Latest / Author Hour / Glorious Tension: Why Paul Hobby Offered His Radically Moderate Book to a Divided World
Transcript
- speaker-0: ⁓ again, find Scribe or somebody else who will lead you along the path, not just in terms of how do you get on Amazon and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but things like, you know, they were very rigorous about fact checking and quote checking and almost to the point of irritation at times. No, but it was good. I mean, and the way it turned out, you know, nobody has ever written anything about the book that said, well, Paul's wrong about this quote or this fact. So I give scribe a lot of credit there. speaker-1: That's the job. Paul, thank you so much for making the time. speaker-0: My pleasure. Thank you, Eric. speaker-1: Before we dive into the book, which will be kind of the meat of the conversation, could you give us a little bit of a background on on your story, who you are, where you came from before you set off on this particular part of your journey? speaker-0: Sure. Well, I am a Houston guy. I'm a Texas guy born and bred. Went to school at UVA, come back to U to U T law school, practiced law a little bit in the private sector and was a federal prosecutor. The only war ⁓ going on at that time was the war on drugs, so I did that. We have a family media business and I ran that for a little while and ended up selling most of the properties and launching off on my own. So I've had a private equity and a private credit firm. that does or regional middle market buyout and growth for twenty two years, something like that. So we're on our fifth fund and it's fun 'cause you get to new you get to make things better and you get to learn new stuff all the time. speaker-1: Yeah. This does not sound like a man who's searching for another project. speaker-0: No, the other thing I should tell you is I was raised in a political family and so I was always around the political and public process, public policy process. And my father was a state official here and I've so I've always had an interest ⁓ really more in policy than politics, but politics is the crucible through which policy has to pass. And so ⁓ you know, I had started in my father's name a public policy school at the University of Houston and I'm an emeritus board member at the Center for Politics at UVA. And I ran for office. I I lost the closest race in Texas history almost well, twenty eight years ago, you know. Forty nine to forty nine and a half, and ⁓ wouldn't wish that on anybody, but you've had to offer and since then, you know, politics has gotten weirder and weirder. So, you know I'm a radically moderate white guy. Then the only thing both parties agree is that ⁓ none of those need apply. But I've been able to do all sorts of public service and school boards, hospital boards, Federal Reserve. I've chaired two state agencies. So don't cry for me. You know, I've got to do I chaired the largest economic development ⁓ association in the state, which is the Greater Houston Partnership in the Texas Business Hall of Fame. So again, no no pity and we don't regret offering, but You know, losing's losing, you'd rather not do it. You have choice. speaker-1: Well, I thought y you might have taken the closest election in Texas history award from Lyndon B. Johnson, who almost lost by one ballot box and then somehow didn't lose by one ballot box. speaker-0: Well, that's a whole nother podcast, but we can do that one. speaker-1: I also appreciate the use of the term radical moderate. I've I've been campaigning for a radical moderate party since I don't know, since I could grok what it meant. So I I appreciate the plight. That leads us to the book. Wha when did you first get the notion that, you know, this was something that you wanted to take on? speaker-0: Well, it sort of grew on me. It started out as sort of cathartic COVID era scribblings, you know, 'cause I will do some of that. You know, I'll just write stuff not knowing whether there's an audience other than me. And I I used to write a bunch of opinion pieces in local newspapers and I've written some stuff for the New York Times and some other people. And I've really quit doing that now because, you know, there's no real audience. You have the people that already agree with you say do nice nice texts and ⁓ maybe you get a few nasty grams. But I used to think that appealing to people's reason was a persuasive technique and I'm embarrassed by that. We all now know that people think with their heart and not with their head. And you know, that's not a whine or a complaint. It just means that's the playing field. You know, that's where we have to accomplish change. speaker-1: Is it how did that feed into how you chose to write the book? speaker-0: Well, the ⁓ as I said, I'm a I'm a radical moderate and so I'm sort of fascinated with the idea of the middle and in everything else that we do in our non political lives, yeah, we all make decisions trying to optimize between one or two variables and and that can be form versus function. And if you're a Christian it's grace versus truth. If you're an architect, it's cost versus beauty. It is ⁓ in Military science, management science. We could get into all that. But in literally everything that you and I do when we're at the grocery store and we're trying to decide what to buy, you know, we're trying to optimize between cost and value. And it's a balancing act. And that's how we live our lives. And and by the way, you know, you get it wrong frequently. I get it wrong frequently. And and that's good. That keeps you humble. So, you know, G Melody sort of is the key to a multicultural democracy. And we've ⁓ we're in a different place right now. speaker-1: So we this was this started at Cova era Covet era cathartic scribblings. I like that. When did it make the leap from sort of journal to to book? speaker-0: Well, I know the answer. So if you have read the book, in the first chapter I reproduced probably two thirds of a speech that my grandmother gave in nineteen thirty eight to a national women's group. And a a little background on my grandmother, she was not a normal grandmother. She was the founder of the Women's Army Corps. She was the publisher of the newspaper here in Houston. She worked alongside Eisenhower in the European theater. And she ⁓ was a quite serious, accomplished person. And she became first Secretary of H. E. W. when Eisenhower, she had always been sort of a conservative Democrat like most Southerners, but she believed in in Eisenhower. She served with him in in Europe. And so when he said, Would you be my first Secretary of H. E. W. which actually was the second woman ever in a cabinet, she said yes to that. So she was not an ordinary grandmother. She was a very high functioning person, really of humble birth, but, you know, quite quite a serious accomplished person in, you know quite a grandmother. So when I that speech, you know, her speech was, if you remember the jungle, Sinclair Lewis wrote The Jungle. Well he he also wrote an essay called It Can't Happen Here. And so she sort of turned that on her on its head and made a spoof because in 1938 she was in a position to see things that other people weren't and she could see what was happening in Europe and this this this dangerous little man that a lot of people hadn't really grasped who Adolf Hitler was. She takes you chapter and verse through the dominoes that are falling pre-World War II in in Europe. And when you read the speech, it gave me chills because you could literally replace the names and the places with names and places from today. And the sum total of the speech is that extremism is not just it's not just lazy, it's dangerous. A lot of people die when people think that they are certain about. Who's the master race or, you know, who's right and who's wrong? So when I saw that, I was like, gosh, I guess I was meant to read that. Because literally I found it in the bowels of the internet. And I thought, I I think that's a sign. I think because I'm writing about the same stuff, I I think I need to put this out there. And I did it with all temerity because, you know, when you put something out there today, obviously, you know, you get canceled and cursed and accused and all these things. And, you know, as you can tell, I I have, you know, Been in the Hurley Burley of politics. I've been a federal prosecutor. I'm no stranger to conflict in Hurley Burley and people saying ugly things about me. But it's still not a ton of fun. But enough of my friends who were sophisticated in these matters, I'm like, is it a series of podcasts? Is it a series of essays? Is it bird cage line or what is it? And they're like, well, it's a book. And I said, Well, it's kind of what to be a book. And then they said, Well, those are the only kind of books people read today anyway, with the the the shortening of the American attention span. And so I put it out there and it's been a really pleasant thing, Eric, because it's allowed me to reconnect with people from college. I don't even know how they found the book, but they're just like, right on, brother, you said it for us. Thank you very much. And you know, the the reviews on Amazon have been very positive. And having said that, I've made no attempt to sell this book. You know, I I'm I'm not a bookseller. You know, I've done a few podcasts for the University of Virginia and University of Houston. But, you know, I I thought I I want to give this to the world because we're all so frustrated. And then you want to add something new to the argument. And if the world wants to read it and the world wants to absorb it, then then that's great. So it was my offering to a divided world. And the the the experience has been really pleasant. I mean, more so than I would have anticipated. speaker-1: That's awesome. What what was what was the hope that the grand hope that you had for the book going into you know, when you when you push the button to publish? What were you hoping would happen? speaker-0: Well, the first thing is what I didn't want it to be. And what I didn't want it to be is a scold. I didn't want to say, go, Eric, wake up. What's wrong with you? I I wanted it to be and therefore, you know, a a cheerful title in Glorious Tension, that I wanted it to be a an invitation for Eric and Paul and everybody else to have a candid exchange with the mirror about what one way conversations and rabbit holes are are doing to you and to me and to our our nation and world. And so that's what it was. It was just ⁓ literally meant to be a cheerful invitation for people to do some introspection. We spend some time with brain science. I don't know if you want to get into that later, but your brain and my brain are built for rabbit holes. That's just the answer. No. It can be, you know, cognitive dissonance, the Benningprouder effect, reinforcement bias, whatever you want to call that. It it's just hardwired. It's part of the human condition. And literally, you know, most of your education, whether it's philosophy or religious or, you know, education in general, is an exercise in how to police your own brain. Because ⁓ you know, left to its feral primitive devices, you know, you will become tribal. And then you'll and then you'll become cultish. You know, and the the difference between a tribe and a cult, I think, is worth saying in today's world. You know, a tribe protects its own from outsiders and a cult goes to the next. step and starts purging from within. And again, we see this all day, every day. And it's I I don't want to say that the world has continued to affirm the problem, but the world has continued to affirm the problem. And ⁓ has it seized on my solution? Has it made it better? Heck, I don't know. I I don't know. You know, sometimes you think the only people that read this are the people that don't need to read it. speaker-1: Well, you know, the da each domino has a way of affecting the next one. So you if you if you help people gain the vocabulary and the conviction, you know, I I find i in my personal life that the the more extreme somebody is, the less you want to engage with them. And the moderate people just sort of wanna have a a a good old-fashioned conversation about respectful disagreement and try to find a way, you know, the outcome at the end of the day, the hope of this these conversations is that we find You know, a set of rules that we can all agree to be held accountable to and move the shared project forward. speaker-0: Well yeah, ⁓ you can was it Hobbes who called that the social contract? And ⁓ the social contract is is badly frayed. If I can inject sort of one example of glorious tension that maybe I should have spent more time with in the book is is citizenship itself. And again, I'm no Pollyanna, but citizenship if you are a a literate person, you understand that there's a balance there between privilege and responsibility. And, you know, has that gotten lost in some ways? Yeah. And how do we get it back? ⁓ I think one way we get it back is to remind ourselves that gratitude is also part of citizenship. You know, you may not like certain people who don't think like you or look like you or act like you. But when you turn on the switch in the morning and the power comes off, friggin' miracle. When you flush the commote, friggin' miracle. When you when you enjoy a night safe in your home. ⁓ freaking miracle. You know, y it's you know, I could go on and on, but you get but the point. A lot of people before you and I have designed labor spent to provide the nation and the privileges that we enjoy. And a lot of those people who did those things, they don't look like Eric, they don't look like Paul. They don't think like Eric. They don't think like Paul. You know, they are they might be in a foreign nation in the uniform defending our right to freedom. And they have nothing in common. with Eric and Paul, but we are the grand beneficiaries of their efforts. So you know, I do think citizenship i it's again something I probably should have spent more time with. And if I ever did another addition I would. But, you know, if the conversation starts with gratitude, ⁓ you end up in a much better place. speaker-1: Is there anything that sticks out that's happened as a result a conversation or ⁓ an outreach or an opportunity that's happened as a result of this book being out there that that comes to mind? speaker-0: I mean, I've been invited to speak to some clubs that I wouldn't have otherwise invited to speak to because they don't think I'm part of their driver, their cult. But somebody read the book and said, you know, the guy's positive, he's awful, he's not throwing bombs or calling names. So I do think it's been it's been a good thing in terms of people's willingness to hear the argument without the reflexive defensiveness that we find all around us. You know, they I don't I don't know what dinner parties you go to, but you know, one of the reasons I think that I wrote the book is you go to dinner parties and these people are otherwise, you know, high functioning people and they're deacons in their church and they coach little league and they're fine Americans in the dinner table conversational going, Well, you know, those people that you know, what's wrong with them? You know, in your belt. And I always just flip it back to ⁓ I just sort of say, Gosh, I don't know. You know, w what do you think is the answer here? And they go, Well, those people are just effing nuts. And as a pro ⁓ as a problem solving technique That doesn't get you very far, but it's always amazing that otherwise, you know, people that understand trade offs in other aspects of their lives because it's all around us all the time, when it comes to public policy, all that goes out the window. They're certain you know, certainty is where your mind wants to be because you don't have to think anymore and you're arrogant and you're right and you're dangerous. Yeah. speaker-1: The the the empathy to have a you know, ⁓ a respectful theory of mind for for somebody that you disagree with strongly and and to believe that the world does rationally align and their actions rationally align with their view of the world is really seems like it's getting harder for people to to hold. speaker-0: Yeah, it's it's easy to say that the pendulum swings because it does, but I don't know about you, but I think in in the internet age where you have this sort of cowardly one way communication device, the pendulum swings farther and faster than it ever did before. So this is ⁓ it's ⁓ you get a little dizzy. speaker-1: Yeah, you know, the algorithms are sort of incentivized to reinforce either reinforce or inflame, you know, whatever yeah, to put the most engaging or enraging thing in front of you that it can possibly find anywhere on the internet and that's not a recipe for it i it increases your threat response and then, you know, it increases the extremism. Yeah. speaker-0: You said it. You said it. speaker-1: Does that play a big role in the book, the the technology of today's world, or you just kind of speak to the person about their their behavior, their options? speaker-0: Yeah, I I think yeah, we do spend some time with social media and the internet and the all the algorithms and the tendencies that you mentioned. But I didn't want it to be just about that. Yeah. I I didn't because it's just too easy to blame everything on social media. But it it's hard to avoid the it's probably avoid the conclusion that that's not involved in the problem somewhere. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Is there a a succinct set of takeaways or epiphanies or actions that you hope people sort of do as a result of reading the book? speaker-0: I I have some tools and one of the tools is I keep a list on my iPhone of things that I've been dead wrong about. And, you know, every now and then I'll read it to say, Gosh, Paul, you you know, you think you're pretty smart and pretty righteous, but actually you're you're wrong with some regularity. And it gets you to laugh at yourself. It gives you some human beat to say, I think I'm right about this, but I I I thought I was right about a bunch of stuff before and The the other thing that I don't know if it landed with the audience, but the most fun, Eric, was finding these quotes across history and across discipline that say exactly what you and I are saying. And I can I've got some of those quotes teed up and I can give ⁓ to you. Please, yeah. speaker-1: That sounds great. Yeah. speaker-0: The the first quote in the book comes from Aristotle. And he said, courage is the midpoint between two vices, cowardice being the best known, but recklessness being equally dangerous. So, you know, that's that's the book succinctly, and that is, you know, too much of a good thing is eventually a bad thing. The other one that I like a lot, John Meacham, you know, is a famous historian who's ⁓ resident at Vanderbilt, and I'm a big fan of it. But He wrote a book called The Hope of Glory and he wrote, Literalism is for the weak, fundamentalism is for the insecure, both are sins too. For to come to believe that we are in exclusive possession of the truth about things beyond time and space is to put yourself in the place of God. And, you know, that's the whole thing. But if you're a religious person, there is some authority out there that gets to be certain about the truth, but it's not you and it's not me. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. I l I like both of those a lot. I think ⁓ the the courage one is is important because I feel like people ⁓ brandish that as a defense for their extremism rather than sort of understanding that, you know, be being the courage having the courage to disagree with the loudest and most extreme and sort of remain the the open minded middle when everyone is telling you that that's unacceptable is unbelievably important. You know, and and when you're most scared to speak, that's when it matters most to speak up. speaker-0: That that's right. I call it that calling balls and strikes. And ⁓ you know, I have children, I have grandchildren, and ⁓ you know, that's the example I want to set with them. And I have friends who, you know, take a hurt position on one side or the other and and and just sort of say, gee, when your side clearly stubs its toe when they go too far, how often do you raise your hand and say so? And sometimes you get these lame answers like, Well, the the the liberal idiot, they do that part. I've just got to provide a counterweight. Which is a cop out. You know, that is not the point what you want to set for your kids and your grandkids. And so it's you know, it's just a a powerful reminder that, you know, objectivity is hard and you have to hold your own tribe accountable. You know, I find the people that I admire most in this world right now are the people who are willing to call out their tribe when they go too broad, you know, and ⁓ to give those people names. Liz Chain is one. Barry Weiss, of course, has become a controversial figure for other reasons. But as you know, you know, she was had the pantheon job of the level left, but she had intellectual courage to say, you know what, it's gone too far. You know, this this wog stuff is just become less intolerant than than the opposing you. And so if people have the courage to call out their own tribe, and in today's world they lose their primary when they do that. And I could give you a bunch of examples. ⁓ but it's okay to lose your primary because you didn't lose your soul. speaker-1: Yeah. There's a few I I won't be able to come up with the names off the top of my head, which feels like a shame, but there's a few ⁓ sort of established Democrats that are speaking up against the DSA, the socialist movement within that party at the moment that I feel that I'm grateful for because ⁓ everybody toe in the line, you know, that's that's how the extremism gets more extreme. It's people putting their career in front of their their soul, as you say. speaker-0: The only thing I can say that's positive or in defense of the democratic socialist movement is that they admit it. And they admit that they they admit that they have no loyalty to the constitution or to any traditional democratic party values. They're just using the party as a vector to get in and change it and essentially do to the Democratic Party what Trump did to the right and that is invade it and take it over. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. The fact that that's an open an open not secret and people are not getting you know and they're still getting traction is the the worrisome part and 'cause you you know, the the co evolutionary spiral of extremism continues then. speaker-0: Yeah, that if we had more time we would talk about the primary system and where it's gotten us. But you know, it gets us some pretty miserable choices in November. speaker-1: Yeah, it's some of the structural things, you know, the social media is sort of one on the technology side, but the you know, the the political selection system is certainly like one as well. The feedback loops that just you create greater extremism. Sorry, yeah, we d I don't mean to make you recite the whole book, but it's it's it's an interesting interesting rabbit hole. speaker-0: But you know, it goes back to looking in the mirror and when people at dinner parties say, Well, why won't good people run for office? And I said, Well, have you funded character assassination? Because if you've written a political check to anybody, you've had probably funded FLER and UNO character assassination. Well, I've done that. I've done that with a small family and let me tell you what, y you know, even growing up in a public sphere, it's not a lot of fun. And so when you ask normal people, you know, why don't you ⁓ put yourself out there and and let people spell millions of times millions of dollars spending vicious lies about you. Yeah, that's that's a hard sell. speaker-1: Yeah. And it yeah, it's it's feels less like public service, productive public service than an and even if it was, that's a that's a big toll to expect people to pay. Let's ⁓ let's dive a little deeper if we can into your writing process. You know, did you when did you d what after you decided this was gonna become a book, not just a you know, some journal entries, how did you go from, you know, chicken scratches to to a manuscript? speaker-0: Well, as you know, it it's hard. You know, writing a book is hard work. ⁓ you I I had to do that little thing yeah, years ago, ⁓ a little fiction thing, just to see if I could. And it's just hard. And that is most of what's hard for me is organizing it because it comes together in my brain in a certain way. But you have to say this isn't for my brain. And so, you know, organizing the chapters and organizing like these are the practical can do's, you know, if you acknowledge the problem, maybe these are a few changes you can make. in your life and in your social relationships that will that will be beneficial. So I would say that's the hardest part is the is organizing it in a way that the audience wants to absorb it. speaker-1: And did that just yield to to hours and effort? Did you have people, your friends and family, read it? Did you work with an editor? speaker-0: I did not work with an editor, but I you know, I have a background in media. ⁓ my family was in the media business and I bought Texas Monthly, which is sort of the it I don't I don't know where you are, but Texas Monthly is to journalism as and Saturday Night Live is to comedy, you know, it's the launch pad where a lot of important journalists and it needed to be saved. You know, all magazines have to be saved because if they just they're gonna go bye bye. And so I had some contacts ⁓ in that world, you know, people that weren't professional editors that were friends of mine that were willing to give it a once over and say, Maybe this, maybe not that. So I didn't have a formal editor, but I did have some specific friends who were generous with their time. speaker-1: Fantastic. What about the publishing decision? How did you find your way to describe speaker-0: Well, it was really through those Austin relationships there was a friend of a friend who had used Scribe great with great satisfaction to publish a few books. And so ⁓ you know, I reached out to Scribe and the the process was pleasant and thorough and professional. And Scribe was actually going through some tough things from a corporate point of view at that time. And I did at one point get shifted from one contact to another, but they were both great. So Scribe was I can't say enough about Squire. speaker-1: Yeah, ⁓ looking at your publishing date. You you got out of Dodge just before the the the real the real problems started. But yeah, there were some real problems. But we're yeah, we're on the other side of that now. Your timing is impeccable. Well, do you do you do you have any advice, Paul, for people that are sort of, you know, maybe sitting there with some some journal entries of their own. They've done some cathartic writing and they're trying to decide whether whether a book is, you know, the right next step for them. speaker-0: Yes, I did. I would just say just do it. It's it's not hard to get it out there, you know, and there's some money involved, but you know, it's not it's not that difficult. And ⁓ again, find scribe or somebody else who will lead you along the path, not just in terms of how do you get on Amazon and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but things like you know, they were very rigorous about fact checking and quote checking and almost to the point of irritation at times. But no, but it was good. I mean and speaker-1: The job. speaker-0: The way it turned out, you know, nobody has ever written anything about the book that said, Well, Paul's wrong about this quote or this fact. So I give Scribe a lot of credit there. speaker-1: Yeah, thank you. Do you ⁓ are you using the book for anything in your in your life as far as, you know, are you promoting it? Are you involving it in your professional life at all? Or you just kinda put it out there and ⁓ hope it finds its people? speaker-0: I kind of put it out there and I I do realize that a a lot of people, you know, that have their own speakers bureau and that, you know, this is supposed to be part of the ⁓ pinball that creates attention and awareness for something else they're selling, in the case of a speaker, you know, my emotional speaker would be selling themselves. That's not really my situation. So it's been a pleasure ⁓ but it has also been a you know, dare I say vanity perfect? I'll say it. Go ahead. speaker-1: No, I think it's I think it's another form of public service. speaker-0: Well, you're nice to say so. Can I give you a couple more quotes? As I said, these are my favorite parts of the book. And when you stumble across these things, y you know, everything the ⁓ we call ⁓ God winks in our family, where all of a sudden there's this quote that comes up out of nowhere that's like, wow, it's just exactly So Metal March, as you know, was written by George Elliot. And George Elliott is a pseudonym for for actually a female writer back in the time when female writers weren't taken very seriously. But So read this with a ⁓ a a woman's sensibility if you can do that. ⁓ there is no general doctrine which is not capable of eating out our morality if unchecked by a deep seated habit of direct fellow feeling with individual fellow men. So there you go. Yeah, there's the rabbit hole. And ⁓ the only way you avoid the rabbit hole is you have an accountability group or you have, you know, a a a family that's willing to call you to account or point out blind spots or Hypocrisies. And I've I've count I've forgotten plenty of that, believe me. So it was just fun. You know, so Middlemarch, you know, it's not a political book, it's not a business book, it's not anything. But you stumble across these things and then there they are. Bertrand Russell, yeah, it's funny that I would quote an atheist, but Bertrand Russell, he said one of the pr most persistent delusions of mankind is that some sections of the human race are morally better or worse than others. This belief has many forms, none of which has any rational basis. You know, I just love ⁓ I just love that 'cause you're like, wow, the history major, ⁓ I I can identify with all of that. So I think that's all I can put to for you on the quotes, 'cause the the quotes were fun to find 'cause you just stumble across them and they're like gems. speaker-1: I mean that's you know, that feeling is so much of what my career as an author is. You know, I I build my books entirely out of quotes. So I I resonate deeply with that of just, you know, finding things that that hit and trying to put the pieces together and put them in a nice frame so that they they stick with people and resonate and, you know, remain useful long after their first hurt. speaker-0: Yeah. It's just you're just trying to connect dots, you know, because most people are rational and insane on some level, but they have a certain blind spot on a certain issue and you go, Well, you know speaker-1: I mean the the courage to be that person at a dinner party a and and the tact to do it while preserving the relationship is that's no small trick. You know, I've I've I shoot a lot of those shots and I don't always hit the bullseye. speaker-0: Well, there's a a quote from my grandmother in there. I never forget that she said this. She said, Paul always phrase a criticism as a question because you avoid embarrassing your audience. And and you might be wrong in your premise. So you're protecting yourself as well at the same time. Because that's right. You know, we've all been with the intellectual bully at the dinner party and just like the guys standing outside the World Series condemning everybody to hell with a loudspeaker because they haven't accepted Christ as their risen Lord and Savior. You know, I I want to stop. I I want to talk to those guys and go, Hey, what's your success right here? You know how's that working for you? You know, 'cause whenever you smack people upside the head, you get a defensive response. You don't get introspection. You don't get, you know, an invitation to increase someone's self knowledge. speaker-1: Yeah. Well I d I don't know if you've seen the movie Inception. It's I think it's a work of genius, but it it the explicit moral is not that this is not the explicit moral, but I've taken it that, you know, people can't take your ideas. They have to be led to create an idea for themselves, in themselves. speaker-0: There you go. So if we're doing quotes, you remember the Carl Young quote? And that is ⁓ people don't have ideas, ideas have people. That's what I mean, about people think with their hearts. They don't Yeah. Or maybe with their checkbook, but they don't really think with their minds. Yeah. speaker-1: So yeah. Yeah. Well maybe we can maybe you've done done everybody a service and pushed us a little closer to that with this book. Where would you send people to learn more about more about you, more about the book and take a next step? speaker-0: ⁓ I mean, I'm I'm kinda out there. I'm easy to learn about, but the book is on Amazon. And you know, I again I've been encouraged by the people who find it and write a review. And literally d just this morning I got an email out of nowhere from somebody I'd never met before. He said, I found this book. Thank you so much. And you know, a couple of paragraphs about what he liked. And you know, that's powerful affirmation, but I I do think as much as we want about the internet, I'm glad that Amazon and the internet are out there because people stumble onto this. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ it's it's incredible. The book is called Glorious Tension Rediscovering Our Sacred Middle Ground in an Age of Extremism by Paul Hobby. I really appreciate you, Paul, for for doing this, for being you, for taking time out of a very busy and full life to write this book. I I truly think it's an act of public service. I think it's an important one. I'm grateful for your your your contribution, your leadership. I'm gonna I'm gonna buy it. I'm gonna read it. I'm probably gonna gift some people some copies and I hope that's received with in the spirit with which it's offered. speaker-0: Well, you've been great, Eric. And so tell me a little bit about you and your books, please, sir. ⁓ I speaker-1: I I've I've just published my third. My first one was in twenty twenty. I collect what what I think are the most useful and timeless ideas of people that I've learned something from. I'm in the tech world, so they tend to be tech leaders. I've done Naval Ravakant, the almanac of Naval Ravikant was the first book. ⁓ the second was Balogy Srinivasan, and the third was Elon Musk. So I I ended up in a little bit of the crossfire because he when I started the book, he was not a political figure and he ended up one by the time I published it, which was just a little something to navigate. But, you know, I he's been somebody that I've learned a lot from and I think he's he really stands alone, certainly in this generation of entrepreneurs, as somebody that has achieved, you know, r remarkable feats, an outlier among outliers, and there's something to learn from him, even if you don't agree with, you know, everything that he's ever done. speaker-0: Well, yeah, I don't consider myself a tech guy, but I've been around technology my whole career and almost anything that we would do would have some technology at the heart of it to meet our other criteria as investors. But back when I was younger than you, I I remember reading Being Digital by Nicholas Negropont. You know, he was the head of the MIT media at the time. And then House by Tracy Kidder was impactful, but ⁓ I should go back and look at those because this really was the Twilight of the tech era and quite amazing. The soul of a new machine is that is a medium like that. speaker-1: That one ⁓ people are still talking about that one as being particularly prescient. speaker-0: Yes it was. Yeah. Yes it was. speaker-1: Yeah. Thank you again, Paul. I I would love to stay in touch and I'll be rooting you on as an author and ⁓ a a voice of sanity. Appreciate ya. speaker-0: Like you are