Changing Minds Through Empathy and the Values of Others | Robert Perez

Transcript

Robert:  And this is really the thing that has changed for me as a communication strategist for progressive issues. When I would craft messages 30 years ago, I crafted messages that met my emotional needs. I talked about it from my vantage point. And those messages may not be the messages that are going to work most effectively for people who are very different from me.

And so the ability to take a step back and to understand what people need, we talk about it as equipping people. And so what we mean by that is to equip someone to arrive at a shared conclusion is allowing them to use their own value systems, their own belief systems, their own lived experiences to make a better world.

Because I do audience research, I call myself a, a real, you know, realistic optimist because I both hear the mean spirited things that people will say. And I also, And see the pathways that are possible to get people to move. All of that tells me that change is possible. That it is hard, that's the realist part of me, but the optimistic part is I see the ways in which When you meet the emotional needs of your audiences, how you can move them toward a path of greater support, especially when you're giving them the psychological tools to calm their downstairs brain so that they have access to compassion, empathy, reflection, et cetera.

Roger: Hi, I'm Roger Kastner and welcome to the, what do you know to be true podcast. In these conversations, I talk with ordinary people about their extraordinary skill. There's superhero power and the meaningful impact it has on others. The goal is not to try to emulate or hack our way to a new talent. Instead, the intention is to learn more about their experience with their superhero power.

And in doing so, maybe we can learn something about the special talent in each of us that makes us unique. This conversation is with Robert Perez and it's about his superhero power. of heart wiring. Now, Robert is a global change maker. He might not accept that title, but it's true. He works with leading organizations and thought leaders from across the globe to make the world a more just, inclusive, and equitable place.

He does this not by just talking with like minded people, but the focus of his work is on people who hold vastly different beliefs. And he figures out ways to connect with their heads and their hearts. So they can make a different choice. If you're ready, let's dive in.

Hey, Robert. It's great to see you. Thank you for joining me today.

Robert:  Thank you for having me, Roger honor.

Roger: Oh, the honors all mine. I'm excited to have this conversation because one, you're one of my dearest friends, two, you're pretty freaking remarkable in what you do before we get into all of that. What do you like, what would you like us to know about Robert Perez?

Robert:  I am a nerd for social change. I can talk a little bit more about what that means. Proud of my family and proud of my parents and proud of their very humble origins. Uh, my parents were, um, grew up as migrant farm workers. Their story certainly influenced how I spend my time. As an adult and my focus on on progressive social change and then who I am In the world as a working professional.

I am the founder and chief Exploration officer at lender strategies for good, which is a social change communications firm. I'm based in San Francisco. It's entirely virtual. We have colleagues, um, everywhere from Houston, Texas to Cincinnati, Ohio to Seattle. And we do work in the United States. as well as across the globe on socially sensitive issues.

Roger: Years ago, I reached out to you to ask you about the role of data in storytelling and affecting change. And you had replied that, um, as humans, we'd love stories. We'd learn by stories. Um, but the stories speak to the emotional side, whereas data speaks to the logic side. And that when we are trying to affect change, We need both the stories, the emotional side and the data or the logic, um, to, to make connections.

Do you still believe that to be true? And can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Robert:  Yeah, well, let me, let me, this is a great opportunity to say more about, um, why I describe myself as a nerd for social change. So what we do at Wonder is we do, um, audience research done on socially sensitive. And emotionally complex issues to understand how people make decisions and how to take that understanding and use it to develop what we call messaging interventions that untie the psychological knots that prevent people from being the good, compassionate, caring, thoughtful, reflective people that they have the capacity to be there is something about storytelling.

That is very powerful and effective as a mode of communications, um, in part because we, um, we've been telling stories for tens of thousands of years as homo sapiens. Uh, but what I now understand is that there are psychological reasons why stories are more effective as a tool for, for changing one's mind.

Sometimes political messages, uh, messages that advocates push out, they tell you how to think. Feel or act. And as human beings, that takes away our sense of agency. If you've ever been in a meeting where you're, where you're trying to convince a colleague and that colleagues, like, I'm just going to play devil's advocate for a moment in your kind of like, either literally rolling your eyes or feeling frustrated or rolling your eyes internally, but, but keeping a poker face, uh, they may be playing devil's advocate because you're taking their agency away to decide for themselves.

And so what we learn is that when you craft the right story, um, it is less likely to trigger what psychologists would call reactance, which is having your agency removed from you. So that's just a primer on, on the power and efficacy of, of stories and, and data and facts do play a role as long as you don't overwhelm with data and facts.

There are actually many things that are, that are needed in stories. And so we're, we're sort of unpacking what we've seen over 10 years of research on what, what. The stories need to accomplish and there are essentially on on socially charged issues, uh, stories and just any type of messaging strategies or campaigns need to accomplish five things psychologically for the intended target audience.

Um, they need to build trust. They need to acknowledge the complexities of issues. They need to calm the concerns that people have about making the wrong decision and potentially all the negative repercussions that come from making the wrong decision. Uh, they need to nurture compassion for either themselves, um, if it's individual change that you're trying to nurture or compassion for a group of people that a policy might benefit.

And finally, they need to activate Um, one way that we think about this is, um, our, our brains and the ways that are, our brain has evolved over tens of thousands of years. Um, it's really focused on keeping us alive. It's a survival mechanism. Um, so we have a part of our brain that's similar to all animals on the planet to most animals on the planet.

Um, that is looking at scanning the environment is looking for things that might. Um, put us in harm's way. That might kill us. And that could be a saber tooth tiger. If you think about, uh, 20, 000 years ago, it could be, uh, a, a neighboring clan that you're unfamiliar with it, that you're either competing for resources with, or that might actually try to kill you when that part of her brain is activated.

Um, we often, I wonder, we'll call it the downstairs brain based on a great book called, uh, the whole brain child that talks about the upstairs brain and the downstairs brain. When we, when our downstairs brain is triggered, it, it hijacks our thoughtful upstairs homosapien brain. So I'm just going to do a quick, I'm going to do a quick, a quick primer on the, on the brain, because I think it's very useful.

This is useful for if you're a parent for, uh, how to engage your, your child, if your child's having a tantrum in the middle of target, a great for relationships, um, with, uh, and, and how to have good fights or effective fights with your significant other, and it's certainly relative, relevant to social issues.

Our amygdala, our downstairs brain, um, this is the part that's keeping us. I'm alive. It's scanning the environment. It's a very good thing, but in the modern context. It is triggered far more often and maybe for not and not the best ways and a day to day basis. So, um, we may not be dealing with a saber tooth tiger say, we may be dealing with an email from an irate email from a boss at 1 o'clock in the morning.

That might be the thing that's triggering our downstairs brain. And then we have our, our prefrontal cortex is just right behind our, our, our forehead. And this is, this is our homosapien brain. This is the thing that is human. And this is where compassion, where reflection, um, planning, um, decision making, um, empathy reside.

The challenge is, is if our downstairs brain is it, uh, it hijacks our upstairs brain. It actually just takes it offline because if you do have a saber toothed tiger chasing you being rational about how to get away from that saber toothed tiger is not going to keep you alive. What is going to keep you alive is like running as quickly as possible to get the hell away from the saber toothed tiger and to run up the tree or do whatever you need to do.

And in a modern context, when the downstairs brain hijacks the upstairs brain and takes your upstairs brain, your prefrontal cortex offline, it means you can't be thoughtful. It means that you are, that your, your pathway to empathy and to compassion are cut off. And so What we try to do is develop. We try to understand in the research that we do, and we listen to understand the things that trigger people's downstairs brains on socially sensitive and emotionally complex issues.

And then the way that we think about messaging today, the way that I think about messaging today is really different than the way I thought about it when I first started my career. I actually think of them as psychological interventions that are meant to untie the psychological knots that prevent people from being thoughtful, compassionate, empathetic.

And so when you think about stories, um, Stories are, uh, are powerful because they connect with us as human beings on an, on an emotional level. And that we, they allow us to decide for ourselves. So stories more often than not, don't say you need to think this way. And political messages often say you need to think this way.

And instead, someone says, I'm going to tell you, um, about my own experience and, and the conflict that I felt about this issue and how I changed my mind. And when we tell those types of stories, we give people the capacity to decide for themselves, um, the data point, um, putting facts and data that can and often does make a difference as long as you're not leading with that Daniel Kahneman in thinking fast and slow talks about the system one and the system to brain to the system one is our emotional brain that that just is constantly humming and making decisions.

Based on just our gut level reactions and even working at an unconscious level. And then our system to brain is our rational brain. And that is that part of our brain sucks up a lot of energy and is, is physically and mentally taxing for that to be the main way that we make decisions. So it's really a combination of the two.

You want to appeal to people's emotions and you want them to at the end say, and the reason I think this is because of this one, this one. Um, so I'm going to give you a concrete example. We're doing research on building affordable housing in Colorado, including this kind of housing called supportive housing, which supports people who have experienced homelessness.

Um, and giving them the tools that they need to, um, build a better life for themselves, including dealing with a range of things like being able to get a job, getting training for that job, um, getting access to mental health services, getting access to substance use. Um, an addiction in recovery services.

Housing is something that is like facing communities across the country, and it will often create a reaction, a NIMBY reaction. I'm, I'm okay with that, but just don't build it, just don't build it in my neighborhood. And what we've seen is it is possible to actually help people to control their, their, uh, their impulses to not want to, to To be NIMBYs, essentially.

Um, and one of the things, an example of a, a fact that worked really well is number one, we're seeing homelessness on the rise in communities across the country. And so that lived experience is really impacting people and people are hungry for solutions. So we had, uh, people talking about the examples of this program.

It worked really effectively. It really, it really, um, Spoke to people emotionally, but people eventually will ask the question, well, how do we know this thing is this thing works? And even though we were doing research and doing this work in Colorado, but this factoid on the success and the efficacy of supportive housing in Houston.

And the fact was pretty simple, which is that policies like this around supportive helped to lower chronic homelessness by over 60%. over 10 years. So that worked, uh, for a number of different reasons. Uh, it, uh, the, the, the nature of the program made intuitive sense to people. Um, the 60 percent was a pretty like, whoa, you mean we could, we could reduce homelessness in my community by 60 percent if we did this.

Wow. And it happened over a long enough period of time that people believe that it could be possible. So if we said like it lowered, it lowered homelessness. By 60 percent in six months, people were like, I don't buy that, but oh, if we do this and we invest in it, we could lower homelessness by 60 percent in 10 years.

I'm for that. So there is a role. Um, and you're, but the more important part is you're trying to meet a range of psychological needs for the person who you're trying to persuade or convince.

Roger: I loved what you were talking about the upstairs brain and the downstairs brain and, uh, those five components of trust, complexity, safety, compassion, hope.

Some of those safety, trust, um, Those those feel like things that unlock the door between downstairs and upstairs and then once you're upstairs, that gives you time and space for complexity, compassion and hope. And I, I understand hope is that combination of agency plus a plan. So I, I love that the visual you just gave about the upstairs and the downstairs and the unlocks and how all these pieces, um, interact.

It makes a lot of sense to me. Robert, your superhero power is heart wiring. Could you tell us a little bit about that? What does that mean to you?

Robert:  In 2017, a close collaborator, Amy Simon, who is a public opinion researcher, and I co wrote and co developed a Strategy guide for change makers called heart wired.

They play on hardwired. And what we did in heartwired was to tell the story of how we've used audience research to better understand. The conflict that audiences bring to a range of social change issues and how we've leveraged that understanding to craft more effective ways to communicate with our target audiences, um, and more effective, meaning that we've actually helped to win on a range of social change issues from, uh, the freedom to marry for same sex couples, which is now guaranteed in all 50 states to, uh, allowing, uh, Someone who is terminally ill, meaning they have six months or less to live, the legal option to request life ending medications from their doctor if their pain or suffering becomes too great.

Now, what the common denominator of those range of issues is, is they're very emotionally complex. And as we've talked about, they have the ability to trigger The downstairs brain, um, which hijacks our ability to be thoughtful, compassionate, reflective. So HeartWired, um, the synopsis, the CliffsNotes of HeartWired is that there are five things that tend to shape people's attitudes and behaviors on socially sensitive issues.

And those five things are people's emotions. their identity, their lived experiences, their values, and or their beliefs. And when we feel a certain way about an issue, when we're supportive of an issue, it may be the case that those are all those, uh, five heartwired factors are in alignment, or they're a source of fuel as a reason to be supportive of an issue.

So think about, let's just think about marriage or same sex couples for a second. I know, uh, queer people. I have a lot of queer friends in my life. I have relatives who are queer. Um, I see the ways in which they're in loving relationships and I want them to be able to get married. So, therefore, uh, I am heartwired to support marriage for same sex couples.

But if you go back to 2010, where the LGBTQ rights movement had lost 31 straight times at the ballot box. Every time the question was asked, should we legally allow same sex couples the right to get married? Every time that was on a ballot, we lost every single time. And for the people who were voting against us.

Uh, it, it wasn't that even some people were just like, I'm very, very anti gay, maybe they wouldn't describe it that way, but there may be people who were just not available to us, but there were a lot of people who were available to us and who were deeply conflicted, maybe because they were people of faith, maybe they had queer people in their lives, but they were also raised in a church where they were taught that being gay was a sin.

And so they worried that by being supportive of this, they, there would be literal repercussions like life or death repercussions for them in the afterlife based on their, their faith tradition. So we use research to understand how the 5 hardwired factors, again, people's emotions, their identity, their lived experiences, their values and beliefs are either a source of fuel as a reason to be supportive of an issue or a source of friction.

for listening. That causes people, um, internal conflict and cognitive dissonance. And then we take that understanding and craft messaging interventions that help people to manage that internal conflict and to be supportive. Because if there's conflict, we're working with something. If people just tell us you're 100 percent opposed, They're not open to us.

But if people say, well, on the one hand, I love my cousin who is a lesbian. On the other hand, I was raised in a state tradition and I'm worried about internal, you know, burning in hell. We need to give them something to help, help manage that, that cognitive. And the good news is it's possible to do and, uh, the work that has been done, including some amazing work by, um, my collaborator, Amy Simon, who co wrote hardwired with me, uh, we turned the tide and starting in 2010, we were actually starting to win.

And the work that I did with mainline, um, Christian denominations resulted in, uh, denominations like the Presbyterian Church, USA. Allowing voting to allow LGBTQ people to be ordained as ministers and then eventually actually even went so far as to support the blessing of of same gender marriages. So change is possible.

It is hard work and it really requires fundamentally changing the way that you communicate about. Um, an issue so that you're communicating in a way that meets the emotional needs of the audience that you're trying to persuade.

Roger: So let's dive into your extraordinary talent even deeper. What or who inspired you to have the superhero power of heart wiring?

Robert:  My colleague Amy Simon and I wrote, co wrote Heartwired in 2017. But I actually like to think of the origin story for Heartwired as November election night in California, uh, in November of 2008. I want to just remind people who may not know the context of what happened in California in November, 2008, the overwhelming, uh, majority of voters in California, 61%, just to be specific, voted for Barack Obama.

So decided we were going to have the first black president of the United States. That's same voters, 63%. Voted to say that chickens, cows and pigs should not be caged. We should treat them humanely. And then, uh, the same voters, 52 percent of those same voters said that same sex couples should not be able to get married.

They rejected the short window in which, uh, the freedom to marry for same sex couples was legal in California. So that was personally heartbreaking for me. My husband and I had just gotten married. And for your listeners, people should know that Roger and I are close friends and Roger actually officiated our, our wedding ceremony, um, uh, back in, in October of 2008.

So it was perplexing for me. It was heartbreaking, but it was perplexing that the same people who voted for Barack Obama, who said that chicken, cows and free should not be caged and should be free that those same people. Would say that same sex couples should not be able to get married. These are not, these are not arch conservative voters or right wing voters.

And so that felt like a race that we should not have lost. And I wanted to understand and others wanted to understand what went wrong and what did we need to do in order to learn how to communicate more effectively on tough social issues, any issues that are socially sensitive and emotionally complex.

And. I, I, I got nerdy about it. And, uh, and the nerdiness has continued and it led me to starting Wonder. Um, it led me to writing Heartwired. Uh, and so that's sort of the origin story for where Heartwired came from.

Roger: Thank you for sharing the origin story. One of the greatest honors of my life was being able to be the efficient at your, at your wedding.

And yet that was such, such a Emotionally tug of war moment, you know, and, and I, I love how you teed that up between the election of Barack Obama. I didn't know about the chickens and pigs getting liberation from farms, um, on the same ballot as. The denying of dignity and humanity to a healthy part of the population in California.

And that, that juxtaposition is, um, frustrating and, and just devastating. Um, and yet, I love I love how you lean into the superhero power and I love how you lean into hope of that combination between agency and having a plan and that plan being heart wiring I'm in my downstairs brand right now I'll try to get I'll try to go upstairs and

Robert:  it's all good I will get I'll help you get I'll help you get out of your downstairs brain you know um I don't have the exact quote from Brené Brown but, But I'll summarize.

I think that the spirit of what she says about hope, which is that hope doesn't come from rainbows and unicorns. It comes from because we have been through hard stuff, and we figured out how to get through the hard stuff, and that has given us a sense that we can actually persevere, that there are strategies that are that are at our disposal to make progress.

On things. That's where hope comes from. So I think it is what fuels my, my realistic optimism. I'm hopeful because I've seen how hard it is to make change on a lot of these issues. And I'm also hopeful because I've seen so much evidence of it over the course of 10 plus years that people do have the capacity to change and change begets change.

So when we change among a small set of folks. Those people influence the people who are in their social circles to also change. And then it, it, it has the potential to spread in a very beautiful, um, and lovely way.

Roger: Would you say your superhero power is heart wiring or heart wired?

Robert:  Well, there, so there, there are two, there are two facets to heart wired.

One is listening and understanding the nature of people's conflict on social issues. And that's why we always do audience research on these really big, hard topics that we're helping to unpack and make progress on. And then the flip side is to take that knowledge. And to heartwire the way that we communicate with the audiences who support we need to make change.

If I had to describe my, my superpower, I would describe it as helping activists and advocates to heartwire. Their communications, because I've done enough research for the last 10 to 15 years, enough audience research over the last 10 to 15 years that I've gotten a, a, a fairly good sense of, of the types of things that people need in order to make decisions.

And even just the fundamentals of like, where, where do you start when you're trying to craft a communications campaign? And so thinking about, uh, thinking about communications from the, from the perspective of meeting the psychological needs of an audience who is feeling conflicted, who's experiencing cognitive dissonance and crafting something that will help them to manage that internal conflict, that's really, if I had to choose one thing that I'm, that I'm pretty good at, and that my colleagues are pretty good at.

That would be it.

Roger: I'm curious to hear what's been some of like the most surprising things you've learned doing the research.

Robert:  I'm both surprised and delighted on a regular basis that people have the capacity to change. We live in a really challenging moment in human history. If you just even consider what's happening in the United States and our politics right now and the divisive nature.

Of our politics. It can feel like when you're really in the weeds that that change is impossible, or how could I have a conversation with that person when they say these kinds of things to me and what I what I am surprised and delighted about on a regular basis is to learn and understand that that people have the capacity to do that.

To change. Our hearts are not set in stone on a lot of the issues that we work on. Let's just take medical aid and dying. Advocates came to us and they said, we, we believe that if someone is terminally ill, but if a doctors, if 2 doctors have told them, they only have 6 months or less to live, and if they're suffering with incredible pain, that they should have the legal option to request life ending medication.

They may not do it. It would at least offer them peace of mind. When Advocates in California came to us, they had been trying for 20 years to pass that law. And so we led research to understand the nature of the conflict, and crafted an approach to messaging to help people manage all the complex issues.

That come up for folks and think about it. I mean, there are two things that you and I Roger have in common. This is kind of hard to hear. We were both born and one day we will both die. So these are like really, really significant issues. And if there's an if there's something that send you to your downstairs brain, considering your own mortality is certainly is certainly one of them.

We needed to help people manage all of that, that deep, complex, uh, fear and all the complexity that was coming, coming with them. We not only succeeded in California and were able to get a law passed after 20 years of trying California, but then advocates took what they learned and they were able to pass new legislation in places like Hawaii, Washington, DC, Colorado, New Jersey, and elsewhere.

I am a, uh, I'm a human being with an upstairs brain and a downstairs brain. So part of me can be like, A naysayer and yet when I get into the nitty gritty of research when I lead, um, interviews With the types of audiences whose support we need to create change I'm often delighted to see it to see the capacity for people to have their mind change Some of those people will change in a week.

Some will change in a year And some will change in 10 years. The work we do is, is predicated on the idea that we just need to hit a tipping point of support in order for a policy or a new law to be put into effect.

Roger: By the time this airs, uh, Stephanie, uh, Murray, uh, would have been one of our guests on the, on the podcast, who is a volunteer, uh, with end of life, Washington, who does medical aid and dying work.

And. She was able to share that there's 11 states in the country where medical aid in dying is legal. Why, why are some of these issues, do you see progress at a faster pace than others?

Robert:  Change happens along a spectrum. I was talking with Um, with someone who's in a sort of a, a community of practice with me, and he was talking about work that they're doing at their organization around helping create broader cultural understanding of transgender people and how some of his younger colleagues were feeling frustrated that the content that they were creating was not feeling as like radical.

Um, as it could or should for the change that they wanted to see. And I, and I get that because when you want to create change, you're impatient to create change and I'm the patient to create change and yet change is a journey. So. You know, I think about just my own, the change that I've seen in my lifetime, being a closeted queer kid and a Mexican American Catholic family, and not even being able to admit to myself that I was queer, and then being really religious and praying to God that I would not be queer, and then eventually coming to Not only just acceptance, but ultimately celebration of who I am as a person.

And then my parents had to go on the same journey as well. And where they started, you know, when I told, when I came out to them, they said, I, we love you, we will always love you, but can we maybe like keep it a secret for a while? That is like a very common coming out story for many families to a place where my parents were.

Watch me get married and celebrated my wedding with me and, um, and to watch when my father was live speaking with my husband and how much they enjoyed one another's company.

Roger: There were no two people happier at your wedding than your parents. The smiles on their faces were just, just lit up the entire room in a room full of love and, and happiness.

I, it was so, so remarkable and it's really touching. It makes me think that you probably run into a level of disappointment or, um, a feeling of dejection, maybe, maybe frequently these focus groups and through the research, what do you, what do you do to lift yourself up?

Robert:  It can be hard. It can be hard.

Sometimes these are issues that I care deeply about the clients and the partners that I work with care deeply about them as well. And it can be hard to listen to people who say hurtful, mean spirited, at times racist, homophobic, transphobic things. And I'm reminded about the capacity for, for human change.

I talked a little bit at the very, at the very top of our, of our conversation about my parents and their humble beginnings. You know, my dad, uh, went to school in a second, a racially segregated schoolhouse in Texas because he had Brown skin and he wasn't allowed to go to school with white students. And.

Uh, we may change in this country, and that's no longer legal. There are other ways in which, of course, structural and systemic racism manifest, but change is possible, and the things that we are trying to change today I think are possible to make progress on.

Roger: So what does it feel like when the heart wiring has had a positive impact on others?

Robert:  We do this amazing work where we have the honor of talking to people and we ask them to share their stories as a way to use their stories, to create the change we want to create. I'll give you an example. We're doing work in California to ensure and increase the number of students who get access to financial aid, including students from mixed status families, meaning families in which someone in their family is undocumented and and the student themselves.

Is a legal resident or citizen and we were interviewing a son and his mother and it all came down to making His parents proud of him because they had sacrificed so much To come to the United States to provide a better life for him And he felt it was his responsibility to do as much as he could So you get a good education.

And so I'm watching that and I'm like, you know, ugly crying. And, uh, you know, after the ugly crying stops, I, I've just feel incredibly joyous that I have the honor to be able to hear those stories and that I can work with amazing, with amazing change makers to help, you Accelerate progress on the issues that they're working on and issues that I also care about myself.

So it brings me great joy

Roger: I love that word joy. It comes a lot of emotion It comes up a lot when we're talking about people's superhero powers and and purpose And I I want to ask you how is your superhero power of heart wired? connected with your purpose

Robert:  my purpose for However, many more years I do this You Is to create as much progressive social change that allows people, um, to have happy, healthy lives to live in safety and indignity to have a healthy planet that sustains life.

That is my purpose. Um, that is why I started wonder. That's why my entire career has been focused on social change communications. And I feel incredibly fortunate that I just happened to have had this moment where I realized there was a particular way that I needed to do that, that there was a particular contribution that I had to give to people who were doing this hard, hard, hard work on a daily basis.

So heartwired and purpose for me are synonymous. I do heartwired. I help advocates and activists heartwire their communications. In order to create the world That and the vision of the world that we believe is possible And that is how I that is what I see as my calling and as my purpose

Roger: I think I referred to you as a global change maker.

How do you feel about that title?

Robert:  Oh, it's weird. Um, I I probably would not refer to myself as that. I I care about a lot of issues a joy of being a consultant for social change and having my own firm as I get to work on a lot of stuff and I care about a lot of issues. And when I worked inside nonprofits, I loved every bit of it, but I also felt like, Oh, I am, I am focusing entirely on HIV prevention or, Oh, I'm focusing entirely on protecting the environment and combating climate change.

And. I have, I have lots of issues. And so that felt very limiting. So when I discovered the opportunity to be a consultant for social change, about 20 years ago, I was like, Oh, this is my calling. I don't have to pick and choose which issues I focus on. So I really actually see myself as a, the sidekick, like the change makers are the folks who actually are doing the work on a day to day basis.

And it takes a lot of emotional fortitude to work on a lot of the issues that my clients have. Uh that our clients work on like i'm kind of more like hermione maybe then than harry potter Uh, I help, you know, I have some some could some cool witchy way uh ways that I figured out on how to how to accelerate social change and i'm happy to To provide that as an opportunity for collaboration so that we can make change Uh today not 20 years from now.

Roger: So what do you know to be true about heart wired?

Robert:  What I know to be true is that people do have the capacity to change in so many different ways, um, to be better partners, uh, to change how they, the story that they tell themselves and what they see as possible and to change their, uh, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and ultimately their behaviors.

on a range of issues and it is also hard to do. Progress is hard. If it was easy, we would have figured it out, but it's possible. It requires patience. Um, it requires perseverance, uh, and most importantly, it requires listening to the things that are preventing people from being supportive and then harnessing that understanding and leveraging it to craft a new way to communicate with them that meets their emotional needs and helps them to manage their emotions.

The internal conflict that they are experiencing changes possible. People can change. It is hard. That is what I know to be true.

Roger: So what did you believe early on about heart wiring that you've come to learn is to be not true

Robert:  when I would craft messages. 20 years ago, 30 years ago, I crafted messages that met my emotional needs.

I talked about it from my vantage point. And those messages may not be the messages that are going to work most effectively for people who are very different from me, for people who are, um, A conflicted Christian auntie who is like, I, I love my, my niece, or I love my nephew who's queer, but I also go to church every day and I'm hearing this other set of messages and I don't know how to reconcile that.

And so the ability to take a step back. And to understand what people need. Um, we talk about it as equipping people to arrive at a set, at a shared understanding of the solutions that will move us forward. And so what we mean by that is to equip someone to arrive at a shared conclusion is allowing them to use their own value systems.

Their own belief systems, their own lived experiences. To make a decision that is different than us telling someone how to think and how to feel. So I have, I have great hope. I'm, I'm like, you know, I, because I do audience research, I call myself a, um, a real, you know, realistic optimist. Because I both hear the mean spirited things that people will say on a regular basis in focus groups or when I'm, I'm leading interviews and I have to keep a poker face when I'm interviewing folks.

And I also see the pathways that are possible to get people to move toward greater support. All of that. Tells me to change as possible that it is hard. That's the realist part of me, but the optimistic part is I see the ways in which when you meet the emotional needs of your audiences, how you can move them toward a path of greater support, especially when you're giving them the psychological tools to calm.

They're downstairs brain so that they have access to compassion, empathy, reflection, etc.

Roger: So Robert, are you ready for the lightning round?

Robert:  I'm, I'm on pins and needles.

Roger: Okay, fill in the blank. Heart wiring is?

Robert:  Meeting the emotional needs of your audiences to be open to different ways of being in the world.

Who in your life provides heart wiring for you? I do. Oh my gosh, my husband on a regular basis provides heart wiring to me.

Roger: One of the most empathetic, compassionate, um, peaceful, tranquil people I know. Now I know you get to see the full 360 and it might not look like that all the time.

Robert:  It does most of the time.

He, he is, he is the uh, He's a person who comes out on top in most stories in our household.

Roger: Is there a practice or routine that helps you grow, nurture, or renew your ability to provide heart wiring?

Robert:  I start my day with at least 15 minutes of, of yoga and meditation. And I end, uh, with a practice of compassion.

Um, and, and compassion is, is unique and different from empathy and empathy is feeling compassion. What a person is experiencing, like in walking in their shoes, compassion is slightly different in that you take that feeling. And you're willing to do something about it to help them out in some way. If I get caught up in empathy and the empathy loop, I might, and this is something that my husband is a psychotherapist helped me to understand.

If he, if he gets trapped in the empathy loop. where he starts crying because his client is crying, he can't be an effective psychotherapist in the clinical setting. He has to show empathy, but then he needs to transition to compassion. So when I know that I'm going to be doing some qualitative interviews, or I'm going to be working with advocates who are really frustrated about The state of the issue that they're working on.

Uh, I it's really important, especially on those days for me to, to do my medic, my meditation practice around compassion and thinking about those folks and what, what they're going to need for me, um, and how it's, how I show up in those settings. And it's, and it's useful for me as well, because it helps me to manage my own emotions as well.

Roger: Is there a book or a movie that you recently watched or read that would, that you would recommend that has heart wiring as a theme?

Robert:  I'll say two things. Um, was really moved by, um, by origin, which came out in theaters the beginning of the year about the work of Isabella Wilkerson. And then that actually inspired me to read cast, which is an amazing.

Um, an amazing body of research and work that's very aligned with a lot of the work that we do. It helps helps me to give another layer of understanding of how, um, how other ring happens in the work that we do, how people will push people into an out group based on the differences that they see with those with those folks.

So highly recommend both the movie. Um, and, uh, and the book. Yeah. So what, what's one thing that gets in your way of

Roger: heart wiring?

Robert:  I said earlier that I'm impatient to create change. I want to, I want to see the change. And yet I also recognize and have learned that that change begins with a single step.

And the important thing is to get that step started, to get started on that, on that journey.

Roger: So Robert, if a listener wanted to ask you a question or follow you, where would you point them to?

Robert:  Uh, you can check out and learn more about wonder at our website, which is wonder for good. com under F O R good.

com. You can email us at curiosity at wonder for good. Do you want to learn more?

Roger: No, thank you. And I remember when you launched your company and you came out with a name and I don't think I've come across a better name for our company. I mean, I, I just, I just, it's sung to me from the very first time you mentioned it and over the years I've gotten to know and better understand the work that goes into what you do and the name even just like, it just.

It just seems so right. Tell me a little bit about the thinking that went into the name and why it's not Robert Perez communications LLC or something like that.

Robert:  I've never named the firm after me because then it, it, it, it would be all about me. And the work that we do is amazing. It's collaborative and it's based on a, an amazing set of individuals who have extraordinary superpowers and, uh, And I'm a, I'm a, I'm a believer in the Avengers model where you need lots of different superpowers, not the, the singular, uh, one superhero.

So Wonder allows us to, to bring a collaborative approach to social change because we need lots of different strengths. And I love the double meaning and continue to this day to love the double meaning of wonder. It means both to be curious about the world around us, to be curious about the audiences who support we need to make change.

And. When we succeed, it is amazing. It is awe inspiring. It's wonderful. So it's meant to be both aspects of that.

Roger: And I love how another one of your values of humility came out in that response because, and, and, and rightly so you're singing the praises of your, your collaborators, your co creators, the people you work with to make change happen.

Um, And I, I, I know that's true. I also know that you bring you're an equal partner and all of that and I'll go back to my original statement about global change maker. You're actually making that change. It's going to make the globe a better place to be. So, thank you for. The work you are doing for the bravery and courage and vulnerability that you approach with it.

I'll throw in humility in there. I don't have to be humble as I brag about you. Um, so thank you for doing all that work and thank you for spending the time to share with us your superhero power. I really appreciate getting, yeah, I've known you for over 30 years. I got to know you even more today and I really appreciate that.

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Robert:  Thank you roger. Thank you for this amazing interview series. I appreciate it. It's been a fun conversation

Roger: It sure has you take care. We'll talk soon. Bye. Bye

again, Robert, for your wisdom and for the work that you do really appreciate you coming on and sharing that with us. Now, the question I'm asking myself after this conversation is where can I be more compassionate and patient? When it comes to applying my superhero power, what do you know to be true? Is that three blue pens production?

I'm your host, Roger Kastner. We recording on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish and Suquamish people to discover the ancestral lands of the indigenous people whose land you may be on, go to native hyphen lands. ca. Okay. Be well, my friends.