Joanne Lockwood: Foreign.
Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
Joanne Lockwood: for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,
Joanne Lockwood: your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging and societal transformation.
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Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 187, the title
Joanne Lockwood: Healing at the Heart. And I have the absolute honour and privilege
Joanne Lockwood: to welcome Jared Carroll. Jared is a personal development coach
Joanne Lockwood: working at the intersection of social change and healing.
Joanne Lockwood: He helps people understand who they are so they can show up more consciously,
Joanne Lockwood: courageously and sustainably in the world. When I asked
Joanne Lockwood: Jared to describe his superpower, he said it is bringing
Joanne Lockwood: equanimity to difficult conversations so people can stay present,
Joanne Lockwood: honest and open instead of shutting down or fighting back.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Jared. Welcome to the show. Hello, Jo. Thank you for having
Jared Karol: me. Great to be here. Absolute pleasure. And we were. We've been
Joanne Lockwood: yakking away for probably 25 minutes and we had to press record quickly, otherwise everything
Joanne Lockwood: we talk about is going to end up on the floor and be lost
Joanne Lockwood: for time. But we were. We talked about the fact that you live
Joanne Lockwood: in Oakland, California. I do, yeah. That gave us something in
Joanne Lockwood: common because I was in Oakland a year ago. A year and a half ago.
Jared Karol: That's right. Well, you said you were at HR west emceeing the
Jared Karol: conference. I spoke at HR West. I think it was
Jared Karol: 2019. 2018 19, but. Yeah, right. Downtown
Jared Karol: Oakland, 10 minutes, same place. The Marriott Convention Centre, was it?
Jared Karol: Yeah, they have a big, big building there down like. I think it's.
Jared Karol: Yeah. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very cool.
Joanne Lockwood: And. And back at me. You're a football fan, so you've.
Joanne Lockwood: Sorry, UK soccer fan. So you follow the English Premiership.
Joanne Lockwood: So you know about Portsmouth and where I come from. Because you follow the team.
Jared Karol: I do. I. His. I. Well. And maybe we'll get into this because
Jared Karol: it's part of my journey, but I was a college athlete. Not soccer, but
Jared Karol: lacrosse. And I was a big Sports guy in my youth, in
Jared Karol: college and young, Young adult. And then I decided I didn't want to be that
Jared Karol: guy anymore. But I kind of had one. One little thing I couldn't let
Jared Karol: go from my youth, which was. Which was soccer. So I decided, well, if I'm
Jared Karol: going to follow sport, I'm just going to pick one, one country. And I chose
Jared Karol: England. And so. So I know the. I
Jared Karol: know the British geography largely through where the soccer teams
Jared Karol: are. That's a. That's a really, really good way of doing it. And I know
Joanne Lockwood: many Brits who follow American football
Joanne Lockwood: or basketball or baseball, and they know all of the names of the
Joanne Lockwood: clubs and where they are in their world. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I guess if you're going to learn geography, tie it to something and
Joanne Lockwood: why not sport? Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, happy to be
Jared Karol: here and talk about whatever makes sense for us to talk
Jared Karol: about. Well, let's start with the word that I was you
Joanne Lockwood: put into your bio and show notes as equanimity. I
Joanne Lockwood: struggled there. I struggled to pronounce it the first time because I'd never used it
Joanne Lockwood: before. And so I even had to feed it to copilot to look
Joanne Lockwood: up what it meant. But you said that word has sat with you for a
Joanne Lockwood: couple of decades, so why did you bring that into the
Joanne Lockwood: conversation? I bring it into all conversations about
Jared Karol: anything trivial or serious or anything in between.
Jared Karol: The way I define it, actually, I don't really have a concise,
Jared Karol: tidy definition like copilot I gave you, but I see
Jared Karol: it as a way for us, for me, for you, for anyone
Jared Karol: to. The hardships, the suffering,
Jared Karol: the challenges, the situations that we face, just as, you
Jared Karol: know, being human with. With composure, with poise, with
Jared Karol: calmness, without. Without freaking out, without getting too
Jared Karol: down or perpetuating. Perpetuating a
Jared Karol: storyline that may or may not often is not true.
Jared Karol: And then conversely, when you know the quote, unquote, good things happen.
Jared Karol: Not getting too elated, not getting too high, not getting too cocky. And so
Jared Karol: just it's this kind of ongoing self and meta
Jared Karol: awareness of what's going on and having the confidence
Jared Karol: to know I can handle it, even if I don't like it, even
Jared Karol: if it's hard, even if I don't know what to do or what to say,
Jared Karol: I can handle it. So as we both know, doing this type of
Jared Karol: work, those are important skills to have, and a lot of people
Jared Karol: do have them, but a lot of people don't. And then in your superpower, you
Joanne Lockwood: said it's about avoiding shutting down or
Joanne Lockwood: fighting back. And when you are oppressed,
Joanne Lockwood: marginalised, at the brunt of somebody else's
Joanne Lockwood: bullying or discrimination, those are often the two choices, aren't they?
Joanne Lockwood: Shut down, run away, tail between your legs, or come out with
Joanne Lockwood: teeth showing and growling and is trying
Joanne Lockwood: to sit somewhere in the middle there where you can engage in the conversation.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's a really tough thing to do when you're under that psychological pressure. It
Jared Karol: is. And I'm a, you know, I'm a cis straight white
Jared Karol: man. So I have, I'm, I'm at the top of the privilege food
Jared Karol: chain. So for, I think for a long time, I mean, I've been
Jared Karol: doing this work for 25 years. My father was a, was a gay man. He
Jared Karol: died of AIDS in 2000. And that's when I decided
Jared Karol: to change really to do the work. And so when I started doing the work,
Jared Karol: it was the typical kind of social justice warrior, like,
Jared Karol: okay, time to wake up, Jared. You've been, you know, ignoring all this
Jared Karol: stuff for, you know, your whole life and now it's time to not.
Jared Karol: So I jumped into that work. I was teaching at the time, that was my
Jared Karol: profession. And I was, I was snarky, I was acerbic, I was
Jared Karol: dogmatic, I was, you know, things were new to me, new
Jared Karol: theories, new philosophies, new understandings of history
Jared Karol: that I hadn't really, I mean, I had had some exposure to
Jared Karol: some of this through my dad, but I wasn't really listening that closely or, you
Jared Karol: know, didn't, it didn't affect me who I thought. So I'd say for
Jared Karol: the first, you know, eight to 10 years, I was that, you
Jared Karol: know, newly woke white guy who was telling everyone
Jared Karol: how unwoke they were until I decided
Jared Karol: that that wasn't really effective or sustainable, which I'm sure
Jared Karol: we'll jump into many, many stories of how and why and how
Jared Karol: I, how I shifted. But that's, that's a good place to start with where I
Jared Karol: was back then. Yeah, I think it is the temptation
Joanne Lockwood: when you're trying to educate people, you want to, you want to educate them by
Joanne Lockwood: being right and they want to be uneducated by being
Joanne Lockwood: right themselves and not needing to be educated. It's trying to find that balance
Joanne Lockwood: of how to educate without telling, isn't it? How to show don't tell.
Jared Karol: Yeah, it's. Which is interesting you bring that up because I was a teacher for
Jared Karol: 12 years and for most of that time I taught middle school humanities,
Jared Karol: you know, language arts, writing history, I taught a social
Jared Karol: justice curriculum. So everything was through the lens of power and privilege. And whether it
Jared Karol: was literature or history or current events or classroom dynamics, it was all through
Jared Karol: these lenses. And that was. I was fortunate and
Jared Karol: intentional about finding a school that allowed me to, you know, not
Jared Karol: only it allowed me, but that was what the school did and that they expected
Jared Karol: and supported us in doing. But to your point, yeah, we
Jared Karol: see that the world is unjust, is
Jared Karol: inequitable, is unfair historically and contemporarily on a
Jared Karol: micro and macro, on a local and global level. And we
Jared Karol: want change yesterday. And so we get upset
Jared Karol: when people don't see that as clearly or as
Jared Karol: quickly or as urgently as we do.
Jared Karol: And so that causes us to. To be more upset
Jared Karol: because if. If this person or this community or this, you know, this
Jared Karol: government only saw. And so
Jared Karol: then it becomes charged. And I'm not saying there isn't a place
Jared Karol: for charged or for protest or for other things, but which again, we. I'm sure
Jared Karol: we'll dive into more details, but I think we lose track of
Jared Karol: what we're actually trying to do and we don't realise that we're actually
Jared Karol: not being effect our. Call it what you want to call it, fervour,
Jared Karol: righteousness. And I would argue that that has. Has
Jared Karol: contributed to the challenges that
Jared Karol: we in this industry, dei, hr, social justice,
Jared Karol: whatever, however expansive or narrow, we want to define that as
Jared Karol: some of the challenges that we. That we. I think I, as I've matured, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, I'm in my. I'm in my early 60s. How did that happen? You know,
Joanne Lockwood: I think over your. The arc of your life, you go through
Joanne Lockwood: different phases, don't you? And I think I. I've become to learn
Joanne Lockwood: that even though I'm more settled in my ways, more relaxed, more
Joanne Lockwood: calm, more pragmatic, more logical, always
Joanne Lockwood: I'm able to shift my thinking from my amygdala into my prefrontal cortex.
Joanne Lockwood: Easier. Today. I don't get triggered. I'm able to feed my
Joanne Lockwood: human emotions differently. But I also recognise that
Joanne Lockwood: in order to enact change, you need different people
Joanne Lockwood: with different levels of passion, if you like, for whatever way.
Joanne Lockwood: You do need the people who are the angry social,
Joanne Lockwood: not necessarily the mob, but the angry social justice warriors who are
Joanne Lockwood: fighting for the cause, who are whipping up people who are in that
Joanne Lockwood: same space as they are. But then you've got the people on the other side
Joanne Lockwood: who are looking for political change, which is slow, methodical,
Joanne Lockwood: nuanced, persuasive, lobbying, all those kind of things.
Joanne Lockwood: You've got people in the middle who are trying to do a bit of both
Joanne Lockwood: and try and do it. I've come to realise that as I swing
Joanne Lockwood: towards the more nuanced, logical approach, there's
Joanne Lockwood: still a place for the people who want to wear the T shirt,
Joanne Lockwood: march, those sort of things. Well, I think
Jared Karol: there's. What I've learned is there three, three
Jared Karol: perspectives to take in this work. There's the why,
Jared Karol: there's the what and there's the how. So the why. I
Jared Karol: would imagine or, or hope or suspect that every person doing
Jared Karol: this work, social justice, dei, change, work, right, Has. Has a personal
Jared Karol: why. They may or may not have, have be clear
Jared Karol: about it or really know it. Maybe they haven't done that work, but there's something
Jared Karol: that's driving them to do this work, right, which is good. You need that. Or
Jared Karol: else, like, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? Right? Then there's the
Jared Karol: what, which I think is what. What you were kind of getting at. Like, what
Jared Karol: is your role? So I'm a coach, I'm a facilitator. You know, some.
Jared Karol: Some people might be, you know, a community organiser, some people might be
Jared Karol: head of, you know, DEI at A. @ a big company or, you know, whatever.
Jared Karol: They're. Maybe you're a speaker. So there's. There's the what. And then I was
Jared Karol: reminded, as you were talking of, I don't have it super handy. Maybe we can,
Jared Karol: after the show, we can put a link to it so people have it. But
Jared Karol: there's a woman named Deepa Iyer and she has this.
Jared Karol: What does she call it? The social change ecosystem. And
Jared Karol: she talks about the different roles that are needed
Jared Karol: and they. Not all of us are and can be
Jared Karol: frontline protesters, rebel rabble rousers. There
Jared Karol: needs. There need to be caretakers, educators, coaches,
Jared Karol: storyteller. I mean, and she has this whole kind of, you know, graphic
Jared Karol: that illustrates it very, very well. And that gets to the.
Jared Karol: For me, the why, the what, the how, I
Jared Karol: think is under underappreciated
Jared Karol: and under emphasised because, especially if
Jared Karol: you see someone like me who, as I said, you know, a little bit ago,
Jared Karol: very comes from a privileged position doing this work,
Jared Karol: it's easy to dismiss my
Jared Karol: angle into this work as well. Of course you're privileged,
Jared Karol: so of course you can do that. But what about me, who has, you
Jared Karol: know, X, Y, Z marginalised identities,
Jared Karol: which is fair and taking this approach
Jared Karol: is open to anyone if they have the wisdom and
Jared Karol: maturity to see it. And so that's what I
Jared Karol: have come to emphasise and focus on in My work
Jared Karol: and I can share some personal experiences that have led
Jared Karol: directly to that. But it's the how.
Jared Karol: How are we going about the work that is going to be effective and
Jared Karol: sustainable and build community, build connection.
Jared Karol: It's so easy to dismiss people who don't get it, who don't want to
Jared Karol: get it, who are hurtful, harmful, but the ways
Jared Karol: we've been going about it aren't working and they're not going to bring
Jared Karol: about the change that we say we. Want. As you're talking, I'm thinking about
Joanne Lockwood: some famous people in history that have
Joanne Lockwood: probably themselves transitioned through. There's different ways
Joanne Lockwood: of enacting change. You know, Nelson Mandela, for example,
Joanne Lockwood: he was a freedom fighter terrorist. Prison probably calmed him down,
Joanne Lockwood: but he came out a state statesman of the nation, the
Joanne Lockwood: grandfather of the nation who then enacted change
Joanne Lockwood: through political discourse, dialogue, calmness and reason.
Joanne Lockwood: Lech was instrumental in the fall down
Joanne Lockwood: of the Cold War, the Berlin war coming down in the
Joanne Lockwood: 80s, the Solidarity Movement. He was a freedom fighter. And we look
Joanne Lockwood: at Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, these people started off by,
Joanne Lockwood: in the protest, freedom fighter space and then
Joanne Lockwood: transitioned into the reasonable politician or the logical
Joanne Lockwood: response. I think. Yeah, I think that's probably a natural arc
Joanne Lockwood: of evolution. I. Think. Well, it is and it can be,
Jared Karol: and I hate to use the word should, but I would argue that it would
Jared Karol: be beneficial on an individual and collective level if it was that
Jared Karol: arc. And, you know, I don't think
Jared Karol: someone has to, you know, be in prison for 27 years to,
Jared Karol: you know, to come to that. Not really a conclusion, but to come to that
Jared Karol: awareness. Right. So how do you, how do all of us, you know,
Jared Karol: the people on the street doing this work, how do we come to those, that
Jared Karol: awareness ourselves without, you know, those, those
Jared Karol: big dire, you know, historically
Jared Karol: relevant and known, you know, events in our life, because
Jared Karol: we don't all have those, right? We have, you know, we have our own things.
Jared Karol: We have our own local things, our own personal things, our own, you know, but
Jared Karol: they're just as important. They're just as. They're just as relevant.
Jared Karol: And so how do we individually decide, you know, what? I'm not
Jared Karol: giving up on this work, but I'm going to do it differently
Jared Karol: so that it's more sustainable and more effective.
Jared Karol: And it's building what I want to see, not just taking
Jared Karol: down what I don't want to see. And there's all kinds, you know,
Jared Karol: there's so many people, you know, contemporary people who are doing
Jared Karol: this work. And I've, I mean, I can, I'M sure we'll get into some of
Jared Karol: them. But one who, who immediately comes to mind is actually, he lives in Oakland
Jared Karol: as well, Dr. Sean Ginright. And he wrote a book,
Jared Karol: I think it's fairly recent, a couple years ago, maybe 20, 22 or so,
Jared Karol: called the four pivots. He
Jared Karol: gist of the book is switching from trauma
Jared Karol: informed work to healing centred
Jared Karol: or healing centred, healing engaged. And so his first of the four
Jared Karol: pivots is from lens to mirror. Right. So the lens is
Jared Karol: the world is inequitable, unjust, unfair, we
Jared Karol: need to change it. Here's what we're going to do. So it's not like that
Jared Karol: goes away or that's wrong, but the mirror is okay, how do
Jared Karol: I need to change? What am I doing or not doing
Jared Karol: that's contributing to the chaos, to the,
Jared Karol: you know, to the status quo? And so he talks and
Jared Karol: I follow his, you know, his newsletter and he send once or twice a week,
Jared Karol: he'll share a little video and, and he's a, you know, he's a black man.
Jared Karol: So that's just one small example of this isn't just a privileged,
Jared Karol: you know, white guy thing. In fact, most of the people who I've
Jared Karol: been influenced by have been folks of
Jared Karol: colour, queer folks of colour, trans folks, people who
Jared Karol: are in, in multiple ways, have experienced and still are
Jared Karol: experiencing marginalisation, injustice, et cetera.
Jared Karol: And so I, I take. What's the word I want to look for? I guess
Jared Karol: I don't want to say like, oh, I'm glad, I'm glad they're experiencing that, because
Jared Karol: I'm not, but I'm. I'm glad that it's an. So many
Jared Karol: examples of people who have chosen, kind of what
Jared Karol: you were getting at with Nelson Mandela and others have chosen to do their
Jared Karol: work differently and are better for it and the world is
Jared Karol: better for. It. Yeah. Again, as you're talking, my mind's
Joanne Lockwood: racing ahead, thinking, you touched a few buttons there.
Joanne Lockwood: And I'm thinking in my own experience, about
Joanne Lockwood: 12, 15 years ago,
Joanne Lockwood: I awoke for one of the, you know, to paraphrase, lived same as you.
Joanne Lockwood: I'd lived a lived life of privilege on the outside,
Joanne Lockwood: benefited from that privilege. And then suddenly I, I stepped out of
Joanne Lockwood: that lane into another lane and it was, it was a lot
Joanne Lockwood: tougher, a lot harder, a lot more. And I think once I look back
Joanne Lockwood: at that time, I definitely see myself transitioning through that
Joanne Lockwood: awareness of what's going on in the world. Suddenly I'd lost
Joanne Lockwood: a lot of privilege and gained a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: marginalisation for Want a better way of describing it. And I think that
Joanne Lockwood: then woke me up to the injustice in the world.
Joanne Lockwood: I think maybe when you say you talk to people there, queer
Joanne Lockwood: people, people of colour, whatever it may be, is they've, they've, they've,
Joanne Lockwood: they've started to. They've experienced this wind in their face all their lives, or they
Joanne Lockwood: suddenly open the door and it's hit them and you go, hang on a minute.
Joanne Lockwood: Whereas if you never open that door, you never feel that wind, you never have
Joanne Lockwood: that feeling of being marginalised. It's really hard to build
Joanne Lockwood: empathy with someone who has. You haven't got any reference point, have.
Jared Karol: You? Well, that's why, you know, people in our industry use the phrase, you
Jared Karol: know, do the work. It's ubiquitous, right? Do the work, do your work, do the
Jared Karol: work. We gotta do the work. And we do. But I think sometimes
Jared Karol: do the work is. Is implied too
Jared Karol: narrowly, I think, when people, because I've had so
Jared Karol: many conversations and either personal conversations or witnessed kind of
Jared Karol: conversations or been part of online conversations, where do the
Jared Karol: work means get woke
Jared Karol: and they're talking to privileged folks. Do the work.
Jared Karol: Understand kind of what you were taught, understand why we're so upset,
Jared Karol: why black folks are so upset about racism, why queer folks
Jared Karol: are so upset, et cetera. And that is necessary
Jared Karol: and I don't disagree with that at all. Yes, do that work.
Jared Karol: And to me, do the work
Jared Karol: also includes just as equally. And if I was a
Jared Karol: good graphic designer, I'd have some fancy little graphic that would show this
Jared Karol: in maybe like a quadrant or something, means do
Jared Karol: your inner work, do your inner work, do your
Jared Karol: healing work, whatever that looks like. For me, it's
Jared Karol: been Buddhist meditation, mindfulness philosophy. Right.
Jared Karol: The equanimity stuff that we started with doesn't have to be everyone's,
Jared Karol: you know, angle into it, but there has to be something
Jared Karol: that is, that is healing. Or else, as I keep
Jared Karol: coming back to, it's the other work that you're doing isn't going
Jared Karol: to be effective or sustainable.
Jared Karol: So the other part of my story that, you know, I said my, My father,
Jared Karol: he was. So I was, I was 14
Jared Karol: and I was, I was. Lived in San Diego and my dad had moved to
Jared Karol: San Francisco. We'd been there, I think, since I was 11. So I'd go up
Jared Karol: and visit him and it was kind of cool to come from the suburbs and
Jared Karol: go to the big city and ride the cable cars and, you know, all the,
Jared Karol: all the fun. Go to, go to Haight street and see all the hippies. And,
Jared Karol: you know, all the. All the San Francisco touristy things. So I was 14,
Jared Karol: end of my freshman year in high school. And he sat me down at the
Jared Karol: end of the weekend, and it was usually one of those, hey, I love you,
Jared Karol: Jared. I wish we could see each other more often. You're a good kid. You
Jared Karol: know, all those things, which he did do. And then he said,
Jared Karol: you know something? You should know I'm gay, so I'm 14.
Jared Karol: This is the late 80s. We know what was going on in the world,
Jared Karol: especially in the United States. Reagan was still, I think, president,
Jared Karol: maybe for a little bit longer. So there's a huge stigma.
Jared Karol: So I didn't tell anyone. I went home. I cried, I went
Jared Karol: home, and I didn't tell anyone for almost
Jared Karol: six years. I had the privilege of geographical separation. No one knew
Jared Karol: my dad. They knew he lived in San Francisco. And I'd go up and see
Jared Karol: him three, four, five times a year. But I went through
Jared Karol: all the rest of high school and halfway through college without telling anyone because I
Jared Karol: was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I was confused. My dad and I had a. We.
Jared Karol: We. We had a decent relationship. But about
Jared Karol: halfway through college, I was a college athlete, and I wasn't
Jared Karol: mature enough to. To have a. Have a gay dad, to
Jared Karol: own that, right? So he and his partner would visit, you know,
Jared Karol: every once in a while, and I'd have to arrange things or make up lies.
Jared Karol: And. Yeah, it's my dad and his friend, and we're just going out to lunch
Jared Karol: and. No, no, you know, we don't need to invite any of my friends. Dad.
Joanne Lockwood: It's. Cool. Like, that kind of. I don't know if I can swear on this
Jared Karol: podcast, but that kind of bs, right? So finally,
Jared Karol: summer of my. So after my sophomore year, about halfway through college, I was with
Jared Karol: my friend Amy and I. And she was my best friend since.
Jared Karol: Since high school. She went to school in Colorado, and we were in the mountains
Jared Karol: camping, and I said, amy, I gotta tell you something. She's like, what's going on?
Jared Karol: You're being weird. I said, my dad's gay. Said, big fucking deal.
Jared Karol: So I was 20 years old. And that was. That was the. The
Jared Karol: moment that I wouldn't say I changed all of a sudden. And just like, with
Jared Karol: his was this, you know, gay. Gay rights advocate. But that
Jared Karol: opened up like, oh, like, this is. This is. This is a me thing.
Jared Karol: This is like a limiting belief that I have. So it
Jared Karol: started growing and growing a little bit. And then when he was. When I was
Jared Karol: 27 is when. When he passed.
Jared Karol: And so when he,
Jared Karol: he, he was HIV positive and so he, I would go up and visit
Jared Karol: him. You know, I'm in my mid-20s now, out of college, still living back in
Jared Karol: San Diego and I'd go up to visit him and he started going
Jared Karol: to these gay men's meditation circles in Dubose,
Jared Karol: Dubose Triangle. People know the city, it's right next to the Castro. It's like kind
Jared Karol: of a cute little neighbourhood. And it would just, it'd be him with like three
Jared Karol: other men in their 40s and 50s and this woman who led it
Jared Karol: and then me, this 26 year old kid and,
Jared Karol: and this woman would lead these like little. It was in this super
Jared Karol: huge like open yoga studio with skylights and hardwood.
Jared Karol: It was beautiful. And she would lead us in these, in these
Jared Karol: meditations. Sitting, we do like walking, chew, like
Jared Karol: eating like all this stuff that I know now is like, you know, Buddhist stuff.
Jared Karol: But at the time I hated, was physically
Jared Karol: uncomfortable, it was hard to sit still.
Jared Karol: But my dad, who was never religious or even
Jared Karol: spiritual, he knew he was, you know, he knew he was going to die
Jared Karol: soon. And so he felt that he needed something to ground
Jared Karol: him. And so that's what he did. And I was,
Jared Karol: I know now that I was lucky to be exposed to that. I probably went
Jared Karol: to those sessions maybe not even a half a dozen times,
Jared Karol: probably four times. And when he died I decided,
Jared Karol: and it wasn't with the clarity that I had, but I
Jared Karol: decided that I would do the work
Jared Karol: that I described before to understand
Jared Karol: the injustices, but I would also do my personal work
Jared Karol: and develop equanimity, develop,
Jared Karol: cultivate the healing for myself so that
Jared Karol: I could do the work more effectively. So that's the
Jared Karol: origins of the, or the, the original origins.
Jared Karol: There are more recent stories that have deepened my appreciation and
Jared Karol: belief in the need for healing. But that was the,
Jared Karol: the original genesis of. It. When you said yeah, your friend
Joanne Lockwood: said was it? Amy said, big deal, you know, no big deal.
Joanne Lockwood: No biggie whatever about your dad being gay.
Joanne Lockwood: Completely, completely, completely resonate with that as you're saying that I was thinking
Joanne Lockwood: the only person is technically a big deal for. And this is my
Joanne Lockwood: own experience here is there is your wife, your partner, your husband or
Joanne Lockwood: whatever it may be in that relationship. That's probably the only person who
Joanne Lockwood: it's allowed to be a big deal for because it is so intrinsically linked
Joanne Lockwood: to that other person, that contract you have in a relationship. Whereas
Joanne Lockwood: if you're a parent, a child, a brother, sister, friend, big deal,
Joanne Lockwood: it's yeah, get over it. And my wife, it was a big deal for
Joanne Lockwood: her. It was a big deal for her. Be gender transitioning. Everybody else was
Joanne Lockwood: inconvenienced by it, everyone else was kind of having an opinion about it. But
Joanne Lockwood: one person that it really mattered to was my wife and we were able
Joanne Lockwood: to work through it. But, yeah, it was a big deal to. Her. Well, it's
Jared Karol: interesting you share that because that's a good segue to
Jared Karol: the next part of the story, which is so what
Jared Karol: I've learned and come to understand about
Jared Karol: healing. This is a vast generalisation, but I think it's
Jared Karol: helpful just for this conversation, two things
Jared Karol: cultivate healing, two areas of
Jared Karol: mindset, connection and letting go.
Jared Karol: I don't know how much time we'll have to get into the details of what
Jared Karol: all those look like, but generally letting go doesn't mean ignoring or
Jared Karol: dismissing, just means being lighter.
Jared Karol: Right. Understanding what's going on for ourselves,
Jared Karol: for the world, for the people we care about and not
Jared Karol: carrying it so heavily and so, so often
Jared Karol: and so much where it impacts. Your.
Jared Karol: Right. It's where you're not. Equanimous. Right? And
Jared Karol: connection. Right. Connection to
Jared Karol: other people. Right. When we're doing this work, it can feel isolating.
Jared Karol: Right. People don't get it. People aren't changing like I'd
Jared Karol: like them to or as quickly as I'd like them to. You know, where are
Jared Karol: my people? Like all these. Things. Right. And it's not just in social justice work,
Jared Karol: just in life. So it was about. Actually, I was sitting right here at this
Jared Karol: table. It's my dining room table, 12 years ago. 12,
Jared Karol: 13 years ago. And my mom was visiting. I have
Jared Karol: twins, they're 16 as of this recording, so they were like 4.
Jared Karol: My mom was visiting and we were sitting at this table, it was a Friday
Jared Karol: night and we were playing cards is what we do.
Jared Karol: I, at the time, I had a. I had started a. I'd left
Jared Karol: teaching and I'd started a daddy blog, probably like in
Jared Karol: 2010, 11. So I had this blog for a couple years and it was,
Jared Karol: it was. It had some decent reach and, you know, I was in some writing
Jared Karol: communities and. And of course I was initially, I was writing about
Jared Karol: my kids and kind of more, you know,
Jared Karol: satirical stuff about being the father of twins and how, How. How hard it was
Jared Karol: and everything. But then it started evolving. I started writing more about
Jared Karol: politics and my dad, and that was when I first started writing about
Jared Karol: my stories that I now very openly and easily share
Jared Karol: about, you know, some of what I've just shared and other stories.
Jared Karol: So my mom was a regular reader of the
Jared Karol: blog, but she was not a major character
Jared Karol: in any of the. Stories. So. And we talked
Jared Karol: about it a little bit. Like she'd leave a comment and you know, we go.
Jared Karol: But it was very superficial and I kind of dismissed her.
Jared Karol: So we're sitting here playing cards and out of nowhere. We weren't even talking about
Jared Karol: the blog. She just says, you know, Jared, you write a
Jared Karol: lot about how your dad being gay
Jared Karol: influenced you and your politics, but you never
Jared Karol: write about how he wasn't around to raise you. Mike. Yeah,
Jared Karol: it's like, oh my God. And I don't remember
Jared Karol: the rest of that conversation. I'm sure it didn't.
Jared Karol: It wasn't like, oh, you're right, mom, like, it wasn't. It was. I probably had
Jared Karol: tried to go somewhere else and. But I remember that night very clearly
Jared Karol: and that was the beginning of. Or maybe not the beginning,
Jared Karol: but another clear marker of like. That's right, connection. Here's my
Jared Karol: mom who. She was 19 when she had
Jared Karol: me. Hippie in the
Jared Karol: 60s. My dad was gay, he knew he was gay, but
Jared Karol: you don't come out as gay in the United or anywhere in
Jared Karol: 1970. So he meets
Jared Karol: this 17 year old girl, right,
Jared Karol: Move off to college town, get married when she's 18,
Jared Karol: I'm born, you know, a year, a year and a half later and
Jared Karol: then two years later my dad finally has the courage to say, hey, you know,
Jared Karol: this isn't working. And he does his own thing. So now my mom is
Jared Karol: 21 with a 2 year old with
Jared Karol: no education, no, no real skills,
Jared Karol: and raised me. And yes, we grew up
Jared Karol: poor and it was all the things and you know,
Jared Karol: and saw my dad fairly regularly. But
Jared Karol: she's right, he wasn't, he wasn't around to raise me. And so
Jared Karol: I realised, or I started to realise and I know now
Jared Karol: like that connection, right, not just to
Jared Karol: my dad or to my mom, but connection to people and
Jared Karol: their stories and their realities that, you know, Brene Brown and others talk about
Jared Karol: this whole of like comparative suffering. Was it, you know,
Jared Karol: was my dad's life harder than my mom's? Yeah, probably, but who cares?
Jared Karol: Like they were both hard for, you know, for various
Jared Karol: reasons and if we dismiss that,
Jared Karol: where are we. Right? What we end
Joanne Lockwood: up doing is trading pain, isn't it? It's sort of, yeah, I've had it
Joanne Lockwood: tougher than you have and it's. We all go through stuff,
Joanne Lockwood: we all have our stuff to deal with and it's not about
Joanne Lockwood: my life, is Tougher than yours. It's just, it's all relative, you know, it's,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, if you got a million dollars in the bank
Joanne Lockwood: and having a tough life because of something, it's a different experience than if you've
Joanne Lockwood: got $5 in the bank and you're having a tough life.
Joanne Lockwood: Your circumstances are all relative, aren't. They? Well, they are. And
Jared Karol: I think, and I try to be
Jared Karol: very mindful of not being dogmatic with my,
Jared Karol: you know, Buddhist beliefs, but it's been 25, well,
Jared Karol: 26 years now, really, since I've kind of was introduced to some of these
Jared Karol: concepts of, like, equanimity and
Jared Karol: interconnectedness and. But we're. I mean, it sounds almost cliche
Jared Karol: or trite, but, like, we're all interconnected. And so
Jared Karol: I'll give you an example. I reached out to you, I don't know how
Jared Karol: long ago, A month ago? Not even a month ago. Probably three weeks. Ago. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: on LinkedIn. Yeah, on. LinkedIn. You know, I have this new.
Jared Karol: This new coaching programme that we're launching, which we can talk about in a little
Jared Karol: bit. And we. We've been connected for, I don't know, four
Jared Karol: or five years. You know, like, just like LinkedIn does. Like, we're connected, but
Jared Karol: I don't remember you, and you probably didn't remember me, and I. So I reached
Jared Karol: out and said, hey, I know we've been connected for a while, and it was
Jared Karol: a template message. Right. I know we've been connected for a while and here's this
Jared Karol: new thing and see if it resonates with you. So that's how you invited me
Jared Karol: to this podcast. Okay, great. That's a great result of the
Jared Karol: outreach. Well, similarly, I reached out to someone else who,
Jared Karol: similarly, we'd been connected for five years, but had no idea who they were and
Jared Karol: said this message and she responded. Before I continue this
Jared Karol: conversation, please point me to your organization's publicly
Jared Karol: displayed stance on the. On the genocide in Palestine. Fair
Jared Karol: enough. We don't have one. I don't have a
Jared Karol: publicly displayed stance on the genocide in
Jared Karol: Palestine. So what I maybe should have
Jared Karol: done is just said, we don't have one. Thank you for your time.
Jared Karol: You know, next. But I chose
Jared Karol: curiosity over boundaries. And I
Jared Karol: said, hey, totally get that. I am. I am aware
Jared Karol: that there's a genocide in Palestine. I believe there is one. I'm against it,
Jared Karol: but I've chosen and I try to give some philosophy of my equanimity in
Jared Karol: my life and all the things. And, you know, she went
Jared Karol: total ridicule and mockery. And what's the,
Jared Karol: what's the argument when you attack some ad hominem
Jared Karol: attacks? It's my character, which. And then I continue
Jared Karol: the conversation. Cause I'm like, okay. Like, she's. And it just kept evolving
Jared Karol: and it was really. It was really immature. So
Jared Karol: then I said, okay, hey, obviously this isn't working. You know,
Jared Karol: she's making fun of the, of the programme that we were, that we were having.
Jared Karol: She was making fun of my, My outreach skill, you know, just anything
Jared Karol: she could do to belittle me. So I'm like,
Jared Karol: okay, I can handle that. Like, it's not about me, it's about her. But it
Jared Karol: still doesn't feel good. But it wasn't like, it didn't. It didn't
Jared Karol: challenge my belief in what I was doing. But then I
Jared Karol: went and I had been trying to write a little bit more on LinkedIn just
Jared Karol: to, you know, kind of get. Get some, Some thought leadership out there. She went
Jared Karol: through about six or eight posts and used the laughing emoji. So
Jared Karol: that point I had to block her, which I don't like doing. But it was
Jared Karol: clear that she not only wasn't interested in what we had to offer,
Jared Karol: which is totally fine. That's how sales works. Like, not everyone's gonna be like, yes,
Jared Karol: sign me up for your programme. But then it went that. And so I was
Jared Karol: thinking like, hmm, a healed person doesn't do that.
Jared Karol: And what was the impact of that for her? I don't
Jared Karol: know. I'll never know because obviously we're not gonna. She's not gonna have a conversation
Jared Karol: with me. I don't think she has a podcast and isn't gonna invite me on
Jared Karol: if she does. So I share that as just a very recent example of
Jared Karol: what I'm. What I've been seeing for years and years, and
Jared Karol: I would never have done that, what she did, but 15
Jared Karol: years ago. I do that type of stuff.
Jared Karol: Maybe not as extreme thinking that, because the
Jared Karol: cause is just that the. How the behaviour
Jared Karol: is acceptable and it's. It's. Not. So
Joanne Lockwood: I. I've been the brunt of other people's ad
Joanne Lockwood: hominem attacks and laughing emojis on my posts. And
Joanne Lockwood: you should look at my TikTok and my YouTube channel and all the comments on
Joanne Lockwood: there. It's just. Yeah, it's all personal attacks. There's no argument. It's
Joanne Lockwood: just attacking me, my voice, how I look, how. Yeah, all this kind
Joanne Lockwood: of. Well, and so. Yeah. And
Jared Karol: I mean, I don't need to tell you this, Joanne like someone listening to this
Jared Karol: conversation right now might say, jared, you're a straight man.
Jared Karol: Joanne is a trans woman, like, who has it. Harder.
Joanne Lockwood: But. That'S. That's not the point. It's the whole master's tools will never
Jared Karol: dismantle the master's house. Is that the goal of,
Jared Karol: you know, marginalised, oppressed people? To flip
Jared Karol: it so then they can. No, I don't think it is. Most of the people
Jared Karol: who I talk to, who I'm in relationship with, don't. That's not the goal.
Jared Karol: And A, that's not really possible. And B, it's not
Jared Karol: sustainable. And so it's the shortsightedness
Jared Karol: of it that, you know, it doesn't get us where we're
Jared Karol: trying. It's just colluding. It hasn't changed me. I mean, I told her and
Jared Karol: she chose not to believe me, that. I mean, it's not that I disagree that
Jared Karol: there's a genocide in Palestine or that it. That it's bad or that it's harmful
Jared Karol: or that it should stop. I agree with all that. And, you know, her
Jared Karol: mocking me doesn't make the genocide. End. What it did
Joanne Lockwood: was it shut down an opportunity for education.
Joanne Lockwood: Because I'd love to have a conversation with people about their perspective on
Joanne Lockwood: what's happening. I've got friends on both sides of the equation who
Joanne Lockwood: live in that region and I hear different opinions. I've spent some time in
Joanne Lockwood: Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Bethlehem and places like that
Joanne Lockwood: on work conferences and things, meeting the people. And I've got people in this
Joanne Lockwood: country who have strong opinions on both sides. And my
Joanne Lockwood: view is the death, the killing of the
Joanne Lockwood: lives being ruined, the carpet bombing of property
Joanne Lockwood: and the destruction of assets and wealth. Completely abhorrent.
Joanne Lockwood: But beyond who's right and wrong, we just stop it.
Joanne Lockwood: And then we can work out how we get from where we are
Joanne Lockwood: now to where we need to be, which is getting people back into life and
Joanne Lockwood: getting things moving. I think we have to unpack all of the
Joanne Lockwood: why and the blame. We'll just spend all our time blaming each other
Joanne Lockwood: and throwing. Throwing more missiles, either words or things. We're not going to
Joanne Lockwood: solve it, but we need to. We need to bury our. Bury our prisoners of
Joanne Lockwood: our beliefs and just say, hang on a minute. Holding onto where we are now
Joanne Lockwood: is not going to change. Anything. Yeah, well,
Jared Karol: that. I mean, you use the word holding on. And as I said a little
Jared Karol: bit ago, what I've come to understand is two things lead to
Jared Karol: healing, letting go. So not letting go of fighting for justice
Jared Karol: but letting go of the, the dogma,
Jared Karol: the, the us versus them, all the things, right? And
Jared Karol: then connection wants to be. Right. People want to be right, don't. They?
Jared Karol: Well, when you were, when you were summarising kind of, you know, what I
Jared Karol: had shared, I thought of a phrase that I learned recently in a book
Jared Karol: called Cultish. I forget the author, but she
Jared Karol: was writing about just, yes, like actual
Jared Karol: cults, like Manson and you know, Jonestown and stuff, but all just the kind of
Jared Karol: the, the cultish mindset around things,
Jared Karol: even like marketing and everything. And she said, you know,
Jared Karol: when, when you know, a
Jared Karol: leader or a member of a group. And I would say if you've
Jared Karol: read Woke racism by John McWhorter, he talks about this like the,
Jared Karol: the Woke mob is kind of a cult. It's like this religion, right? Like
Jared Karol: either here's, here's the right way to believe and if you, if you
Jared Karol: deviate from that, then you're going to be excommunicated is, you know, the,
Jared Karol: the extent of the analogy. Right. But this author in
Jared Karol: Cultists, she, she introduced a phrase that I hadn't heard before called a thought,
Jared Karol: a thought terminating. Cliche. Okay. Cool.
Jared Karol: So I don't know exactly what this woman who I was talking about, what
Jared Karol: she would have said that would exactly fit that as a thought terminating
Jared Karol: cliche. But the whole exchange was a thought terminating cliche. She
Jared Karol: wasn't interested in dialogue, she wasn't interested in nuance. She was interested in I
Jared Karol: didn't meet her standards and that was not okay. And therefore I
Jared Karol: was eligible for
Jared Karol: mockery, ridicule, et cetera.
Jared Karol: So in the grand scheme of things, that's pretty minor. Like I have equanimity, I
Jared Karol: can handle it. I'm not, I don't take it personally, but like
Jared Karol: that kind of nonsense happens all the time.
Jared Karol: And so I'm finding there seems to be a
Jared Karol: divide. Maybe not a divide, a continuum, I think is a better word
Jared Karol: of people who are somewhere on their awareness
Jared Karol: of what healing is and looks like and the need for it
Jared Karol: personally and as a society from,
Jared Karol: let's take this woman probably isn't interested in it
Jared Karol: at all. Although I don't really know because I'm not going to have that
Jared Karol: conversation with her. To people who like, yeah, like. One
Jared Karol: of my favourite thinkers and writers is Lama Rod
Jared Karol: Owens. He's a queer black man and he's a, he's a, you know, a
Jared Karol: lama, ordained Buddhist lama. And
Jared Karol: he's written a couple books. His first one was called Love and Rage. And it
Jared Karol: gets at exactly this dynamic, the world
Jared Karol: is messed up. It has been for a long time and it's personally affected
Jared Karol: me as a gay black man and I'm just gonna self
Jared Karol: destruct if I don't change. And so he, he did, he
Jared Karol: has, he is. And his new book, newish book
Jared Karol: is called the New Saints. He's like, how do we,
Jared Karol: how do we hold all of this
Jared Karol: complexity and nuance without self destructing,
Jared Karol: without giving up or compromising our values,
Jared Karol: but also without self and self
Jared Karol: destructing and causing more chaos, more destruction to
Jared Karol: others. So it's people like him who have lived it
Jared Karol: much more deeply than I have, who I'm learning from.
Jared Karol: And there are people out there who
Jared Karol: are toward that end of the continuum of understanding and
Jared Karol: appreciation and action. But there's still a lot of
Jared Karol: people who are the social justice warriors who think that
Jared Karol: the cause is just so. The behaviour is. Just. What you're trying to do is
Joanne Lockwood: you're trying to. You're waterboarding people really, aren't you? You're just
Joanne Lockwood: pouring water and hoping you drink this, drink this, drink this, drink this.
Joanne Lockwood: Not allowing people to breathe. When you're that passionate,
Joanne Lockwood: you think that everybody thinks like you or you want everyone to think like you
Joanne Lockwood: and be angry like you and you're all this baggage. Yes,
Joanne Lockwood: it's important that people hear your story. What. We're not
Joanne Lockwood: trying to divide up between the what you believe
Joanne Lockwood: and the why you believe it. This scenario you
Joanne Lockwood: talked about here, you never had the opportunity to understand the why. Why
Joanne Lockwood: are you so passionate about this topic? If you lost a loved one,
Joanne Lockwood: if something happened, your personal attack on you, this is why
Joanne Lockwood: you're so angry, so fired up. You never got the point to build
Joanne Lockwood: empathy, you just built, as you said,
Joanne Lockwood: it's at the beginning. Shutting down or fighting back. She was fighting back. You were
Joanne Lockwood: shutting down. There was no way of. I'm out.
Joanne Lockwood: Goodbye. We're now asking these questions. We want to know what her passion was, why
Joanne Lockwood: she had this. All that educational purpose has been lost because
Joanne Lockwood: the disengagement. Happened. Yeah, well, to her it was very clear as
Jared Karol: I'm processing it, or translating it, I guess, right is there's a
Jared Karol: genocide, it's wrong. People need to fight for it,
Jared Karol: do whatever they can, even if it's small. You're not
Jared Karol: meaning me, you're not. I don't see anything that
Jared Karol: demonstrates that you're, you know, at the
Jared Karol: level of understanding and agreement with me. So
Jared Karol: therefore you are, and I learned this term recently,
Jared Karol: an unreal. Other. Okay. Which I mean,
Jared Karol: that's basically what historical oppression does to
Jared Karol: trans people, to gay people, to black people, to poor people,
Jared Karol: to immigrants, to. Right. They're unreal, others
Joanne Lockwood: so dehumanising. Basically. Dehumanising, Right. Because if you
Jared Karol: dehumanise, if she comes to this quick, you
Jared Karol: know, conclusion that I
Jared Karol: don't get it, don't care, ignoring, you know, basking in
Jared Karol: my privilege about the genocide in. In
Jared Karol: Palestine, then I'm an unreal Other, then I
Jared Karol: don't. There's no need. There's no need to have
Jared Karol: empathy, curiosity, compassion for me because,
Jared Karol: you know, I don't deserve it. Which is exactly what
Jared Karol: Israel is doing to Palestine. And
Jared Karol: count dozens, hundreds, thousands of examples from history that
Jared Karol: exactly the same type of thinking. Right. And so
Jared Karol: we're just repeating, you know, we're colluding.
Jared Karol: There's a great book called the the Anatomy of Peace by the
Jared Karol: Arbinger Institute. And the main thrust of it is
Jared Karol: when our heart is at war, as to use their language, which
Jared Karol: doesn't mean hard at war, doesn't mean we're angry, we're upset,
Jared Karol: we're seeing something that needs to change. It just means
Jared Karol: how are we processing those emotions. So if our heart's at war,
Jared Karol: whether it's an interpersonal conflict or a global conflict,
Jared Karol: there will never be resolution. Never. We're just
Jared Karol: colluding. And so that's where I've landed the last
Jared Karol: couple years is. It's a clarity, Joanne. It's a
Jared Karol: clarity of like, I don't believe any less,
Jared Karol: any less than I used to about the injustices in the world,
Jared Karol: but I also see more clearly about what's not
Jared Karol: working for me and for all of us, and I'm not gonna be part of
Jared Karol: that collusion and anymore. And I'm. Not. So calling it in rather than
Joanne Lockwood: calling it out, just be partly educated rather than
Joanne Lockwood: the stop. Sign. That's a. Yeah, that's a way to summarise it, I'd say
Jared Karol: to use that language. My calling in is doing the coaching
Jared Karol: that I do, right? Is
Jared Karol: who's ready, who sees this, even just
Jared Karol: a little bit, and knows that there's a better way,
Jared Karol: but for whatever reason, hasn't gone that route
Jared Karol: yet. So that's where I. That's. That's
Jared Karol: my version of calling in, hey, I'm calling you in to
Jared Karol: do some. Some deep inner work, some mirror work.
Jared Karol: You got the lens part pretty down. I trust that you understand the issues
Jared Karol: and you see why there's a, you know, why
Jared Karol: there's problematic things going on and why they need to change.
Jared Karol: I'm not questioning until you show otherwise. I'm going to trust
Jared Karol: that you got that part down. What I am seeing very clearly
Jared Karol: is that you don't have the inner part going on. So if you're
Jared Karol: interested in that, because you can't, you know, this woman that I
Jared Karol: told the story, she's not going to be a coaching client of mine.
Jared Karol: Although, I mean, you know, she could be.
Jared Karol: She's a good candidate based on her behaviours. But, you know, if you're not
Jared Karol: interested in going there, I mean, just like any coaching, like, you're not
Jared Karol: gonna, you know, it's like kids taking piano. If they don't want to do it,
Jared Karol: they're not gonna. They're not gonna do. It. So,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I mean, as you pointed out, you know, you reached out to me with
Joanne Lockwood: potentially the same message you reached out to her with. Clearly
Joanne Lockwood: it was a template. Clearly it was a salesy kind of like, yep, do you
Joanne Lockwood: want to do my coaching programme? Pay me a hundred dollars or whatever it was.
Joanne Lockwood: You've got two choices at that point there. You can either get sort of like
Joanne Lockwood: abusive trend or disconnect
Joanne Lockwood: or whatever it is. And depending on what mood I'm in, quite. Sometimes I'll
Joanne Lockwood: just sit there and playfully say, not for me, but if you want to come
Joanne Lockwood: and talk about my podcast, let's do it sort of thing. And that's what I'd.
Jared Karol: Hear. Yeah. So here's. Who was it? I can't
Jared Karol: remember who it was. It was someone you wouldn't think of, but there was this.
Jared Karol: So I was. I'm also a certified purpose coach. So like seven, eight years ago,
Jared Karol: I got my purpose coaching certification. It's all about like leadership style and
Jared Karol: intrinsic motivation and kind of what motivates you to. To make impact and to do
Jared Karol: the things you do and stuff. So it's all integrated into
Jared Karol: all this. But so purpose, right? This idea of
Jared Karol: purpose is like intrinsic motivation, meaning
Jared Karol: authenticity. And there's, you know, all kinds of different angles one could
Jared Karol: go into, like, what is your purpose? But sometimes people,
Jared Karol: oftentimes people conflate purpose with
Jared Karol: passion. So the passion, you know, people. I
Jared Karol: don't like to use the word passion. I don't mind if other people do, but
Jared Karol: I don't personally use it. I don't consider myself a passionate person. If people want
Jared Karol: to, you know, describe me as that, that's. That's fine. But this woman, this
Jared Karol: author, I can picture her doing this little mini TED Talk, but I don't know
Jared Karol: who she is. She says sometimes our passion
Jared Karol: because we're so passionate, and it gets so charged because we're so
Jared Karol: passionate about whatever it is we're passionate about gets in the way
Jared Karol: of our purpose. So that our purpose, our true
Jared Karol: why, doesn't really actualize.
Jared Karol: So to me, that is a nice little encapsulation of, like,
Jared Karol: what healing means. How do you let go? Which, again,
Jared Karol: doesn't mean ignore or, you know, kind of get rid of stuff you
Jared Karol: care about, but how do you let go of that passion so that your
Jared Karol: purpose can come through? And I think
Jared Karol: that's part of. That's a lot of the work that I do is
Jared Karol: people see that inflation a little more. Clearly.
Joanne Lockwood: Back to the ad hominem attacks technique I found that seems
Joanne Lockwood: to work for me. Is I a bit like in the Matrix where
Joanne Lockwood: Neos or, like. And the bullet goes flying straight past? I kind of try and
Joanne Lockwood: do that because the person who's
Joanne Lockwood: attacking me doesn't know me, knows nothing
Joanne Lockwood: about my values or anything like this. They're using this
Joanne Lockwood: stereotypical Persona of me, and I always think of
Joanne Lockwood: it. It's just what they're doing is they're spraying graffiti on a wall.
Joanne Lockwood: It's just raising angry words on a wall. And I
Joanne Lockwood: drive down the street and I see the graffiti on the wall. Okay. It makes
Joanne Lockwood: me feel worried and threatened because it's there, but it's just graffiti. And
Joanne Lockwood: all I've got to do is just keep driving and drive past it. So I'm
Joanne Lockwood: doing that sort of, Neo, bullet passes me, they're attacking me, and
Joanne Lockwood: all they're really doing is spraying graffiti on a wall behind me. And it's not.
Joanne Lockwood: It's not about me. It's about their anger about something, and it's not about
Joanne Lockwood: me. So I'm able to, you know, this equanimity you talk about being able to
Joanne Lockwood: hold this space. I don't absorb it. I just
Joanne Lockwood: go, whoa. Yeah, okay, well, it's not me. You're
Joanne Lockwood: talking about somebody else here. Because if you knew me, you would not say. That.
Jared Karol: Exactly. And even that's a beautiful
Jared Karol: analogy with the metaphor I can picture, especially living in
Jared Karol: Oakland, San Francisco. There's lots of graffiti around,
Jared Karol: some of it actually quite beautiful. But that's a whole nother. Conversation.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Street. Art. Yeah, but exactly. There's another. I
Jared Karol: mean, I'm a big reader. If I was downstairs, you'd see my big library.
Jared Karol: But another book that I. That has been fundamental,
Jared Karol: foundational for my belief system is the
Jared Karol: Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. And it's interesting when
Jared Karol: I bring up that book either people go like, oh, my gosh, I love that
Jared Karol: book. If they've heard of it, Right? I love that book where they go, yeah,
Jared Karol: that's like pop spirituality, which is totally fair. It's like, you know,
Jared Karol: 150 pages. But for me, the
Jared Karol: four agreements. The first agreement is don't take anything
Jared Karol: personally. I'm sorry. The second agreement is don't take anything personally.
Jared Karol: And in the book, he says, nothing
Jared Karol: anybody ever does is because of you.
Jared Karol: It's always because of themselves. So that.
Jared Karol: Now, that doesn't mean it's easy to take the. You know.
Jared Karol: But that's what we do. We know that foundationally and we
Jared Karol: process that. And maybe we need coaching or
Jared Karol: therapy or other sources of support,
Jared Karol: but if we know that that's not about us, and if we
Jared Karol: feel confident that we're acting in alignment with our values and
Jared Karol: integrity, the more we practise that,
Jared Karol: the more we can see it clearly for what it is. Right.
Jared Karol: I'm not a cause of the genocide in Palestine. No matter how
Jared Karol: much this woman wants to paint it as that, it's about
Jared Karol: her. Right. But collectively, we can. We can all agree,
Joanne Lockwood: need to stop. Whatever's going on needs to stop. And we as
Joanne Lockwood: a world need to help people rebuild
Joanne Lockwood: and press pause on what's going on at the moment. Have conversations. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah. And me putting a statement on my website won't do that, but I will
Joanne Lockwood: speak up about my opinion in situations where it's relevant
Joanne Lockwood: completely all the. Time. Well, I'm. I'm inspired by. You brought up
Jared Karol: Nelson Mandela, like, you know, Thich Nhat Hanh, who just died
Jared Karol: a few years ago, actually, on my kid's birthday, I think it was two years
Jared Karol: ago, three years ago, you know, he was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk
Jared Karol: who got exiled during the Vietnam War because he was speaking
Jared Karol: up, you know, and he wasn't saved. So he. I
Jared Karol: can't remember if he ever eventually did go back or not, but basically, he never
Jared Karol: got. You know, he didn't really get to ever go back to his country and
Jared Karol: he continued his work and he died, I think he was 1995. So for
Jared Karol: 60 years, he was doing his. You
Jared Karol: know, what was his phrase that he used? Like, active Buddhism or
Jared Karol: something like that. So it was, you know, people think of Buddhism like, oh, go
Jared Karol: in a cave in the hills and meditate for 20 years. It's like, yeah,
Jared Karol: people do do that. But the real purpose
Jared Karol: is to understand clearly so you can enact change
Jared Karol: in whatever ways you need to do. And in his case, you know, he was
Jared Karol: a writer, he was a speaker, he was training other people to, you know, to
Jared Karol: see things. Hilarious. So this whole argument of like, oh, if you
Jared Karol: were really, really impacted by things, you would think differently. No,
Jared Karol: I don't, I don't, I don't buy into that as a, as
Jared Karol: a kind of wholesale philosophy. Yes. Are there people who are privileged and
Jared Karol: ignorant? Yes, of course. But, you know, that's not
Jared Karol: a default blanket statement that applies really for anything about.
Joanne Lockwood: Anyone. Is the world getting more polarised or are we
Joanne Lockwood: just seeing it through our current lens? You know, social media,
Joanne Lockwood: the mainstream media pushing people against each other, driving
Joanne Lockwood: revenue from clicks and anger. And is it, are we getting
Joanne Lockwood: worse? Is this ever going to end or is it just a symptom of the.
Jared Karol: Times? It's hard to, I mean, I'm not a, I'm not
Jared Karol: a scholar of like, you know, journalistic and social media
Jared Karol: and media trends, but I, whenever I see someone
Jared Karol: or a report or an article or something, kind of say, like, you know,
Jared Karol: times are worse now than they ever have been. I always wonder, like, is that
Jared Karol: true? Like, I mean, I don't know. So I don't know the answer
Jared Karol: to that, Joanne, you know, comparatively now versus then or, you
Jared Karol: know, another time. But I will say that
Jared Karol: it's the way we interact with each other, whether it's online,
Jared Karol: like on, I mean, I'm only on LinkedIn and even decreasingly these
Jared Karol: days as well, does contribute
Jared Karol: to everything we've been talking about and not just this story that I've shared,
Jared Karol: you know, with this woman. That's a, that's an extreme example. But even just the
Jared Karol: little ways that we interact with each other or
Jared Karol: don't. The ways. And I'm sure if you asked a hundred people to tell you
Jared Karol: about the LinkedIn algorithm, you'd get a hundred different, you know, examples of why it's
Jared Karol: messed up and how we can't figure it out. So I'm, I'm the hunter. I
Jared Karol: don't know how it works, but I do believe it does reward
Jared Karol: provocative. And I, because I used to be a much,
Jared Karol: a much more frequent writer on LinkedIn five, four,
Jared Karol: five, six years ago, and I noticed like, okay,
Jared Karol: I'm going to write a post. If I write it this way, it's going to
Jared Karol: go. If I write it this way, it's likely to get a lot of. And
Jared Karol: for the most part, I, I was right. And so,
Jared Karol: you know, did I contribute to what we're seeing? Yeah, probably.
Jared Karol: And that's part of the healing process is I'm not
Jared Karol: Gonna. I'm not gonna do that. Anymore. Which. Which
Joanne Lockwood: is more successful? A million views, hundreds of reactions and
Joanne Lockwood: comments, or 5 views and someone takes action to the positive.
Joanne Lockwood: Someone taking action is the objective. If it's just people
Joanne Lockwood: clicking and getting torn up, that's not. That's not. That's
Joanne Lockwood: not change. That's just outrage. Isn't. Is.
Jared Karol: It's What's. There's a phrase. Is it like. There's like outrage bait or
Jared Karol: something like. That? Yeah, clickbait. Outrage bait. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Just.
Joanne Lockwood: So you're just fueling it. Fueling the trolls, aren't you? You're not careful. Yeah. Well.
Jared Karol: And, you know, at the heart of all this, Joanne, is. Which is.
Jared Karol: I don't know. I don't know if it's really an elephant or not, but it's
Jared Karol: capitalism. Like, we all have to make money
Jared Karol: and LinkedIn is a social, you know, professional networking platform.
Jared Karol: And, you know, you gotta try and
Jared Karol: in whatever you're, Whether it's direct, through messages or writing posts, you're trying
Jared Karol: to sell, you know, who you are, your positioning,
Jared Karol: your branding, Maybe you're trying to sell a specific service or a, you know, product,
Jared Karol: like. And that's what capitalism breeds.
Jared Karol: It breeds, you know, competition, and it breeds,
Jared Karol: you know, us versus them. And this kind of,
Jared Karol: you know, scarcity mindset,
Jared Karol: which we're all. I know I've been guilty of it often and I, you
Jared Karol: know, I'm trying. I try to be aware of it and kind of cultivate the
Jared Karol: opposite when, just like anyone else, I need to make money as. Well.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, don't we all. So if you're writing a. If
Joanne Lockwood: you. If you're writing a book called Equanimity for Dummies,
Joanne Lockwood: what would be your top two or three
Joanne Lockwood: things to take away from. This? I would say start
Jared Karol: and practise a meditation. A.
Joanne Lockwood: Meditation. Practise. Cultivate inner peace and
Jared Karol: clarity proactively. It's not like, oh, my gosh, something bad
Jared Karol: happened. Let me go meditate, okay? I feel better. No, that's not what it's about.
Jared Karol: We meditate so we can cultivate the behaviours and the
Jared Karol: mindsets that we want to have.
Jared Karol: When the hard stuff happens, that's the inner work again, it
Jared Karol: doesn't have to be meditation. That's what I've chosen, the Buddhist kind of meditation,
Jared Karol: mindfulness path. There are other ways that work for people,
Jared Karol: but that's what I would say is if you have that practise
Jared Karol: and you've kind of been dabbling in dabbling in it, like
Jared Karol: concretize it, do it because it's gonna save
Jared Karol: you and it's gonna save us, I would say,
Jared Karol: which, that will help you do these other things, which is
Jared Karol: centre on two things that are going to promote your own healing.
Jared Karol: Connection, true connection, whether it's with people you know well and
Jared Karol: love and maybe live with or any interaction online,
Jared Karol: at the grocery store, in the community, in traffic
Jared Karol: centre, connection, however small, and
Jared Karol: resist the urge to other,
Jared Karol: to gossip, to dismiss, to
Jared Karol: ridicule, to mock. You can disagree,
Jared Karol: but really be so the other, the first agreement of the four agreements is be
Jared Karol: impeccable with your word. And the other thing related to the healing
Jared Karol: is the letting go. How can we be
Jared Karol: have firm beliefs and conviction in those beliefs, but remove the
Jared Karol: charge. So that's a skill that people
Jared Karol: can and do cultivate where you can say whether
Jared Karol: you're a speaker, you're a coach, you're a podcast host, you're whatever your role is,
Jared Karol: you're right, you're a thought Leader on LinkedIn. You can write with
Jared Karol: conviction and clarity and purpose
Jared Karol: without being an asshole. Because yeah,
Jared Karol: there are going to be people who will already agree with you. They're like, yeah,
Jared Karol: but then what about the people who see you as an asshole and maybe would
Jared Karol: have agreed or been interested in what you're saying if you weren't an asshole?
Jared Karol: So it's really individual choice.
Jared Karol: So those are my. Insights.
Joanne Lockwood: Everything you're saying sounds to me this is what emotional intelligence is built on.
Joanne Lockwood: The self awareness, self management, it's all about that.
Joanne Lockwood: So obviously emotional intelligence is built on Buddhist ideals and.
Jared Karol: Equanimity. Well, it's emotional regulation.
Jared Karol: And so, you know, a common argument I've, you know,
Jared Karol: had or seen or been part of or witnessed is, you know, don't tell
Jared Karol: me, you know, who you white guy to tell me how to
Jared Karol: react, to feel like I'm not telling
Jared Karol: you how to. I'm, I'm, I'm inviting you
Jared Karol: to see things differently and to see the consequences of
Jared Karol: your behaviour. Oh, well, is that more important than, you know,
Jared Karol: black people getting killed by the police? No, not at all. But
Jared Karol: what you're doing isn't stopping black people getting killed by the police
Jared Karol: or pick your unjust cause that
Jared Karol: we all know is happening and needs to end. So
Jared Karol: it really. Is. It. Is. As you said, it's eq, it's, it's self awareness,
Jared Karol: it's emotional regulation. I guess there's a term kind of in, in the.
Jared Karol: What's it? Emotional sobriety, which I've come to kind Of.
Jared Karol: I like that. I like that. Term.
Joanne Lockwood: So there's been a. An amazing conversation. We've been yakking away for
Joanne Lockwood: an hour and a half bit in the green room and we've. We're probably overrun
Joanne Lockwood: on this episode. I could keep chat to you all day. In fact, I'm tempted
Joanne Lockwood: to jump on a plane, come to Oakland, we'll have a. Go to that fish
Joanne Lockwood: restaurant. Go to that fish restaurant I mentioned earlier that I went to with HR
Joanne Lockwood: West. But, yeah, and I'd love to hire another car and go up to the
Joanne Lockwood: Redlands and all the redwood forests and things like that and just,
Joanne Lockwood: just chill out for a. Day. So, yeah, you're welcome. Anytime.
Joanne Lockwood: Superb. So how can people get hold of you? You mentioned you have a huge
Joanne Lockwood: amount of social media, so that. What's the best way of tracking you. Down? Yeah,
Jared Karol: so I'm on LinkedIn, just Jared Karol, J A R E D K A R
Jared Karol: O L. You can search for me on LinkedIn. Also the co founder with
Jared Karol: my partner, Cornell. Three Arrows Coaching LLC. There's another
Jared Karol: one or two Three Arrows Coaching on LinkedIn. So if you are looking for that
Jared Karol: on LinkedIn, type in the LLC. You'll find us our
Jared Karol: programme. Our coaching programme is called the three arrows of life. So just
Jared Karol: three arrowsoflife.com and you'll get to learn a little bit
Jared Karol: more about that programme and how to. How to be part of it, if this
Jared Karol: is something that you're interested in. Also, we didn't talk about this. I think we
Jared Karol: mentioned it before we started recording. But I'm also a vinyl dj,
Jared Karol: so if you are in the Bay Area and you're looking for, you know, private
Jared Karol: parties or, you know, corporate events, you can go to djmaju.com m
Jared Karol: a j u d j m
Jared Karol: a j u.com and learn about the vinyl
Jared Karol: DJing offerings there. I think that's. It.
Joanne Lockwood: Brilliant. Brilliant. So if you do connect with
Joanne Lockwood: Jared and he does send you a outreach on LinkedIn,
Joanne Lockwood: rather than just shoot him down, invite him on your own podcast and
Joanne Lockwood: have a good chat because it's been absolutely fascinating and I've found
Joanne Lockwood: a friend from four and a half thousand, 5,000 miles away and it's been fantastic.
Joanne Lockwood: Thank you. Thank you so. Much. The feeling is. Richel, thank you. Glad to be.
Joanne Lockwood: Here. As we bring this conversation to a close,
Joanne Lockwood: I want to express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener,
Joanne Lockwood: for lending your ear and heart to the cause of
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