Podcasts about palestinian muslim

Send us a text“I would like to see Christians and Jews having a conversation about how we can stop hurting one another…” Today's topic is on Anti-Semitic (Anti-Jewish) sentiment or theology in Christianity. We discuss how defining antisemitism is difficult, how understanding Jesus's Jewish context is imperative to understanding Jesus, we touch on Jesus' relationships with women and how the “feminist Jesus” came about, and finally we hear AJ's vision for how Jews and Christians can relate to one another. I have been sitting on this episode since July of 2023 (nearly two years). Part of why I haven't released it sooner was because the timing didn't feel right with the ongoing genocide in Gaza. I didn't want to give the impression that by doing an episode on antisemitism that I was pro-the state of Israel's actions of apartheid and genocide against Palestinians. Then I came to the realization that not releasing this episode holds up a false dichotomy that you can't at one time, be against Palestinian suffering and Jewish suffering. Ironically there is a lot of Zionist rhetoric in fundamentalist Christianity that operates alongside anti semitic theology. And, as Christians (not just fundamentalist Christians) it is important to take a look at how the way we talk about Jesus is implicitly or explicitly anti-Jewish. AJ talks about simply naming Jesus and his actions as radical can be problematic. If you are looking for a Palestinian voice on the podcast, in season four you will get to hear a profound conversation I had with Issa Amro, a 2025 Nobel peace prize nominee who is a Palestinian Muslim working for nonviolent action and protest against the Israeli military and settlers. Bio: Dr. Amy-Jill Levine is the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.(Read Full Bio here: https://www.hartfordinternational.edu/faculty/amy-jill-levineResources: AJ's email: alevine@hartfordinternational.eduSupport the showFollow us for more ✨bad✨ content: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calledtobebad_podcast/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calledtobebad Website: https://calledtobebad.buzzsprout.com/ Want to become part of the ✨baddie✨ community? Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/calledtobebad Have a ✨bad✨ topic you want to talk about on the show? Get in touch with host, Mariah Martin at: calledtobebad@gmail.com #ctbb #podcast #podcastersoffacebook ...

News headlines // 7:15AM // A segment from this week's Women on the Line episode, in which Scheherezade revisited a conversation from 2021 between Eugenia Flynn and Tasnim Sammak as they reflected on their article, Blak Australia to Palestine: solidarity in decolonial struggle, published on Indigenous X on 10 June 2021. Eugenia Flynn is a writer, academic, arts worker and community organiser,  she is Aboriginal, Chinese Malaysian and Muslim and works within her multiple communities to create change. Tasnim Sammak is a PhD candidate at Monash University's Faculty of Education, a single mum of two boys and a local Palestinian Muslim organiser. To listen to the entire episode and to read the article mentioned in the interview, you can go to www.3cr.org.au/womenontheline. 7:30AM // Ola Addassi, Gaza-born medical scientist and Palestinian Community Association member, speaking at the Free Palestine Rally Naarm on Sunday 13 October, on the human toll in Palestine – the friends and colleagues she has lost, or lost communication with.  7:45AM // Tasnim Sammak, Palestinian woman and advocate from Yaffa, speaking at the Vigil for Gaza on 7 October, where the community marched silently from the Marquis of Linlithgow Monument to Victoria Parliament. Tasnim speaks about the history of Palestine and Zionism, and the context of the Western world's settler colonialism and denial of native stories. 8:00AM // Part 2 of a conversation between Phuong and Suzie Russell, a member of Save Bulga Forest - a grassroots organisation who are trying to stop native logging of the Bulga Forest on Biripi Country and to save the local wildlife such as the endangered Greater Gliders. Suzie discusses the neglect and harm caused by the NSW Forestry Corporation as well as the many concerned community members who are putting their bodies on the line to protect these native forests. To follow the Save Bulga Forest campaign, make sure to follow the group on Instagram at @savebulgaforest on Instagram or by going to their website, www.savebulgaforest.org 8:15AM // Upcoming events and fundraisers Songs:Guwop - Thelma Plum12 years too long - Rose Turtle Ertler

On this edition of Parallax Views, Palestinian Muslim writer Abdelhalim Abdelrahman, who has written for such publications as The New Arab, The Hill, and MSN, joins the show to discuss Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington D.C. to speak to Congress. Netanyahu received a standing ovation from Congressmen and Congresswomen who attended, with the notable exception of Rep. Rashida Tlaib who held up a sign that read "War Criminal". Interestingly, a number of top Democrats declined to intend, including Nancy Pelosi, who called Netanyahu's speech was "by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States". Meanwhile protests raged outside and a flag-burning, which has taken up much media attention, took place. Additionally, Gaza still faces a humanitarian crisis. Palestinians in Gaza face a dire situation, as exemplified by the tragic death of a 24-year old Gazan man named Mohammad Bhar. Bhar was afflicted with autism and Down's syndrome. He was killed last week after bleeding out from being bitten by an Israeli army dog as reportedly screamed "enough my dear, enough" and/or "let go my love, enough". Worth noting as well, is the fact that it was not only pro-Palestinian activists protesting Netanyahu's D.C. visit. Families of hostages also protested, believing that Netanyahu has exploited them for politics and not done enough to secure the hostages from the October 7th. Hamas attack. In other words, there are a lot of matters to discuss in this conversation. Abdelhalim covered all these issues with me as well as: - The Palestinian Authority - The letter Mahmoud Abbas sent to Donald Trump after the attempted assassination on Trump's life and Donald Trump's seemingly warm, positive feelings (at least in past rhetoric and response to the letter) to Abbas - Elements of the American conservative movement moving away from Israel on "America First" grounds - Thoughts on whether Kamala Harris will take a different approach to Gaza and the West Bank than President Joe Biden - Empathetic rhetoric vs. actual concrete policy that Palestinian American want to see - Abdelhalim's thoughts on the plight of the October 7th hostages - The Fatah-Hamas unity deal that was signed in Beijing - Abdelhalim's personal feelings on the Uncommitted movement and his frustration with the Democratic Party - The Occupation of the West Bank and the issues of annexation and settlement expansion -  The question of "synthetic" or "artificial" Arab voices claiming to be "pro-peace" or "pro-Palestinian" but demonstrating a deep bias against Palestinians - Hunger and starvation in Israel - U.S. hypocrisy/double-standards on the situation of Palestinians vs. the situation of Ukrainians; Palestinians who express support for Ukraine and Ukrainians who express support for Palestinians - Abdelhalim's point of frustration with Nancy Pelosi's criticism of Netanyahu's speech to Congress And much, much more!

In this episode we speak to the proud Palestinian and the 2021 Young South Australian of the Year Layan Saadeh. Born in Saudi arabia, Layan moved to Australia at the age of ten in 2014. She shares her unique experiences of immersing herself into Surf Lifesaving and Aussie rules footy as young Palestinian Muslim woman. We've crossed over 400k downloads so a massive shukran jazeelan to all the listeners. If you're enjoying them, please don't forget to give us a rating and please share with other Arabic learners. For our free 6-Part series on basic Arabic to get you started, don't forget to sign up to our E-mail list ⁠HERE⁠ Check out Layan's amazing Bio: Layan Saadeh Swimming and Surf Ed instructor for Surf Lifesaving SA at pools & beaches in the greater Adelaide area. A football player for Adelaide University Football Club in the Adelaide Footy League. Part of the Game Development and Umpiring team at the SANFL. Administrative assistant for the Honorable Joe Szakacs' Electoral office in Cheltenham. Currently studying a bachelor of Laws/Arts majoring in International Relations, holding four scholarships at the University of Adelaide, including the Augustus Short Scholarship and the University Sport Don Stranks scholarship. Volunteer, lifesaver and former vice captain of the Henley Surf Lifesaving Club, the youngest vice captain in Henley history, at 17 years of age. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arabicwithimran/message

Haitham is a 38-year old Palestinian Muslim based in Vancouver. Owner of the beloved Aleph Eatery, a successful and delicious plant-based take on middle eastern cuisine. Our conversation covered the impactful and shaping year he had post his 5MeO ceremony. Haitham participated in our 5-MeO-DMT group retreat in 2021 and at the time of recording he was almost at his 2 year mark! To learn more about Aleph Eatery: https://alepheatery.com/ Enfold offers safe and sacred transformational experiences combining entheogenic medicines, breathwork, meditation, and somatic modalities, with a grounding in Buddhist philosophy. We come together as a community to support one another on the path of transformation with events, circles, and ongoing programs. Learn more about us at: www.enfold.org

Atheer Yacoub is a New York-based Palestinian-Muslim comedian, writer, and podcaster. Through her unique lens, she explores the complexities of her upbringing, Palestinian identity, and the current political climate. Her debut comedy album, "Denied Entry," offers a compelling glimpse into her experiences. Co-creator of "Muslim Girls DTF: Discuss Their Faith" and co-host of "The No Fly List" podcast, Atheer navigates meaningful conversations by delicately blending humor and insight. In these challenging political times, her perspective shines brightly, providing a critical perspective. Immigrantly is an introspective weekly podcast that celebrates the extraordinary of immigrant life. We do this by providing our listeners with authentic, unvarnished insights into the immigrant identity in America. Immigrantly has garnered significant recognition and has been featured in renowned media outlets such as the Nieman Storyboard, The Guardian, The Slowdown, and CNN. Join us as we create new intellectual engagement for our audience. You can contact us at http://immigrantlypod.com Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us!  Contribute to the show on Venmo @immigrantlypod. You can connect with Saadia on Twitter @swkkhan Email: saadia@immigrantlypod.com For advertising inquiries, you can contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com Host & Producer: Saadia Khan I Content Writer: Pippa Tsuki Carlson & Saadia Khan I Editorial review: Shei Yu I Sound Designer & Editor: Paroma Chakravarty I Immigrantly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson Other Music: Epidemic Sound Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fr. John-Mary Bowlin serves as Parish Priest at St. Jude Catholic Church in Gun Barrel City, Texas. He served in the U.S. Army and was ordained a priest in June of 2012.     In Today's Show: The majority of my daughter's friends at college have read and watched Harry Potter. Should I be overly concerned? Which gospel is most appropriate for the feast of all Souls out of the many used? To what extent am I morally obligated to remind my family members about things such as not receiving Communion if they missed Mass the previous week and haven't confessed that? Understanding that pets do not have intellect and will as humans and would not be redeemed as man is, and therefore not being potentially destined for heaven, is there another place that God may have prepared for loyal and loving pets since they are creatures of God? How much am I responsible for the education of my grandchildren? Talking to a friend whose opinion is that we don't need Baptism because Jesus died for all our sins already - how to respond? I have gone to a Church where they have a bottle of hand sanitizer on the altar. What is Father's opinion of that? For indulgences, what does “have the interior disposition of complete detachment from sin, even venial sin” mean? As a reluctant sinner, is this possible to do? Why does Acts 19:5 say Paul Baptized them “in the name of the Lord Jesus” when Jesus commanded them to baptize in The Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? How do the graces we receive by listening to Mass differ from those we receive by taking Holy Communion? Are they of a different kind, or is it simply a mystery? Do we have to forgive someone who has not asked for forgiveness? A Palestinian Muslim friend asked me “Why does a good and loving God have the Israelites as his favorite when my people are of the same blood; are we not also the Father's favorite? Does he not also love us?”   Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Mohamed Anwar Hadid is an American real estate developer. He is known for building luxury hotels and mansions, mainly in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles and the city of Beverly Hills, California as well as for being the father of Gigi and Bella Hadid,Mohamed was born in a Palestinian Muslim family in 1948 in Nazareth to Anwar Mohamed Hadid and his wife Khairiah Hadid. From his mother's side, he claims descent from the 18th-century Arab ruler of northern Palestine Dahir al-Umar. His story is one of many refugees and in this podcast episode he talks about his life in the Middle East and North Africa before his family moved to Washington when he was 14 and went to school in the US without knowing much English. He studied at North Carolina State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.He started his career restoring and reselling classic cars and when he visited his parents on the island of Rhodes, Greece, he opened the Aquarius Disco Club with two partners.The rest is history.

Coverage of the "evacuation" of the Strip and the killing of a Palestinian Muslim boy in Illinois.

In this week's captivating episode, we delve deep into the Old City of Jerusalem, its rich Palestinian heritage, and the resilient spirit of its people. Join us as we sit down with the renowned content creator, visual storyteller, and activist, Adnan Barq, to explore his incredible journey and his commitment to shedding light on the daily life in Jerusalem.Episode Highlights:Growing Up in Al Quds: Adnan takes us on a journey through his childhood, sharing the deeply rooted Palestinian heritage, the vibrant food and culture, and the inspiration behind his viral social media content that offers a unique perspective on life in Jerusalem.The Reality of Occupation: We discuss the harsh realities of the Israeli occupation, the daily harassment, and the racism Palestinians face, as well as their constant exposure to colonial violence.Israel's Strategic Plans: Adnan sheds light on Israel's systematic efforts to cripple the economy and tourism in the Old City, with the aim of economically suffocating the Muslim and Christian quarters. This strategic plan seeks to create a Jewish majority in Jerusalem while erasing its Palestinian Muslim and Christian character.Solidarity on the Global Stage: Adnan shares his awe at the solidarity expressed with Palestine during the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. He highlights the support from fans and teams, including Morocco, as evidence that the Arab masses remain steadfast in their support for a Free Palestine and rejection of normalization by their governments.Ethnic Cleansing in Palestinian Neighborhoods: We discuss the distressing issue of ethnic cleansing within Jerusalem and the powerful role that activism on social media plays in reaching a global audience and preserving the Palestinian story and narrative.The Power of Activism and Storytelling: Preserving the Palestinian NarrativeWe explore the dynamic impact of activism and storytelling, ranging from grassroots efforts to global initiatives. We discuss their profound ability to raise awareness, reshape perspectives, influence policy, and safeguard the vitality and resilience of the Palestinian narrative. These powerful tools also serve as bridges, connecting with the hearts and minds of audiences, all in the name of preserving the Palestinian story for generations to come. Guest: Adnan BarqFollow Adnan on Instagram: @adnanbarqCo-hosts:Lama Bazzari from @cravingpalestineLina Hadid from @palestinelobbyDon't miss this must-watch episode that provides an insightful and eye-opening look into the heart of Jerusalem and the ongoing struggle for justice.Listen and watch the episode on your preferred podcast platform, including YouTube, by visiting @freepalestinepod.Stay connected with us:Instagram: @freepalestinepodTwitter: @freepalestinepodYouTube: @freepalestinepodThreads: @freepalestinepodJoin the conversation and stand in solidarity with Palestine!

My guest today is Dr. Eman Abdelhadi, professor at the University of Chicago, author of a forthcoming academic book called Impossible Futures: Why Women Leave American Muslim Communities, as well as the co-author of a speculative fiction novel called Everything for Everyone. Eman is also the subject of a documentary called Coming Around that is now, if you're listening to this at the end of July 2023, screening virtually at the OutFest film festival in Los Angeles.***Watch the virtual screening here until July30!***The documentary portrays Eman's relationship with her mother, a devout Palestinian Muslim woman who raised Eman and her siblings as a single mother in a small town in Missouri. The document is a nuanced portrayal of their deeply loving and complicated coming around to each other in spite of their differences. In this conversation we talk about the documentary, Eman's sociological work on Muslim American communities and what's happening with the conversation in those spaces around queerness now, and about other places where the themes of family– blood, found, and otherwise– emerge. Follow Eman on Instagram @eabdelhadiFollow Eman on Twitter @eabdelhadiFind us !Instagram: @queereverythingpodcastWebsite: http://www.queereverything.comYouTube: Queer Everything

In this episode you'll hear the amazing story of how Noor, who grew up in a Palestinian Muslim family, came to faith in Jesus through a dream, online chat rooms and a bible that someone gave her.At one point, she had to flee the Middle East and seek asylum in the UK, which was a very traumatic series of experiences. Now she serves as an evangelist in London, but her dream is to go back to the Middle East to be Christ's ambassador there and to make disciples.We discuss the asylum seeking process, London, the challenge of finding authentic community in church and much more!_________________________________________________________________________________Do get in touch if you have any questions for Matt or for any of his guests.matt@frontiers.org.ukYou can find out more about us by visiting www.frontiers.org.ukOr visit www.frontiers.org and select from one of our national offices. For social media in the UK:Instagram: frontiers_ukFacebook: @frontiersukfriendsAnd do check out the excellent 6 week video course, MomentumYes:www.momentumyes.com (USA)www.momentumyes.org.uk (UK) _________________________________________________________________________________

The Good Girls are joined by Atheer Yacoub (Comedy Central Arabia, The No Fly List podcast). We discuss her Palestinian-Muslim upbringing in Alabama, what it means to be an empath, and tampons (or the lack thereof). As always, we end with a game: "Signs from God." CW// religious trauma, mental health, xenophobia    Special Thanks to DJ Skip to my Luke for our fabulous intro! Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and we will mail you a GGGS sticker! Just screenshot the review, send us a DM and an address where you would like the sticker sent!    Follow the Good Girls @goodgirlsgonesad Follow Atheer @atheeryacoub Follow Becca @thebeccastephenson Follow Syd @syd.the.king Follow Skip to my Luke @skiptomyluke_

PART FIVE OF SIX? -What is life like in Gaza? -"Why don't other Arab countries just absorb all Palestinians?" -Honoring Palestinian Christians... -& More! What happens when an American Christian and a Palestinian Muslim sit down for a brotherly chat about Humanity, Love, Peace, and a Free Palestine? In this segment (23 minutes & 7 seconds), Ahmed and I discuss Love that transcends religion, ethnicity, and culture. Stay tuned for part 6. #FreePalestine All videos and audio will be available through YT and Spotify, and can be accessed through the homepage at lovereimagined.org. Much Love to ALL! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/joe-chadburn/message

PART FOUR OF SIX: Muslims & Christians Loving Each Other! What happens when an American Christian and a Palestinian Muslim sit down for a brotherly chat about Humanity, Love, Peace, and a Free Palestine? In this segment (10 minutes & 15 seconds), Ahmed and I discuss Love that transcends religion, ethnicity, and culture. Stay tuned for parts 5 & 6. #FreePalestine All videos and audio will be available through YT and Spotify, and can be accessed through the homepage at lovereimagined.org. Much Love to ALL! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/joe-chadburn/message

PART SIX OF SIX: -Some closing remarks about Brotherly Love and Peaceful Coexistence in a Free Palestine. What happens when an American Christian and a Palestinian Muslim sit down for a brotherly chat about Humanity, Love, Peace, and a Free Palestine? In this final segment (12 minutes & 5 seconds), Ahmed speaks candidly about His hopes for peaceful coexistence in a #FreePalestine. All videos and audio will be available through YT and Spotify, and can be accessed through the homepage at lovereimagined.org. Much Love to ALL! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/joe-chadburn/message

PART TWO OF SIX: What happens when an American Christian and a Palestinian Muslim sit down for a brotherly chat about Humanity, Love, Peace, and a Free Palestine? In this segment, Ahmed and I discuss the conditions on the ground in Gaza along with the perpetually repeated Hasbara mantra that "israel has the right to defend itself". I also pose a serious challenge to all Americans who support that mantra. Stay tuned for parts 3-6. #FreePalestine All videos and audio will be available through YT and Spotify, and can be accessed through the homepage at lovereimagined.org. Much Love to ALL! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/joe-chadburn/message

PART THREE OF SIX: Palestinian Love, Respect, Family, Hijabs, and "Human Shield" lies... What happens when an American Christian and a Palestinian Muslim sit down for a brotherly chat about Humanity, Love, Peace, and a Free Palestine? In this segment, Ahmed and I discuss Family Love that's deeply rooted in Palestinian culture. Stay tuned for parts 4-6. #FreePalestine All videos and audio will be available through YT and Spotify, and can be accessed through the homepage at lovereimagined.org. Much Love to ALL! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/joe-chadburn/message

PART ONE OF SIX: What happens when an American Christian and a Palestinian Muslim sit down for a brotherly chat about Humanity, Love, Peace, and a Free Palestine? In this segment (17 Minute & 50 Seconds), I briefly share my journey from brainwashing, prejudice, and formal theological training that was deeply rooted in zionism to an Orthodox Christian perspective and a deep Love for Palestinians. I do most of the sharing in this introductory segment, but no worries...Ahmed got plenty of time and shared SO MANY BEAUTIFUL THINGS throughout the six-part conversation. Check out lovereimagined.org for more. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/joe-chadburn/message

The difference in perception between tearing things apart, putting things back together, and peace-making versus ripping away and how does this relate to Brian Frederick's children book.Brian enjoys acting as a full-time mediator, mainly in commercial litigation disputes. Brian is also the owner of GetMediation and heads up the panel of mediators there. Brian specializes in commercial disputes of all kinds, and he brings many years' practical experience to bear with a kind ear, imparting dexterity and empathy to broker effective solutions.Brian is an accredited Mediator for Civil/Commercial and Workplace mediations. He qualified as a mediator in 2012 and has been practicing mediation ever since. Brian set up his own Commercial Mediation panel GetMediation in 2013 and is the owner and one of the senior mediators available there. GetMediation has most recently been awarded the Mediation Service of the Year Bristol 2020 prize in the Bristol Prestige Awards. Brian believes in cost-effective dispute resolution and insists that mediators on his panel are “adept at alleviating some of the particular personal animosity and bitterness which can tend to exacerbate the legal situation in commercial disputes, and pay particular attention to focus thoughts towards costs because the parties will often have a very uncompromising adversarial attitude towards each and every point at issue.”He is also an author of a children's book titled Ziggy loves Sausage.Ari Gronich0:11Welcome back to another episode of create a new tomorrow I am your host, Ari Gronich. Today I have with me, Brian McKibben. Brian is an attorney turned author of children's books; I'm going to let him tell you a little bit about that story of how he went from that transition. So, Brian, why don't you tell the audience a little bit about that transition of how you went from an attorney, who specializes in mediation to an author writing children's books. Brian McKibbin0:43Yeah. Well, first of all, I didn't expect to take that transition. When I went to school, I was always sort of funneled into this career. And I discovered I liked being what I sort of call an anti-lawyer more than a lawyer. So that's why I became a mediator because you're trying to put people back together rather than in litigation, you're essentially you're trying to tear them apart, it's in your best interest as a lawyer to keep the fight going, because you keep getting paid. It's in the client's best interest to settle the case because that's what they're going to do in the end. I find I didn't like fighting. I liked peace-making. And so that was a transition in my own career. And I think with that mindset, I've always wanted to be a writer. But when I was younger, I thought I would write thrillers. And I guess with that, more sort of serious adult mindset that you might say, is in the lawyer's typical head, when I became a mediator, it's about shifting perspective. And generally, about bringing happiness. And I think that all sort of coincided them with the little thing that happened to be in locked time,  Ari Gronich2:01Component lock time, somebody may not know what that means.  Brian McKibbin2:05Sorry, that's just my accent lock time. And during the pandemic, like when we were all told to stay home, some local kids decided to cheer us up, I guess. And they would, they would ring the bell, you know, the little game children play ring the doorbell and run away. But when you came to answer the door, the first time I came was very surprising, because I looked down. And there was a little bouquet of flowers. So, they left these little flowers that they picked, and they'd, they tied them up with a bit of sort of coarse grass. And, and then they came back over a few days, and it became apparent that they wanted to play a little game and, and for me to talk to them, so I did. And then gradually, these little heads would come out from where they were hiding. And we play this game that I could pretend not to see them and still talk to them, you know as if I'm talking to thin air. And this went on for a few months. And when I was taking walks, we have some woodland behind where we live, the idea of a story came to me and so I started to write this book called Flower fairies as a result of this sort of little inciting incident. And then I got, I got a bit of writer's block. With that after a while, and luckily enough for me, one of my characters in the story had this pet accident. And one day the story about one of the adventures of the little dog came to me instead. And that one flew, I'm still writing the other book, it's still in development, I guess you'd say. But Ziggy the dachshund and was born and I've written about half a dozen of those stories now. Two of them are published, and there's a sequence ready to go. So that was the transition really, partly mindset, and then partly a little bit of luck, I guess, and a little bit of inspiration from some of the little kids that, you know, came like, like the flower fairies to deliver some flowers for us, and cheer us up. Ari Gronich4:13That's actually pretty cool. I like hearing those stories of what people have done during this particular craziness, to create joy and create happiness. And so that's really cool. What I'm interested in what I talked to you about a lot in our pre-interview is the differences in perception between tearing things apart, putting things back together piece making versus, you know, ripping away and how does that relate to your book? Yes, but more importantly for me is like let's dive deep into the perceptions and the things that people, you know, get benefit from in this time of like, the world feels like it's being torn apart and has been brought together. So Brian McKibbin5:12Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of fighters in there. When you're a litigation attorney, as I said before, you know that the profit motive is always there. So, when you talk to a client, they have a dispute, you're always telling them about a, a kind of fictitious best-case scenario, you know, ultimately, that that's why there's so many, you know, Court steps settlements because it's only in tacouple of days before the trial that your lawyer starts to level with you. And then everyone's disappointed to find that they're not going to score, you know, 100 nil here, that there's going to be a compromise. And I think, you know, the way that the world it feels at the moment as a wee bit like that, where there's just so much angst and so many people seeing so many things that aren't, you know, that aren't true or aren't verifiably true, and there's a lot of disinformation. And I think people are probably quiet, I know, I am quite anangst ridden at times, when I'm watching the news. In mediation, if I was, if I was sort of mediating that kind of situation, it's, it's about trying to change your headspace, and have a different perspective on things. And a little bit like in the books, to find that little bit of joy somewhere, because it's always there. It just depends hon ow you think about a particular event. I mean, obviously, there can be just events where it's a complete catastrophe. So, I'm not really talking about something that, you know, like a bereavement perhaps, or something like that, but something that's made you angry, is something that you can choose, you can choose your reaction you can choose if you're going to go apoplectic, and then start yelling at the television and throwing things at it. Or you can just let it be. And, you know, and get on with your life, you know, in disputes. That's, that's a picture that I try and paint for my clients that if they can,if they can reconcile the anger that they're feeling with a different perception of what could happen later today,when they walk out of the door with like, the rancor and fight the weight of this dispute. Doesn't the second thing feel better? You know, being able to go on with your precious life, because it's finite. And, you know, how many days more, are you going to waste months for years and money. Ari Gronich7:48Let me see, let me take you to a dark place. Okay, let's take you to a dark place. This is something that has been going on for centuries. Sure. And I'll give you a little background. So, I had a roommate, who was a Palestinian Muslim, and she was like my sister, I'm Jewish. She and I would have amazing conversations, we would get into the meat and deep and dark and dirty and in the conflict, right? But we had the perspective of you're my sister, I'm your brother. And no matter what we say here, right, we will always be connected that way. And so, we had a way of speaking to each other that was kind and yet forceful in our own belief system. So, we were able to get these things out. So, my question to you would be, let's go to that kind of a big picture if you were mediating the, you know, Palestinian Israeli conflict, right, something that's been going on for decades, that nobody seems to have been able to get through. And I'm saying this because I didn't want to talk. I don't want to say mask versus not mask or Vax versus faxed, right. COVID versus not COVID conspiracy versus, you know, the industry is aamazing you know, perfect and would never try to hurt you. I'm not talking about the really deep stuff. I'm talking about just this conflict. Brian McKibbin9:26Yeah, just this little conflict. Ari Gronich9:29Just this little one. So, let's mediate this in a way that brings both sides together. Let's look at what would you do as a mediator in that situation? Brian McKibbin9:41I think one of the skills the mediator tries to bring is to talk to people in a way that makes sense to them to help them reframe stuff to help them think about perspective but also to get their bbuy-inthe mediator is sincere. So, it's a nice example you've picked for me because I grew up in Northern Ireland. So, the Protestant-Catholic conflict there is quite similar and, you know, in many ways, it really is, you know, it's a lot of people look in on the, on the Palestinian Israeli conflict and see it as a Jewish Muslim thing. And there's an element of that. But my sense is that it's not just about that or you know there's a lot of nnuances the same thing in Northern Ireland, people think that it's just Protestants fighting Catholics but this there's a big proportion of people in the middle, rather than the people that you see shouting and fighting it either end. So, what I think I would do to start with is to try and reflect toth we call them participants in mediation, not parties,because party is slightly pejorative for it or divisive. So, I would talk to my participants each separately, because it's part of the ttrust-building rather than throw them into mediators different this, I don't favor throwing them straight into a room together, because I feel that a lot of tension and a lot of anxiety that they're going to feel initially. So, I come and talk to them. And hopefully ,I lower the temperature a little bit with each of them. And so tthat'show I would start is to try and reflect my own experience and help them hope, see that maybe I can have a useful perspective on their problem. And I've also some lived experience that they can, believe and that might make it worthwhile listening to me, and what am I trying to say to them. That's how it starts anyway. Ari Gronich11:59Right. So, let's go deeper ointothat. So, the first idea is to gather understanding, and understanding in the mediator's point of view is going to calm tension. So, right. So, the first idea is the middle party that has no, say in the situation, no steak, so to speak, is going to be the learning phase. So, we're learning and understanding about the other party. Now, what's next?  Brian McKibbin12:36Well, that phase goes into seeks sort of neatly into listening to what they want to tell you. Part of the process at that point is for them to feel heard. So, you listen, and you would reflect what they're saying so that they can understand that you're hearing them. And also, that your understanding of the same. Ari Gronich13:03That technique is called active listening, correct?  Brian McKibbin13:08Yep. Yes. And from there, you would start to have an element where you would ask for permission to play devil's advocate. And while when you're doing that, then you would be going through a process of trying to put into their head, the way that they having listened to them, trying to help them, imagine how the people in the other room are feeling and how the sense of their anger about whatever it is, is quite similar to that. And in talking to them about their ideal solution. And then trying to elicit some sense of, I hesitate to say sympathy, ultimately, you want some sympathy in a charged situation like that. So, it might take a while to get there, but at least a little bit of empathy. Yes.  Ari GronichRight. So, do you want sympathy or empathy?  Brian McKibbinWell, empathy will come first. In the end ,sympathy doesn't matter so much because well, it depends what solution you're looking for, you know, if you want you kto now, if you want the sort of solution where one set of people on one side marry their daughter to the other said, son, you probably need sympathy. But if you just want people to live together a little bit of empathy will do certainly will go a long way to get into some sort of agreed solution.  Ari Gronich14:50Okay so let's just I'm just breaking it down into the bits, right. So, you the learning about, we do the understanding this situation we do the asking of questions and repeating back the act of listening, repeating back what you're hearing. When a conflict like Palestine, Israel, right, we kind of have an idea of how people are feeling on one side, they're feeling rdepressedand oppressed and controlled, and like their land is being taken from them. On the other side, you got people who feel like, their entire world is always being attacked and destroyed. And they need a safe haven to be able to live and not, you know, have people wanting to kill them all the time. Right? So, you have these two different places where people are, and both sides vare ery valid. Right? So, now we have an understanding. Okay, so next, what where do you get to? How do you get from whining about the,the problems right? Into collaborating for solutions and successes?      Brian McKibbin16:01Yeah. well, you would have asked them a little bit further backward about what an ideal solution will look like. And then you'll have reality tested and play devil's advocate with that a little bit so that you might have knocked some of the totally unrealistic parts of what the ideal solution a bit like, well, you know, if you're talking about litigation, it comes down to numbers, but it'll help to not guide some of what, you know, the fantasy elements, the lawyer might have told them that we can get you because it's not mean, you know, we, you know, can go on to trial, and who knows, you might have the perfect judge. But in reality, it's very unlikely, you would sort of try to narrow that ideal solution into something that begins to vaguely look like something the other side could at least look at without totally freaking out. And you'll be generally, as a mediator, I'll be going from the room with the Palestinian people, to the room with the Jewish people. And as the process goes along, and we're talking about solutions, you would start to get to the place where you're hoping that they'll start to make an offer. And then you will start to talk to the other room about this offer. And the first offer will obviously be a bridge or two too far. But, you know, you put it to them totally neutrally, because I like to say as a mediator, I'm not. I'm not in favor. I'm not against anybody. I'm Omni.  Ari Gronich17:48Right, you have no steak. Brian McKibbin17:49Yeah, totally no steak. I'm not in any way biased. So, I will just put the offer, this is what they've said. Occasionally, I will ask them, Is it okay? To tell them this snippet of information, this sort of, if you like, I'm the neutral insider in both camps, so I can, I can help. And that's part of the negotiation process. And hopefully, if both rooms really want to find a solution, and again, that's kind of crucial you, you start the whole process with getting agreement that we're both here today to work really hard to find the solution, whatever it is. Ari Gronich18:33Okay, so now I'm going to take it a little bit further. So, you have two rooms of people with like, five people in each room. Say, Okay, so four of the people in each of those rooms, really like the solutions. One in each of those rooms is going to sabotage is like they're looking to sabotage. How do you get those people involved in the solution process? Because what I wee is like, you have the people who really want peace. The politicians,and the people who want power are the ones who have stifled in some way or another, the peace, and this is the systems in America, black and white. This is the systems everywhere else; you know that that divide us. So, when I'm looking at a group of people, and I see somebody who doesn't want to compromise who doesn't want to have an affect of solution, how do you create a solution that that is long lasting? When there's like those little elements on either side that that can't seem to let go.     Brian McKibbin19:58Sure, I mean, that that is the million-dollar question in our scenario here, isn't it? You know, when I'm litigating when I'm mediating litigation, it always comes down to numbers. And that's very convenient. Because that can be, you can make that as a sort of a non-emotive thing. It's just, you know, it's a trade. In our scenario, here, it's very difficult to somebody is going to be totally intransigent. I mean, mediation relies on goodwill, it's a process of building that goodwill, for people to engage in that if somebody's going to completely. If they're not going to engage with process at all, it's hard for you to move that, that final stone, I guess, the techniques that you would use is try to, try to gain their agreement, their agreement, I lied with the other people about what sorts of things they want, because that's a good technique. Insofar as, once people have stated a position I lied in, in front of people with witnesses, they don't like to go back on that. So, if you can move them towards some sort of common ground with the rest of their peers, then you might get some ultimately, though, if they're, if they're sued again, they're never going to want to come out. It's, it's difficult. And I guess, in our scenario, you know, that's kind of where we are. Having said that, you know, if you take northern islands as an example, you get, I mean, we northerner islands, you know, that it's still a naughty thing. If you, if you see at the moment, the still shenanigans go on, and but nevertheless, you know, the, the piece happened there where people stopped killing each other, so, or for the most part, at least. So, you know, that that was a massive, massive step forward. And it really required Ari Gronich22:12How did how did that happen? Brian McKibbin22:15Well, it happened over a period of years. So, the mediation idea is designed to happen in one day, I think that would be a, that would be a big, big trick to pull off in our scenario here. So, over a period of a much longer time, the trust that needed to be built was built in so far as each of those sides felt it was possible for them to make a move beyond anything they could have imagined before. So, for the IRA that would have been giving up their guns, under explosives and having that verifiably done on the other side. On the union aside, it was believing that was going to happen, and you know, they weren't going to, you know, they weren't when I was a child, you know, used to get these things they call all the terminology around the troubles even the troubles itself is so sort of Irishly euphemistic you know, the troubles, it sounds like a bit of an argument that you had with somebody over the fence, we used to have these things called bomb scares. So essentially, that was where somebody had planted a bomb in a shopping ccenteror something, and it was evacuated in a semi panic and you run away, just a bomb scare, I can remember things like that. So anyway, the other side were brought to a point where they could believe that those sorts of things and you know, the violence would stop, and they believed that it would. And then they had to also agree, or come to mindset that they, they were willing to, it's all about compromise the settlements, not about getting everything, you want, if it's going to happen. It's about finding something you can live with. And in the end, both sides agreed that it was it was worth people not dying, that that was a bigger prize than it was to hold on to weapons and an ideology that that required violence to achieve the result instead of a democratic means. On the other side, it was about trust that the democratic means was going to be the way forward rather than the violence, I guess. And that the process all the way along was taking them to that place where they could climb out of the trench and see the clear land in front of them instead of you know, this this obscured view that they had that made it difficult for them to believe. It was possible to get out of the trench. Ari Gronich25:03So, you know, here's like the bottom line of what I hear is the incentive. What are the incentives that you're offering for me to stop my behavior? And I must have gotten that right. So, if the incentives are the things that get people to change, right, let's go back to a mask or no mask like that, or some people, they will absolutely there's no incentive that you could give somebody who doesn't want to wear a mask to wear it. There's no incentive that you could give somebody who's afraid for their lives, and wears two or three masks, just to take off the mask right at that point. So how do we get those people who are never going to agree, never going to understand each other never going to be on the same page, to at least be in a place of understanding and not trying to control one or the other. Right? This is a big one these days, this ccanceledculture this where they call it virtue ssignaling I'm or morality ssignaling and so it's like, I got vaccinated, I didn't get vaccinated. I'm going to be really excited about having gotten vaccinated, I'm going to be really excited about having not done it right. This is virtue ssignaling How do we get these two people to just say, Yeah, you do you and I do me and we could both be really excited about who each other is, instead of the way that it's been. Brian McKibbin28:23Yeah. I mean, it's, I think, for me, it's, it comes back to the empathy again, you know, when you look at issues like that, or I mean, that the last American election was very like that, wasn't it? It seemed to this last sort of five years or so seems to have been a period of time where it's very polarized, you know, it's an either or, on whichever side you're standing, you know, the other side is demonized. And, and we seem to have lost that that empathy. You know, it's I don't know, whether it's the age that we live in, and the internet makes it easy to comment. And because you're not speaking to somebody face to face, you can say quite nasty things on your keyboard that you'd never say or, you know, unless you're really drunk or very mad. You ever say to somebody, somebody's face, unless you're expecting a fight, you know, a little bit like you do in your car, I guess, you know, you're sort of insulated mess. So, you can swear somebody in your past and there's just no consequence. I guess this is the thing. Anyway, the lack of empathy that I think that we, we have more often the past just as a natural sort of way of being. I think if we're going to alleviate this polarization, you know, we all have common interests and shared goals mean, in terms of masks or not masks, I mean, one place you could start is that, you know, I was gonna say nobody wants anybody to die, I suppose sometimes, at the far ends of the polarization, that's maybe not all, totally accurate. But by and large, you know, nobody wants anybody else to die. So and so that's, that's maybe something you can agree on. And I guess that's the sort of thing that you start to try and put together as a set of things that everybody can agree that, you know, we want our kids to be safe, and we want them schools to be safe, and workplaces and for people not to be in fear. And people don't generally like to fight, you know. So, there's a lot of shared values around stuff like that, but it all of them require a little bit of empathy. Because if you can't find any shred of, of something, or you could care at all about the other person, it's going to be difficult to stop that that sort of animosity, I think.   Ari Gronich31:15Right. So, as a mediator, you know, you've got to be well aware of human emotions and the things that drive people forward. This show is all about creating a new tomorrow and activating our vision for a better world. You did that when you, you know, got caught up in the lockup and decided I want to become an author, while I'm sitting here waiting to you know, have things to mediate. And so, you wrote a book about a children's book about kind of what you do in mediation. So, why don't you just like, let's talk about kids, coz kids are going through amazing amounts of bullying, online, cyber bullying, and things like that. And I want to get to that kid, because you did write a book about, you know, children's books. So how do we teach? I have a seven-year-old, how do I teach my son? He's already pretty empathetic, right? But how do I teach him how to mediate in his own mind? Right? How to create that mediation mindset in his own mind. Now, so that when he's an adult, he it's in second nature to him to be in that state of empathy? how could other parents do that as well? Brian McKibbin32:44I think, um, I mean, I just said, children are much better disposed and some adults to forgive and forget, and, you know, to make friends again, you know, you can see when they, when they fall out and have a fight, you know, they can be best friends in a few minutes. Maybe you have an ice cream or something. I guess, with that, as an example, you know, it's a shared experience that brings them back together and makes them happy again, I think, I would say for children, it's very good for them in general to, you know, to excite their curiosity about things. And one of the ways to do that, is to have them imagine how other people feel about this, or that. And I think that's the sort of headspace that you want them to inhabit, because that's the kind of place where, if, you know, if they're angry at someone, but they can start to perceive why that person may have acted the way that they did, and have a little bit of empathy or even sympathy with that, then they can't remain engaged with the anger and I think somewhere there is the answer to helping them be, you know, better adults and calmer, gentler, happier, people. Ari Gronich34:19Awesome. So, talk to us a little bit about, you know, the few lessons in this book Ziggy loves sausage, and you know, I want to end I always end the show with three tips and tricks and things that people can do to activate their vision to make a better world to have a better world. And so, why don't you talk about Ziggy love sausage in the end the philosophies and things that will help others to create their new tomorrow and activate their vision for a better world. Brian McKibbin34:50Okay, thank you. Well, Ziggy love sausages is about. It's about a little quest that this stacks and goes on but ultimately, he goes on it because he makes a promise to a friend to help them right along the way he has temptations to overcome. That's the tasty food stuffs that he has to ignore to, to get his goal, he has a little help getting his goal. Because basically, because he's a good hearted little creature, and there's a, there's a fairy that decides he deserves a little bit of help for that, then when he accomplishes the goal, and he returns this item to its rightful owner, again, ignoring the temptations along the way back, he's rewarded with a sausage, and the payoff line is that there's nothing the sausage dog loves more than sausages, even though he loves all this other stuff. So, it's about keeping your promises and being a good person, I guess. And the idea that there's happiness in, in that kind of mindset, you know, it's similar, I guess, to, you know, Christmas, the joys and the giving stuff rather than receiving it really, isn't it? So, I guess that's the lesson in the book, and something that I hope parents would want the kids to take away that, you know, selflessness is better than selfishness. Ari Gronich36:31Okay, so ffulfillmentfrom giving as awesome. Is there anything else that you'd like to leave the audience with? How they could, you know, maybe better mediate themselves? How can they understand themselves more, thereby understand others more? What kind of questions can they ask themselves to get to that point? So, I just want to give the audience a little bit more love so they can really activate their visions. Brian McKibbin37:03Well, I mean, ultimately, we all want to be happy. And I think that, you know, we spend a lot of time in the world today, looking at screens and seeing, I mean, the news wants to you know, the news is, is the bad news industry, really not the good news industry, isn't it, there's, it's, you know, you get higher ratings with the angst than you do with sunflowers. I would say to people that I think one thing is true. And with the kids as well as to try and go outside and see nature, because nature just is natures got, you know, no angst, if you go into the forest, the trees are, are there and they're magnificent, and beautiful, and they're not. They're not fighting, it's very difficult to be angry in a forest after a while. If you're with your child, the child has to start to be fascinated with nature and forget about his smartphone and his computer games. And I think that's, that's a great way just go in and walk in nature. And it's, it's hard to hold on to that anger. And in the doing of that your head will clear a little as well of the angst or the anger or whatever it was that that made you go outside to get a bit of relief from that. And I think I think we still do that. I've been trying to do that every day, since the pandemic happened, and I find it really useful. That that would be my top to go out into nature. So, its good. Ari Gronich38:39Thank you so much for being here, Brian. I really appreciate all your, your wisdom, your ability to pivot and show that resilience as well in the face of, you know, what we've been going through is amazing and commendable. And so, I really appreciate you being on the show. Brian McKibbin38:57It's been my great pleasure. Thank you. 

Happy TWOSday! Episode 8 has arrived. Our guest this week is @ameer, journalist and founder of @muslim on instagram. He was also recently brought into the @forbesunder30 fold, power moves.Tap in for an interview that covers some of the things Ameer went through as a Palestinian-Muslim growing up in a predominant white conservative area. Along with having to find his community online on platforms like Tumblr. We also learned about how he was ahead of the curve on the internet for years. Besides @muslim, he claims to have locked down the handle @pokemon before anyone until Pokemon took it back themselves. He also fills us in on how his deal with snapchat came out of a manic episode. Shouts to productive mental breakdowns, gen z is the future. Sauce

 This week Eugenia Flynn and Tasnim Sammak join us to explore the shared reality of erasure and history of struggle against settler-colonialism, genocide and oppression between Blak Australia and Palestine. Within that struggle emerges a shared decolonial solidarity between Palestinian and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples where Tasnim and Eugenia talk about a need to move beyond 'reciprocal solidarity'. These issues are discussed in their recent article Blak Australia to Palestine: solidarity in decolonial struggle published on Indigenous X.Eugenia Flynn is a writer, academic, arts worker and community organiser. Eugenia is Aboriginal, Chinese Malaysian and Muslim and she works within her multiple communities to create change through art, literature and community engagement. Tasnim Sammak is a PhD candidate at Monash University's Faculty of Education, a single mum of two boys and a local Palestinian Muslim organiser.We also hear a poem by Larrakia, Kungarrakan, Gurindji and French writer and poet Laniyuk who performed at the Blak-Palestinian poetry night in Narrm/Melbourne on June 26th. Blak and Palestinian poets, artists and activists came together for a special evening of poetry, performances and discussions. You can hear the full broadcast of the night, and by extension all the poems, on the Salaam Radio Show at 3CR. 

Hi, I am here with Mohamed Hammound, He is an engaging and experienced multilingual facilitator, speaker and trainer who has worked with the private, public and not-for-profit organizations.  Ari Gronich 0:08 Welcome to another episode of creative new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. And today I have with me on Mohamed hammound. He is a loving husband, and father to three children. He's a heart centered leader, who's passionate about empowering leaders to unleash their potential by sharpening their emotional intelligence, fostering inclusion, and leading from the heart. Thank you for coming on the show, Muhamed. And why don't you tell us the audience a little bit about yourself and how you became this heart centered leader. Mohamed Hammound 0:44 Thank you for having me on the show today are a really a pleasure to be here. So how did I become a heart center leader? I don't necessarily believe that was intentional. Ever since I was young, maybe eight years old, I started becoming aware that what I wanted to do in life was to be in service of others. And that's not the language I used when I was eight, it was more of how can I make a difference? How can I do something that makes me happy makes others happy. And from a young age, I craved belonging I craved wanting to be amongst others and feel like I was one of them. Because I was an immigrant. I came from overseas lived in Canada, I had to change my name, I several times had to disinvest, myself of my Islamic identity, I became Western. And, you know, so becoming a person who I wasn't to please people who weren't like me, and starting to look like people who weren't like me. So I started to fit in, because, you know, you look at me, I don't look Mona Lisa, I don't look Muslim. And when I started using a mic, and then Miguel, and then Miguel, it was yours. It was I was, you know, into my adulthood, I was 25, before I came out of the closet and can use my Islamic name, and I could, you know, reclaim my semuc identities as Muhammad. Through that, throughout that journey from knowing that I wanted to make a difference, getting older and recognizing that we need a space where we can feel that we are part of the community where we live that we belong, that we're accepted. But what I started learning is if you don't accept yourself first, you can't expect other people to accept you. Nice. Ari Gronich 2:21 So I've told this story a few times. But when I lived in Los Angeles, my roommate was Palestinian Muslim. I am a Jewish, Buddhist, Catholic, you know, like religion study here. I've studied the Quran, I've studied Buddhism, I've studied Taoism, I've studied a lot of religions, Native American. But she and I, you know, as you can imagine, didn't necessarily agree on on a whole lot of stuff. But we agreed that we were brother and sister, and brother and sister sometimes grow up in completely different households, even if they're in the same house. So even my brother and I are very different people, we, we kind of made that same conclusion that, you know, we grew up in different worlds because of our perception. And our reality was was different, even though it was the same household. All of a sudden, the world opens up possibilities, in my opinion. So let's talk about that a little bit. Because I don't want to make this about too much about religion and culture that way, but it's definitely something that's present in our communities and in our countries. Right now. Very, very hardcore. So let's just talk a little bit about how how would you say you use emotional intelligence to bridge the gaps between diversity and culture. Mohamed Hammound 3:51 So that's what I spoke at. So I was two years ago, I was invited to speak at the weekend away TEDx in Traverse City, Michigan, my message was around reclaiming my identity. But it was more of extending that bridge, because we as human beings can become bridges. And my message was, you know, the people that have hijacked my name, for their political, you know, their political views that don't resonate with the rest of us. What they've done is they've hijacked my name, my religion, my beliefs, and they've used me as collateral. So the idea is that we don't have to your point, we don't have to be represented by that loud minority, however small they are. And I think the percentage is probably less than 1%, actually, But to your point, because they are so loud. And we tend to see more of the negative in society than we tend to look for the good as human beings, we tend, you know, even on ourselves, we tend to first focus on what brings us pain and anger before we look at what is bringing us happiness and fulfillment. So when we look in, in the community, we will look into society, we'll look at what's different, and when we see what's different. We don't necessarily see what's good about it. We don't See that we can be better and happier because of our differences and not in spite of them. But nobody told us you had to agree. So you and your Palestinian Muslim friends started from a place of commonality. And most of what, what the reason that we're here, I believe, is not defined that we all like chocolate ice cream, but to recognize that you'd like chocolate ice cream. And I'd like mint. I don't, it's the other way around. But the idea is that it'd be boring if we all agreed, and if we all believe in the same thing, and the beauty of is how we can recognize that diversity, diversity is a fact. But as inclusion is a choice, diversity is all around us in nature and human humanity and the way that we speak and the way that we love in the way that we love. And so we can't change that diversity, we have to recognize that a celebrated as opposed to penalize it, and we can, tentatively so with intention, choose to be inclusive, but even inclusion is not enough. What we have to do is to allow you and I sit at the same table, and when you break your bread, you hand it to me, you allow me to sit at the table with you and to be part of your communion. And it's a matter of allowing enough people as as the table so you know, it's making sure that there are empty chairs so that people can actually come and sit beside us. And you know, back, you know, in Palestine and Israel, people don't actually sit on a chair, traditionally, we sat around in a circle, and that circle is the circle of safety. And what we have to do to recognize, for us to grow and to recognize the differences make us stronger, is to allow the circle of safety, to widen, and for those that are on the outside, to come in, of their own volition, and to be part of the conversation to have their voices heard, to feel that they are seen, to feel that they are valued. And when we do that, when we when we allow ourselves to stand back and allow others, you know, or, you know, permit space for others to come in, we create that feeling of belonging. Absolutely. You know, you Ari Gronich 7:00 said something about circles. And I, I'm a circle theorist. And what that means is, there's not a single thing in nature, that doesn't have a circle shape. in martial arts, everything is about circle, you know, whether it's creating an energy bubble, or the movement being a circular movement for martial arts. Tribal living in a modern world is a book that I'm getting ready to, to write. And I'm going to do a series of these books. The first one is corporate, as a corporate one, it's trouble living in a modern world, the corporate culture revolution. And my theory is that if we take the sharp edges out of anything, and we turn them into circles, so let's, let's say in a corporation, you usually have cubicles, and that people are in and box offices, right. And it's a box building. Yeah, and if you took that and you turn it into a circle structure, then all of a sudden, and you could do concentric circles. So you know, small and then bigger and bigger and bigger, we end up creating project driven and productive teams, purpose driven teams, things like that, because all the people necessary for that project are in that circle. And they all have equal positioning. Right? So there's there's no place where that position the engineer isn't less than the accountant or more than than the managers manager then the you know, because they all have different unique talents. So why put one above or below another in a box type structure or a pyramid type structure? why not create it in a circular circular but I think that that goes back to what you were saying, you know, in Israel and Palestine and tribal living in general, we we would eat around a fire in a circle, talk around a fire in a circle, we would commune we would storytel we would, you know, do that. In the 50s and 60s and 70s. We would eat dinner with our family in a circle. And the circle has become sharp edged versus versus that nice soft circle with no sharp edges right? We don't do dinner with the family anymore. We we tend to be individually Even in our families, right, and that, to me is part of what has broken up the family which has broken up the community, which has broken up the society. And, you know, the purpose, I guess, of it has been, well, everybody's too busy to do anything together anymore, because you're working 40 to 80 hours a week, right? But just, if you can imagine a world that's circular, versus sharp edge, and how much print that might feel, Mohamed Hammound 10:32 and Isn't it amazing, the world is circular, we live and not maybe a perfect circle, but no Earth is a globe, the sun is a globe, the planets are circular. You know, everything that we know, to your point has some sort of structure where it's circular, the the the dimensions of how the blood travels within the body is circular. Everything has that circular. Now I, you know, I'll come later to to the idea of of spiral. But a spiral is another version. You know, when you talk about concentric circles, a spiral is a circle, that continues to grow, that continues to expand. And that is how I think we can take the image of a circle, not the square or rectangular head of the table leadership mentality that there is one leader at the top of the pyramid or the head of the table, but we are sitting around equally equitably around each other, across from each other. Looking at each other, we can hold hands with each other and most of the indigenous communities believe and the circle you mentioned, the campfire. So I think we are designed or created in a circular mentality to your point, we started dividing ourselves up into the compartments of the cubicle and the the boxes and the big buildings. And it's all about these sharp rectangular shapes that break away from what's natural and nurturing to us. Ari Gronich 12:04 Right. But I would love you did talk a little bit, and we can't do it tonight today. But I would love you to talk a little bit about the beauty of the Muslim religion because it eautiful rich, diverse culture, diverse religion, and it's nothing like what most people think, in the western police. So Mohamed Hammound 12:28 anyway, it's a it's changing, I think a lot of people are starting to see differently, because you and I are having these discussions because we are amplifying the the the silence voices that for the longest time have not had the opportunity to be heard. And that is why I think it's so important to to look at the alternatives to the media and the outlets out there. Because having you know, podcasts having opportunities where people can talk like this freely and share the different perspectives. That's where we're going to break with the silent majority and create a new minority of loud voices that speak a better truth. Ari Gronich 13:05 Absolutely. So let's give three tips or tricks that anybody listening can take with them and act upon today. So they could create their new tomorrow, Unknown Speaker 13:16 today. Mohamed Hammound 13:18 This isn't mine, this is probably gone. These are Michael Jackson. But be the change that you want to see in the world. I you know, don't reinvent, just be the change that you want to see in the world. Start with yourself. And in order to start with yourself, get to know yourself, you can't get to know others if you don't know yourself. And when you get to that place of constant knowing of you and the other, allow for those differences and recognize that we're stronger because of our differences not in spite of them. Ari Gronich 13:47 Awesome. Thank you How can people get ahold of you if they'd like to? Mohamed Hammound 13:50 So listen to this podcast listen to the unfiltered podcast I can share with you you know I have a training consulting business of desire the number two lead desire to lead I saw as the keynote speaking training people can get in touch with me through LinkedIn is probably the best place so Mohamed Hammound at LinkedIn developing unfiltered leaders there deserve there to engage in conversations and get to know the other. Awesome, thank you so much. I truly enjoyed our conversation. Ari Gronich 14:21 And thank you so much for coming on. And listen, a another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to like subscribe, rate review and comments so that we can start conversations like this with you and hopefully create a new tomorrow today. Thank you and see you next time.

Hi, I am here with Mohamed Hammound, He is an engaging and experienced multilingual facilitator, speaker and trainer who has worked with the private, public and not-for-profit organizations.  Ari Gronich 0:00 Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results? We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies, if I do not get results, they do not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system want to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are. Join me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari Gronich. And this is create a new tomorrow podcast. Welcome to another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. And today I have with me a Mohamed hammound. He is a loving husband, and father to three children. He's a heart centered leader who's passionate about empowering leaders to unleash their potential by sharpening their emotional intelligence, fostering inclusion, and leading from the heart. Thank you for coming on the show Muhammad and why don't you tell us the audience a little bit about yourself and how you became this heart centered leader. Mohamed Hammound 1:41 Thank you for having me on the show today are a really a pleasure to be here. So how did I become a heart center leader? I don't necessarily believe that was intentional. Ever since I was young, maybe eight years old, I started becoming aware that what I wanted to do in life was to be in service of others. And that's not the language I used when I was eight, it was more of how can I make a difference? How can I do something that makes me happy makes others happy. And from a young age, I crave belonging I craved wanting to be amongst others and feel like I was one of them. Because I was an immigrant I came from overseas, I lived in Canada, I had to change my name, I several times had to disinvest, myself of my Islamic identity, I became Western. And, you know, so becoming a person who I wasn't to please people who weren't like me, and starting to look like people who weren't like me. So I started to fit in. Because you know, you look at me, I don't look literally, I don't look Muslim. And when I started using the mic, and then Miguel, and then Miguel, it was years it was I was, you know, into my adulthood, I was 25, before I came out of the closet and can use my Islamic name, and I could, you know, reclaim my ceramic identities as Muhammad. Through that, throughout that journey from knowing that I wanted to make a difference getting older and recognizing that we need a space where we can feel that we are part of the community where we live, that we belong, that we're accepted. But what I started learning is if you don't accept yourself first, you can't expect other people to accept you. And so since I reclaim so to speak my identity instead of using my given name again, it's not like it shuts off and you know, life becomes easy, it actually becomes more of a struggle, because that was about the same time as the Gulf War and then 911. And then you know, right now, with everything around, you know, Muslims and what you have in the world around a misunderstanding of what Islam is. But you know, not to say there because, you know, I don't represent all Muslims. Certainly not. But that was part of my identity. And how do I put myself out there with a name like Mohammed, whether I'm on LinkedIn, whether I'm applying for a job, people just see the name and they cower back. And they're like, Oh, well, yeah, thank you. But no thanks. So as a matter of now that I was out there, using my full name, how do I engage with others? How do I continue to give back? How do I continue to feel accepted? How do I take off various masks that I've been hiding behind for all my life, and now becoming young, you know, at the time I was 25, becoming, you know, young adults who wanted to make a difference, get a job and have a family. Since then, 27 years later, you know, it's still a struggle, because it hasn't become any easier for people to accept you. But again, to the point that I made earlier, I've learned to accept myself, I've learned that with every struggle and every opportunity, have a conversation gets to know the other person, let them know you authentically create that bond where they know who you are, what difference you can make their life and then it becomes a connection between you and that individual. And I brought that philosophy to the work that I do, whether it's volunteer work, work in the community, whether it's, you know, work that I tried to do and I try to get into politics, or work that I do my leadership Development, diversity, equity inclusion. The lens that I lead with is we are here to serve people. And you can't serve people until you first command ownership of their hearts. What do I mean by that? When you have connected heart to heart with another human being, when they know that you are there to serve them, they will be open to listening to your message. And that's where you create love. That's where you create a friendship. That's where you create a fraternity, sisterhood brotherhood between the other person, and then they get to know you. And that's what human life is all about. It's about that authentic connection. Ari Gronich 5:36 Nice. So I've told this story a few times, but when I lived in Los Angeles, my roommate was Palestinian Muslim. I am a Jewish, Buddhist, Catholic, you know, like religion study here. I've studied the Quran, I've studied Buddhism, I've studied Taoism, I've studied a lot of religions, Native American. But she and I, you know, as you can imagine, didn't necessarily agree on on a whole lot of stuff. But we agreed that we were brother and sister, and brother and sister sometimes grow up in completely different households, even if they're in the same house. So even my brother and I are very different people, we, we kind of made that same conclusion that, you know, we grew up in different worlds because of our perception. And our reality was was different, even though it was the same household. And so with, with my roommate, her cousin happened to be an attorney in Palestine, that worked with the Hamas, PLO, the Palestinian government, and Israel, on their negotiations and on their peace talks, and all these things. And what I didn't realize at first, is that when she and I would have these conversations, these amazing conversations we'd always start out with, where are we the same? That was the first thing that we asked, we said, okay, we already know we have differences. Here. Is our beliefs the same? Where is it that we have the same goals, the same thoughts? And then, okay, so now that we know we have all of this, that's the same, maybe our way of going about it is different, maybe our way of thinking about it is different. But we can create some solutions. What I didn't know is that she would call her cousin in Palestine, after we were done having a conversation. And she basically tell the stories of of what we were talking about, and the solutions, and then he would go and, and do some peace talks and do some, you know, negotiations as an attorney, with with that kind of information. And it was fascinating to me, because most people would say to me, how are you living with this Palestinian Muslim woman? Because they don't realize that people are just people, and religion doesn't necessarily make you a terrorist, right? I think the percentages that I saw something like 10, or something percent, but percentages are really low in any extreme group. But they're loud, the extremists are loud. So those are the ones that get the message across. And then people are judging an entire culture based on or religion based on a small percentage of the population. And that happens everywhere across the board, whether your Let's call, it should be a little bit politically incorrect, whether you're a southern redneck, whether you're a Palestinian Muslim, or Muslim, in general, whether you're a Jew, whether you're Catholic, Christian, Protestant, you know, like, I mean, there isn't a culture on the planet that hasn't at one point been oppressed and repressed and, and ripped apart, so to speak. And so if we can get behind the fact that, what is it that we want? And what is what where are we the same? All of a sudden, the world opens up possibilities, in my opinion. So let's talk about that a little bit. Because I don't want to make this about too much about religion and culture that way, but it's definitely something that's present in our communities and in our countries. Right now. Very, very hardcore. So let's just talk a little bit about how how would you say you use emotional intelligence to bridge the gaps between diversity and culture. Mohamed Hammound 9:48 So that's what I spoke at. So I was two years ago, I was invited to speak at the weekend away TEDx in Traverse City Michigan. My Messages around the Claiming my identity. But it was more of extending that bridge because we as human beings can become bridges. And my message was, you know, people that have hijacked My name for their political, you know, their political views that don't resonate with the rest of us. What they've done is they've hijacked my name, my religion, my beliefs, and they've used me as collateral. So the idea is that we don't have to your point, we don't have to be represented by that loud minority, however small they are. And I think the percentage is probably less than 1%, actually, But to your point, because they are so loud. And we tend to see more of the negative in society than we tend to look for the good as human beings, we tend, you know, even on ourselves, we tend to first focus on what brings us pain and anger before we look at what is bringing us happiness and fulfillment. So when we look in, in the community, we will look into society, we'll look at what's different. And when we see what's different, we don't necessarily see what's good about it, we don't see that we can be better and happier because of our differences, and not in spite of them. But nobody told us you had to agree. So you and your Palestinian Muslim friends started from a place of commonality. And most of what what the reason that we're here, I believe, is not defined that we all like chocolate ice cream, but to recognize that you can like chocolate ice cream. And I'd like mint. I don't it's the other way around. But the idea is that it'd be boring if we all agreed, and if we all believe in the same thing. And the beauty of is how we can recognize that diversity, diversity is a fact. But as inclusion is a choice, diversity is all around us in nature and human humanity and the way that we speak and the way that we look in the way that we love. And so we can't change that diversity, we have to recognize it a celebrated as opposed to penalize it, and we can, tentatively so with intention, choose to be inclusive, but even inclusion is not enough. What we have to do is to allow you and I sit at the same table, and when you break your bread, you hand it to me, you allow me to sit at the table with you and to be part of your communion. And it's a matter of allowing enough people as as the table. So you know, it's making sure that there are empty chairs so that people could actually come and sit beside us. And you know, back, you know, in Palestine and Israel, people don't actually sit on a chair, or traditionally, we sat around in a circle. And that circle is the circle of safety. And what we have to do to recognize, for us to grow and to recognize the differences make us stronger, is to allow the circle of safety, to widen, and for those that are on the outside, to come in, of their own volition, and to be part of the conversation to have their voices heard, to feel that they are seen, to feel that they are valued. And when we do that, when we when we allow ourselves to stand back and allow others, you know, or, you know, permit space for others to come in, we create that feeling of belonging. So if diversity is being invited to the room, and inclusion as having the door open, for me, belonging is me sitting side by side and breaking bread with you and feeling that we are together in communion. And that's how we can build human bridges. So when I said that right now, instead of building walls, as we know, this is the rhetoric that we're using to divide us, and the vitriol that we're using to shame and to talk about the other, and not very positive way, we need to say we'll build bridges instead of walls. So that's the message that we need to hear today. It's not that we're going to agree, humankind, you know, we have not agreed on anything that has changed the world for the better. We have come to sit together at a table to recognize that you have the right to your belief, and I have the right to my belief, but in that right in that right that I own and that you own, we have the common understanding and respect, to accept each other and honor each other. And that I think if we come to a starting point, say from those commonalities from those places of honor, we can start to become better human beings. We can create the new tomorrow, we can be part of the tomorrow that we want to start living today. Ari Gronich 14:17 Absolutely. You know, you said something about circles and I I'm a circle theorist. And what that means is there's not a single thing in nature Unknown Speaker 14:33 that Ari Gronich 14:33 doesn't have a circle shape. in martial arts, everything is about circle. You know, whether it's creating an energy bubble or the movement being a circular movement for martial arts. Tribal living in a modern world is a book that I'm I'm getting ready to to write and I'm going to do Do a series of these books. The first one is corporate, as a corporate one, it's trouble living in a modern world, the corporate culture revolution. And my theory is that if we take the sharp edges out of anything, and we turn them into circles, so let's, let's say in a corporation, you usually have cubicles, and that people are in and box offices, right. And it's a box building. Yeah, and if you took that, and you turn it into a circle structure, then all of a sudden, and you could do concentric circles. So, you know, small, and then bigger and bigger and bigger, we end up creating project driven and productive teams, purpose driven teams, things like that, because all the people necessary for that project are in that circle. And they all have equal positioning. Right? So there's, there's no place where that position, the engineer isn't less than the accountant or more than, than the managers, manager, then the you know, because they all have different unique talents. So why put one above or below another in a box type structure, or a pyramid type structure? why not create it in in a circular circular. But I think that that goes back to what you were saying, you know, in Israel and Palestine and tribal living in general, we, we would eat around a fire in a circle, talk around a fire in a circle, we would commune we would storytel, we would, you know, do that, in the 50s and 60s and 70s, we would eat dinner with our family in a circle. And the circle has become sharp edged, versus, versus that nice, soft circle with no sharp edges, right? We don't do dinner with the family anymore, we tend to be individualized, even in our families, right. And that, to me is part of what has broken up the family which has broken up the community which has broken up the society and you know, the purpose, I guess, of it has been, well, everybody's too busy to do anything together anymore, because you're working 40 to 80 hours a week, right? But just if you can imagine a world that's circular, versus sharp edge, and how much print that might feel. Mohamed Hammound 17:50 And isn't it amazing, the world is circular we live and not maybe a perfect circle, but the earth is a globe, the sun is a globe, the planets are circular. You know, everything that we know, to your point has some sort of structure where it's circular, the the the dimensions of how the blood travels within the body is circular. Everything has that circular. Now I you know, I'll come later to the idea of a spiral. But a spiral is another version. You know, when you talk about concentric circles, a spiral is a circle that continues to grow, that continues to expand. And that is how I think we can take the image of a circle, not the square or rectangular head of the table leadership mentality that there is one leader at the top of the pyramid or the head of the table, but we are sitting around equally equitably around each other, across from each other. Looking at each other, we can hold hands with each other. And most of the indigenous communities believe in the circle, you mentioned the campfire. So I think we are designed or created in a circular mentality to your point, we start dividing ourselves up into the compartments of the cubicle and the the boxes and the big buildings. And it's all about these sharp rectangular shapes that break away from what's natural and nurturing to us. So the more we move away from the circle of safety, the less that we feel we belong or that weren't included. And I think it's important to recognize that the more you are less to your nature, the less you're able to nurture. So how do you nurture a relationship with another human being if you create a dimension or a dynamic of inequality because of where you sit or where you stand, but when you invite someone to commune with you, within that fear of knowing and being that person feels that they belong, right as opposed to You know, I have to take a seat at a table and the closest that I am to the head of the table, probably the more important that I am or in the pyramid, right servant leadership tries to turn that pyramid upside down. And you know, you talk to a lot of the CEOs, and they're like, No, you know, I got to see all because I work too hard you did. But you didn't do it alone. And if you continue to think that you, you know, you're up at the top of the pyramid, and you work alone, and these other people who are below you, I hate that language, by the way, you know, people who, you know, report to you, if they're not part of who you are, and part of your vision, if all of a sudden, they move away from beneath you, your position at the top crumbles down to the bottom. So we need to be able to invert that pyramid and to put the CEO and the leader at the bottom, and not in terms of importance. But in terms of structure in terms of foundation, in terms of vision, in terms of that leader now has the vision to be able to support an organization growing and spiraling up within growth so that the individual contributors who are now perhaps furthest away from the from the leader can actually benefit from that shared vision that spirals upwards as opposed to comes down, you know, top down leadership is so, so out, but it's still the one that is predominantly, you know, telling us how we should be living, it's very top down, do as I do, do, as I say not as I do kind of leadership, it's role playing and not role modeling. Ari Gronich 21:38 Yeah, I agree with with that as well. And you know, the thing about companies is, to person who's got an ego, a CEO, that has an ego, he's the person who created everything. To the CEO, who's non egoic. I have this skill set of vision, you have this skill set of implementation. I work hard at creating a vision, you work hard at making that vision sing, making that vision work and making that vision. Amazing, right? Whether it's one employee or 50,000 employees, you've got the vision, that's my job is to hold the vision as the CEO, not to be the ego of I am a CEO, but to be I am the vision holder, I'm the direction, I'm the GPS, you're the car, you're the driver, you're the steering wheel, you're the brakes, you're the implementers And that, I think puts them in an equal footing. Because it's not I worked so hard for this, it's we work hard to get where we're going, we're traveling down the road, and we need the team to get there. There's no man on this planet. No woman, no man that can ever say that they made a huge success of life by themselves. They may have created the concept, but then they had to get other people involved and other people on board to agree with that concept in order for them to make that that leap. Right. Steve Jobs, he had somebody Bill Gates, he had somebody I mean, and then they had to bring in more people that had other skills that different skills and better skills, you know? So yeah, that's the thing about leadership is interesting because we've gotten to this place where it used to be Captain goes down with the ship. The buck stops here, right? And now it's more like the buck stops were going down with nothing right? I'm gonna have all the money in my helicopter is gonna get off that ship before. Right? ploys can get off that ship. And it's a very different kind of way of thinking about things which makes people feel unsupported. unappreciated, uncared for an unloved so they're going to be unloyal unproductive on, you know, compromise with what they're doing. And now you've got a business that's running half at its capacity or less. half its productivity or less and the employee loyalty is gone. Government loyalties gone, civil liberties gone. We're not like worried about civics so much anymore and civic duty and you know those kinds of things. So it's an interesting way of looking at it, but tell us what you think would be a solution to that dilemma, the dilemma of top down leadership, Mohamed Hammound 25:20 to invert that pyramid, and to really come from the vantage point lead through the lens of being there to serve lead through the lens that you as the leader to your point, the leader got to be where they are. And you know, it's interesting we how we refer when we say the leader, and you said it, I've said it, he, because 98% of leadership positions are white, middle aged men, gray hair men, right. And so I think the reason you and I have these podcasts is we want to change that landscape, we want to make it more inclusive, we want to see different genders, leading, we want to have different voices. So that is in part of the solution. Right now, when we saw what's happening with the amplification of the civil liberties movement, and the Black Lives movement and the awareness that the status quo isn't working, we can't go around putting our knees on people's necks and killing them, right? And only reacting and making change, when things like that happen, we need to be proactive, we need to make sure that CEOs aren't stepping aside because they feel that there isn't representation and there isn't diversity, we need to build organizations and design culture. So they're more inclusive, so that in two years, 10 years, 20 years, we see more people that represent our populations that represented the differences and the commonalities that we have. So that person at the top doesn't have to know all the answers, that person who is leading doesn't have to be at the top, that person needs to lead by listening to others learning about their needs. And when we do that, not only do we engage, and we empower people within our organization, but even when you have top down leadership, and for some reason, because you lead by fear and authority, you have people in your organization, you know, being strung along with you, guess what, your client will likely find a different organization, because not a lot of people out there want to be sold a product, they want to be sold a vision, they want to be sold a lifestyle, I buy a particular, you know, electronic device, not because I feel like spending $2,000 on a phone, but I do because I believe in the the operating system or more. So the the infrastructure of what that phone will do for me. So it's it's the ecosystem, that it right. It's a lifestyle. And so it's a matter that if I can lead, but not by empowering my client, my customer may not have the love behind me, and I don't see them with me anymore. So at one point, we have to leave for the organization, we have to leave for the employee and we have to leave for the community, we have to have that holistic approach that we are here to serve the people that work with us, not for us. We are here to serve people as a team approach. And then we are here to serve the community. Yes, we are here for profits, but not at the expense of people. Yes, we are here to to build office towers and to buy and purchase and to have a certain lifestyle, but not at the expense of people going hungry. So we need to recapture that humanity that has helped us build our economy and recognizes to go hand in hand, the term essential worker only became important when we recognize that we couldn't live during this pandemic, without their essential services. The minute that we felt things were getting better in the summertime, at least here in Canada, we took away the the $2 an hour that we were giving essential workers on top of the regular wage because we're saying Hey, thank you for your hard work when you when we needed you. Guess what, now we're having the same sort of story that we were, you know, telling our marketing spiel was we need you we're in this together, because we're starting to feel the strength again, we need to behave in our optimal when things are good, and when things are not so good. So leaders need to lead to be of service to others, similar to the message that I gave you at the start when I was introducing myself, if I have a message that I'm going to share with you until I have been able to create a relationship with you and be of service to you. You're not going to be open to listen to me until you and your colleague respected that you didn't have to agree but to live together and you could do so in harmony by by respecting each other. You recognize it's okay to disagree. And that is the beauty of differences is we recognize that they don't have to, you know, separate us they can bring us together Ari Gronich 29:57 absolutely and You know, it's funny. We both said he but a friend of mine on on Facebook yesterday posed a question. And it was an interesting question it was, it was poised to men and feeling and the question was, do you men feel like you have to play small, because of the role that women are starting to take over more positions of authority and leadership and politics and yada, yada? And my response was, nobody needs to play small. Everybody can play big, there's a blue for every thing and every person. So they'll be attracted or repelled by that person based on their own whatever biases. And I then I then I asked just the funnier question, which is, did the apple need to play small to the banana? Or does the avocado just win at all? Because, you know, it's like, well, I can, I can only have this fruit, this apple, I can't have the apple and the banana. I can only have the avocado, right? And I'm going to have that for the rest of my life. Just avocados? How boring would that be? Unknown Speaker 31:25 chocolate ice cream? Ari Gronich 31:27 is like, why should Why should the apple play small to the because the banana is the number one bought fruit in the world. Right? An apple didn't play small to it. People still eat the apple who want the apple people eat the orange people eat the, you know, the avocado. So, you know that that philosophy that people have? And it goes to race also, race religion? Well, you know, if, if too many black people become in politics, right? Then we just we just are gonna you know what, we're just gonna we're gonna have to be small because we can't fit everybody you know? Like, okay, where is it that the best person for the job, no matter what race, religion, color, sex creed. The best person for the job gets the job. The best. Nobody needs to play small. Everybody can play really big and full out. Right? Mohamed Hammound 32:37 So already, I will say cuz I had somebody challenged me on this when I was saying, you know, we knew, right, we do want the best person for the job. And a black woman said to me, but we don't have the same opportunities to get to be good at the jobs that we do, we don't get the same opportunities to have the same education that white people do privilege. And privilege has many layers. So you and I even though we're not white, we look white. And therefore we're closer to the dominant culture in terms of our skin color, right. And so systemic criticism holds people back from being able to access the level of education and, and socio economic success that the dominant culture has offered or allowed, not offered, allowed permitted for the dominant culture to have. So when we look at the best person for the job, the reason we sometimes we gravitate towards giving it to a white Anglo Saxon, middle aged white men to be in a leadership role, it's because we have not empowered women enough to be in leadership positions. Because, you know, we haven't empowered enough black people to get the same sort of education in the same Ivy League schools as white people. So we have systemic racism and assault that changes we're the best person for the job will likely still look like you and me, but probably be that white, middle aged, right? So it's a matter of recognizing that our current system is broken and needs to change. We need to change it so that in a few generations or hopefully in a few years, representation is truly based on opportunity and giving equal opportunity and equitable opportunity to everybody in the community. Ari Gronich 34:22 So I'm gonna I'm gonna preface what I'm saying with I agree that there is systemic racism. The thing that I'm that I'm gonna disagree with is okay, is that there's a lack of opportunity. Unknown Speaker 34:41 Hmm. Ari Gronich 34:42 There's enough people that I've met in my life, been friends with enjoyed their company that are black, female, that are absolutely brilliant and millionaires and living amazing lives. And You know, one of the things like that, that. And this is a point of consideration, but Morgan Freeman asked these questions, right? Black man has has gotten a lot of success. And what he says is, we need to stop talking about race. Don't call me a black man, I'm not gonna call you a white man. Don't you know, I am Morgan. That's my name. That's who I am. And I think that part of the system is that we ask, race, color, religion, gender, on documents, that are, it's unimportant to have that information. It's not important to have it unless you want to segment a society and discern, okay, well, this person is of that so they get this benefit. And that person is of that so they get that, right. If we stop naming people and labeling people, red, blue, left, right. You know, redneck snowflake. I mean, if we stop the labels, Unknown Speaker 36:16 to me, Ari Gronich 36:18 we begin the process of creating systemic change. As soon as we start privileging people who have been unprivileged. Now we're creating an imbalance. And that imbalance is what scares the living bejesus out of out of white people. Mohamed Hammound 36:38 Right? When we're reactionary, like we were with the doors, Floyd murder, and all of a sudden CEOs were stepping down to make room for colored or black CEOs. You know, as you know, there's kind of parts from the black community step in, that's where I think we're being reactionary. And to your point, we're privileging those who have been underprivileged, we allow me here to say that the systemic racism that we have is in one generation to change, it's hundreds of years old. So for you mentioned bias, until we have a new baseline where you could see a name on a resume, like Muhammad, and not have the bias that you will. And you know, and I've done research, and I've done, I've been part of these attempts where I apply as Mike. And I'll get the recognition more quickly than I will by Mohammed. So you won't believe the amount of times that doors have been closed, virtual and physical, because people see my name. When we first came in, we're talking 17, we were totally had to change our names, because we couldn't I couldn't go to an all Catholic school with the name Muhammad or I have to be baptized, right. So systemic racism exists. And until we have a new baseline, where we're not building on the previous baseline, where we're, you know, for us to be able to say, we'll recognize that you have equal opportunity, we have to get to that baseline where equal opportunity exists. And I think when we look at the number of let's use black people, as an example, the number of black people who are well off and enjoying a better lifestyle than their white counterparts, it's a very small percentage compared to how many people we when we look at our cities, there are certain areas in the cities where they are just our postal codes are based on how much money we have, what color we are, what religion we are, we're segregated. And we know that when we look at cities like Chicago and New York, there's a Italian village, there's the the Jewish community, there's the Middle East, and to me is like, there's pockets. And those pockets don't we celebrate, I go to Little Italy to have a good authentic Italian pizza. But the idea is that people came to those areas and stayed there because they felt comfortable. And it was segregation that prevented them from going to other places. And that segregation, it's a form of discrimination that we continue to propagate, because we say this is the status quo. So I think we have to recognize that representation has to change, this new baseline has to be read correctly calibrated before we can get to the point where we say, you know what, the best person gets the job because right now the best person that has the opportunity to get there is not you and I it's the people that have always been fed with a silver spoon and things were easier for them because of hundreds of years of colonization and slavery. Ari Gronich 39:40 Right? Yeah, I get some of that. And, and I'm just playing devil's advocate. Unknown Speaker 39:48 Oh. Ari Gronich 39:50 So did we get segregated like the Jewish communities of New York and so forth, or whatever? Did we get segregated or Did we segregate ourselves because that's where we felt more comfortable, and, and so forth. So, you know, we came here for the diversity of the culture in America, but we then moved into communities with just our people, regardless of who's our people, whether it's, you know, Latin or Latin communities, Italian communities, you know, Armenian communities doesn't really matter. And then the next question that I have is how many Mohammed's are loud? About the love are loud about the heart centered are large, loud about what it is that you're loud about, right? versus however many Muhammad's that are loud about terrorism? Right Thing with any, any with any right, Miss? I'm putting this out there not not as a What I'm saying is the the evil is always louder. Right? And right, in my opinion, the way to change that is people like you get really loud, people who have good hearts get louder than the terrorists get louder than the people who are causing problems. The in the black community, get loud about the changes that you're making and the good that you're doing in your community versus the crime that's happening there. Right Mohamed Hammound 41:32 there. Right. Ari Gronich 41:33 There are ways to bring people in. And there are ways to scare the little bit living bejesus out. And I think that in general, the small pockets of of loudness are coming from the agitators more than the unifiers. And so the challenge that I would have is for the unifiers to get much louder than anybody else. The message that they would hear when they heard the name Muhammad is they would hear love inclusion, heart centered, empowering, versus death to whatever you know, like, and this may be insulting, I don't know, because I'm not trying to be in Unknown Speaker 42:26 No, Ari Gronich 42:27 I'm saying in a way that I feel like, I'm not victim shaming. And a lot of people might think that, but what I'm saying is I'm trying to empower somebody to not be the victim. Mohamed Hammound 42:43 Right? Right. So to your first point about did we choose to where we segregate or re choose to be segregation, it's never black and white, it's never one or the other. It is combination of both we gravitate towards areas where we feel we belong. And this is our community, we go to St. Churches, even within let's say, Jewish community, you have the different kinds of Jewish communities. And you'll have three different synagogues based on how conservative liberal orthodox they are saying within the Muslim community. So we we segregate ourselves, we choose that inclusion, which becomes exclusive at one point, but also I think there's an element of we are put into different and it depends on the country, you're in we I don't have to tell you in certain I mean, God forbid that anything should happen like this, again, the segregation that happened in Nazi Germany, for example, what the Jewish communities, right, that's where we don't want to go or segregation now helped me, you know, allows us to look to be other as the enemy. And that leads into my second response to your second question, which is when we are louder about the things that make us different and make us different in fear, because it's ignorance can go two ways. If you go to fear and hatred, or if you go to acknowledgement and love, because we all start from a place of ignorance. We don't know, to your point. I don't know if I'm being insulting, you're not, you know, we, if you didn't say it, it'd be like the elephant in the room. Right? And it's the idea that we have to acknowledge We start by asking these questions and baselining you know, what we know and what we want to know. And when we allow the louder voices so it's not that there are more Mohammed's who are terrorists. What it is, is the media will only tell you about the Mohammed who are terrorists, they will not tell you about the Mohammed said or unifiers. The when there is a white wall what we know right now, and this isn't white bashing, by the way, but I think we have to call it out there. We know the homegrown terrorism is 97% of the amount of terrorism that there is in North America, at least in the United States, compared to the amount of non new rights is a terrorism that's not on our soil and it's most of that is not by the immigrant communities. So it's our media chooses to always talk about the hoodie who The black man, you don't hear a white Christian boy wants him to a store and blue off somebody's head with a pistol. But you will hear black male. Right now we're starting to get Caucasian, right? So we have to be equal represented representation. And when we're giving a message when we're praising and when we're being critical, we have to your point earlier, to where I think we can take what Morgan Freeman is saying, and that look at me as I am, I want to be seen as Muhammad and I want to be seen this Muslim as part of my identity, a black person was fought endlessly generations to celebrate being black. For me not to see their color, for me to be colorblind is supposed to be color bold, will be taken away the affirmation that they've worked centuries and centuries on, to be recognized as a person of color or black person. And I was, you know, one time I refer to a black woman, as a person of color said, I'm black, Mohammed, not a person of color, I'm black, I fought for the right to be black and to be recognized and seen as black. So we have to hear and see and value people for who they are. And when we do that, to what you said earlier, I think when we have that new baseline, where I see you for who you, you know, representative of all other Jews, you as Ari, who is a Buddhist, Jewish, got some Catholics in there. So you, I see you for you. And then I recognize who you may speak on behalf of by saying to me, as a Jew, I speak to this. In North America, as an American person, I speak to this, I don't speak on behalf of all Muslims. I'm shunned in some in some parts of my community, because I don't look like this isn't a religious beer, this is just three days gross, because I've been lazy. So you know, we have to recognize that one person doesn't represent the entire community or you know, if you want to use the word race, because I believe we belong to one human race. So until we have that new baseline, it's going to be hard to say that we can be equitable and treat everybody with equal opportunities. Until we have that new baseline, it's going to be hard to say that we can give the best do the job to the best person because that person who is the best for the job didn't have the same opportunities their parents didn't. So we have to create that new baseline, we have to do the image of the circle that we talked about earlier, allow for us to sit back and for others to come into that circle and to recognize the engineer and the and the CEO, and the individual computer contributors all has something of value to bring. And that comes with our self awareness. It comes with our level of deep conviction that we are emotionally intelligent beings. You know, it's not just intelligent photos, but it's emotional quota. And it's our intention to create that opportunity to speak and get to know someone and to become a human bridges and not human walls. It's deep. Yeah, Ari Gronich 48:11 you know, it's really difficult to have a conversation like this. In general, in public these days. I can disagree with you, and I can agree with you and I can still honor, respect, love, feel affinity towards, you know, you. And that kind of level of commitment that I have to love thy neighbor, so to speak, is it's not based on a religion, it's based on a belief that there's nothing to hate in a human being other than the trauma that they've gone through. To make them do the things that they do. Everybody has traumas, and everybody has brilliance is. And there's so many people these days that are in this cancel culture that are well you don't believe in what I believe in. So I'm just going to delete you as my friend. I'm just gonna eliminate you from from my sphere so that I don't have to hear your opinion that I disagree with. And I think it's so damaging to a culture in general, that, especially one that the United States like Canada and the United States are two places where Mohamed Hammound 49:54 we Ari Gronich 49:56 welcome immigration. We Welcome. Diversity, diversity is what created our country, black men and women built most of this country Chinese built most of our railway system. people other than white people, right? Did tremendous work in the infrastructure of building this country and not always, in ways that were kind. Sometimes they were ways that had whips at their backs. And I think the beginning is acknowledging what the struggle has been. And then saying, Okay, Unknown Speaker 50:50 I get you. Ari Gronich 50:52 I feel what you felt. Now, what we do from that information, because if we stay there, in that spot of, you're just going to be a victim forever. Mohamed Hammound 51:14 Right? When you started this, you were talking about your relationship with your roommate, and the conversations that you were having help become part of the conversations of a peace treaty. Right? Or at least, to me a conversation about creating, right? And when we said equals, as equals a table where we see value and each other, that's a start. And knowing that we're not going to agree on everything, but in our disagreement is not a reason to build a wall. And our disagreement, can we continue building a bridge, and, you know, some bridges take longer than others to build. But they all start with the tension that I hear you, I see you, I value you. And I value in building a bridge to unite us as opposed to divide us. So I think if that's our intention, and everything needs to start with that intention, then we can only end up in a better place. Not in an in the best place or in a perfect place, but in a better place than where we have been. Ari Gronich 52:25 You know, it's funny. I was 18 maybe in in Oregon, in Salem, Oregon. And I was wearing a jacket that no this was actually I I have the jacket my brother This was my brother so my brother is wearing a jacket that has a pentacle on it it's a you know that that pagan star, the fun are inside of a circle, and then it had some Celtic ruin ruins the writing on it said pagan pride in in Gaelic, and he's wearing Doc Martens It was kind of funny, he you know, we were we were we were crazy, you know, kinds of people growing up, we like to study religions and do things like sword fighting in the middle of the forest for weeks on it, you know, time and listen to JRR Tolkien and read, you know, read JRR Tolkien. So we were interesting people. And I'm very creatives. And my brother was approached in a mall by a skinhead. And the skinheads saw the Doc Martens, and he saw the jacket and he thought, Oh, this is one of my people. And so he started having a conversation with my brother, my brother, obviously didn't tell him he was Jewish. And he just sat there for almost two hours listening to the vitriol that this person was spewing, not agreeing, not disagreeing, not not reacting at all. And, you know, some of the things, I think one of the things he said is like Jews have an aversion to water, so they smell, they smell now you could smell a Jew a mile away because they have an aversion to water or something like that was one of the things but he kept, you know, he would say all these things, not knowing that he's talking to the person he's talking about. Right? And I find it fascinating how much people think certain things about certain cultures where they've never actually experienced knowing that person or that culture right. So I I've been to Jordan and Lebanon, and Israel. And I kind of went into Palestine for like, about 20 minutes. Not enough to know a culture, right? I've traveled to France for a week, not enough to know the culture. But I have I could you beliefs about the French culture. I could spew beliefs about the Muslim culture I can you beliefs about those people. And none of them are accurate 100% mostly not even 10%. Right. Because what the belief is, has been fed to us by as you said, by the media, by comedians, by entertainment the world, you know, I listen to somebody say the Jew, the Jewish held media, you know, all the news, it's all the Jewish control in the deep state. Like, really, I'm Jewish, I've never heard of this deep state or the Jewish control of, you know, like, it doesn't make sense to me because it doesn't fit with my reality. And I'm wondering how much benefit the audience would get by going up to somebody that they previously have have a preconceived notion about and just starting a conversation with them and asking them questions. And not reacting and not responding, just asking questions. And I believe there was this black gentleman who did this with the KKK. And I think that that there's something like 80 or 90 kkk members that after years of this black gentlemen being around and them saying, hey, mate, well, you know, black people are this but this guy's okay. You've I'm sure heard that. Mohamed Hammound 57:25 I've heard a documentary Yeah. Ari Gronich 57:27 Was our Baba Baba. But you're okay. You're, you're alright. How did you get to be okay, instead? Well, wait a minute. The majority, like you like me like that black men who went to ask the question of, of this Grand Poobah in the in the KKK, right? How much ignorance allows people to continue being judgmental. And I'm going to put it one step further. How much religion allows people to be judgmental, even when they say, only God is there to judge you. It's a sin for you to be a judge and jury. That's God's job. But yet, the religious people in general that I've met, doesn't matter what religion are the ones that tend to judge the most Mohamed Hammound 58:35 holier than thou, Ari Gronich 58:37 I unpacked a few things there. Why don't you speak to that? That's a lot of comments. But Mohamed Hammound 58:45 again, I think it comes back to what you said earlier about bias. If we're not ready to recognize our own bias, right, we're not going to understand how we can lead to see things differently. And that different, doesn't have to be bad doesn't, you know, our goal, our end goal isn't to agree. our end goal is to honor that you and I have the right to exist, and to hold different convictions wherever they are political and religious. But can we still sit at the same table and break bread and recognize that you have every right to be seen heard and valued as I do. And it's not because your color or your privilege, or what you lack or have more often I do, it's that we all come as equal partners and contributors to this circle. And we're all we all have the right to feel that we belong and be feel safe. And when we feel that we belong and we feel safe and we try it, we start to trust each other. And when we trust each other, we build a foundation. And that's how you build the bridge on is that foundation of trust. We can get there whether we're talking about nations or nationhood. Whatever Talking about different political parties, whether we're talking about in a relationship to people who live with each other, you know, if you are not prepared to sit at the table and listen to the other person, and to lean in with curiosity that you're going to learn something, you know, I have something that I call the four DS and the four L's of emotional intelligence, right? And, but the four L is start with listening. So when we listen to others, what happens when you when you listen to someone, Ari Gronich 1:00:32 I learned, Mohamed Hammound 1:00:33 you learn, that's a second L. When you learn about somebody, inevitably, you start to exercise a level of compassion, empathy, and that means love. And when you do that, when you start to love someone, you listen, you learn, you start to love and appreciate them. You allow them to be you allow them to lead from the heart. So the four L's you know, how we get to know others, you know, emotional intelligence is a lot deeper than that. But I you know, the reason I brought the four DS in the four walls into it, and particularly the four other boats, awareness of others, why did I think the four DS in the four l basis came to my mind and I was able to put these the the formula together just to work it but I wanted to give people an idea of how can I simplify getting to know myself through a process of diagnosis, determining that I have the right diagnosis, developing a plan was the right milestones and the approach. And then I get things done, I do it. That's the four DS of self awareness. And the four D is the form of becoming more aware of others, is to start from a place where I'm willing to listen, when I listen, I inevitably learn when I learn, I end up loving. And when I love, I end up leading from the heart and allow others to lead. When we can bring that level of awareness to ourselves and to others, we inevitably create communities where we feel safe, or we trust each other. And where we belong. The idea is not the minimum, we think we have to agree on everything. It's like looking at the diversity that's all around us and saying you don't exist. And diversity exists whether or not you and I acknowledge it people are black people are our yellow people are our white people are what Caucasian, whatever you want to refer to our physical outwardly, right, and pink, and pink, right. And people you know, love differently, you know, people who are not ready to embrace that we have different ways to love and there's no better way than another, people that aren't ready to recognize that we have different ways of of attaining piety or, or believing in a greatest force. We are not here to convince each other of who's wrong, who's right, we are here to value the honor that we bring to the existence of the other. And and you know, that is where we can start. We can start by and you know, we when we talk about honor and acknowledgement, you know, this is why in most here, at least in Canada, before we start a ceremony, we acknowledge the land on which we are because we recognize that this land does not belong to you, or I, you know, this land is a land that has been taken from the indigenous communities who have lived here for 1000s of years. And you and I are our visitors on this land. We are all immigrants of some sort, right? Whether we're Jewish, Muslim, white, black, we are all here. And we have started to live on the land that were owned by the indigenous communities have been here for 1000s of years. So acknowledging that is a starting point for me to mend, and and to say to the indigenous communities, I am ready to acknowledge you. I cannot fix the past. I cannot undo the past. I can only talk to you about what's the right thing that you and I can do now. And what is the right approach for the future? How do I build a bridge for you? And that is the whole idea when we talk about making things right. You know, so it's acknowledging that we can't change the past, but we can certainly learn from it and move forward. Ari Gronich 1:04:11 I like that, because there's no way to do anything about the past. Its past. It has passed. Unknown Speaker 1:04:20 It is Ari Gronich 1:04:22 with regards to communities. That's awesome with regards to companies. Employers, can you see how this might benefit you having conversations with your employees? Mohamed Hammound 1:04:39 Absolutely. Absolutely. If you if you let people weigh in, they will buy in. When you tell people sitting around the table, we're talking about projects and you're not just talking about resources and the budget and the number of people that you will dedicate to that project. But you talk about hey Ari, what concerns do you have about this project? Hey, Muhammad, what contributions Do you have to this project, when you treat everyone as an equal contributor, you listen to their concerns when you let them weigh in, they will buy in. When people buy in and their heart is invested in what you're doing. They believe in your vision and your mission, they will work for you. Your heart is a free workforce, because those people become your ambassadors, they start talking about the importance of your organization, when you lead by fear, they talk behind your back, when you lead from the heart and with love, they will acknowledge you in your presence, they will sing your praises, they will talk about why they feel they belong with you. And that that is what's needed today. In terms of leadership in an organization, we don't need the old top down approach, we need the role modeling, not the role play. Ari Gronich 1:05:46 Right? That's been that's been probably one of the longest running debates in in history is lead by fear or lead by love. Right? The Kings? Are you a king that wants to be loved king that wants to be feared. You know that that was always and then when, when who wants your your, you know, people to be afraid of you or you want them to love you. Mohamed Hammound 1:06:15 Right? The same way, right? Do we want to parent with fear? Right? When I was a little kid, believe it or not, and just faith, you know, we were told to be we were told to be careful, God would strangle us we did something wrong. And we had this image of God, this isn't our religion. This is our culture, by the way, right? You know, we have this image of this omnipotent being that knew everything. It's like this magnificent Santa Claus. And if we were bad, he was going to take his his sleigh and wrap the rope around our neck and strangle us. And when we grew up, we're like saints, our parents. What do you mean, God's gonna strangle? So I don't know. That's what our parents told us. So our parents and their parents and their parents, parents will tell us the lies and the misconceptions and disbelief that they've learned. That's why nations can't get along. Because we've stopped listening to the nature of our of how we can nurture each other and honor each other and create a new narrative. We've always, you know, follow the old narrative. So we you know, whether it's parenting, whether it's in an organization, we need to say, How can we do things differently? Just because we've done it this way for the past doesn't mean it's the right way. Ari Gronich 1:07:22 Yeah, you know, what's funny, I'm just gonna make it a little lively. But I stopped. A long time ago, I stopped taking the green part off of the strawberry. And I stopped taking the green part off of the carrot. And I stopped taking the seeds out of the apple. And it was like, at first it was like, Well, what are you doing? I said, Well, I always wondered why people did this. And I asked my mom, and she said, because my mom did. And so I asked my grandmother, why do you cut the ends off the carrots and take the green? I mean, it's green stuff. It's good for you. Right? It's green greens are good. Why are you taking the green off the strawberry? Because my mom did. And it's like, Okay, well, let's see here. I think I'm going to I was a rebel growing up, I, you know, probably a rebel now, a little bit, but a lot less. But I stopped doing that, because I didn't want to do something that was done just because somebody else did it. It didn't make sense to me. Why I don't like throwing away food. So why would I throw away this piece of the food? And people look at me when I eat strawberries now. And they're like, what are you doing? I mean, I mean, the strawberry, like, Yeah, but you still got the green on there. And it's almost unfathomable to people, that I'm eating that strawberry with all of its nutrients and all of its form, versus, you know, or the carrot versus taken apart. So I just wanted to make it a little lively. But that's a way of, of illustrating what you were just saying, right? Mohamed Hammound 1:09:12 And you know, your point, and our parents and parents parents that comes back to what I was trying to use earlier. And maybe with a bit of humor, it can reinforce a point where that if we look at the opportunities that some communities have and others don't have, right, it's only when we dare to do things differently. I want to eat the banana ones with the Pilon. I want to eat the apple with appeal. My mom always kills apples and parents you know, mom did the skin will really help us digest and so forth. Right? So, you know, I, but I recognize she doesn't want to do it. The PLC says I have to peel back out because I can't chew it. So it's okay. I recognize that what might taste good for me or work for me, may not work for her. And that comes back to what we would say a lot. Is that? So once we recognize that, you know, what's the old adage that we agree to disagree? Yeah, right. But we agree to disagree and recognize that we are both equal in that approach, and one is not better than the other. And, you know, we don't even have to like each other, I say, the people that I work with, like, you know, you don't have to go out and have a coffee. But at least we have to be respectful to each other, we don't have to become best friends. But we have to respect each other. And again, in a workplace environment, you're not asking people to become best friends, you're not asking people to go out and golf together, or go to have a drink together, your ask them to recognize the contributions that they bring the concerns that they have, and that they bring value. And that inevitably, helps people feel like they belong with you, you know, you harness a workshop that's more engaged, more empowered. And that's how you allow people to leave by heart by leading by example, Ari Gronich 1:10:55 right? Oh, I mean, just just just thinking about people as human beings, right? inherently, a human has value of skill. Mind, they have, you know, doesn't matter what the, what the value is that they bring, they bring a value. And so appreciating that this person in front of me as a human, and and I asked people, when did you start being so afraid? So, people usually will say, my parents taught me or I had this experience from this one person, right? Somebody beat me up that was of this other race. And so therefore, all people I should be afraid of in this race. But I asked them, where did that start? Because, you know, we all seen pictures of babies, and, you know, kids, toddlers, black, white, Muslim, didn't matter. They just like, oh, a human being, that's, that's my size, I'm gonna go play with that person, right? They had to be taught the prejudices. And if you have to be taught prejudice, then you can be untaught prejudice, right way I know of to unteach something, or to teach something new, is to give them an education of who and what I am Mohamed Hammound 1:12:21 amazing, because when you think about children, again, children embrace each other. They, you know, that's maybe what I agree with you on that. I agree that a lot of things. So you know, earlier when we're talking about recognizing whether we have, you know, colored or not, and so forth, right? Children don't necessarily see that difference, and they're not as aware of it. You know, Sally is aware that Bob took her sandwich. And Joe's aware that Sally's wearing a pink dress, but they're not necessarily aware of the other inherent differences that you and I will pick up on as, as adults, though, they're very smart. And they'll pick up on other things as well, that maybe you and I will pick up on. But what they don't know inherently is to hate. They're taught that they're taught by the behaviors that they pick up on what they see and the modeling that they see from others. And what becomes okay. So, you know, we mentioned off off camera we mentioned about bullying, right? Most bullies were bullied themselves doesn't justify why they do what they do. But we learned that behavior from others. So yes, I completely agree with you that what we learn in that we learn to hate, we can learn to love, we can learn on hate, we can learn to become more aware of the other and to embrace them as opposed to push them away. Ari Gronich 1:13:43 Yeah, you know that we did have a conversation about the bullying. And I have this saying that a bully's best friend is the silence of others. Unknown Speaker 1:13:55 And Ari Gronich 1:13:56 that's where I keep we need to get loud. Bull, the majority what we call and we call it this like it's like it's somehow a good thing, the silent majority. Why such a good thing? Oh, you're the majority be loud about the good because the facts

Brought up by Palestinian Muslim immigrants CEO Lawyer Ali Awad shares his culture, religion, and how his parents made sure that he stays true to his roots as a young man living in Dalton, Georgia. Ali described how the years of the pressure he got from poverty shaped his views. "If all you're exposed to is the highlight reels of everyone else, then you're never going to have time to create your own highlight reel. You're just going to look around and see that everyone else is excellent and that you're not. [But] that excellence comes from just working a little bit at a time, day by day, piece by piece month by month." Ali Awad is continuously providing support to professionals and people who are starting in business through consultations and coaching sessions. More from Ali @ceolawyer - Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok & Snapchat  Visit his website at aliawadlaw.com Giveaway Click here for the giveaway! A free consultation session! Message him on Instagram - @ceolawyer, about what you've learned from this episode. Best answer wins!  

Everywhere you turn these days, you see people clashing over their tightly held beliefs and opinions. Political elections. Social justice. COVID restrictions. And you don't have to look too far to see how being unwilling to change your mind can have big consequences. So today on Now or Never, we're taking a different tack. Meet Canadians who are taking that first step toward changing their mind, no matter how big or small. Jesse Lipscombe is an activist who engages with friends and strangers alike to change their mind about racism. He tells us what fuels him to have these uncomfortable conversations, and why as much as he hates scaling "Mount Racism" every day, he still believes in "Mount Hope." After years of being told by her aunties that she needs to straighten her hair, Kristine Maitland is now embracing her "Soul Train" afro. Find out what compelled her to finally change her mind about her hair. Now or Never listeners call in to tell us about the moment they changed their minds about segways, self-identifying as a dog person, and wearing high-waisted jeans. When Faith Fundal became the new host of CBC Radio's Up to Speed last month, it was the first time in their career they will be known only as Faith to their audience. Faith tells us about the power of changing your name to match your identity. When Laura Rice found out she had breast cancer and would need a double mastectomy, she was 100% sure of one thing: to embrace being "strong, flat and fabulous." But after living without breasts, Laura started to regret her decision. So she changed her mind. Haitham El Khatib and Itamar Shani were raised to hate each other: Haitham is a Palestinian Muslim, and Itamar is an Israeli Jew. How their love of cooking and sharing food brought them together in an unexpected friendship.

Baruch Kopel Goldstein (Hebrew: ברוך קופל גולדשטיין‎; born Benjamin Goldstein; December 9, 1956 – February 25, 1994) was an American-Israeli physician, religious extremist, and mass murderer who perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron, killing 29 and wounding 125 Palestinian Muslim worshippers. He was beaten to death by survivors of the massacre.

Hi I am here today with Iman Khan, He is the President of the company Red Elephant, Iman heads up a majority of the coaching and training performed within the company. In his past, Iman has worked as an international journalist, a social activist and has managed teams of hundreds of people to great performance and success. here is the Highlights of the episode hope you enjoy. Listen to the full episode in your favorite podcast app. Ari Gronich 0:07 Welcome to another episode of create a new tomorrow I am your host, Ari gronich. And I have with me one of my, my dearest friends, Iman Khan, he is an amazing person. He's led mindset transformational programs for almost 10 years, he and his wife, Afrin have created a company called Red elephant that has impacted hundreds of entrepreneurs lives. So in mind, I'm going to have you give kind of your background a little bit more in depth, so that you can really focus on what you wanted to mention. Iman Khan 0:45 I don't know how much gravity that has. But we're all out here trying to make a difference for people, I think. And for me, that's kind of been always the case, all of my careers because there's been quite a few have been organized around making a difference for people first I my first career was in international diplomacy. And then I transitioned into being a journalist. And then I led mindset programs, and transformational workshops for close to about 20,000 people over the past. My bio is a little dated over the past 16 years now. You know, that's our hustle. We want to get out there and change the world through doing the work we do. Ari Gronich 1:27 Yeah, so you know, I want to go into that international diplomacy area a little, because you and I have a somewhat similar background in some of the work that you've done with the Israeli Palestinian conflict. And we don't really get that conversation too much. So I wanted to just kind of expose that a little bit. And what you what you were had done during your time working with those two factions? Sure. Iman Khan 1:57 Yeah. My time there was limited, it was very short lived. And mostly it was founded in one of my professors in college was an is the founder of Americans for peace now, which is from the American side of the negotiation process, one of the largest players in that process. So he was not just my professor, he was like a, he's, he was a mentor, he turned into someone I've modeled myself after and emulated since then. And that was, you know, almost 20 years ago. That's how I got involved in the processes because he was involved in the process. And my time, there was short lived pretty much for two reasons. The first reason was, I could see once I was in that process, that that process for me, and I don't want to be political or get anyone upset. But for me, that process had very little to do with peace. That processes by my understanding of it mostly about other things. And that wasn't the game I wanted to play, I really wanted to play the game of peace. And at the government level, it doesn't seem to be about peace. For me, it still doesn't. It's about, you know, air rights and water rights and land rights and a whole bunch of things that I think weren't for me what I signed up for. Ari Gronich 3:18 Absolutely. So, you know, for me, I I used to have a roommate who was a Palestinian Muslim woman. And she was like, my sister, I'm a Jewish male, right. So not necessarily what you would consider to be what most people would consider to be compatible roommates and, and friends, but she was basically like a sister to me. Yeah. her cousin, on the law firm that does all of the negotiations between Hamas PLO and Israel. So we would have these conversations about how, you know, she would say something about how Israel is oppressing Palestine, and I'd say something about the bombing, and we would be talking and we would have these heated conversations. And then I'd hear her in her room talking to her cousin. And she'd be like, okay, when you talk to them, you got to we got to, you know, talk about this particular thing, and she would state some of the solutions that we had come up with, during our conversations. It was kind of fascinating that I had that kind of a direct Iman Khan 4:37 Yeah, I got it. I mean, what some of the best conversation, I think when you're an open dialogue with people and that's something my professors name was Mark Rosenbloom, and that's the thing he really brought me into was dialoguing with all different concerns and people from all over the spectrum one of the one of the groups that he had me in we had a former member of Hitler's youth in that group, you know, and so having all those different perspectives and being able to look at a lot of different perspectives is I think what actually leads to understanding and leads to the promotion of things that end up leading to peace. Um, I think there's a basic understanding in Israeli culture from all the Israelis, I met that, and I mean, in the citizenry in the, in the populace, that Palestinians are their brothers and their sisters, and among Israeli citizens, it's a different ballgame for the most part than I think it is, with the Israeli government. Um, and I think those are definitely two different bodies of interest, but two different sets of goals and milestones that they're looking to achieve. And I think when we talk about any nation and what's going on politically, we're always talking about the nation and the government, and not talking about its citizens necessarily. But you know, I've met some of some of my closest friends, some of the people I've learned more from, have been people who I was introduced to who are Israeli through this process? And I don't think there's any question I mean, I'm a little bit removed from it now. But there was a time when there was as many civic organizations in Israel as there were in Palestine, working on behalf of Palestinians. So I think that speaks to how the citizenry and the government aren't always necessarily walking the same path towards whatever they're looking to achieve. Ari Gronich 6:28 So let me ask you a question. If 80% or so of the country has a liberal way of being more liberal mindset, what's going on in the country to mean the last 30 to 50 years have been kind of held on the country as far as being progressive, you know, progressing in the world, we've, we, we tend to not act within our own self interest in our politics, in our behaviors, and things like that. And so I go back to like, how do we get to eliminate the bully? You know, for instance, I'll just give you an example. Because it's my world is healthcare. Right? So in health care, the reality of health care is that it is so far removed from giving people good health. Yeah. And so why is it that we allow these systems that are very conservative in nature, if we're liberal in nature, and the system is a conservative and nature system, then how come we're allowing such disparity between reality of what is happening, and the ideals that we're promoting? Iman Khan 8:00 Short? Again, I, I'm no expert on this. This is just kind of what I think and what I know, based on what I see. And what I study. I've got no degree in this, I've got no career in policy or social understanding or anything like that. But I'll give you my two sense about it. And I think it's a complex question. So first thing is, I think the mindset of the citizen, and the systems of government are two very distinct things. systems of government are very conservative, they're very old. And they take a lot to transform or change, to keep up with the liberal mindset. So I think that's the first thing I think they're two different groups in terms of what they care about what they're listening for what they want to see happen in society. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the systems of government that are in place, we now know are in place in a way that empowers a very small percentage of the population. There's a reason 5% of the country controls 90% of the wealth. So I think the systems we have in place in government support, if not completely empower are enabled that reality. So when you have that reality, and most of a nation is poor, in debt, overworked, what happens is it's not like it was in the 1950s, where people went to work from nine to five, and then they came home and they have this central family unit and they gathered around the dinner table and discuss the issues of the day and had the spare time to go be a part of civil society and go be civilians who voted and acted on behalf of the things they cared about. people now are working 12, 14 hours a day, six days a week. Those people are still surviving off of EBT they're taking their EBT checks to the places where they work often. To the people that aren't paying them enough to not meet EBT, and spending those EBT checks at those very places to be able to eat, when you work 12 to 14 hours a day, and you have one day off that day off goes to laundry, paying bills, spending time with the kids, if you have any time or with family, or whoever, the time is completely usurped by maintaining life. So people are fried, they're, they're burnt out. And when they get home, being an active citizen, which is already stress inducing is not the thing that they're going to want to do. I think the corporation's know this, I think the people who wield the power and hoard the money know this, and they've created systems to keep people tired, and the keep people unable to participate, unable to advocate for themselves. And then the people who do advocate, the people who step out of that, and who actually go the extra mile and do the difficult work of advocating, the way social media has sort of grown, what it's grown into in the last 20 years, is that anybody can say anything about anyone and it doesn't need to be fact checked. You know, I was on a thread this morning that someone tagged me about wearing a mask or not wearing a mask. And I know I don't want to debate that. There's a lot of discussion about that. But when someone asks someone else to cite their sources, about why wearing a mask is a hoax, their sources are things that q anon and YouTubers have put up. It's not data, it's not empirical data, it's not evidence, it's not numbers, it's my friend who I really trust who did a YouTube on this. Ari Gronich 11:39 My saying is, a bully's best friend is the silence of its victims, and the silence of others. And, you know, we see this every day on in the playground at school with a kid who's you know, got 30 other kids in his class scared. And the 30, kids don't know that they could kind of band together and blow out that bully, we've got 90% of a nation that is being ruled by about 1%, one to 5%. And we don't know the the 90% don't know that they have an option to get loud. And say, no more, let's banded together, create a movement, create a stand, Iman Khan 12:32 I would go a step further and say it's not even that they don't know, it's that they've been conditioned into believing that it's more risky, to band together 30 kids to take on that one belief, and that there's less risk, if you just join with the boat. If you join with the bull, you'll be safe. If you band together and fight the belief, that's a risk. So even though it defies logic, the safe bet that we've been conditioned to believe is to go with the system go with the bully. And you know, again, I could talk about this for hours. But if you look at who designed our current education system, who got together, they weren't educators, and professors, and PhDs and doctors, they were the barons of the 1920s and 30s and 40s on the big corporations, and wanted our education system to groom employees. They didn't want our education, the group of thinkers or innovators or entrepreneur, entrepreneurs, they wanted our education system, but good, able bodied thinking people in the employees so that they can continue to grow their organizations and their corporations. And so we've had almost 100 years of this kind of acculturation. So I know it seems separate that like the guys who were inventing education, what does that have to do with the modern bully, but it's a mindset. It's the way we've been designed and acculturated to go with the bigger guy. And it's all over television. If you watch any reality TV shows like survivor, other shows where people have to strategize to vote someone out, people will never be together to get the bully out. They always side with the bully to get the protection of the bully. So we've been acculturated this way for quite some time. And you know, depending on what you believe in what you don't believe, when you're acculturated this way for this many generations, it becomes part. You know, it's like fish to water. It's part of the air we breathe. It's just what is in society. Fish would never question that they need water surrounding them. Same way we don't question that. You just got to go with the bully to be safe. Ari Gronich 14:43 So so then here's the question because I watched the riots. I watched the protests happening. Recently, I was in the middle of the Rodney King riots like having flaming trash cans thrown over my car. So I've been in the atmosphere of rioting and protesting. But as my buddy AJ has said, Where are you today? Where you were there yesterday at the protest? But where are you today? What are you doing today to extend the reach beyond a protest? Especially beyond a violent protest? into policymaking? Right. So how would you, you know, as somebody who helps people create their stands, right? How would you shift somebody from the need to be an employee who's working 10 to 12 hours, 16 hours a day and has no time to really do what they are passionate about? And they have a stand about? How would you suggest somebody get out of that world so that they can be long term activated in the protest? On a more internal basis versus external basis? Iman Khan 16:10 Well, I, again, there's just so much, unpacking lessons are complex, there's so much unpacking them. So the first thing is, I don't know. First, you'd have to see if they have that desire. If they don't have that desire, I wouldn't, you know, you can't pee for people. So if they've got that desire, great, it starts with educating themselves, and setting themselves up to be able to be viable and sustain whatever future they're moving into and away from. And if it's not viable, it'll fail. So I can't, when I I'll give you an example, when I left my corporate job and became an entrepreneur, I had to be able to see that I could sustain myself that way, and then go after sustaining myself that way, and give myself enough room to be able to eat and not be financially threatened in the interim. Because when we know that financial threats are the biggest kind of threats are people when facing a financial threat, people will give up their passions and what they stand for, and what they're committed to, to deal with the financial threat. Very few people have that kind of where with all where they can withstand a financial threat for the sake of what they stand for, they're committed to, it's just too much of a threat to their existence, our ego, our brain does not register it in a way in which is conducive to us fulfilling our commitments when we're threatened financially. So I think the first thing that has to get handled for people is they have to be able to look and know that they're going to be financially okay. And if they're competent about their financial future becomes way more easy, way more risk reduced for them to be able to step into that. Ari Gronich 17:55 Awesome. Thank you so much, Iman, for coming on. I know that you've got a busy life. And so it was, it was important for me to have you on here. I wanted to have these kinds of conversations with you. I would look forward anytime to continuing the next 10 hour conversation. And Iman Khan 18:18 a couple of hours mixed Ari Gronich 18:20 in with us, you know, but I appreciate it. You're You're an amazing and inspirational person. Iman Khan 18:28 Thank you, you too. And thank you for the opportunity. Ari Gronich 18:31 So thank you very much. audience. I hope you got a lot out of this conversation. This has been another episode of create a new tomorrow. I am your host, Ari Gronich and my wish for you is that you can create a new tomorrow today by taking some of these bits and pieces of information and gems that the guests have shown and implementing them in your life right away. So thank you so much and we are out. Iman Khan 19:04 Thank you

Hi I am here today with Iman Khan, He is the President of the company Red Elephant, Iman heads up a majority of the coaching and training performed within the company. In his past, Iman has worked as an international journalist, a social activist and has managed teams of hundreds of people to great performance and success. here is the full episode hope you enjoy. Listen in your favourite podcast app. Ari Gronich 0:01 Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results. We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies, if I did not get results, they did not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system wants to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are joining me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree, and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari Gronich and this is create a new tomorrow podcast. Welcome to another episode of create a new tomorrow I am your host, Ari gronich. And I have with me one of my dearest friends, Iman Khan, he is an amazing person. He's led mindset transformational programs for almost 10 years, he and his wife, Afrin have created a company called Red elephant that has impacted hundreds of entrepreneurs lives. And you know, the point of having him on this call is that he is committed to helping entrepreneurs make a stand. But more than that, he's committed to being a stand himself. And so I wanted to talk to him about all the ways in which we can create a new tomorrow by living your stand. So Iman, I'm going to have you give kind of your background a little bit more in depth, so that you can really focus on what you wanted to mention, but I work, I want people to get an idea of the gravity of who you are and what you've done. Iman Khan 2:13 Thank you, um, I don't know how much gravity that has. But we're all out here trying to make a difference for people, I think. And for me, that's kind of been always the case, all of my careers because there's been quite a few have been organized around making a difference for people first I my first career was in international diplomacy. And then I transitioned into being a journalist. And then I led mindset programs, and transformational workshops for close to about 20,000 people over the past. My bio is a little data over the past 16 years now. And that's just what that's what I care about. It's what I think my time on the planet is for, and I married someone who's got the same commitment. And we're just out here doing it for entrepreneurs, because for both of us, that's who if you empower them in the right way, will go out in the world and make the biggest difference for their communities, exact change in the societies that they live in. So we are specifically focused on entrepreneurs, but we work with all types of people all the time. And, you know, that's our hustle. We want to get out there and change the world through do the work we do. Ari Gronich 3:29 Yes. So, you know, I want to go into that international diplomacy area a little bit. Because you and I have a somewhat similar background in some of the work that you've done with the Israeli Palestinian conflict. And we don't really get that conversation too much. So I wanted to just kind of expose it a little bit. And what you what you were had done during your time working with those two factions. Did I lose you Iman Khan 4:07 are you are back I lost you for a second there. Ari Gronich 4:10 Okay, gotcha. We're so anyway, the international diplomacy with especially with the Israel Palestinian conflict, I wanted to kind of get your, your take on what you were able to do what you did when you were there. Iman Khan 4:25 Sure. My time there was limited, it was very short lived. And mostly it was founded in one of my professors in college was and is the founder of Americans for peace now, which is from the American side of the negotiation process, one of the largest players in that process. So he was not just by a professor, he was like a, he's, he was a mentor. He turned into someone I've modeled myself after and emulated since then, and that was, you know, almost 20 years ago. That's how I got involved in processes because he was involved in the process. And my time there were short lived pretty much for two reasons. The first reason was I could see once I was in that process, that that process for me, and I don't want to be political or get anyone upset. But for me, that process had very little to do with peace, that processes by my understanding of it mostly about other things. And that wasn't the game I wanted to play, I really wanted to play the game of peace. And at the government level, it doesn't seem to be about peace. For me, it's still doesn't. It's about, you know, air rights and water rights and land rights and a whole bunch of things that I think weren't for me when I signed up for the second part of the process was that I could tell, you know, my parents are from Bangladesh, which was formerly Pakistan before that it was India. So we've, in my heritage, my ancestry, we've got several hundred years of colonization and what that looks and feels like. And I don't know that unless you've come from or were born to people who've been colonized in that way that you can really understand how subjugating and suppressive that is. And so for me, there was something happening in the area that the rights of Palestinians and human rights for Palestinians wasn't interacted with are viewed as basic human rights they were, they were being other in a way in which I wasn't comfortable in contributing to that process. So I got out and I started my life as a journalist. And almost immediately after I made that decision, I moved to South Asia and started doing reporting and South Asia. And that was right after it was a year or two after we invaded Iraq. So rendition was the name of the game, people everywhere, all over South Asia, were just disappearing from the streets and being taken to black sites. And that was what I focused on for a while. And then after that, I started focusing on the opium trade, which was happening there. I got to be there during the tsunami that happened in Indonesia, and then the overthrow of the Nepalese monarch. So I got to experience some really exciting stuff while I was out there, but all of it for me has always led back to how can I maximize reaching people and making a difference for them? Ari Gronich 7:37 Absolutely. So, you know, for me, I, I used to have a roommate who was a Palestinian Muslim woman, and she was like my sister, I'm a Jewish male, right? So not necessarily what you would consider to be what most people would consider to be compatible roommates and friends, but she was basically like a sister to me. Yeah. her, her cousin, on the law firm that does all of the negotiations between Hamas PLO and Israel. So we would have these conversations about how, you know, she would say something about how Israel is, is a oppressing Palestine. And I'd say something about the bombing, and we would be talking and we would have these heated conversations. And then I'd hear her in her room talking to her cousin. And she'd be like, okay, when you talk to them, you got to we got to, you know, talk about this particular thing, and she would state some of the solutions that we had come up with, during our conversations. It was kind of fascinating that had that kind of a direct. Iman Khan 8:56 Yeah, I got it. I mean, what some of the best conversate I think when you're an open dialogue with people, and that's something my professors name was Mark Rosenbloom. And that's the thing he really brought me into was dialoguing with all different concerns and people from all over the spectrum, one of the groups that he had me in we had a former member of Hitler's youth in that group, you know, and so having all those different perspectives, and being able to look at a lot of different perspectives, is I think, what actually leads to understanding and leads to the promotion of things that ended up leading to peace. I think there's a basic understanding in Israeli culture from all the Israelis I met that and I mean, in the citizenry in the in the populace, that Palestinians are their brothers and their sisters and among Israeli citizens. It's a different ballgame for the most part than I think it is with the Israeli government. And I think those are definitely two different things. body's of interest with two different sets of goals and milestones that they're looking to achieve. And I think when we talk about any nation and what's going on politically, we're always talking about the nation and the government, and not talking about its citizens necessarily. But you know, I've met some of some of my closest friends, some of the people I've learned more from, have been people who I was introduced to who are Israeli through this process? And I don't think there's any question I mean, I'm a little bit removed from it now. But there was a time when there was as many civic organizations in Israel as there were in Palestine, working on behalf of Palestinians. So I think that speaks to how the citizenry and the government aren't always necessarily walking the same path towards whatever they're looking to achieve. Ari Gronich 10:47 Right. You know, when I was in Israel, I was amazed to learn, there was, however, many millions of Palestinians in the universities living side by side very peacefully, actually, in most cases, and then the government issues, I think it's, I think what you're saying is correct, the government gets in the way, because they have an agenda that is different than the agenda of the people, which is to live peacefully to, you know, feed their their kids and themselves to, you know, have good schools to have running water, all these different things that are kind of the important thing to citizenry is not necessarily the government and the political will of, you know, the government. So that translates, because I know that we've been in this amazing time of pandemics and whatever you want to call them, you know, the, the COVID time, and all these protests are going on, and killings are going on, and that has gotten you up in arms a bit. And I love seeing that side of you. Because be, you know, you don't back down from your position, but you always have sought to understand another position. And that's not necessarily happening. So I want to talk a little bit about the systemic issues that are happening within our world, especially our specific culture and what we're doing in order to, you know, help with that, because I know you're taking a stand, but also what you've seen in the conversation, that doesn't make much sense. Because I a lot of, Iman Khan 12:50 we could be here for hours Ari. But I'll start with what I'm doing. What I'm doing is trying to get as many people as possible to vote at the very like the top layer of what I'm doing, then beyond getting people to vote, I'm trying to empower people to make sure that their vote counts, and that they don't get disenfranchised, and that their vote isn't thrown away, due to some technicality later, which, you know, if you look at the 2000 election between bush and gore, we're not beyond that. We've already 20 year, that's already a tactic that's been used 20 years ago, to get votes to not count. Remember the Chad's with the ballots and how they got all those books when I count the Republicans. I'm an independent, by the way, Republicans haven't won a popular vote since 1984. Ronald Reagan, it's always been on the Electoral College, which, you know, if we start talking about that, and talk about the way districts are zoned and gerrymandered, that's a whole other issue. So I'm not going to get into that. But there hasn't been a popular vote one by the Republican Party since 1984, which was 36 years ago. If you almost all polling shows that a majority of the United States is liberal, and follow very liberal policies. That's not to say that everything needs to be liberal and liberal, this should be in every walk of life. However, if you associate liberalism with what's happening in society, which is happening, people are normalizing liberalism with black lives matter. They're normalizing liberalism with any with climate change, and all the issues that are really kind of plaguing us and endangering our future. They're associating it normalize it with this term called liberalism, which people who aren't liberal have come to hate more than they hate territory more than they hate, a potential authoritarian and office more than they hate fascist policies more than they hate the denigration of the Constitution or the deterioration of even our Supreme Court nominee process. Like there's things that got laid out in the constitution which are like the very fundamental of why America as an experiment, because it was always the American experiment, why America as an experiment work for 200, some odd years. There's people who hate liberals more than they care about upholding those ideals. And now, with all the conspiracy theories, and all the sort of right wing or even white supremacy groups that you see out there, they're more emboldened than they ever were before, which is why a movement like blacklivesmatter is so important. Ari Gronich 15:33 So let me ask you a question. If 80% or so of the country has a liberal way of being more liberal mindset, what's going on in the country to mean the last 30 to 50 years have been kind of hell on the country, as far as being progressive, you know, progressing in the world, we've, we, we tend to not act within our own self interest in our politics, in our behaviors, and things like that. And so I go back to like, how do we get to eliminate the bully? You know, for instance, I'll just give you an example. Because it's my world is healthcare. Right? So in healthcare, the reality of healthcare is that it is so far removed from giving people good health. Yeah. And so why is it that we allow these systems that are very conservative in nature, if we're liberal in nature, and the system is a conservative and nature system, then how come we're allowing such disparity between reality of what is happening, and the ideals that we're promoting? Iman Khan 17:06 Short? Again, I'm no expert on this. This is just kind of what I think and what I know, based on what I see, and what I study, I've got no degree in this, I've got no career in policy or social understanding or anything like that. But I'll give you my two cents about it. And I think it's a complex question. So first thing is, I think the mindset of the citizen, and the systems of government are two very distinct things. systems of government are very conservative, they're very old. And they take a lot to transform or change, to keep up with the liberal mindset. So I think that's the first thing I think they're two different groups in terms of what they care about what they're listening for what they want to see happen in society. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the systems of government that are in place, we now know are in place in a way that empowers a very small percentage of the population. There's a reason 5% of the country controls 90% of the wealth. So I think the systems we have in place in government support, if not completely empower or enable that reality. So when you have that reality, and most of the nation is poor, in debt, overworked, what happens is it's not like it was in the 1950s, where people went to work from nine to five, and then they came home and they have decentral family unit, and they gathered around the dinner table and discuss the issues of the day and had the spare time to go be a part of civil society and go be civilians who voted and acted on behalf of the things they cared about. people now are working 1214 hours a day, six days a week, those people are still surviving off of EBT. They're taking their EBT checks to the places where they work often. To the people that aren't paying them enough to not meet EBT and spending those EBT checks at those very places to be able to eat when you work 12 to 14 hours a day and you have one day off that day off goes to laundry, paying bills, spending time with the kids, if you have any time or with family or whoever, that the time was completely usurped by maintaining life. So people are fried, they're, they're burnt out and when they get home, being an active citizen, which is already stress inducing is not the thing that they're going to want to do. I think the corporation's know this, I think the people who wield the power and hoard the money know this, and they've created systems to keep people tired, and the keep people unable to participate, unable to advocate for themselves. And then the people who do advocate the people who stepped out of that and who actually go the extra mile and do the difficult work of advocating, the way social media has sort of grown, what it's grown into in the last 20 years, is that anybody can say anything about anyone. And it doesn't need to be fact check. You know, I was on a thread this morning that someone tagged me about wearing a mask or not wearing a mask. And I know I don't want to debate that. There's a lot of discussion about that. But when someone asks someone else to cite their sources, about why wearing a mask is a hoax, their sources are things that q anon and YouTubers have put up. It's not data, it's not empirical data. It's not evidence, it's not numbers. It's my friend who I really trust who did a YouTube on this. So something's happened culturally, where what people can say, and what people are open to believing, has moved away from, in my view, moved away from just the science of things, which is why then it's easy to deny things like climate change, it's why it's easy to deny things that are rooted in numbers and sciences, because the people who don't want you to advocate for your rights are promoting funding, empowering those theories, which then make it even more difficult for you to advocate. Ari Gronich 21:23 Gotcha. So my saying is, a bully's best friend is the silence of its victims, and the silence of others. And, you know, we see this every day on in the playground at school with a kid who's, you know, got 30 other kids in his class scared. And the 30, kids don't know that they could kind of band together and blow out that bully, we've got 90% of a nation that is being ruled by about 1%, one to 5%. And we don't know the 90%, don't know that they have an option to get loud. And say, no more, let's banded together, create a movement, create a stand, Iman Khan 22:18 I would go a step further and say it's not even that they don't know, it's that they've been conditioned into believing that it's more risky, to band together 30 kids to take on that one belief, and that there's less risk, if you just join with the boat. If you join with the bull, you'll be safe. If you band together and fight the belief, that's a risk. So even though it defies logic, the safe bet that we've been conditioned to believe is to go with the system go with the bully. And you know, again, I could talk about this for hours. But if you look at who designed our current education system, who got together, they weren't educators, and professors, and PhDs and doctors, they were the barons of the 1920s and 30s and 40s on the big corporations, and wanted our education system to groom employees. They didn't want our education, the group of thinkers or innovators or entrepreneur, entrepreneurs, they wanted our education system to put good able bodied thinking people in the employee ship so that they can continue to grow their organizations and their corporations. And so we've had almost 100 years of this kind of acculturation. So I know it seems separate that like the guys who were inventing education, what does that have to do with the modern bully, but it's a mindset, it's the way we've been designed and acculturated to go with the bigger guy. And it's all over television, you watch any reality TV shows like survivor, other shows where people have to strategize to vote someone out, people will never be together to get the bully out. They always side with the bully to get the protection of the bully. So we've been acculturated this way for quite some time. And you know, depending on what you believe in what you don't believe, when you're a culture in this way, for this many generations, it becomes part. You know, it's like fish to water. It's part of the air we breathe. It's just what is in society, fish would never question that they need water surrounding them. Same way we don't question that. You just got to go with the bully to be safe. Ari Gronich 24:29 Yeah, you know, the thing that that I would hope is that things like cancer, diabetes, heart disease would be enough for people to start saying but the bully of the healthcare system isn't worth the pain of losing all my friends and family to these diseases, the pain of you know, having the food in our, you know, in our environment and agriculture poison us and cause us to be sick or the air and water. You know, it's like I would think Iman Khan 25:02 I would agree with you. But it depends on what sources of information you have, and what the sources of information are telling you. And it also depends, you know, where we're an individualistic, convenience driven society. One of the people on that thread, I was just mentioning who were saying that wearing a mask is a hoax, and it has no benefit. Someone in the thread asked them, okay, well, if that's what you believe, are you okay with having surgery with the doctor not wearing a mask? Since there's no benefit to it? And of course you can somebody responded, well, that makes no sense. Why wouldn't my doctor wear a mask? Right. So it's, we're not taught to link things and be, you know, it's like, we're a genius here, but an idiot over here. Because we were just not trained to apply that genius over here. So and I think that's all, you know, I'm a bit of a skeptic. But I think that's all just the way society has designed for it to be so that the people who wield the power of money can continue to do that. Ari Gronich 26:10 So what do you think it's going to take for the people to regain power over themselves, so that they can create a different world than the one that they're living in? You know, Benjamin Franklin, I believe is who it was, who used to say, we need a revolution every 25 years. And we haven't had a good revolution in a while, you know, so what do you think is gonna take for? Iman Khan 26:38 I would say, I don't know, revolutions the right word, I would say there's definitely, you know, humanity has always reliably transformed itself. Like, humanity believes one thing, and then there was a major transformation. And then they stopped believing that thing. If you look at the end of slavery, that was a transformation for humanity. If you look at the end of monarchies, and monarchial rule, that was a transformation for humanity. If you look like women's suffrage, that's a transformation for humanity. Right. So I think, I don't know about revolutions. But I think humanity has always been really reliable to transform things for itself, to bring about the next age or whatever it brings about, I don't think we've had one of those real transformations since the Industrial Revolution. You know, there was civil rights in America was a transformation in ways. Um, but it also wasn't many ways. You know, it also, it didn't go far enough, which we're learning today, 50 years later, that that didn't go far. And because of the systemic, or the institutional racism that managed to survive the Civil Rights Act. So it was, it was great change. I don't know that it really transformed the society as a whole, maybe some people but not wasn't a full transformation through society. And I think the Industrial Revolution was the last real societal transformation we had like that. Even if you think about World War Two, and I don't know how much how related to Jewish culture, you are, you're Jewish. But how many people throughout the world still even deny that the Holocaust happened? Ari Gronich 28:21 A lot. Iman Khan 28:22 deniers everywhere, it's the most ridiculous thing. But that's what I'm saying. Like that amount of suffering, that amount of genocide still didn't produce that kind of transformation where there was never a genocide again. Sure. genocide sense, you know what I mean? So I think we're due for a transformation. And I think it's going to happen at the level of consciousness or spirituality. And I think that's what, where we're in the early stages of Ari Gronich 28:49 so so then, here's the question because I watched the riots, I watched the protests happening. Recently, I was in the middle of the Rodney King riots, like having flaming trash cans thrown over my car. So I've been in the atmosphere of rioting and protesting. But as my buddy AJ has said, Where are you today? Where you were there yesterday at the protest? But where are you today? What are you doing today to extend the reach beyond a protest? Especially beyond a violent protest into policymaking? Right. So how would you, you know, as somebody who helps people create their stands, right? How would you shift somebody from the need to be an employee who's working 10 to 12 hours 16 hours a day and has no time to really do what they are passionate about, and they have a stand about How would you suggest somebody get out of that world so that they can be long term activated in the protest? On a more internal basis versus external basis? Iman Khan 30:16 Well, I, again, there's just so much to unpack. The questions are complex, there's so much unpacking them. So the first thing is, I don't know. First, you'd have to see if they have that desire. If they don't have that desire, I wouldn't, you know, you can't pee for people. So if they've got that desire, great, it starts with educating themselves, and setting themselves up to be able to be viable and sustain whatever future they're moving into and away from. And if it's not viable, it'll fail. So I can't even I I'll give you an example, when I left my corporate job and became an entrepreneur, I had to be able to see that I could sustain myself that way, and then go after sustaining myself that way, and give myself enough room to be able to eat and not be financially threatened in the interim, because when we know that financial threats are the biggest kind of threats for people, when facing a financial threat, people will give up their passions and what they stand for, and what they're committed to, to deal with the financial crash. Very few people have that kind of where with all where they can withstand a financial threat for the sake of what they stand for, they're committed to, it's just too much of a threat to their existence, our ego, our brain does not register it in a way in which is conducive to us fulfilling our commitments when we're threatened financially. So I think the first thing that has to get handled for people is they have to be able to look and know that they're going to be financially okay. And if they're competent about their financial future becomes way more easy, way more risk, reduced for them to be able to step into that. So that's one thing. The second thing is your, what you stand for, it's insufficient for you to stand for it. If what you want to do is exact real change in society, or have policy change. You have to have people come with you. If people don't come with you, you literally can often just be a lone nut out there, screaming what you're screaming with nobody listening. And it's not until people come with you. And more and more people are educated about a thing. And more and more people sign up to advocate for that thing. And then the right people, meaning government, official celebrities, whoever, the people who are connected and can actually get under and sort of stimulate the people who are capable of policy change, to make it me walking in to a legislators office today, saying, hey, I need this policy change, just is not going to have the same weight as their top contributor, walking into that pop office and saying I need the policy change. So that's a whole other conversation about the constructs of society. But the bottom line is, you're not going to get that person that has that kind of influence to walk in and demand the policy change. Until you've got enough of a groundswell where something about that person's reputation life career is threatened. Once they've got considerable reason to walk into that policymakers office, they will know you don't get that kind of groundswell until enough people are educated about a thing. So it's not overnight. If you look, you know, you look at the metoo movement movement was around for many years before they got the right advocates and Alyssa Milano and Rosa go in and Reese Witherspoon, it had been around for a long time, the groundswell happened when those advocates have joined in. So someone who's got to clip in like that they've got a passion like that, and they're gonna see it through the end, they've got to be willing to play the long game, they've got to know that it's more failure than it is success. And the success when it comes. In all likelihood, will be the result of one person's efforts. Ari Gronich 34:18 You know, one of the things that I love about your some of your trainings is the definitions that you give to each of the people that are needed for creating a stand. So cheer from the cheerleader to, you know, all of the different aspects like I'm the Wizard of Oz. I'm like, I feel like I'm the guy behind the curtain. I'm not ever the guy who's in front of the curtain. Until now i've i've been switching who I am so that I could be a little more out front, because I felt like nobody was doing What I needed them to do, you know, so I figured I would have to be that, but I'm used to being the guy behind the guys, you know, being that the the person training the Olympic athlete who's out front, not being the Olympic athlete, you know? And so I really like the definitions, can you just give kind of like, briefly the definitions of who somebody needs for their stance so that maybe maybe the audience can say, yeah, that's me. And I need to find more of this. And I know, I know somebody who's that, and so we can kind of combine ourselves and collaborate. To make Yeah, I knew that Iman Khan 35:45 I will. And you should know, like, the what can get done in this call is by no way or shape, or form a going to be sufficient to the understanding of it, in my opinion, but you Ari Gronich 35:57 have to take your they're going to have to take your courses. Yeah, feel free to come take our book. Iman Khan 36:04 Um, so But yes, you got to have the guy leading the charge. Or though I shouldn't say, guy, you gotta have the person leading the charge, the person with the vision, the person who's the pioneer, and really going to stand for whatever their commitment is. And then from there, you've got to get the first person that follows you, it's you'll have many followers, but the first person that followers you, makes it Okay, for the next group of people that want to follow you to come follow you. Once you get that smaller group together. So now you've got that first follower who made it safe for everyone else. And then you've got the next set of followers, who make it safe at large, they become your strongest group of advocates. And they'll start advocating for you on different channels and different media with different societies, different communities. And the more you train them to advocate, what you need advocated, the more they'll go advocate it for you and actually get your message out there. As your message gets out there, the advocacy grows and the number of people advocating grows. At this point, you'll start seeing the first members of the bandwagon. So the bandwagon can really, they can show up in any stage of the development of a movement. And they can show up following just about any role bandwagon, or people who just won't move until they know it's safe. Their safety in numbers. So when there's a lot of advocates, you'll start seeing some numbers of the bandwagon. You'll if you look through social media, you'll see that certain people are always causing disruption. I'm a disrupter. By the way, certain people are always causing disruption. disruption has a real role in the advancing of a movement. Because what it does is it polarizes people, and shows you exactly who's on your side, and who's not on your side. And you'll notice a lot of the people who are a part of the bandwagon, your comment thread will be at like 50 or 100, before they actually make a comment. Why. And it's always the case with that group of people, there's some people who are going to just jump right in and start their first line, they're going to start defending you they're going to start responding to comments are going to start trying to educate people, there's another group of people who you've got to be 100 comments deep before they'll say anything, because now it's safe. So the bandwagon will only participate when it's safe. And they're the even though they wait till it's safe, they're a really critical part of any movement. Because until the bandwagon gets on board, there is no movement, you just don't have the numbers, right. So those are some of the roles and then you know, there's after the advocacy has gone to a certain place, that's when you have the celebrities or the government officials come in because they can no longer ignore it. Either a large part of their constituents or a large part of their fan base, are now too involved in this for them to stay uninvolved. They have to get involved sometimes reluctantly, um, and represent the people who support them. And then they'll take whatever the position is to the people who can influence policy or who can influence laws or can influence whatever needs influencing. But that's a process. Right? You know, that. If you look at the Black Lives Matter movement, it didn't start when George flyod was murdered. No, it's been in process for many years. And even it being in process was the tail end of many, many decades of other processes that it started long before. So it's not it's not something that happens just overnight in most cases. And like I said, it's got to be, I think, a lot of people who start movements, it becomes more about their story and their narrative about the movement rather than the movement. And for a movement to be successful. It's got to be able to outlive whoever starts it because most movements? Well, Ari Gronich 40:02 so do you think that Martin Luther King was too much about Martin Luther King or Gandhi was too much about Gandhi or Mother Teresa was too much? Iman Khan 40:16 What was what are you left with? are you left with Martin Luther King step for this and now that he's dead, it's over, you left with the movement, you're left with the movement. And that's the intention. Every movements got to have big personalities around it to gain the attention. They need the game. But with any of the people you just mentioned, you're not left with the person, you're left with what they stood for. Ari Gronich 40:36 See that that's where I think that I get a little bit shaken in my tracks, because Martin Luther King was bigger than MLK he was the movement, but the movement didn't last. Too much beyond the acceptance of that bill. Right. And it wasn't content. Iman Khan 41:06 It wasn't public. I didn't get the media attention that he got. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't necessarily agree that the movement didn't last. I think the movements been heavy underway since then. And it's just now in recent times, with all the police killings and police brutality over the last 15, 20 years, probably since Rodney King, but really, in since social media has become a thing that every citizen is attached to the it's gotten the media attention again, because after ignoring it for 30 some odd years, and after ignoring the movement for 30, some odd years, the media, journalists, news groups, newspapers, magazines, politicians, too many of their constituents, were tuned back into it because of social media. And too many people went Hey, what the hell is happening? Because they didn't know it was happening because it wasn't getting coverage. What got more coverage Rodney King getting beat up? Or what happened after? Ari Gronich 42:12 Well, I mean, the whole thing. Yeah, what happened after but Iman Khan 42:16 right. So the media has been that way for a long time. And I think the advent of social media, especially after like 2007, social media took information and what people can see and what information they have access to, in a new direction. And that's when people started. That's when people started speaking up again, that's when they started getting noticed again. And that's when the fact that the movement had continued for the last 510 40 some odd years, became Ari Gronich 42:42 unable to be ignored again. Right. So So I guess here, here's where, where, I guess the my confusion would be blusher. colored people in general, have been harassed and bullied on a daily basis for their entire lives for the most part. And so, yes, I get that the media hasn't been covering the bullying that's been happening on a regular basis on a daily basis, like for the last 20 years since Rodney King pretty much. But the people who are experiencing it, have been aware that they're experiencing it. But for the most part, they've been silent. Until social media started coming. And all of a sudden the cameras were able to come out and and expose it directly. The people weren't complaining loudly enough for the media to cover that. But it's been happening. So like my buddies movie ajl these movie walking while black. Right? It's because he was being followed in a neighborhood that he wasn't supposed to be in. cops were pulling guns on him. And this is a guy who's an Air Force veteran who, you know, played soccer for our country, as part of the Air Force has owned soccer teams has been a major media person in general and he's being harassed because they think that they can. It wasn't until he literally made a movie saying this is what's happened to me that that part came out. The the complaining of regular everyday citizens hasn't been happening for the last 20 years. Iman Khan 44:50 Well, I I don't know that. I agree with that. I think when, again, when you go back to social media, it's the most fun controlled Well, up until recently, it was the most uncontrolled meaning free form of expressing or showing or casting your videos or casting a message that we've ever had previous to that to say that people weren't speaking loudly enough. I mean, I guess that's a vantage point, I don't share that vantage point, I think media has a job, which is to sell. Black people or people of color being persecuted was not what sold. So they stayed away from it. It's just not how they could make money. It's not what the advertisers wanted on the airwaves. And that's where they get their money from the advertiser. It's not what they saw as their quickest path to cash. And that's what ultimately the bottom line is about, can we make money? again, it goes back to those corporate interests and who controls the well, it's all part of the same system. So I don't agree that they weren't loud enough. And especially in a particular way, when you're being victimized, or at the receiving end of that, like your friend was, there's very few people who are going to have the resources and be able to do what he did make a film out of it. In fact, most of the people who are victimized are in that category of people who get victimized, won't have those types of resources and means he was able to do that, because he had those resources, most people in that category won't have those resources. And there's also like a psychology to being constantly subjugated and suppressed and gaslit. There's something that happens with the individual's mind about what they're able to do and what they're able to accomplish or not able to accomplish. society becomes like this impossible thing to deal with, even with when you brought up the police. It happens time and time again, because there's no accountability for it. Tomorrow, in any city in this country. If a police officer is found, to have done the wrong thing and sued, they don't carry their own insurance. There's no ramification for them to not do that, again, it's mine and your tax dollars that are going to go pay for whatever settlement amount that had to get paid, because that police officer acted however they acted. There's no accountability for them, they might lose their job. But then they'll go work in private security or find a job in another city working as a cop, which is often what happens. My point here is, even when we talk about things, like defend the police, first of all, I think it was the worst campaign name, they could have given something. Right. It's never said to be fun. I hate that. They said the fun, even though I do understand why they said it. Um, it created the wrong picture of what the intention behind that was. The fun doesn't mean take away police. It means something totally different. But why that even comes into conversation, is because the system that's in place, has zero accountability for the people who are perpetrating the crimes. The people who killed George Floyd are never gonna pay for it financially. Right? People of that city are Ari Gronich 48:10 right, so So the question becomes, okay, so I still kind of disagree that people aren't being loud enough, because to me, you can get media attention by being really, really loud. And not doing it with violence, but doing it with silent protests, just the way Martin Luther King did. In the 60s, Iman Khan 48:32 so sorry, civil, I believe it's sorry about nonviolent protests. But the reason people were even paying attention was because of all the violence that was happening. We have a very violent history, this country was born out of violence. The Boston Tea Party was violent. Everything that's been a part of anything that's gotten attention in this country in the last 244 years, has been born of violence. There have been peaceful protests about ending police brutality for 30 years. How many of you heard about and I take issue with that being the focus? people focus on the violent part of the protest, which a majority of the people protesting aren't violent, they're not committing acts of violence. It's faction groups on every side, we're performing the violence, we have nothing to do with the movement or the stand. I keep. We keep talking about the violence as though that's the thing to focus on. And I just don't think it is it's like, that can't be what leads our conversations if any change is going to come because that is what the people who don't want the change to come rely on people talking about in order to prevent the change. Ari Gronich 49:42 Right. So I don't necessarily I'm not against even the violence, let alone for it or against it. Okay. What I'm for is having civil conversations that move something forward, whether that's in a town hall with a government official Who can make a policy change? Right? Or panels of citizenry that just get together and say, okay, you know, my neighborhood is doing this. You all live in my neighborhood with me. Let's see what we can do to fix our own personal neighborhood. Iman Khan 50:21 Great. Can I ask you a question? What do we do about the fact that nobody's willing to schedule those conversations until they're inconvenienced with something other than a silent protest? silent protest has never brought about those conversations. That's why silent protests are ineffective, pretty much worldwide. What brings about those conversations is when people's economics or their security like security, meaning their storefront, their home, their body when those things are threatened. That's the historically if you look back, that's what brings about conversations. Silent protest does not bring about those conversations. Ari Gronich 51:02 Yes, we deal with that. Yes. And those people who are living in those communities are suffering constant financial and safety and security issues. Because Iman Khan 51:15 people who can make the change aren't. Ari Gronich 51:18 So how do we deal with that? They are the citizens, right? The citizens are our country. And so it is incumbent upon the citizenry to make the changes that they want to see happen, and not necessarily rely on the government to do it for them. Iman Khan 51:35 I agree with you. But my point is, I guess my question is, in your in the way you're proposing this, the onus relies on the people being victimized. Yeah. The onus is on the people being victimized, but part of being victimized is that you're disempowered. So you're asking a people group of people who are already disempowered, and have whatever psychology they're dealing with as a result of that level of disempowerment, to empower themselves to exact change, about the very thing that they're disempowered about, that you can never put the onus on the victim, if you want to bring about change. That's not how change gets enacted. It might be how it gets started, it might be the impetus or the stimulus, but the it never works to further victimize the victim by saying, Okay, now you've been victimized, it's your job to fix your victimization. Ari Gronich 52:27 Well, okay. So, I would disagree and agree with that, because, you know, you we can go back and forth about that, but it is the onus on the victim, to let the victimizer know that they're being victim victimized by the victimizer, because sometimes the victimizer doesn't even know that they're doing it. Iman Khan 52:51 Yeah, I just don't agree. I mean, we can agree to disagree on this. But I Ari Gronich 52:57 really disagree. My point is that the system itself does not necessarily know that it's broken. The people who have a vested interest in the system being broken are not the people who are going to change it. And so who is left to change the system so that you're not being victimized? I'm not being victimized anymore. As a community. So I'm in medicine, I'm in the medical community, right? And doctors are being victimized daily by the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies and the AMA, right, you agree of the doctors get loud. It's your job to say no, this is not the way that I'm supposed to do medicine, the insurance company is telling me to do it wrong. The insurance companies telling me to do it wrong, and they need to get loud. And how about bringing in 50,000 of your doctor friends who also feel that same way to come on board with you telling the insurance companies that they're doing it wrong, because ever change their motivation is Iman Khan 54:15 on the saying, I think it's a very unique a way of arguing for that. Here's why I say that. You're talking about doctors who are a part of a group of people who've been educated for 20 some odd years of financial resources, have community resources, have professional resources to go do that. And they're not you know, you can call them victims, but they're so empowered in life already. That to call them victims. It's not the same as a grown up in the hood. And not having access to textbooks and not having access to everything that everyone should have. have access to as a child, it's just not the same that the psychology that got them to their the point where that doctor can fight back in however they're being victimized by the AMA and Big Pharma is a completely different psychology than someone who spent an entire life from the time they were born, being suppressed and subjugated in a particular way. So yeah, you could say the doctors were being victimized against what background though, you know, the the context of that conversation is so different for me. And it works in the argument, I give you that. But I also think that's an exception. And when you're talking professional, I'm really talking human rights. And human rights are distinct from professional. Ari Gronich 55:47 Right, but it took women to start the women's suffrage movement and say, I'm being victimized, and I'd stopped going to work for me any longer. It took, Iman Khan 55:57 yeah, yeah. I said they could be the stimulus for it. They could be the thing that ignites it, or the impetus for it. But the change, women didn't vote on that change. Men voted on that change. Ari Gronich 56:09 Yeah, cuz the women made it so uncomfortable to not Yeah, sure. So that's all there is, is the population of people being victimized, need to be loud enough, and make it uncomfortable enough for the bully, so to speak, bully that they have, that the people not being bullied by the bully, are so uncomfortable by the conversation that they say no more bully, I can't handle this conversation anymore. So you're the one that's gonna have to learn a different way, not the people who are being victimized. Right. Iman Khan 56:47 That's Yeah, I mean, I got your view about it. I still don't agree. But I got what you're saying. Ari Gronich 56:51 Okay. We, and again, we don't have to agree on it. I just, I'm, I want the different point of view, because I do love having not being in an echo chamber and not having everybody agree with with, with what I'm saying. But let's go to an effectiveness point of view, right, a performance point of view, work of what has had the best performance in making change up till now. And what can have better performance and be more optimal to make the change faster, quicker, more effective now? Right? So as on a performance point of view? Is it going to be more effective or less effective for the people being victimized to be victims, or to be victors? and shift how they, you know, interact in the world so that other people will shift how they're being interacted with? Or is it better to just say, you need to repair reparations, so to speak, you need to repair what you've done. Go repair what you've done, repair. I Iman Khan 58:16 don't think one of those things, I think it's all of those things. Now, you're asking what's going to be most effective, I have no idea. I know what's most effective that you didn't mention for any movement to really take root and go through to the end of the movement is education. The more that people are educated, the more people truly understand a thing, the more likely they are to get in support, or at least not stand in the way of that thing. So I think education is absolutely critical and education is I think probably education is the quickest road to what you're saying. Now in terms of the victims being victors, I think it's always ideal that people don't stay in the victim space. I think it's always ideal that people empower themselves even when they've been victimized. I've been victimized plenty my family's been victimized. I lived in New York City in a family and a very large family of Muslims after 911. I can tell you stories for days about what's happened to my family and my extended community after 911. But I don't come from a community that stays victimized. My community. My parents are from Bangladesh, which was formerly East Pakistan, just about every single adult I grew up with my dad's brothers, sisters, friends, all fought in the war. So they all watched their, you know, a genocide took place in Bangladesh, and they all watch their brothers, cousins, parents all die, and they fought and survived. So I naturally come from a community that knows how to empower itself that we never stay victimized by anything. It's just not in our it's not in our nature. It's not in our culture of a state of victimizing that way. But I was very fortunate. In that regard. I was very fortunate and that we always had a method to empower ourselves. I don't know that everybody comes from a culture like that. That's why I was Saying that previous thing is that you can't put the onus on the victim because they don't naturally, the state of being a victim doesn't lend you to also empowering yourself to go change the thing you were victimized by. It's a catch 22. But that being said, Yeah, absolutely. People being empowered and people speaking up and people banding together, those are all ideals. Those are all things that we want to have happen. And anytime there's something that victimizes people, of course, that would be the ideal that they all get together and stand up and force it to stop, I just don't think history has shown us that that's the way that that goes. And even when it does, there's many, it's much easier to stop something like that than to keep standing for it. Because when you stand for it, there's just a lot of failure. And a lot of people don't have what it takes to go failure after failure after failure and not give up. Most people won't stay the course. Ari Gronich 1:00:56 And I get that and you know, for me, I mean, I've been like, sad bullied most of my life, I was raped, molested, treated, like, like, I was, you know, because I was the I was Jewish, I was the guy who killed Christ. I don't know how that happened that, you know, two couple thousand years later, I was the one who did it. But that was how I grew up was being told that I was a Christ killer, and that I didn't deserve to be alive. And I was fat, and I was poor. And I was, you know, and then I was, you know, raped, molested at three years old. So I had all of these things are, made me who I am today, which I love who I am. And I also know that I am in a place nowadays, where like I've taken and I've transmuted most of the traumas into some kind of path for me, so I do emotional trauma relief with my my patients and clients. Why? Because it's effective. And I'm and I'm good at it. And why am I good at it? Because I've experienced what I didn't want to experience. And so I am an expert in how to get rid of those those traumas and those things, right. So I just from my world, I go, Okay, so if somebody is being traumatized daily for being black, or for being a woman, or for being anything, mm hmm, what would, what would I want to see happen for me? Do I want to continue to be traumatized? Or do I want to stand up? Okay, if I want to stand up, then what do I do then? And, you know, this is just how my brain works. Oh, I just want to say, you know, like, for my perspective on this particular thing, that and then we'll go to a totally different, we'll start talking about entrepreneurs in stands. But I wanted to have this conversation with you. Because I know how passionate you are about, about all of it about what matters. Sure, Paul politics and stuff like that is, you know, what I would want to see from myself is that I would take the step back, and then go towards a place of understanding. So like, I went to a place of understanding what what did that guy who molested me? When I was three years old, what was his damage? You know, what was the stuff he was having to deal with in life? No. And then I take that into understanding I just read to my son, this book is on the value of understanding. It's all about Margaret Mead, and her work going to the Samoan islands and different islands around in learning about people. The one thing that stuck to me was not just how she understood how she wanted to understand, and listen because she wanted the education, like you said, it was that she came to that education with no judgment. Right. And so for me, I would say to both sides of the subject, is in order to educate yourself and get understood yourself. You have to come in without judging the the other person, right. So, like, for me, I'm white. I would and I'm Jewish, which I said some I've said to people, I'm white, I'm Jewish and Latino. And so there's no part of me that feels like a white person. And I'm not black. And I'm not really Brown, like some of my family is that are Latino. So I am this white person having a white experience in a white country, so to speak. And you know that I will never have the experience of being black. Even if I were to paint my body, like I've seen Eddie Murphy do, you know, do his white and paint my you know, and go around and experience what it's like, it's not going to be the same experience. So what I would what I guess what I'm getting at is I come to every conversation, knowing that I don't know. And so being really curious as to what the experience of you is, what how you grew up. I I'm fascinated by how you grew up how those people that you grew up with that were in that war, learned how to deal with all the death around them, and all the suffering around them and stuff. that fascinates me. Sure. Right. And I think that that's the thing that most people are missing in our echo chambers today is the fascination with what's different than what you've experienced in your life. Sure, Iman Khan 1:06:28 right. Sure. I agree with you. I mean, I totally agree with you. And I just want to point to something you said about why I think it's missing. See, and I think you said it, you are a white man living in a white man's world in which the perception of society is that these, they're these other non white things coming into this white man's world, which you have the comfort and the luxury of really picking, I'll engage in that, I will learn that I'll be fascinated about that. When that's not your reality, when you're not a white man living in a white world, what the world looks like, and how safe it is. And what you can choose to get involved in and engaged in is a much different reality. Things don't look like opportunity, when you've grown up that way. Whereas it does for you. I also think you've done a lot of work and you've done a lot of personal development that leads you with this kind of mindset that you have this approach to being open and fascinated and curious. But you know, Latino, Jewish, fat, whatever, you still present as white. So the way the world interacts with you when you're in it is like a white man. You know, I was in Daytona I, you know, I lead masterminds, I lead group programs for people I coach. I was a Daytona last September, and I was running around getting food going to the grocery store picking up the printing, with like 30 people there at the Hard Rock in Daytona. In one night, I was pulled over three times by Daytona police for no reason. Now, there was absolutely zero reason for me to be pulled over each time when they pulled over, they pulled over with a lot of caution, because I present as black when we rolled the window down, and they saw who I was, and that I wasn't black. And they could make out that I was South Asian. It turned into some version of Oh, have a good night, or Oh, we were just checking to make sure everything was okay. What are you doing out here we see. Like there was no reason for me to be pulled over three times in one night. And it was so disruptive to what I was doing that I didn't even go back out. Because I didn't want to get pulled over and have something happen and not be able to leave the mastermind I was leaving. So the way it occurs for me to be curious or be fascinated, or to learn with nothing in the background, when I'm engaging in the world is different than it's going to occur for you. It's a luxury you have that I don't always have. So it's just another layer of challenge for me to get myself educated in that way because it doesn't feel safe. And it never feels safe. Like I have an instinctual bodily reaction every time I see a cop. There's nothing wrong with my car. There's nothing wrong with my license. I'm a really safe driver. I follow the laws. But when I see a cop I have that guttural reaction, because I don't know if I'm going to be safe. So that's an already condition that I deal with in the world. That you may not because you present as white. So you're aptness to being curious. And my aptness to being curious are just two different they're they're in two different worlds. But I get what you're saying and I do again. It's like I've not no need to be an idealist. But these they're great ideals. I wish. I wish this is how we could live and it was how we lived because it's really it is idealistic. It's That would be the smartest and most efficient way to go about something. I absolutely agree. I just don't know in our cut in the development of our consciousness and how we exist in society that were there or even close to there To be honest, Ari Gronich 1:10:16 no, I yeah. And I get that and and I'm not an idealist. By my actions. I wasn't trying Iman Khan 1:10:24 to label you that I take it back. I'm Ari Gronich 1:10:27 just saying I'm not by my actions, but I'm definitely I believe in the possibility of utopia. Iman Khan 1:10:34 Yeah, I get that. And so we need it, you know, people, there's people who've got to keep hope up with hope alive for the rest of us. So, Ari Gronich 1:10:41 exactly. So you know, I believe that that that utopia is possible. And it's just a plan that hasn't been actualized yet? Iman Khan 1:10:50 Well, no, I'm with you. I actually think remember earlier, I was saying, I think the next transformation is a spiritual one and one of consciousness, I actually think everything you're saying could be the reality. Once we have that transformation, Ari Gronich 1:11:05 I got it. So let's, let's just work towards making that transformation quicker. But let's go to let's go to a little bit lighter conversation, entrepreneurs making a stand, red elephant, you know, red elephant is an interesting name. And what's even more interesting is the way that you guys have presented red elephant to the world, which is, you know, the members are members of the herd. And you've kind of created your own language around it. So, you know, for other people who are entrepreneurs who want to create a stand and create a movement and create their new tomorrow. You know, let's talk a little bit about that. Let's Let's door delve into your Iman Khan 1:11:48 What about that? What do you want to know? Ari Gronich 1:11:50 Yeah, so let's just, oh, let's just do a really quick, you know, talk about three to five things that somebody can do tomorrow that they can start actualizing, tomorrow, to crea

David Gruder returns for the second time. If you missed his first interview please check out episode 6 of the Create A New Tomorrow Podcast. Dr. David Gruder is a twelve award winning integrative psychologist. He's president of the Integrity Culture Systems, which work focuses on what he calls self sovereignty, and that serves us all. He equips leaders, influencers and entrepreneurs who are called to repair and evolve the world in their own unique ways with inner, outer and spiritual skills to expand their positive impact. And a super change Catalyst's without sacrificing their lightheartedness, health, financial well-being or cherished personal and work relationships *Episode Highlights* *Ari* [00:04:15] How do you break through that kind of organizational is in, whether it's in corporations and governments in whatever or in families or in yourself, even the organizational how you've organized your own being. *David* [00:06:04] And for the words and actions that the emotions I'm having about the stories I'm telling myself about the parts of reality that I'm paying attention to have on those to whom I'm in relationship or with whom I'm in relationship. That, to me, is the essence of spiritual responsibility. So that's the personal side of it. There's a societal side of it, too. Should I go on to that? *David* [00:12:15] My belief system is the right belief system because after all, all of the other beliefs that my core assumptions are based on makes sense with my core assumptions. So my belief system must be right. Well, it does. It doesn't. Must be right. That's that's. That's erroneous thinking. That's arrogant thinking. And the reason that's important to the question that you are asking is because when I approach these kinds of of questions of paradigm of belief system from a place of humility. Then I get to see everyone else as my brothers and my sisters. I get to see people who have different life experiences for mine that have lessons and wisdom to teach me, just as I have certain life experiences that might have wisdom to offer others. *Ari* [00:17:26] And that's whether it's, you know, in this day and age is the mask versus the know mask. Right. Or the hug versus no hug. Social distance versus. Come together. You know, if we're able to have these kinds of conversations, don't you think we would get a long way, much better in society? *David* [00:22:10] The blindness that people end up having, they don't know it. I call it a spell. Most people, in my experience are under a cultural spell. They don't know how to see that they're under a spell and therefore they don't know that there's something to get free of. And it's incredibly damaging. *Ari* [00:23:29] A community of melting pot people. So when you know, when we hear people say, if you don't like it, leave it. Or if you're you know, if you think differently than I do, you should leave the country or whatever those those statements are that people make. *Ari* [00:27:26] That is so true. You know, my my grandfather came over to this country when he was 12 years old, I believe, by himself on a boat through Ellis Island, became a multi, multi millionaire, lost it all, gained it all, lost it all gained it all. *Ari* [00:27:44] But he spoke eleven languages, eleven Austrian, Hungarian, you know, Yiddish, Hebrew, Spanish, French. I mean, he spoke German a lot of languages because, you know, as a salesman that was his job. But even even before he was 12. Growing up in Austria, Hungarian Empire, he was initially taught and this was in maybe the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds. He was taught these languages as just your being born. *Ari* [00:47:46] Absolutely. You know, I'd like you to maybe expand on that a little bit, these ideas, because this is really what what my book in this podcast is about is how do we go about with tools, with techniques, with training, with mindset. How do we go about taking this world that we created. Right. And saying, OK. The way I look at it is this is not optimal, we can create it better. So how do we create something that is more optimal for our own human growth? So let's expand on this for a little bit. And just I'm going to let you kind of go, because I know you've you've done a lot of thinking about it. We've talked about this before *Resources and Links* * *https://drgruder.com* * *https://drgruder.com/academy* * *https://CreateANewTomorrow.com* * *https://www.facebook.com/arigronich* *Full Transcription* *Ari&Davidpart1.mp3* *Ari* [00:00:00] Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results? We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians, Paralympians, A-list actors and Fortune 1000 companies. If I did not get results, they did not get results. I realized that while powerful people who controlled the system want to keep the status quo. If I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are. Join me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as a chat with industry experts. Elite athletes thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. *Ari* [00:00:50] I'm Ari Gronich and this is. Create a new tomorrow podcast. *Ari* [00:01:01] Welcome back to another episode of Create a New Tomorrow. *Ari* [00:01:05] I am your host, Ari Granite's, and I am back with Dr. David Gruder. He is a 12 time award winning integrative psychologist. And more than that, he's an organizational psychologist. He has done some amazing things. I call him the guru of gurus, the mentor of mentors. And welcome back, David. I am so glad that we're able to do this again and provide so much more of your wisdom to the audience. *David* [00:01:33] That's a pleasure to be back with you, Ari. *Ari* [00:01:35] Awesome. Thank you so much. Tell us a little bit about how you got started in organizational psychology. Why did you choose that field specifically and what it is that you're looking to create in this new tomorrow, New World? *David* [00:01:52] So how I got into the field. Kind of starts at at age 16. I was expected to become a professional musician. And we're certainly on track for that. I had started performing as a child in a lot of different capacities. And so I was not being asked, what university are you going to? I was being asked, what conservatory are you're going to? And by the time I was 16, in some way, that is still kind of magical and mysterious to me. I knew that even though music was and is my first love, psychology was my calling. And I also knew that I was. Called to have impact on elevating society, not just on individuals. And so in my doctoral program, I selected a doctoral program that was going to enable me to get a PHD. That was split between clinical psychology, which is the deep inner work and organizational development psychology, which is the interpersonal the work of of what happens in groups and systems. And so that was my best way to equip myself to elevate leaders and cultures throughout my career. *Ari* [00:03:14] That is that it's awesome. You know, one of the things that I say a lot is we made this shit up and we can make it up better. Yeah. Think that people forget in many cases that the society as it is, is a figment of our imagination. We created it. We created the buildings. We created the design of the houses. We created the design of the societies. And when something is suboptimal, not up to performance standards, right. Then it's kind of incumbent upon us to recreate it in a different, better way. But we have organized around our creation and there's a psychological element to this is how we live and this is how we're always going to live and this is how we should live. And we want to go back to the way that it was right or the way that we think it should be. *Ari* [00:04:15] How do you break through that kind of organizational is in, whether it's in corporations and governments in whatever or in families or in yourself, even the organizational how you've organized your own being. *Ari* [00:04:31] What do you what would be some some tools, some ways that people could think about this a little bit differently so they'd be open to the possibilities now? *David* [00:04:42] Great question. I agree with you completely. We have massive imaginations as human beings were incredible. *David* [00:04:50] The natural compulsive storytellers. We make up stories left and right. And so, yes, everything we see around us is of our creation. We invented an imaginary thing, called it a corporation corporate structure. We invented an imaginary thing called money. I mean, you don't go down a whole long list of things that we invented and then those things started being or seeming real to us. So the tails wagging the dog in that sense. *David* [00:05:26] And so where where this starts is with a personal ownership piece and. And a societal ownership piece. So the personal ownership piece for me has to do with self responsible responsibility. I and I alone I'm responsible for the parts of reality that I pay attention to for the stories I make up about what those parts of reality that I'm paying attention to mean for the emotions that the stories I tell myself about the parts of reality that I'm attending to activate in me. *David* [00:06:04] And for the words and actions that the emotions I'm having about the stories I'm telling myself about the parts of reality that I'm paying attention to have on those to whom I'm in relationship or with whom I'm in relationship. That, to me, is the essence of spiritual responsibility. So that's the personal side of it. There's a societal side of it, too. Should I go on to that? *Ari* [00:06:30] Yes, please. *David* [00:06:32] So the societal responsibility part. Has to do with with the intersection of freedom and responsibility, which we seem to have forgotten collectively as a society, even though I know certain individuals who haven't forgotten that. *David* [00:06:51] But as a society, we seem to have forgotten it. You know, there are there are lots of people who are taking the position essentially that the most important thing in society is freedom. And others are saying the most important thing in society is responsibility, social responsibility. *David* [00:07:12] And both groups are equally and oppositely insane because of what they've forgotten, because freedom without responsibility is narcissism and responsibility without freedom is tyranny. And when we have forgotten that we invented society and that society or society's rules are not meant to be the boss of us, they are meant to be in service to our evolution as a species and our stewardship of a planet. When we forget those things, then we have everything upside down. Same thing goes with patriotism, by the way. You know, I view patriotism as nested dolls. You know, those Russian or Ukrainian dolls where there's a doll with an a doll with an a doll? *David* [00:08:08] Well, this is something else that we've forgotten as a as a planet collectively. Again, individuals are exceptions to this, where we take a position that in my country comes first. And, you know, whatever impact that has on your country, well, that's your problem. Well, you know, patriotism, if it's integrated and if it's saying it's nested. So my first responsibility is to stewarding the planet. My second responsibility is to humanity inside of that. I have patriotism to my country, to my religious or spiritual groups, to my communities, to my business, etcetera, etcetera. And inside of that is my patriotism to my to my family and my and my primary love relationship and to myself. When we when we are in either or thinking that says I have to sacrifice one of those nested dolls for the other nesting dolls or or in order to attend to one nesting doll, I have to be willing to sacrifice the rest. I'm engaging in insane societal thinking. *Ari* [00:09:20] You know, that's really interesting. I think a lot of people believe that they have to focus the exact opposite of what you just said. Right. Self family, city, county. I mean, it goes out and then eventually maybe we'll get to the world at large. Right. Or humanity at large and and so forth. I never quite understood the idea of patriotism. And I'll tell you why. Patriotism to me has always been the same thing as being a white supremacist or a well, saying to somebody, I'm proud to be white, I'm proud to be black. I'm proud to be blue. I'm proud to be green. It's something that you have no control over where you were born. Right. So you're born and you know, Latvia versus being born in the U.S.. So all of a sudden, you must be a lower form of human because you were born there, but you had no no choice in that. Just like you must be if you're black, you must be a lower form of a human being because of your color, even though you had no particular choice in that. And it really relates nothing to character. So how do we evolve beyond the label of. Well, any of the labels. But beyond the label of patriotism, beyond the label of I'm proud because. Of what I am versus what I do. *David* [00:11:05] Right. Oh, my gosh, there are so many layers to this question. *David* [00:11:10] You know, the let me start with what you said about in this narrative of a person saying, I can't help where I was born or the color of my skin. Even that is open to question. You know, there are metaphysical belief systems that that say that we do choose our life circumstances. So the humility piece with this is to remember that all belief systems, every belief system this planet has ever seen is based on its own set of core assumptions, such as I chose where you know, how the circumstances under which I was born. I didn't choose those core assumptions that are neither verifiable nor unverifiable that can either be proved nor disproved. And when we forget that, we move straight into arrogance. *David* [00:12:15] My belief system is the right belief system because after all, all of the other beliefs that my core assumptions are based on makes sense with my core assumptions. So my belief system must be right. Well, it does. It doesn't. Must be right. That's that's. That's erroneous thinking. That's arrogant thinking. And the reason that's important to the question that you are asking is because when I approach these kinds of of questions of paradigm of belief system from a place of humility. Then I get to see everyone else as my brothers and my sisters. I get to see people who have different life experiences for mine that have lessons and wisdom to teach me, just as I have certain life experiences that might have wisdom to offer others. And it's not a competition over who has more wisdom for whom it is this delicious opportunity. Life is this delicious opportunity to compare notes and learn from each other and discover more about the bigger picture from the smaller slices that we each see individually when we have that kind of attitude. We are able to sit in the both and of relishing our own identity, you know, relishing the unearned privileges and the unearned targeting that we get to experience as a result of the life that we have been born into. And we get to relish the diversity of humanity. So instead of it being one or the other, that I'm I'm either only identified through the color of my skin or I refuse to recognize that my skin has has a particular tint to it. How about both hand? *Ari* [00:14:20] That's a really interesting point of view. I think that what that does for people when they adopt that kind of a point of view is it allows for an openness and a willingness to understand another's point of view. And I'll give you an example of of an experience that I had about 10 years or so ago. I had a roommate who was a Palestinian Muslim woman. And I am a Latino Jew who I you know, I call myself a mutt because I have pieces, I think everything inside of me. So I've never actually identified as a label, but I've definitely got a lot of that Jewish culture and Latino culture in me. And so she and I would have these amazing conversations about the Palestinian and Jewish and Israeli conflict, the Muslim and Jewish conflict. And, you know, what was fascinating is her cousin was an attorney who worked for Hamas, PLO. And the government of Palestine. And did negotiations with Israel. So we actually had an an opportunity in that in those conversations to create some real change, because what I didn't know is she would call him up after we had a conversation and say, OK, you might want to talk to them about this. You might want to write. You might want to have these kinds of conversations with when doing the negotiating. *Ari* [00:16:09] And she was like a sister to me. We didn't have that feeling of being separate is even with our separate thoughts and our separate opinions. We didn't agree on everything for sure. But she was like a sister. We considered ourselves each others, family. *Ari* [00:16:27] And that allowed for so much healing within both of us from what we preconceived as in what's the word that they use in divorce? *David* [00:16:43] Irreconcilable differences. *Ari* [00:16:45] Both differences. Yes. So what we would consider to be a reference. A reconciled, salable differences became very reconcilable. Very common for us to get to a level of understanding where we were the same, where we were different. And how the how that happened. *Ari* [00:17:08] And I find that what you're saying is that kind of a conversation. When doing peace talks would be so beneficial. *Ari* [00:17:20] Yeah, to to have that kind of a conversation with the people who disagree with us. *Ari* [00:17:26] And that's whether it's, you know, in this day and age is the mask versus the know mask. Right. Or the hug versus no hug. Social distance versus. Come together. You know, if we're able to have these kinds of conversations, don't you think we would get a long way, much better in society? *David* [00:17:47] Not only would we get along much better, but the quality of our problem solving would skyrocket. Because. When people are in their own silos, you know, when they're when they're in what is in some circles, the circles that study propaganda, they call them information bubbles. They they're only getting a reflection of their own beliefs. Coming back at them from social media and other Internet sources because of how the the algorithms are actually set up on the Internet, where the algorithms are deciding for us what we're going to get exposed to, what products we're going to get exposed to, what perspectives we're gonna get exposed to and when we're in information bubbles. That's a prescription for divisiveness because in an information bubble, because all I'm seeing is my own reflection. Now, it's easy to imagine that I must be right. Whereas when we're given these these sacred opportunities to really know and interact with people who have very different life experiences and backgrounds than we do, then there's a level of richness that expands our vision of ourselves, of our world, and of what solutions could look like. *Ari* [00:19:20] Yeah, that that's that's really cool, I was watching a video recently, and it was a gentleman who what they, you know, they say infiltrated the KKK. He was a black gentleman, but he didn't infiltrate. He just started having conversations with one of the grand. Pubis don't know what they call them, grandmasters of the KKK, and yet and over the years, they became very close friends. *Ari* [00:19:50] Began to trust each other because they got to know each other. Yes, then I believe that it's somewhere around 60, 70 different members of the KKK ended up denouncing that. Belief system. They still like the camaraderie that came from being part of the group. Right. But they denounced what the group was focused on. I guess you could say, and it's an interesting form of psychology. *Ari* [00:20:23] You get to learn about somebody or about a different culture, and all of a sudden it opens your eyes and heart rate. They say that the cure to racism is traveling. *Ari* [00:20:35] What do you think of that statement? *David* [00:20:37] Yes, the cure to centrism. Any kind of ethnocentrism is to be exposed to other cultures. The conversations that I have with my fellow Americans who have not traveled extensively outside of the United States are profoundly different from the conversations that I have with my fellow Americans who have traveled extensively and by travel. I don't mean that they've that somebody has gone to another country and then they've stayed in American hotels and eaten American foods and gotten tours around whatever that location is by American tour guides. That's not traveling. That's pretending to travel. I'm talking about the real deal. And when we're exposed to other cultures, if we have any kind of teach ability in us at all, we can't help but be impacted. We can't help but have our world view expanded when people are very, very ethnocentric. Whatever the the centrism is about American centric, let's say, because they've never traveled outside of the United States. They may not have even traveled to all the different sections of our country because our country is a bunch of mini called countries. Culturally, you know, the culture in the Deep South is not the same as the culture in New York or as the culture in California, etcetera, etcetera. *David* [00:22:10] The blindness that people end up having, they don't know it. I call it a spell. Most people, in my experience are under a cultural spell. They don't know how to see that they're under a spell and therefore they don't know that there's something to get free of. And it's incredibly damaging. *Ari* [00:22:32] Yeah, that's interesting. I used to I I'm very good with accents. Right. And I used to be able to tell if somebody was from Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan, which New York accent. It was that they had just because somebody was from Texas or if they're from Tennessee. Right. From. From their accent. And what you just said is so true. We are such a diverse culture of many different countries met. *Ari* [00:23:04] You know, this this whole thing about us being a melting pot. And so here's my question to you. If we a melting pot of all of these different cultures. How do we convince or shift the perspective of American to. *Ari* [00:23:29] A community of melting pot people. So when you know, when we hear people say, if you don't like it, leave it. Or if you're you know, if you think differently than I do, you should leave the country or whatever those those statements are that people make. *Ari* [00:23:47] How do we shift that so that people understand that this melting pot and the differences in culture is what makes us great, not what weakens us? *David* [00:23:58] A great question again. I, I think that what will help a lot is understanding the pendulum swing in the immigrant mindset that we've undergone over the last 80 years or so, 70 years, somewhere in that in that timeframe, that there was a time when the immigrant mindset that the dominant immigrant mindset was you come to the United States and you leave your old country, your old culture behind and you assimilate into being an American. And what that looked like back then. And I grew up in a family like this. Was that you? You gave up the language of the country that you came to came from and you gave up its its cultural traditions. And and you you tried to blend into some notion of what being an American was. And now we are at the other end of that pendulum swing where we have people that have no desire. Some people, not not all people, but some people have no desire to assimilate into American society. They want the experience of being in this country while staying fully identified with whatever the culture or country or languages that they came from. And I think both of those perspectives have massive blindspots. We have to have a common bond, a common sense of purpose and mission. And that common bond is in the context of the United States would be the the original version of the American dream, the version the American dream that birthed this country, not the delusional version of the American dream that it was replaced with in the 1950s. *David* [00:25:56] And the diversity piece of that is that I inside of this common bond that I share with you. I relish my uniqueness as an individual, as a culture. My ability to speak multiple languages, God forbid, like most Europeans, are multilingual. Most Americans are not multilingual. And in Europe, there is no there's no fear when I mean, when I'm working in Switzerland, there is no fear that I encounter among the Swiss, for example, that they're losing their culture because they're having conversations in French, in German, in Italian and in the one of the native versions of Swiss language, which is called her Monch. There's no feeling of, oh, I'm I'm suddenly not Swiss because I'm speaking all of these languages. There's there's a both. And about that, there's pride in being Swiss. And what the Swiss culture collectively stands for. And at the same time, there's a joy in expressing a flavor of that being that version of being Swiss. We're missing that in this country. We're missing the boat and we're in a war between blind acculturation or refusal, a refusal to a culture rate. It's got to be both. *Ari* [00:27:26] That is so true. You know, my my grandfather came over to this country when he was 12 years old, I believe, by himself on a boat through Ellis Island, became a multi, multi millionaire, lost it all, gained it all, lost it all gained it all. *Ari* [00:27:44] But he spoke eleven languages, eleven Austrian, Hungarian, you know, Yiddish, Hebrew, Spanish, French. I mean, he spoke German a lot of languages because, you know, as a salesman that was his job. But even even before he was 12. Growing up in Austria, Hungarian Empire, he was initially taught and this was in maybe the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds. He was taught these languages as just your being born. *Ari* [00:28:20] You're growing up and you're learning. My parents, on the other hand, my dad who speaks German and Spanish and English and Yiddish. Right. But he they only spoke Spanish if they didn't want us to know what they were saying. And so I was I took a lot of years of Spanish, but I never learned how to speak it fluently or fluidly, I should say, you know, same with Hebrew. I took Hebrew school, but when I went to Israel, I couldn't speak Hebrew for anything based on how they speak it on the streets, right? Absolutely. No, I felt. And every time I've traveled, I have felt so culturally inept because of my lack of being able to speak another language. So what you just said is so true. And and I really appreciate you saying that, because when you speak somebody else's language, you get to know their culture much better. Right. Especially if you could dream. In their language. *David* [00:29:30] So you and I came from very similar families. Both sides of my family came from what was then the Australian Gary, an empire. One side of my family came from the Austrian side. The other side of the family came from the Hungarian side. And my parents as well, both of whom were born in the United States. It's their parents who came over from from Europe. My parents, when they didn't want my brother and me to understand what they were talking about. That's when they talk to Yiddish. And when I first started traveling extensively internationally in the 1970s, what I discovered to my great delight were that was that the two fastest ways to access the heart of a country that I was in were to speak its language and eat its food and hang out with people who were from that country rather than go looking for other Americans to hang out with. And I got huge enrichment from the willingness to be a clumsy imbecile in another language, because what I found very rapidly was that most people in the countries that I visited were very appreciative and forgiving of my inability to speak their language simply because I was authentically attempting to speak their language. And it opened up all kinds of doors. *Ari* [00:30:59] That is that's a that's a really good point. You know, when I was in Greece during the 2004 Paralympics. We learned a lot of Greek because I was going to be there for a month and I had to learn it. I had to learn what what they were saying on the on the trail, you know, the trains and and so on. And some of the words that are not appropriate to say. Right. So they had us with these. But. Packs as part of our uniform. But you called them a fanny pack. Well, you know, you were you were saying something untoward because Fanny means something different in European here than it does. That's right. Our culture. And so learning those things so that you don't offend, but you also learn. *Ari* [00:31:51] Oh, that's a odd name for that particular body part. Know, it's an interesting thing. And I would go to this this restaurant after a ten, twelve hour day. And this one gentleman was from Boston, but from while he was from Greece, we had lived in Boston. It came back to Greece. So he spoke a few languages and he and I would sit and chat for an hour, two hours, three hours a night and just get to know each other. And it was interesting because when I was there, they had the Algerians coming in to the country and doing all of the cheap labor for building the stadiums and so on for the Olympics was such an interesting thing for me because. We have in this country what we call the Mexicans, right? It's not Mexican people. It's the Mexicans that will do your cheap labor. And I was thinking, you know, every country has got to have is going to have immigrants that they call taking their jobs and doing this this kind of thing. And I think about it and I go, well, why wouldn't why weren't the Greeks doing the job? Because it was a lot easier, would have been a lot easier to hire the people who were from there. Right. So what is it about us as people in general that think that outsourcing and doing these kinds of things is such a wrong thing vs. allowing people who want to work in something that they're good at and like doing and then we get to do the things that we like doing. Right. *Ari* [00:33:38] So how can we balance these two pieces so that they make more sense for people? *David* [00:33:49] Well, I think it's important to understand with those particular dimensions that that there are certain people who who look on certain kinds of jobs as being beneath them. There are other people who might not look on a particular job as being beneath them, but the job pays a lower amount per hour than the amount of money that they want to be making per hour. And so they won't take the job because they think it pays too little. And so when we've got and we've seen this throughout cultures around the world, I mean, the Japanese, for example, had the same kind of attitude toward Koreans for a long time, just as a for instance, you name the culture there. *David* [00:34:40] There has been this kind of where the where the real people of our country. And then we have these people that really aren't us, but we've got to bring them in because they'll do what we need doing because they're willing to and they're willing to get paid less than we're willing to get paid. And we've got more important things to do that that kind of of that mean it's a form of elitism. Obviously, it's also partly propelled, though, by in the United States, by the old immigrant mentality. You know, my parents like like you're talking about when when my grandparents came to the States, they came penniless. They they gave up everything in their prior lives. And so my my parents both grew up in tenements. They grew up in the slums because their parents could barely make ends meet because they were taking jobs that were the the dregs of society kinds of jobs in order to make enough money to not be deported. You know, enough money to because they became they all became American citizens, but they didn't have the education to or the entrepreneurial spirit if they didn't have the education to really succeed in high level ways. So they put all of their energy into making sure that their children got the kind of education in the United States that they didn't have. *David* [00:36:13] So their children create better lives for themselves than their parents could. And my parents in term had in turn had that same idea that they wanted my brother and me to have a better life than they had. So we were enter generationally, we were on an upward spiral in the belief in the American dream. *Ari* [00:36:37] You know, that's a good point. I think every generation is designed as a step ladder. Right. And if we continually move up generation to generation to generation up that ladder, we can create something that's incredible. We just have to be willing to shift ladders when that ladder stops. Right. So one ladders, 10 feet. We've got to be on a 20 foot ladder to get past so we can switch. And right now, we're we're on this trajectory of people who want to go backwards down the ladder again. Right. And people who want to go forwards. We have this big confusion. I think it's a confusion, although a lot of people are very sure of themselves when it comes to progression versus regression. And, you know, progressive and liberal has gotten a bad name, conservative has gotten a bad name and those kinds of things. So if we're ever going to change and create a new tomorrow. What are the elements that we have to look at? In order to to start moving forward on and keep going up the ladder vs. regressing down? *David* [00:37:57] Well, I think first of all. *David* [00:38:00] We have in our society a massive pandemic of learned helplessness, the belief. Nothing I do makes a difference. The negative things I do don't really impact other people. The positive things I do don't really impact other people. So all you know, all I'm left with is let me let me live for today as much as I can. And, you know, I probably won't be alive in 10 years, so who cares? And so there's an unrealistic, you know, self-serving kind of undercurrent in parts of our society. There's a learned helplessness, undercurrent in parts of our society. There is a mentality in other parts of our society that says, well, we we've achieved things that other people haven't achieved. So we're entitled to look down our noses at those people who haven't achieved what we think they should have achieved at the at that point in their lives or in the in their generations of being American. The first stage, I think, is about spotting the spell. It's about waking up to the ways in which our minds. There's a battle for our brains. It's going on and waking up to the ways that our minds are being hijacked or that attempts to hijack our minds are occurring on a daily basis across the political and ideological spectrums. I think we need to align with our fundamental design. You know, there there there are certain qualities that unite all of us as a species, as humanity. *David* [00:39:46] We all have the drive to be who we truly are. It's our drive for authenticity. We all have the drive to bond with others. It's our drive for connection. And we all have the drive to influence the world around us. And that's our drive for impact. When we forget that our basic nature is about living at the intersection of authenticity, connection and impact. We are susceptible to being manipulated and propagandized by stuff out there that's going to that's trying to tell us that other things are more important than those things. So we have to align with our design or realign with our design. We have to strengthen our underpinnings. We have to strengthen our teach ability, are our personal well-being, our health are self care, our discernment, our ability to to recognize those kinds of subtle thought processes, critical thinking, if you will, rather than this ridiculous, you know, either or polarized thinking. We have to learn how to recognize the promptings from our deepest selves. We have to learn how to recognize wisdom that comes from whatever source we individually happen to feel connected with that we are a part of. And that's larger than us. We we need to learn how to harvest profound blessings and gifts from undesired and even unacceptable life experiences. *David* [00:41:23] We need all of those underpinnings in order to function in thrive, all rather than survival as individuals. We need to learn how to have right relationship with our power rather than to either run from power because the role models we see around power or our modeling really screwed up dysfunctional versions of power. So we want nothing to do with power or to pursue dysfunctional power. And we need to be really good at facilitating repair and evolution in whatever spheres of influence we're called to have positive impact. If we're all doing that, if we're all busy being too busy doing those kinds of things, then our differences become cherished and our common bond becomes sacred. And when we got that way of functioning as a society, the way we're going to function is vastly different from how we're functioning today. *Ari* [00:42:27] Yeah, you know, there is a number of things that you said there that that I really enjoyed hearing. And one of the things that, you know, my my mentor. I call him Buckminster Fuller would say is that we have to get over the auspicious. And this is a paraphrase. So don't quote me on it, but it's paraphrased. It over the auspicious notion that we have to work to be a value. And. *Ari* [00:43:01] I go back when I hear that phrase in my head, I go back to people like Thomas Jefferson, Leonardo da Vinci, Plato, you know, like I go back to the people that we consider great people of history. And I think, were they valuable in their lifetime or were they valuable in their death? Were they valuable as human beings because they created what they created or because they existed to begin with? And when I think of this notion,. *Ari* [00:43:37] I think of all the technology that we have created and all the technology that we can create. And we've seemed to placed so much emphasis of value on how much a person person works versus what a person contributes. And the results that we get, we do this in medicine all the time. A doctor gets paid for procedures, not for results, not for what they create, but for what they treat. And so to me, I want to go backwards a little bit to a time in which we don't have the technology. Now, this is this is just a utopian theory at the moment, right? *Ari* [00:44:27] I believe that we have borrowed with all the technology that we have and we consume. We've borrowed our imaginations from other people. And thereby have left our own imagination by the wayside. And that's going to become more and more evident in the next couple generations. Right. So how do we stop borrowing other people's. Imagination's and I call that, you know, game boxes. You know, any kind of game boxes and Internets and TV's and so on. When we had more time on our hands, we did more with the time that we had. I don't believe that people are lazy. I believe that people have been conditioned to cut their imaginations and thereby not create and be authentic in who they could be. So how do we get back to being our authentic selves when we have to eat? We have to live and we have to pay to be valuable. *David* [00:45:36] Let me answer at a macro level and on a micro level. At the macro level. We are culturally still in a phase with technology where we are intoxicated with it. So it's a new toy, a new set of toys, and we're drunk. We're drunk on the new toy. *David* [00:45:57] And so, of course, the toy becomes the boss of us and we relinquish our thought process to this new toy developed mentally in a society. Those phases are eventually outgrown. Where we we ultimately develop right relationship with new innovations rather than be intoxicated by them at the at the micro level. I think it's crucial for each one of us to discover and move into alignment with whatever are our deepest sense of life. Purpose happens to be because when we're living in alignment with our purpose. Our creativity comes back online and things like technology. Become what they are meant to be in the first place, which is tools to propel our creativity and our imagination rather than substitutes for being creative and imaginative. And I love that you brought up Bucky Fuller. One of my favorite of many quotes of his is the best way to predict the future is to invent it. And we've got the tail wagging the dog here. We're looking at trying to figure out how to predict the future so that we can be ready for it. Rather than asking ourselves what is the future we want to create together, the future we want to live in? What is the world we want to live in? And the world we want to leave to our children and our grandchildren. We need to stop predicting it and start inventing it. And, of course, like you said, in order to do that, we have to realign our creativity. *Ari* [00:47:46] Absolutely. You know, I'd like you to maybe expand on that a little bit, these ideas, because this is really what what my book in this podcast is about is how do we go about with tools, with techniques, with training, with mindset. How do we go about taking this world that we created. Right. And saying, OK. The way I look at it is this is not optimal, we can create it better. So how do we create something that is more optimal for our own human growth? So let's expand on this for a little bit. And just I'm going to let you kind of go, because I know you've you've done a lot of thinking about it. We've talked about this before. *David* [00:48:37] Yeah, well, on a brass tacks level, we can. *David* [00:48:43] Simply start making a habit of doing what is already being done in a more narrow way in high functioning companies, in a high functioning company. Among other things, one of the one of their one of the traditions or rituals in a high functioning company is that teams get together regularly, not just once in a while. They get together regularly and they ask the question, what's working well and why does that matter? What positive impact does those things that are working well have? *David* [00:49:18] And then they ask a second question. What would what could what could be even better? What would be even better? If so, what if we did this and that and this other thing differently? Why would that matter? What positive impacts would would the up leveling of best practices have and. Healthy company is constantly looking at it at their best practices and saying, well, those might have been the best practices 10 years ago. And thank goodness we develop them today in the middle of the Covid crisis. Not so much. What would what are what what in vet best practices would we invent? Now, that same kind of boots on the ground attitude. Is a equally relevant to crafting an elevated society. We need to look at what's working well and why that matters so that we will do those things more. And we need to look at the even better ifs and how it different changes and improvements are going to elevate our functioning as a society. So, you know, we're looking at, let's just say capitalism, for example. Most people don't know that there are two versions of capitalism and one version of something else that that's called capitalism but isn't. And most people just, you know, lump all of those things together. And so there are a lot of people in society that are viciously, fiercely anticapitalism. *David* [00:50:56] Well, when I ask those people to tell me their version of capitalism, what they inevitably describe is what I and others who study this call sociopathic capitalism, the sociopathic version of capitalism, where I manipulate you into buying what you don't need at a price you can't afford. And I'll manipulate you so well that I'll convince you that doing that makes you happy. That's sociopathic capitalism. Or I'll make profits at the expense of killing off the environment. That's sociopathic capitalism. When I ask people who are anticapitalist what they, how they define capitalism, they invariably define sociopathic capitalism. They have no idea that there's such a thing as healthy capitalism or collaborative capitalism, the way that you and I know about where we're creating win wins. And then there's a third group that defines capitalism in a way that has nothing to do with capitalism. They're defining a completely different economic system that I call debtism, which is borrowing against an uncertain future in order to prop up the illusion of a lifestyle in the present. There's nothing about capitalism that has anything to do with that. That's a completely different economic system. It has nothing to do with capitalism. So if we don't sit down and really look at what our structures really are, what is our economy based on? Well, we have an economy just to finish up this little strand. *David* [00:52:30] We have an economy that's based on an assumption that perpetual growth is good. *David* [00:52:41] And most people just buy it. They buy it as an economic assumption. That's an example of a belief system that has an assumption that's neither verifiable nor and verifiable. It's neither Chern or false. That perpetual growth is good. What we have to have the courage to look at is what are the costs of perpetual growth? What are the prices of perpetual growth? And is there a way to continue to grow simply because evolution is part of our makeup? But to not make growth the boss of us. What about the notion of enough Nisse? What about the notion of sustainability and looking at growth in that in those as frames of reference? *David* [00:53:25] So unless until we find the courage to say we have to evaluate, reevaluate what patriotism is, what the American dream is, and if we're in the United States or what the dream of our country is or elsewhere, what economics looks like, what happiness looks like. What growth looks like, what alignment with being stewards of a planet looks like until we have the courage to sit down and ask these kinds of questions without getting into polarized, divisive arm wrestling matches over ideological addiction. We will continue to devolve into the the opposite of utopian future. Well, it's it's a dystopian future that we are actually co creating right now. And yet, at the same time, everyone says, well, we don't want a dystopian future, but no, no, we're not going to look at our basic assumptions. That's nuts thinking. That's insane. That is cultural opposite of mental health as a culture. *Ari* [00:54:30] You know, I like I like that you you put it that way because in a lot of a lot of people I've talked to have issues sometimes just saying it like it is, you know. And the truth is, is that if you're not saying something as it is matter of factly, then you're doing a disservice to the situation at hand, you know? And so to say something like that's insane thinking is going to cause people to say, I'm thinking that way and I'm not insane. Right. Therefore, you must be insane for saying exactly there to be insane. *Ari* [00:55:16] Thank you so much for listening to part one of this interview. Stay tuned for the next episode when we resume this conversation right from where we left off. *Ari* [00:55:26] Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. *Ari* [00:55:33] If you'd like to take this information further and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world, go to the Web site, create a new tomorrow Acom and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you. Just for checking it out. *Ari* [00:55:51] And look forward to seeing you take the leap. And joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.

09-11-20 Arab Radio with Ray Hanania on Sept. 11 anniversary Host Ray Hanania discusses the Forgotten Victims of Sept. 11, 2001, Americans who "looked" Middle Eastern who were attacked and murdered by other Americans in backlash anger attacks. These victims have never been acknowledged or included in the list of victims of Sept. 11, 2001 and they should be. The Arab street Radio is broadcast regularly on WNZK AM 690 Radio (check www.TheDailyHookah.com or www.Hanania.com for more details on show dates (the show broadcasts from 8 to 9 am EST (7 am CST Chicago and 3 PM Occupied Jerusalem time). Live Radio Show details: Ray Hanania, special US Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper … and you’re listening to Radio Baladi …  THE ARAB STREET Radio & Podcast broadcast from Detroit, Michigan through 690 AM WNZK Radio … In the future, I'd like to be introduced by my Game of Thrones Title: Ray Hanania, the first of his name, the Mayor Slayer, breaker of Political Egos, Father of Wags, the one true believer of Steppenwolf and Jim Hendrix, Spirit of Jerusalem, and Scribe of the four High Schools Bowen, Bogan, Little Flower, and Reavis … THE ARAB STREET Radio & Podcast is a part of the US Arab Radio Network hosted by Laila Alhusini … in an effort to energize and empower Arab Americans to stand up for their rights … for more information go to my website at www.Hanania.com … and afterwards on podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or by visiting my podcast website www.TheArabStreet.org. We are broadcasting on Live Radio in Michigan on WNZK AM 690 this morning … 8 AM In Great Detroit, Ohio and Canada … and 7 AM in Chicago, 3 PM in Israeli Occupied Jerusalem and 4 PM in Dubai … Our radio show call-in number is 248-557-3300     Here is the list of backlash victims who have been forgotten because of the hatred that dominated the nation's lust for revenge: At least three people were murdered as a result of the September 11 backlash. There is reason to suspect four other people may also have been murdered because of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hatred.  Balbir Singh Sodhi Balbir Singh Sodhi, a forty-nine-year-old turbaned Sikh and father of three, was shot and killed while planting flowers at his gas station on September 15, 2002. Police officials told Human Rights Watch that hours before the crime, Sodhi's alleged killer, Frank Roque, had bragged at a local bar of his intention to "kill the ragheads responsible for September 11."90 In addition to shooting Sodhi three times before driving away, Roque also allegedly shot into the home of an Afghani American and at two Lebanese gas station clerks.91 The Maricopa County prosecutor's office was due to try Roque for Sodhi's murder on November 12, 2002.  Vasudev Patel On October 4, 2001, Mark Stroman shot and killed Vasudev Patel, a forty-nine-year old Indian and father of two, while Patel was working at his convenience store in Mesquite, Texas.92 A store video camera recorded the murder, allowing law enforcement detectives to identify Stroman as the killer. Stroman said during a television interview that anger over the September 11 attacks caused him to attack any store owner who appeared to be Muslim. He further stated during the interview: "We're at war. I did what I had to do. I did it to retaliate against those who retaliated against us."93In addition to killing Patel, Stroman also shot and killed Waquar Hassan on September 15, 2001 (see below), and also shot Rais Uddin, a gas station attendant, blinding him.94 Stroman was tried and convicted of capital murder for killing Patel and sentenced to death on April 3, 2002.95 Waquar Hassan Waquar Hassan, a forty-six-year-old Pakistani and father of four, was killed while cooking hamburgers at his grocery store near Dallas, Texas on September 15, 2001. Although no money was taken from Hassan's store, police in Dallas initially believed that he was killed during a robbery because he had been robbed twice that year.96 Hassan's family, however, believed his murder was a hate crime because nothing was stolen by the assailant and the murder had occurred so soon after September 11.97 His family also pointed out that customers visiting Hassan's store after September 11 subjected him to ethnic and religious slurs.98 The case remained unsolved until Mark Stroman admitted to killing Hassan to a fellow prison inmate in January 2002.99 Murder charges against Stroman were dropped once he was convicted and sentenced to death for Vasudev Patel's murder.100 Ali Almansoop On September 17, 2001, Ali Almansoop, a forty-four year old Yemini Arab, was shot and killed in his home in Lincoln Park, Michigan after being awoken from his sleep by Brent David Seever. At the time of his murder, Almansoop was in bed with Seever's ex-girlfriend.101 Immediately before killing Almansoop, Seever said that he was angry about the September 11 terrorist attacks. Almansoop pleaded that he did not have anything to do with the attacks.102 Seever shot Almansoop anyway. Seever acknowledged to police investigators that he killed Almansoop in part because of anger related to September 11. Prosecutors chose to prosecute the matter as a murder, rather than a bias-motivated murder, because they believe Mr. Seever's motivation for murdering Almansoop was motivated in part by jealousy over Almansoop's relationship with is ex-girlfriend. Mr. Seever had been stalking his ex-girlfriend before the murder.103 Abdo Ali Ahmed On September 29, 2001, Abdo Ali Ahmed, a fifty-one-year-old Yemini Arab and Muslim, and father of eight, was shot and killed while working at his convenience store in Reedley, California.104Cash in two registers and rolled coins inside an open safe were left untouched. In addition, Ahmed's gun, which he kept for protection, reportedly remained in its usual spot, indicating that he may not have felt in mortal danger.105 Two days before his murder, Ahmed had found a note on his car windshield which stated, "We're going to kill all of you [expletive] Arabs."106 Instead of contacting the police, Ahmed threw the note away.107 Ahmed's family and local Muslim leaders have told the local press that they believe his killing was a hate crime.108 However, largely because no perpetrator or perpetrators have been found for whom a motive can be established, police have not classified the murder as a hate crime. California Governor Gray Davis offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of Ahmed's killers.109 At the time of this writing, the investigation into Ahmed's murder was stalled because police had run out of leads.110 Adel Karas On September 15, 2001, Adel Karas, a forty-eight-year-old Arab and Coptic Christian, and father of three, was shot and killed at his convenience store in San Gabriel, California. According to press reports, his wife, Randa Karas, believes he was murdered because he was mistaken for a Muslim. She points out that no money was taken from the cash register and that her husband had a thick wad of bills in his pocket. Local police told Human Rights Watch that they do not believe his murder was bias-motivated because there is no evidence to indicate anti-Arab or anti-Muslim bias. The murder remained unsolved at the time of this writing. 111 Ali W. Ali Ali W. Ali, a sixty-six-year-old Somali Muslim, died nine days after being punched in the head while standing at a bus stop in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 15, 2002.112 According to press reports, the only known witness to the attack saw the assailant walk up to Ali, punch him, stand over him, and then walk away.113 His son and Somali community members attributed the attack against Ali to anger created against Somalis by a front page local newspaper article that appeared two days before the attack.114 The article said that Somalis in Minneapolis had given money to a Somali terrorist group with links to Osama Bin Laden.115 After originally finding that Ali had died of natural causes, the Hennepin County medical examiner's office on January 8, 2002 ruled Ali's death a homicide.116 Ali's family regards his murder as a hate crime. Both local police and the FBI have been unable to find Ali's assailant.117 Assaults Violent assaults related to September 11 were numerous and widespread. A review by the South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow (SAALT) of news articles published during the week following September 11 found reports of forty-nine September 11-related assaults.118 CAIR received 289 reports from Muslims of assaults and property damage incidents across the United States from September 11 until the second week of February.119 Issa Qandeel On the morning of September 13, 2001, Issa Qandeel, a Palestinian Muslim and an Arab, was leaving the Idriss Mosque in Seattle, Washington when he smelled gas near his jeep and saw a man, subsequently identified as Patrick Cunningham, come out from behind his jeep. Cunningham was carrying a can of gasoline and a gun. When Qandeel asked Cunningham what he was doing behind the jeep, Cunningham walked away. When Qandeel tried to stop him, Cunningham shot at Qandeel three times, although his gun did not discharge any bullets. Cunningham then started running away and Qandeel chased him. Cunningham shot at Qandeel again and this time a bullet did discharge, although it missed Qandeel. Cunningham was apprehended when he crashed his car trying to get away. Police later discovered that Cunningham planned to burn cars in the mosque driveway because of anger at the September 11 attacks. Federal authorities prosecuted Cunningham for attacking Qandeel and attempting to deface a house of worship. He pled guilty on May 9, 2002 and was scheduled to be sentenced on October 18, 2002. He faces a minimum of five years of incarceration.120 Kulwinder Singh On September 13, 2001, Raymond Isais Jr. allegedly assaulted Kulwinder Singh, a turbaned Sikh taxi worker, in SeaTac, Washington. After getting into the back seat of Singh's taxi, Isais told Singh, "You have no right to attack our country!" He then started choking Singh. After both men then got out of the taxi, Isais started punching Singh, pulled out tufts of his beard and knocked off his turban. Isais called Singh a terrorist during the assault. Local police were able to apprehend Isais Jr. the same day using a description provided by Singh. He was charged with a hate crime by local country prosecutors.121 Swaran Kaur Bhullar On September 30, 2001, Swaran Kaur Bhullar, a Sikh woman, was attacked by two men who stabbed her in the head twice as her car was idling at a red light in San Diego. The men shouted at her, "This is what you get for what you've done to us!" and "I'm going to slash your throat," before attacking her. As another car approached the traffic light, the men sped off. Bhullar felt that she would have been killed by the men if the other car had not appeared. She was treated at a local hospital for two cuts in her scalp and released later that same day. Local police and federal law enforcement officials have been unable to identify Bhullar's attackers.122 Faiza Ejaz On September 12, 2001, Faiza Ejaz, a Pakistani woman, was standing outside a mall in Huntington, New York waiting for her husband to pick her up from work. According to press reports, Adam Lang, a seventy-six-year-old man sitting in his car outside the mall, allegedly put his car in drive and started driving towards her. Ejaz was able to avoid the car by jumping out of the way and running into the mall. Lang then jumped out of his car and screamed that he was "doing this for my country" and was "going to kill her." Mall security agents seized Lang. Sergeant Robert Reecks, commander of the Suffolk County Bias Crimes Bureau, told reporters: "if she hadn't jumped out of the way, he would have run right over her."123 Lang was charged with first-degree reckless endangerment, which requires an enhanced penalty if the crime is bias-motivated. FK On June 18, 2002, FK, an American Muslim woman who wears a hijab, was allegedly assaulted by a woman in a drug store near Houston, Texas. Before assaulting FK, the woman told her that she had learned about "you people" over the last ten months and doesn't trust "a single damn one of you." Before FK could get away from the woman, she slammed FK to the floor and began pulling at her headscarf, which had the effect of choking her. Though FK told the woman she could not breathe, she kept pulling at the headscarf. FK then pulled off her headscarf, in violation of her religious obligations in a desperate effort to alleviate the choking. The woman then dragged FK by her hair to the front of the store. When police arrived, the woman was holding FK by her ponytail on the front sidewalk of the store. She told police that she was making a citizen's arrest. The police told her to let FK go, at which point FK was able to put her headscarf back on. 124 Karnail Singh Karnail Singh is a Sikh man who owns a motel in SeaTac, Washington. In mid-October, 2001, John Bethel, a local vagrant who sometimes came into Singh's motel for coffee and food, told Singh, "You better go back to your country. We're coming to kick your ass." A few days later, on October 19, Bethel entered Singh's motel and shouted, "You still here? Go back to Allah!" before hitting Singh with a metal cane while he stood behind the counter in the motel lobby. Singh, who bled profusely from the blow, spent half a day in the hospital and required ten stitches on his head. Bethel was sentenced to nearly two years in prison for assault with a deadly weapon.125 Satpreet Singh On September 19, 2001, Satpreet Singh, a turbaned Sikh, was driving in the middle lane of a two lane highway in Frederick County, Maryland. A pickup truck pulled up close behind Singh and the driver started making profane gestures towards him. The pickup truck then moved alongside Singh's car on his left and the driver took out a rifle. Singh increased his speed to get away from the pickup truck. Seconds later he heard rifle shots. No bullets hit Singh or his car. The pickup truck then turned around and started traveling in the opposite direction. Singh filed a criminal complaint with the local police. At the time of this writing, local authorities have not been able to ascertain the identity of the person who shot at Singh.126 Place of Worship Attacks Mosques and places of worship perceived to be mosques appeared to be among the most likely places of September 11-related backlash violence. SAALT's survey of bias incidents reported in major news media found 104 bias incidents against places of worship reported during the first week after September 11.127 Of these 104 bias incidents, fifty-five were telephone threats, twenty-four involved harassment of mosque worshippers outside mosques, twenty-two involved property damage from vandalism, arson, or gun shots, and three were assaults on mosque worshipers.128 Arab churches, Sikh gurdwaras (houses of worship), and Hindu temples were also objects of backlash violence. The number of worshippers at the attacked mosques decreased for weeks following the attacks, apparently because of fear of additional violence.129 Although September 11 backlash violence against individual Arabs and Muslims decreased markedly by November 2001, attacks continued against mosques or houses of worship perceived to be Arab or Muslim. On November 19, 2001, four teenagers burned down the Gobind Sadan, a multi-faith worship center Oswego, New York, because they believed the worshippers were supporters of Osama Bin Laden.130 On March 25, 2002, a man who stated to police that he hated Muslims crashed his pickup truck into a mosque in Tallahassee, Florida thirty minutes after evening prayers.131On June 11, 2002, in Milipitas, California, vandals broke into a mosque under construction, scrawled derogatory remarks such as, "F- Arabs" and damaged the interior of a construction trailer near the mosque.132 On August 24, 2002, federal authorities announced they had discovered a plan by a doctor in Tampa Bay to bomb and destroy approximately 50 mosques and Islamic cultural centers in south Florida.133 The doctor's home contained rocket launchers, sniper rifles and twenty live bombs.134 Guru Gobind Singh Sikh Gurdwara On the night of September 11, 2001, somebody threw three Molotov cocktails into the Guru Gobind Singh Sikh Gurdwara, a Sikh house of worship in Bedford, Ohio. The Molotov cocktails started a small fire that was quickly extinguished by the gurdwara's caretakers. Two windows were also broken. A report was filed with local police. No one has been apprehended for the crime.135 Mosque Foundation of Bridgeview On September 12, 2001, over one hundred police officers were deployed to stop approximately three hundred protestors from marching on the mosque in Bridgeview, Illinois. The mosque is located in a neighborhood of mostly Arab and Muslim American families. Stopped two blocks from the mosque, the protestors then demonstrated for approximately three hours shouting anti-Arab and anti-Muslim insults such as "Arabs go home" and harassing passersby who looked Muslim or Arab. Similar protests, though smaller in size, were held over the next two days. Police from various jurisdictions cordoned off the area around the mosque, only allowing persons into the neighborhood who could prove they lived there. Many of the Muslim and Arab families remained in their homes for the next few days because they feared hostility once outside the police cordon. Scores of police protected the mosque during Friday prayers on September 14, 2001.136 Islamic Center of Irving, Texas On the night of September 12, 2001, someone fired at the Islamic Center of Irving, leaving thirteen to fourteen bullet holes in the building. The shots were fired after the evening prayer had ended and the building was empty. For the first two or three days after the attack, local police provided security for the mosque. Immediately after the attack, the imam reported a noticeable decline in prayer attendance. He estimated that daily prayer attendance dropped from 150 to thirty or forty persons. Friday prayers dropped from one thousand to five hundred persons. Mosque attendance normalized after a few weeks.137 St. John's Assyrian American Church On September 23, 2001, the St. John's Assyrian American Church was set on fire in Chicago, Illinois in the early morning, causing approximately $150,000 worth of damage. The fire was caused by someone who put a piece of paper through the church mail slot and then dropped a lit match onto it. Water from fire department fire extinguishers ruined holy pictures, carpeting, and floor tiles. According to the church's pastor, Reverend Charles Klutz, the person whom he believed set the fire had asked a local resident whether the church was a mosque. Reverend Klutz also stated that local police initially asked whether the church was a mosque when they first arrived at the church even though many crosses were located prominently on the church premises. Local police and federal authorities were investigating the cause of the fire at the time of this writing.138 Islamic Foundation of Central Ohio Sometime during the evening of December 29, 2001, vandals broke into the Islamic Foundation of Central Ohio in Columbus, Ohio. The vandals broke a bathroom pipe and clogged the sink, forcing it to overflow for hours; tore frames encasing religious verses off a wall; destroyed a chandelier in the main prayer hall; flipped over the pulpit; cut the wires of high-mounted speakers and amplifiers and threw them to the ground; tore posters off a mosque classroom wall; pulled down curtains and drapes; and tipped over bookcases and file cabinets in a classroom and threw approximately one hundred copies of the Quran onto the floor.139 Water from the stopped-up third-floor sink seeped into the second floor main prayer hall, causing plaster pieces from the main prayer hall ceiling to fall. A torn Quran and a smashed clock from the mosque were found in the mosque parking lot. The damage to the mosque was estimated at $379,000. The mosque was closed after the incident but planned to reopen in October 2002. Both local police and the FBI are conducting investigations.140 United Muslim Masjid On November 16, 2001, during an evening Ramadan prayer service, rocks were thrown through two windows of the United Muslim Masjid in Waterbury, Connecticut. Approximately thirty-five to forty people were in the mosque at the time. Local police are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime. Dr. Magdy Adbelhady, a member of the mosque, said that local police were responsive to mosque member concerns and seemed to be taking the matter seriously. He said that immediately after the attack on the mosque, mosque attendance had dropped but was now back to normal.141 Arson There have been press reports of more than fifteen arsons and attempted arsons that may be part of the post-September 11 backlash. 142 Local law enforcement agents believe that fires at six houses of worship were September 11-related hate crimes.143 The other press-documented cases of arson involved places of business owned or operated by Muslims, Arabs, or those perceived to be Muslim or Arab. There have been three convictions and one indictment thus far for September 11-related arsons.144 Curry in a Hurry Restaurant On September 15, 2001, James Herrick set fire to the Curry in a Hurry restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah, causing minimal damage. Herrick admitted to setting the fire because he was angry over the September 11 attacks and knew the restaurant owners were from Pakistan. A federal district court in Utah sentenced him on January 7, 2001 to fifty-one months in jail.145 Prime Tires On September 16, 2001, someone allegedly set fire to Prime Tires, a Pakistani-owned auto mechanic shop located in an enclave of Pakistani businesses in Houston, Texas. The fire destroyed the store. The store had received threats immediately after September 11. Thus far, police have been unable to ascertain who started the blaze and the motive of the perpetrator.146 END

George Pell has been acquitted in the High Court and freed from jail for Easter. But will the cardinal return to a position of power in the global Catholic Church? And, a long-time friend of George Pell, Dr Bernadette Tobin joins the program. Also, the Palestinian Muslim who has spent his life as guardian of one of Christianity’s holiest shrines.

This week we are joined by hilarious Atheer Yacoub. She is a New York based comedian and writer, whose comedy is inspired by her Palestinian-Muslim upbringing in Alabama. Atheer recently made her TV debut on Gotham Comedy Live, which aired on AXSTV, and is also a writer for The Breakdown with Mehdi Barakchian, which has aired on BRIC TV. Atheer co-hosts The No Fly List podcast which features funny conversations with other brown comedians, artists, and interesting people. She has been featured in the Laughing Skull Comedy Festival, Boston Comedy Festival, New York Arab American Comedy Festival, The Big Brown Comedy Hour, Toronto's SheDot Festival, Muslim Funny Fest, and 1001 Laughs Dearborn Comedy Festival. Get into it, listen spread the word! Subscribe. 

directed by Dalia Ashurina, with musical guest Aya Aziz "Although Abraham is a Jew from Flushing, and he only has 1 daughter, Maxine, and her only daughter Racie is a lesbian, Abraham still believes he'll be the Father of Nations. He moves to Tel Aviv in search of his first love, Haajar. When he discovers Haajar's daughter has five Palestinian Muslim sons, he goes to Nablus in the midst of the first Intifada to claim them as his own. Abraham's Daughters is a mythic play about colonialism and identity." Cast includes Jacqueline Antaramian, Bob Ari, Esra Dayani, Grace Canahuati and Hannah Roze. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ray Hanania on Rashida, Netanyahu, & Israeli elections Radio Host and award winning columnist Ray Hanania hosts The Arab street Radio in Detroit on the 2nd Friday of every month and in this episode broadcast on Sept. 13, 2019, Hanania discusses the failures of the Palestinian leadership and the activists who are in the United States in confronting Israel's atrocities and their failure to engage President Trump. He cites columns by Arab News Editor Faisal Abbas which makes a compelling argument that Palestinians need to engage Trump, not turn away as they have done in anger over some of his policies and especially now int he face of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's continued violations of international law and his vow to annex the Jordan Valley. Click here to read Faisal Abbas' column in the Arab News. The radio show is broadcast in the Greater Detroit region live on WNZL AM 690 radio with some callers engaging in discussions about the failed leadership of Rashida Tlaib and Justin Amash, the Palestinian congress members from the State of Michigan. Hanania argues that if the Palestinian cause is like a loaf of bread then Amash and Tlaib are basically bread crumbs when it comes to effectively championing the Palestinian cause. Amash, a Palestinian Christian, ignores the Palestinian cause and Tlaib a Palestinian Muslim, stumbles the Palestinian cause because of her personal anger and issues with members of her own community. Hanania also discusses the racism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the upcoming Israeli elections on Sept. 17, 2019 in which he urges "Israeli Palestinians" to come out in a storm of voting and vote in the elections. And, Hanania discusses why religion needs to be excluded from the narrative of the Palestinians and the focus must be on rallying "Arabs" together to confront racism, bigotry, discrimination and Israel's Apartheid policies. For more podcasts by Ray Hanania check out Spotify, iTunes or visit www.TheArabStreet.org. Ray Hanania's columns are archived at www.RayHanania.com 

Episode 4 of Reclaiming Grace / Whosoever Will Let Them Come talks to the issues of exclusion and inclusion within the faith community across different religions. Today we speak to Rabbi Barat Ellman and Palestinian/Muslim activist Samia Assed about how they approach social justice work from the lens of faith and religion. We also discuss how we can work across faiths and identify our connective tissues on the front lines of social justice. This episode is full of education and much needed perspective from different faiths and honest dialogue about how we have faced challenges and challenge ourselves to see human dignity in everyone and fight for everyone no matter what community they come from or identify with.

Ep. 220: Atheer Yacoub is a New York based comedian, writer, and podcaster. Atheer's comedy draws from her personal experience growing up as a Palestinian-Muslim in Alabama. She came to the city with high hopes of making it in a respectable career, but found herself in comedy instead. She makes her traditional Arab mother proud by standing in front of complete strangers and talking about her mismatched upbringing, her misadventures in the big city, and the psychological baggage both entail. Atheer hopes to make you laugh, or at the very least, redefine what audiences think when they hear "Arab" and "bomb" in the same sentence. Inspired by everything from Lucille Ball to Dave Chappelle, Atheer wants to bring her unique perspective to the larger comedy world in the vain hopes that someone out there can prescribe her the right pills to make it all better. Atheer has appeared on Gotham Comedy Live, which aired on AXSTV and recently taped a half-hour special for Comedy Central Arabia. She is also a writer on The Breakdown with Mehdi Barakchian and Passport Control with Mehdi Barakchian, which aired on BRICTV. She co-hosts The No Fly List Podcast and has also been featured in the Laughing Skull Comedy Festival, Boston Comedy Festival, Toronto's SheDot Festival, The New York Arab American Comedy Festival, The Big Brown Comedy Hour, and 1001 Laughs Dearborn Comedy Festival. For more on Atheer, check out her website at: http://www.atheeryacoub.com/about.html For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST Huge shout out to our "Super-Duper Supporters" Elizabeth A. Atkins and Catherine Atkins Greenspan of Two Sisters Writing and Publishing Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

On March 31st OBSCENE podcast will air the first of a three-part series about inclusion or lack there of in the entertainment and media industries. It's clear there are many leading actors and producers worried about being 'replaced' by actors of color and more inclusive stories. Take a look at what Pat Sajak said about it: I remember a time when you could enjoy - or not enjoy - a movie based on its merits. Now we have to worry about the social implications of the film and even the validity of the reviewing process. The joy is being sucked out of pretty much everything. Pat might feel better if he know that very little has changes in the 40+ years he has been in the entertainment business:  While Marginalized communities currently make up over 40% of our population and 1 in 4 US adults has a disability: Only 1.4 out of 10 lead actors in film are people of colorOnly 1.3 out of 10 film directors are people of colorLess than 1 out of 10 film directors are female92% of shows are created by white people88.7% of the Dominate Agencies are WhiteAnd according to the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in the 900 films released in theaters between 2007-2016, only 2.7 percent of the characters with speaking parts had a disability and a majority of those roles when to non-disabled actors.  Feel better Pat? In the next few episodes I’ll be speaking with disability inclusion consultants and casting agents in the entertainment industry. I’ll be speaking with several disabled and non-disabled actors, including a black deaf female director and a Palestinian Muslim comedian who just landed her first comedy show on ABC.  Stay tuned.  If you like what I am doing, feel free to swing by my Patreon page to support the program. Thank you, Maya https://www.patreon.com/ObscenePodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we sat down with stand-up comedian, actress, and disability advocate Maysoon Zayid (@MaysoonZayid), who tells us about the hurdles of becoming an actress as a Palestinian-Muslim woman with Cerebral Palsy and the journey to landing a role on a TNT series. She also gives listeners her brutally honest relationship advice on our segment 50 Shades of Brown. Check out her TED talk “I got 99 problems...palsy is just one” and her web series “Advice You Don't Want to Hear.” Follow us @NoFlyListPod! Drop us a line at NoFlyListPod@gmail.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-no-fly-list/support

Rashida Tlaib Become The first Palestinian Muslim women elected to US Congress, White House pulls Jim Acosta's press pass and A Whole Lot More! Anthony Allen Joins Me Help Support The Show! https://paypal.me/conservativenation

Omar ibn Mahmoud is a Palestinian Muslim living in Australia. We talk about politics and religion.

“I think it’s a wasted opportunity to only talk about Exodus every year, and our own story of liberation. Because if we’ve been lucky enough to get this free, we owe it to everyone else, we owe it to look back while we’re standing in the Red Sea and make sure everyone is behind us.” — Becca AbuRakia-Einhorn This Passover, we talk with Becca and Waseem AbuRakia-Einhorn about their annual tradition: the Palestinian Freedom Seder. In this seder, everything from the Haggadah to the food is focused on celebrating Jewish and Palestinian culture, bringing attention to the oppression of the Palestinian people, and making connections between the Passover story of Jewish liberation and the Palestinian struggle for liberation today. This episode of Unsettled was produced by Max Freedman and Ilana Levinson and edited by Max Freedman. Music by Nat Rosenzweig.   Almost a decade ago serendipity landed Becca AbuRakia-Einhorn in the Intensive Arabic Semester in Israel, instead of a regular Hebrew Ulpan, which ignited her passion in learning about Palestine and Israel. Becca grew up Jewish and was lucky enough to meet a wonderful Palestinian Muslim man at a barbecue in Israel (surprise: he later became her husband). After a year and a half in Israel, she and her husband moved to the United States and later had three weddings--a civil wedding, a Palestinian wedding in Israel, and a Jewish wedding in DC. She currently lives in Washington, DC and spends her spare time organizing with IfNotNow, a movement of Jewish Americans working to end American Jewish support for the Occupation of Palestine. This year, she and her husband will host their 7th annual AbuRakia-Einhorn Palestinian Freedom Seder. By day, she works as the Coordinator of Education Abroad at Gallaudet University, the world's first and only university designed to be barrier-free for the deaf and hard of hearing. She spends her days making education abroad opportunities more accessible. She speaks (with varying degrees of success and confidence) English, Spanish, Portuguese, American Sign Language, Palestinian Arabic, and Hebrew. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Media Studies from Pomona College. She went on to get an MA in International Affairs with a focus on Israel/Palestine from American University's School of International Service where she wrote her thesis on the Fight for Civil Rights for Palestinian Citizens of Israel. She is currently one month away from finishing her MPA from American University's School of Public Affairs. Waseem AbuRakia-Einhorn hails from the small Palestinian village of Meiser inside Israel. He currently works as the IT Services Manager at American University's School of Public Affairs. He has a BS in Business Administration from American University's Kogod School of Business and is working on finishing his MS in Business Analytics, also from American University's Kogod School of Business. For twenty-eight years he lived in Israel. Eight years ago he met his wife at a barbecue in Israel. Six years ago he moved to the United States and got married. Two years ago he became of citizen of the United States. He is a proud Palestinian Muslim and a fluent speaker of Arabic, Hebrew, and English. REFERENCES IfNotNow's "Dayenu! No Liberation With Occupation" playlist From Becca and Waseem's 2017 Haggadah: Yachatz Ten Plagues of the Occupation Nakba Dayenu  

“I think it’s a wasted opportunity to only talk about Exodus every year, and our own story of liberation. Because if we’ve been lucky enough to get this free, we owe it to everyone else, we owe it to look back while we’re standing in the Red Sea and make sure everyone is behind us.” — Becca AbuRakia-Einhorn This Passover, we talk with Becca and Waseem AbuRakia-Einhorn about their annual tradition: the Palestinian Freedom Seder. In this seder, everything from the Haggadah to the food is focused on celebrating Jewish and Palestinian culture, bringing attention to the oppression of the Palestinian people, and making connections between the Passover story of Jewish liberation and the Palestinian struggle for liberation today. This episode of Unsettled was produced by Max Freedman and Ilana Levinson and edited by Max Freedman. Music by Nat Rosenzweig.   Almost a decade ago serendipity landed Becca AbuRakia-Einhorn in the Intensive Arabic Semester in Israel, instead of a regular Hebrew Ulpan, which ignited her passion in learning about Palestine and Israel. Becca grew up Jewish and was lucky enough to meet a wonderful Palestinian Muslim man at a barbecue in Israel (surprise: he later became her husband). After a year and a half in Israel, she and her husband moved to the United States and later had three weddings--a civil wedding, a Palestinian wedding in Israel, and a Jewish wedding in DC. She currently lives in Washington, DC and spends her spare time organizing with IfNotNow, a movement of Jewish Americans working to end American Jewish support for the Occupation of Palestine. This year, she and her husband will host their 7th annual AbuRakia-Einhorn Palestinian Freedom Seder. By day, she works as the Coordinator of Education Abroad at Gallaudet University, the world's first and only university designed to be barrier-free for the deaf and hard of hearing. She spends her days making education abroad opportunities more accessible. She speaks (with varying degrees of success and confidence) English, Spanish, Portuguese, American Sign Language, Palestinian Arabic, and Hebrew. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Media Studies from Pomona College. She went on to get an MA in International Affairs with a focus on Israel/Palestine from American University's School of International Service where she wrote her thesis on the Fight for Civil Rights for Palestinian Citizens of Israel. She is currently one month away from finishing her MPA from American University's School of Public Affairs. Waseem AbuRakia-Einhorn hails from the small Palestinian village of Meiser inside Israel. He currently works as the IT Services Manager at American University's School of Public Affairs. He has a BS in Business Administration from American University's Kogod School of Business and is working on finishing his MS in Business Analytics, also from American University's Kogod School of Business. For twenty-eight years he lived in Israel. Eight years ago he met his wife at a barbecue in Israel. Six years ago he moved to the United States and got married. Two years ago he became of citizen of the United States. He is a proud Palestinian Muslim and a fluent speaker of Arabic, Hebrew, and English. REFERENCES IfNotNow's "Dayenu! No Liberation With Occupation" playlist From Becca and Waseem's 2017 Haggadah: Yachatz Ten Plagues of the Occupation Nakba Dayenu  

On the sixth episode of Flip the Script, the Future if Female, our co-hosts sit down with the audacious and outspoken civil rights leader and co-chair of the Women's March, Linda Sarsour.  A force of nature, she is a self-described unapologetic Palestinian Muslim woman committed to fighting for civil rights and social justice. Sarsour takes us back to the events that inspired her to become a leading voice for a more just world, how she navigates life as a national public figure, and her recommendations for how progressives can build a successful movement rooted in community and systemic change.  She will challenge you, inspire you and leave you thinking for days to come. It is not an interview to be missed!

The stories in today’s episode come from our most recent live show, “Israel in Love.” We’ll meet three couples looking back at their love affairs from very different vantage points. Zvi and Regina Steinitz’s romance has been going on the longest—in fact, it’s been going on since the very birth of the state of Israel. Danna Harman shares their story in Act I, “Like A Stone.” Act II, “There’s a Wall Between Us,” began as a radio piece called “Checkpoints and Secrets,” by Daniel Estrin, which aired in last year’s Valentine’s Day special. Daniel’s piece followed the winding love affair of two men, an Israeli Jew from Jerusalem and a Palestinian Muslim from the West Bank, as it unfolded over a long time. We then gave Daniel’s original recordings, so the actual words the two men had told him, over to composer Or Matias — the Musical Director of the electro-pop opera “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812,” which will go up on Broadway this coming fall. Or, in turn, adapted the piece into a mini-musical, with entirely original music, performed here by Alaa Daka and Eyal Sherf, with Mike Cohen on flute, Dillon Condor on guitar and mandolin, and Dan Weiner on percussion. Our final story, “When Time Will Fold Over,” takes place in a tiny village, midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, called Mevo Modi’im. The 254 people who live there look like a cross between the Lubavitch Rebbe and Jerry Garcia. This is the story of two of them, Michael and Leah Golomb, and their 37-year marriage. It is an updated version of a piece that we aired exactly a year ago, and is produced by Benny Becker and Yochai Maital, with original music by Collin Oldham. Stay connected with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and by signing up for our newsletter at israelstory.org/newsletter/. For more, head to our site or Tablet Magazine.

Mr. Hollywood debates which superheroes get the most action in the bedroom, interviews Montreal based Palestinian-Muslim comedian Eman el-Husseini, takes you back to a simpler time with another installment of "Remember When" and tells you how much celebs charge for party appearances.  

Julia Fisher talks to Katerina - This week we're back in Jerusalem where my guest is Katerina, a Swiss German Christian living in a community that works amongst Palestinian Muslim people. Here Katerina describes her experience of getting to know and like people from another culture, who speak a different language. I asked her what drew her to Israel. Our aim is to build bridges... To build bridges of understanding and support, in a spirit of reconciliation, between believers (both Jewish and Arab) in the Holy Land (Israel and the Palestinian Areas) and Christians worldwide. olivetreefund.org

Julia Fisher talks to Hans - This week I'm in Jerusalem with Hans … we've changed his name to protect his identity … who is Swiss German. You might wonder whether it's possible for a Palestinian Muslim living in Jerusalem to become a Christian and develop a love for Israel and the Jewish people. Well Hans can answer that question because he is living and working amongst Palestinian Muslims in the Old City of Jerusalem. I asked him what drew him to Israel. Our aim is to build bridges... To build bridges of understanding and support, in a spirit of reconciliation, between believers (both Jewish and Arab) in the Holy Land (Israel and the Palestinian Areas) and Christians worldwide. olivetreefund.org