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What if the root of conflict in our relationships — and in our divided world — isn’t a failure to communicate, but a failure to tolerate discomfort?
In this episode of Derate The Hate, I sit down with couples therapist and author Dr. Bruce Chalmer to explore how anxiety, not poor communication, is often the true barrier to meaningful connection — both in marriages and across ideological divides.
Bruce has worked with couples for nearly 30 years, and his book It’s Not About Communication! challenges everything we think we know about relationship struggles. But what makes this conversation especially powerful is how deeply his insights apply beyond romantic partnerships — to how we engage in tough conversations with those we disagree with.
✅ Why communication isn’t the root problem in many relationships
✅ How anxiety disrupts connection and meaningful dialogue
✅ Why tolerating discomfort is essential to emotional intimacy
✅ How ideas lead to growth, but ideologies often create rigidity
✅ The impact of confirmation bias on both romantic and political conversations
✅ Why faith in others’ humanity is foundational for bridging divides
✅ How the tools of couples therapy can strengthen civil discourse
We also discuss Bruce’s podcast with his wife Judy, Couples Therapy in Seven Words, where they explore love, faith, and what it means to truly connect in a world that often prioritizes being right over being human.
✅ Emotional connection requires vulnerability, not just technique
✅ Communication “problems” are often anxiety in disguise
✅ Real transformation comes from deep listening and mutual respect
✅ The goal of conversation isn’t to win — it’s to connect
✅ We must create shared space for dialogue, even amid disagreement
📘 It’s Not About Communication! by Dr. Bruce Chalmer: https://amzn.to/42LoN1j
️ 🎙️Couples Therapy in Seven Words podcast: https://couplestherapyinsevenwords.com/
Whether you're working to strengthen your marriage or seeking better conversations across divides, this episode offers valuable insight into the power of vulnerability, curiosity, and shared humanity.
Dr. Bruce Chalmer is a psychologist in Vermont who has been working with couples for over thirty years. Through his teaching, consulting, and books, his ideas have helped thousands of couples and their therapists. Together with his wife Judy Alexander, Dr. Chalmer hosts the podcast “Couples Therapy in Seven Words.” Dr. Chalmer is the author of three books: Betrayal and Forgiveness: How to Navigate the Turmoil and Learn to Trust Again It’s Not About Communication! Why Everything You Know About Couples Therapy is Wrong Reigniting the Spark: Why Stable Couples Lose Intimacy, and How to Get It Back
🌐 Learn more about Dr. Bruce Chalmer: https://brucechalmer.com
What have you done today to make your life a better life? What have you done today to make the world a better place? 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 everything you’ve got. Make each and every day the day that you want it to be!
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I look forward to hearing from you!
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;43;18
Wilk
Welcome back, my friends, to the Derate the Hate podcast. I am your host, Wilk Wilkinson, your blue collar stage, calming outrage and helping to navigate a world divided by fog. And those who would spread that fear, outrage and grievance. Each week I'm sharing stories from my path and using the power of conversation and collaboration with my many great guests.
00;00;43;20 - 00;01;07;29
Wilk
Together, we chart a course toward understanding, bridging divides and fostering a community where wisdom prevails over discord. 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. The only good thing about a bad attitude is we have the ability as individuals to change it.
00;01;08;02 - 00;01;31;03
Wilk
For me, it starts with gratitude and personal accountability. I am so incredibly grateful that you have taken the time to join me for another powerful DTH episode. Please remember to subscribe and share the podcast with your network of friends. If you would like to support the show, check out the Support Us page on the Derate the Hate website. With that, my friends, let's get to it.
00;01;31;03 - 00;01;57;08
Wilk
Now. We talk a lot on this show about bridging divides, about having tough conversations, especially with people we don't agree with. And one thing I've learned over the years, my friends, is that the way we show up in those conversations isn't all that different from how we show up in our most personal relationships. That's exactly why I was so excited to sit down with my friend and today's guest, Doctor Bruce Chalmer.
00;01;57;10 - 00;02;05;16
Wilk
Bruce has been working with couples for nearly three decades, and he brings a refreshing and sometimes revolutionary perspective to the table.
00;02;05;16 - 00;02;22;00
Wilk
He's the author of It's not About Communication. Why everything you know about couples therapy is wrong. And yes, that title says it all because, as Bruce points out, many couples don't actually have a communication problem.
00;02;22;03 - 00;02;37;00
Wilk
They have an anxiety problem. And if we're being honest, that applies just as much to political conversations, online arguments, or even tense workplace debate as it does our romantic partnerships.
00;02;37;00 - 00;02;43;18
Wilk
In our conversation, Bruce breaks down how anxiety shut us down. It keeps us from truly listening
00;02;43;20 - 00;02;48;27
Wilk
and pushes us into defensive, sometimes rigid ideologies.
00;02;49;00 - 00;02;49;11
Wilk
Whether
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Wilk
we're fighting with a spouse or trying to navigate a tough conversation with somebody on the other side.
00;02;55;14 - 00;03;14;16
Wilk
He talks about the importance of tolerating discomfort, the courage it takes to truly connect, and the radical idea that intimacy, whether emotional or intellectual, can only happen when we're willing to admit we might not have all of the answers.
00;03;14;16 - 00;03;18;16
Wilk
Bruce also co-hosts a fantastic podcast with his wife, Judy,
00;03;18;16 - 00;03;29;09
Wilk
called Couples Therapy in Seven Words. And it was a real treat to be a guest on that show. Not long ago. On today's episode, we flipped the script a bit and talk about
00;03;29;09 - 00;03;41;05
Wilk
how the same principles that help couples build deeper, more meaningful relationships can help all of us navigate disagreement with empathy, curiosity, and a whole lot more grace.
00;03;41;05 - 00;04;03;05
Wilk
Friends, this conversation is about more than marriage. It's about human connection and how being vulnerable and grounded in faith not just religious faith, but faith in each other's humanity, can lead to more understanding, less fear, and stronger relationships across the board. So whether you're working on your marriage,
00;04;03;05 - 00;04;11;03
Wilk
trying to heal a divided relationship, or just looking to have a better conversation in a world that feels more divided than ever.
00;04;11;06 - 00;04;19;07
Wilk
This episode is for you. Here's that conversation with my friend, Doctor Bruce Chalmer, Here we go.
00;04;19;07 - 00;04;24;14
Wilk
Bruce Chalmer, thank you so much for joining me on the Derate The Hate podcast, my friend. So good to see you again.
00;04;24;17 - 00;04;31;16
Bruce Chalmer
It's great to see you again. We really enjoyed having you on on our podcast. And it's I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
00;04;31;18 - 00;04;58;08
Wilk
Yeah. Bruce. You know, a little while back, we, we had an opportunity to speak on On you and Judy's podcast. The Couples Therapy in Seven Words podcast. And and that was such a wonderful conversation. I so much enjoyed it. And, and then when we started talking and you told me about this ideas versus ideologies thing that you've done work in, and I thought, you know what, I got to get Bruce on the podcast.
00;04;58;08 - 00;05;23;19
Wilk
And that's just like I said, just just grateful to have you here, Bruce. So let's get into that a little bit. Well, before we do, let's let's talk a little bit. We'll go backwards a little bit. Just because we've already mentioned the fact that I was on your your podcast with you and Judy. So you're a couples therapist and, and you wrote a book a while back called It's not about Communication.
00;05;23;22 - 00;05;25;29
Wilk
Yeah, about couples therapy.
00;05;26;02 - 00;05;26;22
Bruce Chalmer
Yeah.
00;05;26;24 - 00;05;37;02
Wilk
But and what really intrigued me about that is because I'm one that's always saying it's all about communication. So. So let's start there.
00;05;37;04 - 00;05;37;20
Bruce Chalmer
Sure.
00;05;37;22 - 00;05;44;00
Wilk
Tell me about this title, Bruce. It's not about communication. Why? Everything you know about couples therapy is wrong.
00;05;44;07 - 00;06;15;15
Bruce Chalmer
Yeah. Is that a snarky title or what? You know, and I'm not that snarky a person. I could be snarky, but that's not my usual way of presenting myself. I I'll tell you why I say that. Of course, you're right. The communication is important. You know what I've noted as a couples therapy is I've been doing this now for like 30 years, and while I don't know what the percentages, but it's like 80% or so, some number like that of the couples that I meet in the first session and I'm, you know, I'm asking them my standard opening questions and, you know, they're telling me what they're there for one way or another.
00;06;15;17 - 00;06;33;24
Bruce Chalmer
And they're almost always saying, we need to communicate better every time we try and talk about anything. If it's at all, you know, any there, any differences or at all uncomfortable, we end up in a fight or we end up in a deep freeze, or we end up in a fight followed by a deep freeze. You know, it just doesn't work well.
00;06;33;27 - 00;07;02;24
Bruce Chalmer
So can you give us tools to help us learn to communicate better? That's what they're after. Can you can you teach us? You know, obviously, we're not communicating. Well, obviously we're not good at it. So we just need to learn some tools to communicate. That's what we're. That's what people ask for. And if you go and look at the, you know, all the self-help books out there and then talk to zillions of therapists and stuff, what you'll find is lots and lots of people who are perfectly willing to teach all sorts of really neat techniques on how to have conversations.
00;07;02;26 - 00;07;22;13
Bruce Chalmer
So nothing wrong with any of those techniques. In fact, when we get into that notion of ideas versus ideologies, I'll come back around to that. It's like there's a lot of good ideas out there and in, and you've heard of some of them, you know, the notion of like nonviolent communication. You've heard of that perhaps it's a very well known, developed, you know, thing I statements as opposed to use statements, you know, active listening.
00;07;22;15 - 00;07;44;12
Bruce Chalmer
Those are all really, you know, good ideas because what they are are is what a well-functioning couple does when they're getting along. Well, if they're talking about something, if you if you were a fly in the wall watching them or, you know, if you were John Gottman taping them, you know, years ago, that's what you used to do, then you would observe them pretty much following those rules.
00;07;44;20 - 00;08;05;26
Bruce Chalmer
You would see they're not calling each other names. They're speaking generally with respect. Even if they disagree. There, they are often making sure they do understand each other, which is indicates they're actually listening. You know, they're doing all those things. That's great. So if you want a couple to function well, then all you have to do is teach them to do those things right?
00;08;05;28 - 00;08;09;02
Bruce Chalmer
Wrong. That is.
00;08;09;04 - 00;08;13;14
Wilk
You're not at the root cause at that point. You're just trying to you're just masking the problem.
00;08;13;19 - 00;08;31;22
Bruce Chalmer
Exactly. I guess it is the that I, I will bring out my inner nerd. I'm like a recovering nerd with frequent relapses. That is the post hoc ergo propria hoc fallacy, which is to say that is, you know, after. Therefore, because of fallacy, just because people who function well do those things doesn't mean teaching people to do that.
00;08;31;22 - 00;08;37;26
Bruce Chalmer
Things will make a function well. They are doing those things because they function well. They're not functioning well because they do those things.
00;08;37;28 - 00;09;06;28
Wilk
That is, you know, okay, hold on. Yeah, that is hugely important. And I want you to repeat it and slow it down a little bit for the back benchers that that is one of the most important statements that anybody can actually make because unlike the statement a fake it til you make it or you know, all those, all those other things, those cliche things that you hear that is one of the most important things that somebody could actually hear.
00;09;07;01 - 00;09;22;15
Wilk
Because the opposite is completely ignoring the root cause of the problem and trying to trying to come up with something based on what the root cause actually isn't. So. So say that again for me, Bruce.
00;09;22;16 - 00;09;45;18
Bruce Chalmer
I will and I will. I can expand on a little. I mean, that the phenomenon of people, you know, learning to learning all those good ideas. I'm not knocking the ideas. Those are good ideas about, you know, active listening and I statements and, and nonviolent communication all that stuff, the phenomenon of people learning that and then still being awful to each other is very real.
00;09;45;21 - 00;10;07;28
Bruce Chalmer
You see people doing it often. What they'll get in arguments about when they've learned those techniques is they'll say, well, you're not doing it right. They'll argue with each other, then about how they're not doing it right, and they still won't be hearing each other or if they are hearing each other. That's the other irony about this. When you learn those techniques, if you're a well-functioning couple, using those techniques is ridiculous.
00;10;08;00 - 00;10;26;11
Bruce Chalmer
It's cumbersome, it's absurd. You know, you're you're you're getting along wonderfully with your wife and you want to make love. And do you really want to have a conversation where you say, well, gee, what I think I hear you saying is that you're interested in making love right now. Do I understand you correctly? You know, that's not usually how it goes when it's going well.
00;10;26;12 - 00;10;44;29
Bruce Chalmer
Right? So it's not that it's wrong to do those things, it's just that it's sort of silly. And the other thing is, when you're freaking out, you won't remember how to do it. You won't implement it. So those, those all of those rules and techniques are great, except when you actually need them. Because when you actually need them, you won't be able to follow them.
00;10;45;04 - 00;11;08;16
Bruce Chalmer
And when you don't actually need them, they're ridiculous. So that's another way of explaining that notion that indeed. So here's another way of summing it up that I love to point out the vast majority of folks that I meet do not have difficulty communicating. They are very accurately communicating some really nasty stuff. The problem isn't how they communicate.
00;11;08;16 - 00;11;29;09
Bruce Chalmer
The problem is what they're communicating. They're communicating anger. They're communicating mistrust. They're communicating contempt. They're communicating, you know, just general lack of faith. All of those things can be really painful and damaging and hurtful. But it's not because they're not skilled. They're very skilled at communicating those things. That's how they feel. And it's coming out very clearly now.
00;11;29;09 - 00;11;48;13
Bruce Chalmer
There's a few interesting little exceptions to that. You know, occasionally I'll meet somebody where one or both of members of the of the couple are somewhere on the autistic spectrum and kind of, by definition, often. Yeah. And it's a, that's a, it's a spectrum. You know, it's a very broad spectrum. But often what that implies is they're not good at reading the other person's emotions.
00;11;48;20 - 00;11;51;17
Bruce Chalmer
Well, that causes communication problems. Fair enough.
00;11;51;20 - 00;11;59;27
Wilk
Or they don't have their own emotional filter. They just don't have, right. Have the ability to regulate their own emotions in that particular circumstance.
00;11;59;27 - 00;12;09;12
Bruce Chalmer
What call yes. Often that and often not being able to read the other person's. That's right. So if you if you can't tell if your wife is happy or pissed off, it makes her communication problems, makes.
00;12;09;12 - 00;12;09;15
Wilk
It.
00;12;09;15 - 00;12;32;22
Bruce Chalmer
Dynamic. Yeah, it is hard. And those folks and I you know, that's not that's not an illness really. It's a it's a just a way of being a style. Yeah. But those folks can learn some, some skills and they are in fact communication skills and you know, and then occasionally every once in a while, I meet a couple where they literally do not speak the same language, or at least not very well, you know, if they're talking to me, of course, at least one of them talks, speaks English.
00;12;32;22 - 00;12;54;05
Bruce Chalmer
But, you know, maybe the other one doesn't speak English very well. And they have actual communication issues or or cultural differences. You know, the same action can have a different meaning in different cultures. Those are communications issues they're interested in. Yeah. But the vast majority of folks I work with, it's yeah, I mean, yes, there's always differences, but the vast majority of folks are very skilled at communicating.
00;12;54;05 - 00;13;20;22
Bruce Chalmer
The problem is what they are communicating. And if what they're communicating is, as I kind of gave that list earlier and, you know, and with respect to the work you do, the amazing work you doing, I think this applies way more broadly than just to couples, which is why I think it could be it can make sense for me to be on this podcast because that same phenomenon happens when you're talking about trying to talk across the political spectrum.
00;13;20;22 - 00;13;45;11
Bruce Chalmer
If people are freaking out, they're not going to be able to follow rules very well. Right? The the big skill needed. And this I'm so in admiration of the work you do in, you know, braver angels all you know that that concept of getting people together to to speak when they have such large, real, serious differences in and important things, they're, they're gonna feel anxiety.
00;13;45;12 - 00;14;10;11
Bruce Chalmer
The key there is to be able to tolerate the anxiety without freaking out. Yeah. And that's the same thing in a couple. The key to intimacy is to be able to tolerate the anxiety of, you know, I g I, I want to say something to my partner and I don't know how he or she's going to respond. And I if I, if I'm willing, if I actually want to maintain an intimate connection, I'm going to have to risk that.
00;14;10;13 - 00;14;13;03
Bruce Chalmer
And that's about tolerating anxiety.
00;14;13;05 - 00;14;52;09
Wilk
Right. That's that's such. Well, that's, that's such a hugely important point, Bruce, because a lot of times when I think about anxiety and I, I have such great empathy for all those that that suffer from anxiety because anybody who's experienced anxiety knows that it's, it's it's one of the worst things that, that you can actually experience experience. Because especially I mean, you have a person who's got a perfectly high functional brain and they're doing all these wonderful things and they think they're in control of of themselves or what they're doing or what they're thinking or whatever.
00;14;52;15 - 00;15;18;03
Wilk
And anxiety is, is just like this cloud that will overtake you. Now, thankfully, I'm not somebody who suffers a lot from anxiety, but I've talked to a lot of people who have anxiety disorders and, and, and now all of a sudden you just get this strong feeling of, of being out of control, not being able to control yourself, not being able to control your emotions, not being able to control what you think you can't feel.
00;15;18;03 - 00;15;50;01
Wilk
You don't feel like yourself. You know these things are horrible. And and more than that, going kind of going to what you were talking about, about the work that I do with Braver Angels and the pro human found ation and trying to bridge divides in these, in these spaces where people have these great differences, when people's anxiety starts to take over, not only do they lose control of themselves, their ears slam shut, their slam shut, and they no longer are able to receive the message from the person that they're speaking with.
00;15;50;04 - 00;16;13;09
Wilk
And the worst thing that you can do when you're trying to bridge divides is sit there with somebody and not be able to receive their message, primarily because the other person sees quickly that you are not receiving their message and then their that then their anxiety grows, their anger grows, their their animosity for even being in the situation grows.
00;16;13;12 - 00;16;17;29
Wilk
And now nothing is happening. Nothing good is happening. So talk.
00;16;17;29 - 00;16;19;04
Bruce Chalmer
Yeah.
00;16;19;06 - 00;16;38;05
Wilk
Talk a little bit more about that and and how somebody can overcome you know we talked about this being a root cause issue as opposed to to a true communication issue. Sometimes it's just a communication issue. But a lot of times it's the root cause. It's not the communication, it's the message or the way the message is being conveyed.
00;16;38;08 - 00;16;46;14
Wilk
And then the anxiety of the person who's trying to convey the message to the person who's trying to receive it. Yeah. A little bit about a little bit more about that.
00;16;46;16 - 00;17;11;03
Bruce Chalmer
Yeah. Well, indeed, you know, everything you're describing about the, the, the effects of anxiety. And of course, you know, I think we have to recognize anxiety is a necessary function. It's it is designed by however you want to say it, by evolution by God or some combination thereof to cause us to, you know, forget everything else and deal with whatever it is that is causing the anxiety or what we think is causing the anxiety.
00;17;11;05 - 00;17;30;21
Bruce Chalmer
So indeed, when the anxiety happens and they show this, they've done studies with functional MRI scanners, you get somebody freaked out enough. And it's amazing that people have volunteered to go in one of these things and get freaked out. But what happens is whole chunks of neocortex shut down. It basically goes offline so they can't hear. Indeed, as you said, they can't hear what what somebody's saying.
00;17;30;28 - 00;18;10;25
Bruce Chalmer
And that indeed has that cyclical or that sort of vicious cycle effect of rising anxiety and the other person. And then you've got nothing. So what, you know, how does one get past that? Well, when I talk about tolerate the anxiety, it's that's what I tend to. The way I like to think about it is and I see this a lot, and I bet you do in the work that you do as well, when you actually get people who can manage, even in the presence of that anxiety, to stay this side of freak out, you know, enough so they still can hear each other and they're feeling the, the maybe they're feeling the discomfort of
00;18;10;25 - 00;18;33;09
Bruce Chalmer
having some of their precious ideas challenged, but they're doing it in a sense where they're sensing the other person wants to hear them, too. In other words, intimacy, that sense of connection. That's where growth happens when people are intimately connected. And of course, I'm not just referring to sex here. I'm referring to, you know, intimate conversation, all kinds of emotional connection, even intellectual connection.
00;18;33;15 - 00;18;53;20
Bruce Chalmer
When people can connect that way, they become a joint mind. They're thinking thoughts. Neither one of them would have thought by themselves, you know, in our conversation, neither one of us would be thinking the same thoughts if we didn't. You know, if we weren't talking with each other right now, we're we're creating something that is new. And maybe I'll, I'll segue into a little bit about ideas and ideologies.
00;18;53;22 - 00;18;54;20
Wilk
Oh, yeah.
00;18;54;23 - 00;19;12;03
Bruce Chalmer
For ideas. And, you know, I'm, I'm using the terms maybe a little bit idiosyncratic. I don't know, it's funny, my son Seth and I mentioned this to you before you started recording. I'll put on a plug for my son, Seth. Tomer, I didn't realize until after we had interviewed you on our podcast, and I, we happened to be visiting Seth.
00;19;12;03 - 00;19;28;15
Bruce Chalmer
He lives down in new Jersey, and we happened to visit him. Judy and I met my wife, Trudy Alexander and I, and and I said, oh, yeah, we you know, we had this really neat interview with Wilke Wilkins. And he said, well, Google said, you know, he knows who you are because he is a one of the ambassadors.
00;19;28;17 - 00;19;45;16
Bruce Chalmer
And I guess the first cohort of ambassadors and the pro human foundation that you are part of, of, you know, anyway, there's the Seth. Seth. Seth has actually been a bit critical of my use of ideas versus ideologies. So I have to say that in just to to put out it, put it in a plug for Seth.
00;19;45;17 - 00;20;04;21
Bruce Chalmer
Maybe you can have him on sometime. And he can he can be critical of his dad's ideas about ideas and ideology. He just says, well, every everybody has ideologies. They're not all about the way I use the terms like idea, ideas, good, ideologies, bad, he points out. It's not that simple. And he's right, of course, but I will continue ideas are that which open you up.
00;20;04;24 - 00;20;32;10
Bruce Chalmer
You know, when when you're having a conversation with someone and you're saying what you think and you're listening to what the other person's thinking. Those often lead to ideas. As I just said, if you're having an intimate conversation, ideas pop up you wouldn't have thought of before. That's generative. It's growth. You know, one of my favorite metaphors is when I talk about a plant of a couple needs, both stability and intimacy, and so does a plant.
00;20;32;10 - 00;20;52;01
Bruce Chalmer
You know, the seed gets planted, the roots provide stability, but intimacy is the energy for growth. That's where growth happens. And couples crave that. Just like plants needed. You know, plant's going to try and crack the sidewalk if it if it gets paved over while couples do the same thing, they try and crack the sidewalk. So ideas are the things that open you up.
00;20;52;06 - 00;21;06;03
Bruce Chalmer
Ideas might make you uncomfortable, but if you can avoid freaking out, you know you're left. When I hear an idea, the challenges, my own process ideas, I'll be thinking, oh, oh, ooh, I you know, it's like, well.
00;21;06;06 - 00;21;07;27
Wilk
Maybe range of things within you.
00;21;07;27 - 00;21;26;27
Bruce Chalmer
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Ideologies are when ideas hardened so that instead of the idea, you know, letting your brain sort of in your mind run free, it's about shutting down. So you have to defend the ideology. And that is the very opposite of listening to someone else.
00;21;27;00 - 00;21;28;06
Wilk
That's exactly right.
00;21;28;08 - 00;21;47;15
Bruce Chalmer
And what I, what I always love to point out is when ideas hardened into ideologies, they become caricatures. You can have good ideas and harden them into an ideology, and it becomes a caricature. And one of my favorite examples, and, you know, I am I am religiously involved, as is my son Seth. We're Jewish. And so I'm not knocking religion per se.
00;21;47;15 - 00;22;13;17
Bruce Chalmer
I'm not, you know, one of those folks that says, oh, religion is the source of all evil. I don't mean that. But if you look at all the religions I know of, I'm no expert, but all the religions I've heard of, you know, Western, eastern, whatever, they all seem to have this bit about saying that you should be good to people and, and the religions that are theistic religions, you know, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, they all are saying God is good and God wants people to be good to other people.
00;22;13;19 - 00;22;31;03
Bruce Chalmer
Those are, in my humble opinion, good ideas. Yeah. Harden them into ideology and you get the wonderful, not you know, the occurrence of religious war, you know, people killing other people because they don't love God the right way or they don't use the right terminology.
00;22;31;03 - 00;22;37;22
Wilk
Your ideas don't fully comport with mine. So now we've got to eliminate you as a as a whatever. Right?
00;22;37;24 - 00;22;39;16
Bruce Chalmer
Well, as a threat to the ideology, as.
00;22;39;16 - 00;23;09;19
Wilk
A threat to my ideology. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. No. And you know, I want to I want to kind of circle back to something because that is hugely important. But when we think about ideas versus ideologies and ideologies becoming a caricature, a caricature of, of a particular idea, the importance of, of ideas and new ideas and being open to new ideas can't be overstated in my opinion.
00;23;09;19 - 00;23;34;17
Wilk
Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a book called Think Again by Adam Grant, I believe Adam Grant. The book's called Think Again and, and, you know, quite often, even before I'd read that book, I've heard the idea of, of like, if you are never open to new ideas, if you won't at least listen to with an open mind to different things, you're never going to be able to course correct when your idea is wrong.
00;23;34;19 - 00;24;05;09
Wilk
Yeah. So so being able to think again, even though you can have a firmly held idea. But if you become an ideologue and be stuck in your own ideology without the ability to even think twice about maybe I am wrong, maybe I looked at this the wrong way. Maybe there is something I'm missing here. If you're not able to do that, you you put yourself in a horrible position.
00;24;05;11 - 00;24;19;19
Wilk
I often say I write it on a lot of my notebooks because I still write a lot of notes. I never see them again, but I write a lot of notes for whatever reason. Right. And I've got a lot of notebooks laying all over the place. And on the front of those I write, every mistake is an opportunity for learning.
00;24;19;22 - 00;24;20;08
Bruce Chalmer
Absolutely.
00;24;20;13 - 00;24;44;14
Wilk
Oftentimes, people who aren't willing to think again aren't willing to open up their mind to new ideas. They don't believe that they actually make mistakes. They don't learn from their mistakes. That's a huge problem. Now, when I tie this in my mind, Bruce, to to the idea of a conversation, a conversation is not just me talking to you and I.
00;24;44;15 - 00;25;06;15
Wilk
A conversation is not just you talking to me. This is me and you speaking with each other and opening up a common space. If I'm just here to espouse my ideas to you and not listen to what you say, I'm not creating a commons space. I'm still stuck in my own bubble.
00;25;06;15 - 00;25;38;04
Bruce Chalmer
Yeah, yeah, that that becomes a dead space. Yeah. And and that's that's really, I suppose I could define my, my notion of ideas exactly that way. Ideas are when it's actually an open when the space is open, because that way you're letting your, you're, you're letting your mind take in what the other person is saying and it is changing you, or at least it is potentially changing you, you know, and I suppose I should put in a word, it's funny when I said that that Seth, my son, you know, says, hey, ideologies are all bad.
00;25;38;11 - 00;25;57;14
Bruce Chalmer
I want to put in a word for maybe what he's referring to. I don't want to speak for him, but I'm not opposed to tradition at all. I'm a I'm a quite a traditional person myself. I'm not opposed to the humility that comes from letting yourself be guided by tradition. And in fact, I wrote about this in one of my other books.
00;25;57;14 - 00;26;35;09
Bruce Chalmer
Actually, if the people who think that they needn't be bound by any tradition whatever are dangerous folks. Yes. And that, you know, those ideas become very dangerous ideas because they think they, you know, they're they're not there's no humility there. There's no sense of intellectual or emotional humility where you say, you know, I could be wrong. It's like you were saying about, you know, think again that there are and I'm not remembering the buzzwords for this, but there are organizations that m
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