Peace Is A Process with negotiation expert William Ury
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There seems to be no shortage of conflict today. There are multiple wars, political fighting. And let's not even start talking about the dumpster fire, that is social media.

The point is, if you are looking for an enemy to hate, there are plenty to choose from. So what about peace? Is IT even possible for us to sit down and listen or feel heard with the people we disagree with or even hate?

If there's one person on this planet who can answer that question, it's William ury. William is considered the goat. When IT comes to negotiation, the author of multiple books on the subject, including getting to yes, which is an absolute masterpiece, William has spent decades as a peace negotiator working to resolve the world's most interactive conflict.

And if there's one thing i've learned from William is that peace is a process and not an outcome. It's a process that begins by listening to those we oppose with the same human dignity we offer you to anyone else. And if you think some of the people you disagree with or hate don't deserve to be treated with dignity, this episode is definitely for you.

This is a bit of optimism. You're a world famous peace negotiator. Do you have any competition?

I hope so. Hope that plenty .

of years, I hope there's a whole industry, just a piece negotiators. You you came to fame by cor.

Theron, the book getting to yes, which is the bible for anyone who studies negotiation and is used in any number of universities, courses in your years of understanding negotiation, is there any difference between a peace negotiation and negotiation in in a business context trying to make a deal? Are all negotiations basically the same thing, regardless of mistakes? Or are there or they actually different if I am negotiating a contractor trying to negotiate, deal with my union versus a peace negotiation at the highest levels of israelis, palestinians, and said a, is there actually difference? Is all negotiation basically the same thing? So is that book that you wrote, not just a book on how to effectively negotiate, but how to have relationships, how to have a Better marriage, how to have, you know, peace? Is is that all basically the same, even though the words might be different?

Well, there obviously a lot of situations differences. There's no question about IT and we can go into all that. But at the root of IT is what you're asking.

I think fundamentally, IT is in my experience. I can just speak to my experience. IT is the same. And I work in all i've and I started working commines strikes and coal mines and you know in the middle is and family disputes and a lot of business disputes and so on. And yeah, that's my experience.

It's basic human beings dealing with other human beings and having conflicts, which we all have at every level. And the evidence of that is that book because that book had examples from all of those ramps. And it's used in prisoners with prisoners, is used in definity schools, it's used in diplomatic academy.

It's used to the state department, the pentagon, the military, and obviously a lot in the business world is used by therapies. And that's because they find IT helpful across the different domains. Because we're talking about human beings trying to live without human beings into me.

This is the the key thing right now is very trouble here, where, you know, the country stop. c. Terry, the world's stop.

c. Terri, social media, artificial delegates. Everything is going on. All the changes, climate change, all that stuff.

There's more, more conflict because naturally, because there's more, more change in the world. And with more change comes more conflict. And conflict is not something necessarily bad.

It's actually natural human. Everybody has conflict. There is a conflict all the time. The choice is not about getting rid of the conflict.

It's about how do we deal with the conflict? Do we do with the conflict by opposing each other, getting to this fight where we all lose in the end? Or do we, as you are saying, do we face the situation together and say, how do we, how do we resolve this? Or how do we, how do we transform IT? Or how do we agree to disagree? How do we get along? And on that question, our personal happiness depends on IT, but our collective survival of species depends on how we answer that question.

I I think there's something very important here that when you and I talk about our desire for world peace, there's nothing polyana polyana about that. We don't imagine a world without conflict. We imagine a world which all conflict can be resolved peacefully. And that's what world piece looks like.

Exactly piece is a process. It's not it's not an outcome of like some very thing. It's a process.

It's can we deal with our differences constructively? And i'd like to provoke people by sometime i'm saying, I personally believe the world needs more conflict, not less. And that's thought to keep me in a job.

But that's because whether there's change, IT needs to be done in families and communities and businesses or rather than in justices, you need comfort, you need to engage. You need stop avoiding, you need to engage IT. But the way in which you engage is IT critical.

Do you engage with by listening to, engage by CoOperation? Do you engage by using creativity? You engage by collaboration? Or do you engage by, you know, going to war and we all know how worse turn out, everybody loses.

Can you tell a specific story from your peace negotiating where there were two sides that have historical hatred for each other, and how you were able to find a breakthrough that they could at each other? Is actually more, more the same than different, or released in common cause in some way they perform.

okay. And IT tells, I usually don't tell. The number years ago, there was a terrible civil war regin in the country of turkey, between the turks and the curse. There was a, there is a british separatist movement, and three thousand villages were destroyed. Tens of thousands of people were killed.

That was going on over many, many years in the mist of IT, a group of turkish leaders and british leaders who were former top military or former parliamentarian, congress people and so on. Small group them, we brought them out of turkey because they couldn't meet turkey. In fact, when we brought them to uh, place in switzerland is just a quiet place and they couldn't be known to be even talking to each other because they would be considered trades by their own side.

That's how tense t was. There is one guy who was one of the turkish guys, he, when he was Young in the university, but remember, I think was got the White wolves, which was a kind of a shadow paramilitary kind of terrorist organization. And he was described to me as someone who rather shoot occurred, then sit down and talk with, occurred.

So he was there. We're meeting the next morning, and I said to them, I wanted hear from each side, what do you most want? What do you really care about what's really important to here? And one of the kurdish leaders started talking about the right to self determination, to your own fate, to your own destiny.

And as soon as that words, self determination, came up, this turkish guy got up. That's treason. You, that's criminal, even use that phrase, self determination.

I'm leaving here. What are you doing here? And he stormed out of the room, and everyone was in kind of shock. And so I went after him with another of colleague of his and said, look, you know, it's really important to your point if you'll be heard here, come on back in, was was going to leave with packing his bags to leave.

He came back in and explained what what I meant to him and then the current h leader said that, you know, I didn't get a chance to finish this. Can saying, I believe that all human beings have the right to self determination, and I, as a kurdish citizen of turkey, believe that we urge all to exercise. I write itself determination to remain part of turkey.

And I ll tell you something, if an external enemy attacked turkey, I would sign up for the army and and give my life for turkey, just that chance to really listen to what they actually said. Then something really interesting happened, which was that night that was that little breakthrough. I saw everyone's eyes when when the british leader said that it's like the the emotional reading in the room.

We kind of like, oh, that's what you mean, you know, when you get a chance to really listen to what the other person says rather is that was mediate trigger. Well, that night I saw that kurdish guy and turkish guy having dinner. We were having dinner, you know, having and they were sitting at their own table and with couple of others, and they were talking heads and and whatever is I noticed about, they're really deep into IT.

And and then the next morning, when we were starting the turkish guy, who'd been the member of the White hoves, and he had been so triggered, set up. I I just want to start by saying something he said last night at dinner, I heard for the first time what the cards have gone through in the course of this war, what they've suffered, the killings, the to just even for being able to speak their language in this country. IT was forbidden.

IT was was against the law to speak the credit language, their own language, or they have their own religious festivals, with all against the law. He said, I I finally got that. He said last night, I didn't sleep a week, and I want to to tell you something.

He said, if someone had told me a month ago that i'd be sitting here listening to kurds talk about self determination or kurdistan, I would have thought I was living my worst nightmare. But now I understand. I think i'm living in a dream.

I want to thank you for opening my eyes. And IT wasn't that he abandoned his side, just understood the other side story. And IT was like, there was a real, just like a shift in the whole room. And this is what I love about conflicts, is you've gotta work with the ones, or not just the moderates work with the so called extremists, because there are the ones when they shift. When they have that shift, IT changes the whole room.

I think people forget that you can't make peace with your friends. You can only make peace with an enemy, right? And so if you desire peace in a nation, then you have no option but to engage with someone that you consider literally the enemy.

right? Let's IT. And so, I mean, this is why I do this work, is, yeah, because he must be really tiring. And I had worked to have forty, forty, even the years of the little east ukraine, name the conflict and and, you know, must be absolutely exhAusting.

But the thing is, those moments when human beings are actually touching into that thing, there's an energy that comes, there's a, there's a light that comes in the darkness. You can see courage, you can see little acts of current. It's a alive, there's an a aliveness in the middle. Those conflicts that often you don't find when people are just kind of, you know, of living their lives.

Our country seems to be ripping itself to read. Now I know, I know that a lot of IT is blown up in the media. I know that most americans are moderates.

I know that most americans are curious about other people, but at the end of the day, the people doing the shouting with the politicians of the media are dividing us. We shouted each other. We talk at each other.

We don't listen that we can exercise zero curiosity, thankful ving is approaching. And when you have a family member with different political views than you, the rule of them is just don't talk about IT, avoid that. How do we change that? That we do talk about IT, that we do talk and spect, where do we start, bill? How do we get piece in america?

As a great question, I think you just gave the clue, which is you can talk about IT, but just start by listening, meat, perceived and city with curiosity. Turn to the favorite uncle, not so favorite uncle, or whatever. And just say, tell me more, tell me why I I .

agree with you entirely in theory, right? But the problem is that these things are triggering like I had a conversation with a friend recently who is it's something to you and I both know, uh, he is, I would consider above average and intelligence, is very smart, articulate, thoughtful, curious person, and yet the anger that he has when I said, we have to learn to listen to people with whom we have sometimes completely diametrically opposed political opinions. The anger of something triggered in IT, but they're stupid or there this. So if if your crazy uncle said something that is triggering that attacks the belief that you hold, whether they are intentional or unintentional, how do we not be triggered and stay in that space of curiosity when we want to fight? That's what triggers is.

What I like to do is, when I know i'm gna be in a situation that might be triggering, I look for whatever my favourite way, and everyone has their favourite wave. When I call going to the balcony, which is just resourcing, is like, take a walk around the block. Imagine that, wow, something is gone to come up with thanksgiving.

Think about what's self you want to bring to that conversation because they're going to say something you're going to be triggered. And if you can, just for one moment when you just name IT, say, oh, I knew that was when we come up just naming IT creates a little bit of psychological distance IT freeze you. There's an old saying that when angry, you'll make the best speech i'll ever regret. Don't make the best speech wherever regret realized. You have choice, you have an agency as .

you're talking about this. What's going through my mind as this is not to similar then having a functional relationship of any sorts.

It's exact same thing.

And i'm thinking about my own sort of relationships. And I think the mistake that we make is that the reason we get triggered, in the reason we lose control, in the reason we attack or feel attacked, is to prepare. And I know that in my relationships, when I have been in a time of peace, whether with my partner or by myself, to mentally prepare ourselves or implement tally, prepare myself for the time, the inevitable time where there will be disagreement, tension or a fight, that we establish the rules in peace time so that we're prepared in war, as opposed just trying to invent the rules each time.

There you go.

And I know one of things that helped me was we agreed that if we fight, or when we fight, that we would fight instead of me versus her IT would be us verse the problem, or that we would fight to get a resolution. And I remember being in an argument intention, and I would have to remind myself, i'm not fighting to get a resolution here. I'm fighting to be right.

I would catch myself. But I did the work. I built the muscle memory before the tension arrived. And i'll just give you one example of how IT worked. And i'm hoping that this helps for those political discourses.

We were having A A disagreement ment and IT went something like this, here's what I did right? And here's what you did wrong. And her responses, oh yeah, well, here's what I did right.

And here's what you did wrong. And my response is, oh, yeah, well, here's what I did right? Here's what you did.

And you can see where this was going. And he was getting more heated. IT was getting more personal.

And I realized that we were breaking our own rules about how we're fighting. We weren't finding to get a resolution. We were fighting against each other. And I literally interrupted the fight. I said, this is clearly not working new rules.

I said, from now on, i'm going to tell you what I did wrong, what you did right, and then it's gonna your turn and algo first I said, here's what I did wrong and here's what you did write and he goes, oh yeah, well, here's what I did dragged, here's what you did right? We were good in five minutes or less because we realized, we realized the other person was actually trying right, as opposed to finding all the failures. And I I think that's an interesting technique, whether that works with political discourse or not, which is hear something I think you have fundamentally right, where my party has fundamentally wrong.

Yes.

to actually change, to change the rules of the discourse.

engage. And what can be called metal talk, talk about the talk, talk about the talk before you have the talk, you know, set the ground rules. And so much easy to do that when you're in peace with each other than when you're war.

And a little bit of preparation. I mean, think about IT. Those conversations are some of the most important conversations we have in our relationship.

They make our break conversations cumulatively, right. You a relationship fails or succeeds depends on the way in which we deal with those conversations when we have conflict. I've seen surveys of psychologists say the single biggest success factor in a relationship is how people deal with conflict.

So if that's so important to you, think about you're gna make a presentation at work. You don't just go on the fly and do IT. You prepare, you rehearse, you think about IT.

You prepare yourself mentally and emotionally. Yeah, the conversations are you're gonna have with your most intimate ones or with people your most intimate enemies. You know you whatever the ones the thanksgiving table, they're crucial for relationships that will go on for for years.

They matter to us. So repair, take a moment to prepare as a rule of fun, take as much time to prepare if you're going to help the conversation one to one. But even if it's less, even if you're about to get on the phone, if you've got one minute, just take one minute of silence, come yourself, breathe, and then remember what the rules are, remember what your intention is, remember what you're wise.

And IT could be so helpful. And you just came up with the right there in your conversation with your partner. Everyone will come up with the things that work for them.

But the most important thing, I think, is just to remember to pause. We're in a world where there is no pauses anymore. You know, we've got these phones, they, the private of sausages.

We used to have pauses. You know. Now you go to a restaurant, the rules they found, no one pauses from.

Where are those little moments between conversations when you can pause? Remember what it's about? Think about IT. Give yourself those little micropower is in the course your day, and you would be much more as successful.

This is so interesting. And as as you as same things, these things, a lot of a lot of ideas and experiences sort of coming back to to my mind. You know, another one in relationship, which is I remember we were having a conversation and SHE was saying things to me that we're trigger ing, like he was hitting my insecurities.

I was getting defensive. I ouldn't let her finish a sentence because I needed defend myself. There was some preparation at another time.

For another reason that I was able to recall in the moment was, this is her story. IT doesn't have to be right, and I don't have to agree with IT. IT is her story, and my job is to listen to her story.

IT is the technique that you talk about going to the balcony, which is, I was able to remove myself from myself in that moment and I still got triggered, but I remembered I was able to not take IT as personally. And I was just like, she's not attacking you. She's telling you her story.

If you're feeling attacked, it's OK just listen to her story. Her story doesn't to be right IT doesn't to be accurate. You don't have to agree with IT just the story, just listen to the story.

And I was able to not disconnect myself from the conversation. I remained present and I remained curious, but I really helped me to not take the things that were being said to me personally. And this is what you're talking about, about going to the balcony that's IT.

that's IT. The thing is, is so simple, and it's something that any of us can do. This isn't like something you have to go to school for.

This is something, you know, we have practice every single day. I'm learning this. I happy to buy this this every day now, but doing this for a long time.

But it's like this is our daily practices, human beings. We're going to be face with tensions right now in the world, in this country. Obviously, they are amplified.

So it's even more important. But just put yourself and nurtures and hear their story might be as simple as someone says something to you is really important. We're about to give a response. Let me tell you what he looks like from my point of view. Well, that's important.

But what about just taking a moment saying, let me make sure to heard what you're saying and you just periphrase back to them what you heard them say and said, I have I got IT right. Whether I get IT wrong? yes.

And do you know what that does? First of all, we think we're communicating clearly, but we may not be actually here, a and b is you just do that. IT kind of slows down the conversation so you can actually th Epace, you can actually deal with something.

But IT also signals them that you're trying to listen to them, that you're trying to hear their story. And so IT communicates basic human respect. Everyone, every human being wants to be seen.

They want to be here. They want to be listen to. I mean, this is our birth, right? This is, listening is our birthright. We've got two years and one mouth a reason to listen twice as .

much as we talk one of the uncomfortable troops about finding common ground or listening. And I learned this from deer khan. I think, you know, dear, dear, a faster winning documentarian, I told her story a few times on here.

SHE made some comments about multi cultural society on the BBC. And for some reason, her comments went viral in the White to premises community. And the White's premises started trolling her to the point where got so dangerous that the police told her to stay away from windows.

And the way that deal reacted, she's a muslim woman living in the U. K. The way that he reacted as he moved to the united states to meet some of the wise to premieres.

And he was walking in Charlotte eld not marching in Charles SHE was working with them in, uh, in Charles l. SHE actually ended making a documentary, old White right, meeting the enemy about her experience of going to meet these right premises. And he gave them a safe space to feel heard because they don't usually get that right.

They either get attacked. And when one of the leaders, the voice of premises movement, says, when I go on T, V, it's a win, win for me because it's a recruiting tool. He says they either let me spew my stuff, in which case is great for recruiting, or if they shut off my microphone on the victim and it's great for recruiting.

So it's a win win for me, right? But he was. He offered dea a short period, and he offered her more and more and more red.

When dea said, why do you keep giving me more time? He said, because no one's actually been curious about my point of view now SHE didn't agree with for him of obviously, but SHE SHE gave him a safe space to feel heard and I and I talked to dear after january six and i've talked to day after George floyd and she's work with g hides and watch you premises and all these people oh, I should tell you before I go on that um what you see in this documentary is this why to premises to hate dear because he is a muslim right they over the course of time, they start to trust her and consider her a friend. And then they struggle to reconcile their racist points of view with the fact that they consider this woman a friend.

And slowly, one by one, they drop out of the White to premises movement. So so her, her technique of making the other feel heard and allowing them to come to the realization of the absurdity of their, of their views actually was more helpful than her spitting on them at a rally, which, by the way, she's done as well. And SHE said, I would go to these raley and spit on the White to premises when I was Younger, and we would go home and high five each other and feel like we were the best and all the self righteous ness. But he came to the realization that SHE affected zero.

That's beautiful. That's I mean, that's such a powerful story. And I bring you back to the question. You asked the question earlier of like were so polar ized or we appeared to be so polar ized when actually this exhausted majority and the and the people on the extremes are amplified.

What's the next step? What what do we do? And I think he just points the way any one of us has the ability to reach out to one person yeah whom we know, who's probably a family member, who was a friend, who was a friend, who was a colleague, who was something IT was a neighbor who we happened to suspect or know has a very different opinion on earth and is on the other side of the divide and do what he does, which is, listen to them, respect them.

You know, dignity is indivisible. My dignity is the same as your dignity. If if your dignity is self, that my dignity yourself, that it's not like it's like a not a zero some game here.

And so just reach out and prepare like you are said, you know, prepare, you know, think about IT and then listen to them prepare so you don't get trigger, you draw out more, you meet animosity with curiosity. And guess what, you can have a lot more influence in all that person. Listen to me. Well, maybe they're not also, you know, just the same as the White supreme es be ended the drop out, you going to have a lot more influence, could have much more powerful thing to do.

The uncomfortable truth, though, that deal has discovered, and again, I talked after genre six, I talked after a George floy talked fair bit. SHE says the uncomfortable truth that people don't want to accept is, in her experience, almost always, it's the victim that has to go first, and the victim has to listen to the oppressor.

And the the standard reaction is, why should I have to? I've, i've been enduring their shit my whole life, and now I have to listen to them. They should listen to me. But the problem is they want.

Problem is they won't. The White .

premises st is not gona offer a safe space for dear to feel her IT is just not gonna happen. And so the uncomfortable truth is, is exhausted as they may be, unfortunately, the victim or the person who feels victimized, that has to go first and offer a safe space with the other to feel heard. And at that point when, to your point, when they when they feel respected and they feel heard, they become vastly more open minded to other points of view.

Yeah, we have really good examples of that. I mean, you know, like the nether king, he was the one to help the breakout. That's what made the magic of the civil ets movement.

Mandela is in prison twenty seven years. He comes out and holds out the other branch to his White enemies. In fact, in prison, you know, what did you did?

The first thing he did in prison was he learned africans, the language of his enemy, that's really studied in prison. And I did. He study their language.

He study their history, their own history of traumas in the world war, the first concentration camps. He understood IT. So then that's what made him so effective.

So it's not just kind of being nice, it's actually being effective. It's actually being practical. If you want to change people's mind.

this is how you do IT. So there's a common thread here, which I think so interesting, which is usually when we we create character uses of the other right, we literally call them the other right, and they become characters and we attack the character, and that person feels triggered because they feel attacked, and they become even more sort of entrenched in their ideas, even if they would disagree with themselves because they feel attack, they become entrenched, defensive.

And in all of these cases, whether was the White wolf or mandela, which is they took the time to d caricature ise, they took time to get rid of the stereotypes or the assumptions, and they actually, whether by listening or by studying separately, they learned the real history, and they could understand the other's point of view, and why they would be so defensive about X, Y, Z, from a historical or realistic, or even a perception standpoint. They took time to understand the other, doesn't mean agree. And I think people misunderstand that, which is which is giving someone a safe space to feel heard does not mean you agree, that does not mean you endorse and IT doesn't mean you've let go of your own values, your own point of view. All you've done is allowed the other person to feel that they matter, that there's dignity. And when we get to the point when we say to ourselves, but they don't matter, then I think we need to take a hard look at ourselves and say, maybe I am part of the .

problem so that you know IT the work of interesting ly enough. We project, we project all the bad stuff on others is easier, and we're the good ones and the bad ones. And you know, the most effective leaders, the most effective influencers, even on a one to one in a person thing, are people who do a little bit of work themselves, just like you did in that conversation relationship.

This is what I did wrong, and this is what you did right. You switched IT. You actually took a little bit of responsibility. And by taking responsibility, you gave yourself more power. That's the key thing here is not just about being nice, it's about being powerful.

What is the powerful way to behave in this world that gets you the world you wants to live in? And then the next stage is tally behind the background, the right run, and just realize, okay, um what if we actually set aside the blame game for a moment, even the self blame game yeah and just said, everyone's human being, they've got their troubles. They've got their own thing.

They're behaving the way they're behaving. Everyone has their own point of view, is valid to them and may not be valid to me. Uh, every human being, no matter who they are, no matter what they've done, deserves basic human respect, is just a birthright.

zing. We're not talking about something they have to earn yeah because of approve or something. It's just something born with hostage and negotiators, and i've double trained a lot of them.

What's their secret? How how do they take these, uh, situations that happen every day in the new york city positive? What do they do when they're dealing with armed criminals who are supposedly evil people and dig to know all this stuff?

It's like I am member talking to one new york copy that when I learned, is this be nice, I mean, but just respect a little bit of human respect. You're trying to influence that person. You're trying get them to the surrender, the hostage.

You're trying to make sure that you know it's not a firefight where a lot of people die. A little bit of human respect is like that. Little bit of deposit you put in changes the whole situation. If you're gonna someone for those, hard to change someone, but if you're going to do IT is the cheapest concession you can offer a little bit of respect cost you nothing, but that means everything to the other side because it's their dignity.

And so you no matter who you're dealing with, a little bit of respect goes a long way towards being able to influence them to do what you want them to do because negotiations about influence, you're trying to change someone else's mind. How can you possibly change someone else's mind unless you know where their mind is? So it's not just about being altruistic.

It's like, I mean, no, your enemy. You know, I remember once many years ago, we're on the cold war. I gave a talk at the U.

S. Never a work college. And I was saying, you know, we're going to deal with the soviets. We have to understand them.

And one navy captain got up and said, you want me to put myself in the soviet shoes? That might distort my judgment. But in fact, in war, what's the first thing? Know your enemy.

So even in war fare, you ve gotten, know your enemy. So in any kind of situation, the ability to put yourself in your in their shoes doesn't mean you're taking their side. You just means understand then it's going to help you so much more than sitting in your righteous corner yeah and these people.

unlike my friend who we were talking about, our friend, you know who who when I said, we need to learn to listen to the side who got angry at me, he thinks he does from his own bias point of view and we, and listening to his own media, he thinks he does understand them. He had, he believes, the character that he's created in his mind and that his politicians keep hammering home and reinforcing, and his echo chAmber and his friends and his dinner tables have all reinforced for him. He thinks he understands, even though he engaged with the opposite side, a total of zero.

right? Well, that's the key. We think we might be listening. No, I am listening.

And which we're doing is our mind of saying I disagree with that. I disagree with that. I disagree with that. This is what i'm going to say. I'm going to refute.

No, what what genuine listening is, is you move the spotlight from your thoughts for a moment to where they are, their thoughts. There are feelings where they're coming from and try to understand them from within their perspective, not from within your perspective, but from within their perspective. That's what putting yourself in their shoes.

me know it's funny, is all these people who hate their enemies politically in our nation are probably pretty good at this exact skilled with their kids. You know, when your kid is angry about something, the first thing we do is validated the kids feelings. We don't disagree with the kids feelings.

Good parents will say, boy, yeah, I understand why you're frustrated that that's really hard, that your sister took your cheese. I understand why you would be mad at that. And the minute you validates the feelings, now you can have a conversation about how to get a resolution instead of punching your sister, that there's another way.

But we don't do that with adults for some reason. We invalidate their feelings on a regular basis. And yet we know if we invalidate a child, it's gonna get worse. And yet, why we think adults act any differently, because those olympic systems that control all of our emotions, they don't mature as we get older.

they're the same. Exactly, exactly. Now that's IT. It's like this capacity is within each of us. This is not rocket science. This is something we know.

But IT does take practice.

IT takes practice. IT takes a little bit of courage is like an apology. You know, kids know you're playing a game with other kids.

You break the rules somehow. You say, i'm starting, you're back in the game. Adults, oh, no, I can't apol, I can't apologize that, you know?

Layers, no, I can't apologize. You know, no, apology is the simple human. We have to repair a relationship, admit that you did something, and then you can move on and you can be back in the game. But now i'm too proud. Dot know something .

like seven percent of medical now practices because the doctor refused to.

I believe IT. I'll say to me, I mean back the same turkish critic situation and thinking about that would happened thirty years ago. But I was like in another session, turkish encouragement leaders are, remember ing.

At risk to their own lives, remember? And IT was tense. IT was really tense, because there been a lot of bloodshed and suffering, and the issues were highly emotional. At one point, there was a retired turkish adamo, and he said, I I let me to say something for a man said, as a retired member of the turkish armed forces, on behalf of my colleagues, I wanna acknowledge the suffering that the british villagers and all occurred suffered over thirty years, all the thousands of villages that were raised ed to the ground, and people kill, people tortured, said, and I want to apologize. Well, you could have heard a pin drop in that room.

There is this like, I mean, this is the thing when something happens, genuine like that, there is this quiet and then spontaneous applause from the cards and the talks from everyone. And that moment, that little moment, that one little apology, that little knowledge IT IT doesn't like, saw everything, but is shifting emotional tone. And out of that meeting them, these same people agreed to form a kind of a network to work together, like you are saying.

And instead of against each other, against the problem of the war and so on. And that work went on for years afterwards, and a lot of IT. I tribute to that little shift, one person making an apology.

if I can summarize the magic that is bill ury in the conversation that we've just had, what i've learned from you is that whatever conflict someone would like to resolve were lean into whether its political disagreement, disagreement, attention with A, A loved one, a business tension. If we take responsibility to set in motion to resolve the conflict peacefully, if we set in motion our desire to trying understand the person with whom we disagree, or we've labeled as evil, or the problem we've labeled them as the problem, and if we ourselves can affect that change, the rebels are incredible.

Because if I am able to make someone who's prepping for a fight with me, because they think i'm prepping for a fight with them, if i'm able to change the whole tone of the conversation and that they leave my home feeling seen and heard, then the next person that they engage with, they will take the lessons that they felt, try and project them on the other as well, and then those people will take the lessons how they felt from that. And before you note, the ripples lead to world peace. And if we want to change the discourse in our nation, then change starts at home.

And instead of criticizing the other, criticising the politicians, we're saying that they have to start. We have to start. Every one of us needs to take responsibility to do our part to resolve conflict peacefully and then watch the rebels.

That's the key to world piece starts right here.

bill. Every time I talk you, I learned something new. I'm inspired. Thank you so much for taking the time to to sit down with me. I, I always love talking to you.

I love talking video. I and I love you. I love I. It's funny. Right now, we're at this kind of critical moment, and I see so much possibility it's just all depends is like a razors edge.

Our future could go pretty this topic or could be pretty good and at all of IT depends as no on earth that we cannot tackle, if only we can work together. And the only thing that's in the way of us working together is this, quote, conflict. So we can deal with our conflicts constructively. We can work together and we can make the world we want for us and for our friends, for our families, for our communities and for our world. And that's the key amman.

Thank you, bill.

Thanks seven.

If you enjoy this podcast, would would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, Simon c dot com, for classes, videos and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A bit of optimism is a production of the optimism company is produced and edited by lysis gardenias, David jaw and David Johnson. Our executive producers are hendra.

conrad and greg router ship.