Ian Bremmer

It means that I got the analysis wrong or the world changed.

I got the analysis right and the world changed.

And so now let's address that.

So it's not personal.

So many people take it personally because they align

who they are as a human being with what they think is happening in the world and the reality is those two things have nothing to do with each other so there really isn't like you know the great buddhists and i'm not a great buddhist i'm a catholic which is almost the opposite of being a great buddhist but i've met some great buddhas and they've taught me a little about meditation which i can sometimes do for 10 minutes at a time and for me that's pretty good and what they say is

It's not like you're going to stop thinking about things.

You let your mind think about things, but then let it go, let it go, let it go.

Just let it go, let it pass over you.

And the same thing is true in global politics.

You can't change how you feel about something, but you can let it go because that's not what's happening in the world.

you know and and while you can't change how you feel you can change the only thing you can change is how you react you can't change how other people feel you can't change how other people react you can't change what policies they're putting in but you can change how you react

to the way the world is moving and i think if you handle that with a lighter touch and with the ability to recognize that analysis and you the world and you are not the same thing

then it makes it a lot easier to engage with people that you might have disagreements with.

But the disagreements come from things you like, not things that you're trying to understand that are true.

Those things I think are all useful skill sets.

And I try to teach all of those to my students in our classes.

And those students come from 50, 60 different countries every year.

and we cover the hottest topics, and we did it at Columbia in the middle of the Gaza demonstrations, and we talked about those issues too, we never had a fight, not once.

I never had a student demonstrate or try to shout someone else down, not once.