How the Dignity Index Can Heal Our Divides With Tom Rosshirt

Live Happy Now

Live Happy LLC

Mental Health, Health & Fitness, Health & Fitness:mental Health

4.7 • 522 Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if we could get to the root of our divides and start bridging them? In this powerful episode of Live Happy Now, Paula Felps sits down with Tom Rosshirt, co‑creator of the Dignity Index, to explore why our public conversations feel so fractured — and how dignity offers a practical path back to connection. Tom explains how contempt, not disagreement, is what drives our divisions, and he shares the ways that dignity can heal what contempt has damaged. Three things you’ll learn: Why contempt is the real source of division — and how to recognize it. How dignity strengthens trust, communication, and problem‑solving. How small, everyday choices can shift the culture around you toward connection.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for joining us for episode 564 of Live Happy Now.
0:08.6	We live in a time where differences have turned into deep divides, and public debate feels like a battleground.
0:14.8	But this week's guest is on a mission to change that.
0:17.9	I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and today I'm joined by Tom Rochert, co-creator of
0:22.1	the Dignity Index, an eight-point scale that helps rate the tone of our dialogue to recognize
0:27.3	when we're speaking with contempt. Believing that embracing dignity can help us overcome our
0:32.4	differences, Tom and his team have launched a new campaign to help ease our divisions, prevent violence, and solve problems.
0:39.6	Let's have a listen.
0:41.4	Tom, thank you so much for coming back on Live Happy Now.
0:44.5	I love it here.
0:45.7	You're going to become a frequent flyer with us.
0:47.8	I want to.
0:48.5	It's super interesting to talk to you.
0:50.3	We've talked with you about your book.
0:51.9	We talked about the spirituality of silliness.
0:54.6	This is entirely different. And something that you told me about during a conversation,
0:59.3	we just happened to be having, something that you were working on. So I did a little digging in.
1:04.0	I'd see the dignity index has been around for a few years, but give us a little bit of its history
1:08.6	and tell us how it came about. Yeah, no, I'm happy to do that, but I do want to correct you.
1:14.1	It's not entirely different.
1:15.7	You'll see that thematically it is a cousin of everything we've been talking about.
1:19.7	And I don't want to get too deep in this before.
	...

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