Hello, I'm Mary Portis and this is The Kindness Economy, a podcast that looks at the new values

driving the businesses of tomorrow. People, planet and profit in that order. It's the future.

Are you ready for better? We live in a world in which debate is increasingly polarised.

Whether it's in Parliament,

the pub, social media, it can feel as if our differing viewpoints are getting increasingly

entrenched in opposition.

Now debating the validity of our own positions is taking up a lot of time and energy.

And too often we seem to get sucked into convincing others that what we think is right.

We've forgotten what it is to listen, to listen to different sides of the debate and respect

different viewpoints. Instead, in a world of mass disposable information,

it's become more and more about justifying why we're right and why someone else is wrong.

I believe the anger that so many of us understandably feel at what's happening in the world today is what's driving a lot of this,

feeling powerless to influence the big picture.

So we turn on people closer to home.

But it's like worrying about a kitchen fire when the whole house is burning.

A diversionary tactic that divides us and distracts us from what's really important.

Pidding ourselves against each other is the stuff of a child's world, good or bad, angels or monsters, friend or foe.

Adulthood surely is about learning to hold differing concepts inside us at the same time and being mature

enough to see them as part of a larger, more nuanced whole.

It's not always comfortable.

It's complex and challenging.

But most of us are capable of doing this within our personal lives.

...