Bonus: Glenn & Riaz Patel | Gun Debate Extended Cut

Hey, buddy.

Hey, Rias.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you, Blen?

This is kind of a buddy podcast.

And I want to introduce you to my buddy.

He hates the labels, and so do I, because I hate the labels that, you know, I have.

You're a progressive, gay, Muslim, immigrant, left-handed.

Well, I am too.

Hollywood producer.

Yes.

And there's no reason we should be friends.

No, because of your labels.

you are a conservative anti-gay anti-minority so you know what's amazing about that is those labels that i gave you were actual things a part of you almost everything you said about me was not true i was saying but i'm thinking about what before we met yes yeah so i'm thinking about before we met what i came in thinking you were right and we became good friends and we still disagree on stuff many things but um we're good friends when we met things that you have said changed the way i see the country, the world.

And I think there's real importance in having friends, having relationships with people who think completely differently from you.

Because we are in the situation now where it's us versus them.

Yes.

And there is no them.

There shouldn't be, because I think it's us versus the problem.

Whatever the problems are, it's all of us on one side.

But the more we demonize each other, the more it feels like we're against each other.

And there's no nuance.

There's no nuance.

It's either I'm absolutely right and you're absolutely wrong, or, you know, you're thinking that about me.

And this is kind of why we wanted to do this podcast.

So the premise is simple.

Can we look at the things that divide us in a way that from a different angle, maybe a more human perspective, a more personal perspective that allows us to see the connections?

So I gave you the impossible task.

See if you can have a reasonable conversation with people on all sides about guns.

Guns, this constant gun debate.

And the reason we chose guns, because it seems like a funny topic for the first one, is that inspired by all these school shootings that have been happening, we all want the same thing.

We don't want the children to be harmed.

So, knowing we all want the same goal, how do we work together to achieve that goal?

And so, this journey of exploring how do real Americans engage with each other, this whole thing started with the simplest, simplest sounds because you're a father and I'm a father, and so this whole thing started with these little voices.

That's Zara, who's two, pointing out that it's raining and that I need an umbrella, Tenzin,

her little brother is one,

and agrees.

Generally speaking, I am a liberal.

So this is the sound that the children of a liberal make as they eat pieces of French toast before school.

And this is the sound that the children of conservatives make as they eat their breakfast.

Soon our kids will intermingle and mix as we take them to school.

And as they all say their hies, I say my goodbye.

And sometimes, not every time, but sometimes when I leave, I think

that thought.

Please don't let anything...

bad happen here.

A thought I'm sure all parents have from time to time.

But when a school shooting has happened, instead of coming together to make sure it never happens again, we divide.

Shame!

Shame!

Jesus would not be holding those signs.

Cowards and in the pockets of the NRA.

And we demonize each other even more in the endless gun debates that follow.

It's the guns, stupid.

We kick away at our rights a little bit at a time, and we accept it, and we accept it.

And before long, we won't have that.

Our approach to debating this is: you don't support the Second Amendment, and you support mass killings.

And certainly, there's something in the middle.

But we all want the same exact thing.

to keep all those French toast-eating kids safe.

So, this was my question.

In an increasingly divided America, how do we work together to achieve the same thing?

Keeping our children safe at school?

So a few weeks ago, I asked seven very different Americans to sit down with me and help me find an answer.

And we did.

We found an answer, but it wasn't at all what I thought it would be.

The answer, as it turns out to my complete surprise, is a single-digit number.

A number that was hastily written on a pink post-it note and passed over to me with a handful of others as part of a kind of warm-up exercise as the seven were just sitting down to begin our conversation.

As you hear me read all the numbers back to the group several weeks ago, six, three,

ten, ten or one, one,

keep in mind, one of them is our answer forward.

Let me start by telling you about the seven.

I am a high school teacher, mother of three boys, three teen boys.

I am a firearms instructor.

I was a police officer in Arlington Police, Virginia, for 37 years.

I wanted their politics to be very, very different.

I would be probably considered a constitutional conservative.

I find the older that I get, the more progressive and liberal that I become.

I am very much

on both sides.

I always vote for the person that scares me the least.

I even wanted their experiences and feelings about guns to be different.

My stepdad was myself.

He had a shotgun in the closet.

Kids are not.

He had a shotgun in the closet.

I'm a retired Navy combat pilot.

We have guns in our home.

They are locked up.

I've never seen them.

I don't want to see them.

Asked me how I started shooting.

I just say it was my dad and his redneck buddies out in the country.

These seven were thoughtful, well-informed, good-hearted people who all agreed to spend an entire evening talking to people they didn't even know.

Why?

To come up with a list.

I wanted us to find a list, even if it was a very short one, of specific, practical things that we could all agree upon to help combat this intangible threat to our kids that we all think about from time to time.

An intangible threat that Alicia, our teacher in the room, explained from the perspective of being inside the schools each and every day.

Anytime there is any sort of anything out of the norm at school, the kids get weird, they get upset, it's just a feeling among the entire school that something is dreadfully wrong.

And I think it's all over the country.

I think that you hear a noise in the hallway when your class is quiet and everyone's head turns.

With that awareness, we began talking.

The story of that conversation has two parts.

The content, the stuff that was said, and then the impact.

What happened because of what was said?

So, content.

As we searched for the list for almost four hours, I'd like to share with you the three biggest impediments we came up against.

Because in this new era of communicating and communication, I think they're worth considering.

Remember, same children, same goal.

Impediment number one.

Opinions outnumber people.

I soon realized that in this age of unlimited access to opinions, that although there were seven people physically sitting around me, there were many more opinions and voices brought into our conversation.

Listen to the following exchange between two mothers, Anna, a progressive, and Mona, a Christian conservative, and see how many people's opinions and perspectives are brought into the mix other than their own.

From my side, what I hear is, oh,

don't infringe on any of my rights, and I don't want any restrictions on myself.

And it's kind of, and I'm not saying this is what you all, but this is kind of the debate that's been in place.

And it's kind of like, come on, there are reasonable ideas we can come up with that's not going to inconvenience you.

But, and you're right, there are probably solutions there, and you're reasonable, but the leaders of your movement are not reasonable.

That's actually.

Why is it that when there's a school shooting or a mass shooting someplace, the first first thing we hear is we need gun control and the NRA is the bad guy.

So many other opinions and voices, most of them extreme, jumped right into our conversation on minute 39.

Everything was heightened from the get-go.

Denise, our firearms instructor who almost missed the roundtable because she had food poisoning, speaks about the problem with letting other people speak for us.

The inflammatory super, you know, agitators that are being the talking heads on the media, speaking for you, speaking for me.

They don't represent that.

That kind of craziness does not represent me.

And I would like to think that, you know, when I see these ultra-liberal, you know, screaming about all this stuff and calling people like me gun nuts and all that, I would like to think that that's not representative of you.

So, how do we solve that problem with getting these people to stop being the ones that are out there trying to send a message?

Because it's, for me, I think it's the wrong one and it's not productive.

I became aware very quickly that it's almost impossible to have a productive conversation with so many other voices referenced and repeated.

How could I get each person just to speak for themself?

We'd get there, but it would take a while.

The story continues as the conversation gets tribal.

Yeah,

I don't know.

They help red flag.

For me, one of the most eye-opening things, and I think it was the same for you, and you had asked me something about

why had I said the things that I had said about President Obama.

And it wasn't the inflammatory stuff.

It was, why did you think he was so bad?

Or why did you think that administration is so bad?

And I gave you several stories.

And I remember going with the chalkboard and I said, there was this story.

Did you know know about it?

Yeah, this story.

This story.

You'd never heard of any of them.

You'd never heard of any of them.

And that was the beginning of my awareness of how loud and separate these echo chambers are.

And that was the moment I was like, oh no, people, we think they know things.

We think they hear things.

They don't.

They don't.

And you know what?

Because of that moment, I redoubled my efforts to read because there are many times that I'll hear people say, well, you won't find that in the Times.

Actually, yes, that's exactly where I found it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean?

mean and so when we talk about the problems we we have those in common that whether it's keeping our children safe whether it's drugs whether it's the weaponization of information those are big problems that we need to discuss but the in-person quality of it has to happen because

even though we're posting these awkward awkward things even though it got hot Even though it got hot.

And it did get hot because we started the conversation after the building had closed.

And what they didn't tell me is that the air conditioning would be turned off.

And it was 98 degrees in Virginia that day.

So slowly the heat started seeping into the room.

And so the temperature in the room was rising literally.

It's difficult to come up with a solution where one side doesn't want to talk about guns at all.

And I'm sure you guys think that's all we want to talk about:

I want to come take away your guns.

And that's not the case.

Impediment number two: we can't hear all the options.

Potential solutions may already be on the table, but we aren't even hearing each other.

This exchange between Anna, our progressive mother, and Chad, a libertarian father, shows this phenomenon.

All we're trying to see is what reasonable measures

are you all willing to agree to to help solve this problem and to really solve this?

And what steps are you willing to take?

I'm willing to sign on to the NRA's Project Exile, which has worked very well in Virginia.

So what was Anna's response to Project Exile?

What is that, sir?

I don't know.

Project Exile?

Oh, committing, you commit a gun crime, mandatory sentencing, you go to the top of the rocket docket for prosecution.

A practical, tangible solution already on the table.

Never heard of it.

But wait, this wasn't a one-way phenomenon.

Soon after, Mona, our mother of three teenage boys, was explaining how her sons and their peers can sense when a classmate may pose a threat.

And they're called school shooters.

Oh, yeah, he's a school shooter.

She's a school shooter.

They've got that label because everybody knows who is capable of doing that.

I think that's what, you know, what I mentioned earlier, the red flag laws.

I think that's the purpose of those, where you see a kid who is, you know, like this kid is trouble.

And that enables you to go in and remove the guns.

And the response from Alicia, our teacher in the room, who had literally just been talking about kids exhibiting red flags, had this to say about the idea.

I had never heard the term red flag law.

How is that even possible?

On my side, I hear the term red flag laws almost daily in campaign ads.

But Alicia lives in a different state and gets different ads.

Again, it's not about whether you think either of the ideas are good ones or bad ones.

It's about the fact the other side has never even heard of them.

When we're talking about trying to protect our kids, shouldn't every idea be considered?

Impediment number three, either or thinking.

This is another exchange that fascinated me between Anna, our progressive mother, and Mona, who identifies as a Christian conservative, about what each of us can do now to help keep our children safer.

I know from my side is, you know, reaching out to my legislators and saying, this is what I want.

And if the legislators refuse to take action, it's helping to elect people who will, who are more in line with those thoughts.

And perhaps on your side, you can do the same, But we all have a part to play in this.

And first is making our voices heard.

It might be futile, but that's one step we can all take.

If we started even

one step,

I can't find the right word.

Once to take one step back and start at a community level instead of relying on our legislators to fix this problem.

So you go into the schools and you say to your principal, I'm a retired Marine and my two kids go to this school and I really want to help keep this building secure.

This is all I can do.

I can only work within the confines of my life in my time, but I'm a parent here.

I have expertise.

I want to do something.

How can we gather the parents in this school to help fortify the build?

I think there are probably, there's so many restrictions and issues against, I mean, I don't know.

I'm not involved in the school system, but.

Two approaches both felt valid and worthwhile to me, but in that moment, it felt very either or and a little dismissive.

And this happened a lot, jumping back and forth between opposing ideas as opposed to spending time discussing, integrating them, or combining the approaches.

And I just hope that the divide over the first approach, the constant fight over election day, doesn't demonize us so much that we aren't able to work together on the second, community-level approach.

We need both, not either or.

So those three impediments, opinions outnumbering people, not hearing all the options, and either or thinking, were our our biggest obstacles as we searched together for my list

and as we talked well you have to be able to see they have to be their mental health as well

and talked yeah i think i think that has to be part of it's dangerous

we just kept running up against them but then also you can't

well

and never got around them.

There are weapons that he could then use to act out

all the knives out of the kitchen too.

And then move the cars

to it.

In the room, hour after hour, it was tense, defensive, and hot.

The air conditioning wasn't working, and my premise wasn't working.

And I feel like that's what happens a lot.

Both sides, every time.

Somebody gives an example, somebody else tells you why that example is not going to work for them specifically, and then it turns it to a different conversation.

That stupid list was only making us more frustrated the more we couldn't find it.

Because although there were so many moments of connection, it was the moments of disconnect that controlled the mood of the room.

We already have the laws on the books for exactly what we're doing.

We do not, we do not.

There are limits.

And then it happened.

The moment I had been fearing, we reached it.

Now, are you willing to put some respect?

That's the impasse.

Because you're not even willing to listen.

No.

The impasse.

Soon after, Anna summed up how a lot of us were feeling.

Coming in here,

I thought our chances of getting a list together was, I was more optimistic.

You know, I see why we are where we are today.

It's this sort of, you know, impasse.

The conversation ended shortly after.

We all said goodbye, and I sat in the room alone and texted my husband two words.

It failed.

I could not get the enemy lines to go away in that room, even for a little while.

But I was wrong.

There's content,

and then there's impact.

In fact, at the exact moment we reached the deadlock in the room, the story of the content, the list, comes to an end.

And the story about the impact begins.

Here is that moment of impasse again.

Listen carefully because much more happens in that moment than I had initially realized.

That's the impasse because you're not even willing to listen.

All evening, I was so distracted by the content, what was said, the ways we weren't connecting my stupid list, I couldn't even see it.

That there was enough of a human connection in that moment that it would create a bridge across the American divide.

The story continues in the most unlikely place.

Focus on that front side.

How surprised were you that

this fell apart?

Because to me,

that's where they all end.

Right there.

Yes.

I was not just shocked, but personally gutted because I had found all these people and with the best of intentions, I had said, look, out there in the world, no one's talking.

let's try and create this environment with the seven of us that we can go past that we will we'll know each other you're all good people and I could not believe that with all that prep of them coming in that the the guards went up and it's because you're integrated it's not the seven people

it's all of the voices that are in each of their heads that they're all battling.

I understand why he said what he said and cut her off.

And it has nothing to do with the people in that room.

exactly the people in that room could compromise could potentially hypothetically yes yes and so if they if that was their community and it was only about them they could come up with it the next day i

i honestly couldn't get out of bed and when i looked at my phone there was this flurry of texts and emails from other people in the room saying how did we miss we all tried we missed so what did you find out well what was interesting was that one of the texts was an invitation from from Denise, our firearms instructor, to Anna, our progressive activist mother, saying, you want to continue the conversation?

Why don't you come down to the shooting range and we can?

And so I conveyed this and Anna accepted in a second.

I was shocked.

And so the next day, this progressive activist went to the shooting range at the base of the NRA's building to continue the conversation with this firearms trainer.

And that's where we go now.

Of course, I'm going to take out an AR-15.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, I need to try out her.

And I'm also going to start you off on a 22 semi-automatic handgun.

Very low recoil.

Okay.

And as I somewhat nervously watched them engage each other one-on-one, the memory of their interaction from not even 48 hours prior was still pretty fresh.

Let's take out all the knives out of the kitchen, too.

And I think we'll remove the cars.

They began this new conversation with faces.

So how do you take the safety off?

Because they say keep the safety on and then

it depends on the specific type of firearm.

So this one

and then they started talking more specifics.

This is Denise explaining some of the existing gun laws that don't make sense.

So if someone were to hold this like this and put it up against their shoulder, well, you're now shooting it like a rifle.

So now you're in violation of the law and you're technically a felon.

Why would there be an issue if you're holding it as a rifle?

Why would it be considered illegal?

Because now the

one of the pieces is not registered as a rifle.

You didn't purchase it as such.

So if you purchased it as a pistol and now you're shooting it as a rifle, they're saying that now you're in violation of the law.

Again,

complete, makes absolutely no sense.

And then this happened as they were talking about bullets.

Extremely much larger bullet, tons more powder.

This is a 308, so that's a typical hunting round.

So you can just see the difference in the power and penetration between the bullets and the amount of powder that goes in them.

So size does matter.

I love that.

And as they giggled over a size joke,

that was it.

The enemy lines weren't there anymore between them.

It was no longer us versus them, Anna versus Denise.

They were on the same side, just two people, trying to figure something out.

They had connected.

I'm just going to shoot some guns.

This is Anna, coached by Denise, through her first shot.

Nice.

Take some sights.

Shoulders forward.

Focus on that front side.

Slow, steady.

Good.

Finger off the table.

Good job.

And for the record, her shot was just off the bullseye.

And afterwards, they started talking specifics again.

But there was a willingness to work together and limit the number of opinions to...

So it's like, okay, rather than you and I meeting in the parking lot and purchasing the gun or wherever, let's go to the licensed dealer, run a background check on me, so make sure, you know, that I'm not a felon, I don't have a history of domestic violence, etc.

And then just hand the gun off in that sense.

So it's not...

The big argument with that is going to be that

we're guilty until proven innocent.

You know what I mean?

I'm not 100% against it because that's pretty much how I do things now.

I'm just saying

I'm like 80% there, if that makes sense.

I mean, you bring you over.

To repeat, Denise says I'm 80% there.

Anna excitedly responds by saying, I'll bring you over.

But it's what Denise says next that got me.

Or you come Media, I come Media.

We figure out somewhere in the middle.

I love that.

You come 80, I come 80.

And we figure out somewhere in the middle.

One-on-one, there was a personal connection now.

Anna, who just the other night felt so hooked.

You know, I see why we are where we are today.

It's this sort of, you know, impasse.

Now, not even 48 hours later, had this to say.

We're really, on most of it, like 80% of it, we're all on the same side, like of the issue.

It's just you may be speaking a different language.

There's nuance.

And how do we understand someone's different language and nuance?

By spending time with them in person.

This is how Anna felt when I spoke with her a few weeks ago.

And to sort of have formed some sort of a bond with the, you know, NR, someone who works with the NRA as their top trainer and stuff.

I mean, that was a refreshing surprise.

And that sort of thank God for that.

Because that sort of gave me a glimmer of hope that, okay,

we can come to some sort of an agreement.

The problem isn't always the other person.

The problem isn't always the other side.

Denise explained how the ship.

For you two to come out to the range with me, just

putting your toes in the world of another person and understanding it and actually getting to see it were not the problem.

Weeks later, Denise and I spoke about her perspective on america after our time it's just a very combative uh

you know very argumentative environment and it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be you know you can agree to disagree on things but you know like what you're trying to do find some things that you do agree on and i don't think that it is that hard

it isn't that hard

so the question remained How did we get to this point of connection and optimism?

What had happened in the room during the conversation conversation with the seven that had prompted Denise to want to reach out to Anna and invite her to the gun range in the first place?

The story continues when we revisit the moment of impasse.

That's the impasse, because you're not even willing to listen.

Or, as I now hear it, the moment the enemy lines shifted.

So, Riaz,

what came to mind in listening to that is a friendship is important.

Like ours.

Yeah.

You

can give the benefit of the doubt to a friend.

Otherwise, we're all put into these little boxes of political, and we have to defend that box.

So friends.

are important.

And the big concern, and we've talked about this in many of the shows, is the editing of your your friends and your friend list to line up exactly with what you believe.

Right.

And so

there's anybody who believes everything you do, though, do you want to be friends with who?

I think when we talk about things, it shifts the way I see things.

Yeah, me too.

And when we were, I remember we were in Thailand and we were taking a tour of the temple and we were talking about the king and I.

And it was like, from the Eastern perspective,

not the best movie for us because it's sort of...

But you had never thought of that because how would you unless someone tells you?

And to me, what I loved about this was that there was enough of a connection in that room in that moment that their invitation came.

So, Ronald Reagan used to say, if we agree on eight out of ten things, you're not 80% my enemy.

And

in our culture, we have focused so much on our diversity, which is important.

Diversity gives us thrust, diversity of ideas, diversity of thought.

That's what pushes us forward.

But it's our unity on 80%

that gives us the stability to be able to reach the highest heights.

And that stability is missing.

And

that's what I was looking for, was how can we get people who have different ideas, completely opposite ideas, to connect.

So how does this story end?

So there we were at the gun range, the shooting range, and Anna and Denise were chatting post-shooting.

And as they were saying their goodbyes, they were talking about the roundtable conversation with the seven from the evening before, and so that's where we go.

Like, just people being open, I think, is the first step, too.

That's what's important.

That's why I appreciated talking the other night.

Yeah, well, thank you.

Because I know there were others who were not so open enough to see the side, and it was just-I know one night just frustrating on both sides.

Was it?

Yeah.

Did you feel that?

I mean, that's why I started defending her.

I was getting pissed.

So,

defending her?

That's right.

The moment of impasse.

Now, are you willing to put some respect?

That's the impasse.

Because you're not even willing to listen.

No.

Remember when I said there was more in that moment than I had realized?

There's Denise defending Anna by saying you can't do that to her.

That's the impasse.

So what happened in that moment?

I asked Denise later.

I just felt very angry that someone that was supposed to be sharing my point of view and my perspective was being blatantly disrespectful,

completely shut off to a human being sitting next to me.

Honestly, just like I needed to defend her.

Whether she was on my side, their side, it didn't matter.

In that moment, the moment of impasse, the enemy lines had actually shifted.

Someone on the complete opposite end of the issue became an ally to Denise when there was a greater obstacle to overcome.

What greater obstacle?

So I went back to the audio of the round table and listened to it.

Eight, four.

Six.

Don't imprint

any of my writing.

Three.

Not reasonable.

Ten or one.

And there it was.

One.

Again and again, the obstacle to consensus so many of the times was the same person, Rick.

Now, are you willing to put some person?

It wasn't his ideas.

The majority of the room shared his ideas on, well, pretty much everything.

It was his approach to the conversation.

He became the greater obstacle.

Many times we would all agree to an idea, but in going around the room for consensus, we'd hit the block.

Is that fair for everyone around?

Absolutely.

But the problem is.

Here I am in hour two, anticipating his block to a new idea.

A role I think he knew he was playing.

Thoughts about that?

What are you looking at me for?

In hour three, here I am again.

And I'm asking you specifically because you're the you're my nemesis right now.

And then this happened.

Now, are you willing to put some response?

It wasn't the content of what he was saying, it was the way he was saying it, the intention behind it, and that was because of his number.

The number he had walking in:

eight, four,

six, three,

ten, ten, or one?

One.

Remember those numbers?

As the sound guy was setting up, as people were sitting down and sipping their water nervously, I wondered how could I measure the degree of hope that they were bringing to this roundtable?

How could I gauge their commitment to finding my list?

So just as audio started recording, you hear me ask them.

How do you think it is likely one to ten of finding some sort of consensus, some sort of...

Just us.

Just us.

Just us.

What do you honestly believe, and then hand it to me.

Numbers were privately passed to me at the beginning of the conversation and never referred to again until it was time to leave three hours and 46 minutes later.

Here's the actual moment the conversation ended, and the numbers are revealed.

You'll hear Rick at the end.

It's tough.

It's a tough one.

Can't wait to see where our numbers come out.

What

the numbers are.

It was

eight, four,

six, three,

ten, ten, or one.

One.

One.

I thought there's a one, but then there's a zero right next to it.

Nine.

Zero to one.

That was your range.

zero to one, but I said one.

Interesting.

Rick was a one.

We never had a chance.

In fact, the next day, he sent me an email saying, quote, Riaz, I think this was a good cause, but the impasse is far too wide a chasm to be crossed.

End quote.

A one will always diminish the hope in any given room, just the way that negativity lately overwhelms whatever true hope there is out there.

We have all been a Rick.

For whatever reason or whatever mood, we've all been that person.

But a one is a very powerful thing, especially in a very divided America.

So to me, the answer for how do we move forward and work together to keep our children safer

is to be any number greater than one.

This is Denise at the end of our roundtable.

Denise who went on to open up her world to show a fellow American that she isn't a them.

Denise's number is eight.

I'm loving sitting here and like my heart is going out to each one of you for your, you know, your viewpoints and I understand it.

It may not be one that I, fully get on board, but I believe you, and I know where you're coming from, and I appreciate that.

I appreciate that.

I appreciate that.

I appreciate that.

What's interesting is Denise has been invited by Anna to attend her progressive groups, and Anna is taking progressive moms to the shooting range at the NRA to learn more.

Love it.

So, the bridge is there.

The bridge starts with just sitting in the same room.

So, Riaz, when I think about coming to a solution in Washington, I'm a zero.

When I think about the American people,

I'm an eight, nine.

It's funny because the only thing I said we never got my list.

I didn't say there was nothing we didn't agree on.

The only thing we all agreed on was that we had no faith in the government system that exists.

That was the only thing the seven of us all agreed on.

So I think that is part of the problem.

And I think the best progress that we have, the best shot we have, is one-on-one.

And I think that's what I want to continue exploring, is these dynamics of the seven one-on-one.

Because based on the emails and the flurry exchanges, everyone's still thinking about it.

Because those opportunities are very rare to sit down with people in a civil way.

So now you're going back to the seven.

You have connections with two.

Who's next?

What was fascinating about these seven is that they didn't know each other.

But in those four hours, there were so many dynamics that came up.

There's so many threads to pull at.

So the seven have this history now.

And now, I want to see where I can take it.

By them spending more time with each other, what can they learn about each other, and how can we change not only their opinions on specifics, but their feelings towards the other?

I have a place in the Rockies, and I love

they're called Quakies or Aspens.

And I found something out as I was planting some aspens.

You don't plant one aspen, the entire aspen forest is one.

You have to watch all of them, or they'll all die.

Do you know that plants actually, that trees communicate through their root system?

That everything we see about a tree, the leaves, the branches, the trunk, are all just for show.

But the actual communication happens underground.

And I think when we feel through social media and our posts, those are the leaves, the branches, everything that looks, but there's no real connection.

That has to be in person, and that has to happen through eye contact.

That is our root system.

Human to human is our root system.

Thanks, Riaz.

My pleasure.