3 Ways to Build Bridges in our Divisive World (Monday Moments ep. 235)
Live Inspired Podcast with John O'Leary
John O'Leary
4.9 • 672 Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2020
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Join me every Monday for a quick burst of inspiration on our “Monday Moment” segment.
We are living in a divisive era and it’s never been easier to build walls that divide us. As a member of the Live Inspired community, I urge you to be a bridge builder and find ways to connect with others. But how? Today, I share three simple strategies to help elevate our conversations and build relationships regardless of our differences:
- Own the conversation from the start (Don’t wait!)
- Actively listen as if they are the only person (They are!)
- Be passionately curious as if their opinion actually matters (It does!)
My friends, the future belongs to the bridge builders. [Tweet this.] History teaches that unity is strength and the way forward requires coming together to overcome differences in the quest for common goals. So, love others from the start, put distractions down, and curiously ask questions.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, hello, my friends, and welcome to Live Inspired Monday Moments with John O'Leary. |
| 0:11.6 | As you know by now, I create these to give you a burst of energy and encouragement not only for this Monday, but for the week to come. |
| 0:20.4 | I'd like to share with you in a |
| 0:22.0 | marketplace that is so set on canceling out those they disagree with, building walls taller and |
| 0:28.8 | higher, creating our own little tribes where we can hang out with people who look and act and |
| 0:33.3 | worship just like us. I want to give you today some ways to build bridges by first sharing a story |
| 0:40.3 | with you. So here it is. It's a story of a journey that I had in the back of a car with a driver. |
| 0:46.3 | And this is my take on it. Here it is. He's black. I'm not. He's fiercely liberal. I'm not.'s fiercely liberal |
| 0:54.3 | I'm not |
| 0:55.9 | He grew up poor |
| 0:58.0 | I did not |
| 0:59.6 | His dad was never around for him |
| 1:02.8 | Mine always was |
| 1:05.2 | He never graduated high school |
| 1:07.8 | I've gone to post-college education. He's divorced. I'm not. He's childless. |
| 1:17.2 | I have four kids. Perhaps most divisive. He loves cats. I'm allergic to them, and I much prefer dogs. |
| 1:27.3 | My friends, this was a partial list of the wall of differences that separated my driver and me on a recent commute. |
| 1:35.7 | There was nothing from our backgrounds, our interest, or our beliefs that suggested a possible connection between the driver up in the front and his passenger way back there |
| 1:45.6 | in the back. And yet, in spite of all the reasons that we should not get along, or that we should |
| 1:52.3 | maybe even hate one another, Al and I laughed. Alan and I agreed. Al and I connected to such a degree that during our 30-minute transit, we exchanged phone numbers, |
| 2:04.3 | we committed to staying in touch, and we even, you ready for this? |
| 2:08.2 | We even hugged goodbye. |
... |
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