Good morning, friends.
Words matter.
How many times have you seen articles depicting the protests as uprisings, rebellions, or riots? Or how about these two polar opposite headlines — “New York City Mayor Condemns Attack on Police” and “Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide.”
In the last week, I’ve had numerous conversations with family and friends about our country, the treatment of its citizens, and the actions we can each take to ensure the survival of a free democracy.
But I’ve found it difficult to have a productive argument when the parties involved aren’t working toward mutual understanding but rather veering toward divisiveness. If we want our society to move forward with meaningful change, we need to approach heated conversations with a common goal in mind. Otherwise, polarization will persist.
As an FBI negotiator, Chris Voss leaned on strategies that emphasized emotional intelligence, tactical empathy, positive rapport, and trust-based influence. “The adversary is not the person across the table; the adversary is the situation,” he says.
Over the years, I’ve learned an important lesson: A productive argument requires part empathy and part persuasion. You have to be able to articulate your own point of view while also making an effort to actively listen and understand how your counterpart interprets the situation.
Empathy can turn adversaries into counterparts equally invested in solving the problem. The reason that’s important is because logic and facts alone can’t do the job. The people who are most effective at convincing the audience of their argument use a combination of the rhetorical appeals, including ethos (“argument by character”), pathos (“argument by emotion”), and logos (“argument by logic”).
These three means of persuasion were used to perfection in Fred Rogers’s testimony before the Senate in effort to defend $20 million in federal funding for public television. What differentiates Rogers’s exchange with the senator is that it was an argument, not a fight. According to Greek philosophy, the purpose of a fight is to win while the purpose of an argument is to win someone over.
A video titled, Mr. Rogers & the Power of Persuasion, discusses the power of persuasion, and it points to a crucial caveat: History has shown us that when one side makes repeated attempts to argue for political and civil rights but they aren’t listened to by the other side, then the only answer is civil disobedience.
This is where we find ourselves today. So where do we go from here? Here’s some great advice from Will Schoder, the creator of the video:
“If we want to enact change with our arguments — whether it be with family, in our business or in politics — then I think we can all take a cue from Fred Rogers. He told children for three decades that they are valuable and that their opinion is valuable.
“That’s exactly how we should see the people with whom we argue. As David Hume knew long ago, ‘Truth only springs from an argument among friends.’ The key word being ‘friends.’”
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PROFILES.
— The Musk of steamy romance [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The world’s livestream queen
— The mother re-building her life after prison
— The icon of casual running
— The founder betting it all on Apple and Wells Fargo
— The civil rights leader full of hope
— The jailed protester’s big ambitions
— The company that took a stand
— The non-profit reinventing tech’s pipeline
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PEOPLE TO KNOW.
The Musk of steamy romance: You know Elon and Kimbal Musk, but have you heard of Tosca Musk? She’s the third Musk sibling who is also an entrepreneur. In 2017, she co-founded Passionflix, a Netflix-esque streaming platform and production company that specializes in erotic, softcore adaptations of romance novels. Here’s how Tosca Musk has tapped into one of the largest, most rabid and opinionated fan bases in the film industry. (WIRED)
“No one ever said that my potential was less than my brothers’ potential just because I’m a woman.”
The world’s livestream queen: Huang Wei, who is known professionally as Viya, has dominated China’s $60 billion ecosystem of live online shopping. She’s capitalizing on the confluence of several tech trends in the age of coronavirus—streaming, social, and commerce. Customers used to move slowly down the path from awareness to interest to purchase to loyalty, but Viya’s shows have significantly shortened that timeline. Take a peek into the fascinating new world of e-commerce. (Bloomberg)
“There’s no friction between entertainment and buying, which is the whole point.”
The mother re-building her life after prison: Makeda Davis was sentenced to almost 10 years in prison after a nightclub fight. At the time, her daughter was a child; now she’s an adult living on her own. Davis recently emerged from prison to a life that’s complicated and unfamiliar filled with things she didn’t understand — Uber, streaming TV, and online banking. This is the heart-wrenching story of Makeda’s first year back and how she’s managing to start her life over once again. (Marie Claire)
“Just to feel like one situation snatches everything from you—I still feel that way. I still feel like I’m fighting to repair some major, major damage.”
The icon of casual running: Running is the one thing that has kept me sane during the COVID-19 pandemic. This profile pays homage to pioneering author Jim Fixx, who wrote the bestselling book that brought jogging to the masses. Fixx espoused the physical and mental benefits of a quick 20-minute run, and he detailed his own journey from overweight schlump to a middle-aged man who felt good, looked good and was extending his life. (Sports Illustrated)
“1) Don’t stop. 2) Don’t get bored or discouraged. 3) Run on flat places if possible.”
The founder betting it all on Apple and Wells Fargo: In 2017, Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen sold his pet retailer for $3.35 billion. He took his share of the proceeds and plowed virtually all of it into just two stocks: Apple and Wells Fargo. This is the type of action that would make financial advisers cringe. “You need to have the temperament to block the noise,” he says. “Sometimes it feels like a roller coaster.” Here’s why Cohen swears by his unique investment approach. (Bloomberg)
“When I find things I have a lot of conviction in, I go all-in.”
The civil rights leader full of hope: John Lewis has seen it all. He grew up as the third of 10 children in an Alabama sharecropping family, spent his early adulthood in the middle of the civil rights movement, and cultivated a storied tenure in Congress, where he’s represented Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District since 1987. In the wake of protests across the country, he explains why he maintains hope — even when he fears waking up one day to find that our democracy has disappeared. (New York Magazine)
“As Dr. King said over and over again, ‘We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters. If not, we will perish as fools.’”
The jailed protester’s big ambitions: Joshua Williams was 18 years old when he was arrested for stealing a bag of chips and lighting a QuikTrip trash can on fire in the aftermath of a protest sparked by the death of Antonio Martin near Ferguson, Missouri. Despite having no prior criminal record, he was given eight years. He has now served five, and later this month, he’s up for parole. Here’s what he has to say about the cost of activism and why he believes America is waking up. (GQ)
“They’re still fighting for what I fought for. They didn’t give up.”
COMPANIES TO WATCH.
The company that took a stand: In the 14 years since Jack Dorsey co-founded Twitter, the company has been more extreme on free speech than its much larger rival Facebook. But recently, members of Twitter’s Trust and Safety team decided that Donald Trump went too far, so they notified Dorsey. Would the CEO approve of partially censoring the president of the U.S.? Dorsey said yes. This profile delves into the relationship between Twitter and its most powerful user. (Bloomberg)
“The last thing you want to do is antagonize the president of the United States. But, you know, Jack is not a conventional CEO.”
The non-profit reinventing tech’s pipeline: ColorStack is a nonprofit designed to help black and Latinx tech students break into a sometimes unwelcoming industry. After graduating from Cornell, Jehron Petty decided to address a big problem he saw in Silicon Valley: Only about 1 in 10 employees at large tech companies is black or Latinx. Here’s how Petty and his peers are trying to change the industry’s talent dynamics for a new generation of diverse technologists. (Protocol)
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AUDIO TO HEAR.
George Mack’s mental model toolkit: George Mack is a student of mental models, and he uses them to clarify his own thinking and decision making. In this enlightening episode, Mack dives into practical lessons he’s learned from Warren Buffett, Nassim Taleb, Naval Ravikant, Winston Churchill, and Tobias Lutke — in business and in life. This is a must-listen. (Link available to premium members.)
Jennifer Tejada on leading in times of crisis: Jennifer Tejada is a tried and true leader who took the helm as CEO when PagerDuty was an emerging startup and grew it into a billion-dollar business before taking it public last year. In this podcast, Tejada explains how to navigate a crisis with limited information, such as the coronavirus pandemic, and highlights how obstacles are opportunities to build trust with teams and customers. (Recommendation sponsored by Bessemer Venture Partners)
Bethany McLean on uncovering a fraud: Bethany McLean was a reporter at Fortune when she stumbled upon one of the greatest frauds of our time. “Years ago, skepticism traveled in a very small circle,” she says. “With Enron, there were a lot of smart hedge fund managers shorting its stock leading up to its collapse, but that skepticism had never, ever made its way to the mainstream view.” In this podcast, McLean discusses how to differentiate between vision and delusion. (Link available to premium members.)
Jeremy Grantham on investing during chaos: Jeremy Grantham is the co-founder of Grantham, Mayo, & van Otterloo, which manages more than $60 billion in assets. How do you manage money in such unpredictable, uncertain times? Grantham has experienced four major stock market events in his career, and he explains how he talks to his clients about the firm’s strategy during this crazy time. (Link available to premium members.)
VIDEOS TO SEE.
Enron on deceiving Wall Street: After you listen to Bethany McLean’s podcast above, I highly recommend watching this (free) documentary about Enron’s spectacular collapse. It details the remarkable rise and fall of the corporate juggernaut. It is a study of one of the largest business scandals in American history. (Link available to premium members.)
Steve Jobs’s long lost interview: In 1995, Steve Jobs was interviewed by Robert X. Cringely for the PBS special Triumph of the Nerds. The full interview was 70 minutes, and only about 10 minutes of it was used in the documentary. Then, the original videotape of the interview was lost in shipping. When Jobs died in 2011, the Triumph of the Nerds director found a copy of it in his garage. So here it is: You can hear Jobs talk candidly about the hardship of the early days, his painful departure from Apple, and his vision for the future. (Link available to premium members.)
Richard Montañez’s billion-dollar idea: Richard Montañez grew up in a migrant labor camp in Southern California where he helped his grandfather pick grapes. By the time he was 18, he had dropped out of school, and he couldn’t read or write. He found a job as a janitor at a Frito-Lay plant, and there, he had an idea that would go on to make the company billions of dollars and become one of history’s most celebrated and iconic snack foods. (Link available to premium members.)
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