Thank you for joining us for episode 480 of Live Happy Now.

As we head toward the end of summer, many of us are talking about this contentious election environment.

But this week's guest is teaching us how to change the conversation using empathy.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and this week I'm joined by Rob Volpe, an empathy activist, consultant,

and author of Tell Me More About That, Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time.

Rob's here to talk about how we can avoid some of the hazards that come with discussing differing

opinions, particularly when it comes to politics,

and how that can change the way we interact with one another for the long run. Let's have a listen.

Rob, welcome back to Lou How Happy Now.

Paula, thank you. It's so great to be here. What an exciting time.

I know, and I always love talking with you because you have such

wonderful insight. Oh, thank you. I love talking to you too. Oh, it's a love best. So as you know,

and as our listeners have probably figured out just from our little intro that I just did,

there's been a lot of turmoil the last few weeks around politics.

And so that's why you and I need to talk.

And I wanted to start by you framing the situation and talking about how all this turmoil

is affecting people and the conversations that they're having.

Yeah, this probably defines the last four years, maybe eight years even, but in

particular, since the pandemic and all the things. And now we're just in this constant churn of,

like, what unexpected news event is going to happen next, you know, whether you're thinking of

politics or you're looking at geopolitical, you know, whether you're thinking of politics or you're looking at geopolitical,

you know, Hamas attack in Israel, war in Gaza now, and Ukraine and all the things.

...