Hey, leaders, it's Kerry Newhough. I'm on the road this week, and we decided to do something to serve you as podcast listeners. A few months ago, I did a series on pastoring in a partisan age, and with the election right around the corner, we are re-issuing those episodes. I really hope you enjoy. I hope it's helpful, and I hope it's just in time as you lead your congregation and the people you care about through a very, very critical time. The art of leadership network. And I know hundreds of people who have large platforms. I know them personally. They will almost universally tell you that there is nobody meaner on the internet than a white person with scripture in their bio. Welcome to the Kerry Newhough Leadership Podcast. It's Kerry here, and I hope our time together today helps us thrive in life and leadership. Well, we are coming to the end of our series on pastoring in a partisan age. Couldn't ask for a better guess. We got Sharon McMahon on the podcast. She is Sharon Says So on Instagram has amassed over a million followers. I'll introduce her, but I'll tell you, this is a powerful interview on the reasons why we're in the situation we're in in terms of partisanship and division. I think you're gonna love it. Hey, also we are minutes away from celebrating our 10th anniversary here on the pod. Thank you listeners, whether you're new or you've been here since episode one. This has been an incredible decade, and we're celebrating by giving you the listener some gifts. We're giving away one of my favorite things. I've been a big green egger. That is a smoker and barbecue. For those of you who don't know what that is for years now, and I thought, what better way than to give some of you some big green egg love. So if you enjoy grilling and barbecuing, you're definitely gonna want to enter. Our grand prize winner will get one extra large big green egg, the exact same one I use in my backyard. Some accessories and a special steak delivery. The steak tastes so good, man. I'll tell you. And then two runner-up winners will get mini maxes. These are the small version of the big green egg, fun for tailgating. You can take it anywhere or you can use it at your house. It's up to you. And we got two of those. So this is open to US and Canadian residents only just due to shipping. But here's how you enter. Leverating or a comment wherever you're listening or watching this podcast. And then take a second step and enter. Fill out the ballot, fill out the form at CNLP.live and we'll be giving those away on September 26. So act now and thank you so much for an incredible 10 years. We have some special 10-year episodes coming up too. Hey, this episode is brought to you by Compassion and by Blue Plus. Did you know you can bring a new mission focus to your church and then watch God use your church to change the world? I want to encourage you to connect with Compassion. You can find out more at compassion.com/carry and the new Blue Plus membership from Glue offers your church free texting, time-saving resources, a new mover program, discounts on resources you're probably already using and more. Go to glue.us/plusplus and use the code carry20 for 20% off. Well, Sharon, McMahon and I talk about pastoring in a partisan age. The monetization of hate found this shocking and astonishing why some people crave certainty and how it explains the growth of churches and influencers and what she says are the exhausted majority. So Sharon McMahon is on a mission to curate facts, fun and inspiration by educating Americans on democracy, politics and history. After years of serving as a high school government and law teacher, she took her passion to Instagram with a mission to combat political misinformation and she wants to do it with nonpartisan facts. She's earned a reputation as America's government teacher and quickly amassed over a million social media followers, affectionately known as "govern nerds." She's the host of the award-winning podcast Here's Where It Gets Interesting, where each week she provides entertaining yet factual accounts of America's most fascinating moments and people. Hey, I want you to check out our partners for this episode. They're the ones who for a decade now have brought you this podcast, free to you. And I love compassion and they work very hard to release every day, children from poverty in Jesus' name. But did you know that partnering with compassion also helps your church fulfill its calling? As a pastor, I trusted compassion over a decade ago because they empower local churches and our church to really be a bridge to make a difference around the world. They effectively brought the mission field to our doorstep. So you can bring this mission focus to your church and then watch God use your church to impact the world. So connect with them by going to compassion.com/carrie. That's compassion.com/cary. And no doubt you've heard about Glue, but have you heard about Glue Plus? Well, Brad Hill is here to help explain. So I asked Brad, Brad, why Glue Plus? Yeah, Kerry, you know, there's a lot you can do on Glue. And what we're doing quite simply with Glue Plus is introducing a new way that leaders can get more out of the entire platform. It's a really simple way for leaders to unlock additional ways to save time and money. And what we're finding is it usually pays for itself in the very first month that you use it. Quick examples, every member of your staff is going to find something to use here. On the texting side of Glue, Glue Plus is going to unlock a number of premium features. And what that means is more engagement from your people. Also, there's a thing I love called the new mover program. This literally sends 50 free postcards every single month to families in your area who have newly moved in. And it's not just postcards, it actually pairs really nicely with the texting. So you can help people plan a visit and get a record of who's coming from which source. Marketplace discounts on Glue. This is going to save you money quite frankly on things that your church is probably already buying anyway. So whether it's kids ministry, worship planning resources, even sermon helps and marketing tools, all this is there. So quite simply, Glue is already great, but Glue Plus makes everything on Glue a little bit better, saving you time and money. You can learn more at glue.us/plus. That's g-l-o-o.us/plus and use the code carry20. That's C-A-R-E-Y 20. You will get 20% off and who doesn't want that. And now the conclusion to our seven part series on pastoring in a partisan age was Sharon McMahon. Sharon, welcome back to the podcast. It's truly a pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. You're welcome. So I want to start with this question that I've asked a couple of our guests recently. What is different now in your mind between politics, tribalization, division, say today versus 2000, the early 2000s, or pick a year? It does seem to have changed in our lifetime. Yeah. I think almost everyone would agree with that. They would say that it's obvious how easy it is to fall into one camp or the other and to make sure that what you are saying and doing is with a laser focus on destroying the side that you are not a part of. And that is a really toxic place to be as a country. And historically, that is not a position that ends well. Historically speaking, both in the United States and abroad, this idea of my enemy must be destroyed. Instead of, we need to find a way to bridge the divide. We need to find a way to work together. We need to find a way to have common ground. Instead of that being the posture, the posture has become, how can I make sure that you are humiliated? How can I make sure that we take you down? What can I do to destroy your life? How can I disassociate myself from you? And it's not healthy. It's not how humans are meant to run a country. It's not how humans are meant to exist in a community together. So here's a million dollar question, Sharon. Why? How did we become this so quickly, right? Because there was bipartisan support. I mean, if you look at Lyndon Johnson years, you look at even the Clinton years, there was bipartisanship. And even George Bush was far more bipartisan than what you might see today. W, I mean, well, both of them, to be honest. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Even going so far back into the 2008 election, the 2012 election, you saw a different sort of tenor to the campaigns, where they were running more on ideas for the future. Here is the America I would like to see, versus, you know, this other person. And you see examples of that. For example, a famous one is when John McCain and Barack Obama were both at a town hall and a woman got up and wanted to ask John McCain about, you know, like, well, he's a Muslim and he wasn't born in the United States. And John McCain said, let me stop you right there. I'm going to stop you right there. This is a Christian American man. And we have different ideas about how to run the country. But we're not going to, what we're not going to do is have ideas that are lies. So even then, you saw people who were, you know, directly head to head, you know, competing against each other, true competitors, who still had a level of respect for each other. And so the reason, you know, the million dollar question of why have we gotten to be this way is very multifaceted. There is not one single answer that I can say, here's the sole reason. Some of it is certainly the internet and the dopamine driven reward cycle that we have created via the internet that when you say something really inflammatory, you know, Bob is the anti-Christ, you know, whatever, I'm just making up the name Bob, whatever it is. Suddenly you have 4,000 likes and you have 29,000 shares and you have hundreds and hundreds of new follows and the reward that is created in your brain from all of the people coming out of the woodwork that agree with you, it incentivizes you to want to do more of that thing. So we have now seen how profitable, um, profitable hate content online is. Some of the best paid people in media are people who make hate content online. Um, and by hate, hate content, I mean, uh, a commentator who does things like, let's roll the clip. And it's a clip of, you know, whatever, uh, you know, politician Bob saying something that the commentator disagrees with. And then they're sitting there like making ridiculous faces or they're being like, well, Bob's an idiot. And here's the 25 reasons why Bob's an idiot. That content carry is tremendously profitable, tremendously profitable. Some of the biggest names in that space, uh, make upwards of $10 million a year. That's not an exaggeration either. Over $10 million a year. Some of these people are paid just in salary. That's not including what they make off of their YouTube ads. They're speaking engagements, their book deals, you know, all of the accessory things that they make money off of. So we have to understand the reward cycle in the brain and then the financial incentives that come with creating toxic levels of polarization. Kind of what Morgan Hessel says, right? Like if you are, depending on the incentives, it's amazing what human beings can do and what they're capable of. But it almost feels like this is Lord of the flies. Like we got dropped onto the internet. And for the first few years, it wasn't hostile. I mean, you know, social media was still emerging in the 2008 campaign, et cetera. But I think you're right. There was a decency about it. Like even John McCain, right? So you stop. We're not going to do that. We're not going to say that. We're just going to do that. And then it's like we had a collective lobotomy or something like that. That's happened in the last 15 years, decade or so. Talk a little bit more about the money behind hate and that because there is a business model. And I'm not just talking about Google or any of the social media companies. I'm talking about there's a, you know, in any media company or, you know, even people like you and me who do what we do. Now I know you're on the opposite side of you're trying to bring unity. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to bring unity. I'm trying to bring hope. I'm trying to bring help. But there's a lot of money on the side of hate, isn't there? Totally. Oh my gosh. Well, there's something, you know, humans in their most base tribal instincts want to belong. Belonging is an incredibly important thing to humans. It really is. It is, it's inescapable. It's in our brains that we need to belong to something. And if we don't belong, that can have very dire consequences. Most people who become mass shooters don't feel like they belong to anything or anywhere or anybody. And that is very damaging psychologically. So we need, we have a very deep-seated need for belonging. And one of the things that the internet has allowed is when you see somebody who is creating hate content online, there is a, you know, this, I mentioned this reward cycle in the brain that feeds into that belonging, that need, that need to belong. I am among the people who agree with the right side. And that idea of I'm in the right group is feeding, you know, it feeds our deep-seated need for belonging. And it contributes to that excessive tribalism. So when you see the hate content, and you're like, yeah, I really hate that politician, Bob. What a joker. And you are pressing like and you are leaving comments. It allows you to feel like you are part of the, part of the group with the correct knowledge, the true and correct knowledge. So one of the reasons that is such a profitable business model is because it encourages both people who agree with it to comment, like, respond, follow all of these things. But it also does the opposite, which is flabbergast and horrified the people on the other side. And then they have to respond with like, are you kidding me? Get your heads out of your socks, you know, like, what is, what's happening? So all of that drives eyeballs, right? And what it, and on, on the internet, eyeballs are what make money. It doesn't matter if you're hate watching it, because you hate what they're saying, or if you're love watching it, because you love what they're saying. All of that drives revenue. So in addition to the ad revenue on places like YouTube, people are able then to, you know, gain this large following, which they then can monetize for other things. Some of the best paid people in this sort of hate content space have been offered contracts that are worth over $50 million for, you know, a handful of years. And I know that you speak to a lot of people who work it, you know, maybe their pastors or employees at a church, or they work for a small business, and they're just trying to build a business for their set themselves and their family and whatever. The idea that you could, you know, work your butt off and make $70,000, or you could just sit on the internet and be like, I hate Bob, and make $10 million. It's a, it's kind of a no-brainer for some people. They are willing to sell their soul in an effort to make $10 million a year. Who is, so when you talk about $10 million or $50 million, who is putting up the money for that? Where does that kind of income come from? That's a great question. Some of it, of course, is subscriptions. So subscriptions to their podcast, subscriptions to their premium content. So they're making lots off of that. They are making lots off of YouTube revenue. People with large YouTube followings can make seven figures a year on YouTube alone. And then they have teams that are really great at like making clips from their shows. So they're pumping out 15, 20 YouTube clips and things on a daily basis. So YouTube revenue. And then, of course, every little video that they put out, they're making more YouTube revenue on. That's another part of it. But there, you know, in addition to, I've already mentioned like the book deals, the speaking engagements, a really popular speaker can make $100,000 on a single one-hour speech. But there's another piece of this equation. Some of these people work for larger parent companies. And those larger parent companies, it is interesting to see where some of those larger parent companies get their money from. Because when you read about the deal sheets that some of these people are given, like the terms of the deals, the $50 million that they're offered, things along those lines. It's interested and also perplexed me of like, but where is the $50 million coming from? Yeah, exactly. That's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. You're telling me you have enough to pay this person $50 million from YouTube. So I have done some digging because I'm curious about these kinds of things. And the bottom line is that a lot of the money is dark money, Kerry. It comes from secret billionaires. I mean, they're not secret. I know who they are. Comes with billionaires who want to see more of this kind of content pumped out into the universe. Because it benefits the political positions that they hope will dominate the American media landscape and thus dominate the American electorate. So the more you're surrounded with an idea, the more likely you are to accept it is true. That's just how, again, how the human mind works. You want people to believe they'll lie? Say it more often. Keep saying it. Are these American billionaires or is there some offshore money involved in that as well? Some depending on if you are watching hate content from the left or the right, it will depend on who the billionaires are. But the majority of it is American money. The majority of it is American money to control the narrative. It's an attempt to buy elections via dominating the media landscape. So we're being deeply manipulated. Yes. And people love to tell you that it's like the government that is deeply manipulating you. The government, of course, we could talk for another six hours about flaws in the government systems, of course. But they don't have billions of dollars to just be like, let's do YouTube ads. Do you know what I mean? We found this guy in his basement. Yeah. Let's pay him 50 billion. Channel 100 million his way. Yeah. The government's not doing that, but billionaires are interesting. So when people realize that they, in fact, are being controlled and manipulated by a very small handful of billionaires who have a very important, in their mind, message that they want to convey, people that they want to elect, it's sobering. It's sobering when you realize that the amount of free will that you think you have over your media consumption is not what you think it is. Oh my goodness. Malcolm Gladwell has a new book coming out called Revenge of the Tipping Point. And he's talking about one of his ideas. He'll be up on this podcast soon too. One of his ideas is that you have super spratters who can do good or can do evil. And increasingly, that's being leveraged for evil, not good. That's my language, not his, but you can see that that a very small group. And this plays into, I wanted to get to this, and man, I could go in so many directions with you, Sharon. But conspiracy theories are on the rise. And what you're sharing sounds like the genesis of a conspiracy theory. And I know you have a lot to say about conspiracy theories. So do you want to talk a little bit about how political elites conspiracy theories play into today's culture and dynamic around the political landscape? Yeah, gosh, what a fascinating topic. So conspiracy theories, first of all, real conspiracies exist, right? Like, not everything is a theory. Watergate was a real conspiracy. They were actually conspiring to do that thing. So real conspiracies exist. That's an important thing to note. But conspiracy theories have become increasingly popular, I think, for a few different reasons. One of them is we are bombarded with such a massive amount of information that our brains are not equipped to make sense of. We are actually not meant to consume 300,000 pieces of new information on a daily basis at no time in human history have humans ever been, even this never even been an option, right? Like our ancestors of your had to wait for a letter to sail across the Atlantic and back. Do you know what I mean? That took like six plus weeks, and you would have to write it with a quill, and then send it on a person with a horse down to the shipyard. So this idea that, you know, it would take months to get pieces of information. You know, like the war of 1812 was actually over by the time a multiple, multiple important battles of the war of 1812 were being fought. Word had just not reached like General Andrew Jackson yet. So all that to say, word used to spread a lot less quickly, but it does now. So we are bombarded with massive quantities of information. And this is both a wonderful thing. The democratization of information is a wonderful thing. It gives people the opportunity to access things that they would have had to have a lot of money to be able to access be in the past. So there's definitely positives to it. But most of us just are not able to deal, right? We don't have the training on physics or medicine or whatever the topic is. And so because our brains really enjoy being certain about things. The human brain really enjoys being certain. Certain is safe. Uncertain is unsafe, right? So and some people have varying degrees of comfort with certainty. Some people are way more comfortable being saying, I don't know. We don't know why the universe is constantly expanding. You know what I mean? We don't know the answer to that question yet. Someday maybe we'll know. But we don't know yet. Some people feel comfortable saying things like that. I don't know the answer to that yet. Other people's brains feel very uncomfortable with uncertainty. And in the absence of certainty, the brain will actively work to fill in the uncertainty with something it wants to believe. And very often, and because it feels good to know something, to want to believe something that you want to believe feels good in our brains like scratching a little itch. Those very often, the things that it wants to believe are not real. They're not actually backed up with any facts. Or they're backed up with the misinterpretation of the facts. Or a quick Google search seems to support what it is that you want to believe. But in reality, you're just understanding or you're only looking at a portion of the picture. So some of this stems from how the human mind works. We want to be certain so we can be safe. Some of it stems from the availability of information. We can do that quick Google search search is politician Bob. Is he a lizard person? Let me check. Let me check. That's a real thing. Yes. Look it. I found some websites that confirm it. Here we go. I can believe it now. He's a lizard person. So the philosopher or sociologist, there's a man named Jonathan Heit. I don't know if you know who he is, but he's written books like The Righteous Mind. And one of the things that he talks about is the two sort of human questions that underpin our belief systems are one of two things. Can I believe it? And must I believe it? And when we want to believe something, the question we ask ourselves is, can I believe it? When we want to believe something, can I believe it? Well, the internet has made it very easy for you to answer that question because you can find almost confirmation for almost anything on the internet, right? I can believe it. I found these websites that say politician Bob is a lizard person. So I can believe it because I want to. And we are not even having that full conversation. This is all happening subconsciously. You know, we're not aware that this is the question we're asking, but nevertheless, that is the question underpinning our quote unquote research into something. And then when the opposite is true, when we don't want to believe something, the question we're asking ourselves is, do I have to believe that? Must I believe that thing? And then we are looking for ways to disprove it. And obviously, that's easy to do on the internet as well. And now a quick word from one of our partners. Today's episode is brought to you by preaching cheat sheet. A recent study showed that 46% of pastors say one of their biggest struggles is feeling like attendees don't absorb or use what they preach. Did you hear that? 46% of pastors feel that way. Look, I get it. Okay. We've all been there, but if you feel this way more often than not, I would love to help. I have a free 10 step preaching cheat sheet that outlines you guessed at 10 simple steps to help you get the most out of your sermon prep. Each step ensures that your sermon and delivery are clear. In other words, you're ready to go before you get into the pulpit. You don't sit there at lunch going, oh, you know, could have done this, could have done that. Get that done first. Over 30,000 pastors have downloaded copy to help with their sermon prep. It's something I still use to this day, even after decades of preaching. I love filling out each of the steps as I write my sermon. And then I sit down to review the message the night before and I can go in with reasonable confidence that this message is going to land or at least that I have done my best. So I'd love to get a copy for you for free. If you want to be more confident on Sunday mornings, visit preaching cheat sheet.com. That's preaching cheat sheet.com to download your copy for free. And now back to the conversation. So it's confirmation bias on steroids. And, you know, what you said is so important. I want to replay that just comes out again and again, because I think you're really on to something. The human mind craves certainty. I was thinking back to Neil Postman's work. He wrote in the 80s, I think, didn't he? Amusing yourselves to death. And what he said about the arrival of the telegraph in American culture in the mid 19th century. I mean, during the Lincoln Douglas debates around the time of the Civil War, there were people who would gather for six or seven hours, very informed citizens, make debates, listen to both sides, and try to make an informed decision. But he says, there was also, you could watch political discourse, descend after that because telegraph was invented. And to your point, you know, soon news was traveling same day instantaneously across the Atlantic. And you would learn that the Queen of England had a cold. And suddenly that's what everybody was talking about in their community. You know, the Queen of England has a cold. Well, you're never going to meet the Queen of England. You probably can't name her, even though it was probably Victoria at the time, right? Like, it's one of those things where we are deluged with useless information. We crave certainty because it's so overwhelming and confusing. So therefore, we try to latch on to beliefs and we become convinced that Bob is a lizard person. It's sort of, is that what you're saying? I just want to make sure I got that right. Yes. There's one other little factor that I think goes into this. So our need for us, our need for certainty. And again, there's a spectrum of people sort of innate tolerance for uncertainty. Some people are excellent at tolerating the uncertainty. I don't know why that is true yet. Maybe someday we'll know other people that feels very bad to be able to say, I don't know. And that goes along with this sort of psychological concept of distress tolerance. Some people have high degrees of distress tolerance, meaning I can sit with the uncomfortable feelings of not knowing why that thing is happening. And other people have very natural low levels of distress tolerance, where it creates almost a visceral reaction in their bodies, where they cannot tolerate the feeling of the distress from not knowing the answer to something. Distress tolerance is a skill that can be taught and improved, by the way. And therapists teach people ways to improve their distress tolerance. But some people have a natural ability to tolerate the distress better than others. And so when you couple this lack or propensity towards the ability to tolerate distress, plus whether or not somebody has a strong ability to sit with uncertainty, I think the rise of conspiracy theories is really highlighting. Number one, people who crave certainty and connection. And number two, people with low levels of distress tolerance. That is, by and large, who we're seeing in this sort of one column of people who spend there a lot of their lives wrapped up in these types of ideas. Well, taking that a little bit further down the road, couple that I'm thinking about this through so many filters. This is so helpful. But when you look at how we cluster now, like during COVID, a lot of people moved and they're like, all right, I want to get out of a blue state and go to a red state or I want to get out of a red state. I know people who've done the opposite. They were in a very red town and they're like, I can't live here. Everybody thinks the same. So I'm going to go to a blue state or a blue city. So I've seen friends do both. And sometimes they say it's taxes or the political environment, but a lot of that is ideology. That kind of explains to how people gather in communities, like say, a church. We live in a culture right now where a lot of the communal organizations, the social clubs, the charitable clubs that under road American life or North American life for centuries are gone. You think about Kiwanis or rotary or those kinds of clubs tend to be a lot of 75 year old men and not a lot of 25 year old people. So it's one of those things where you look at churches, they become a little more monochromatic over the last 20 years to or you can fall into that trap where you become, we all think the same way. We all vote the same way. Do you see that tribalization happening more and more in the church or in culture? And if so, I'd love your thoughts on it. Pros and cons. Yeah, yeah, I think absolutely. And certain faith leaders, of course, do a lot to cause that, honestly. Some faith leaders do a lot to sort of encourage people to not be that way, that whatever your beliefs about God might be, that political parties are not like the Republicans or the labor party or whatever it is. That's not God's party, right? Or the Democrats or conservatives or whatever names you want to give to political parties depending on what country you're listening to this in. That's not God's party. God does not care about your political parties, frankly. But a lot of faith leaders have given credence to the belief that in fact, the opposite is true. That there is one party that belongs to God's side. Not to be cynical, but there's not necessarily money in it like there would be in the secular culture. There could be if you get a book deal or if you become well-known, but there is success in it because it is a short-term strategy to grow a church. If you want to pack a church in some circles in the right conditions, just do a little political diatribe that passes as a sermon, and you will attract a certain kind of people. Ryan Burgess is documenting the surge of the non-religious evangelicals who have all the political ideology that, unfortunately, has become associated with what used to be a Christian doctrine, evangelicalism. A lot of them aren't religious. They don't go to church. They're just like, "Yeah, I'm an evangelical because they support ex." That kind of thing. That is, I think, a short-term strategy to grow a church. That leads to further tribalization. Whether those faith leaders want to admit it or not, what they are falling prey to is that dopamine circuit in their brains of, "I get so much good feedback. I hear from so many people who are like, "Yeah, Pastor Kerry, that's right. You know that's right." They talk about it on a Sunday morning and the church is up in arms and they're clapping and they're yelling. They're getting the handshakes afterwards. They're getting the reshars. On Facebook, it's rewarding that kind of behavior that all humans are very, very susceptible to. It requires work to override that circuit in your brain. You have to make a conscious effort to say, "That's actually not my best self." Those are not representative of the values I actually hold. I'm not going to do that because our default is to just go along with what feels good in the moment. It very much is in a variety of ways. It is highly addictive. In an era where the church is generally declining as a rule, if you get a little bit of growth, a little bit of positive feedback, it would be really difficult not to continue following that trail, particularly if it's got momentum. You're absolutely right. Again, that's human nature and unfortunately, it's one of our more base instincts. It's like if you're into a fist fight in the hallway at school, and you're surrounded by a group of people who are like, "Get him." Punch him in the face. That eggs you on. You feel like care buoyed by that energy of the audience versus if there's nobody around to watch it happen. It's a different vibe. It's a different feel like the way that you feel in that moment is different. It's essentially the same exact thing. Your faith leaders, political leaders, community leaders are being surrounded by the equivalent of a group in the hallway at school yelling, "Get him." You seem like the hero when you have, in fact, bloodied that other person's nose. I would love to, and I don't know where this is going to go, I have a mentor of mine who's been very influential in my life, and he says, "You can't have certainty, but you can't have clarity." I would love to know the difference in your mind between certainty and clarity. But what an interesting question, because we can be clear on things without necessarily understanding why that thing is the way it is. I can have clarity that gravity is real, but also really be uncertain in my knowledge of physics. I know almost nothing about physics. Don't ask me. I don't understand. I find space really interesting, but I don't understand it at all. When people are like, "It's 42 million light years." I'm like, "But how?" Makes no sense. Don't get it. That's really cool. I'm glad somebody did the math to figure that out. Don't get it. Don't understand. I can be clear on concept of how the universe works, that we are on a small globe that is already a son, part of an ever-apparently, ever-expanding universe. That's also how we're expanding into what? Yeah, expanding into where and why. Does the universe have edges? We don't know. That's the legitimately science does not know if the universe has edges or not. Don't know. It might be, it might not, but it might have edges. We don't know. So anyway, I can be clear about some things without necessarily requiring certainty about the underpinnings of how everything works. What I can be clear on is what my values are. I can be clear on what I would like the world to look like. I can be clear on what my contribution to the world might be without necessarily requiring certainty about where my efforts might lead, without requiring certainty about the outcome of my efforts, or about how they might impact other people, without having certainty about how those values might play out in other crowds. But I can be clear about who I am and what I stand for and why I believe what I believe, without necessarily requiring certainty that it's going to go somewhere or lead to something or produce a certain result. So that's just some thoughts of how that means to me. I would love to hear what it means to you. Yeah, I think I'm one of those people who does better with ambiguity and questions the older I get. So younger me was a little bit more black and white. Older me is like, "Oh, that person probably has a story," or I can hold opposing ideas in tension and go, "I think there's something in that." And I realize the older I get, how little I actually know, how narrow my bandwidth is. And so I'm pretty good getting better at just going, "I don't know how 98% of this works. I know a little bit about this one or two percent. That's about it." So for me, clarity and certainty, sometimes having led in a local context for years is just announcing what we don't know. Here's what we don't know. Here's what we don't know. Here's what we don't know. But as you were hinting at in your answer, going back to our values, here's what we're certain of. Here's what we're clear about. Here's what we do know. And I think good preaching in many ways. And my definition of what good preaching would be is that. You think about all the tension in the room on a Sunday morning, all the stories in the room, the marriages that are hanging by a thread, the newlyweds who are so excited and think they're never going to have a fight, the teen who's struggling with addiction, the guy who's afraid of losing his job. There's a lot of uncertainty in any room you walk into. And I think good preaching to me speaks into that uncertainty and says, you know, there's a lot of pain here. There's a lot of questions here. And there's a lot of joy here. And some of you, your problem is you've been so successful and you're like, nah, I don't know. How come it's not doing it for me? How come that dopamine hit doesn't last forever? And I look at my bank account or I look at the latest report for my company. So you speak into that and go, but here's what we do know. Here's what we do know. Here's what we can be quite certain of through a lens of faith. And it tends to be tremendously unifying. And also just saying, there's a lot I don't know. And there's a lot of stuff I won't figure out. I'm okay with that. But but here's something really interesting, Joanne, talk about that. That's what clarity and certainty means. I love that. And I think that it creates a permission structure for other people to remain uncertain about things, right? Like, I don't know why that is. I can't tell you if there's edges to the universe. I don't know why light travels at a certain speed. I don't know why so and so did this that and the other thing. I don't know the answer to that question. But here's what I do know. When you give voice to that, I don't know. It gives other people permission to also feel like, oh, so I don't have to have everything figured out. And that actually, I think is becoming increasingly important, Carrie, to give other people permission to not know and to sit with the uncertainty. Well, and to go back to something you said earlier, media consumption, we're not designed. And I believe that, whether you believe from a creation or, you know, hey, we just spontaneously got here. You're right. From millennia. And for me, I'm a creation guy. But I don't think God designed us to handle that kind of information. And yet, here we are in a world where we have that kind of information. I don't know what to do with it all. And I get overwhelmed by it. And I try to follow what I consider to be like, I don't go for the clickbait. I don't go for the haters. I don't go for the reaction pieces with a million like, you know, politician Bob. That's not my diet. What do you do? What are your could call it? Media hygiene? This is what you do, right? I want to get a little bit more into how to build a good platform, how to build a positive platform. But what is your media or news consumption hygiene so that you don't get sucked in under the riptide? Yeah. Well, the first thing is, I don't really tend to watch the news at all. I don't watch it. Me neither. But I bet you used to, didn't you? Well, yeah, sure. Like younger? Yeah. Yeah. My mom watched her 30 minutes of Peter Jennings in the evenings, you know, followed by 30 minutes of whatever whoever the local news host was at the time. You know, you have 30 minutes of national news and 30 minutes of local news. And maybe sometimes you didn't watch the 30 minutes of local news. Maybe sometimes you watched real fortune instead. And then you caught the 10 o'clock local news. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's maybe how you worked that. And if you were too busy, well, you'll catch it tomorrow. So, and I also think about like my grandmother or my great grandmother, you know, born at the turn of the century, they didn't have anything to watch. There was like, oh, oh, oh, do we didn't win the presidency? Oh, it's true. Oh, weird. Interesting. Yesterday I said the different thing. You know what I mean? Exactly. This idea that we, you know, at no time in human history, as you just said, Carrie, have humans been even able to access this amount of information and our brains have not caught up with it. So I don't watch any news. I read the news. And I make sure that the majority of my news diet, as you would with food, if you're going to eat a healthy diet with food, you would make sure the majority of your diet is not ice cream. Ice cream is fine sometimes, but that can't be the majority of your diet, right? So I really make an effort to read the majority of my news from news organizations that are rated by rated independently by independent third party organizations as having a, you know, more of a center weighted bias with a high degree of reliability. And there's a great organization called Ad Faunteys, A-D-F-O-N-T-E-S. I link to it in the show notes. Yes. Yes. Ad Faunteys means to the source in Latin. And they have a team of people who evaluate different news organizations, podcasts, you know, websites, et cetera. And every evaluation has somebody from the left, from the right, and from the center politically that are evaluating these news organizations and coming to a consensus on where on the political spectrum this belongs. And to what degree is this a reliable news source versus entertainment, right? Or even worse, just spreading straight up lies, right? Not even entertainment. Which exists. Yeah, just lies. So they have this bell curve, you know, of, you know, right, left and center with this sort of center, center being the top of the curve. But then they also, as you move up and down the curve on this axis, they have reliability. So I find, I find that, I'm going to check that out. That's super helpful, right? So if you're consuming a large amount of your media diet from the top of this bell curve, that is a useful thing. But then I also think it's extremely important to consume some of your news from both the left and the right. I choose sources that are highly rated for reliability. But that comes from the left and the right, because I think it's important to under, if you want to understand people, that understanding cannot be based on your assumptions about what other people think. And so often that is what we are basing our understanding of. Listen, if you are a pro life person, you might have the assumption that people who are pro choice love killing babies, and they think that that's fun and funny and Saturday afternoon activity. And the truth is that your assumption would be incorrect. That is not what they think. That is not how they feel about it. And if you're a pro choice person, you might think that people who are pro life, all they want to do is control women's bodies and support the patriarchy. And in reality, that's not a pro life person would tell you that's not what they think. Now, you might disagree with their ultimate conclusion. But if you are making assumptions based only on your understanding of what somebody else thinks, chances are pretty good you're getting it wrong. So, if and until you can articulate to somebody else what their position is in a way that they would agree with. If I were to say, Carrie, is it your position that Hondas are the best cars, because they are, they have a long track record of being extremely reliable. And they are easy to fix because lots of mechanics are trained on them. And they get excellent gas mileage and whatever the list of pros is for you with Honda cars. I'm just making this up, of course. And for you to be like, yes, that's right. That's exactly why I think they're the best cars. Until I can articulate in a way that you would say accurately reflects your viewpoint of a hot button topic. You don't understand it well enough. If you're like, Carrie likes Hondas because he only likes dumb cars. Do you know what I mean? That's not an accurate reflection. Those are good hypothetical. There's a Honda in the garage behind me. So, yes, that is quite accurate. And those are the reasons I would give. So, well done. Thank you. I also, I too own a Honda, Carrie. So, yeah, exactly. They do tend to last. Yes, I get it. So, the idea that in order to really understand people, that you need to consume some of the media that they're consuming in an effort to understand them, or perhaps even to get a different viewpoint on a topic that you hadn't considered before. I think that's an important exercise. Can I ask you why reading over watching? I made a very similar decision, and I don't know why I made that decision, but I much prefer reading over watching. And I don't know whether that's something you recommend, or whether it's a personal preference. Yeah. Oh, I highly recommend it for a few different reasons. One is that we know that your brain will only take you so far. And by what I mean by that is, we all know there's a difference between reading a news story about, let's say, a bombing that happens in children are killed. You might read that and be like, "Oh, this is terrible. I hate reading that children were killed. That's so tragic." There is a difference between that, and watching a beheaded child on television with their body parts strewn everywhere. Those are two different experiences, right? And this is true of, say, a violent movie. There's a difference between reading gunmen stormed the embassy and took people hostage. That creates a different feeling in your mind and in your body than literally watching gunmen storm an embassy and seeing the people sobbing and terrified and like, "Please, I have a baby." Do you know what I mean? It's a very different experience to watch something than to read something. And that is, again, part of how our minds work. When we're watching something, we are essentially, you know, you're being subjected to sometimes imagery that is not helpful for your own mental health. Watching it happen does not empower you to do more good in the world. It often has an incapacitating effect on people, and it often causes extreme anxiety or depression. I would imagine a lot of, if you have a lot of faith leaders listening to this, people in their organizations are feeling a tremendous amount of anxiety about the upcoming election season. Oh, yeah. That's why we're doing this series. Yes, normal way to feel. The overwhelming feeling is anxiety. And so watching the news contributes to the anxiety. There have been multiple studies that prove this, that even 20 minutes of watching the news, people feel much far more anxious after that 20 minutes, even if it's not a topic that they would necessarily care that much about, right? The other reason, of course, is speed. It's much faster for me to read an article. I can read 20 articles and the amount of time it would take me to sit through your commercial breaks. I can cover a lot more ground reading than I can watching. And then the other reason is that so much of visual news content is just opinion. It's just opinion. And next, we have Sharon, who's here to tell us why politician Bob is, in fact, the worst. And then I have to sit through five minutes of, I may not, this may not be newsworthy even, but I have to fill up the 24 hours. So I'm going to get a bunch of guests on to talk about why politician Bob is terrible. And again, that's not helping me understand my neighbor better. That's not helping me understand the world at large better. It's just listening to, it's just me listening to somebody tell me their opinion about why one other person is terrible. So, well, it's also a pivot in the business model, isn't it? I mean, if you look at, I think originally, the newscasts when there were three networks was to do a public service. In other words, this is how we're going to get our news. And then 1984, it became a business model. And now basically, if it bleeds, it leads, you've got to get the eyeballs to get the advertising revenue. And that's somewhat true in printed journalism as well. And you have to consider the source. But like you say, you're not captive to a narrative for four minutes or three minutes or a minute, you're reading something you're like, ah, this is news, you just move on to the next thing. So add fauntez, we will link to that. And a preference for reading over watching, I think that's really helpful. So Sharon, you have built a huge platform over the last few years, really, it kind of blew up during the pandemic. And you have over a million followers on Instagram, you're about to release a brand new book. And you are doing this without becoming that, you know, person who gets $50 million a year to hate on politician Bob. The secret mission to this company, one of the un-stated missions of this company is to be a place for the good people on the internet. You know, we believe there's a lot of good people that, you know, the people on the edges, I don't know what to do about. But I think there's a lot of good people with good hearts who do want to make a difference, who are somewhere in the middle. They might be slightly right, slightly left, but they're willing to talk to somebody they disagree with. That's why we exist. That's why. One of the reasons I do what I do, I think you're very similarly minded. So then the question becomes, you know, are you just consigned to like five followers and nobody coming to your church anymore or nobody listening to you? Clearly that hasn't been your case. So what have been some keys to getting heard in a polarized space when you're not a polarized person? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a it's a great question because the business model doesn't have a lot of support of like here is the proof of concept, right? The proof of concept is in the giant YouTube channels that get the $10 million, right? The proof of concept can be a little bit more challenging to demonstrate that, in fact, it can work. But I think that is beginning to change. I think we now have reached a point in the political pendulum where it has swung so far that the overwhelming majority of people, I call them the exhausted majority, the exhausted majority of people are just like, I am done with this. You're seeing record drops in certain cable news channel viewership. People are just like, we're done. I don't care about this anymore. I have seen what it's done to my family. I have I can't go I can't even go to Thanksgiving with my uncle anymore. This has politics or, you know, this type of news consumption has ruined my familial relationships. I've lost friends over this. I don't I don't even understand how to go to work and sit next to somebody who has a little sticker for the for a candidate that I disagree with. There are more people than you realize who agree with you when, you know, who agree with this idea that it's too much. It's not healthy. It's not how humans are meant to live and that we are not better off for it. We're not better off for it. Show me one objective measure that says we are better off now than we were in the past. When I'm talking about community specifically, mental health, I'm not saying no legislation has been passed. I'm not saying nothing ever has occurred. But if you ask people to feel more connected to your community, do you feel more greater sense of belonging? Do you feel more beloved? Do you feel like you're better able to live out your mission in life? Most people would say no. The overwhelming majority of people would say no. We are not better off for living this way. So aside from the fact that the proof of concept is beginning to now sort of show itself, I think there's also a higher allegiance that we, you know, owe not just ourselves, but owe the world. And that higher allegiance has to be caring for our neighbors, right? And caring for our neighbors does not involve making them feel hated, unwelcome, prayed upon, you know, that we're victimizing them further, that they have no note that they can't even live next door to us in peace. Even if we set the money aside, the business model aside, we have we owe the world a higher allegiance of caring for our neighbors. And if we, we want to see that change, we have to make peace with this idea that it might cost me money, it might cost me followers, but I'm unwilling to be part of the problem for one more day, that being part of what will ultimately prove to be the solution or what is the better what is for the betterment of the world is more valuable to me than what is in my bank account. Ultimately, that is the decision that we all have to grapple with. And that is incredibly encouraging to hear. And you think there's a growing appetite for that? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. If you, if you look at the, even just the polling of the, you know, recent American head to head match up in the election, 80% of Americans did not want to see another Trump Biden matchup 80% and that doesn't mean that everybody was in the middle and they're like, why can't we just have a candidate who wants to bake cupcakes? That does not to say that. But it demonstrates that there is not a strong appetite for the vitriol that occurred and a repeat of the scenarios that occurred in the last election. We don't want to do that again. We're done with that. Like that is not, we're not better off having had that, having experienced that. We're not better today because of it. Let's do something different. There's a strong appetite for change. Yeah. And there is now change on the ballot. It's not going to be a rematch, which I think shocked a lot of people. So here we are. So I want you to give your best advice to, because I think you absolutely nailed it, there are a lot of leaders who are just scared about this fall and it's coming sooner. I talked to a few leaders who I really respect and they're like, I just want to put my head down and wake up in December or January or whenever it's all over. And I get that. And we've talked about that on other episodes in this series. But if you were leading this fall and you are on your platform, but if you're leading people face to face and we'll focus it on the local church, because that's where the majority of our listeners call home on the weekends. What are some do's and don'ts? In your mind, if you were giving your best advice, you're the consultant, you're coming in, it's like, all right, if you want to lead optimally in this very divisive series, here are some things I would do. Here are some things I would avoid. What's your advice? Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing that we have to do is acknowledge the exhaustion and anxiety of the people that we're serving. I think it helps to say, listen, I know this is exhausting. I know you probably, some of you are losing sleep over this. You don't know what's going to happen. And frankly, I don't know what's going to happen. But here's what I do know to speak to what you were saying, Carrie. Here's what I do know. No matter what happens, here's what we can do. No matter what happens, if our preferred candidate wins, here's what we have control over, or if our less preferred candidate does not win, here's what we have control over. So I think pointing them to these sort of North Star principles over here is how we should conduct ourselves. Here is what, here is what it looks like to love your neighbor. And this is what, this is, I would like to see more pastors addressing this topic, Carrie. Here's my, I'm not a faith leader. I have not been to seminary or whatever. I can't, so I'm not going to tell you how to do it. But here is a topic for you to talk about with your people. What does it look like to love your neighbor? Because so often online, I see people saying, well, I am loving my neighbor by telling you that you're fat and ugly, because beloveding your neighbor means telling them the truth. Right? Like that is the posture of many people who have scripture in their bios. Truly, loving your neighbor means telling you the truth. And the truth is you are, you are fat and ugly. And the equivalent of that, political equivalent of that. Do you know what I mean? It's not, it's not necessarily saying, in fact, you are fat and ugly. It's the political equivalent of like, I'm telling you the truth. So that is, I think, an important topic to discuss. What does love your neighbor look like in the year of our Lord, 2024? Wow. People do not know the answer to that question. No, you're right. And you raised something that I've noticed as well that, you know, often if I get a troll or someone who's really negative and we talked about not arguing with trolls on the internet before on this show with you, I click over to the bio and there's something about God and something about scripture and I'm like, come on, come on, come on, come on, right? Can you, can you just, as someone who doesn't work in the church day to day, remind us what that feels like when people see your bio and then they see behavior that is unbecoming theoretically a Christian? Yeah. You know, this is a very, I think a very unfortunate reality that this is not just my experience, that this is the experience of a huge number of people that I know, and I know hundreds of people who have large platforms. I know them personally. They will almost universally tell you that there is nobody meaner on the internet than a white person with scripture in their bio. That, and I'm not exaggerating, Carrie, and I say that without malice. I say that without malice. That there is almost nobody meaner than a white person with some with a bible verse or a reference to Jesus and a cross emoji or something of that nature in their bio. The death threats I get are almost exclusively from people with scripture in their bio. The people that tell me I should kill myself are almost exclusively from people with scripture in their bio. Now, does that mean that that is my view of all Christians? No, it's not. I don't say that that's what all Christians are like. I'm not saying that that is the values they should hold. I'm not, I'm not saying that. But I am saying that almost universally, and this is not my experience. This is the experience of more than 100 people that I personally know with large platforms. They will tell you. We've had these conversations. They are almost never experiencing hate at the level that they experience it aside from people who have some kind of bible or religious reference in their bio. And it's profoundly disturbing and upsetting. It really is. It's very upsetting to get mail at your home. That has a picture of your child's school because somebody has spent the time figuring out where your children go to school and where you live, despite the fact that you don't ever publicize these things. Don't even publicize what your children look like or what their names are. That somebody has taken the time to track these things down and to let you know that they're going to intimidate you. It's profoundly disturbing to have to report to the FBI threats against you and your family and that the threats almost always come from this specific demographic. We're doing something wrong when the followers of Christ are some of the meanest people on the internet. We're doing something wrong. Right? And again, I say this without any malice, Kerry, no malice in my heart, no casting aspersions on groups at large. I am just telling you from experience what that is like. So sorry. Yeah, it's very upsetting. It is really upsetting. I mean, it's very upsetting. To you or your friends, have any theories on why that is because that is a problem I'm trying to solve. And I don't know that I'm making much of a difference, but it bothers me at a visceral level. And I would just love any insight into why that is. And anybody listening to the show knows that you're not lying. That's true. I wish you I was like, Oh, no, you missed. No, you've nailed it. No. And I hear that even from. I know I'm sorry. You got me too. I Sorry, not how it should be. No, no. Well, the man we worship theoretically is the opposite of all of that. Right, Sharon? He is. I'm so sorry. Okay, we're going to pull it together. Anyway, yes, I hear that from even other people who are openly religious who speak in churches who, you know, talk about their religious beliefs on their platform, that even people in that space, the amount of the amount of hate that they get is almost exclusively from other Christians. Yeah, I think for a long time, there is sort of this Christian ethos, especially in evangelical spaces that you are like fighting, you're fighting the enemy, right? You're fighting the enemy, like even the children Sunday school songs are like, I'm in the Lord's army. Right? Do you remember? Do you remember that? Actually, wow. Yes, they do. This viewpoint, by the way, I've done some research on this, this viewpoint really began to rise to prominence in evangelical Christianity in the 1950s during the Cold War, when there was the godless communists and the Christian North Americans, you know, the Christian West and the godless commies of the Soviet Union. You know, Stalin did. He was actively out there burning down people's churches because he wanted to eradicate God from public life, like he legitimately did those things. Yes, so this notion that there is this existential battle that it is incumbent upon American, North American Christians to fight in the political sphere really began to take root in the 1950s during the Cold War. Interesting. I wouldn't have put it back that far. Yes. Yeah. And then, you know, that it has just morphed, of course, it's morphed as politics have changed, as world leaders have changed, as circumstances have changed, this ideology has changed slightly. But this idea that politics are a matter of good versus evil actually does go back in certain areas to the Cold War. So now we're just taking this, I'm in the Lord's army viewpoint. And we have decided that our enemies are not, you know, some nuclear power on the other side of the world, but that they are other people on the internet. They are other people on the internet that it is incumbent upon us to defeat. And whether or not we are aware that that's the decision that we're making, I do think some of the mindset goes back that far, and then we're taught that mindset by our parents and grandparents. And again, for all the other reasons we've just discussed, we get a reward when we do that thing. When we act that way, when we say those things, when we insult somebody, we get a reward in our mind of, you know, like why we want to continue acting that way. So I think some of it goes back that far, but this idea even that in politics, there is a side of God and a side that is not God's side. You can see even going back to the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln was having a conversation with one of his advisors, and his advisor said, let's pray that God's on our side. And Abraham Lincoln said, no, let's pray that we're on God's side. And this, so it's a different sort of hard posture, right? That God's on my side. That should not be your viewpoint. God's not the idea of like God's on my side politically. And I think we've gotten away from that. When you're building your platform, which tends to be neutral politically, you call out both sides when you see truth or lies, or I should say lies or misinformation, et cetera. I think you're right. The majority of people listening to this podcast want to land in that space. They're afraid, they're gun shy. They've tried to make a difference. They got their hands slapped. Some of them got fired. Some of them just got too many angry emails, too many all-cap texts and just said, okay, maybe it's just easier to do nothing. You're not doing nothing. If you give them a final word of encouragement, that it's like, hey, if you just pay attention to this or to this, this fall, you're going to help some people. Any final word for them? I have two things. The first one is this idea that we should focus on doing for one person what we wish we could do for everybody. If I can eliminate one hungry belly, then I'm going to do that. Even if it means not creating systemic change on world hunger this afternoon, that we should not grow weary in doing good. Even if it seems like, what difference is it making? Everybody's mad at me. That's the first thing is we can't grow weary in doing good. And so we should focus as much as we're able, of course, to make as much change as we can. But sometimes that means doing one thing for one person. Buying school supplies for one kid instead of letting the world's problems overwhelm us into inaction and overwhelm us into a state of exhaustion and feeling like nothing I do will ever be meaningful. We get overwhelmed into a state of where we just feel paralyzed. We feel paralyzed by the size of the world's problems. And so we allow that paralysis to just keep us inert and we don't move. We don't do anything that we don't feel it. We feel like it's not going to make a difference, so never mind. That's the first thing. And then the other thing that I remind myself of during difficult times, and I am very well aware that this follows going to be a difficult time for myself. And also for everybody listening to this, I don't think there's a single person who's going to be like, it's going to be all cotton candy and unicorns. Nobody thinks that, right? So the thing that I constantly remind myself, and sometimes I have gone so far as to like put it on a posted note and put it on my mirror because I need it more than ever, which is that if they can't keep you from doing it, they will try to keep you from enjoying it. And if you stop enjoying it, you will want to give up. Right? So I repeat to myself, I refuse to let you steal the joy from my important work, because we all have important work. For some of us, our important work is like teaching our two year old how to stack blocks, right? Like that's your important work at this moment. Other people are leading mega churches. Other people are getting elected president. Some people are CEOs. We all have important work and that important work will change throughout our lifetime. What we're meant to do in that moment will change throughout our lifetimes. But nevertheless, we all have important work to do both from a professional standpoint, but also from other standpoint, from a spiritual standpoint or a personal standpoint, important work to do. And so I refuse to allow people to steal the joy from my important work. Because you're not going to stop me from doing it. And I'm not going to let you just, I'm not going to let you stop me from feeling the joy of my important work. Well, you are doing really important work. And I know for myself and for millions of other people, you become a bright light, trying to move in a way that brings harmony and hope in a very divided time. So in the same way, Jonathan Hite, who you mentioned earlier, I think really is reframing the debate on what we do about technology in the next generation. I think there's going to be real change as a result of his work. I wish you all of that in your work. And I pray for the day of real change. Maybe it's begun. You have a book coming out. You want to tell us a little bit about it? That's exciting. It is. I've been working on it for three years. That's how books go. Yes. Did not just type this up in my basement one evening. It's called the Small and the Mighty, 12 unsung Americans who changed the course of history. And to me, it is just a love song to the little guy, right? That so often we feel small and powerless. And like, nothing we do matters. And like, I don't see any change as a result of me getting up today. Right? Like, what has improved in the world? Nothing. So often, we allow ourselves to be, to believe that lie, that what we do doesn't matter. And these are people who demonstrate the opposite. These are not the titans of industry. These are not the people with the steel mills and the banks. These are the teachers and the people who work at the post office. But yet, who did something incredibly consequential, whether they even realized what they were doing at that moment or not. So I appreciate it. I'm excited for it. Thank you. Thank you for all that you're doing. So we'll look for the book and then easiest place to track with you, where you most active on social. Probably Instagram, Sharon says so. But you can also find my newsletter, the preamble.com. You can just visit my website, SharonMcMan.com and everything, like podcasts that are all linked there. Well, thank you for surprisingly emotional. But really, really powerful conversation. Thank you for the work you're doing. Thanks for not letting the bullies grind you down. And thank you for not letting them steal your joy. Thanks, Kerry. I appreciate you and I appreciate everything you're doing. It's great to talk to you again. Told you you're going to love that one. Man, that got emotional and I am really grateful she shared that with us. I mean, sad that it's happening. Really glad we got to talk about it. And I hope that makes, well, I think we have great listeners here, but I hope that makes, you know, some of the people who may have heard this, who would fit that profile. Think again. And don't we all want a better world? Isn't the majority exhausted? And I hope this series has been helped to you. You can find the show notes for everything at kerrynuhoff.com. You can just use episode 676 as a launch point. And then you can get transcripts for all the interviews we did, my solo episode a lot more. Really hope this helped. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Please text them the link or drop it on social. Make sure you tag me and Sharon says so. Sharon McMahon on Instagram when you do that. And make sure you check out Compassion. Find out more about what they're doing to impact the world and how you can be involved at compassion.com/kerry. And Glue has a brand new membership called Glue Plus. It offers you free texting, time-saving resources, a new mover program, and discounts on digital and physical resources you're probably already using. So don't pay full price. Go to glue.us/plus. That's G-L-O-O dot U-S slash P-L-U-S and use the code carry20 for 20% off. Well, we have some regularly scheduled programming next time. Carlos Whitaker is in the house then for the 10th anniversary. We're going to celebrate for a week. Jim Collins and Mark Clark dropped by and then Malcolm Gladwell, Nona Jones, Seth Godin, Henry Cloud, Pete Scazero, Tim Ross, and a whole lot more coming up on the podcast as we move forward. And again, can't believe this is year 10 for this thing. It's still fun. It still feels like yesterday that we got started. And we're going to celebrate you as we hit our 10th anniversary this month. So if you haven't entered yet, now's the time to get your chance to get your hands on a big green egg. My absolute favorite grilling tool, smoking tool. You want to do a brisket. You want to do steaks. You want to do, well, you can bake on it. You can do pizza on it. I mean, it's crazy. So you don't need pizza oven. You don't need, you know, a pellet smoker. You can do it all on the egg. It's my favorite thing. So we're giving you some. I'm going to give away one extra large big green egg with accessories and a special steak delivery. Oh, it's going to be so good. And then two runners up will get a mini max each. That is a small version of the big green egg that you're really going to enjoy too. You use it at your home or it also goes mobile unlike the massive XL big green egg. Anyway, to enter, here's what you do. Leave a rating or review or comment wherever you're listening or watching and then head over to cnlp.live and enter there. We will select winners on September 26. It's open to US and Canadian residents. So act now and thank you to all of you for everything that you do. Man, it's a privilege to be alongside you. And I hope our time together today helped you identify and break a growth barrier you're facing.
