Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Engaging Ideas. Today, we'll be talking about ethics and communications practices with our special guest, Sultana Ali. Thank you for joining us, and please don't forget to subscribe or leave us a review after the episode. Welcome, Sultana. Thank you. It's good to be here, Tony. Delighted for this conversation, and let me give you a quick intro. So Sultana is currently serving as adjunct faculty with Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies and also working full-time in the nonprofit communications industry. So welcome. Thanks. All right. I'm very excited to dive in. Ethics is, when I say it, it makes sense, but it's broad and it feels like it could fit into a lot of different sort of places. So maybe before we get started, you know, what do we mean when we talk about ethics and communications? What are we really talking about there? It's a good question, and I think it's a question that we wrestle with daily in communications because it can mean different things in different scenarios, right? A lot of people think, well, what do the ancient Greeks or philosophers like Aristotle, what do they have to do with modern communications? But the reality is communication started with the art of rhetoric, you know, and people standing in the public square extrapolating ideas, persuading people to agree with their opinion or really think reflectively about issues. And in many ways, that is the field of public relations. That's it is the art of rhetoric and the way that we go about doing that art. The medium may change social media, digital media, video, etc. But the art of it really doesn't change all that much over time. And what we find is the same kind of ethical principles and values that we're really explored during that time period are still as relevant today. And it's really thinking about the morals, the behaviors, the systems and the frameworks by which we make decisions and navigate the dilemmas that come up. And again, this can be an errant tweet. It could be a misspoken word. It could be something that you don't even anticipate or expect like the COVID-19 pandemic. And how do we respond? How do we reflect as an organization? And communicators are really the ones trying to help captain that ship and think about how to guide leaders, how to share between organizations and the audiences they're communicating with. And that's a really critical role. So ethics is is really living with us day to day, even if we're not thinking about it as ethics, some curious, you're teaching at Georgetown University and you are teaching about ethics in PR there. But did you start first as a practitioner or as an educator? And if a practitioner, you know, what led you to then want to work in educating future communicators about ethics? Yeah, I will say that, you know, I was an educator first before I entered the field. I was teaching at the high school level, in fact. And I mentored teenagers for gosh, about a decade. But I came into the communications field with that background of mentorship very closely held to me. And we did a lot of things that were very communications based presenting scientific concepts, thinking about how to articulate ideas, how to write. So we were doing a lot of those things and I was working with young people on that before I started at a PR agency when I was in my gosh, early 20s. And it's been great. I think educating and teaching is a theme throughout my career. I do media training in my day to day job and work and I do a lot of coaching, especially with science communicators and people to really think about how to effectively convey ideas. And when I think about the thread that's been true throughout my career, it is it is really that coaching, teaching, helping people to really convey ideas and thoughts, data, story in really meaningful ways. So with your work then at Georgetown, I mean, how is this unique? You know, do people take your class and they're like, I never thought about taking an ethics when I thought about getting into PR or some of the outreach and marketing work they do. Yeah, one of the beautiful things about the program at Georgetown, it's the public relations and corporate communications program is that PR ethics is a required course and that's because we want to really think about the next generation of communicators being ethical communicators that really matters matters to Georgetown and I think it matters to society really that we think about those decisions and how we're guiding those organizations we work with the clients we work with the people that we interact with because sometimes we're that lone voice in the room that's serving as the public conscious or the ethical conscious, right? I like to think of it as the Jiminy cricketer who's saying, you know, should we do X or Y and sometimes it's not X or Y and it's Z. But how do you actually go about making these decisions? And I find comfort and I think the students that I teach find comfort in actually finding out that there are frameworks that can help you to really figure out the road ahead. What is the pathway? What are the different journeys that I can choose and there are frameworks and you really have to do a lot of reflection both as a professional communicator but also as an organization and think about what are my values? What is my purpose? Why do we do the work that we do and the more we think about that why the more the what and how we go about making these decisions and what we actually do those things start to align and I like to think of that as authenticity really it's where those things really converge and become the same thing. You don't have to really think too much about what to do when you understand why you're doing it. So I'm going to have a definite follow-on to that but right before I get there, you know, I was thinking about this getting ready to talk with you and journalism has a code of ethics. I assume they still mostly follow it these days. I don't know. There's a lot out there but they do, right? So why not other professions? I mean, I can imagine for them as the fourth estate it is very we want that sort of responsibility and trust but just very curious from your perspective how we why we don't have it infused in others. It's interesting. Yeah, journalism does have a professional code of ethics. I'll also share that there's a code of ethics for communications through the Public Relations Society of America known as PRSA. It's the largest society of public relations professionals and the code of ethics really the keys there the professional values that under guard our profession our advocacy serving the public interest being responsible advocates of those we represent honesty I mean pretty straightforward but just telling the truth being accurate expertise actually furthering the profession by getting that knowledge ensuring that we're doing a professional development that we need to do independence providing objective counsel loyalty being faithful to those we represent while also serving the public interest and fairness being fair respecting all opinions supporting the right of free expression truly feels paramount to who we are as as a nation as a country in the United States of America right that right to express yourself. So we do actually have a code of ethics and in communications but not everybody follows it or has to follow it. It's not something that that people are held to. I mean it is a standard right and the idea of codes of ethics is that these are not necessarily obligations right they're things that are aspirational in nature and I think that that can kind of lead some people to say oh well I don't need to worry about that but the idea is that these things should be really more than aspirational they're really in practice and how you apply it day to day because it doesn't really mean anything if you have a code of ethics hanging on the wall if you're not thinking about it daily and practicing it. So I think you're right it's interesting that there's fields like law where you know you have to pass an exam and go through and learn things to be able to practice it but then there's other fields where you don't necessarily have that same standard but when you think about the job of communications it is such a critical part of everyday life in society we work with journalists to help tell accurate and compelling stories and give them connect them with experts that can really help people to understand the things that they're hearing about whether that's breaking news or topics the environment any of these other kinds of things that affect our lives and so those codes of ethics are really vital and important. Thank you yeah just moving forward with that I mean how do we start to infuse that practice within organizations you know are there are there frameworks you've seen applied is how does it extend and infuse itself across an organization you know from brand promise to the values to a social post in a way where maybe you aren't thinking about it every day but it's such a part of the process because there's a whole saying right you stumble to the level of your systems or your process you know when when you're so like yeah how do we how do we think about that if we're designing a team or we really want to make sure that in these large organizations everyone's feeling it and doing it even if they're not necessarily looking at the wall every day to to see what it is they're supposed to be aligning with yeah I'm so glad that you asked that question it's interesting because I think the word brand is used reg with regularity right we all talk about brand brand awareness brand engagement in the communications profession but what is brand right I like to think of brand as it's a promise that you make to your stakeholders that stands the test of time. It's really your purpose for existence what are you offering the marketplace or consumers or audiences that's different or special or unique from other offerings right and we're always thinking about differentiation and really when you think about brand is that promise it's really not all that different from having core values or thinking about mission right those things are very closely related and aligned but those things like you said really have to align with the systems that we have the policies that under guard the practices that are the day in day out decision making paradigms of our people our employees our staff the people that we work with so all of those things connect when you have a strong brand so to speak and that brand has value reputational value people come to count on you for what that brand expresses you have strong brand equity right you have the ability to move people to influence people and organizations and that can be of tremendous value when you're thinking about working on critical issues that touch people's lives and really a communicators are stewarding that value day in and day out right we're expressing it in different ways we're finding ways to make sure that we're communicating it but if we're not clear on our core values then how we go about doing that and get a little bit sticky right what kind of stories are we telling who are the voices that are represented in those stories that really gets down to values and that's where you know it goes back to even the ancient Greeks you know one of my favorite ethical models my students are always like what is what is your favorite model professor Ali and and I don't give that away at the beginning of the semester because I want students to travel that road and to figure out and explore different systems what's really magical about that process is they might start out going oh I don't like this particular ethical framework right but then by the end of the semester they might find usefulness in it you know you think about something like Freedman's economics which is about maximizing profits that's a model that a business exists to maximize its profits that can be really problematic and I think you can see that how that can be problematic if it's not balanced with something like virtue ethics which is essentially the golden mean that Aristotle espouses what is the golden mean it's finding that balance but you know you sit in the tension between opposites and between these different parties and you find what is that compromise what in the virtue ethics is what are the virtues that are under guarding my decision making is it harmony is it justice is it cooperation right is it collaboration and really espousing those values that a person might take on within an organization and the decisions that you make so I think that that's one of the special things about learning about ethics and thinking about how those things apply to the day day day work of communications is that you can actually look at these models and figure out oh I can actually find my way to that difficult decision that needs to be made in this moment I don't have to just guess you know you think about what would a virtuous person do in this situation I understand my own code of ethics I understand my organizations code of ethics and then it becomes much easier to figure out what to do next I like all of that especially the idea of having people on the communication side the outreach side that that public interface component having that in their minds to think about one thing we ended up we're you know Patty DeBoe is our president PTK I wrote a report last year about how getting DEI infused throughout the organizations because a lot of times what it felt like over the last couple years as people were making these statements was that it was the communications in the front end of the brand that was doing all of the work but organizationally and fundamentally throughout the organization it wasn't woven into the fabric of the organization so I'm curious you know I'm glad you had talked about the values that are being used for the outreach side have to fuse back to the organizational value but have you seen this working have you in the nonprofit sector in time because you know we've just we've started seeing a disconnect you know we'll see we'll run into programs that are doing work and then they're trying to infuse it back but it's already missed at the HR department level it's already missed at the finance level it's already it's and it just makes it sound nefarious I don't mean it that way it's just there is a lot of work that needs to happen and it feels like it has to start deeper than when it's already to the person who's supposed to be putting tweets out for your organization yeah I like to think about it in this sort of way of what what is diversity equity and inclusion mean right and I know it's really popular to use this model of the dance did you receive an invitation to the dance were you in the room for the dance and then were you actually asked to dance right and that's how sort of diversity and equity and inclusion kind of stack onto each other in a way are you included in the room when you're in the room is your voice heard right and then is that is what you say actually given merit and value all of those things have to work interchangeably and it's much harder to do in practice especially when you've had longstanding systems or practices or policies that were made up in a different time one of the challenges and I know you and I have talked about this with a I is that a lot of the data that feeds into a I might have been formed by previous biases that that could have existed from human beings who were you know in a different time and maybe had different influences on them so ethics becomes super relevant in this thing and we really have to I think I find a lot of value in this idea of the golden mean that when I think about communications this this interaction between communications and what the organization is doing it's like a train that's moving along the tracks communications might be leading the way we can't forget about the caboose of the train which is like those actual policies that are under guarding it and so it's easy to get into this blame game I think of you know oh you're not doing that right or why didn't we do that it's but really I would think about it more and I think what's most helpful is thinking about it as a discovery process and in it an internal reflection process of what do we value let's have that conversation let's bring a representative group into the room and have a conversation about what we do value and that starts with lived experience you know I'm I'm a woman of color I'm multi racial and so the way that I grew up and the influences that I had and experienced are going to be really different from somebody else and there's merit to my voice being in the room there's merit to someone else's voice being in the room my voice doesn't matter more than another person's but what matters is that I'm invited into the space and given the opportunity to speak and to be asked the same questions because my answer is just going to be different and we don't know if we're looking at our stakeholders if we're going to reach those people that we want to reach if we're not really reflecting those voices and so these two things are always needing to be thought about and communications kind of sits in the middle of that of asking that question are we inviting a representative group into the room and even are we asking the right questions let's talk to them before we even have this conversation let's talk to different groups of people so we're asking the right questions and then we need to think thoughtfully about what we do with that information and I think a lot of people want to start with that in result like you like you said this whole move toward more open expansive conversations around race and diversity and how we interact with systems so important and that requires internal reflection from organizations you know going beyond just putting words on paper but thinking about how how do we live those values day in and day out and that requires space it requires conversations it requires connection between people and that's a time intensive process that's a journey and so organizations we've been seeing this you know recently that some organizations might have started on that and maybe taking some back steps because it's it's hard because you have to sort of address and acknowledge where people are within that journey and there may be voices who weren't present in the room that are now present and that may be uncomfortable for some people and then we're sort of having to think about this is what this gets into things like emotional agility right and and really thinking about how do we adapt with our emotions in those moments because if we think of it as a learning process we're all learning from each other and as we meet different people and learn about their experiences their values their codes of ethics so to speak we have an opportunity to reflect and grow our own because what we know in communications is there's there's things that would have stood 50 years ago that certainly don't stand now right and there was a time when there were advertisements that smoking was good for you know people and we know we know that's not the truth so these we have to be willing to do this self reflection right and that and we have to be willing to provide the space and the time and opportunity for that appreciate that yeah I wrote a few things down we were talking the last one I wrote down was culturally strategy for breakfast which I think everybody's heard before but I think to your point it was in a learning culture organization where you can take the time to reflect or it's okay to not always have an answer in the moment then I feel like the ability and the agility that you spoke about becomes something that you you can be more comfortable with because you don't feel you're on demand to have the right answer at every moment and I think a lot of orgs espouse the idea of a learning culture but they don't ever really embrace air quote failure the way they talk about it's rare I find the organization that doesn't have some chart that shows everything's always going up into the right you know like how do so I'm curious if just in your practice and experience what I find we probably need more of and in my experience there's never been time for it's usually just one annual review cycle but like how how can organizations start thinking about and I think about it from software development perspective you know retrospectives when you do a shorter sprint and then you stop and everybody talks about what was working and what didn't work because you don't want to keep going if something wasn't working and you're trying to stop earlier in the software process how do we you know have you seen any orgs taking time before the annual process to say how have we been doing on this and did we learn anything that we need to then think about for the next two months or the next three months it's such a good question and it's not something I think we've historically done in society certainly not in this nation this cold culture right but I do think that's changing and I'm a big fan of Briney Brown she's you know a researcher she researchers vulnerability and shame and she's an incredible author podcast or writer teacher I learned so much from her and when I read her book the first book I read of hers was the gifts of imperfection it changed my life I didn't realize how much I had embodied perfectionism inside of myself in my work and life and career and I was working the energy that it took for me to compartmentalize the pieces of myself work personal whatever it was such a waste of energy and I had been taught and I grew up in a generation where yeah don't feel your feelings push those things down but what I found is emotions are a real superpower they're a way to tap into experiences that other people might be having because if you're having that experience maybe somebody else's and just speaking to that the elephant in the room so to speak can open up this magical space of creativity I do a lot of storytelling I think of myself as a storyteller and I have built in this process of empathy and authenticity where everybody you know that's on the team gets invited into the process and has the opportunity to contribute to the ideas and the stories that we tell and we reflect throughout that process are we on the right path we try not to even though we might have production schedules or other things we make sure that we make time to think about is there something that needs to be changed and at the end of every project we debrief we look at the metrics yes did we accomplish what we set out to do we set some metrics the beginning and goals that's good that's part of every public relations process but what did we unexpectedly learn what are some sort of magical moments of creativity we do things where we go oh wow this one piece of the story is really resonant this thing came up in an interview that we didn't expect how can we take that and turn that into a video and get that piece of the narrative out and I think you have to provide the space and opportunity for that you know I think we sort of chastised failure as a society definitely like oh you failed but I have learned so much from my failures if I had stayed with the failure early in my career oh my goodness wouldn't be here you know I would not have continued in the communications field it's a two decade career that I've had and I've had you know it's been a winding path you know I started working an agency and I've always been a mission driven values driven person and every day I feel like I have the opportunity to show up and do my best work and some days that looks different than others but the thing that I really think about when I show up at work is how can I really help people do their best work and that really starts with thinking about the things that I value and so someday somebody might be having an off day and it's my opportunity to say you know what maybe we don't need to have this meeting right now or you know what let's take five minutes tell me what's going on and that's me living my values and I think the more that we do that not just as people to people but as an organization how do we allow that opportunity of reflection you know we were talking about DEI and some of the missteps when I've seen organizations make a mistake and then they get feedback and instead of becoming defensive or critical they stop and they say you know what you're right we messed that up and we're going to take some time and we're going to reflect and and here's what we're going to do differently because this is what we value that's authentic that's real and then they actually take action and those things come from a really clear code of ethics it comes from articulated values it comes from leaders who are living those values day in and day out and sometimes that conversation hasn't been had and it needs to be had I was thinking as you were talking two things I was feeling like we need a redefinition of what a professional is so I think I grew up in the same time period as you I know emotions all had it back don't ever show it and especially gone up male in that culture right I was never supposed to have an emotion and then I became an adult and I would have all these anxieties and meetings and I was like this isn't mine it took me a long time to learn that I was like empathetic I was feeling in the room like I couldn't figure it out I just thought I had issues and then I finally started talking to some people and I was like oh this is what's happening to me and in the professionalism it's like I think it's that perfectionism right you think you hear professional and you think this I'm supposed to show up I'm supposed to know exactly what I'm supposed to do in every moment and I'm supposed to get it right and I just do it rather than I might not know what I'm doing let me ask some other people let me get some help it's like it's like I keep telling my daughters in middle school I'm like you shouldn't know that math problem because you've never done it before right you literally aren't going to get that right that's actually the learning and you're going to ask the teacher and you're going to get it wrong and you're going to then you're going to know why you got it wrong eventually and you're not going to get it wrong in the future I think there's something in our professionalism probably too in this environment we're living in where it's like professionalism is about showing up and being ready to do the work and being responsible and being accountable to your teammate around you it's not I'm going to get this exactly right every time it's okay there was a typo that went out in your tweet it happens but the fact that you came there and you said I got that wrong I was moving too fast I need to learn as you're talking I was thinking there's something there and like have a realm of professionalism Absolutely and empathy is a superpower I very much identify with exactly what you're saying where I have that capacity to sort of read the room sort of speak and and feel other people's kind of feelings or whatever and however that manifests inside of me and I'm an introvert which is kind of an interesting thing in communication but I think what I realize is that I have value I have my own intrinsic value I may not be the first person to speak but what I'm doing is I'm listening I'm not just listening to what people are saying but I'm also listening to those sort of nonverbal cues I'm also thinking about how I'm feeling and what's coming up for me in the moment and sometimes it means taking that moment of reflection and sometimes I don't get it right and then I go back and I have a conversation with somebody I think you know in that moment I sort of plowed forward and I really should have taken a second to think but it's that going back and that ability to repair which you know there's other really great researchers that talk about this you know Esther Perrell and the Gottmans that do research on relationships that are fantastic but it's not about this perfection everything is good or everything is bad right it's do you have that ability to repair right do you have that ability to have conversations and come from a place of understanding connect with the other person and these things are not different from from our ethics right they're not different from our values of the things that we say that we value it's so interesting because coming into the beginning of the semester I have students come in and they're like some of them are grumble grumble public relations ethics this is going to be boring by the end of the semester they have defined their personal values you know they've really reflected on it some of them may have even changed the course of their career based on the conversations that we've had they've had the opportunity to listen to other students and what they value and interact with them because one of the things that we learn in public relations is that we're interacting with different systems all the time and those systems are made up of people who are made up of different experiences that they've had and we don't know what those are right we're sort of having to interact with these things and really think about our reputational value think about the influence we want to create the change that we want to create behavior change etc some of these things can be hard to measure but when we live our values when we're clear about those things that journey it becomes so much easier because you don't really have to guess you have the friend that you count on to be a Jiminy cricket for you kind of a really good strong ethical friend who has high integrity you know who that is to call in a moment of conscious crisis where you're kind of going oh what do I do you have that friend you can call in you have a friend who's a professional who's done really good work that you respect and admire you have colleagues within your organization that are excellent sounding words that understand you know history precedence systems all of that stuff within the organization but you also understand yourself and your own kind of makeup to the extent that you know that hey I might be what I'm feeling right now may not actually be fact and might be having an emotional reaction and so I really need to like sift through this process first and I'm I think a lot of what helps me as a communicator is thinking about responding versus reacting responding is incorporating that reflection that time for reflection thinking about my values talking to people between something happening and the decision that we make what we do in that space you know as Victor Frankel says the the space between stimuli and response what happens in that space that's that's our source of power that's our source of creativity what we do in that space because once we do the thing we can't undo it once we say the thing we can't say it it's been said you know and so how we go about saying and doing those things really matters and that's really where I think ethics comes into play I love it responding not reacting I wrote that down that's like that's really important I'm going to take a slight different tact here to I feel like what we've been talking about is a lot of what we can do ourselves or maybe even within our own organizations and I'm curious for some ideas from you too we're going to partner with an organization whether it's who we're getting our funding from in the nonprofit sector or another partner organization we want a team up to do programmatic work with how do we balance what we've created then for ourselves and our organizations with another organizations set of values and especially I don't know if you've seen it if there is any conflict in those that comes out once the partnership already starting to probably is probably the worst case scenario or the not the worst case but the hardest probably to work through is once you're already engaged and then it sort of comes up that you're not totally aligned have you seen this and is there is there a way to think about it for people that are listening as they start to get into partnerships? Yeah, I think you're asking the right question. I think that awareness it starts with awareness and asking questions if people just go into that automatic reaction this is a good idea yeah, you're powerful we're powerful or you have influence we have influence let's partner let's go that can that could land you where you want to be or not could land you further away but if you stop and go what is the goal we want to accomplish? What is our sort of code of ethics? What are our values and mission and then let's look at this other organization let's look at their values and and mission are they compatible? It's really no different than when you're choosing a partner right or friends are we compatible? It doesn't mean that you're the same because we benefit from diversity we know that that's something that we're learning from diversity equity inclusion as we're seeing that take place and seed in organizations we're able to really tap into amazing creativity by really bringing in that diversity of perspectives and so it's no different with partnering with other organizations it's really like is there compatibility because if you're so far apart because you know you think about a model an ethical framework of maximizing profits Friedman economics right that is one end of the spectrum versus let's just say communitarianism which is we are taking care of the community we serve a community we want to help ensure that community feels represented that they feel like they can belong those two things may be incompatible with each other if there's two different organizations that have two different sort of things that are driving their work so those things just taking that time to reflect and consider do we have compatible values and are we headed in a similar direction because sometimes your values might be slightly different but you want the same outcome and there might be purposefulness to that connection because again those values those ethics those are going to interact in the day-to-day decisions so it's really clear at the outset of that relationship think about what are the rules of the road I like the concept of shared agreements and spending time when you first start out a project or you're starting out a team or you're bringing a new partnership how do we have conversations when we have conflict emerge how do we resolve that conflict if we come to a point of indecision you know how do we go about navigating that and having everybody around the table contribute to those shared agreements I always like to start with a slate of things because sometimes people come to that like I don't even know what that is that's not even language most people are used to hearing so I like to have like here's a slate of things that I've seen work well things like listen to understand right because a lot of times we hear people but we're not listening we're not trying to understand and we're already preparing to react so it takes some real self-discipline around our emotions to actually sit back inside of ourselves and say no listen to this other person allow yourself that means allow yourself to be changed by what you're hearing allow yourself to take it in without thinking about the next thing you say because you're going to benefit from that now you may not agree with this other person and of course this is something that's relevant in politics and families in society and communities and how we solve problems if we take that opportunity to give ourselves the space to not react and to respond and to learn from that other person we end up in such a better place so that idea of like shared agreements how do we have these conversations and really that's reflective of our values it can really put us on the right path so even if our values not the same as an organization at least how we travel together because we have the same goal and we want to get there together it can really help us to resolve this dilemmas that come up yeah I wrote down a question while you were talking and I don't know if it's too much if I put you on the spot type thing but my headwind I really like you said you have to allow yourself to be changed by what you're hearing and I feel like we live in such a I mean hopefully we're getting better at it but it it feels very polarizing a lot of times with messages that are put out and if I am to listen to anyone who's on that other side I'm somehow tainted you know how is communicators in an ethical framework when we are trying especially in the nonprofit sector to to to make positive and progressive change in the world you know and you have to have a you have to have a strong will to move that forward when there's so much around you that doesn't want it to move forward how can ethics address the ability to sit there listen and feel yourself to your point the willingness to change but without the negative association of now I'm tainted because maybe my idea changed and I'm not as all in on this side as I should be I don't I don't have my question is rambling and I'm drinking a lot of coffee so we'll see during the pandemic I think it was an opportunity for us to to reflect and to learn one of the authors that I came across that really spoke to me in the moment was Jonathan height and he was really struggling I think some years ago with political polarization in the country and how do I talk to people that believe different things than me because he was struggling with this either or mindset like if somebody believes this and I then in their friend what does that say about me because I need to make sure that I want to reflect my own values right and I want to live those values and we think about those in relationships right so he did the research and he found that there were these sort of moral foundations that under guard the way people make decisions and what was interesting about that is that researchers have found that those same moral foundations are really present and nearly all people but there's just different sort of appropriations that they might give to certain things in their brain so one of those is fairness another one is authority right so somebody who believes something on one side of politics might value fairness more than authority it doesn't mean they don't value authority it just means if they're put in a conundrum or they're faced with a policy they're going to choose fairness over authority because that's something that they put more value behind right another one that he looked at was loyalty or another one was sanctity another one's liberty so again a lot of these things they don't have negative connotations per se but if you go in your mind do I value sanctity more than fairness or do I value loyalty more than authority right these are things that and this is where the ethical sort of thinking comes into play is what do I really value when I'm forced to make a choice but I think for him it was really useful and helpful to to know that we all have a similar foundation that we start from but because of how we grow up you know the nature versus nurture the experiences that we have the decisions that we make the lives that we experience we may put more value behind one thing versus another but it helps us to not shut someone down because we have the same kind of things that make us all up there's just sort of different proportions and we can understand that from geography standpoint we know that like if you grow up in the south of the US you're going to have maybe a different accent maybe a different way you welcome people into your house versus if you grow up in you know New York or something right it's a different experience and we don't chastise people for that we go huh what I really take value and heart in is this idea of curiosity and when we can move from furious to curious if we're feeling ourselves antagonized internally or we're feeling that oh goodness I start going into judgment about this person move into curiosity that helps you move into the learning mindset start asking questions right and you tell me more about why you think that you know because that other person may or may not have gone through that process of thinking about it or maybe they have but you may actually open yourself up to learning something about that person that you otherwise wouldn't have learned when we see people that we don't expect to come together come together in society we applaud that but how do they do that they do it because somebody decided to be curious about the other human being they decided there's something innate about your humanity that I might identify with I may not see it in this moment but I'm going to believe that it's there and I'm going to search for it and give the space to that rather than dismissing you and you don't know what can emerge from that you might find that if you allow yourself to be changed by that process you might evolve into a better person which might help you evolve an organization into a better organization I know that I'm infinitely better as a human being because of the people that I've allowed to change me over my career you know I've come a long way I've a long way to go I'm constantly learning and evolving but one of the things I ask my team is you know what should we stop doing what should we start doing what should we keep doing what am I doing that's getting in the way of you doing your best work that's that's about being a humble leader that's about being willing to take in information and actually listen and sit back and allow myself to be changed by what I hear because I'm not perfect and I'm not trying to be perfect anymore what I'm trying to do is be a good human being I'm trying to do is create spaces for people to show up and do their best work and I'm trying to help organizations serve their mission and the people the clients the stakeholders you know that they're really seeking to serve and live the values of that mission and so that's going to require that reflection that's going to require being an ethical communicator it's going to require really understanding myself and how I'm showing up in the moment and leaning into that curiosity have written down so many things you're saying you've got such great the furious curious I love it skin I'm actually right now he's down I'm going to send all this out to my team on Slack after this these are just so really good because it's just the way you're pulling it together so quickly to let you think about it and really think about yourself first and then how you need to move that little bit of slow response time is fantastic I hope everyone else's listing is I don't know hitting the note button while you're talking and taking these down to keep moving through some of our questions here though in our previous conversation you said trust currency I had a whole episode with our common friend and a Fabio about a trust and sort of what that meant communications you know I'd love to dive in on this one a bit because it comes up a lot and I was part of the reason I had talked about it with and to especially through the pandemic a 20 I think it was business reviews I was looking at for 2020 trust was a top factor for businesses and 2021 trust is a major top factor for businesses and but no one ever defined it is through the word out there and like well yeah of course you want to trust something but what what does it really mean and what does it mean when it comes to an organizational imperative and have you know have you thought about it if you've been seeing it out there the way I've been seeing it talked about and what are your thoughts on a trust yeah yeah thank you for that and and thanks for bringing bringing up our good friend who I admire and respect and I've learned a lot from her she's and she's an amazing professional trust is everything it starts with self trust and being able to trust yourself with colleagues and its trust in between these different these different systems and and people and organizations and it is a currency it's a currency that depending on how authentic you are as a person or an organization is or how aligned it is with its values it can cost itself quite a bit if it doesn't really value that when we think about reputation and I also once taught reputation management the formula that underguards reputation is performance plus behavior plus communication times authenticity so performance like these are the metrics of success whatever we say makes us successful that's different from a nonprofit for a nonprofit versus a company that sells widgets rate you're going to rate that differently but that's the performance how well are you getting results the behavior is what you do right communication is what you actually say are those things aligned and then the authenticity people believing you but I really think of that is are all of those things aligned and that creates your reputation and reputation is directly aligned with trust organizations that have high levels of trust have a better reputation and reputation is currency we know that some of the leading organizations from a financial standpoint that are trading stock right a lot of their capital it's not necessarily dollars and cents on the balance sheet it's how are they able to actually convince their shareholders or the market that they're going to do what they say they're going to do are people going to buy into that particular brand are they going to buy that product and the reality is it's not necessarily about the features of the product or about whatever it is that that organization is putting out there same thing with a nonprofit right it's about that reputation and that's that's interchangeable really with trust reputation is currency I love that yeah thank you for diving in on that I mean it's it's been on my mind for years and I think that's a great frame and I really I'm that you're the first person who said it that way reputation is currency I've I've been in a lot of conversations where people put it back to brand but brand is too nebulous I think and I think you're right reputation is currency it's like that's why people buy Tylenol and not acetaminophen it's not what you say about yourself it's what other people say about you that's that's really what it it's it's the reflection right and when we're willing to actually take the time to say how am I seen how is the organization seen and listen to what we hear we actually improve our reputation which is amazing because if wouldn't we want to know if we have an intention and this is what we know intention doesn't equal impact right so if we have an intention and that impact doesn't happen and wouldn't we want to know that right it's no different than when we go out there you know put these great communications campaigns together are we actually having the impact that we set out to do and this is where I think what you were talking about the debrief process an adaptable process and reflection building that in throughout and allowing ourselves to have a learning culture within organizations and creating a learning culture that is what really allows that to happen is is that intention that we have actually having the impact that we're hoping it has yeah and if you even think about trust less from external audience and but internal audience and those retrospectives why we're running the campaign to trust each other that we're when we're learning we're going to apply it correctly and not blame each other if it didn't work and then we're going to move it forward it's yet here into open throughout again well thank you you know when it comes to ethical frameworks and playbooks this is something I think a lot about too I feel like the nonprofit sector is the sector that should be leading and putting these standards out there what's your thoughts on that I mean should we be stepping up more should we be developing and sharing standards how would we do that nonprofits have a golden opportunity right now we know that trust in institutions is quite low today I mean really across all sectors it's easy to understand why given all of the problems that have been facing society and things that have happened and obviously at the pace that technology is going people can't we're not designed to take in that amount of information and so the brain will automatically glom onto the negative things right but nonprofits actually have an ability to really build trust between people and to connect some of these other systems right and to talk to people that may not be talking to each other so nonprofits have higher levels of trust so what do we do with that trust this is really important you know we have an opportunity to really think about how we navigate this time and space and what I've really appreciated is the opportunity to connect with other professionals and understand that we're not going it alone yeah and that crosstalk that you know like just let's get together in a room and throw things at the wall and what I find is we're coming up against similar challenges I do a lot of volunteer work as well and have been for many many many years and I do the same thing and it's valuable to me because doing that volunteer work allows me to interact with people from other sectors as well and see what that what's going on for them and it's it helps me feel less alone but it also helps me to get those really good ideas and benefit from that experience and think about how do I how do I try something we were talking about failure and I think sometimes the nonprofit sector doesn't they're sort of accused of not having that entrepreneurial mindset that the private sector might have and I'll just give full disclosure I've worked for startups in the past so I I worked in the tech sector and one thing that the tech sector I think does really well is this idea of let's try something the nonprofit sector can really benefit from that perspective let's try something it doesn't mean we invest all of our resources in it but let's be willing to try something and let's see what we learn from it it doesn't mean we fully invest in it it doesn't mean we staff a whole team around it but let's just put put a small creative team together and let's try something new and see if we can create a new widget or come up with something different because what we know is that the way that people are consuming information is different but what isn't different is the power of story to change and move and inspire people so how do we tell those stories how do we cut through the clutter who do we work with and that's going to require just conversations between nonprofits but also bringing people into our organizations that have diverse perspectives that have experience I came into nonprofit with a career working in agency everything from serving everything from government to you know attractions you know launching attractions to doing campaign work I worked in the tech sector and then I moved into nonprofit and so I'm able to bring that wealth of experience to play in the nonprofit sector and I think that's really really valuable is thinking about that diversity of background and thought and experience because we benefit from that I like that story is fundamental too I mean it's everything happens so fast AI is here now everyone's freaking out about it but I'm like ever you know Bitcoin was a thing not too long ago and the blockchain that everybody was talking about and you don't hear about that as much as you hear about AI now and all the other things and I just keep always going back like I think to your point where are the fundamentals how do we get the fundamentals right if you don't know your fundamentals right who cares about AI and blockchain and the next best thing because you don't have the other pieces together first well thank you this has been an awesome awesome conversation thank you for everything thank you so much I have the hardest question that I will ask you all days coming up next and for anyone who's been a a regular listener of our podcast you will know that we have started a Spotify channel that the answers to this final question for everybody to share so I have to ask because I ask all my guests Sultana what is your go-to song when you need a boost and why my go-to song is titanium by Sia I love this song because a long time ago I asked one of my close friends to describe me in one word it's a hard question and he said resilient and I didn't like that answer at the time I was young as in my 20s but I've come to really live into that and I realize I am a resilient person and so when I hear that song it sort of reflects me back to me it doesn't mean that I don't take in input or feedback or anything like that what it means is that whatever I go through I can get through it and so when I'm having a hard time listening that song hearing the beat and music it just reminds me of my strength my power and the trust that I can put in myself Thank you Thank you for sharing that story with us and the song and everything you've shared with us today I really appreciate it I wrote down I was resonating to we have worked to hone in my intro to something very short that I did in the beginning of today's episode but I used to intro by saying part of the podcast here and the purpose was to share that we're not alone in the sector and that we're all going through these things and we can learn together so I was really happy to hear you talk about that here today too Sultana Thank you so much for your time I really appreciate it You're welcome Thank you for the great questions and it's always good to see you Tony It's wonderful to see you I'll talk to you later Bye everybody


Okay. So, yeah, Walter Peter Brennan. Walter Peter Brennan. So, one of the things that struck me today as we were touring around Guatemala City and talking about UFM, I haven't been to the university yet. I mean, I've been there before in my previous trips to Guatemala, but I haven't been there yet. This trip I'll be there tonight. But one of the things that struck me while we were looking at the sculpture and moving around is the fact that here we are in Guatemala with this amazing university. We have libertarians, classical liberals, and even objectivists in the media. We have businessmen who claim to have been inspired and hugely supportive of Atlas Shrugged, love Atlas Shrugged. And I was thinking about other places that have kind of a similar environment. You know, I think I've told you before about Georgia, Georgia, the country of Georgia in the Caucasus. Georgia, about 20 years ago, was was governed by a group who dominated the government of free marketers. Baka was one of them. And the prime minister was another one of them.  And during that period, they completely deregulated the country, they lower taxes, they flattened them. They, they completely liberated business from most regulations. I think they did some of the most dramatic deregulations we've seen anywhere in the world. And this is in a country that had lived through, you know, Soviet occupation and through communism, and it was liberated, but it hadn't really adopted capitalism. About 20, 30 years ago, they really did. They had this moment in history where the government just completely freed up the economy in ways that even today are unimaginable. Even there, Kaha, who Kaha, who is the person mainly responsible for this kind of a libertarian businessman, also started a university called Free University free, not because it was free, free as showed for freedom, freedom University in in Tbilisi in Georgia, university dedicated to the ideas of freedom. Indeed, to this day, they have asked an economist teaching there. They have, I think the vice dean of the university has pictures of Ayn Randall over her office. So these are, you know, this is the university again, dedicated to kind of free market ideas to political liberty and to freedom. And yet Georgia has over the last 20 years since that government is no longer has moved away from freedom away from liberty. They have put in place, put back a lot of the regulations that were taken away. They have slipped, slighted their way back into more and more statism. They are, in terms of political influence, the libertarians or the free marketers have a lot less influence that they had back then. And it's kind of sad that here they had this experiment. It succeeded. By the way, Georgia economy did well. Jobs were created. GDP per capita went up. GDP generally went up. You know, it completely modernized this deregulatory regime and the lowering of taxes completely modernized the Georgia economy. So it was an absolute success. This was not like it failed. And yet all their achievements are being reversed and have been reversed. And then when I look at Guatemala, UFM has been around for a long time now for several decades. And while at the margin it's had an impact on individuals, it's had an impact on the culture, it's had an impact here and there on some deregulatory bills and some people who are graduates of the university who have done good things in politics. But overall Guatemala is still a massively status place. It's still a very poor country. It's still a country with cronyism, massive cronyism and big families who control much of industry and farming here and also have all kinds of subsidies and all kinds of benefits that they get from the government. Very feudal almost in some aspects of its existence, but definitely crony. And the university arguably has had some impact certainly on individuals, right? There are many more objectivists here than there would otherwise be, but it's still just a dozen or two. It's a handful. And in Guatemala socialism is on the rise, just like it's on the rise pretty much everywhere else. Young people tend to be status and socialist. And then of course, if you think about a country like Chile, another country in the world that has gone through this amazing experiment over the last what is it now? 40 years, right? About 40 years ago, General Pinochet at the time authoritarian dictator of Chile handed over the reins of the economy to what were called the Chicago boys, economists trained in the Chicago School of Economics and they basically deregulated, freed up the economy, privatized social security and generated what became a massive, unbelievable economic boom. Chile went from the poorest country in Latin America on a pro-capital GDP basis to the richest country in Latin America on a capital GDP basis in a relatively short period of time. And they had until recently a dynamic economy and economy which poor people rose up from poverty and an economy that generated massive benefits for people across the board, in particular, poor people who benefited disproportionately from the liberation of the economy as they do everywhere where the economy is liberated. And yet what we've seen over the last and you had think tanks and you had university dedicated to teaching free market economics and a human boom in increasing in teaching these ideas. And yet over the last, I'd say five years, but in particular over the last couple of years, Chile has taken a sharp turn to the left and there's now they've assembled a constitutional convention to rewrite the Chilean constitution and it's clear that it's going to be written in a way that supports socialism. It's going to destroy all of the achievements of the Chicago boys. It's going to turn Chile again into socialist country, very similar to that of ultimately Venezuela. You saw in the recent election in Peru, a sharp shift to the left, Peru that had a relatively, relatively speaking thriving economy, relatively speaking liberalization, movement towards free markets. And yet they are now drifting back towards statism, socialism. And in this case, they elected a Marxist, explicit Marxist to be president of the country. And this of course brings up the question, what are going to take? And it particularly brings up the question in the context of the fact that we celebrated last week, the founding of this university in Texas, this University of Austin, Texas, I told you it was going to be confusing, not the University of Texas in Austin, the University of Austin in Texas. Of what impact? What impact do free market, libertarian types do universities that teach free market principles? How? In terms of the long run sustainability of freedom of liberty? Can they bring about liberty? And if they can, can they sustain it? Can they keep it going? And when you look at these historical examples and granted, from historical perspective, not a lot of time has passed, but you've got to conclude that this seems to be something missing. Something is missing to the combination of political power and free market economics. Something is missing was significantly missing in Chile, which has abandoned capitalism or whatever semblance of capitalism they had to move further to the left towards socialism. Something is missing in Guatemala that prevents a university like UFM from having the kind of influence on the culture and on politics that we would like to see that is revolutionary, that is world changing. Something was missing in Georgia when free marketers captured the commanding heights, captured government, did the right things, actually deregulated, shrunk government, reduced regulations on a massive scale and cut taxes, did all the right things and succeeded just like in Chile they succeeded in terms of the impact on the economy. And yet it didn't survive. Something is missing from this recipe of having some good universities and some good politicians and great economists. And of course I've been talking about this for 20 years. What's missing is a philosophy. What's missing more than all anything is an ethics, is a moral code. And what missing is egoism. What missing is an epistemology of reason. What's missing is objectivism, a philosophy. I mean I have a lot of respect for many of the kind of free market economists who come to a conference like the Montpalaman Society. I have a great respect for many of the teachers at University of Francisco Marqueen or in Georgia or in all of these other places. But the unwillingness or inability to challenge religion, Catholicism in the case of Guatemala, you know Christian, what is it, Eastern Orthodox, religion in the case of Georgia, Chile, Catholicism and in the United States to challenge Christianity more broadly. The unwillingness to challenge religion makes it impossible for capitalism to ultimately be sustainable. And in that sense it's fantastic that we have the University of Austin in Texas. But it can't win. It can't change the world. It can slow the decline hopefully. It can bias time hopefully. But it can't win because it doesn't have anything to offer. It has to offer the status quo of 20 years ago. It wants to turn back the clock to an era that they think is idealistic of 20, 30 years ago when while the universities were as dominant as they are dominated as they are today by leftists, at least the leftists were more rational in the sense that they were more open to people who had differing ideas. They weren't quite as eager and as fast to cancel. They weren't quite as woke if you will. They're still leftists. There's been no mistake in the universities to be dominated by the left, dominated by the left for 50 years. Nothing really has changed except the left has become more wacky, more egalitarian, more woke. But people like Stephen Pinker, people like Barry Weiss, people like Arthur Brooks, the people who are on the Board of Advisors of the University of Austin in Texas cannot, will not, change the world. They will not reverse the course because they don't have what it takes. They don't have the philosophical foundations, the philosophical context to actually reverse the course of history as it is playing out right now. There are a lot more voices on campus. They'll provide an alternative for parents who want to send their kids to university that is not completely thoroughly corrupt. But the best one can say about the university like a university in Austin and granted, I celebrated it last week because I do think it's worth celebrating. Somebody says now Ferguson, same with now Ferguson. Now he's not a revolutionary thinker. He's not a radical. The best these people can do is give us a university of 30 years ago, 40 years ago, but that wasn't that great. There was already anti-capitalist. There was already a rejection of true freedom and true liberty. Yeah, it's a good start, but it's a good start towards what? Towards what? They will teach the same altruism that every other university teaches. They'll soften it a little bit. They won't be quite woke about it. They'll teach a mixed economy economics just like every other university. They'll be a little bit more tilted towards free markets. They'll teach the same Kantian philosophy or philosophy influenced by Kant as everybody else teaches. They'll be a little bit more oriented towards liberty and freedom, but look, they won't be as good as you are families. They won't be as good as freedom. University isn't to me. And those universities haven't had a huge impact on societies that are much smaller than the American society of 350 million people. So what kind of impact are they actually going to have?  Not a huge impact on the culture as a culture. The culture as a culture is dominated by statist, mystical, irrational forces. And one university is not going to change that, particularly one university that is not willing to challenge the fundamental, prevailing ideas in the culture, which are mysticism, religion, and altruism, also the morality of religion. And therefore, ultimately cannot, will not, challenge the prevailing acceptance of a mixed economy, which almost nobody stands up against to actually change the world. And this is what so many people are not willing to recognize and not willing to actually change the world. You need a radical philosophy. You need to be willing to challenge everything. And granted, you're going to be canceled by both left and right. I got into some of my most passionate disagreements with students here at UFM about stuff, even though on economics, they're pretty good. But God, you mentioned abortion here, run for the exits. And the faculty here has responded negatively to many of my presentations because of the issue of religion. You cannot raise it. You cannot have a rational discussion about it. In Montpelerin Society, the society that was founded by, I don't know how much you guys know about Montpelerin. Montpelerin Society was founded by Hayek in 1947. In its first meeting, I think there were 12 of the leading free market intellectuals. Notice who was never invited. Iron Man was never invited to join the Montpelerin Society. Hayek was, Mises was there, Milton Friedman was there, and many of the other leading lights of classical liberalism of the 20th century and the 21st century. To this day, it's a society of the leading thinkers in the classical liberal tradition. But Iron Man was never welcome because these thinkers, as great as they were, as revolutionary as they were, in the case of Mises, as radical as they were, were not willing to challenge not the morality, not the conventional morality, and not the conventional epistemology or metaphysics. They were not willing to challenge religion. And indeed, once in a while, a couple of times now, they've had me speak at the Montpelerin Society, I remember. And I don't run for the exits, Stephen Porter, never have, never run to the exits. Twice now, at the Montpelerin Society meetings, they've invited me to speak about the compatibility of liberty and religion. And twice I've explained why religion and liberty are incompatible, not in the long run, not if you want to be consistent. And, you know, while many of the European members of the Montpelerin Society agree with me, they will never say it. And the Americans, of course, despise me for having these views. To them, liberty and religion go together. It's stunning how they're not willing to question their premises, as Iron Man would have encouraged them to do. In particular, given arguably their failure in country after country to really have an impact.  You're going to be marginalized. You're not going to have influence in the short run. And I know that upsets many of you, many of you who want to see political change now. But if you really care about the future, if you don't just want to see a glimpse of freedom, a glimpse of free market, a glimpse of liberalization, but you want to see a sustained, a sustained political freedom, something that lasts forever, maybe, or at least for a long time, then what we need is a philosophical revolution. What we need is a moral revolution. And what we need is the minority to be marginalized for a while. This is why I've said we don't have allies, not on the left and not on the right. We don't belong anywhere because we are true radicals. At least I am to know about you. I believe reason is man's means of survival. Reason is the way we know stuff. We reject the idea of revelation of any kind. We reject the ideas of mysticism of any type, left or right. And we reject determinism. We reject the idea that you're shaped by your genes exclusively or by your environment exclusively or by a mixture of your genes and your environment. Nobody holds that. Psychologists just assume determinism. Nobody holds free will except the religionists. And the religionist idea of free will is very mixed up and very confused. God is all-knowing. He knows everything in clearly in advance, but you have free will somehow. And at the same time, we reject this epistemology, we reject these ideas. We advocate for a philosophy of reason, for a morality of egoism, for particular virtues, for particular ideas. We are very, very adamant supporters of a particular type of morality, with particular virtues and particular values. We're not subjectivists, as many of the Libertarian's friends that I have in Montpelerin who might not be religious, but then they're subjectivists. And our defense of capitalism is not built around just the economic consequences. But it's built upon a deep understanding of human nature that explains those economic consequences. It's deep, it's based on a deep respect for reason, the need for freedom in order to be able to think and choose your values, be able to pursue your values free of coercion, a deep respect for man as a rational animal. It's why we have the concept of individual rights, to protect the individual's ability to live by his mind in pursuit of his values, with the end being his own happiness. We are egoists. Your life is yours for the purpose of living for your own happiness. Our argument is not that capitalism is good because it's good for society. And if you once in a while need to sacrifice somebody for the good of society, so be it. We're consistent, radical individualists who believe in capitalism as the only political system appropriate for individuals, for rational animals, rational animals with free will, rational animals with free will that require reason to live their life. And until there are institutions that are willing to teach that, until there are dozens and dozens and dozens of intellectuals willing to advocate for that, we can't win. And this is why I'm excited about, you know, the Iron Man University, which the Iron Man Institute is launching with the idea of training dozens and dozens and dozens of intellectuals over the next few decades in advocating for liberty and advocating for freedom based on the philosophy of objectivism. With all respect to University of Austin, with all respect to UFM, with all respect to every relatively pro free market university on planet earth, without objectivism, they cannot succeed. The culture will not change in fundamental ways. We need intellectuals in every sphere to discuss, to debate, to articulate the case for romantic art, for capitalism, for egosm, for reason, for reality, and for the connectiveness, is that it would, of all of those into one philosophical whole. And only when we have such intellectuals, and we'll have to have artists and we'll have to have practitioners, we'll have to have a lot of people, can we ultimately, can we ultimately win this battle? Thank you for listening or watching The Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening, you get value from watching, show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbrookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals, and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see The Iran Book Show grow, please consider sharing our content. And of course, subscribe, press that little bell button right down there on YouTube, so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for you, those of you who are already subscribers, and those of you who are already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.


So, I'm going to talk to you for a minute about E.J. Gold. John Lilly introduced E.J. to Lee and I, and when we moved to Grass Valley, he became a friend and neighbor. He has had numerous of our tanks at different times over the years. He is an American artist, author, musician, and spiritual teacher. E.J.'s large-scale jazz art paintings have served as backdrops for Herbie Hancock, Winston Marcellus, Nancy Wilson, Oscar Peterson, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has written and self-published over 50 books, including the American Book of the Dead. He is the founder of the Institute for the Development of the Harmonious Human Being. He has for many years acted as an independent spiritual teacher whose work and style bear a strong affinity with the teachings of Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way School of Thought. Like Gurdjieff, the fundamental emphasis of Gold's teaching is on the concept of spiritual work in daily life and a constant effort to increase and maintain heightened awareness in all activities. He is also a hilarious stand-up comic. He was invited to present at this conference by Floodon. He does not travel and was asked to send a digital recording. He invited us over to find out about the conference and the following is what happened. So I kind of let that thing, you know, lie there like that. So I'll tell you a story about John that I thought was very funny. First of all, he called because he was very excited that you guys had come up with something that didn't drip. This didn't drip ever. This is after the Japanese, that Japanese bizarre disaster tank. Yeah. It was a fiberglass. Yes. Yes. Somebody too. Yeah. Total disaster. But right after that, you guys built one that was fabulous. And that's the one that I experienced and the UFO was behind that. The best part of it was that it didn't impinge upon my body. It didn't remind me whether gently or violently. It did not remind me that I had a body and that it was there in this tank and so on. The faster, to me, the faster the tank gets out of the way, the better the tank is. And that's exactly why I actually started with and kept with the Samadhi tank. In spite of the fact that I knew you guys as well as I did, this gets the body out of the way, like 20 years of meditation would do. But here, you get into the tank and nothing like that, nothing bad is going to happen to you in the tank. First of all, that's a very good thing to know. Nothing bad will happen to you in the tank. No, I'm sitting there going, wait a minute, it's dark. The temperature wasn't right for me. I like a nice warm bath. It was cool. I got used to that and it was okay. And then I was waiting for the drips and they weren't happening because this new tank that they had developed was this mind-boggling thing that was just driving me crazy, waiting for the drip and nothing. And so... You can't be satisfied. No, it's true. I saw it as an escape velocity. I saw it as a way of getting off the planet very easily because it does two things, two wonderful things. One is it isolates you from the environment and gives you a safe environment within that. It's a bubble. It's a great bubble, a safety bubble. And secondly, most importantly, is it takes gravity off. It takes those six miles, that six mile high column of air off of you momentarily and gives you freedom from gravity. Not complete freedom, but certainly a lot of freedom from gravity enough that it can set you in the orbit almost immediately. As you get acclimatized to the tank, you know this, maybe you won't necessarily know this, it takes a while to get acclimatized to the tank. You start out working in a gymnasium. You don't get results the first day. Come on.  You're not going to get results the first 20 seconds of doing anything. So you get used to the tank, acclimatized to the tank. You start bonding. This is a joke? No. You start bonding. I work with bonding all the time. I work with bonding with animals all the time. I work with bonding with feng shui spaces all the time. I work with fountains all the time. Bonding is an issue. Always is. Whether you know it or not, you're getting into a relationship which is going to last years, maybe your whole lifetime. That can be a plant that you brought into your house, but it's certainly going to be something you get so intimate with that you get inside it for hours at a time. In order to be able to reveal to yourself your innermost, well, we'll get to that in a second, right? This is where I went with it. A lot of people use this just to chill. This is very cool and chilling is good. They also use the things for relief of chronic ailments and illnesses and pains and aches and miseries and so forth, and that's also very, very good. You just zero out the body by getting into the tank and acclimatizing yourself to learning how to do that takes a few times, right? An individual can get into a tank and eliminate 20 years of learning how to zero out the body. I'm in the tank right now. Are you? Oh, yes. And in the tank, I am the tank. I am one with the tank. And you only learn that by actually experiencing getting into the tank, having it happen.  I've had funer times enough, this is very enlightening to say the least, and eventually you will be enlightened. In other words, one of the process of enlightenment is to get lighter. No? Seriously. I mean, that's seriously true. And to relieve oneself of the burden of the body and the burden of the mind, no faster way to do that. Now, in the tank, one thing that can happen in the tank, this is what I was going to tell you happened, one of the guys who was doing a tank trip on the previous day and gotten out of the tank and then showered. You had to shower afterward to get the salt off. Still have to do that, right? Yes. Yes, that hasn't changed. So the technology is really pretty much the same. Yes. You're trying to fix it just in time. Yes. So, and you perfect small things rather than big things, you perfect small things and so everything works and stays working. You don't throw one thing out of you because you can do that. With improvements, you can throw other things out of whack with an improvement as engineers know. So one of the things I found very, very useful with the tank, amazingly and immensely useful was I could take a group of people who had six tanks at one time set up and I could take a group of people and say, look, get in the tank. First of all, get acclimatized to it after the fifth session in the tank, just acclimatizing, doing nothing, just lying there, just enjoying the tank. Don't do anything. Don't try to do anything. Just get in the tank and enjoy. Okay? Get out of the tank. Don't ask questions. Don't do anything. Don't try to reason it out. Don't try to rationalize anything. Just don't try to explain anything. Just get in the tank. Enjoy. Enjoy for one hour. Get out. Now you go shower. So this guy was doing, he was showering. He got out. He showered. He drove home. Had a beautiful Maserati. I think you know who I'm talking about. Had a beautiful Maserati. And he drove this bomb home and he woke up in the tank. He did this, how many? Three times? Was it? Do you know the story? It was three times, right? That this happened to him. And you did it too. Not even a Maserati though. No, but he did the same thing. And the first time that I tried this, I didn't, but on my fifth tank experience, I did that double looping. And what happens, you get a time loop out of the thing. And you start projecting a full blown tactile hallucination similar to the way that the Earth is produced, or the way the universe is produced. It's a full blown tactile hallucination too. When you're meditating in that space, it becomes an amazing tool. And that's what I find is a transformational tool. It's just unsurpassed.  There's a very, very high level, and this I agree with, a very high level of selfishness that creates what one is, that is the character builder, that builds your character, that makes your character do what your character does, and sets your character up basically, chooses, selects the character's traits, or what they call in England, traits. And that goes very well with the Buddhist concept that your tendencies are you, that your tendencies, the things that you are likely to do, you're likely to do again. One of the things that I'm hoping that somebody would do is combine some of my inductions, like the relaxation induction, things like that, with the tank and see what happens, how people respond to that. I think that would be very exciting. Because I think that being led through a series of inducted journeys would help people. Also, there are journeys, there are extra-dimensional journeys as well that I've set up, and I think that would go well with the tank. Although I don't know anybody who's experimented with that at this time, it's just started. I've just released those things, so it's only been weeks. So we haven't had any feedback on it. But that would be kind of a fun thing to see if anybody can use those for that purpose, particularly to do metaprogramming. And there are, I do have, inductions that have metaprogramming inductions, of course. I have a good time without some salt. It's magnesium sulfate that bothers me. No, it's not true. It's called an in-joke. It's not true. Magnesium sulfate doesn't bother me nor does MGSO4. That, in case you guys are kind of... A friend I had, a friend he was, this friend he is no more. For what he thought was H2O, was H2SO4. Lying in Epsom salt bath for one hour, you will feel great. And then on top of that, in a safe environment where you can completely relax, completely let go, that's the other thing, too, that I find very, very good, is that in that environment, because you've built it as a safe environment, you can sit up quickly and get out of there fast, you have escape things and all kinds of panic things built in, which is fantastic. And many of the tanks did not ever put those panic things in, like the way you did to let somebody freak out, get out of there quickly. That's a relief. So you feel safe because you know you can do that anytime. And in fact, Tony told me, she said, when I was in there, she said panic.  Okay, okay, I'll panic. I started groping around, and then the thing came open really easily, and I popped out, it's all a big deal. Hardly any weight to achieve. And I'm out of the tank there. All right, now get back in the tank again. I'll panic again. I said, yes, panic drill. And so then you feel completely safe. And when you've done three panic drills, you feel safe in there forever. No problem. No, you can get out if you need to. One of the things I appreciated was the fact that it is a safe environment. It feels safe in there. And you can breathe in there. It's very important to be able to breathe. I love to breathe. I'm so addicted to oxygen, I cannot tell you.  And I haven't been able to stop since. I'll beat it until that day.  Yeah, really. I'll beat this oxygen addiction if it's the last. I like that. It's a t-shirt. So the engineering is amazing. I've watched Glenn as an engineer, as a fellow engineer. I've watched him engineer and craft these things and come up with solutions. You don't have any idea what has to go into a tank in order to make the thing. You think, oh, how do you just put the stamp of things? Put them together. Not true, right? It's a little more than that. Yeah, it's a little more than that. I'll put a lot more. And everything has to be engineered down to a micron. It really does. And to make it work consistently forever without having to fly out there and fix it for you, nobody wants to do that. Or have you ship it back, God forbid?  But hey, you have to design so that that doesn't happen. So you don't have those things happen or as few times as possible. Inevitably, something will land again. What else do you need? One thing I find is that I still have to stretch my face to get really relaxed.  Most of the bugs I know have that same problem. But once I do get it all stretched, it's like I'm able to get more into the being space. It seems like I have to get out of the personality by doing that. That's why I recommend the inductions because they can help guide you, lead you out of the I am me and into the I am all from that. But it's in stages, it's easy stages, and you can go as far as you want with it. And one of the things, you're in the forefront of something, you don't even know what it is yet, which is extradimensional XD technology. XDT is coming. Know what it not, like it or not, want it or not, it's coming. Because extradimensional is how you travel. Actually, how you travel in space. You don't travel by going from one thing in space to another. You travel by going outside and coming back in again. There are machines, devices that can be built to do just exactly that. They are in other civilizations. There are civilizations that are billions of years older than this civilization, billions of years. And they still exist. They're still in existence. Anyway, that tank is a life changer. It's a wonderful experience. And the centers are doing a great deal to, well, bring the word of God to the even. You know what I mean? Write that down. Yeah. Don't forget, in the mind, there are no limits.


What is up you guys welcome back to another one if you are new to the channel I am Gold Pony and today we are in the new 2019 Volkswagen Golf GTI Rabbit Edition I'll have you know courtesy of Sutliff Volkswagen in Harrisburg PA and of course with it being a brand new trim level for 2019 I had to have the rabbit edition so let me jump right into it and as always let's start with pricing and so of course there will be several different trim levels for the 2019 Golf GTI first one being the S that is going to start at $27,595 then you have the rabbit edition the one we have today if that one starts at $28,895 then the SE for $31,795 and lastly the Autobahn that one is going to start at $35,995 but regardless of trim level the power plant on the 2019 Golf GTI will be the same powering this one this year is a two liter turbocharged inline four cylinder putting out eight more horsepower than it did in the 2018 model year coming in at 228 horsepower at 4,700 rpm 258 pound feet of torque available at 1500 rpm power again sent to the front wheelster your choice of either a six speed manual which we do have today or a seven speed automatic that one is optional but that actually gains an extra gear compared to the 2018 model year what so when you put all of that together zero to 60 time comes in at approximately six seconds flat with MPG numbers coming in at 24 city 32 on the highway regular unleaded fuel is recommended however those horsepower numbers that I just gave you Volkswagen does claim that premium unleaded is how they got those horsepower numbers in case you were interested but either way just to the left of the shifter there are some driving modes available for this one including eco normal and sport so what do you say let's put it in that sport driving mode by the way those driving modes are good just things like the throttle response the shift points if you go with the automatic at least and actually also the steering sensitivity and with it in sport mode I can say the steering feel is quite nice but nonetheless since we have an in sport driving mode here let's do a quick little acceleration now that we're at a red light here and let's see how quickly we can get this 2019 golf GTI up to speed dang man this thing is fun definitely no issues with bird you got to the highway and I forgot how much freakin fun it is to row through your own gears man by the way also worth mentioning the shifter on the six speed manual in the golf is a golf ball of course and it's been that way for quite a while honestly but I always have to mention it because that is one of the coolest unique features every single time I get in the golf always a huge fan of the golf ball shifter by the way another thing I should mention there was no torque steer there either so that kind of impressed me as well a lot of times with higher horsepower cars with that power sent to the front wheels rather than all wheels let's say there is going to be a little bit of torque steer but with that acceleration I just did there with the golf GTI there was none that's awesome and since we have the six speed manual here today as far as rowing through the gears absolutely no issues very easy to find the grab points and very much show a fun car to drive with this being a six speed manual and a car will say that you should not have any issues even learning to drive manual and if this is your first manual car but so then to go along with that acceleration as always breaking is equally important and so what front you will find 13.4 inch ventilated front discs with red brake calipers with the GTI logo in them as well so that's definitely pretty cool in the back 12.2 inch ventilated rear discs and as far as the braking feel goes I've had no issues whatsoever in my short test drive today and they're touching on suspension and handling a little bit the GTI of course will give you a sport tuned suspension and to go along with that a front limited slip differentials well probably helping me out with the lack of torque steer so that's definitely there for you as well and in a car like this limited slip differential is actually pretty important because not only will it help prevent that torque steer but it is going to give you better cornering abilities as well helps sending torque to the wheel with the most traction and overall a better acceleration as well and then just to come back to it because I always like giving in its own segment the steering feel is definitely on point with the Golf GTI especially in sport mode a very nice heavy steering feel a nice weight to it I should say so definitely no issues there when it comes to cabin noise again I've had no issues ride quality definitely the same boat and honestly with compact cars you are gonna feel a little more of the road but it isn't bad is definitely as expected with this kind of car so touching on rear visibility this is a golf so visibility has always been on point in this one honestly just about the best you can get as far as visibility goes to no issues there but enough with the driving dynamics you guys let's check out the exterior of this new 2019 Volkswagen Golf GTI it's starting up front at first I want to mention towards the lower part of that front bumper you can see that intercooler tucked away just behind the front bumper of course with this being a turbocharged car that's why it's there of course but to the sides halogen headlights are going to come standard with the S trim level however if you want with the rabbit edition trim level or up you will get LED headlights up there and either way standard setup is also going to give you LED daytime running lights along with the automatic feature meaning when it starts to get dark out the headlights will turn on automatically for you and that rabbit trim level and up is also going to give you fog lights just below the headlights as well and make your way to the side you will first find GTI badging within that front fender also body colored side mirrors with integrated turn signals will come standard and you will actually get several black accents including black side mirrors if you went specifically with the rabbit edition all other trim levels are going to give you body colored side mirrors though they take a look down at the wheel setup 18 inch five spoke alloy wheels will come standard for all trim levels but the rabbit edition that one is going to give you 18 inch split five spoke alloy wheels so same size either way just a slightly different design there but then swinging around to the back rear spoiler with an integrated brake light will come standard just below that a rear window wiper LED tail lights also found back there along with GTI badging and just below it all dual exhaust outlets with chrome tips so you guys know what we have to do next as always here is that exhaust clip it's open now since we are around back to open that rear hatch there actually is a button on the key fob so simply just press that if you like but once opened up cargo capacity is going to come in at 22.8 cubic feet if that was not enough space however there's rear seats do fold down there is a 60 40 split giving you a ton of added space if you needed it there then make your way up to the rear leg room that is going to come in at 35.6 inches so for reference i'm an even six feet tall this is how much space i had back there also for those rear passengers there is a rear center armrest with cup holders for all trim levels and there's your passengers will find rear ventilation if they look forward as well there then make your way to the front seats clark plaid cloth surfaces my favorite seats on a volts wagon is going to come standard with the s and the rabbit edition trim so that is actually what you're looking at right now by the way these seats are bolstered very nicely as well most cars i review you don't have this kind of aggressive bolstering so definitely a fan of that and by the way those seats will come heated but leather seating surfaces is actually going to come with the s e and the autobahn if you wanted that again those seats will be heated too but in addition to that the autobahn trim level is also going to add 12 way power adjustable driver seat but taking a look forward at the steering wheel there is a tilt and telescoping steering wheel that will come standard leather wrapped as well for all trim levels and when it comes to the startup let me first start by showing you guys the key here it actually is a fairly heavy key a nice weight to it so kind of heavy duty if you will but volts wagon logo on the back there along with the gti logo as well it's kind of cool and specific to the car we have today then when you flip it over lock unlock that button to pop the rear hatch and there is still that button that flips the key out although you don't need it because if you go with the rabbit trim level and up at least there is a push button start just to the left of the shifter there so all i am going to do here is simply put my foot on the brake and clutch and press the engine start button located just to the left of the shifter and then when started up tachometer is going to be on your left speedometer is on your right there is a small digital display front and center giving you things like your outside temperature a digital speedometer what time of the day it is and of course your trip information they make our way to overall interior quality autobahn trim level is going to give you dual zone climate control however all trim levels are going to give you illuminated door sills as well as ambient lighting definitely a sweet feature on all trim levels actually se trim level knob is also going to give you a panoramic sunroof if you wanted it there and overall again my favorite thing about the interior of this one is the clark plaid cloth seats on this one gotta love that design but now let's make our way to the tech display 6.5 inch color touchscreen display is going to come with the s and rabbit edition trims 8 inch color touchscreen display is going to come with the s e and autobahn trim levels either way you do get bluetooth and audio streaming regardless of what setup you go with along with android auto and apple carplay that's always a big one for me you definitely come to love that factory navigation system is going to come with the autobahn trim level if you wanted it you can also check out your radio settings up there as well and by the way when it comes to the sound system you will get six speakers if you go with the s rabbit or s e trim levels and you will get an eight speaker fender premium sound system if you go with the autobahn by the way that comes with 400 watts and it's optional actually on the s e trim but since we do have the rabbit edition here today what do you say let's turn on the radio see we've got playing today and let's test out the clarity of this one actually i gotta be honest for a standard six speaker sound system that is a ton loud definitely a good bit of bass as well not as much as you're going to get with the fender system but very very loud sound system for the size of the golf kind of impressed but so then last thing i wanted to mention on the tech display at least is when you do put the golf gti in reverse and by the way since we have the manual here to put this one in reverse simply press down on the shifter and push it into the upper left hand corner but with either transmission setup you will get a rear view camera once put in reverse letting you know who or what is behind you which is always is going to lead me into safety and so to start there are front side and side curtain airbags also in the back there is latch aka lower anchors and tethers for children for the rear car seats also standard a tire pressure monitoring system as well as rain sensing windshield wipers that is actually standard on every single trim level it's going to scare you at first but then you're going to get used to it and you're going to absolutely love it so that's pretty cool rabid addition is going to add forward collision warning autonomous emergency braking blind spot monitor with rear cross traffic alert as well as pedestrian monitoring so a good bit there with that trim and lastly the autobahn trim level is going to add some more including high beam control adaptive cruise control park assist and park distance control hey so but that is about it for this one you guys thank you so much for watching be sure to like the video and subscribe feel free to follow me on social media at the bottom of the screen there and i will see you guys in the next video stay gold