Send Wilk a text with your feedback!
In a time when political disagreement is treated as moral failure, Bill Woodson is quietly building something different.
As the founder of Conversations Across the Aisle (CATA), Bill is creating structured, facilitated spaces where people across ideological divides can engage with curiosity, dignity, and respect—without the pressure to “win.”
In this episode, Wilk and Bill explore why polarization feels so exhausting, how media incentives distort our perceptions of one another, and what happens when communities choose dialogue over outrage.
✅ Why many Americans feel hopeless and powerless
✅ How constructive dialogue restores personal agency
✅ The danger of reducing people to political caricatures
✅ Why debate formats often block real understanding
✅ Separating people from the positions they hold
✅ Building trust at the community level, not just online
✅ How CATA workshops are changing conversations—locally and beyond
Polarization isn’t just political—it’s relational
Feeling heard is often more powerful than being “right”
Acknowledgment is not agreement
Safe spaces for dialogue can rebuild trust and hope
Civic renewal starts locally, with real people
🌐 Website: https://cataproject.org
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/forwardmotion/
You cannot hate someone into seeing the world your way—but you might just listen them into trusting you.
The world is a better place if we are better people. That begins with each of us as individuals. Be kind to one another. Be grateful for all you’ve got. Make every day the day that you want it to be!
Please follow The Derate The Hate podcast on:
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter(X) , YouTube
Subscribe to us wherever you enjoy your audio or from our site. Please leave us a rating and feedback on Apple podcasts or other platforms. You can share your thoughts or request Wilk for a speaking engagement on our contact page: DerateTheHate.com/Contact
The Derate The Hate podcast is proudly produced in collaboration with Braver Angels — America’s largest grassroots, cross-partisan organization working toward civic renewal and bridging partisan divides. Learn more: BraverAngels.org
Welcome to the Derate The Hate Podcast!
*The views expressed by Wilk, his guest hosts &/or guests on the Derate The Hate podcast are their own and should not be attributed to any organization they may otherwise be affiliated with.
Transcript is AI generated and may contain errors
[00:00:00:00] Wilk Wilkinson: We're living in a moment where disagreement is treated like a moral failure, and where outrage gets rewarded more than understanding. Today's conversation is about what it looks like when people slow things down. Sit across from one another and choose dialog over caricature. My guest is Bill Woodson, founder of Conversations Across the Aisle, and we're talking about what actually helps communities function when politics gets hard. Welcome back, my friends, for the Derate the Hate podcast. I'm your host, Wilk Wilkinson, your blue collar sage calming outrage and helping to navigate a world divided by fog and those who would spread that fear, outrage and grievance. The Derate the Hate podcast is proudly produced in collaboration with Braver Angels, America's largest grassroots cross. partisan organization working towards civic renewal. This podcast amplifies the mission that we share to foster a more respectful and united America where civic friendship thrives even when we disagree. Each week, through the power of story, conversation, and connection with incredible guests, we work to build bridges instead of barriers, not to change minds on the issues, but to change how we see one another when we differ. Because friends, it really is about bettering the world one attitude at a time. We did not create the hate, but together we can Derate the Hate. So be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Share it with a friend and visit BraverAngels.org to learn how you can get involved in the movement to bridge the partisan divide. Friends, I am so incredibly grateful that you have joined me for another powerful Derate the Hate episode. So let's get to it. My guest today is Bill Woodson, founder of CATA Project Conversations Across the Aisle, a Sarasota based effort focused on bringing people with very different political views into real, facilitated conversations. Bill didn't come to this work through ideology. He came to it through experience, public service, higher education, community policing, research, and a personal life shaped by immigration, disability and trauma all inform how he thinks about dialog and civic responsibility. In this conversation, we talk about why polarization feels so corrosive at the community level, why debate often makes things worse instead of better, and what happens when people are given a space to be heard without being reduced to a political stereotype? This isn't about fixing the country in one conversation. It's about what actually happens when neighbors are trying to live together in a divided time. Let's get to it with my friend Bill Woodson. Here we go. Bill Woodson, thank you for joining me on the Derate the Hate podcast. Good to see you again today.
[00:03:29:23] Bill Woodson: Good to see you, Wilk.
[00:03:32:01] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah. It's, it's always good to talk to a fellow braver angel. And, Bill, I met you, recently. On a braver network call that, that I believe. I don't know if I was speaking there or if we were just, on a common call, but. But it was, it was good to to, connect with you, and and I started looking at the work that you've been doing with the Cata Project. And, for people who aren't aware, conversations across the aisle, it is a part of our braver network. And, got, got to learn a little bit about that bill and wanted to learn a lot more. So that's why I asked you to join me here today. So grateful for it. And,
[00:04:11:10] Bill Woodson: Yeah. Happy to share.
[00:04:12:23] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah, let's let's kind of get into one of the things that I like to do right away is it's kind of picked people's brain as to, you know, what made them decide to get into this, this bridge building space? There's a lot of different organizations doing a lot of different things in this space. And, and You got your own, thing with the conversations across the aisle. So. So, Bill, tell me what it was. And and what in, in in your story kind of led you to start. Cata.
[00:04:47:02] Bill Woodson: Absolutely. So. And I like that, the description of the, the, the, the business of being in bridge building spaces because I often talk about the fact that there's this network of, like minded organizations and, I'm excited to be a part of that and know that, my what's what's firing up my interest is also sparking up for people around the country and different organizations. But, the idea for for Cata started back in, the end of 2022. I was, wrapping up my career, and I thought heading towards retirement, from, higher education. I was, an administrator at New College of Florida, which is based here in Sarasota, and had been thinking about, some of the experiences I've had over the years and kind of I idealizing, well, you know, I really like this aspect of one program I'd heard about or participated in. I really like that aspect. And I'm thinking if we could match these things together, I think it could be really a positive, you know, just like we're all experiencing this, you know, incredibly depolarization. That's happening, which really frustrated me because I've always been someone who has enjoyed picking the brains of people who, are well informed and, and thoughtful and have a different point of view, a different perspective from my own. I've always been curious personally as to how we get there. So I, one of the experiences that I had, seen and admired and enjoyed being a part of is something called the Sunday Forum. It's hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota. They would bring in subject matter experts who typically were retirees. But Sarasota has a lot of really smart, successful folks who've ended their careers, and now they're enjoying the Florida sunshine. But they've got deep knowledge in different areas. So people who had expertise on environmental issues or housing policy or this type of thing, that type of thing, the the war in, in, in Gaza, whatever the topic might be, there's somebody who has a lot of knowledge and would be sharing it with this group. I love that opportunity to to learn from these folks. I was frustrated because the space is a very, very progressive space, and I was often curious why, you know, how would a person who's coming from a conservative perspective respond to this information that we're all receiving? Because I just would like to have heard what they had to say about it. I would have liked to had more opportunity for back and forth with my peers in the room, not just asking questions of the expert subject matter expert at the front of the room, and another experience that, informed my, interest and informed the design of of, conversations across the aisle with something called carnitas table, carnitas, based up in, Minneapolis, where I, used to live before coming to Sarasota. She has a format that is done over dinner, and it would involve bringing people together who are typically seen as being on the opposite side of an issue, to collaborate together to explore solutions to issues. The particular program that I attended, was basically black youth and local law enforcement, two groups that don't have a great warm history with each other, but coming together to talk about how to keep communities safer. And okay, let's start with a meal. And then we get into a conversation. And there was a there was and I said, I really like this. I really like the fact that we were coming together as peers, even though these were not necessarily, a preexisting positive relationship, but to really explore together solutions and to learn from each other. So, and there was a third inspiration. And that inspiration, something called the miracle on the key. Longboat key is a very popular, sort of high end retirement, neighborhood, on a barrier island. And they have a very active Longboat Key Democrats club in Longboat Key. Republicans club. And they created the initiative called miracle on the key. And they sent a delegation from those two different clubs with a professional facilitator to to explore issues together. I thought that was a fantastic idea. I asked about joining it and I said, well, it's a closed group. We just have these five. It's not even the entire Democratic club and Republican club. It's a delegation of like five and five from each side, and we don't really have any plans to expand it. And I was like 30 be something like this that everybody can participate in. And, so I got together with, I've got to get up a few volunteers. And in January of 2023, we started brainstorming what might, you know, what might a vision, look like. How can we make that vision a reality? And October of 23, we had our first, workshop. Our first discussion topic was, education. Is it still a public good? And why does it matter? And, it went very, very well. We had crafted we were very concerned about the, you know, could we make a safe that would be safe and respectful as well as authentic and, and candid and, we spent nine months. Much of that time was just figuring out how do we do that? We you know, each table has a facilitator. We developed a training protocol for training our facilitators. We thought about criteria for who we would invite. We did a lot of, of of work, which almost surprised us how robust the design turned out to be. That that first event went well. We've now done seven of these workshops. They last about three hours apiece. People initially go three hours. That seems so long that we have to kick them out at the end because they're having such a great experience, really enjoying the the exchange. And there was also a lot of concern, you know, this is going to be safe. Are people going to be, respectful. Am I going to get attacked because I'm thinking differently about this thing, and they're leaving with a really positive feeling about their experience. And, and I and it's it's been really exciting to to have an idea and come have it come to fruition. And it's actually through, doing research, to create this, this design for this program is how we I heard about Braver Angels and,
[00:10:58:19] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah. And I'm sure because, Braver Angels has been, you know, we've been doing this this since, not me personally, but Braver Angels as an organization, you know, started in 2016 during the, first, Trump election, with Hillary Clinton and were brought together the obviously the, the, the Trump supporter of ten Trump supporters, ten Clinton supporters for, for a weekend of workshops and, and things like that. And, and yeah, I think it's amazing. You know, I always love to hear about the inspiration of people and why they, why they, they did these things. A lot of those always come back to in some way, shape or form, come back to Braver Angels. Oh, I heard about this organization, Braver Angels. I wanted to do something like that in my area and and maybe, maybe at the time there wasn't something there. But but one of the things, is this is what really jazzes me up. Bill is here and other, you know, like, about these things, like, like ma need table here. I mean, I live outside of Minneapolis here, I know my Braver Angels colleague, doctor. Bill Dougherty from from the U of M, he and one of the founders of Braver Angels. He he does a thing with, with young urban youth and, law enforcement, in the cities here, too. But I hadn't heard of Marnie at his table, and that's fantastic. And that, you know. And then the miracle on the key, another thing that that and this is, this is why this thing jazzes me up is because, when I go around the country and doing talks or have these, these different sessions with people around the country and things like that, I always hear from people I had no idea that that the, you know, the depolarization space was a thing or, or I didn't know there were other people out there that felt the same way that I did about about these toxic, polarizing issues. And, and I just wish there was something in my area or a way that I could get involved in whatever. And I'm like, I always I'm always amazed because there's so many of them. I heard recently that there's like 11,000 different bridging, things around the country. It's amazing.
[00:13:03:03] Bill Woodson: That is amazing.
[00:13:04:01] Wilk Wilkinson: I would yeah. And some of them are just, you know, small one person, you know, organizations, some of them are like you or have a and have a handful of volunteers, Braver Angels obviously one of the is the largest grassroots cross partisan volunteer led organizations in the country with you know, more, you know, 15,000 plus members right now the the braver network that we've got going, you know, of which you're a part now or, or your organization is a part. Another very exciting thing that we've got going, bringing together a lot of these other bridging organizations, you know, that do different things, kind of going in that same direction, rowing in the same direction, just in a different lane. But the thing about that is, and this is the this is where I want this to go, because this is what, what people oh, there's a lot of people out there right now that that kind of feel hopeless. Feel. They feel they feel they, they've lost their power to make a difference. They feel hopeless because they see all the doom and gloom in the media and whatever. But but talk about because this, this and this is what made me think of this talk about that feeling that these people, you said you got to kick them out after a three hour workshop, you know, what other kind of three hour workshop or people going to be, you know, just they want to keep on going, right? Not very many. But the power that that has on a person's, you know, they they they start to rebuild that sense of agency. They get that feeling that that we can get something done. They're working with people that that they probably didn't agree with on a particular thing. But now that they're having this constructive dialog, talk about how that how you get there.
[00:14:52:06] Bill Woodson: Yeah, you know, it's funny because I like what you're saying in terms of the giving people hope and giving them a sense that maybe there's a more positive way to move forward. You know, making people feel better is actually not been high on our list of priorities. But I do think it's a wonderful, impact and consequence of what we're doing. What, I talk about in terms of the why the with them and the, the reason, for being for Cata is that this toxic moment in our country's history where it's not just that you disagree with your neighbor because they voted for a different person in the last election, but your kind of your your disgust. You don't think that your, you know, people who voted for the other party, they're not good people is. And this is this is the this is the, the, the the vibe that we're in right now. And you combine that with these information silos that we are now, you know, pigeonholed into where you can't even understand how a reasonable, rational person could even have this opposing opinion about something. It's toxic. It's it's degrading the quality of our sense of community. And I don't think it's sustainable. So I see this effort, what we're trying to do with Cato, with pray for angels is trying to do is really being not just a feel good, but something that's kind of essential for the restoring and the continued health of our nation. It has to happen at the community level, but something that I feel really could have national impact.
[00:16:28:18] Wilk Wilkinson: Absolutely, absolutely it can. And that's what I talk about. That's one of the things that I've been talking about since since the inception of the Derate the Hate podcast is personal accountability and how we as an individual, you know, the mission statement for the, for the for the Direct Day podcast has always been bettering the world, one attitude at a time. You know, attitude is not a collective thing. That's something that each one of us has, and each one of us has the power within ourselves to adjust our own attitude.
[00:17:02:21] Bill Woodson: That's right.
[00:17:03:07] Wilk Wilkinson: And, before I started this podcast, before I went on a long journey, long personal journey to adjust my own attitude and, and, now I try to take those, those skills and the stories that I've developed over the years and the, the the skills that I've developed over the years to help other people, adjust their attitudes. But the thing that it comes back to is that individual accountability, that personal responsibility, I have the ability to choose my response to things outside of my control. And I want to dive into something you said there right? People, people say, well, my neighbor voted this way, and I can't even imagine how somebody of, you know, a reasonable person could vote that way. So this person must not be reasonable or this person must be this, this awful person. Because. Because if they weren't awful, they wouldn't have voted the way that they voted. But, you know, one of the things that I was on a call last night with, with the Braver Angels, national Ambassador John Wood, good friend of mine, John Wood Jr, and he talks about Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Junior, the, the agape love concept. and how those men had the innate ability to, to separate the person from the positions that that person holds. You know, because there are always going to be now. No, let's not let's not make any bones about it. There are evil people out there and they're really bad people in the world.
[00:18:41:15] Bill Woodson: Absolutely.
[00:18:42:13] Wilk Wilkinson: But there are also very good people that can make bad decisions. There are also good people that hold bad positions on a particular thing. And, one of the things that I talk a lot about is finding our shared humanity. Yes. You know, and and if we get to a position that we can see the human being before we, pigeonhole them based on the positions that they hold, how much does that change the dynamic of that interaction, Bill? I mean.
[00:19:17:20] Bill Woodson: It changes everything. And I think it's huge. I love your, reflection on how you had to think about, you know, depolarizing yourself and, you know, getting yourself out of that binary feeling. I know that for myself, as I've taken on this role, that people are starting, you know, in the Sarasota community are starting to associate my personal name with, with conversations across the aisle. And I'm fairly active on social media and said it's been important for me to really think about as I'm responding to other people's post or as I'm I'm challenging someone, well, how am I challenging them? Because I feel like I need to represent the brand that of is has become, and it is true. Our society just has now applauds. Like the more antagonistic, the more pointed the rebuttal. The more we applaud, the more clicks it gets, the more it's amplified and a reasoned response become is like, it's not fashionable. It's not cool. And, we've got to shift that because people aren't going to listen. They're not going to take in new information. They're not going to grow. If it's presented in the form of a slap in the face and, you know, an assertion that, oh, well, you're stupid because you think this way and you don't know this and that, there's ways that we can respond that are far more useful, just as informative. It doesn't mean you're agreeing. It doesn't mean you're soft pedaling it. You're saying, no, I, I heard you say this and I heard you, but here's where I I've got different facts and here's what I'm looking at. Or I have a different set of priorities. And what is that about? So let's talk it through. That's how people are going to come to consensus. That's how people are going to go.
[00:21:05:09] Wilk Wilkinson: Oh absolutely. I mean, and this is, this is this is where we as a society, as a society, as a society, had a hard time saying that for some reason, as a society, we need to, to start thinking about a serious paradigm shift. Right? Acknowledgment is not necessarily agreement, you know, but in order to acknowledge what somebody's saying, I have to listen to them with intention. And I want to go back to I want to I want to kind of accentuate something that you said there, Bill, and say it in a bit of a different way is, you know, that slap in the face or that snarky comment isn't going to change someone's mind. I say, I say it's loosely based on a Martin Luther King quote, but I say you cannot hate somebody into believing what you believe. You know, Martin Luther King said it, said it beautifully back in the day. He said, darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. And hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. So I've kind of taken that. And I say hate. You cannot hate somebody into believing what you believe. It's just not going to happen. So, you know, you have to decide are you going to be part of the solution? Are you going to be part of the problem because.
[00:22:15:17] Bill Woodson: You.
[00:22:15:20] Wilk Wilkinson: Are going to engage in that certain way online with people you don't know about things that they either or you you don't know enough about, but you do know how to fight with them online in some keyboard warrior fashion. You're not going to change their mind. They're not. That's right. Change your mind. You guys are wasting powerful energy accomplishing nothing. You're bigger, you know. So so we we have the we as a as a people need to be better than that. We need to work together. We need to understand like like Stephen Covey said back in the day, seek first to understand, not, you know, seek first to understand, and then to be understood.
[00:22:58:05] Bill Woodson: Oh, my favorite quotes. Well.
[00:23:00:00] Wilk Wilkinson: What's that?
[00:23:00:19] Bill Woodson: You're hitting all of my favorite quotes.
[00:23:03:19] Wilk Wilkinson: Well, there's some of my favorite quotes, too. Well, when I was on that journey, I don't know how many times how many books. I mean, I definitely read the seven Habits of Highly Effective People over and over and over again. But yeah, Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And then mindset. There's no better mindset book than than Victor Frankl's. A man's search for meaning and, and things like that. But but you know what? These things. And I pull quotes out of these all the time, but these books are timeless classics because you know what? The human condition, the human condition is the same as you know it was same. It was the same since humans have been around, it's just a matter of, are we going to allow ourselves to fall victim to, the worst part of our nature, or are we going to appeal to the better angels of our nature? And and that's really what it comes down to, is are we going to allow ourselves to be the worst example of humanity, or are we going to try and be the best part of humanity? And that's, you know, when you're talking about having conversations across the aisle or, or we're doing the the workshops, the countless, I mean, different types of workshops that we have at Brave or Angels or, or we, we, you know, another organization that I'm a big part of as a board of advisors is the Pro Human Foundation and focusing on our shared humanity, unique individuals that that that recognize that that we have a shared humanity. You know, when we interact with somebody, hate doesn't get the work done. Bill hates not. And it never has, and it never will get the work done. But focusing on the why? Why do people believe what they believe, not just what they believe? And don't reduce somebody to just that few things that you guys disagree on. So dive into that a little bit. Because when you reduce somebody, when we reduce somebody to those things that we disagree with, there's a whole lot we're missing.
[00:25:13:13] Bill Woodson: Absolutely. And I will tell you, I give the conversations across the aisle props because there's something that we do that's a little different from how, a lot of the programing happen to pray for angels that I'm rather proud of, because I think it's an important way to both differentiate ourselves from what's a very successful and high impact model with. Well, so why does Corda even exist since Braver Angels is already there? And I would say it's this that a lot of the content delivery for, Braver Angels is in the form of a debate. And if you're putting things in the framework of a debate, you've got winners and losers and your focus is no longer on, you know, you can lose focus. I mean, obviously in the Braver Angels debate, people are speaking their truth because they think this is an important perspective. But you can get caught up in how do I win this argument as opposed to really staying focused on, well, what is the truth? And and what is the perspective of the other side? How did they get there? Because if I understand what you're I might find out that you know what, we're disagreeing, but our disagreement is not, you know, yay big. It's just a little bit of disagreement and speed. It's about the priorities as opposed to about, whether immigrants are good to have or bad to have, because you start that kind of a level and, and you're not going to get anywhere. But when you start to recognize and immigration's a nice example where, okay, we need to have, there's a value to welcoming immigrants into the country. There needs to be a proper vetting. There needs to be a process. People should be encouraged to follow the process. Those are statements that everybody agrees with. I don't know anybody who doesn't find that those are reasonable perspectives. Now, the question is, well, what are we disagreeing about? Well, maybe your priority is adherence to the current law. Maybe my priority is respect for people's humanity. And that's how you could be a reasonable person. You just have a different set of priorities that are not my priorities. But I can understand them, I can respect them. And maybe we can find a path forward that honors my priorities, but also honors your priorities. You only get there if you're focusing on surfacing the truth and moving away from trying to win or lose an argument.
[00:27:35:23] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah, no, I think that's absolutely right. I mean, when we start to think about, the misperceptions, that people have of each other on either side of the aisle, and you start to focus just on, on those things that you disagree on, you start to lose sight of all those points of agreement that you have, along the way, the immigration example bill is a is a phenomenal one, because, well, kind of going back to braver Angel, but we have the new Citizens Commission on Immigration that we started in 2024. And it is has turned into an incredible thing. But just the number of things and there's there's there's stuff going on there now with the Problem Solvers Caucus, in in DC now, and the number of points of agreement, would just baffle the, the, the, the American public, you know, when, when you break it down to all the different things that the American public actually agree on, instead of focusing on the few things that they very much disagree on, it changes the dynamic of the conversation and the disagreement.
[00:28:44:12] Bill Woodson: And it's also the character making a caricature of the other person's perspective. You know, you just want open borders. Oh, you just want to put kids in cages. And we just you boil them down to these absolutes that are also absurdities. Of course, you can't move, make any progress forward.
[00:29:02:21] Wilk Wilkinson: Absolutes based on oversimplification, that that is one of the biggest problems we have in getting things done in this country. And that's I think that comes along with the nature, the ugly nature, of social media and 24 hour news cycles and things like that is the oversimplification, that that just drives misperceptions and and the caricature I that's a perfect, perfect way to sum it up, Bill, is that caricature nature, caricature nature of the position, whether it be the position that's held, you know, by the the loudest voices on the right or the, the, the, the caricature nature of the loudest voices on the left, if you boil that down and, and act as if that caricature nature or that caricature position is the position of the larger body, you don't get anywhere. And that's exactly what he calls it, just stops.
[00:30:02:04] Bill Woodson: Exactly. And that's exactly what happens. And frankly, I think we're being played by our politicians on the left or the right because they're they're focused. Clearly, in my mind at least, it's clear they're folks. They're getting reelected. Oh, yeah. And, and and and that focus gets fed by getting people fired up and angry. So they make sure they go to the polls and it's not nurtured by understanding that the other side has some important points that should be heard and that there should be a search for meeting in the middle and for and for for, for dialog, for compromise, and for drawing people together, embracing the fact that they have different opinions, maybe different information, maybe different priorities. And then seeking commonality that can be discerned if you're actually listening, as opposed to trying to figure out how to how to win the argument.
[00:31:01:01] Wilk Wilkinson: That's so right. Yeah, it does. And I call it fog. It's it's fear, outrage and grievance. So those, you know, those outrage entrepreneurs in our social media, the the outrage machine, you know, the outrage culture that's driven through our mainstream media and politicians. And it's that fear, outrage and grievance that keeps people fired up. It keeps them click and it keeps them scrolling. But it does not foster a healthy civic culture.
[00:31:28:06] Bill Woodson: And we'll I'll tell you what else that, right now, because the media amplifies those extreme positions, we only get to hear from the extremists and people who are in the middle, people who are who do have curiosity, who are willing to listen to a conversation. They don't have a space because and, and I think that one of the key values of initiatives like Braver Angels, like conversations across the aisle, is that it creates a space where people can find that being thoughtful and reasoned actually has value and actually can be embraced. I don't know how we amplify that to compete with the social media outrage machine, but I think that's the next, mountain that we should collectively try to tackle.
[00:32:17:15] Wilk Wilkinson: That is the mountain that we are collectively trying to tackle, you know, with with organizations like Kara, joining the Braver Network, the biggest message that we, we can convey here, Bill, is, is making sure that people know that they're not alone. They are empowered to do to do great things. It starts with each of us as an individual kind of recap in our conversation here is every individual has that ability to make things happen. And there is a community out there, for people, like I said, there's a lot of organizations doing this, but but you know what? Braver Angels nationwide Kara is has got aspirations of becoming.
[00:32:57:18] Bill Woodson: Yes we do nationwide organization.
[00:33:00:04] Wilk Wilkinson: You know, there's organizations out there whether they're small or large, like Braver Angels. Hopefully they all come, you know, if they decide to be part of one of the smaller ones, I certainly hope they're part of the braver network. But the reality is there's a community of people out there, Bill, coming together to to practice courageous citizenship and be part of something bigger than themselves. And, and when you come together with like minded people or on like minded people, but to actually have a respectful dialog, you can make some great things happen.
[00:33:35:12] Bill Woodson: And to your point about, you know, people don't know that these organizations are out there. Something that I want to invest in is amplifying, not just the great programing that I think we're delivering to the community and not just expanding that reach to to connect to other communities. We're looking both within the the Gulf Coast of Florida. We've been looking beyond the state of Florida to grow conversations across the aisle. But we recently launched a website, and that website is always going to prominently, promote not only our own programing, but also the programs that are coming. Braver Angels is doing an in-person event in Bradenton. You'll find that that event is on our website. You know, it's not our event, but it's our mission and we want to support that. And I think that to the extent that we can help people discover these different resources, different assets, whether it's Braver Angels, whether it's builders, whether it's smart politics, whether it's, conversations across the aisle, I think we should all be lifting each other up and helping people find these resources. These assets. No, we're primarily in person. I know, Braver Angels that are shifting from their, you know, kind of Covid driven virtual models to get back in person as well. We hope you can be a part of your in-person programing. We actually are planning to leverage and amplify, as we're growing into Venice, Florida, which is about 40 minutes south of Sarasota, one of the first things that the team there wants to do is to, do a reprise of the, I think it's disagreeing better. We're going to basically, borrow your curriculum and bring that in person to, to Venice, because Venice is kind of a desert for this kind of work. And we need to to keep spreading the good, the good word that we there's a different way to approach our political differences.
[00:35:19:17] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah, yeah. That's right. There's a better way to engage. That's one of the things that I've been saying for a long time. You know what built our time here has flown by today. It's been an incredible conversation. People can find out more about you@project.org, right? Yes. The Ada project, dot org. And, Bill, it's been a fantastic conversation. I see many more conversations in our future. I do appreciate your time. And and please come back.
[00:35:46:03] Bill Woodson: I look forward to it. Wilk, thanks for having me on.
[00:35:53:00] Wilk Wilkinson: Friends, I want to thank you so much for tuning in. And if there's anything in this episode that provided exceptional value to you, please make sure to hit that share button. If you haven't done so already, please be sure to subscribe to get the Derate the Hate podcast sent to your email inbox every week. We really are better together, so please take a moment to visit BraverAngels.org and consider joining the movement towards civic renewal and bridging our political divides. This is Wilk wrapping up for the week saying get out there. Be kind to one another. Be grateful for everything you've got. And remember, it's up to you to make every day the day that you want it to be. With that, my friends, I'm going to back on out of here and we will catch you next week. Take care.
Comments & Upvotes