102. Michelle LeBaron: How to Resolve Conflicts & De-Escalate Political Conversations

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Tim Srigley
It's the Bigger Than Me podcast with your host, Aaron Pete.

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Aaron Pete
It's not very often that we get to talk about peace, negotiation, conflict resolution, how to communicate with others who we may disagree with. And that's why I'm so proud today to sit down with Professor Michelle LeBaron. She was a past educator of mine from Peter Allard School of Law, and I found her to be incredibly insightful, incredibly thoughtful and thought provoking when we're talking about how to mediate between two people who have different perspectives.

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Aaron Pete
And so I hope you enjoy this episode where we're able to dove into how to connect when we may disagree Michelle it's such a pleasure to sit down with you today. Would you mind introducing yourself briefly for those who might not be acquainted?

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Michelle LeBaron
Thank you, Aaron. And it's a gift to be with you today. I am a professor of law at the University of British Columbia at Allard School of Law and a long time mediator or mediator, trainer and negotiation teacher who really loves art. And the questions around what artists can teach mediators and negotiators.

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Aaron Pete
Probably a skill that we should learn about at an earlier age than we do is this idea of negotiating jaded relationships and how to connect. Because as you described, we had, of course, together, as you describe, this is something we do every single day. We negotiate relationships with other people, yet perhaps not always consciously. And I think you did an elegant job of bringing that to the forefront of our mind, of making sure that we understand how we connect with other people, that this isn't something that you just get trained to do when you use in one specific circumstance.

00;01;47;23 - 00;02;02;27
Aaron Pete
This is every day in traffic when you're buying your food at the grocery store, when you're coming home to see your spouse. This is an everyday thing, and I think sometimes we forget that. I'd like you to start maybe with how you got interested in this when did this become a passion of yours?

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Michelle LeBaron
Well, thank you, Aaron And let me say, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And although we learned, of course, many things about relationship in our families of origin and our communities, they're not always perfect, nor are we. And so it really is helpful to step back and to to be conscious about the way that we build relationships, build rapport, and then negotiate our differences.

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Michelle LeBaron
How did I get involved? Well, I grew up in southern Alberta in a white, mostly white community that was incredibly racist. And I found it deeply dissonant, even as a child, I suppose, because I grew up during the civil rights era. In the U.S. And so I was hearing about racism and I was hearing about I don't think I knew much about the Japanese internment, but my family had lived on farms where Japanese internees had been sent.

00;03;07;17 - 00;03;44;11
Michelle LeBaron
And so I heard something about that. And I found it deeply, deeply disquieting. So I felt that my career would need to in some way address injustice and address the way that we humans don't relate very constructively to each other. And that is what got me involved in mediation and negotiation. I went to law school because I could but I found, you know, it didn't fit me like a glove.

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Michelle LeBaron
You know, we say that we should find something to do that fits us like a glove. It did not. But luckily, mediation and negotiation helped me make sense of my law degree.

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Aaron Pete
Interesting. We hear this idea that children don't grow up and they aren't inherently born with these biases, these dislikes, these emotions. Yeah, it's difficult once you're raised in that to kind of get away from it. And I'm just wondering from your perspective, what allowed you to have the sober second thought about the decisions, the perspectives going on around you?

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Aaron Pete
Because to be honest, you can fault a person too much for being raised in an environment and not knowing any better. And it sounds like you you did. And I'm just curious as to how that came about.

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Michelle LeBaron
Well, thank you. Again, that say that's a really fertile question. I would say I have I would say that it had to do with learning that my both of my families who had come from farms in southern Alberta, had had Japanese internees on the farms. And I heard that they lived in the pickers shacks out back. The conditions were very dire for them.

00;04;53;26 - 00;05;32;23
Michelle LeBaron
And that just really it didn't make sense to me. And I also saw that indigenous people whose communities and and reserves were surrounding the city where I grew up, Lethbridge, they were were not talked about respectfully and it bothered me. I think some of us are born. I would be one of those people with a kind of inherent sense of of of injustice or wanting to respect others.

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Michelle LeBaron
And I will tell you that a couple of my family members would tell racist jokes at the dinner table. And this just incensed me. And so I think it's from that anger that that I resolved to do something in the world that would address that.

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Aaron Pete
That's beautiful. Was this something that was clear during your law? Educate Shin. Was this something that was at the front of your mind that you were focused on, or was there like a reinvigoration of this interest?

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Michelle LeBaron
You know, like you've also attended, Aaron. So you would know or perhaps you would agree with me that. And law school doesn't necessarily focus on questions of racism or structural inequality. There may be some courses where that arises, but it's not the so-called meat and potatoes of law school. So certainly when I went to law school before you did a couple of decades, it was not much talked about at all.

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Michelle LeBaron
And I finished law school because I didn't have another good plan, honestly, because it didn't feel to me like it really related to my deep interests. But just a few years, within five years of finishing law school, then mediation became a well known and widely taught, and I became a family and commercial mediator. And that helped enormously because then I could see that I could impact some of the values that I had held very closely.

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Aaron Pete
I'm really curious about that period of your life, because working as a native coworker, I would assume that criminal law would have been one of the most fraught, challenging areas of practice. It is not sheriffs that I talk to, court staff that I talk to, judges that I talk to all concur that family law is the darkest, most twisted area of practice for anybody to go into because there is when you commit a crime, say you steal a candy bar.

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Aaron Pete
So if a team in a more serious offense, there's still like a sense of justice that you could find but there's a darkness to what family law brings about in people. And it's an ability to hurt a person deeper than perhaps a punch in the face and a regular attack. There is an ability to really wound people at the center of their core.

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Aaron Pete
And when you have a significant other or an individual who's able to say You've never been a good person, you'll never be a good person, and you're just an unlovable, hateful individual that I'll never care for and that I've never cared for. That hits at the core of us because they've seen you when you're brushing your teeth, when you're getting ready, they see you.

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Aaron Pete
And as a human being in a different way. And so the emotions that exist in family law are so different than anything else you'll see in any other area of practice. And that seems to have somehow inspired you or influenced you. And I'm just curious as to what you saw during that period.

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Michelle LeBaron
Well, Aaron, I think that's so true. Of course, those with whom we are intimate know us very well. So they know where our vulnerabilities are deep. And if then they tied of a good relationship turns into the shadow. It can be some of the most devastating trauma that could ever be experienced so I think I think you're exactly right.

00;09;16;26 - 00;09;49;27
Michelle LeBaron
And I found working as a family, not mediator, that many people came in at their very lowest ebb. I know very few people, actually, who have had constructive experiences with separation and divorce. And so and that's a sad thing. And I think in part, it has to do with the way our system is structured. It has to do with the fact that although we have no fault divorce in British Columbia, still we have pleadings.

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Michelle LeBaron
We have ways that the law can be used to harass the other. If you are willing to spend the time and the money and the energy and and that happens and as we know and you didn't mention this, but it's also the case that children are often the casualties. So children get used as pawns or as as power and power pieces that are the subject of negotiation.

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Michelle LeBaron
And I feel very very fortunate to have done this. And I also could not have worked as a family, my mediator, more than just a few years, because the the challenges that arise and the states that people fall into and the shadow sides that surface are actually very difficult to hold. And I think one of the things we need to talk about enough is actually the referred trauma that happens for practitioners, for work, for legal practitioners, not to mention family members.

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Michelle LeBaron
It we've become our system somehow shapes us into becoming so harsh because these environments, the environment of of legal separation and divorce and and it's still incredibly adversarial.

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Aaron Pete
I definitely feel that I have a close friend right now who's going through they're not married, but they're separating. And I would say that it's also an experience where you can't say who you would be in this circumstance. And he is seeing his his significant other, his past significant other, I guess, behave in a way that he doesn't recognize and you don't know who people are until you're in this moment because and I tried to do my best to explain this and he actually took it really well.

00;11;49;01 - 00;12;10;10
Aaron Pete
Is that in my opinion, in many of these regards, there are actually three people in the relationship. It's you. The other person and then the person you create out of that and that is a separate and distinct relationship separate from the two individuals. And you make certain covenants to that agreement. You say, I'm going to behave this way.

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Aaron Pete
This is what you can expect. And I think on both sides, we can start to see that fail. For men, I'm very critical of the individuals who stopped doing date night after six months, who stopped treating their significant other well, because you made that covenant that is the person you agreed to deliver on. And when you come back on that and say the honeymoon period is over, that's what the person agreed to.

00;12;30;17 - 00;12;54;21
Aaron Pete
If this was a contract, that's what the person signed up for. And so when you change, that has consequences. But through these relationships, you don't know who you are. After 30 days of arguing and arguing, arguing and disagreeing and and not getting restful sleeps and disagreeing over the smallest of things of who put the spoon in the in the dishwasher and who didn't do this, that you don't know who you are in that dark moment.

00;12;54;21 - 00;13;15;22
Aaron Pete
And so the worst of people is exposed during these periods. And so to your point, being in a room with people who behave this way, just like how we talk about police officers seeing the worst. 20% of people when they're committing crimes and acting offenses, we also see this in the family law career that you're seeing people at their darkest, at their most insidious.

00;13;15;27 - 00;13;28;23
Aaron Pete
And again, I would use the word insidious because there's something darker to take that vulnerability and shine a light on it in court or to bring it up or point some of these mystique out in front of everybody when you know that that was them at their weakest.

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Michelle LeBaron
I think that's wrong there that I find it really interesting. You're talking about this third that gets cards deleted because the third is you're right, it's kind of an entity by itself. It's the relationship. It's the coming together, the union. And it has certain values. It has its own life. It has its own character. And then when you find that third being distorted, being being the the home or the seat of incredible disruption and and what seems to be very bad faith behavior, it's incredibly disheartening.

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Michelle LeBaron
I think we humans, we go into relationship with optimism. We go into relationship with a sense that this is the best thing that ever happened to us. And so what a long fall down it is to then come to see that person as enemy as darkness, as far as sabotaging. And yet so often those are the reciprocal perceptions of people who are separating and divorcing.

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Aaron Pete
I think it's really important when we're having this conversation. You're an expert in conflict resolution and negotiation and I think it's really valuable for us to go through some of the techniques, some of the tools. You think it would be useful for people to know when we're having this conversation about healthy dialogs What are some of the tactics you think would be useful to put on people's mind as we are trying to navigate new times.

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Michelle LeBaron
Thank you for that question there. You know, if you take that course and I know you have for me and no doubt for many others about conflict resolution or about negotiation, you will be taught listening skills framing skills, ways of trying to take statements that might have negativity in them and somehow massage them into being more positive. So there are a whole variety of communication skills and structuring skills and problem solving skills that are taught.

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Michelle LeBaron
I have come, however, increasingly to believe that those skills are good and they are important and certainly if a person has a deficit in those areas, it's good to work on it. And at the same time, I noticed that when they talk to experienced mediators about what they do in their own conflicts, what they do when they're in their own situation, where it feels like all the pieces have been thrown up in the air and they feel disoriented and and underappreciated and upset in the midst of whatever the conflict context is, they tend to not necessarily draw on those skills.

00;16;41;25 - 00;17;06;25
Michelle LeBaron
They tend to specialize their conflict of this is much different because it's so much worse and you know, than other situations or situations I've mediated. So I'll that has led me more and more to think it's not so much about teaching what to do, although knowing what to do in the midst of conflict is useful. It's more in the realm of being.

00;17;07;21 - 00;17;34;17
Michelle LeBaron
It's more in the realm of really asking ourselves the question How can I be in the midst of this unsettled place? And that's a very difficult thing to do. I think in the world in which we live, Nicole, so much pulls us out, it draws us out, social media draws us out, the pace of our lives draws us out.

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Michelle LeBaron
And so we have these very full outer lives and perhaps not as many impetus to focus on our inner lives. And then we don't know how to be in the midst of crisis or conflict. And so I think I think the answer in part at least, is befriending our inner terrains, befriending our our relationship with silence, with holding our selves intact in the midst of upheaval.

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Aaron Pete
This is a challenging question, but I think that you can offer some light into this. We often look now with cell phones and social media and laptops as a challenge for us to be in the present moment. And when I think of my grandmother, she worked with horses. She would be outdoors, she would be on the farm and perhaps more connected And yet, I feel like there is a dichotomy of remembering what that time might have been like.

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Aaron Pete
On the one hand, I hear, well, they didn't have a word for depression back then. So people who come back from war didn't know how to process those emotions and would just completely avoid it. And then on the other hand, it feels like there would have been more space to go for a walk and listen to the birds and kind of sit with emotions in a different way than right now.

00;19;02;04 - 00;19;26;17
Aaron Pete
You get cut off in traffic and to react and you have somebody who says something rude to you and it's text them back and it seems more reactive. But I'm curious, do you think that we're better at negotiating, worse and negotiating? Have things just changed? How do we think about over the past, maybe 100 years of that difference of not having access to this to now where we have access to constant communication?

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Michelle LeBaron
Well, Well, yes, these are thorny, thorny issues, I think. And so I was thinking of your grandmother and that she worked with her horses and that she spent time in nature. I'm thinking about my parents who spent time on farms and wanted nothing to do with the farm ever again in their lives because they found the work very hard and they wanted to do jobs behind masks had with what were then typewriters around.

00;20;03;14 - 00;20;34;23
Michelle LeBaron
So I think you're right. We can idealize the past I also think as I look back at conflicts in my own family, I think about one part of my extended family where there's a kind of rupture, a cut off, where various members are not speaking to other members. And I had occasion to speak with one of the younger people in that that tableau recently.

00;20;34;23 - 00;21;04;27
Michelle LeBaron
And I said to them, you know, our mothers had no psychological vocabulary. Our mothers didn't know how to talk about things that were difficult or things that were taboo or things that had been traumatic. And I think that is true in general, a little that much more vocabularies available to us now to think about trauma. As you said, people came back from the war and they had no place to put it.

00;21;04;27 - 00;21;42;17
Michelle LeBaron
So it just became compartmentalized in their lives. So I think we have many, many more resources. At the same time, I think that we live in a time when there is an ethos of progress and action and achievement and that this again pulls us out and maybe doesn't help us contextualize how we use those psychological vocabulary. So some of the resources that we now have that earlier generations didn't have.

00;21;42;17 - 00;22;06;29
Michelle LeBaron
And I'm curious, actually, Aaron in your community whether whether the elders in your community, your grandmother and others wouldn't say about the way things are talked about now and is able to draw for more resources than in the past. Pick curious about that.

00;22;07;09 - 00;22;30;09
Aaron Pete
I would say that that is definitely the case. My grandmother attended St Mary's Indian Residential School here in Michigan, and I often try and help my mother understand this because she experiences it firsthand. She was taken in. She was my mother was born with fetal alcohol syndrome disorder as a consequence of my grandmother drinking alcohol in the womb.

00;22;30;16 - 00;22;57;23
Aaron Pete
And then through that she was malnourished and taken to culturally to Indian Hospital and adopted by a Christian family I non-biological grandmother Dorothy Tennant, which meant she was part of the sixties scoop. And I would say that that was a huge benefit to her and myself. And I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for that nurse. But my mother has taken the decision to not be a part of her own family and to be disconnected from that personally.

00;22;58;00 - 00;23;19;21
Aaron Pete
And then even today, My grandmother is not an emotional person. She's not a well connected person. She's not a thoughtful person in that way of trying to build bridges and look at how we can have dialog and move past our trauma. She would still resort to something like alcohol to cope with those traumas. She doesn't want to talk about it, and I would say that's of no fault of her own.

00;23;20;03 - 00;23;42;17
Aaron Pete
This was the tools that she was provided. And I'd be curious on your thoughts of are some of these things just at a certain point unreasonable to ask a person to? She's in the hospital now. She only has so many years left. Is it fair for me to think she should go get a counselor to work through these issues while she still has maybe a year or two left and address all these issues so we can make peace?

00;23;42;17 - 00;23;58;01
Aaron Pete
Or do we accept her and love her for the things that she endured and understand that her experience will forever be different than the experience I have and my mother has, and that that does in some way put her in a different category where there are certain tasks that are in and reasonable.

00;23;59;17 - 00;24;48;02
Michelle LeBaron
Well First, I want to say that this story that you've just shared and touches me deeply. It's a very personal story. Thank you for sharing it. It's a story which is not unique, unfortunately, but is the story a variation of the story? That many people tell? And I believe that as people living in this land, it's so important that we tell stories and that we give voice to what actually happened as opposed to trying to sweep it under the rug or gloss over or get so absorbed in anger about it that we still don't really tell the story.

00;24;48;02 - 00;25;28;16
Michelle LeBaron
So I hear you telling it with real compassion for your grandmother and for your mother and for yourself. And that brings tears to me. I find that really, really moving. I've had this same kind of question with a different history than yours in relation to my mother, because my mother had experienced sexual abuse by her elder brother and although she told me about it when I was in my thirties, she told me about it like you might tell someone about the weather.

00;25;29;05 - 00;26;18;15
Michelle LeBaron
She told me about it is a fact of something that happened, but not in a way that the emotions were even present in the telling and this is how she had found to deal with it. My mother never went to therapy. It wasn't something that was customary in her generation or with people that she knew. And it took me a long time to come to a place of peace with understanding that she really didn't have that vocabulary and that if she were in the vicinity of a kind of psychological or trauma informed vocabulary, she it wouldn't be hers.

00;26;19;05 - 00;27;05;29
Michelle LeBaron
It wouldn't be something that she could adopt or that she could kind of parachute into. I think that years before this damage had been done. It played out in very painful ways through her entire life. And my job was to be compassionate in relation to that by, for example, felt quite upset that she never confronted my uncle, her elder brother, and and never, never brought to him, knew what his actions had had generated.

00;27;06;11 - 00;27;44;10
Michelle LeBaron
And for her it simply wasn't done. It simply wasn't spoken about. And I just wonder whether that isn't something that is simply to be acknowledged and and understood with compassion and by actually this is a big leap. It's a different topic entirely. But I've been doing some work about unplanned pregnancies and especially given changes to the law about abortion in the United States.

00;27;45;02 - 00;28;19;17
Michelle LeBaron
And what I see is that this topic to this question of sexual and reproductive health and choices around families and births or abortions It's an area that's really not talked about at all. You know, it's not talked about freely or comfortably. It's talked about often in loud voices. It's talked about with with rights discourses, but it's not often talked about in very soft in compassion, that ways.

00;28;20;03 - 00;28;57;29
Michelle LeBaron
And so circling back to where you where you started this exchange, I hear you talking in soft and compassionate ways. And I think that is surely something that we need to include in our thinking about conflict. It's not always to be kind of grab it by the horns and thought well, perhaps it's also to be witnessed and held and that in that witnessing and holding, there can be a kind of shift that we hadn't even foreseen.

00;28;59;04 - 00;29;29;21
Aaron Pete
I agree. I'm curious, as you we talk about intercultural relations, and I'm wondering if you would include some of the circumstances we're talking about with generations within this idea of of culture and having different cultural norms. Because I do see my generation looking back at past generations with a sense of arrogance that they would have done differently had they been in these shoes and that they because we are here now, we know better.

00;29;29;28 - 00;29;51;03
Aaron Pete
And when we talk about the relationship between men and women in the home, when we talk about what best practices might look like, it seems like we're coming at it from a very different lens today. Without an appreciation of maybe the complexities and the differences that existed then and without an appreciation of the potential benefits that did exist in the past.

00;29;51;11 - 00;30;06;19
Aaron Pete
And how we might balance to the benefits of that today with how we operate today and how we can balance the two and get the best of both worlds instead it seems like there's a bit of arrogance, a bit of smugness to people of the past.

00;30;08;17 - 00;30;34;06
Michelle LeBaron
I think that's very true. I think we of, you know, being in the university, I feel like I may share the current discourses about law or about psychology. I feel fortunate to be in the midst of them both. And at the same time, it's so important for me to remember everyone is not. And so there are all sorts of arrogance, aren't there?

00;30;34;09 - 00;31;00;25
Michelle LeBaron
You know, generationally. But between those with a certain level of education and those with other kinds of experiences. And it does seem if you look back, you you earlier referred to 100 years as a time frame. If we look back over 100 years and maybe five generations, we probably see in every generation that kind of arrogance looking backwards.

00;31;01;07 - 00;31;30;11
Michelle LeBaron
And if you think about the past 200 years also, it's been a time of more rapid change than any other time in human history in many ways, depending how you measure it. So it perhaps accentuates that phenomenon of being arrogant in relation to a previous generation. And certainly I I've been guilty of that with respect to my parents.

00;31;30;11 - 00;32;02;13
Michelle LeBaron
Generation. They didn't have the educational advantages that I've had. They didn't have the lenses that I can put on and take off of me. And they didn't know that you could take off lenses. In fact, you know, they didn't have the the perspectives that now many would take for granted. And and still, both of my parents are are no longer on this play.

00;32;02;13 - 00;32;46;20
Michelle LeBaron
And then I remember them with kindness. I remember my father being incredibly compassionate to others and my mother, who was quite a harsh person. And as a result of some of her early experiences. And I do my best to remember her with love because she suffered she suffered a lot. And I think when we feel attachment or arrogance toward others, whether generationally or educationally, then we don't necessarily make room for that loving gaze that we could have.

00;32;48;03 - 00;33;08;29
Aaron Pete
Do you think that there is a route to conflict typically? Do you think that there is a typical spot where we find it? I think of when a person's coming home from work and maybe they're dissatisfied with how they're agreed it. And then there's a sense of I deserve to be greeted in their head, not allowed, that I deserve to be greeted with this response.

00;33;09;03 - 00;33;33;15
Aaron Pete
And they're not doing for that, that for me. And so instead of saying anything about it, I'm going to take back something where maybe they're grateful for. Maybe I usually make dinner and I'm going to say I'm not going to make dinner tonight. And instead of actually communicating and reflecting on these are the things that shape me. This is what makes me feel seen, valued, heard, loved, connected.

00;33;33;23 - 00;33;47;08
Aaron Pete
And I don't feel like we're doing that. So how could we proceed? And I'm just curious, do you think that there's a typical room where a majority of of disagreements have conflicts arise from? And is it unmet not expectations?

00;33;48;10 - 00;34;10;22
Michelle LeBaron
I am sure, Aaron, that unmet expectations are a big part of it. I think that's that's very insightful. I think about the wonderful artist whose name was Mike Richards. She passed away just a few years ago. Glenn died before she died. She had lived in an intentional community on the East Coast of the U.S. for a number of years.

00;34;11;03 - 00;34;43;10
Michelle LeBaron
And she was asked if she would write a chapter about conflict in a book that was going to be put together about women's perspectives on different issues. And she said she absolutely would write a chapter about conflict because she knew a lot about conflict, having lived in this community for some time. And I think also having lived as an artist, because we don't make the way easy for artists and in many of our cultural contexts.

00;34;44;06 - 00;35;21;07
Michelle LeBaron
And so she wrote a chapter about conflict. And in it she said, in the midst of our mutual involvement, we befall each other constantly and it's a bit of archaic wording, but I think it's wonderful we befall each other all the time. You know, whether I'm not treated the way I wish to be greeted when I come home or my partner doesn't answer my call when I have an urgent question to ask or, you know, fill in the blank, all these things.

00;35;21;14 - 00;36;00;26
Michelle LeBaron
And why do they matter when we discuss them? And they sound so trivial, they matter because they connect into those places where we each have a deep need to be acknowledged and seen and heard and witnessed, witnessed in our lives and and welcomed in the world. Those of us who didn't feel very welcomed as children in the world I think we're more likely to than see unwelcoming in other aspects of our adult lives.

00;36;00;26 - 00;36;31;16
Michelle LeBaron
So our pattern and follow us and then our work is about being aware of those patterns and being aware that even in the most congenial, well-adapted family or relationship, we maybe follow each other constantly At least that's my experience. And maybe it's because I've studied conflict for many years. So I see it everywhere, but I think it's pretty ubiquitous.

00;36;32;28 - 00;36;58;13
Aaron Pete
I tend to agree with you, and I think how we've resolved that is a sign of the cultural differences we might have and the style in which we resolve things, which is personally why I find the idea of taking indigenous values and trying to apply them to Western culture is really interesting to me because in some circumstances I tend not to agree with the move, and it's because Indigenous communities don't scale the way Western culture has.

00;36;58;19 - 00;37;21;26
Aaron Pete
And this is one of the challenges I see when we're talking about it's not to say that they're wrong or incorrect, but a sentencing circle in an indigenous community works because the 200 members all know each other, and so they're all starting from a reasonable place. Trying to take that same model and put it into a provincial court or Supreme Court doesn't work the same way because nobody knows each other.

00;37;21;26 - 00;37;56;23
Aaron Pete
And you have to. And during this time when we talk about decolonization, I do see a danger in not recognizing the brilliance of the system and exist and that's not to say that the system is perfect, but that is to say that there are certain ways in which the system does function. And when we talk about the ability for an accused individual of a crime to be able to go in and have unbiased individuals judging based on the facts and not being allowed to make prejudgments about them, to have to follow beyond a reasonable doubt to follow certain rules and functions, this is a system that works.

00;37;56;29 - 00;38;17;09
Aaron Pete
Even if you're from another country, you speak a different language. You don't have the same cultural values The idea is the system is still supposed to function when you don't know the judge, the sheriff, the courts task or any of the people in the room. And you're still supposed to find this idea of justice. And I'm just curious as to how you feel about how we weave in a system, because I think there's opportunities for it.

00;38;17;15 - 00;38;29;16
Aaron Pete
But we have to be careful when we're trying to take these steps and we have to be appreciative of the systems that work and how they work, rather than just saying we're going to supplant the system in this existing system and fix it.

00;38;31;22 - 00;38;59;07
Michelle LeBaron
Harry, Meghan, I find myself agreeing with you so hard. I think you make an excellent point and you know, I hope that my work is part of the project of decolonization. That's very important to me. And at the same time, I think appropriation or just translating something from one system into another has all sorts of difficulties associated with it.

00;38;59;12 - 00;39;40;28
Michelle LeBaron
You've just illustrated one that if you take a system from a very intact community where everyone has a lot of binds, a lot of threads that connect them, and you planted in a system where that's not at all the case, then it doesn't work in the same way as Cat And, you know, I do think that it's important that we look at systems and context and we look at how our as a system in the example, you've given functions where it can be improved, where it's systemically by itself.

00;39;40;28 - 00;40;39;15
Michelle LeBaron
And therefore, you know, for example, in sentencing someone's life experience, particularly as an indigenous person in Canada, needs to be taken into account and should be taken into account so that sentencing practices are not grossly unfair over and over. And so I think I think that's important. But I also think that it's it's important not to just discard an entire system in favor of something that looks more relational, that looks more relational and human and compassionate and I think sometimes that's what happens when people get excited about family group conferencing, which after all comes from Maori people.

00;40;39;15 - 00;41;06;28
Michelle LeBaron
In in New Zealand and or sentencing circles for the same reason. And I also I'm aware of the book I don't know if you know of it. It was written some years ago by a law professor at the University of Alberta called Annalise Acording. And what she argues her books about practices like sentencing circles and argues that they enforced compulsory compassion.

00;41;07;19 - 00;41;26;18
Michelle LeBaron
You know, that in fact, they may not always function well in terms of accountability or in terms of bringing in a person face to face with the consequences of their actions in the way that sometimes they clearly do.

00;41;27;09 - 00;41;49;02
Aaron Pete
I would tend to agree with you, which is what actually one of my critiques of First Nations court is that they we don't have data on whether or not they're actually effective at addressing recidivism rates or in or any of those rates. But then on top of that, they feel incredibly meaningful to be in the room and to hear somebody's story of abuse and childhood harm.

00;41;49;02 - 00;42;09;03
Aaron Pete
And you feel like you're connected to something. And so the people in the room go, Oh, you got to do this. This is incredible. You're experiencing a person's life and and it's so raw and it's so real, and that can feel so good. And my counterpoint is that should be done in a counselor's office or with an elder, not for the display.

00;42;09;03 - 00;42;27;15
Aaron Pete
This is not theatrics. This is not for our entertainment. And we do risk enjoying the experience of compassion and emotion and feeling so much that we forget that this is a person's life, that you were not registered counselors and that this isn't perhaps the right venue for this type of emotion.

00;42;29;02 - 00;43;09;26
Michelle LeBaron
I think that's really true. And it brings me in a circle. It's something, Aaron, that you raised earlier, which was about people who have survived and did residential schools. And if we think about the various mechanisms and processes that were devised to address those harms in whatever inadequate way, then we see that many people who had perhaps never told their stories were somehow compelled to tell those stories in order to fit into certain categories for compensation.

00;43;10;05 - 00;43;44;07
Michelle LeBaron
And that just and to tell those stories in front of strangers. Yes, perhaps with an elder or a support person, but in front of strangers, nonetheless. In front of a lawyer who who would adjudicate various claims. And it just struck me that it was mixing some reach for justice with something which is much more appropriately dealt with in the psychotherapeutic context.

00;43;44;07 - 00;43;51;00
Michelle LeBaron
And so to me, that's been one of my critiques of of those processes. Yeah.

00;43;51;07 - 00;44;17;00
Aaron Pete
From a bill that's 13 years old to probably about 21 years old, I believed that politics shouldn't be a private conversation. And growing up during my childhood, politics was still very much you keep your political opinions to yourself, and we've seen that relatively undone. Most, for the most part, you're able to share your political perspectives with people. You're able to post about things on social media.

00;44;17;12 - 00;44;41;01
Aaron Pete
It's not as private as perhaps it used to be. And it's only more recently that I wonder if there wasn't some sage wisdom in keeping our political opinions more private that perhaps the ability to voice all of our perspectives constantly is a danger when we don't aren't able to take the time to thoughtfully develop an opinion. When we see something we sort of agree with, we leap on it.

00;44;41;01 - 00;45;05;11
Aaron Pete
And that's now. Our team were full force on that. And I felt like, you know, one of the things that the reason I wanted to sit down with you is because I felt like you handled the conversations around the COVID 19 pandemic incredibly thoughtfully, because in my opinion, there is a range of perspectives on the issue. And there was even during the height of it, there was different perspectives.

00;45;05;11 - 00;45;25;24
Aaron Pete
And now we look at the truckers with a certain perspective but you navigate it and you held space for individuals in our classroom really well. There were individuals in our classroom who thought it was important of the university to consider reopening and have students come back to school. And then there were other individuals who were like, There is no need for a mask.

00;45;25;29 - 00;45;47;07
Aaron Pete
We're at an age in our life we're going to be fine. The statistics show that people our age are going to be fine. There's not that much to worry about. We can go back to school. There was a range, and during that period it didn't feel like the two sides were able to communicate effectively on social media in the news in any space except your classroom.

00;45;47;10 - 00;46;08;13
Aaron Pete
And that's what I found really inspirational about you, is because to to think some courses, there's a person teaching the course that maybe isn't the best at it. But I do feel like you held space for both sides and for the people who had one strong opinion that we shouldn't be going to school. You you'd not challenge them, but you'd open their eyes to a different perspective.

00;46;08;13 - 00;46;30;29
Aaron Pete
And for the individuals who are like, it's silly that we're not coming back to school, you provided the lens of challenges that that might create, giving the to space to understand things. And I think it's a good illustration of the challenges we face when we're having political conversation that I know that this is an interest of yours. So I'd be curious as to how you think about those things behind the scenes when you see things getting heated in political.

00;46;31;03 - 00;46;32;11
Aaron Pete
How do you process that?

00;46;33;05 - 00;46;58;15
Michelle LeBaron
Well, thank you again. There's a lot in what you've said Aaron. So I want to start back with the social media piece and say that I'm actually not on social media because I find that it fragments my attention and I, I worry about privacy and I also worry about the quality of engagement that happens there. So I don't participate much at all.

00;46;58;23 - 00;47;27;16
Michelle LeBaron
But I had occasion to see a Twitter thread recently that had to do with a political issue. And I was shocked. I was quite floored at the vitriol and the kind of not not difference of opinion, but the nastiness of differences of opinion, that there was kind of an unrestrained ethos around the way that people were participating in relation to this particular issue.

00;47;27;24 - 00;47;59;02
Michelle LeBaron
So I have to say, I feel really worried about that because I think that it moves us as a collective away from civility, away from respectful engagement. And so that's that's a concern generally in relation to your your mind compliments in relation to the the COVID 19 moment that we all lived through and perhaps we're now living just through the tail end of it.

00;47;59;02 - 00;48;43;04
Michelle LeBaron
I hope so. It is quite fascinating that it could be seen in very, very different ways and a coherent story could be told from quite different perspectives about what what should have been done from a policy perspective, how we collectively and how our leaders should have handled that time. I do some research during COVID around religion and religious leaders and how they were responding to COVID 19, and I got very interested with these.

00;48;43;08 - 00;49;30;11
Michelle LeBaron
The idea that civil authorities are just kind of low level and that actually we need to take our cues from divinity and then we would act quite differently. But again, that could mean that we would defer to civil authorities or absolutely defy them. So even within various religious perspectives, there was this deep and visceral disagreement. One of my long and long term friends took a very strong position against vaccination and, and, and experienced being treated as an outcast in many ways.

00;49;30;20 - 00;50;10;27
Michelle LeBaron
And I think that's a very strange thing that we did we humans to kind of sort people as anti-vaxxers are pro-vaccine has. But what I would say in general, is this that if studying and working with conflict for decades has given many many gifts said and I think it has one of the chief gifts is the capacity to do my best to stay connected across difference or to invite others to do that.

00;50;11;08 - 00;50;51;18
Michelle LeBaron
I don't think in our primary education or in university education we do much at all around that question around asking how can I deeply disagree with you? I'm certain that you're wrong and that if we follow your way of proceeding we're going to end up in a disaster. You know, whatever the issue is, if I'm certain that you're wrong and I'm certain that I'm right, although I think I always question in that certainty is also helpful, then how can I stay connected with you and engage with you?

00;50;52;07 - 00;51;35;07
Michelle LeBaron
And I'll go back actually to my research about abortion, because way back in the 1990s, I had the occasion to interview many people, actually hundreds of people who had been in dialog groups that they called pro-life, pro-choice dialog groups, people who were in favor of publicly funded abortion and people who are not. And one of the most moving moments in those interviews was visiting a group in Colorado who had been meeting with each other for about 18 months.

00;51;36;05 - 00;52;19;21
Michelle LeBaron
And within that group, there were people who were very staunchly pro-life and people who were very clearly committed to pro-choice. And while I was there observing the group in dialog, one of the pro-life people said to one of the pro-choice people We deeply disagree. And that's why I wanted to stay in relationship with you. And I think it struck me, Aaron, because as it was so unusual, generally, if I deeply disagree with you, I don't want to stay in relationship with you.

00;52;19;28 - 00;52;48;12
Michelle LeBaron
And we can look at our kind of political fragmentation in Canada. If you just think of the federal parties for a moment, you know, people who would align with one party or another would see those who are not aligned as they are, as somehow just deeply misguided and problematic, maybe even dangerous. And that, I think, is a huge problem.

00;52;49;05 - 00;53;17;04
Michelle LeBaron
You know, we have so many macro problems in the world today, whether violent conflict or climate change or trying to find some way of creating justice around the harms of colonization and many other things. And if we can stay connected to each other in our disagreements, then we just have a kind of survival of the fittest dynamic going on.

00;53;18;19 - 00;53;27;28
Michelle LeBaron
That person who has the most access to power at that moment imposes their solution, and that doesn't work very well over time.

00;53;28;22 - 00;54;05;10
Aaron Pete
I agree. One of the areas that I was, to be honest, the most disappointed in was that I never actually heard anybody else bring up the term steel menin because I think it is probably one of the most useful terms that a student at law school could learn. And I actually didn't hear it said and it's one of my biggest values is to take a group perspective that I vehemently disagree with and make the most coherent argument for how they're correct to push my brain to see that their perspective to increase my neuroplasticity and to keep a balanced perspective in the long term.

00;54;05;15 - 00;54;29;06
Aaron Pete
And I noticed that was incredibly unpopular for certain periods. And it doesn't, again, mean that I agree with them. But my ability to see, okay, this group in this case, the truckers are incredibly loud and they're being incredibly vocal. So instead of just simplifying them down to whatever terms have been used that they're deplorable individuals, let's try and figure out what their point might be.

00;54;29;12 - 00;54;55;03
Aaron Pete
And let's see if there is any any merit to what they're saying. Is there anything we could do differently based on that? And it gives me always admiration for our system again, because we have a system where there's a group in power and then there's an adversarial group meant to hold them accountable, what they're called the opposition party for a reason, and they're meant to poke holes and point out how they're not living up to expectations.

00;54;55;03 - 00;55;17;00
Aaron Pete
And when I saw the opposition do this, they were accused of being abhorrent individuals that were condoning a malevolent and evil. And to me, that is their responsibility. And so I'm just curious as to your thoughts on is conflict bad? Is it something to avoid or is it a tool in which we look at what what some consider the pursuit of truth.

00;55;20;16 - 00;55;52;25
Michelle LeBaron
Well, I was with you until we got to truth. I don't know if I can go squatter's truth, but I would say that our fleet is debate, witness and conflict as necessary. It's an agent of social change. So if we take the trucker's issue that you have used as an example, if there could be that understanding, it's not about how can we bring about agreement between the truckers and whoever was judging them or opposing them.

00;55;53;08 - 00;56;17;25
Michelle LeBaron
It's about can we bring about understanding? Can we bring about some sense of seeing what the world looks like from over there? You know, in fancy terms, we call it contextual evaluation. Can I get inside your world. Enough to be able to see how it looks from in there. You know, I can never be fully in your world.

00;56;17;25 - 00;56;49;04
Michelle LeBaron
I can't feel what you felt. I can't. My cells of my body do not have the same sensations as yours. But in making the effort to actually come inside your context and to understand it enough to be able to do that and then ask the question, what does the world look quite from there that is so important? I think just vitally important going forward.

00;56;49;13 - 00;57;24;02
Michelle LeBaron
And, you know, I have a C in an example. Maybe you have I would love to know of anyone who has been a mental and very, very critical, for example, of those who joined the convoy. Actually, sitting down and giving themselves the challenge of sort of articulating what does the world look like from inside the convoy I would also say that conflict isn't an engine of social change and we need it.

00;57;24;09 - 00;57;54;25
Michelle LeBaron
You know, if you're concerned as I am about some of the forestry practices in this province, I'm just sitting at home being concerned doesn't create much change. Unfortunately, we we need to be in conflict in order to find ways of addressing those things that are much more complex than any one individual can fix.

00;57;55;21 - 00;58;17;25
Aaron Pete
I'm curious as to how you think about judges in our society, because they play an instrumental role. But often there's a challenge in maybe there isn't a 50 50 middle ground. What is how do we think about resolving disputes? How do we think about the person tasked with hearing both perspectives? And coming to some sort of conclusion?

00;58;19;17 - 00;58;50;21
Michelle LeBaron
Well, my view of a lot of difficult could be so good. And so, you know, some of the work that I've done for the National Judicial Institute and other groups has been talking to judges about intercultural perspectives, about cultural fluency, because many people become judges when they're fairly senior in their career, they may have a certain amount of socio economic well-being.

00;58;51;17 - 00;59;41;18
Michelle LeBaron
They certainly have many, many areas of post-secondary education. And so they don't necessarily see a person who comes before them and in ways that are accurate. They see them always through their own lenses. So I have a concern that judges work on cultural fluency, work on racism, or work on sexism, work home embolism, you know, all those ways that we distort pictures of each other and that said, when you talked about conflict resolution, it also brought to mind for me that, you know, many people in recent decades have argued for the term conflict transformation.

00;59;41;27 - 01;00;11;19
Michelle LeBaron
Can we take a conflict and can we actually, by engaging in it in a respectful way, transform it so that we change the ground that we're standing on, we change the issues, we change our way of being in the issues. And going back to the edges. I'm not sure that judging is necessarily transformative in relation to conflict. It's dispositional.

01;00;11;27 - 01;01;12;23
Michelle LeBaron
It finds some disposition and some completion in relation to, for example, a criminal offense or in relation to a civil matter. But many many of the kinds of complex are multi-party matters that exist among us now and actually don't have a good legal remedies associated with them. And so I think that early thinking early by which I mean maybe 50 years ago when American colleagues started talking about multi-year courthouses and multiple avenues to pursue justice, I think those are important ideas that if you have, for example, a question about land use, where there overlap tapping claims from indigenous groups in relation to that land use, and then perhaps industries involved and labor and many other groups

01;01;13;16 - 01;01;45;05
Michelle LeBaron
our judicial system does not have good tools for addressing that. And so then I think we need to be building processes which integrate indigenous legal traditions and which integrate also flexible, problem-solving oriented ways of addressing differences so that we can actually more fairly and in more fittingly address complex kinds of issues that confront us.

01;01;46;02 - 01;02;07;03
Aaron Pete
One of the my favorite pieces in your course was this negotiation process being given a hat to wear and think about what's in their best interest. And then going into a negotiation with a different person who has a different list of facts on what their best outcome is. And I'm going to pull Tim into this because he actually lives out.

01;02;07;15 - 01;02;29;01
Aaron Pete
He just told me the story a little while ago and it actually lives out exactly one of the lessons that you put for us, and it's I think the the overlying idea is that sometimes there isn't an outcome that makes it a proper negotiation, like a fair outcome. Sometimes it's what's best for both parties and it goes nowhere near what either party would expect.

01;02;29;01 - 01;02;57;07
Aaron Pete
And so the example that Tim gave, and perhaps he can tell a better than me is the story around his his URL or his domain name being used. And Tim, you were willing to accept that for, I believe, $1,000. Am I mistaken on that? And you thought you were getting a fairly good deal, but you found out sort of the back story behind what the company's position was and realized that perhaps you could have negotiated for more had you known their internal.

01;02;57;07 - 01;03;26;02
Tim McAlpine
Issues Boy, that's putting me on the spot. I'm just getting a podcast here. I'm for Michelle's point. I'll tell the story very quickly. Way back when we used to have a short what would be deemed now as a podcast, I imagine a video podcast. It was owned around the year 1998 and we owned a few seconds XCOM and did these short little videos kind of ahead of our time in a way.

01;03;27;13 - 01;03;45;23
Tim McAlpine
But it got too expensive because YouTube wasn't around you. You actually paid for hosting and when people viewed your video many, many times it cost your money. So we ended up shutting it down. And so I had this great new URL a few seconds dot com, and I kept renewing it thinking one day I'll do something with it.

01;03;46;09 - 01;04;10;11
Tim McAlpine
But I got a random email from someone looking to acquire this domain, and I knew a little bit of searching that it was an advertising agency in Philadelphia and they were representing their client. And I'm sitting there going, Oh, what's this worth? And I just I randomly said, $1,000 a U.S. and immediately they responded, Okay, where do we send the money?

01;04;10;17 - 01;04;38;14
Tim McAlpine
And I was kicking myself, going, What was it worth? And so for the next few months, I just was clicking refresh refresh on that website. And it turns out I believe it was the European introduction of Viagra And so it was five Pfizer that was buying this domain to be the linchpin for their advertising campaign. To see that, I said to myself, what was this ad agency?

01;04;39;12 - 01;04;57;13
Tim McAlpine
They must have been given a budget because they clearly built this entire campaign prior to because it was quite short order that they had launched this. So it was it was critical that they had that or something very close to it as the URL. So I think that Twitter referring to is it not there? It is.

01;04;57;13 - 01;05;09;04
Aaron Pete
And Mashable, we did this. We ran through this exact case study, the exact the URL being purchased, the price of it, the value of it. Can you talk about that? How crazy is.

01;05;09;05 - 01;05;32;20
Michelle LeBaron
This? Isn't that such a coincidence? Thanks for sharing that story, too. And that that's exactly what I was thinking. And that we worked with a scenario which is called Live Eight, which is a takeoff on Live Aid to Peter and this was a situation where the owner of a small art gallery had the URL that Live Aid needed.

01;05;33;14 - 01;06;27;09
Michelle LeBaron
And why they had, of course, an organization with huge of bonuses. And so what's been really fascinating in working with that, that scenario, which was developed by a wonderful colleague named Melhem ever, is that there has been an enormous range of amounts paid for the URL. And so I would say it has ranged from every where from, say, $500 up to most recently when I was teaching a course in Toronto at York University, use the Live Aid, someone paid $2 million for the URL and that was really shocking.

01;06;27;09 - 01;06;59;27
Michelle LeBaron
I'd never heard such a high number. But the whole question, what is it worth? As you've said, And Tim, it depends a bit of them saying about who needs it and for what. And it just strikes me that that's such a useful negotiation experience for many people to have because, you know, we talk about objectivity. You even mentioned an earlier the word truth.

01;07;00;10 - 01;07;28;12
Michelle LeBaron
And, you know, what's the truth of what the URL is? Worth? The answer is it depends. And that's so true in so many things that it's not about some sort of objective standard of value. It's a question of what matters to each of the parties and why and how can they come to an outcome that feels to both of them fair So I hear you saying after the fact, oh, maybe that wasn't so fair.

01;07;28;23 - 01;08;03;22
Michelle LeBaron
If I had known more, I'd like to read about fairness and fair enough. And at the same time, because students will often have terrible remorse when they say, well, I got a thousand but my colleague over here in the same scenario got 300,000. And yet, if the person who got a thousand is satisfied and feels like that was a fair value at that time, then I they go from there.

01;08;03;23 - 01;08;37;14
Michelle LeBaron
Right. So I think your example is it's one that bit like the person who paid 2 million but in reverse stick for that. And you look back and say, wow, how did we get there? And I guess one of the reasons I think it's so useful to do that kind of experience in class and I'm glad you remember it, is that it gives us this message that more investigation of each other's interests is better than less.

01;08;38;01 - 01;09;09;05
Michelle LeBaron
So if if I get around an email offering to buy my URL to say, let's have a talk about that, I could be really useful. The one of the aspects of that particular stimulation is it's done by email and often not that much information is exchanged. So we think about which mediums are more information rich to to facilitate exchange among parties.

01;09;09;22 - 01;09;32;24
Aaron Pete
I think there is a beauty and a piece that you can get from that story, which is that as long as you act to the best of your ability to achieve what you need in order to be successful, and that's achievable in a healthy negotiation and that there isn't a right answer because there is a sense when you go in with a lawyer or when you're working with somebody, it's get as much as you can at all costs.

01;09;33;00 - 01;09;58;07
Aaron Pete
And that's how I think negotiation is often displayed or are articulated by people that that's the goal of a good negotiator to go in for war, go in for blood and get everything you can and leave nothing on the table at all costs. And that's just simply not how we operate when there's best practices being implemented. As long as you can take care of your your circumstances, long as you're getting what's fair and equitable by your own definition, that's achievable.

01;09;58;20 - 01;10;22;14
Michelle LeBaron
I think so. And I think it's a question of was the process satisfactory and was it relational? You know, in the case of these examples, there may not have been an ongoing relationship between the the seller and the purchaser of the URL, but often there is some sort of ongoing relationship or maybe there's a possibility, one that can benefit both parties.

01;10;22;15 - 01;10;44;17
Michelle LeBaron
So I do think that this kind of web, as much as you can mentality, is often quite counterproductive. It it inculcates, even in the negotiator for himself, a kind of edge that is not necessarily conducive to harmony within or with the facts.

01;10;45;22 - 01;11;07;24
Aaron Pete
In my opinion. You speak and there are few people I've had the pleasure of speaking with that speak with a sense of peace that isn't being sold, that isn't being marketed as as an opportunity. But genuinely has a sense of peace within themselves, within the place, to the right. And I think that that's so valuable. You can hear it in your voice that you have this sense of peace.

01;11;07;24 - 01;11;28;09
Aaron Pete
And I think it does deliver in the classroom where we're talking about political issues, the opportunity for others to want to seek that out. And there is no place to go find peace but I know you practice yoga. I know you follow and research and listen to very intelligent voices. I would say more wise than necessarily intelligent that are more thoughtful.

01;11;28;09 - 01;11;41;26
Aaron Pete
And so I'm just curious for listeners. Is there any recommendations on the direction, the steps they can start to take to move in that direction of peace, in your opinion? So are books. Is there practices that you follow to sort of move in that direction?

01;11;44;12 - 01;12;25;12
Michelle LeBaron
Thank you. Aaron, that's a question close to my Harvard. So we talked earlier about being as well as doing And to me, it's so vitally important to have practices that are about being not doing. And so, yes, I practice yoga. I also practice meditation and contemplative, other contemplative practices. One of my favorite things to do is to go on long distance walks where every day I'm just walking, preferably on the path where people have walked for many hundreds or thousands of years.

01;12;25;18 - 01;13;00;21
Michelle LeBaron
I think I can then listen in to some of the stories It would depend on the the lexicon and the tradition that would have resonance for listeners. Of course. So I would recommend very highly AMC Richard's writing. I'm conflict that I quoted from earlier, and I can make that chapter available, I think, as long best as I can certainly make the reference to available.

01;13;02;04 - 01;13;43;05
Michelle LeBaron
Then I, I've been just deeply compelled and drawn to understanding about pre-Christian traditions and practices, especially as they are anchored in the land in Ireland. So for me, that's another source of inspiration to imagine that there have been societies where and mercy as an ethic, compassion as an ethic have been practiced. And I don't know that we have too many such societies in our midst now.

01;13;43;07 - 01;14;56;25
Michelle LeBaron
We have certainly those moments and those practices among us And so I continue to follow the work of a wonderful Irish theologian named Mary Benn. And to do my best to understand how it is that we give ourselves over to a kind of patriarchal, materialist, competitive ethos when we actually have in our heritage And I I'm sure this is true for many indigenous peoples here in this land and also in Europe, we have in our histories and in our traditions models of doing things that are quieter and perhaps less well, less integrating of greed and more integrating of heart and my my suggestion would be that it doesn't matter so much what the tradition is or

01;14;56;25 - 01;15;41;20
Michelle LeBaron
the pathways as it matters to choose one. I think His Holiness the Dalai Lama once said when he was here in Vancouver back about 20 years ago, he said Just stand in your additions and work from there, you know, and work those practices and inhabit them. He wasn't suggesting we all become Buddhists, but how, as attractive as that may be to people who don't like theistic worldviews, he suggested that we find traditions that have resonance and history for us and then dig our wells easily.

01;15;41;21 - 01;15;48;27
Michelle LeBaron
There and I think that's that's really important, and I think it's very sustaining when we're able to do that.

01;15;49;15 - 01;16;08;05
Aaron Pete
Michelle, I thank you so much for sitting down today. I think that this was beautiful to go through some of these ideas. I hope that it can bring people together, that we can remember that we are more similar than we are different. I think you're a very elegant, thoughtful speaker, and it's just such a pleasure to spend this time with you.

01;16;09;18 - 01;16;23;18
Michelle LeBaron
Aaron, thank you. Thank you. For so many thoughtful questions. Thank you for telling so much of your own story and sharing your own values and perspectives. I've enjoyed our dialog thoroughly. Thank you so much.

01;16;24;06 - 01;16;38;25
Aaron Pete
Remember to read the podcast on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts. It's a huge help from what I hear. From the people who talk about how to grow your podcasts. So they would really appreciate that and tune in again for another episode.

01;16;39;13 - 01;16;45;12
Tim McAlpine
Actually, I have one thing to add Don't ever put me in again to talk about Viagra.

01;16;47;25 - 01;16;49;00
Aaron Pete
You didn't have to say the name!

01;16;49;00 - 01;16;49;25
Aaron Pete
of the company.

01;16;50;15 - 01;16;51;02
Tim McAlpine
I didn't have to but it added to it.

01;16;51;20 - 01;16;51;25
Aaron Pete


01;16;51;25 - 01;17;04;05
Tim McAlpine
To add it to the point of it. I don't think I was disappointed as much as just I was very happy to get a thousand bucks and until I learned that this was a major multinational pharmaceutical launch.

01;17;04;15 - 01;17;23;02
Aaron Pete
But when you told me the story, it literally jogged the memory of students being like, I am in the office for like 300 bucks for the URL. And they they had a budget of like $1,000,000 for and feeling like they had failed when they didn't. And when you said like, I felt like I made the wrong move, it was like, exactly.

01;17;23;03 - 01;17;35;20
Aaron Pete
That's a true case. And what we learned in the classroom, I thought it was just a brilliant opportunity to take your story connected with what I learned and I had to be able to bring you on was just super cool. No regrets.

01;17;35;28 - 01;17;39;23
Tim McAlpine
Yeah. I certainly appreciate being given the heads up that I would be brought on.

01;17;40;19 - 01;17;41;04
Aaron Pete
They came to.

01;17;41;04 - 01;17;42;00
Michelle LeBaron
Me via the.

01;17;42;08 - 01;17;56;17
Aaron Pete
Of figure. I don't know anything about it written down and it just came to me. We were interviewing and I was like, Oh yeah, Tim's got that story. And then I was like, I want to do it sort of at the end so we can wrap up with it so Tim doesn't. So we took a Tim talk in, in kind of context.

01;17;57;23 - 01;17;59;18
Tim McAlpine
Well, now we're done. We're done.