.

I, you know, respect that.

I want to help you achieve that.

He's still going to be in that box though.

See, most people still in that box in their head, like, I need, this is what I need.

What are you asking me a second time for?

How do we get to the bigger need, which is that he is worried about not having a big win and explaining to him, this is not the win that he wants.

There's a better win if you let me do my job right.

It's this, boss.

This is what you need.

This will make you look good.

It'll make you look better.

Yeah.

How do we get into that conversation?

Because we all want the same thing.

We all wanted to make more money, sell more products, sell more business.

It's not this little fight we're picking.

How do we communicate that to each other?

Yeah.

I mean, you need to have enough time.

So you need to create an environment for that conversation.

You need to make sure you have enough time for it.

You need to make sure that people-

That's perfect.

So that gives me another, okay, I'm going to write on my hand notes from today.

Go to my boss.

Can we go to lunch?

Yeah.

And even if we're not big shots, go out to lunch.

Personally, can we go to the lunch room?

Yeah.

Even if it's McDonald's.

Yeah.

Or some people would want to keep it in more formal spaces.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But how do you create an environment for the-

Well, can we have another meeting, one o'clock, a couple hours from now, and that'll give me time to-

Yeah.

So you have time to think about it.

Yeah.

And then I can go to my other colleagues and go, what do you think he really needs?

What's behind this?

And they'll come.

He's been passed up for promotion, Dan.

He needs these numbers.

Why does he really need those numbers?

It's always somebody higher up the ladder too, who's got needs on matter, lighting stuff, trickle down.

Buying me some time anyhow, though.

Thank you, Danielle.

We could pause and reschedule.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

That always works, right?

Take a moment.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

And then, yeah, just asking a lot of questions, really just genuinely being interested.

What is it this person needs?

And so asking a lot of questions to try to better understand.

What do you really need?

Yeah.

What's behind this?

Yeah, exactly.

And once you understand what's behind it on the other side, you know what you need.

You also sometimes have to really ask yourself a lot of questions.

What you think you need might not be, if you really sit with it, what's really behind it.

When you go, what's behind this?

And then go, well, I need more widgets out or more market sales.

And go, well, what's behind that?

Well, my kid's going to college next year and I need a bonus.

Well, we could get your bonus another way.

Hey, did you know about the real problem?

What's behind that?

Keep digging.

Yeah.

So this is the essentials of mediation.

Like you really express curiosity, you embody curiosity until you really get to understand what people need.

And then you try to figure out how to meet the needs.

And then you collaborate and see if you can come up with a way to move forward that meets the most needs.

It requires creativity sometimes and time and...

Is there anything, I could talk to you about this all day.

Is there anything we haven't talked about you feels real important for people to know?

We've covered quite a bit of ground.

We've covered peaceful communities.

We've covered disinformation.

We've covered the importance of mediation and intentionality.

Danielle's website for listeners is peacebuildersunite.com.

That's peacebuildersunite.com.

It will be in the show notes.

Do you want to say something about your new book coming out in July next year?

Thank you for asking.

So the book is called Overcoming Information Chaos, a Guide to Cultivating Peaceful Communities in the Digital Age.

And it is all about how to be a responsible consumer of news and information so that you're doing no harm in your news consumption, and using information to help bridge divides and build peaceful community.

I gathered a dozen or so top experts in different aspects of the issue, each one's written a chapter.

It really is an extraordinary book and I'm excited for it.

It'll come out next July.

Awesome.

Thanks so much for being on my show, Danielle.

Thank you for having me, Daniel.

Have a good day.

You too.