Can We Still Talk? Finding Common Ground In A Divided America With Nigel Lakey

In today’s America, it often feels as though we are living in separate worlds. Political differences have become personal divisions. Social media rewards outrage rather than understanding. Many people surround themselves with others who think, vote, and believe exactly as they do. As a result, meaningful conversations between people with different viewpoints have become increasingly rare.

But what happens when two people choose a different path? In this episode of Hot Topic, Bold Talk, hosts Nigel Lakey and Dr. Jackalyn Rainosek explore one of the most important questions facing our nation: How do we have meaningful conversations with people whose political beliefs, life experiences, cultural backgrounds, and values are different from our own?

Nigel, an engineer, entrepreneur, and global business leader, approaches the world through the lens of innovation, systems thinking, and practical problem solving. Dr. Rainosek, a behavioral scientist, leadership consultant, and executive coach, approaches challenges through understanding human behavior, relationships, emotions, and organizational dynamics. Together, they represent perspectives that many people assume cannot coexist in today’s polarized environment.

Yet they have discovered something surprising. Real dialogue is possible. Throughout this conversation, Nigel and Jackalyn discuss why Americans have become increasingly divided and what we have lost as a society when we stop talking to one another. They examine how our values, attitudes, beliefs, experiences, and emotions influence the way we interpret events and respond to those who disagree with us. More importantly, they explore the role of self-awareness in creating meaningful dialogue. Before we can truly listen to someone else, we must understand ourselves. We must recognize our assumptions, challenge our biases, and take responsibility for our own reactions. We cannot change another person, but we can learn to better manage our emotions, communicate more effectively, and remain open to learning.

The conversation also revisits civic values that once helped hold our communities together—respect, responsibility, curiosity, accountability, and a commitment to the common good. While America has always experienced disagreements, previous generations often understood that democracy depends on the ability of citizens to engage one another respectfully, especially when they disagree.

This episode is not about convincing anyone to change political parties. It is not about winning an argument. It is about learning how to have difficult conversations without destroying relationships. It is about understanding that different experiences often lead reasonable people to different conclusions. It is about rediscovering the possibility that solutions to our most pressing challenges—health care, education, national security, economic opportunity, cultural tensions, and the future of democracy itself—may emerge when people are willing to listen as much as they speak.

If America is to move beyond the extremes that currently dominate our public discourse, the change begins with each of us. It begins with the willingness to become more self-aware, to remain curious rather than judgmental, and to engage others with respect even when we disagree.

This conversation is the beginning of that journey. Join us as we explore what it means to talk across differences, build understanding, and rediscover the common ground that allows a diverse nation to move forward together.

Democracy does not depend on everyone agreeing. It depends on our willingness to keep talking, keep listening, and keep learning from one another. The future of our country may depend less on who wins the next argument and more on whether we are willing to have the conversation.

That is the challenge we invite you to consider. What assumptions do you hold that deserve closer examination? What conversations have you avoided because they felt uncomfortable? Who in your life sees the world differently than you do, and what might you learn if you chose curiosity over certainty?

Every meaningful change begins with a single conversation. Through Hot Topic, Bold Talk, Jackalyn and Nigel are committed to creating a space where difficult topics can be discussed thoughtfully, respectfully, and honestly. On the third Thursday of every month, we invite you to join us as we model what is possible when people with different perspectives choose understanding over division and dialogue over silence.

The path forward for America will not be found in louder arguments or deeper divisions. It will be found when ordinary citizens decide that listening is as important as speaking, understanding is as important as being understood, and our shared future is more important than our differences.

The conversation starts here. The next one is yours to have.

Episode Summary Points:

Moving Past Headline Outrage to Rebuild Connection: The episode explores how modern media models and political framing actively feed on polarization and extreme positions, making productive civic discourse nearly impossible. Hosts Jackalyn and Nigel argue that by intentionally stepping away from headline-driven outrage and focusing on shared underlying issues, the “silent majority” in the middle can find common ground, learn from opposing viewpoints, and ultimately preserve meaningful relationships across political divides.
Leading with Foundational Values and Personal Responsibility: A central theme of the discussion is the importance of anchoring interactions in core personal values rather than political party affiliations. By comparing their own guiding principles—such as Jackalyn’s commitment to social justice and Nigel’s focus on trust and integrity—the hosts demonstrate that seemingly disparate political identities (Democrat and Republican) often share identical foundational desires, such as ensuring children are cared for and establishing a stable healthcare system.
Self-Awareness as the Catalyst for Cultural Change: The hosts highlight self-awareness and behavioral ownership as the critical tools needed to mend both corporate cultures and the broader social fabric. Jackalyn shares insights from her decades-long work in behavioral transformation, emphasizing that individuals must learn to recognize their own “blocking techniques” and process emotional triggers before they can effectively engage with others. The episode concludes by establishing self-awareness as the necessary starting point for rejecting the destructive status quo and fostering genuine, evolutionary change.

Consider becoming a patron on Patreon. Your support helps us continue to produce in-depth content, bring you crucial insights, and amplify the voices fighting for a truly representative republic. Join our community and help us safeguard the future of American democracy here.

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Can We Still Talk? Finding Common Ground In A Divided America With Nigel Lakey

Finding Common Ground Among Different Viewpoints

I am so grateful because Nigel Lakey has been a very dear friend of mine for several years now. He is a Republican, I am a Democrat. We can talk to each other, and we have ways that we would like to share with you. How can you talk with somebody who has a different point of view and learn from each other and have a lasting friendship, so we can find some solutions to things that are going on in our country?

I know that Nigel will talk some more about it, but I know right now that we have such extreme positions going on and people not being able to let go of those extreme positions, so they cannot talk. I imagine that 70% or 80% of the people in America could be somewhere in the middle, and we could really talk. Nigel, first, I want you to introduce yourself because you have many accomplishments.

Jackalyn, thank you, and here we go once again. Let us board this train. Just a brief reflection, and then I will say who I am and why I am here, but we have had these conversations in the past. A couple made their way to podcasts. Otherwise, they have been over lunch or at professional society meetings. There is a bit of the history there, I guess, that brings us to where we are at this station, ready to get on the train again. As for me, I am one of those old white guys, if I will, and excuse my saying that. I am 45 to 46 years old in the oil and gas service industry.

I am a mechanical engineer by education, but probably more of a marketing and technology manager by profession. I got out of that business a few years ago, and I have retired up into the hills west of San Antonio. I stay active, and I pay attention to things. That is one of the reasons Jackalyn and I have spoken at length and on a lot of things. Again, that is what brings us here to have this opportunity to, can we say, have an adult conversation? You mentioned the people in the middle. I do not know who we are really trying to appeal to, but it is people in the middle, and it is people on the outside in the fringes.

Let me make this comment if I will. We are not going to talk about headline issues, and we are going to avoid the outrage that always seems to come from headline issues. Anybody who would listen to us or who has listened to us in the past probably has experienced that they may be middle, they may be at the fringe, but certainly they have been in a conversation where it just goes to outrage. How do you have a conversation with people? I should not even say you’ve been in a conversation that starts off as maybe a small debate, but quickly turns into an argument.

I personally have had a couple of friendships that have disappeared as a consequence of that extremism. While we have had some conversations around what our topics would be, may I suggest one of them is to say simply, “How do you have conversations with people?” If you think about how you have a conversation, then maybe you can avoid those moments of extreme outrage, all those things. Lead a little more peaceful life and probably preserve some of the friendships that have been important to you.

Thank you for hearing me out, truly, because I really respect you and I care about you, and I value your friendship and your point of view. Sometimes we do not have the same viewpoint, but we seem to be able to find a way to put our views together so that we can have a discussion, and I can learn from you, and you can learn from me. I am the PhD in this group and the one who has been the coach and the consultant for years. Our combination of you being the engineer and me being the PhD, somehow, we come together and look at things.

I want to say that you mentioned losing friendships. There are times I have had in the past, because I have done a lot of programs to support people appreciating different points of view. There are several times I have had people in my groups, Nigel, who are not capable of hearing a different point of view. They are very hard to deal with. What I see them doing is being very sarcastic or putting real sharp comments together that are what you call the headlines.

They will either use the president’s name, or they’ll use someone in Congress, or they’ll do something in which they’re so invested that they want to have you or me accept that they’re right. I know one thing. I do not come to the table with you and think I am right. I come to the table with the idea that I am going to talk to my friend Nigel. He has different experiences from mine. He has different points of view a lot of times.

You have been all over the world. That is one of the things that I would say about talking with people, is you have to come to some place where you want to maintain a friendship, and you want to know what that other person has to say. That is what I can give so far. I will be happy to hear anything or where you want to go with this conversation.

Building Relationships Through Active Listening

That is a segue to a lot of things. Let me see this from the friendship side of things. Most people, when they get into a conversation, are just waiting for the other person to stop talking so they can inject their point of view. Partially as a consequence of a more classical education, I grew up in Western Canada. My parents are immigrants. We learned about social studies, civics, geography, and all sorts of things in elementary school and even through high school. That tended to disappear somewhat in university.

Immediately upon getting into the workforce, I got on airplanes and started to go places and talk to people. You cannot, I would say my dad said this to me. As a salesman, never talk about politics and religion. I have tried to hold onto that. There are times when I think you can have those conversations, but they should never devolve into a shouting match. Let me go back briefly to travel. You say, “I have been to a lot of places, you have.” I used to have control over about 5 or 6 languages. That is somewhat of a lost art now, but you’re trying to meet people, and you have to be culturally aware.

Cultural awareness really can only come from a desire to be aware and show respect for the people. That typically involves or demands that you do some research so you have a better understanding. It also really sets that you have to be a listener. When you meet somebody from a different culture who struggles with the English language, and you do not speak Arabic, how do you have a conversation? How do you build a relationship? It is not just having a conversation. In business, you’re trying to build relationships.

[bctt tweet=”Cultural awareness begins with a genuine desire to understand and respect others.” via=”no”]

What you want is for that person to be an advocate for you and what you believe in, so that they think of you and they drop your name and refer you to their peers, that thing. You can say that you have a bit of a relationship. It is something that comes down to trust. If you insult people, you lose that trust. It disappears very quickly. That is one of those things in business and life that you spend a lot of time building up a bank of trust, and you can spend it in a heartbeat. It can be anything from just a moment of inflamed passion to substance abuse.

You have to be so cautious of it. Look, you and I have conversations, not because we’re careful, not because we’re scared to have an opinion. We must understand this gets back to the headlines. These people have an opinion. They’re vested in something. They’re looking for votes, and somewhere we have just become so polarized. Look, this is everywhere. It is not just the US, but for the immediacy of our conversations, we’re concerned about what’s going on in our country. For anybody who wishes to see the demise of an administration, give your head a shake because that serves no purpose.

We do not want to set this country back. We want this country, people say it is a great social experiment, but I think it is past an experiment. We could say it works pretty well. Let’s not blow it up. If you can talk about the underlying issues, like why you feel that way? You begin to understand these typically, it could be economics, it could be religion, it could be a number of things that drive people to those thoughts. You really have to first understand them. I think that is the way it is in business. That is the way it is in life in general.

If you do not network and do not build relationships, you end up being very lonely. The worst thing you can do is get into that inflammatory rhetoric and exhibit outrage because guess what? Everybody just walks away hurt. I do not think that solves any problems. You know what, the newscasters, the rest of the politicians, all these people, they should start paying attention to that thing. To me, it strikes that the press has so much to do with this.

In the old days, there was one national broadcasting corporation in pretty much every country. They had to present an in-depth analysis of local news and international news. That news really often got on an airplane and got flown in. It was not like they could shell out to somebody standing live on a runway. Also, there was more respect for the culture, in the sense that we can say the social aspect of things. Now you have got a hundred news channels or more. I honestly do not know how many news channels I have on my cable program, but it is dozens.

It is local, and there is every possible affiliate. To me, they’re in a marketing where they have to hold onto an audience somehow. That almost demands that you get into extremism. I do not want to go there. I am more concerned about how you keep the wheels on a country, how you manage our banking system, national security, those sorts of things. Look, you can have a lot of good conversations around those, and you do not have to exhibit any outrage.

There are several points you’ve made, and I want to take some of them and pick them up. I am going to ask you a question, and come back and cover some of the other topics because you covered a lot of them. One of the things that I think is really important is that you have to understand the culture that the person came from. You know that I grew up in Texas, in West Texas, and for a very long time, it was democratic, but there was the John Birch Society that took over Odessa.

I know a more conservative, sometimes considered extreme position that I grew up in and started to get to know. I knew that I wanted to be able to talk to people. I know that you grew up in Canada. We have talked about two values we have. For example, my highest- order value is social justice. The other values I live with are honesty, spirituality, service, and taking risks to be able to talk with people and believe that I do not have to be there with an agenda with you, that I can listen.

Let me go to some of the other subjects you covered. Talk to me about your values, because I think that is one of the things that brought us together. You may have different words for your values than I do, but we have values that cause us to respect each other. You have heard mine. Give me some of the values that you have.

Establishing Values Of Integrity And Trust

I appreciate that. I would say one is trust and integrity. It is difficult to live a reasonable life and have to look after your past and protect it somehow. Can you say there is openness? I want to believe generally that when you meet people, you can trust them. There is an extremely important value there. Look, that does not mean you have to be the same. I am going to say it is comprehension. Maybe that is not the right word either. It is the awareness of a cultural issue, the distinction, the individuality, that thing. I do not expect everybody to think like me, act like me.

It is a mistake to walk into a room thinking that everybody thinks, acts, believe in the same thing. In the hierarchy, can you say that integrity and trustworthiness are the only things that you have? I am trying to think of the, what’s the phrase, your thoughts become your actions, your actions become your legacy, it’s a little bit longer than that. If you struggle with that, it becomes obvious. I know a lot of people who struggle with that. One, it’s the self-awareness, even. It’s the acceptance of difference.

I am not sure that those are values or attributes, but when I think of talking to people, whether it is in a business or a social environment, I want to keep those things in mind. Now, just briefly, you mentioned a political party affiliation. That is one of our problems, too. We’re identifying ourselves as this or that. People say, “Where are you from?” You have those social exchanges. The last thing that you really would say to somebody when you meet them is I am a card-carrying whatever.

That’s true. I want to say that subject because you just brought it up, but I want to show people something. Trust and integrity are extremely important to you. Honesty, spirituality, and being of service to people have a lot to do with what you’ve just said. If I am honest and I have a spiritual connection with myself and know that other people have something, no matter what their religion is, I can establish a very trusting relationship.

One of the things that I’ve found, Nigel, in talking with individuals who have so many different points of view for me is that if I can get them to talk about their values and I talk about my values, we can have a conversation. We are not talking about headlines. We’re talking about who we are. I will give you a quick example. I do want to get to naming our political positions. I talked to a gentleman who is running for a position as a judge in my state.

We could tell, as we had a conversation, that he was at one party and I was in the other. What I said to him was, “What if we could learn something from each other? What do you value? What is something you said you believe in service? What is something that you really look for in service?” He said, “I want to make sure kids in America are fed, and they’re taken care of, and I want to be sure that animals are taken care of.” I just started laughing, and I said, “You’ve probably named the two major focuses I have.

I cannot stand to have children who do not have what they need in life to grow and change. The other thing is, you do not mess with animals because I love mine, and we have three cats. That is really important to me.” We started there, and we started having some conversations, and we’re going to have more. Now you may want to talk about some examples where you’ve seen the value and whatever, or we can go to the political thing next. I want to be sure you have an opportunity to comment on what I’ve just said.

Values here. Everything that we do, we filter it. I believe, anyway, you filter it through those values. It’s how you interpret something that somebody says or an action or something. Look, “I’m a believer in animals as well. I got three rescue cats, and I cannot stop collecting them.” They are extremely important to me, as irritating as a cat can be sometimes. These things are part of my existence, my life, and I love them dearly, though one of them would make an excellent pair of slippers at some point or another.

[bctt tweet=”Everything we do is filtered through our values.” via=”no”]

Again, back to values, let me throw out this Judeo-Christian heritage, if you will. Forgive me, but there is a set of values associated with that. It’s honesty, and it’s integrity. It is a bit of spirituality as well. It’s less about religion than it is about spirituality. There are issues surrounding spirituality. It’s honesty and integrity. It’s being good to people. It’s respecting life, that thing. The values, I think, if you understand those, if you lead with them, they become important. If you find yourself in a situation, I have mentored a lot of people as they’ve gone through employment crises, which is why I am here.

What am I doing? They’re on a performance improvement plan. What do you do if you want to keep working? Maybe not at this company, but in this industry or whatever, you have to lead with values. People need to understand what you stand for when you walk into the room. Part of that is predictability. It is less about that. I know exactly what that person is going to say or exactly what that person is going to do. That is not necessarily healthy. If the person walks in, and you’ve established that the first thing we’re going to do is learn to trust each other. That demands integrity.

That demands honesty. That demands that the conversations that are happening in the room, stay in the room, this thing. This is mostly a business perspective, but I think it works well in the family dynamic as well. To some extent, you’ve established how you act and what you think about. People would say, “I understand those values or I do not understand those values.” If they understand the values, the counter is likewise true. You start to get to a place where you can now have conversations, where you can develop, and it could be corporate issues.

We’re trying to change the culture within an organization. What are the first things we try to establish a set of values? Typically, they’re pretty specific in a corporate environment. It’s often necessary to identify or go through the identification of some of the problems and challenges that the enterprise is facing. Look, I take your point wholeheartedly that establishing values leads with values. If you find yourself in a place where you have to check your values at the door, that is probably a place where you ought not to be because there is going to be some conflict.

If you end up conflicted with your own values, I do not know how you sleep, how you’re going to be successful. You’re probably going to be miserable. State your values, live with your values, and evaluate your values from time to time. They’re critical. They’re really the foundational issues. You learn those growing up, and it could be that you share your parents’ values. You may not in some cases, but I think doubly, certainly, that that has caused you to have a set of values.

Linking Life Purpose To Actionable Decision-Making

Let me interject something here. My values determine what I am going to do, and my purpose in life is to be real and live in truth. It took me a while to come to that purpose. With the values I have of honesty and risk-taking and service and all those things I mentioned before, I will give you an example of how they define how I take action. I had a friend call me, and he started telling me about this board and how he had real difficulties with it. He wanted me to be on the board because he thought I could be helpful.

I listened for a while, and I said, “You do not need me as a member. You need me to be a consultant to your board because you have so many conflicts going on. I could not possibly sit in the boardroom with what’s going on now. I need to be in an expert position where I can give feedback so that we can move forward. My purpose in life is to be real and live in truth.” You’re going to find that I only doing short comments periodically about what’s going on is not going to be helpful. You’re going to have to do something else.

He hired me as a consultant because he knew that I was right about what was going on. I make my decisions a lot today when I see someone who is inconsistently honest or own their behavior when they have done something that is inappropriate or harmful, I watch. If they keep doing that, I am going to name it, and then it’s going to make a decision whether I am going to be their friend or not. I want to do the same thing. I am going to work hard at owning what I have done that has created a difficulty, and then listening to see how we can work through that so we can continue the conversation.

That is really important to me. I think that is also important to you. I will shift for a minute, and then of course you can make any comments. One of the things that I think people, and maybe I am wrong, but the reason I named that you’re a Republican and I am a Democrat. We could also say that you have more conservative positions on things than I have more liberal positions. We could name it anything.

People need to know that we come with the knowledge that we are different in the way we view things. They can see as we go into topics in the various sessions, the third week of the month, that we’re not similar in every way. We are different, but we can sit, and I can learn from you, and you can learn from me. As far as I’m concerned, from now on, they do not have to know what our political party is or what our position is. They’ll probably hear it in the way we describe ourselves.

Look, I think that’s true. The mistake is saying that here’s the starting point. My conservatism is one more of, can I say, the Reagan-Thatcher era, which gives me smaller governments. Give me systems and processes that benefit people, etc. Look, it is very important that national security and armed forces, and a handful of things like that. You may disagree on some of those as a priority, and that is all right. I do not think that we would look at each other’s priorities or values and say, “That’s foolish. I wish you fail.”

That is the fallacy that if you first identify a political affiliation, where we’ve talked about things that are important to us, we’ve been like, “How about that?” Educational system that works. A healthcare system that does not bankrupt people. “How about that?” Secure borders. We all agree on those things. The inflammatory response and a medical perspective come from somewhere. There’s an irritant that gets into the system, a burr under the saddle, a grain of sand in your shoe, whatever. You can rise to it or brush that aside and say, we have got some systemic things we have got to get our heads around.

I firmly believe that, irrespective of political affiliation, the real challenge here is to get people talking at a common level. I do not know how to start that. To me, it takes us into a social fabric that’s not in very good shape. It takes us into a place where we’re not looking after veterans. We’re not looking after mental health issues. I do not know where that came from.

The nourishment there is not standing on the corner and yelling that it’s somebody else’s fault. The value really should be saying, we need to do something about this. Let’s look for those common things. I honestly believe that if we get to that point, maybe it takes a generation or two of administrations, but those are the conversations I want to have. If we do not have them, then again, we just fall prey to yelling at each other.

Let me say something because you’re making so many good points. I want national security. I want support from our military. I want decisions made about our military personnel that support them in having the best plan possible when they need to take action. I want them to have qualified people who are directing them in the action they’re taking, so they can be successful. I want to say to you too that, let me put it this way. You want a smaller government. I may want it somewhat larger so that we can provide the support I think that we need, which I see is missing right now.

I will take one subject. Women’s positions in America have gone backwards, not forwards. I am concerned about the factual data I have around the women who have died who are pregnant because of some of the guidelines that have been set. What I am saying, though, is if we can have a smaller government and have a healthcare system that truly allows people to be treated in the healthcare system and be able to afford it, then I do not care what the size of the government is. I am more worried about the service.

Somebody who has probably labeled themselves as I have would think, “What is she doing? She’s agreeing more with what Nigel is saying.” It’s more the topic and the things that I’ve seen changing. I spent the 1960s, and I have been an activist all my life. That is one thing I would say I am. I stand up for things that I believe need to have a socially just position in order to take care of American citizens. How we do it is how I would like to come with you and say, “We both want healthcare for Americans. How do we do that? How can we afford it? What do we do to take care of it?”

Recognizing The Government As An Agent Of The People

Those are two really important things. How do we do it and how do we afford it? That’s where the gap really starts to form. It’s a sense that the government can fix all this. The government’s an agent of the people. If we went back to our civics and social studies, we would recognize that the government is an agent of the people. The government exists to do the things that we think are important, that we voted on, etc., to take the capital P politics out of it, to put the lowercase politics in. Just to pass on the comment, I think one of the greatest instruments on the face of the earth is the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

I say that as an immigrant who showed up in this country to let me in. We can talk about the interpretation of things, and that’s not to you, or I do not think at this early stage, but if we said, “How do we do healthcare?” You cannot just throw more and more money at it. That’s the place where we start to see gaps, and anything that we’re talking about, you cannot just throw more money at it. We’re facing as a country, as a society, this staggering amount of debt. That’s absolutely unsustainable. It’s every buddy’s fault. It’s not one versus another.

It’s because we, as a society, have become accustomed to that. That’s a habit that I would really like to break. It’s one thing that if we say we have got this debate and we have got this outrage, let us think about where that came from. It’s easy to pick a single issue or two issues or whatever, and no matter who you are. You can generate outrage on that. The better educated people, and my apologies if I have offended anybody there, but it’s a purposeful statement. The better educated people, and this is not necessarily degrees, but it’s people who choose to be informed, read, understand the political history and social history, and that thing.

Probably those people who are better educated can now have a better conversation and make better informed decisions. We have just run away from capital P politics on every side for everybody. Those are the conversations I really do not want to have with anybody. It’s not just you. To be honest, completely candid. It’s the people who choose to get into those kinds of debates and arguments. Man, that’s just so fun. I want to understand why we’re in this position, what you and my neighbors are going to do to help. Do you have any interesting ideas that I should know about?

We’re after more of that free exchange of information and less of just yelling opinions back and forth. Again, how do you manage this? It is a rhetorical question, but you cannot just create a bigger government or more agencies. Everybody is doing that. Can we step back from that and say, “We have to be of service to the population? What do we need to do?” The society’s got to survive. Let us not injure ourselves. Let us not destroy our own society, chasing after some political belief. You and I have had those conversations over lunch and in past podcasts.

My hope is that other people listening to this would take a minute to go, man, that’s a conversation I need to have at the next church social or the HOA meeting or something. To me, it would be a great place to start. I say it may take a couple of generations. I hope it’s not a couple of generations of humanity. That’s like 75 or 80 years. Maybe there’s a spark that starts an intelligent conversation that leads to some changes. I just have to hope that society and we as an American people can do that.

What I would say to you is I think you’re right in the fact that I really support what you’re saying. See, I grew up in the era where we had civic classes where we studied the constitution, and we knew what the various civil rights were, and so forth, because we were educated in the schools. That has stopped. What I see now is we have to have, that’s one of the reasons I am doing podcasts. Some people may not love some of the positions I am taking, but I am trying everything in the world because you gave me some more conservative news things.

I read them now, and I try to combine both with what I normally read and see if I can say what the issue that’s going on with something. See, if you and I can define what the issues are, and if other people would define what they think the issues are, let’s say for healthcare, and we could all talk in our various small groups, and then say, “Who can we reach out to, to know what we can do?” I will give you an example. I will name this. I have been a member of the Union Church of Christianity for a number of years.

One of the things that happened about ten years ago, when things were getting out of hand, they decided as a Unity Church to connect with the Unity Church in a much more conservative area than the one that’s in Houston. They would have conversations, and they have had examples of it in things that happened. We all live in different small communities, but if we start talking about what we have had as a conversation with our friend, I do not have to name you and put you out there. I can just say, “I am having this conversation with my friend. Now we’re doing it on podcasts, so we’re putting it out there.”

We want you to see that no matter whether you have a different point of view or not, you can do something. When you and I get to border discussions and some of the things, you and I may have different points of view about it. I do not know. We have not had those conversations. We’ll see what happens. I am curious enough to know what you think and feel about these situations. I want to say something, Nigel, from my background and then my professional career. If you do not feel and do not experience your feelings and process through them, then you’re going to create conflict because people react from feelings and from these extreme views that they generate inside and then feed.

I have to feel it. See, I feel comfortable talking with you because I know something. No matter what we talk about, we will continue talking about it till we both can live with what our conversation has been and know it is comfortable. My father taught me one thing that I remember all the time. When I am doing business deals with anybody, no matter what business deal I am doing. He always said, “You may not always like all the aspects of the deal, but can you live with it and feel comfortable enough to commit to it?”

That is something I think needs to be done. What you and I are doing is to say, “It does not matter what the differences are, let’s talk about them and see if we have any solution about how we can get back to a country where persons of color are appreciated, where women have the right to do whatever they need to do to take care of their health, or where we have a healthcare system that we can provide to people and where they can pay something for it, some part of it where we can see that we are contributing to the health of our citizens. I will stop there and leave you.

I am just waiting for you to stop talking.

I know.

Look, I think there is an important issue here that underlies a lot of the stuff that we’ve talked about. I am going to say that that’s our own social values. As a country and Western civilization, it failed miserably on that test. We do not teach that any longer. I do not know. I do not know what the disease is that underlies that. Part of it is unfettered immigration. Part of it is just this weakening of the social fabric. It’s the marginalization of people who are religious, the marginalization of cultures.

This all seems to be done in the furtherance of some other idealism, which escapes me. Again, it does not matter what parties. I am a student of this because I’ve only been a citizen for a short period of time, collected, generally. I have to take a civics course, if you will, so I can stand in line at immigration court. If I were asked the questions, say how many articles in the constitution, etc. As it turned out, I was not asking those questions, but I chose to make myself aware of those things. Not only for fear of being asked, but I thought I really should understand this.

I’ve chosen to become a citizen here, and I need to understand where this all comes from. Now, having said that, if we think back to the words that we’ve exchanged here just on our own personal values, can we get back to that and say that we have to take personal responsibility? Somehow, in marketing and advertising, we have all been taught that we have got to have a new car. We have got to do this. We have to do that. There’s just something that’s been broken there culturally. I am going to take it back to just lessons in civics and socioeconomics.

It is just not to say at all, part of the population has got to be in poverty. Part of the population has got to be wealthy. That’s not it. There is a thing that you brought up, which is that early on, we’re taught personal responsibility, that you cannot just hang anybody else out there and say, “I lost my job because of, maybe that’s the driving factor, but ultimately it’s how I chose, or you chose, or somebody else chose to respond to that stimulus.”

It gets us to the outrage thing. I keep thinking of the stuff that I’ve taught in business, the stuff that I’ve lived, and I am an advocate of two pieces of work. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and Reading Change. I have taught those in business environments and tried to get organizations to go through the cultural issues. Part of it is to be reflective, look at the circumstances, and understand that it’s my response to things that takes me to a place I am. Can we get back to, let’s assume some responsibility for our own behavior.

[bctt tweet=”Let’s take responsibility for our own behavior.” via=”no”]

That would be a great step in curbing inflation, maybe. It would be a great step in improving the overall healthcare system. It would be a great step in improving the civility of conversations among people. Now again, that may be seen as simplistic, but if we stopped indoctrinating people and started educating people, that’s close to every Western civilization, in my opinion, in fact, a lot of civilizations, then we will be better off. I do not know what drives people.

At a political level, they feel that either they have to get the outrage, fan those flames, or take such a ridiculous position somewhere to appeal to a set of voters. We’re at this point where we’re seeing a very small population of eligible voters, actual voters, and they tend to be the people on the fringe on any side. How do you get back to understanding the issues and looking for solutions, and not just blaming everybody? That is, I will get off my soapbox there.

Processing Emotions To Determine Next Right Actions

No, but I want to get on your soapbox, and I want to talk about something. Now, let me say something about the work I do. The first thing that I, that I really work with people on is whether they are able to emotionally process through their feelings to then determine what the next best action is. I have a simple form that I use. You write down what you feel about a situation, you write down what you thought, and then you walk away from it for an hour or two and come back and look at them and see what are really not appropriate thoughts and feelings that are feeding your negativity, and what can I do to take the next right action.

Here’s what I know. Thirty-eight years ago, I started saying to myself, because I have done a lot of work in the field of addiction. I know what the various multiplicities of addictions do to people because they lose their values, they lose any concepts of spirituality in connection with something greater than themselves, and they lose so many things that they then are not present to hear and understand what’s happening.

That’s one thing. Thirty-eight years ago, I said, “I am going to sit down, and I am going to figure out the ten top groups of behavior that organizations do. I am going to create a course that I can show that I can transform cultures in organizations and build really authentic relationships.” Now it’s taken me 38 years. When we’re not on a podcast, I would love to show you what I’ve done because I did it with three organizations. There is one in particular that’s a county organization.

I had a number of people in my class, and the head of the organization said, “I have been in training for 28 years. I have never seen anything you presented. It’s all about behavior and then the behaviors we need to change.” He said, “I have never seen it.” He said, “I know one thing. You’ve agreed to teach an individual here at our organization how to teach this course, because we cannot afford you as much as we would like, but we want to do this in our organization.”

I taught the individual how to do it, and that’s what they’re doing. I know something. Those individuals who sat in the class, when I asked them at the end, “What is something you’re going to take away? One or two things. How do you feel?” The common theme was that I never realized how many of the 24 blocking techniques that she showed me I have been doing for years. One of the guys came and spoke to my friend in the organization and said, “I took the blocking techniques home, my wife looked at him and said, “Three-fourths of these are things you do that I do not want you to do.”

Continue taking that course at work because I want you to change the behaviors. Another thing that happened with this course is that there was an individual who started a lot of political discussions and was pretty sarcastic and inappropriate. He did not get promoted because people could not stand being around him. My friend tried to tell him for the last ten years, the reason he was not getting promoted or anything else was that’s teaching the course.

After the course, he came into her, and he said, “There’s another thing I teach. If you’ve messed up, do not say you’re sorry. Tell what you did that’s harmful or inappropriate. Tell how you feel about it and show some remorse, and then tell how you’re going to change the behavior and see if that’s reasonable for this person about how you’re going to change your behavior so you can continue talking.” What happened is he went in and apologized to the woman.

He said to her, “I have talked to my five friends. They’re in our organization. I would like them to be in this class. We have decided we are no longer going to talk about politics in the organization. If we want to talk about politics, we can talk about it after work. We have no business in creating the havoc we’ve created. Now, if that can happen, and I know that, I would love to talk to you about the course that I have created. People can change their behavior.

They may never change the values or some of their perceptions about things, but I do know something. If this individual, who was so committed to creating conflict around politics, can change his behavior and say, “No, I have talked to my five friends, and we’re not doing this anymore. We want to be able to contribute to this organization in a positive way.

We want to be able to talk to people, and I want to get promoted. My wife’s already told me that I have been exhibiting this behavior, and she does not want me to exist anymore.” Here’s one of the biggest behaviors I see people do. They want to give excuses and justifications for everything they’ve done. They waste a massive amount of time, never looking at what’s going on. I will stop now. It’s your turn.

You’ve hit on some really key issues here. One of them is self-awareness. There’s a value there, I think. I truly believe, should not say think. You should be taught, and most of us were taught, to understand the second-order and third-order effects of your actions. Listen before you speak, think, and understand what’s going on. I am going to jump around here a little bit. When you think about behavior, there has been so much of this pop culture. Read this book. It will solve all your problems.

[bctt tweet=”Listen before you speak. Think first, and try to understand what’s really going on.” via=”no”]

Listen to this podcast. Here are five steps to getting promoted in your job. I guess it’s this quick-fix mentality. We do not want to actually put in the work. As I say, how do we, society speaking, start to change people’s interpretation and their behavior in that regard? To me, maybe that’s the root here. We think about having these conversations, and you think about healthcare, you think about a lot of things. If you just got back to the whole premise that you understand yourself, understand your behavior, understand your responses, understand your triggers, and look, there’s some deeper psychology there that pop culture is not going to fix, either.

If it is just self-awareness, I will remark that I have been through coaching myself, and I have put a lot of other people through coaching, executive coaching, and mentoring programs. Just trying to change basic aspects of their behavior, and where I have put people through coaching programs. I have been explicit. I do not want to know what you talk about with your coach. I want the two of you to decide on two things that are absolutely important to you. The coach is going to help you solve those things. At the end of this session, after we have paid $60,000 or whatever, I am going to ask the coach where the objectives are realized and what the benefit of the objectives will be.

Identifying Personal Blind Spots Through Self-Awareness

What will be the deficit of the objectives? You typically find people going in there with stupid ideas. I want to learn a second language, whatever, but probably in the first month of the three-month program, that person has somewhat crumbled the facades gone. They’ve recognized that some deep-seated behavioral issues have got to be fixed. I have watched people come out of that change, but I have also watched them when I am no longer their manager, they quickly revert back to that. I am going to say they were bullshitting their coach and me, but there had been cases.

Where they have been made self-aware. I’ll just reflect on an interview that I had for an executive role that I was conducting, which made an individual who looked really good on paper, but frankly had no self-awareness, who couldn’t understand. I do not know if it was naiveté, I do not know if it was ignorance, or I do not know if it was just absolute arrogance, but the individual could not understand why they had not been selected for executive roles.

They got great marks, they were executing, etc. I thought if you just listened, you’d answered your question, which is that you are patently not self-aware. You do not know, and you’re not listening, and you’re not paying attention to what’s going on. Is that a place? As we think of getting towards the end of our hour here, what’s the message that we put out there to people?

Here’s the thing. We’ve identified some really important things. One, in my profession, some people understand habitual patterns, and they know how to deal with them. Others do not understand those habitual patterns, so they reinforce stuff that is not helpful. That’s one comment I am going to make. I have some problems. I choose the people that I work with because they have to be able to own their behavior first and not point the finger at someone else.

They have to be able to process through their feelings and truly be able to come out of a very difficult situation and say, “I owe you an amends because I need to say to you, or I owe you an apology is another way to use. Here’s what I did. Here’s how I feel. I feel dreadful about it, and here’s how I’d like to behave differently, and would that be acceptable to you?” That’s there. The other thing I want to say is, I think self-awareness takes knowing the behaviors that are destroying your ability to do things.

In 1993, I finished a seventeen-item behavioral grouping inventory. Anybody can take that inventory, and then they can have an hour and a half with me with no fee. That’s true of my partner. She will do the same thing. What it shows you in seventeen different groups of behavior is what you’re doing to destroy yourself and sabotage yourself from being who you really want to be. The reason I developed Transforming Cultures and Building Authentic Relationships is that I have had the chance to do it three times, and it’s worked.

It’s a lasting change that I see in the people, because I have continued to follow through with those individuals to see. What I am saying is I know ways that we can talk about how we can make changes in people’s lives. The key thing is that you mentioned the person has got to be willing to do the work to make the change. I do not think the guy lied to you or the people you were talking about, who went to the coach, and then they reverted back to their own behavior. They never committed to making the changes, and they did not realize it. They get away from you, and they get associated with somebody else who reinforces their old behavior.

You cannot name names, of course, but these are people who are wondering what happened to their career trajectory.

Amen.

We are not going to change anybody’s political outrage briefly, but think there’s a message here that we can build on. It’s not clear, but if we said self-awareness, think about why you’re thinking like that. I think that does work, to be honest. I believe that’s a good place to look for an opportunity. Why do I feel this way? This aligns well with the seven habits and a handful of other things. Professional development that I have done, but I believe it’s also a place where you have to steer people away from that pop culture, a self-help book, maybe some of the older ones, such as How to Win Friends and Influence People.

No, wait a minute. There’s one thing I do with all my coaching clients. I tell them, “Stop reading anything about pop culture. I want you to read things that will help you focus on yourself and your behavior. I am going to ask you to take my habitual patterns assessment so you’ll see what you’re doing to sabotage yourself.” We have to stop some of those things. I want to tell you something. I think our next topic needs to be self-awareness.

My background comes from being a therapist for eighteen years, and then being a coach and a combination of the two. I have been in business for 48 years. That’s my background, yours is another. The leadership challenge is probably one of the reasons I use it to teach leadership, as it requires personal development. You cannot get through it without it. You’re doing the same thing with the things that have been most valuable to you. I want to ask you, how would you like to end this conversation today?

We have got some very valuable things, and we can choose self-awareness as our next topic, because there’s another thing I want us to talk about. I am looking at all the bookstores, and they have wonderful, beautiful covers of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and all that stuff. I want to buy one and just say, “Read the thing and talk with Nigel about it, and let’s talk about how we lost that perspective, but I am very willing to start with self-awareness.”

I do not know, I guess. I am just thinking about the thread of the conversation we had here today. We have been talking about personalities, types, and we can put anybody on a, on a board. That’s one of our first tendencies to say there, you’re this personality Myers-Briggs or disc or whatever. We want to avoid that. The generalization I would take is that, if you’re not self-aware, then you really cannot manage your own behavior. You cannot look past your behavior. You say, “I need to learn more, understand more.”

Maybe that’s a place just to put a pin and say, “A thread that we’re going to continue to pull on is self-awareness. Why am I doing this? Why, why do I feel this way?” Understand your behavior, what drives it. The self-awareness part would be, can I change that? Do I want to? Look, some people do not want to. They like the outrage, etc., or they’re scared of admitting a frailty on their own and telling their friends that, “I do not really believe this.”

It is certainly my objective to try to change anybody in that regard. If we said we have got this gap, we’d like to see something that sees the survival of society, the betterment of people in general, the reduction or eventually the elimination of all this outrage. There’s a place to start pulling things together. One common thread has been self-awareness, but the other issue is greater than that. Other issues, there are things like an education system. We need to talk about that.

We need to talk about what the expectations are. If you’re on a school board, what do you need to be aware of? What is it that you want your children? What do you represent? What are the values that you want them to bring up? There’s a legacy. There’s cultural awareness. There are things like that. There’s just the stigma that seems to stick to anything and everything because somehow we’re forced to accept that.

Everybody has a label they want to put on themselves or others. Can we, can we think about how you get past that? If we stop labeling things and we stop making them so special, then maybe the outrage begins to diminish because we just recognize, we’re people with a common set of values and interests, and we’re having deeper philosophical discussions, but is that a reasonable place to2 I do not even know there’s a place to pick up there.

[bctt tweet=”If we stop labeling everything and making it so special, outrage fades—and we rediscover that we are people with shared values capable of deeper conversation.” via=”no”]

There is a place to pick up. What I would say is, in order to have self-awareness, you have to go through the process of looking at how you behave, what your values are, and how your attitudes and beliefs really impact how you behave and what you do. If we combine all those together, then we have what we call self-awareness. I look forward to all the other topics they have. Let me just say this. I am glad we started this way. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I do not care if my internet went off. We still have a great program, and I am going to put it out there. My final statement to you is thank you for being my friend and thank you for going through this process with me. You’re welcome to say something to you.

Committing To Productive Conversations For Social Change

Just in closing. We started off saying, “How do you have a conversation? We would be naive to think it’s just this talk about how you use your civil and this thing.” We’re deep into behavior and psychology. That is not a bad place to end up. I do not know where it takes us. It can be a rabbit hole, of course. Probably somebody’s going to get offended somehow in all of this because we’re going to call it personality traits. It still carries on this concept of how we have conversations.

The self-awareness part of it, the values, has been a good lead-up to that. I would be fully in agreement, thinking of the next place is some more self-awareness, and that can lead to the elimination of outrage. It can lead to hopefully more productive conversations that take us to a place of change and improvement. I would say there’s a value that I like to carry on, which is that if somebody were to say, time is it?

The answer is always it’s time for change. The status quo cannot be accepted. I have got a little statement I wrote up. I’ll bring that up next time, and maybe we can touch on that, but we cannot accept the status quo, good or bad. Let us find a way to have a conversation that leads us to change and improvement. Make it better, make it worthwhile.

Thank you. What I would say to our audiences is to simply go through and listen to this conversation and then think about how it can stimulate your thoughts about your own values, about the things that you think you’re self-aware of or not. Join us again because every third week of the month, the show is going to have Nigel Lakey and me having conversations. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Jackalyn.

Important Links

About Nigel M. Lakey, P.Eng, SPEC

Originally from Western Canada, and one of three sons of immigrant parents, Nigel has been in Houston since 2000 when as part of a company reorganization, he relocated from Calgary. While he resisted for the first year, he eventually let Texas wash over him and embraced the thing that is Texas- he now sees it as his home. A Mechanical Engineer by education but a marketer and innovator by vocation, Nigel has spent the majority of his 45 year professional career in the oilfield service and technology space, with a brief foray into private equity before returning to what he knows and understands best.

His career is marked with experience in innovative and disruptive business and technology solutions, and he’s spent considerable time in the C-suite of public and private companies. Well-travelled to some 70 countries Nigel has worked in interesting places with interesting people and has deep respect for culture and history. He can speak a few languages as a result and maintains close friendships with many people he’s met over the years.

While he is retired out of the corporate world since 2022, Nigel is unable to resist the siren call of industry and is co-founder of an energy services startup that is developing AI and ML solutions for the oilfield. He also maintains a consulting and advisory business. Nigel remains active in business and industry and at this time he is the Chair of the Communications and Editorial Committee for the Private Directors Association.

An avid SCUBA diver since 1985, Nigel is an Advanced Open Water instructor, as well as an Adaptive SCUBA instructor, bringing SCUBA to disabled and mobility-challenged veterans and others faced with ability challenges.

Nigel is regarded as an authentic and visionary leader, and a well-spoken and concise communicator, influencer, and thought partner. He has built and developed organizations, catalyzed and led transformational change, and excels in environments where dynamic thought is needed to address strategic and operational challenges.