Scott Mann

So you've got pervasive contempt, moral superiority just everywhere in our society.

And so it causes us to act in a tribal way.

you know, rather than what we're actually preconditioned to do, which is connect and bridge, right?

And what's defined this country for 200 years.

Alexander de Tocqueville said it when he visited here in the 1800s.

He said, that country is individualism rightly understood.

Individuals, but who understand the value of community and connection.

And we've lost it.

Right?

So the first thing I tell people is to recognize that you're operating in a set of novel conditions where your first order of business is to recognize most folks around you are in some kind of trance state.

And your first order of business is to bring their emotional temperature down to a level that they're even ready to listen to what you have to say.

And we may not like it, but it's just our reality, is how do I get the person across from me ready to listen to me?

How do I take the tone down to where they're in a parasympathetic state, their ears actually start functioning again, and they're listening, you know?

And that's hard, man.

And I can remember going into places in Afghanistan where you, I'm sure you do too, where you had to build rapport really fast.

Right?

And you come in hard.

I mean, you can do that, but what you're actually doing is creating a social insurgent.

You know, they're already amped up, so you gotta bring their emotional temperature down.

And that's why, again, so the other piece that I would say to your question is not only do you need to understand the churn and that you're in these novel circumstances, but that you actually have something at your disposal, which is the human operating system.