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The Fifth Floor · Bourbon & Rum

0:00
It was amazing. I can't remember the last time I
0:02
went to a party where that many people sat in one room talking
0:07
to each other. In college, you know, people
0:10
standing around a keg telling lies and stories.
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Hey, so you, that's a, that's some really good sling.
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You're thrown out. Here's a card.
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Why don't you go to the elevator?
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You can go to the second floor. So you get the 5th floor and
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it's like 5 easy chairs and you're you're debating, you
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know, the origin of the universe.
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Welcome to Bourbon and Rum, the podcast dedicated to civil
0:34
conversation. I'm Kent, I like rum and I'm
0:37
from the left side of the aisle. And I'm Kyle.
0:39
I like bourbon. I tend to be a little more
0:41
conservative. We're brothers talking politics
0:44
for bourbon and rum. Well, this is going to be kind
0:58
of a special edition of Bourbon and Rum podcast.
1:02
We, we talked a little bit about it in our last episode, but I'll
1:08
let you kind of introduce it. But I, I guess I would say kind
1:13
of fulfilling or partially fulfilling a a long time dream
1:17
of an experiment. And what I think we'll do is
1:21
kind of talk through that, break that down a little bit and let's
1:25
let's dig into it. So I've always been interested
1:30
in in a good conversation. You know, we grew up can't you
1:35
know, we grew up in a family that talks.
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I mean, you know, it's a four hour talking session.
1:42
I mean, that's what we do. We just sit around and talk.
1:44
And I think one of the best examples of it was Grandma Jane,
1:49
our grandmother lived next door and she had the most random
1:53
assortment of friends. I mean, they, some of these
1:55
people were really oddballs. I mean, she had one that was a
1:58
chain smoker. She had these two other ladies
2:02
that, you know, that had been together a long time, really
2:07
like nursing type people, nice folks.
2:10
She had some lady who was fascinated with the Soviet Union
2:15
at the time and hated the Pope. And, you know, so she had all
2:18
these interesting voices and these people would come over to
2:22
the house and they would sit there and talk for hours.
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And I was was kind of interested in that.
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And then, you know, we got older and got introduced to in
2:34
college, you know, people standing around a keg telling
2:37
lies and stories and the humor. I mean, you're laughing your
2:41
head off and telling these crazy stories or you know, so so all
2:46
these experiences of conversation and I started
2:50
formulating this idea. For most of his life, Kyle's
3:01
been thinking about why some conversations feel like
3:04
lightning in a bottle while others fall flat.
3:07
And he wondered, could you set up a thing where, if you got the
3:12
conditions just right, you could sit down and have a wildly good,
3:16
meaningful conversation? Every room has a center.
3:22
Every center has a guard. Every guard has permission.
3:27
Written soft, but written hard. Well, a couple of weeks ago, he
3:31
decided to find out. Kyle brought 16 people to his
3:37
house, took their phones away for an entire evening and asked
3:41
probing questions. The results were surprising,
3:45
especially to the people involved.
3:48
He's calling it the Sling Tower. And today we're going to hear
3:51
all about it from bourbon and rum.
3:54
I'm Becca. Today's program, the 5th floor.
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Stay with us. Every option pre approved let's.
4:07
Start where it all began, Act 1A bar in Memphis.
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One of the places that it really came to be that I really started
4:19
seeing what it could look like was I once lived when I was
4:23
single, I lived in Memphis, TN and I lived downtown about a
4:27
block away from a little bar called Ernestine and Hazel's,
4:31
and it's still there today. If anybody's knows, Memphis is
4:34
right across from the train station.
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But you know, there was like this, this bar area downstairs,
4:39
it was loud and boisterous. And then upstairs there were a
4:43
few different little rooms and where people could go and hang
4:45
out. Well, there was this one room on
4:47
the corner and it was a, it was kind of a rectangular corner bar
4:52
seats about 5 or 6 people is all.
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And there's a bartender out there and it's kind of quiet.
4:57
You can hear the raucous crowd downstairs, but there's no music
5:00
or anything upstairs. And it was a conversational bar
5:04
and you'd sit there and shoot the breeze with people.
5:07
And it was so cool because you would get people from different
5:10
walks of life. And you know, you're just
5:12
talking, you're talking about all kinds of subject matter and,
5:15
and some of the, there's some really fascinating groups that
5:19
got there. And I got to thinking about
5:22
that. I thought of this concept of
5:25
kind of a, a way to stratify the goods, the good talkers from
5:32
others. And I, I use this term sling all
5:34
the time because had a friend in college, his dad coined this
5:37
phrase to talk about, you know, kind of a, a nice way of saying
5:41
slinging some BS. It's really just I'm slinging
5:43
it, I'm slinging stories, I'm slinging ideas.
5:45
And then it becomes this whole thing about, you know, there's
5:48
good sling, there's great sling, you have all these different
5:51
varieties. But I got to this idea that I, I
5:55
called the sling tower. And the concept is you go in and
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there's a bunch of those little corner bars like at Ernestine
6:00
and Hazel's and you're talking and you're telling stories and,
6:04
and sharing thoughts. And the bartender's like, hey,
6:07
so you, that's a, that's some really good sling you're
6:10
throwing out. Here's a card.
6:11
Why don't you go to the elevator?
6:12
You can go to the second floor and then you're going to go to
6:15
the second floor and it's another group and it's deeper
6:17
conversation. And then you keep doing that
6:19
till you get the 5th floor and it's like 5 easy chairs.
6:23
And you're, you're debating, you know, the origin of the
6:27
universe. It's.
6:28
Not by force, it's. By design.
6:30
It's not pressure, just a line and you move ahead, but never
6:37
outside. Every board already drawn, No
6:42
alarms, no chains, just architecture lanes you don't
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obey. You operate inside a system you
6:51
call faith. You know, so there the the other
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concept here, crazy neighbor has a friend named Devin, a great
7:02
guy, and he his mantra about conversation is always be
7:08
interesting, be interested. And that was really the crux of
7:12
the advice is good conversation is when somebody has something
7:17
interesting to share, but they're also interested in
7:20
others. Every room has a center.
7:23
Every center has a guard. Every guard has permission.
7:28
Written. Soft but written.
7:30
Hard. So Kyle had this dream of
7:33
setting up connections, but to make it work he realized he
7:37
couldn't just throw a party. He really had to engineer it
7:41
carefully. So he created a system that
7:45
moved people through the the house based on how well they
7:49
were talking. Act 2 The sling bracket.
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So we did our first event last night and I scheduled her about
7:59
6-8 weeks ago. We sent to a bunch of our
8:01
friends, we call it Founders Night because this is kind of
8:04
trying this new concept and we wound up getting 16
8:09
participants. And so we had four groups and
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then I picked out a facilitator for each group.
8:16
And then the other thing we did is we had some folks sitting
8:19
around the hot tub outside. We had another facilitator with
8:23
another group. I bought a keg and had people
8:25
run a keg. And that was kind of a throwback
8:27
to my my keg vision of those days.
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And then we had another group, crazy neighbor who I've
8:35
mentioned before has a really cool little bar that he built
8:38
out of his dining room. It's a really intimate kind of
8:40
Speakeasy environment. So we had another group over
8:41
there and then my wife actually took a group for each round in
8:48
her car and they went, drove to the dollar store and picked out
8:51
silly stuff at the dollar store. And you know, the thought is you
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put people in different environments, they have
8:56
different conversations. I gave each of the groups, each
8:59
of the facilitators like a, you know, some starter ideas, which
9:03
some of them used, some of them didn't.
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And the concept is you get these people talking.
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And then at the end of the session, I then pulled the
9:11
facilitators in one by one, and we rated the participants.
9:15
And, you know, kind of like, who is the most talkative?
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Who's the least talkative type of a thing?
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And so then the second round, we grouped together kind of the
9:26
people that were the most talkative in one group and the
9:28
least talkative in the other. And we also segregated by
9:31
gender. So we had two male groups and
9:32
two female groups because we thought, hey, if people were,
9:36
you know, women, for instance, if the ladies are all together,
9:39
that may produce a different conversation.
9:42
And then the third round, what we tried to do is stack the deck
9:45
evenly for each group. And then finally, you know, and
9:50
I, I equate these to floors. The 5th floor is we took five
9:57
folks that we thought would make a good conversation.
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By 10:00 PM, the tournament was over.
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The winners had been chosen, and Kent stepped in to facilitate
10:11
the final round, what they're calling the 5th floor.
10:15
And right away they discovered something that flipped the
10:17
script on what they thought they knew about good
10:19
conversationalists. Act 3.
10:23
The quietest loud room. I wasn't able to make the trip,
10:29
so we did it via Zoom. I got to kind of share in the
10:33
discussion. So I had a little bit of
10:35
background going into this. But even then, you know, I, I'm
10:39
not matching up names or anything.
10:40
I don't, I don't know what I'm getting.
10:42
But you gave me 5 people and we hopped on the Zoom to have the
10:48
podcast. So I approached it with kind of
10:53
a, you know, kind of a, of a journal, you know, kind of the
10:58
Barbara Walters interview sort of thing of these five people.
11:02
This is just an aside. At that same time, you guys were
11:06
having tornadoes and then this was the same night that of the
11:10
White House Correspondents dinner, the the shooter at this
11:14
thing. And I don't know when if you
11:16
ever knew that, but I wasn't going to tell you.
11:19
I didn't. I didn't want to like ruin the
11:20
whole. Evening until everybody got
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their phones at the end of the night.
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Every option pre approved, every limit smoothly moved.
11:29
You feel unique inside the frame, but every angle has.
11:35
Let me set the stage. We're four or five hours into
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this thing. These people have been through
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three rounds of deep intensity. They are the cream of the
11:46
conversational crop, the elite. Let's go into the studio now
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with Jen, Matt, Lanny, Julie and the other Jen.
11:58
They're all friends of Kyle and Crystal.
12:02
Are you Kyle's brother? I am, yeah.
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Yes, the older the. Older and wiser brother.
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Are you shorter or taller? I am shorter, fatter, older and
12:16
wiser. So yeah, you've got the whole
12:18
story. Kent is facilitating, and right
12:22
away he discovers something pretty interesting.
12:25
This has been really fun because this has been a dream of Kyle's
12:28
for 30 years. Before we dig into it, what like
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what's this been like for you? It's kind of.
12:37
I would imagine this is not a typical Saturday evening for
12:40
you. No, no.
12:42
No, Nope. Not a typical list, not at all.
12:45
No, no, no, they. Always say as an introvert, I
12:48
was not looking forward to this. Kyle's invitation said be
12:52
interesting and interested and I was like, I can, I can 100% be
12:57
interested. I cannot guarantee I'll be
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interesting totally because this many people and this sort of
13:02
like choreographed, maybe forced conversation, like, oh, like it
13:08
makes me wanna. But it was so natural and so
13:11
organic and so well planned and we got well in just out of the
13:16
gate, like just from a human connection perspective this
13:19
night. Totally surprised.
13:20
Me. Yeah, I'll say.
13:22
So one of the interesting pieces for me is I've been sitting here
13:25
at my house hanging out all evening, but between each of the
13:29
rounds, the facilitators would meet with Kyle and kind of
13:32
breakdown the round and how it happened.
13:36
And so I've listened into that. So I haven't heard any of your
13:39
conversations through the night, but I've heard these kind of
13:42
responses of the facilitators. I think it's just profound, the
13:47
relative nature of the introverted part of this group.
13:51
I don't want to speak for Kyle, but I think he would say that in
13:55
the initial vision of this, he kind of saw it as it, it seemed
14:02
like the kind of thing that the big talker would dominate.
14:05
And in fact, that was one of the concerns, right?
14:07
That I mean, we we've all been in groups where there's somebody
14:11
who sucks up a lot of the oxygen, if you know what I mean.
14:15
And and yet it turns out that the listeners, we're the ones
14:21
who really distinguish them. And, and and that's, I mean, if
14:24
this wasn't clear, that's why you're, you've been invited to
14:27
this group. You were all people whom the
14:30
facilitators really flagged as really engaging in the
14:33
conversation and the listening, not just jumping in with
14:38
opinions. I think maybe is a common thread
14:41
here. I think so.
14:43
I think we all want to be heard, right?
14:46
Like we all want to, whether like good or bad, we want to
14:50
tell our stories. And so people just want to be
14:53
known and loved. And maybe that's by listening.
14:57
I think it is in large part you know, and so listening is super
15:02
valuable and people don't do it enough.
15:06
I would by far think that I'm the least likely to be the most
15:11
interesting person in the world in the room.
15:16
But I can listen I. Think it's wanting to learn.
15:20
I know that I'm only growing if I'm learning and I can't learn
15:25
from my same bubble and circle on a continual basis.
15:29
So the more you like are forced to learn from other people.
15:32
You can't learn everything. I was a extrovert as a young
15:35
person, but then I started to understand hold on.
15:38
I think that was a cover of hold on.
15:41
I'm not that I would rather be interested, but I'm.
15:45
Ventic Self. Absolutely.
15:53
Well, I was the one that took the people in the car.
15:56
I don't know about you, but some of the funniest instances in my
16:00
life happened like in a car going from Place 80, Place B,
16:05
like whether there's not enough room or somebody, they're just,
16:08
you're crawling over people and it's just a forced intimacy, I
16:11
think. Let's step out of the studio for
16:14
a minute. That's Crystal, Kyle's wife.
16:17
She was one of the facilitators. She got to take her groups off
16:21
site for a trip to the dollar store.
16:25
Crystal Was it easy to get the ball rolling in a car ride?
16:29
I do feel like just from hearing something from some of the other
16:32
facilitators, my situation was a lot easier to it was just was
16:39
like a more of a natural flow. People were just chit chatting
16:42
in the car talking about TikTok dances or just it was just like
16:47
hanging out in the car and one they didn't know where they were
16:50
going. So that was good.
16:53
What I did find it hard to do is Kyle gave us all a bunch of
16:59
prompts and things and at 1.1 round he wanted the
17:02
conversations to get deeper and just given it, it felt really
17:08
unnatural to be driving to a dollar store and ask somebody
17:13
like, what's your biggest fear? You know, like it just didn't
17:17
seem like a it didn't. It just it didn't seem to fit.
17:21
And even then, if I had gotten into a deep conversation, I
17:28
would have welcomed that. But they people in the car made
17:31
a good comment or a good point that not being able to look at
17:35
someone in the eye when you're having a deep conversation
17:40
really minimizes your comfort level of they're talking to the
17:45
back of my head, you know, so. So yeah, I know that.
17:50
We do the car again, but. Although if I could just throw
17:53
in, I think the car is a really interesting dynamic because
17:59
sometimes that indirectness of you're both looking at the road,
18:03
maybe this is more for like the one-on-one conversation, but.
18:06
Yeah, OK, Back into the studio. As this outside observer role,
18:12
which is kind of fun in this whole thing, just got to be the
18:15
neutral party kind of watching from afar, but listening to the
18:20
facilitators talking. I mean, these were three rounds,
18:24
were they 45 minutes or an hour of conversation in each round?
18:28
I think it about that, right? And the facilitators would come
18:33
back and talk about like some of the things that were shared at
18:38
the depth of the conversation. And I was like, Oh my Lord, you
18:42
get, I mean, you're not all strangers to one another, but
18:48
but a, a very eclectic group. And it sounds like even in
18:51
these, in these brief vignettes, some pretty profound personal
18:56
things were shared and some topics were discussed.
18:59
Can you talk about that a little bit?
19:02
Yes, yes to what you said and I desperately want to communicate
19:07
that to my kids that like those conversations can be had.
19:13
We left our phones at the door and like, I don't know you, I
19:17
don't know you, I don't know you.
19:18
Like, like we had great conversations, you know, and it
19:22
is a it is possible to look somebody in the eye and have
19:26
those conversations and it be meaningful.
19:30
And I hope that they growing up in the age of technology and see
19:35
past that and value face to face.
19:38
Yeah. Like, people are cool and they
19:41
have stories and like, I want to hear them, you know?
19:44
So. And it turns out we're all
19:45
thirsty for human. Yeah, totally, totally starved
19:49
for it like we are. But also like, I want my kids to
19:53
learn that. I really do.
20:05
The second group that we were in for, for us, I guess it was
20:09
perfect, was gender. Yeah.
20:13
And it was crazy for men like to hear the unified message that
20:19
all men struggle with and right, it all kind of had the same
20:24
focus of the things that you're wrestling with like, am I good
20:28
enough? Am I am I doing being a good
20:31
enough dad and business and all of the things.
20:34
Yeah. That was a cool part of this
20:38
that was splitting up in the gender part too, because there's
20:41
definitely creates a little bit of a different sharing.
20:43
Yeah, when you break up especially maybe way more for
20:46
the guys, I would think than oh so women.
20:49
But you guys are not real real comfortable.
20:51
I don't think our. Conversation was super deep, but
20:53
yeah, yeah, I definitely probably shared something in
20:56
that group that I probably wouldn't have done if it was in
20:59
the other, if we'd have kept the same cadence of mix and stuff.
21:03
So that was that was a cool part of mixing it up.
21:06
I, I wasn't in your, your group. So you came very vulnerable in
21:12
your group, right with something.
21:14
I don't know what that was. You don't have to share that
21:16
here, but does that have a influence on you being here?
21:20
I would assume I'm being up here in this room.
21:24
Maybe. I don't know.
21:26
I bet I'm I, I did the same thing, right?
21:29
Because I'm like, uh oh, the cat's out of the back.
21:33
Of the I probably shared something that was a little bit
21:36
more out there, but. So maybe like the vulnerability
21:39
is yeah, yeah, there, right. Everybody longs for that, right?
21:43
Because it's really, you know, it's really.
21:44
To assume, right, you know, young men struggle with that
21:47
more than men, you know? Like I got it all together, you
21:50
know? And I'm definitely the type that
21:53
has way less friends. Although it may seem like I have
21:56
a lot of friends, but there's only a couple in the circle of
21:59
trust and in sharing feelings and things like that.
22:03
But I'm also, I am uncomfortable sitting in a room talking with
22:09
all women, as weird as that sounds, as well as sitting in a
22:11
room talking about guys stuff with a bunch of guys.
22:13
And I think that's just a lot from how I grew up moving a lot
22:16
and kind of adaptability and weird things like that.
22:19
But so it was, it was a cool again, that was a cool part of
22:22
breaking out in a group of just splitting up, sharing something.
22:25
I think it says a lot about you as a listener.
22:28
You can listen to anybody, men, women.
22:31
And it's weird, the older you get too, you obviously everybody
22:34
has more experiences and you meet more people that have had
22:37
more experiences. And in some respects, I don't
22:40
know that they get more interesting.
22:41
And you're like, yeah, that's a great story that I could learn
22:44
from that. But the you know what we get
22:46
just the more if we run into different stories.
22:49
Like I have girlfriends that are in my life that I met when I was
22:53
10 and I have probably 5 or 6 just writer dies.
22:58
One of them's here tonight. Like I have the best friends in
23:01
the history of the world. They are the loves of my life.
23:04
But you become too over time. Like you, you want to connect
23:08
with with others, but I'm also not going to connect with 75
23:13
people. Then I don't invest.
23:15
Like these are my people like you.
23:18
You become selective. An intimate bond with yeah.
23:22
But what allows you to get to that reflective state?
23:24
Because I would be curious if this same thing occurred with a
23:28
group of 20 year olds with 30 year olds, with a 40 year old,
23:31
right? We're not all the same age, but
23:33
we're on the same cohort as a general statement.
23:36
So I think the fact that we become selective is because
23:38
we've taken the time to reflect. Yeah, so true.
23:53
One of the things that he's always set as the objective of
23:57
this is good sling, you know, good conversation.
24:01
But as this process has unfolded and he's narrowed down and built
24:06
this process, one of the really challenging things is what does
24:13
good sling mean? What does good conversation
24:16
mean? And I, I mean, I'm hearing a
24:20
little of that with you right now, but in some ways that's
24:24
kind of the essence of the question, right?
24:25
What makes good conversation? Connection makes good
24:30
conversation. That's good.
24:32
I mean, I, I think even early on in one of our first groups, the
24:35
first question, you know, we're just humans living a very
24:38
similar experience and everyone has their stories.
24:42
Everyone has a story, everyone's slaying Dragons and effects you
24:46
definitely. But we have like a human
24:48
experience together. And I think even early in our
24:52
sort of sessions, we had some connective tissue.
24:55
I think it helped too, knowing Kyle and knowing his
24:59
genuineness. Yeah.
25:01
And uniquely, though I don't since I don't know them as well,
25:04
there's some transfer of that from Louie, but just the way he
25:08
wrote everything out. And I was like.
25:10
He's committed to this. Totally about it, Yeah.
25:14
So I'm like anybody who's that passionate.
25:15
About trying to make something work.
25:17
It's worth buying into. To yes, yes.
25:21
So funny you brought it but I'm not a details person.
25:23
I my wife was asking me what we were going to do last night in
25:27
bed and I was like, I don't know you know more about this than I
25:32
she, but I was the one that that accepted.
25:35
Right. So she, she's going through this
25:37
like at 11:30, I'm like, you know, groggy.
25:40
And she's like, I, I don't know if we're ready for this.
25:43
I'm like. It's Kyle, Yeah.
25:49
I didn't get the head count, but when you all self identified as
25:53
introverts, what proportion of the five of you?
25:57
I think all 5. I'm.
25:59
Probably borderline. But definitely borderline.
26:02
The older I've gotten, like you do more tests, right?
26:05
There's a. More.
26:07
Introverted fuels my fuel tank, yeah.
26:11
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I put myself in that
26:15
category, but I think that the the most operative definition
26:20
there is does it burn or give you energy, right.
26:24
It I can function very extroverted when I need to, but
26:30
it it's at a cost of energy and some people just thrive on that.
26:35
In in the groups that you were in, was it obvious?
26:41
Was it obvious who was more of an introverted bent versus an
26:45
extrovert? And how did that play out in
26:48
your groups? I think I think it was obvious
26:51
in some circumstances who is more comfortable speaking up and
26:55
who isn't. Also that Kyle had made plans
26:58
for facilitators, helps to move things along when perhaps
27:03
someone is taking too much time or someone is not speaking up
27:09
and making sure that they get engaged in the conversation.
27:12
So I think having really intentional facilitators helped
27:15
to sort of bridge the gap. The way the the conversation was
27:18
facilitated, it was like, OK, I yeah, all right, here we go.
27:22
But I wouldn't inherently be forthright, I guess, if there
27:26
wasn't some fuel there first. So it was done.
27:29
Well, I get fuel by observing. So I don't know if you'll know
27:33
what strength finders is, but one, one of mine kind of the
27:36
individualization and the relater kind of top five.
27:40
Both of those like I get energy just kind of listening and
27:43
trying to connect and see what makes people tick.
27:45
I think sometimes they can come across as introverted and I feel
27:49
introverted, but just 'cause I'm soaking things in and just kind
27:52
of observing and, and then once kind of that make that
27:56
connection, then it kind of starts to open up.
27:59
So in a shorter time span with a smaller group, it's hard to for
28:03
me sometimes to immediately open up, but I think it's over time.
28:06
I've kind of got used to it, but again, it was a safer group.
28:10
There was the connection with Kyle, so it was kind of a little
28:12
bit safer to without having figured everything out.
28:17
I've heard a couple of things just mentioned here, but one
28:20
thing that really struck me was one of the facilitators came
28:23
back in, I think after the second round and said five
28:29
different people have said some version of my kids need this or
28:35
need to do something like this. And I'm thinking.
28:38
So a couple questions for you. First of all, there is a, I'm
28:43
not putting ages on anybody, but there is somewhat of a
28:46
generational homogeneity here, right?
28:49
You're, you're within brackets of each other.
28:54
What, what, what would this look like if this was a, an average
29:01
age, 20 years younger? And how much does your history
29:07
and experience, how does that color this experience?
29:11
And does that sentiment resonate that our kids need this kind of
29:16
interaction? Yes and yes.
29:20
I would have been incapable of this at 25.
29:23
Yeah, I think about it like my kids are 201818 and 14 and so
29:30
I'm like, but like I didn't have any of this when I I said to one
29:37
of the groups outside, I can't call my mom and be like, how did
29:41
you navigate social media or the phones or whatever because we
29:46
didn't have that. And so we are we're navigating
29:51
it like first, right. And so like, I don't know what
29:56
I'm doing and I'm trying to do my best and like I'm hoping that
29:59
it just like, I don't know, there's grace there.
30:03
I say that a lot. So I don't know, it's a lot.
30:08
It's a lot to parent. I feel like being the first
30:11
generation phone mom. If you'd asked me that question
30:17
two years ago, before our oldest son went to college, I would
30:20
have 100% said he needs this, he's not going to survive and he
30:23
needs something like this right now.
30:24
He's going to get eaten alive. And something happened when he
30:28
went to college and I am sure there was something we did, but
30:32
grace of God, whatever, you know, all the prayer, all that
30:35
kind of stuff. But all of a sudden he spreads
30:38
his wings on his own. And, and then of course, the
30:43
daughter, she's a girl. So she, you know, she's
30:45
naturally more talkative and stuff.
30:48
And I'm like, but Oh my gosh, she's going into a big world
30:50
with a bunch of Mean Girls and she's been in a bubble and she's
30:53
going to the big liberal college and, and there's a bunch of, you
30:56
know, rich kids there and all these things.
30:59
And lo and behold, they, they, I don't know, they, those two
31:05
don't need it. I think the 15 year old that's
31:06
middle puberty needs this right now.
31:07
But at least there's hope for him.
31:17
Kyle said he explicitly kind of roped politics off of this, and
31:23
I'm going to venture into territory here.
31:25
Stick with me for just a moment. So the podcast that Kyle and I
31:30
host, we, we started this because of our mutual
31:35
frustration. We, we are about as opposite of
31:37
politically as you can be, but we started the podcast because
31:43
of our mutual frustration with the fact that both of us lives
31:48
in a world where our friend groups tend to get kind of
31:55
clustered in things. And, and we're, we feel like we
31:58
are not as a nation doing a great job of talking across
32:03
things. So I, I'm going to ask this
32:05
question without, I don't want to get into politics per SE, but
32:11
I wonder your perceptions about the nature of dialogue in our
32:16
country, which is kind of what we're trying to address with the
32:19
podcast. And, and by extension, I think
32:21
what Kyle's interested with this, the belief, I think his
32:26
fundamental belief that if we just talk to each other rather
32:31
than shouting over each other, we could get a lot more done.
32:35
I wonder if you could react to that concept and and how does
32:41
that resonate with you? I think one of the things you've
32:45
heard from each of us is that perhaps we were bigger listeners
32:48
in our sessions than maybe speakers, right?
32:51
And so all from a political perspective, we talk all over
32:56
each other all day long. And the people with the
32:59
strongest opinions do the most talking.
33:02
And it's usually not representative of most of us,
33:05
right? It's one, one thing to an
33:08
extreme or another thing to an extreme.
33:11
It's not helpful. Most of us reside, and
33:15
regardless of what you think or which issue is your biggest
33:18
issue, if you just listen to another human, that's our,
33:22
that's our baseline. And listening rather than rather
33:27
than preparing what you're about to say without listening because
33:31
you already know what you're going to say.
33:33
And actually hearing someone and what their lived experience is,
33:38
which is different than yours is valuable.
33:42
And if we could just stop for just a second from all of the
33:48
bullshit, frankly, that it's said, is that allowed on the
33:52
podcast? Yeah.
33:53
Yeah, we've only got one word that we've kind of completely
33:57
avoided, but bullshit is not that word, so.
34:00
Bring it on. But let's say to someone they
34:02
have a story, they have a life and it's influenced how they
34:05
feel. And it doesn't mean right or
34:07
wrong. It means that's their lived
34:09
their lived experience. Even if it's completely opposite
34:12
of what you believe completely. Like just give them a minute.
34:15
Yeah, give them a minute to explain.
34:17
And like, who knows what their background is, where they came
34:20
from to bring them to where they are.
34:23
I don't want to cut it off, but as we kind of sort of circle the
34:27
bringing this home, I wonder if you could individually and then
34:31
maybe some more dialogue too. AI guess the question is, did
34:37
you find this interesting and useful?
34:42
I, I, I've heard from you that I think you all would agree that
34:45
this is that this kind of dialogue with people's valuable,
34:48
But maybe what are things about this experience that can we
34:55
distill some things that might serve as advice to others in
35:00
engaging in dialogue or if we wanted to for Round 2 when Kyle
35:05
has it a couple of months from now and invites you all back?
35:09
I mean, what? What are things that what?
35:13
What are things that emerge to you as the conditions under
35:19
which fruitful dialogue flourishes?
35:24
A safe environment. Tell more about that please.
35:27
What do you What do you mean by that?
35:30
I think the fact that one we at least all have the connect same
35:34
connection of. Kyle.
35:36
Right. There's a trust there and that
35:39
there are guidelines, right? So it's safe because we know,
35:42
OK, this is not going to be about politics.
35:44
This is not going to be, you know, an extreme situation.
35:49
So I think having those guidelines is huge with a basic
35:53
starting point of a safe environment.
35:55
A safe environment means probably to a little bit of a
35:57
controlled environment. I don't mean to put words in
36:01
your mouth, but I'm hearing you. You say that that that the
36:05
participants came with a certain expectation of there were
36:12
definitely. Guidelines.
36:15
If you read the. If you read.
36:16
It I read them all, I did that. Wait, hold up, as an introvert,
36:22
did you read all the things? I read every bit of it.
36:25
I had no idea. What?
36:26
Oh, I read it at all to I'm detailed and so I was like
36:30
everything you can give me to be prepared for what I'm going
36:33
into. I will read I.
36:35
Think one of the things that's helpful in this situation is
36:39
getting comfortable with discomfort.
36:43
And I think one of the things too that would make this even
36:47
even more meaningful is if there weren't so many like minded
36:51
people in the room. And so we are for the most part,
36:58
you know, as as people who love Crystal and Kyle, we might have
37:02
similar belief and there are a few maybe who would politically
37:09
be a little more aligned with you, Sir.
37:12
And so for the for that. Buttering you up.
37:16
But I think what would be interesting to see if we could
37:20
be uncomfortable with people who weren't, weren't maybe quite as
37:24
like minded. I think session 2.
37:27
I think session 2 is what I was really.
37:28
Thinking yeah, there you. Go.
37:29
That was another question. For the not the same night, but
37:33
the next time he does or after the first session like the next
37:37
round would be. The question, a lot more
37:39
diversity. Yeah, totally.
37:41
I would assume right, if you built it on such framework as
37:46
we're talking about, you would find a connection and then
37:50
realize like OK. We're.
37:52
Really close on certain things, yeah.
37:54
We're light years apart on that. And like that, that's not that
37:57
quite big of a deal. I could say something about my
37:59
kids real quick and kind of maybe comment about liberal
38:03
schools. So we we go to a little Academy
38:06
in our little town and although a lot of the teachers are
38:09
conservative, the curriculum is not conservative.
38:12
And it's a very diverse school because a lot of people come
38:14
from other parts of the country there and such.
38:17
And because it's not a true ISD in the Metroplex.
38:22
There was a lot of conversations that happened at in their
38:27
classes that kind of caused us to be like, oh gosh, OK, you
38:32
know, we're going to talk about that.
38:34
But at the end of the day, it created in them, it helped them
38:39
in their success on when they went to college.
38:41
I'll say that where they're able to have conversations with
38:44
people in college that came from East Coast, West Coast and all
38:48
these different socio economic and beliefs and religion and
38:51
things like that. And it's taking me till I get a
38:55
lot older to, you know, kind of be able to have some most
38:58
conversations instead of just kind of being quiet and saying
39:00
there's nothing to share. So.
39:02
So why do you think, why is there such a fear of having a
39:08
conversation about things that you maybe aren't familiar with?
39:13
Because it's gonna like somehow infiltrate the way that you
39:17
believe I. Think for me it was the way I
39:20
grew up at my parents and their super conservative nature.
39:24
And although Amanda's parents were super conservative and some
39:29
and religious and and drinking and all those kind of Bible Belt
39:33
ways, they had open conversation about stuff that tends to me up.
39:38
Yeah, like we can't talk. About no, yeah, we can't talk
39:42
about that time of the month. Like what is that?
39:43
You know, talk to your son right now, like, well, I can't do it.
39:47
So little things like that, but also in the bigger kind of, you
39:51
know, conversations that we didn't have growing up.
39:54
So I think that's, you know, even that there was a little
39:58
bit, she was raised a little different and that was Bible
39:59
Belt. But but I think it's, at least
40:02
for me, it was kind of the way I was raised.
40:04
In the Bible Belt, that made some most conversations harder.
40:07
I was taught to be afraid of those.
40:09
Like, I don't think intentionally almost afraid of
40:13
those things, like, oh, science is bad, you know what I mean?
40:16
Maybe. Not even almost associate or or
40:19
you know, hey, let's not be super duper friends with those
40:22
people. Because they they might confuse
40:24
you somehow. And, and I remember I had a
40:27
really good friend that was Mormon.
40:29
Very different set of beliefs. He was a great guy.
40:41
The night was a success, the experiment worked, people were
40:45
really connecting. But then the real world came.
40:49
Knocked act 4-5 minutes later. Kyle, listening to this now, did
41:02
it go the way you envisioned it? I think when I first had this
41:10
vision of what this was going to look like, it was very much like
41:14
an American Idol competitive thing.
41:16
Like you're picking out the best Bsers in the crowd, the best
41:19
stories, and it's going to be these amazing boisterous
41:23
laughter stories. Two, I got to thinking about,
41:27
you know, I get 16 people at the come to my house.
41:31
If it's a competition thing and you go to the second floor, it's
41:33
like, OK, all you losers, you know, you go hang out and then
41:37
the conversation is going to continue over here.
41:39
No, I think, I think the competition angle, I think what
41:44
I'm after in the Sling Tower overall is really just about
41:48
producing good conversation. Not necessarily like the best
41:53
Knockout of the Park stories, but just the best conversation.
41:57
And it's kind of like when you're picking for this
42:01
selection, you're really trying to pick an ensemble, you're
42:04
trying to pick a group that is going to go well with each other
42:09
and create energy and good conversation.
42:12
It was, I think it went really well.
42:15
Everybody had fun. It was amazing.
42:18
I can't remember the last time I went to a party where that many
42:21
people sat in one room talking to each other.
42:26
I mean, you know, it's funny because we were sharing.
42:30
We're digging into that whole competitive thing, but multiple
42:33
people were like, it was so much fun.
42:38
We had such a good time and such good conversations.
42:42
A lot. Probably four or five people
42:45
said I just made a new friend. Literally.
42:47
I mean, people that didn't know each other are friends.
42:52
One of the guys, one of the facilitators, said he heard from
42:55
four or five people. I want to do something like this
42:59
with my kids. I want my kids to do this, not
43:03
have a phone, actually have to have a conversation with
43:06
somebody. That was a big theme.
43:10
Crystal, you were watching this from the inside.
43:12
What do you think was the secret to the success?
43:15
I think one of the hugest things, he had everybody's
43:19
phone. He took everybody's phone at the
43:21
beginning and set it aside and I swear it was probably 15 to 20
43:28
people sitting in a circle in a living room all staring at each
43:33
other, all having the same conversation with each other.
43:37
Now we were had some rough storms last night, so we had
43:40
like sirens going off and stuff. So at that point everybody's got
43:44
kids at home. So we brought everybody's phones
43:46
back. Within 5 minutes, factions had
43:49
broken off. Like everybody had dispersed,
43:53
like broken up. I don't think the event would
43:56
have happened or worked nearly as well.
43:59
Headphones not been withdrawn from the situation.
44:05
I have to ask, did anyone ever dip their toes into politics?
44:10
Did it ever go that way? I did poke a little bit and I
44:15
thought this was interesting. You in terms of setting the
44:18
conditions that made people comfortable.
44:21
One of the things that you had said was you explicitly took
44:25
politics off the table and every one of them mentioned that like,
44:32
like that was a safe space that and you know, you you mentioned
44:38
that this is not directly related to our podcast.
44:40
Gosh, I think it is. I think it's way more related
44:43
even than you think. The fact that they all named the
44:49
idea of political discussion as being something that would have
44:54
been toxic to what they were doing, I thought was really
44:57
interesting. But I dug in a little bit on
45:00
that. They self identified.
45:06
So I guess some of them were listeners of the podcast, some
45:09
of them weren't. I've met some of them.
45:11
Most of them never met. I think in the introduction I
45:15
said while we do this podcast, you're conservative, I'm liberal
45:18
and and even at some point people were like, well, yeah,
45:23
we're probably all more like Kyle than like you.
45:32
And I think this is really interesting.
45:35
It became evident as we talked, Look, these are a group of your
45:40
friends. So they are, they range
45:44
obviously, but they're some old friends.
45:48
There's some friends of your kids.
45:49
There's some friends of yours from different chapters of life.
45:55
But I thought even as we were talking, as they were talking,
46:01
I, I trying to think I'm, I'm treading on interesting ground
46:08
here. I was struck by, I don't know
46:14
that if we'd had a party with, first of all, if we'd had a
46:17
party with 16 of our friends, we wouldn't, we'd had to hand out
46:19
$100 bills to get people here to, to get that many people
46:23
here. We, you know, we don't have the
46:25
social circle that you do, but it was obvious to me even in
46:30
this really fruitful conversation that this group of
46:32
people were having that this was a different culture than what I
46:38
operate in. It was really palpable.
46:41
And I think there's obviously a range of where people are
46:44
politically and socio economically, but there's not as
46:48
much of A range there. And I wonder what influence that
46:53
had. I think they themselves named
46:57
inadvertently said, well, you know, we, we all know Kyle and
47:01
Crystal, we've got, you know, there, there was a sort of a,
47:06
there was a sort of a subgrouping that already
47:09
happened there. Kyle, looking back on the whole
47:17
night, what's, what's the thing that's you're still thinking
47:21
about? I was just thrilled that some of
47:27
the people that came into this thinking either I'm not good at
47:34
this or this is beyond my comfort zone wound up having a
47:38
great time. And the people that found up on
47:40
your podcast, it was several of those people.
47:44
And one of the participants said, you know, she said it one
47:49
time, she did a poll and everybody that we selected for
47:53
the podcast identified as an introvert.
47:56
And so, you know, back to that, where my head was on this, you
48:01
raise people to the fifth floor, you're going to get all these
48:03
extroverted slingers. And we didn't do this on
48:08
purpose. And we put together a way of
48:11
trying to figure out who's the most interested and interesting.
48:14
And we got to a group of introverts, which is a whole
48:19
fascinating thing. But I think those people
48:21
specifically had come up to me and they were, so, you know, I,
48:27
I think they were genuinely excited about participating in
48:30
it. And, and I, I just thought that
48:34
to me was the most dramatic benefit of this is that people
48:39
that didn't think this was for them.
48:42
Actually, it turned out to be no.
48:43
This is precisely for you every. Board already drawn, no alarms,
48:50
no chains, just architecture lanes.
48:53
You don't obey, you operate inside a system.
48:58
You call. Faith, you can build a tower and
49:00
you can set the rules. You can even bring in the
49:03
perfect set of people really stack the deck.
49:06
But the second you hand back the screens the tower falls within 5
49:11
minutes. They weren't a group anymore.
49:13
They weren't a connected ensemble of explorers.
49:16
They were just 20 people in a room together, alone.
49:20
But for an evening, while a crazy guy took a run at the
49:23
POTUS and there were tornadoes all around, they had some of the
49:27
most genuine conversations they've ever had.
49:29
You. Step in line and call it
49:33
freedom. Every boundary.
49:45
The 5th floor was produced by Bourbon and Rum.
49:49
Special thanks to our facilitators and everyone who
49:51
trusted Kyle enough to hand over their phones and climb the Sling
49:54
Tower and to a certain bar in Memphis that gave us the
49:58
blueprint. I'm Becca.
50:04
We'll be back next week, resuming our regular programming
50:07
and getting back into the world of politics.
50:10
Thanks for listening.