Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Doctor Akiki, welcome aboard. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Thanks, Ari. I'm excited to be here.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: We were just talking, and I was in the middle of telling you the story, and this is so crazy. I just had. We had to, you know, hit the record button. So let me. Let me tell you the story. Okay. I met a. I met a, you know, a person that. The fact that I'm hesitating to call them a friend is already a bad signal. So I meet this lady.
She studied, not studied. Her child basically was at preschool with my son. And the way she introduced herself was, do you also hate Trump?
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Yes. And so many. So many red flags with that.
We were just talking about how frustrated we were about, let's say, the State of the Union, right? Why. Why the hell are we so separated from each other? Why are we talking about who we hate? Like, why. Why does this make sense?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, it. It doesn't make sense.
The one thing that I have disliked the most about just this election and previous elections, but even this one is just so much discord and the amount of disdain that a lot of people show for each other and the amount of hate for people having differences of views on political topics and stuff like that. But I've always.
I've always been under the assumption that we just should not treat each other the way that we have treated each other, you know, especially during this past election. And I'm only talking about that because it's just so fresh from where we sit at right now. But I think that a lot of times what happens is we feel personally attacked when somebody thinks differently than us, especially when we can't conceptual. Conceptualize it on an intellectual level. Right. When we can't conceptualize something on an intellectual level, we default to emotions.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: And this is so. So this is golden. I love it. I honestly haven't heard a lot of people kind of explain this the way that you're explaining. I think it's so, so important. So I want to break this down because I think that we as a nation would be so much better if Everybody. If a 10% of the people more, could do what you're just explaining right now. So what do you mean by conceptualized on an intellectual level?
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah, like, I think that inherently we all have a certain level of understanding and smarts of the world, right? Like, we understand the world from, you know, an intellectual level based on just past, you know, past formation, past foundation of what we've learned, whether it's been school or in the streets of the hard knocks or whatever. We all understand the world from a, on a brain level, meaning like we can think and say, oh, that makes sense to me. Oh, that does not make sense to me. Right. And so I think that when, what happens is when we start thinking about something and we start thinking about something like a values or what people think when they think about who to vote for an election, a lot of times we pit that against our intellect. What we can understand to be true. Right? And a lot of that is also wrapped up in what we value to be true as well. But when we can't think about how somebody else thinks, like they literally think that that's true. When we can't conceptualize that that's true for us, we then default to emotions to. And then these emotions then come out in terms of actions. It's called the think feel do model, right. It's a cognitive behavioral. If you ever heard of cognitive behavioral therapy or cognitive behavioral coaching, right? What we think we then feel and what we feel is what we then display and how we behave. And so a lot of us, when we can't think or when we thinking something is wrong, it then makes us feel a certain way. And those feelings produce actions. And what we're seeing is the, the fallout of all of the actions and the actions result in us, you know, cursing people out. I mean, the amount of rhetoric I've seen on social media, I have to turn it off. Like, I literally can't, I can't read it because it's, it's so bad even on both sides, right?
It doesn't matter who you voted for. It's bad on both sides. The amount of, you know, name calling and just people not believing, you know, in the other person or people attacking somebody else's character based on what they believe in is unreal to me.
And I think for me, I have to sit back and be like, I know what I believe in myself for myself. And I choose not to partake in that. Right. Because we do have a choice. Like I have a candidate that I chose that I believe in. Right. And I was, I was very much hurt and disappointed and all of those things. At the end of the day, I really, really was. But I chose not to attack people's character, right? And just for the fact that they believe something different than me. And I also believe in somebody higher. And I just said, I have to believe that God is going to take care of it.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: I appreciate that.
This is really, really interesting. So here's what I Understood from you. Right.
We're asking ourselves basically, who are we going to vote for? But that's not the question we're really asking ourselves. Right. You talked about social psychology. What's happening is question substitution.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: And the question that. So really what question substitution means is that we think we're asking ourselves one question, but our brain is actually asking ourselves another question. And what is that question? Well, it can be varied, but many times the question is, who do we like?
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: So, you know, we think that we're asking ourselves logically, who would be better for the country or, you know, who has the better values or who this, that or another. Like, there's a lot of intelligent questions, like you said, that we would like to ask ourselves. We're asking ourselves, who do we like many times and varied other questions. That's called question substitution. Widely studied. You know, father of the science, Daniel Kunman, Amos Tversky, highly recommend you go and read Thinking Fast and Slow. But today I want to focus on what that process looked like, because you beautifully described it. So we ask ourselves a different question, and then basically we. Somebody else has a different opinion, they like something else. And now we're basically fighting about what we like. Why does it turn into a personal attack? Why does it become so emotional?
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You know, we all have a set of values that we live by. Right. We all, you know, whether you think family is most important or whether the next person thinks money is most important, we all live by a set of values. And these values inform a lot of times who we think we are.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Right. And why it turns the way that it ultimately turns, which is negative, is because what is what we feel is being attacked is our person, who we think we are and how we are to be able to show up in this world giving the set of rules that may or may not be implemented, you know, for us, how these are going to affect us. Right.
You said something that was really, really, really important. You know, we ask ourselves, like, inherently, who do we like? You know, who do we like the most? Right. At the end of the day, and depending on what side you sit on, when we think about intellect, most people can't understand why you would like that person.
Right.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Oh, my God. That's a. That's a whole different can of worms. Why do we like the people? Do we like. Oh, my God.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: You know, but there is something in us. Like, what's interesting is, like, you. We can even go into, like, sales psychology. Right?
[00:08:46] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: We buy from people we know and like. And you Know that kind of thing. And so when we think about this in election and when we think about, like, how somebody could then, like the other candidate, we then start to question their values and who they are. I love that, like, inherently who they are.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: I love that. That is so. That is so insightful. Thank you. I've been waiting for you because having this discussion with, you know, is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Okay, so. So I, I agree with you. I deeply agree with you. We're basically. When in certain topics. Right. Is what we stand for. And you, you called it out, I think correctly. It's the values that we stand for. Right. That's really what's at stake here. And I think there's very few things that people resonate more with than who I am. What do I stand for? What's important to me, what are my values? And if that's called to challenge, you're right. It's a deeply, deeply emotional thing. I want to completely go off the reservation here and ask maybe a tinfoil hat question.
Yeah. Not aliens or anything like that. Why the hell are our elections surrounded around two opposing values? And let me, let me crystallize the point.
The right for. And we're going to go close to the danger zone, but we're not going to enter it.
The right for. The importance of life is clearly, nobody would say life is not important.
Bodily autonomy, nobody would say that is not important. But in our election, somehow we go to this gray zone of, well, you know, what's the exact line? And then we have, you know, life and death fights, like gladiators around, well, what's the line like? Is it here? Is it here? Is it here? Is it here? And to me, this seems ridiculous because it's an ethical point. It's a clash of values. I don't know how anybody could say there's a clear point, because it just seems to be an ethical issue. Like, oh, what do you want to do? Do you want to kill six people over here or do you want to kill your gr. Grandmother? Right. The classical ethical question of, you know, pull the lever on the chain track and it's got to hit somebody. It's like, no, those are both bad situations. I do not want to engage with this conversation, but it seems like our election is put into those points of. There's no good answer. Why is that how we have our elections? As opposed to. These are incredibly, incredibly difficult questions. We should be maybe thinking about something else.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I mean, I, I often think that as well, because I do feel like there's this, this gray, you know, area. And I don't think anybody would say, yeah, you know, you should, you should just kill people, kill babies, kill, you know, like, allow these things to happen. And then also like, you know, why can't I make the decisions over my own body based on my own life and you know, the values that I hold and just that those things, why our country is set up this way, you know, I would, you know, tend to say that honestly, I've always seen that the way that we've been set up in our country is there's always winners and losers, unfortunately. Right.
And I do believe that, you know, in the sense that in that circumstance and in life, everybody can't always win in the same way. However, I think that there's always ways for us to be able to reach across the aisle and try to be able to compromise on different issues. Now, in that particular issue, I think that it's a tough one because if you're on, if you have a lived experience, I think you feel one way, right? Like, you know, as a woman, I have a lived experience of wanting to be able to, you know, have control over my own life. Right. Because then we start talking about control, right? When, when we start letting other people or states or governments or whatever make decisions for our personal lives, right? Like what we do on a day to day personal basis, then I think that's where we get a little hairy in, in, in things. And then I also think there can be, we think about, well, war is the double standard and all these things. But at the end of the day, we then turn around and say, well, life is life and we all want to preserve life. And so I think that what I've seen is that a lot of people who potentially may want, you know, and may fight for women's rights, they still feel like life is life. Like, right. Both can exist at the same time. And I think that our, our country does not understand both end like that. That that concept is not available, I feel like, to our country when two things can exist in the same realm and you can still have internal, internal battles about where you sit with that, because one of those more than likely outweighs for you.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: I think that's absolutely delightful. And here's my argument. If we would all just agree that both things are true, as you said, right. Both things can exist in the same time, then we could maybe get away from having these gladiator fights about whose values are more important and maybe move to the, okay, let's look at the more complicated environment of how do we actually solve this for more people? What is the minutia? What is the details? What makes more sense and, and not lead to situations that are, are horrifying, you know, on, on either side of the picture. But I think I really appreciate that.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Goes down to like, you know, control. Like our country has always been predicated on power and control.
And as long as those, to me things that are going to continue to be improved in play, somebody's always going to want the power. Right, But I think there is a, I think there, like you just said, there is a better way, but people would have to, you know, step back and say, okay, let me put the greater good ahead of, ahead of power and control.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: Right. You say our country, but is it just our country or. Because I don't even know if I want to go down this rabbit hole. But we talked about the show being the art of going down rabbit hol. But I would make an argument, and keep me honest here, I don't see any country in the world that power is not a main thing. I would argue this is the human condition.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: True, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: So here's another argument that I would make in some ridiculous way, this idea that we have two opposing forces and each is kind of at their somewhat end of the spectrum. Those opposing forces create a balance and they keep each other in check. So I would say, you know, there is a beauty in our system from that perspective, that we're balancing each other out. And you know, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the wisdom of the Commons, but basically it's this idea that if you, if you poll, you know, a thousand people on a question, that the average of the answers kind of gets you in kind of in the right direction and it kind of cancels out the extremes.
So I would say there is also beauty in our system. Right. Because if you want to talk about abuse of powers, and obviously that's the dictatorships in the world who. It's one person, one party, one ideal. And really there isn't the struggle of ideals. So I think there is a beauty in the struggle of ideals, but we're trying to take it to the next level and ask, well, how do we do this better? So with that in mind, here's my question.
You know, we're probably not going to become, most of us is not going to become politicians and try and change the world, but we can change our everyday interactions with people.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: How do I, as an individual, kind of recognizing the things that we've spoke about today. How do I do a better job in changing my interactions from these explosives? I hate your guts. You're not even human to something else. What could that look like?
[00:17:21] Speaker B: You know, I think that all interactions should start with curiosity and end with curiosity. See, here's the thing, right?
If I am curious, then that means I don't think I already have the answer, right? And if I'm curious, then that means I'm flexible and I'm open enough to hearing your point of view, even though I might not agree with you. Right?
But we can at least have a conversation around it. And what's interesting is, during this whole, you know, election cycle, I had tons of conversations. I mean, my clients are all shades of the rainbow, and I've had so many conversations with people, and I'm able to listen to their points of view and try to. I try to put myself in. In their. In their world, in their mind, to see what they see. I didn't always get it right, you know, and it didn't necessarily, in the end, change, you know, my mind completely, but I realized that they are human and they believe certain things too, right? And so for me, I was able to be curious enough to just see what they. What they saw and to begin to try to build a deeper understanding in a relationship. Now, I ain't saying we BFFs or nothing like that, but we all have to work together in these organizations, and I think that it's important that we give each other enough, even a little bit of curiosity to be like, I hear you. You know, I hear you. I don't necessarily agree with you, but I understand that that's what you, you know, that's what you agree with. Right? And then I think, you know, at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves, what's the goal? So, as a coach, right?
Anytime I get into a coaching session, the first question that I'm asking my clients are, so, what do you want to talk about today? What's the goal of our session? Right? I think a lot of times when we go into these conversations with people, we go in with the mindset that I'm going to change you and I'm going to change your mind about who you are, what your values are, what you. What your values have been since you was a child. I'm gonna change you in one whole conversation because I believe that my way is the right way, and that's faulty thinking. We're not going to do that first for anybody in one conversation. Right. And so I think that we have to understand what is our motive going into these conversations. And then also, do we actually really want to build a relationship? Because I know for a fact when I do have a relationship, Ari, with somebody, I can actually come to them and have difficult conversations and say, hey, I don't really agree what you just said. I mean, it made me feel some kind of way and I would love for us to have a conversation about it. But if I don't know you and if I have put you on the do not know list and like the naughty list over here, then I'm not going to even be curious enough and open enough to even get to know you at all. And so I've already written you off.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I will, I will, you know, put a warning right. To everybody who are. Is brave enough to go down this path.
I miss the days where I was a 20 year old arrogant piece of shit who knew it all, who had all the answers. Because it's easy to feel good and live a good life when you think you have all the answers.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: True.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Going down this, you know, 20 year path, you know, I'm, I'm past 40 now.
There is a discomfort in having your ears and heart open to opinions and thoughts that are different to yours because you're, you come to this position where you don't. Well, you know, I, I am not entirely right. There is a struggle of values here. There are lived experiences, which I think is incredibly important, you said that before. That have molded me. But other people have different lived experiences. And one of the, one of the things that I think was so interesting in social psychology is this idea of egocentric bias which is really. Oh, I think that everybody around me has had the same lived experience as me, so they feel and think the same. No, no, untrue. Right. And just understanding that and then being, as you said, curious to what is your lived experience?
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: What has molded you? And then you come to this point where you're like, oh my God, if I would have gone through that, would I think that way? And the answer can often be yes, yes, yes, you would. So it's, it's, it is a dangerous path, I would say to. I don't know if I'd call this enlightenment or whatnot, but the journey of curiosity is not, does not necessarily have a happy ending when it comes to, you know, being, you know, feeling highly confident because really you are opening your heart to uncertainty and ambiguity and to empathy of, you know, your Fellow man or woman. You are. So, so just be careful. But highly, highly recommend. Everybody does this.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: It is. But, you know, it's kind of like, you know, Brene Brown talks about, you know, the power of vulnerability. Right. I think, I think there's a lot in that. Because what I see is that we have a lot of people, and she talks about this in her book, that some people are in the game. Like, if I'm being vulnerable with you, you know, be, you know, and I'm able to share where my. Where I come from, my lived experience or, you know, how I, you know, how I view something, even though I know it might be different than yours, but I'm sharing it in a way that is genuine. And I'm not, you know, yelling, screaming and all that kind of stuff. I just really want to share and I really want to hear from you. We're in the game. There's a lot of people who sit on the sidelines who just talk about people. They throw insults and you ain't even got your dang on picture on social media or your real name. No, you're not in the game and you don't get to say something. But these are the people and these are the voices that we hear and they ring loud. But they are cowards because they're not willing to put themselves in a vulnerable situation and really talk about the real issues of the world, the country, all of those things. And so I say, if you are those people, come out of the shadows and then talk to me.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know if that's going to happen.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: Probably not.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: But here's what I would say. I would say you're calling it in the game, but let's define that. What does that mean? Because I, I think there's something incredibly important here.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that means, like, you are willing to put your views, put your. Your stance out there, but you're also willing to take what comes from that. Because you gotta understand there's consequences to our actions. A lot of people talk about freedom of speech and stuff like that, right? We have freedom of speech, but there's gonna be consequences. People not gonna like what you say, and then there's gonna be people who love what you say. That's just how the world is. But if you are not even willing to say anything, but you are behind the scenes and you talk, you know, to all your friends and your family and you're like, oh, my God, this is, you know, this is such trash. But you're not willing to have real, healthy conversations with those you work with or whatever, then you're not in the game.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: Yes. And to me, that. That's it. The. You know, what that means is that, you know, what is this game? It's. It's building relationships. Is that a fair statement? Connecting to people.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: It's. It's interacting in, let's say, a meaningful way. And, you know, obviously, you know, being, you know, anonymous, you know, you're not in the game. But here's my point, and I think this is. Was where you were going. Keep me honest. Being vulnerable. Right? Being honest and being curious, those are the things that help you be in the game, because then you're opening yourself to actually interacting with people as opposed to just being a troll, basically.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: Exactly. And I've. I've, you know, done that on so many various occasions, and I was vulnerable. I would open myself up, and it. It produced such beautiful, beautiful interactions between me and other people. But it was because I was brave enough to take that first step and say, hey, this. You know, this is where I'm at. This is how I feel. And I wanted to share that with you, knowing that this might not be the way you feel. And I would love for us to have a conversation, because that's where we gain so much. I mean, I gain respect for people who are willing to do this and to have these conversations. And I also then see that we are more alike than we are different, because I think that's the, you know, that divide. Right. Like, I think people feel like we're more different than we are alike, but we're not. We're more alike than we are different. And it doesn't matter that, you know, I'm a black woman, you a white guy, or, you know, you know, somebody else's LGBTQ community, Muslim, it doesn't matter. All those things. We still all got to sleep. We got to wake up, we got to go to the bathroom. We all feel, you know, we all love. We all need. Have this sense that we need to belong. It's a human need. We all have these things that are in common, which makes us more alike.
But I see that a lot of times these are differences that keep us apart, and it shouldn't, because it's our similarities that should bring us together.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: Yes. You know, I managed a consulting group, an international consulting group, so I had the privilege of traveling all over the world, from China to the middle of the Brazilian forest, a little place called Manaus. I found that people. People are people wherever you go. I Apologize for the cliche, you know, the Press Mode Mode song. But there I had sometimes more in common with a friend that I met in the middle of the Brazilian forest than my neighbors. And what that meant to me is that, you know, the. The borders that, you know, we've created. Right. Land borders and others, they don't mean as much as we think they mean. You can find a fellow human being wherever you go. There's no demons out there. Because we decided that there's a, you know, a physical border or something.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: Absolutely. I love that. And I remember having just going to visit one of my former neighbors who's a part of the LGBT community, and we sat in her living room talking all night long about our kids and just all these things. And I'm like, I had no idea that we have so many things in common. And it. You would have not known it by looking at us.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: No, definitely not by looking at social media.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Right. And by social media, you wouldn't have known it, but that's what it is. But we won't give ourselves a chance to get to know people who may be different from us based on, I don't know, maybe. I. I see a lot of times that we feel threatened or we feel, you know, like you said earlier, insecure about, you know, ourselves and the fact that we might be wrong.
The fact that we might have. We might have gotten it wrong. And if we got it wrong and we're smart, what does that then say about us?
Right? I think we've grappled with that a lot.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: Oh, my God. I had this discussion with my son yesterday, and we were talking about being, you know, smart and dumb. And so I said, you're an idiot, and you should never. You should never, ever stop to cure yourself as that condition. And you should always have a lifelong journey of curiosity. And I myself am a lifelong idiot. And I explained it to him, and I said, look, it's better to see yourself as a lifelong learner and quote, unquote, an idiot. Right? This is a. I'm using an extreme term for the dramatic effect. But the philosophy here is see yourself as not being the expert, because then you're opening yourself to listen and to learn and as your. Your ignorance as an opportunity for you to become better the entire life. But if you see yourself of, oh, I'm the expert. I'm, you know, I'm the thing, then really, you're closing your ears, closing your heart. So the better philosophy is, no, I have a bigger opportunity to listen and learn than to talk. Really. That was my point. And kind of using dramatic language to, to kind of make it salient.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: No, I love that we used to say, we, me and my husband would say when you don't know something, you fall forward ignorantly. Yes, right. Like you just fall forward ignorantly not knowing. Like you can still research. But I find that sometimes the more I research about something, it gets me less, you know, I'm not able to make as much ground as moving forward sometimes just not knowing. And I'm like, oh, I didn't know that. But look what, look where I ended up because I was more curious to, you know, to make a move and to go forward versus me knowing all, like all the steps and stuff like that. Then I'm like, yeah, that's exactly, that's exactly right.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: That's exactly the paradigm I was talking about before. Having more knowledge and more understanding and more empathy doesn't make it easier. Right. It just gives you the more detail into the grayness and complexity of the world. And then it's like, well, hold on, then I wasn't entirely right. There's more complexity to this and maybe I should be kinder to my fellow person because they're just seeing a different perspective of the grayness in the world.
Dr. Kiki. Oh my God, we're completely out of time.
What a fun this is. This is, you know, if you just run out of time, you're like, where did that, how did that happen? That means you've been having fun.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: I dearly appreciate you and thank you for coming on the show today. I have, you know, yesterday I had an interview and the guy said, I'm going to ask you this question. I asked him this question and he said, oh, that's a stupid question. I was like, oh no, that's never happened to me before. So let's hope that you don't think this following question is a stupid question.
What advice would you give 20 something year old Kiki?
[00:32:13] Speaker B: Oh gosh, let's see. What advice would I give 20 something year old Kiki? Because 20 something year old Kiki had a three year old baby, right? So you could do the math, but I think I would tell her that. Or yeah, tell her that.
Don't let your past mistakes affect you and make you feel less than because you are brilliant and the world absolutely needs your gift.
Don't let those past mistakes make you feel like you are not worthy of the place and the stages and the people and the relationships that God has placed before you. Because all of that is something that was owed to you and meant to you. So keep going. Despite any mistakes that you make.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: Dr. Kiki, thank you so much for coming on our show today.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Thank you, Ari, for having me. It was such a great pleasure being here.
