I'm J.J. Heller, and this is Instrumental, a show about the big and small moments that shape our lives.

In every episode, my guest and I start near the end of their story and work our way back to the beginning.

I hope our conversation reminds you that every second matters, because none of us knows which moment will be the one that changes everything.

Hi everyone, it's JJ.

And it's Dave.

We have kind of a different sort of episode for you today.

It doesn't fit our normal format, but we wanted to release it anyway because I don't know if you've heard, but there's a really big election coming up very soon.

I haven't heard anything about that.

Yeah, it's like they're voting for the student body president and our daughter.

No, just kidding.

The presidential election is right on the horizon and tensions are high, to say the least.

Mm-hmm.

We are on the verge of a huge cultural moment, and your candidate may win the election and they may not. And even if your

candidate wins, there's a good chance things won't always go your way in the future. I think the

odds of that happening are very good. Like 100%. Like, are you a human? Yes. It'll happen. Yes. You will be disappointed in the future. So the conversation we have in this episode will hopefully provide you with some tools to deal with those frustrations and disappointments in a healthy and productive way.

That's right. Just because you find yourself upset when things didn't go

according to your plans, it doesn't mean that you need to remain stuck in your bitterness

indefinitely. You can move on. The reason why we invited our guest onto the podcast is because he

wrote a book that literally changed Dave's life.

That's right.

Dr. Fred Luskin is the director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project, which has successfully

explored forgiveness therapy with people who suffered from the violence in Northern Ireland,

...