Dr. Aftab Erfan & Amiel Handelsman - The Many Faces of JEDI

Dr. Aftab Erfan (she/her) is a scholar-practitioner currently serving as the City of Vancouver’s first Chief Equity Officer. She leads internal transformation for a public organization of nearly 10,000 employees. Originally from Iran, she moved to Canada as a teenager. Her formal education is in environmental sciences, fine arts, and urban planning. Aftab did much of her growing up within the youth environmental movement, where she learned that activism is an effective antidote to despair. In her late 20s, Aftab completed an action-research-based Ph.D. in Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia, where she subsequently taught for nearly a decade and completed a 4-year stint as Director of Dialogue and Conflict Engagement for the university. She has worked as a consultant on four continents but finds much more meaning in working locally. Next to her family, Aftab's primary engagement is with the large systemic issues of our times. She wonders how we can become useful leaders in times of societal struggle,  transition, and collapse.

Amiel Handelsman is a seasoned executive coach with 20+ years of experience helping leaders and teams navigate complexity. His clients have included college presidents, C-level business executives, and teams at every level. He is passionate about climate solutions and specializes in helping people deliver what they promise and build highly engaged workforces. Amiel is the author of four books, including Practice Greatness and the free e-books Reimagining American Identity and How To Be An Anti-race Antiracist, and is a frequent guest on podcasts. He holds a B.A. in Public Policy Studies from Duke University and an M.B.A. from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Amiel lives with his wife and two children in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

• Article: The Many Face of JEDI by Dr. Atfab Erfan
• Article: Response to Erfan by Amiel Handelsman
• Resource: Tobert's Action Logics
• Resource: Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI)
• Book: 4000 Weeks: Time and How to Use It by Oliver Burkeman
• Book: Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

A Quote From Atfab's Article 

• "When the JEDI movement looks in the mirror, it sees many faces reflected back. I can only hope that giving names and

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Transcript

Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate, and conversations-to-text do not always translate perfectly. I include it to provide you with the spirit of the conversation.

Scott Allen  0:00  
Okay, everybody, welcome to this episode of Phronesis. I am excited about this conversation. I was saying to my two guests that this is one of the more complex conversations we've hosted on Phronesis. So an important, really important conversation and complex. And so I think if you are new to the topic of Bill Torbert's action logics, if you are new to the topic of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, or some call it JEDI, it may be, it may be really important to go ahead and go to the show notes. Click on a couple of links, and get up to speed with those two topics before jumping in. We talked before we started the conversation today, and we're not going to go to the full deep end. And these two can, I've read their work, and you have access to their work, we're not going to stay in the kiddie pool, we're going to try and stay in that part of the pool where we're our toes can still touch the ground, but we probably need the ladder to get out. That's what we're shooting for today. Today, I'm thankful to have two guests. And both have written a couple of articles that, again, you can access in the show notes, and we're going to focus a little bit on those two topics. So I have Dr. Aftab Erfan (she/her) is a scholar-practitioner currently serving as the city of Vancouver's first chief equity officer, where she leads internal transformation for a public organization of nearly 10,000 employees. Originally from Iran, she moved to Canada as a teenager. Her formal education is in environmental sciences, fine arts, and urban planning. Aftab did much of her growing up with the Youth Environmental Movement, where she learned that activism is an effective antidote to despair. In her late 20s, Aftab completed an action research-based Ph.D. in Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia (I love UBC, I love Vancouver), where she subsequently taught for nearly a decade and completed a four-year stint as Director of Dialogue and Conflict Engagement for the University. She has worked as a consultant on four continents but finds much more meaning and working locally, next to her family. Aftab's primary engagement is with the large systemic issues of our times. She wonders how we can become useful leaders in times of societal struggle, transition, and collapse. Now, I also have Amiel Handelsman, and he is a seasoned executive coach with 20 plus years of experience helping leaders and teams navigate complexity. His clients have included college presidents, C-level business executives, and teams at every level. He is passionate about climate solutions and specializes in helping people deliver what they promise and build highly engaged workforces. Amiel is the author of four books, including Practice Greatness and the free e-books Reimagining American Identity and How To Be An Anti-Race Anti-Racist, and he is a frequent guest on podcasts. He holds a BA in Public Policy Studies from Duke University and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. I'm Amiel lives with his wife and two children in beautiful Ann Arbor (you two are from very, very beautiful places. I love Ann Arbor, and I love Vancouver). To the two of you, thank you so much for being here today. Amiel, is there anything else that listeners need to know about you before we jump in?

Amiel Handelsman  3:41  
The main thing is that I'm going to be listening for the first 45 minutes and then weighing in. And I'm very happy to be here, Scott, with you and Aftab and honored to be with you.

Scott Allen  3:51  
And after I tell us what it's like in Vancouver today. I hope it's a sunny, beautiful day.

Aftab Erfan  3:56  
It is a sunny, beautiful day; there's not a cloud in the sky. It's hot, which we all rarely get. So yes, it's beautiful. And it's windy when you work for municipal government. You also know how chaotic it is. And you know everything is happening, from dogs barking to fires, maybe breaking out to homeless on the street. It's complex, beautiful, and complex at the same time.

Scott Allen  4:20  
Yes, yes. Well, thank you so much for the two of you being here. And as I said, we are going to really start with a conversation because after I've written an article, it's published in the Integral Review. It's an important article that's blending two pieces of literature in a very, very nice way. And the article is called The Many Faces of JEDI: A Developmental Exploration. So would you take us into maybe even just the origin of really combining these two topics; it was captivating in so many ways blending these two topics in a very, very cool way.

Aftab Erfan  5:06  
Well, thank you. And I'm so happy to be talking about it; I would say I have been in some ways on the margins of the adult development community for a very long time Bill Torbert, who I think has been a guest on your show, has been a close friend and colleague of mine for a long time. And he developed this model of thinking through how adults develop during their adulthood. So we take it for granted that as children, we grow and we learn new things, and not just new things, but we increase our complexity, if you will, of how we deal with the world. And it turns out that in our adulthood, if we do the same bill and for a while, we're interested in how we take a concept like power and talk about how it grows, how our conception of power grows, as we grow. So the way that you know when you're a teenager is that you think about powers usually not the same way you would think of it when you're seven years old? And they can ask what is the progression of that. And so we've done this exercise of looking at power and love and the concept of making mistakes, and you know, the concept of inquiry, what does it look like, at every stage of development or what build cause action logic, and then I was finding myself, I've been working in this area of diversity, equity, inclusion, justice for a long time, and the first Christmas of the pandemic, the first pandemic Christmas, I had a lot of space, you know, that there was a family around and I was like, I just had this like space to dig into what I was doing and think a little bit more deeply about it. And so I had this idea of, you know, what, what would it be like to apply the lens of development and of the action logic? to, to, to the area where I do most of my work? So how does the concept how does our understanding of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice change as we grow and as we find ourselves in different stages of development? So that's kind of where I came from.

Scott Allen  7:07  
I believe it was in your article where we have kind of the "rings of the tree," the images of the rings of the tree were that in your article Aftab? And it was a nice way because it's almost as though for each of these developmental stages, it says if there's a new ring to the tree, it's a more, it's a transformed organism, but it's more inclusive of even the smaller rings of the tree. And so, as I understand it, we may, as human beings, and that's what you're asserting, in the article, experience these topics of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion very differently, depending on where we are on that developmental level. Right? 

Aftab Erfan  7:48  
Yeah, that's exactly the concept of the article. And then to speak to the rings of the tree. The idea is, you're not just growing out of who you have been; it's kind of like, you know if you start with the first action, logic is opportunist, you know, knowing how to take advantage of the moment, as I grow up and learn to be let's say, an Expert or an Achiever, I don't lose my ability to be an opportunist, I just don't, don't do that only, you know, it's kind of like, the repertoire expands and you don't lose what you had before. But you have more to work with all the time, which also, in my mind, it means that those who are at later stages of development, in a way, have more responsibility for responsibly doing this work. And so that's what I'm trying to explore in the article as well.

Scott Allen  8:37  
And what's interesting about this whole conversation is not only might some of the individuals who are engaged in conversations around Jedi might experience the conversation differently. But even I would imagine educators, coaches, and practitioners who are delivering content, who might be at different stages, are also experiencing the content differently. Is that accurate?

Aftab Erfan  9:01  
That's very true. And I think training or messaging about JEDI is the space where we could either make this conversation pretty limited and, in a way, immature, if you want to call it that, or we could nudge it towards the deeper end. Towards more engagement with complexity, which by definition, this topic is complex, you know, there is no clear-cut answer as to how we should move towards justice or even if justice is a good thing, or if the if it is a kind of universal value that we hold. So yes, I think even just how you think about what you're doing when you're delivering training is dictated in a way by where you're at developmentally.

Scott Allen  9:47  
Jennifer Garvey Berger, it's interesting in her book; I think it was Changing On the Job. Now she's applying Kegan's developmental stages in that book, but it's interesting because she said, "look, if I'm designing Learning Experience, I'm going to design to these different stages and ensure that I'm hitting these different stages in the design of the curriculum," which I always thought was a very, very interesting perspective. In Northeast Ohio, where I'm located. In the United States, I've been engaged for probably five or six years, where I'm partnered with another individual. And the day revolves around power, diversity, equity, and inclusion in Northeast Ohio. And it is so fascinating to look out at the audience. And I wish there was a way to verbalize what I'm putting an image to what I'm about to say, but you can see people's minds in vastly different places. And people are like, "huh, this is a thing?" and other people are frustrated and tired. And, you know, "let's move on from the conversation." And other people are just frustrated and tired, because they've been having the conversation for so long, and things aren't changing how they want to. So it's really interesting. I mean, I, I love your framing, that these minds are entering the space in a very, very different way and constructing meaning differently. In the pre-conversation, we talked about maybe focusing on three of the action logics today, maybe taking listeners through the three that you'd like to focus on, and how they intersect with concepts of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Aftab Erfan  11:25  
interprets model, there are eight different action logics. And it's basically the concept that is very similar to Kegan's. But Bill does a little bit more nuanced of what happens almost like the in-between stages. So you come up with eight instead of four, I think where this conversation is most interesting with respect to JEDI is kind of the middle of the range. So the beginning of that range is like you go from Opportunists to Diplomat to Expert and then you arrive at a stage that is called Achiever. And the Achiever mindset, essentially - I kind of think of it as the American dream, it's like, the idea is you you are here to achieve and you need to be able to draw on expertise, you need to draw on some level of diplomacy and being able to engage with people and looking for opportunities in order to be able to achieve, you're really in this mindset of how do we maximize the success of the initiative that we are involved with, let's say that that is a company or government or whatever, or an NGO, or whatever that is. Some people would say this, this is like, the place where neoliberal thinking really finds a home, it's like, where's your merit? And how do you grow that? And how do you work through issues, in order to maximize the bottom line, however, you define that that's the achievement and I would say, most of our organizations basically are in a kind of like, the center of gravity of Achiever, we have a lot of funding that this is sort of like the purpose of business is to make money by being very efficient, and kind of like working through things with others and getting to results. That's fine. And then some of us grow to this other stage. The next stage in this model, which is called "Redefining" and Redefining, almost by definition is all about looking at the world and thinking, but that doesn't quite fit is really is the point of life really to make as much money and grow old and buy cars and houses. And you know, like, is that really the point? And so if you're Redefining, Achievement in the traditional sense, kind of becomes a little bit meaningless. You're really looking at what is life for what is the point of what we are doing. And it's really a lot about reframing the purpose of seeing things and the way we do things and moving into new visions. I mean, there's such a kind of huge creative potential with Redefining, because you're kind of like, it's not that it's this other thing, you're kind of creating quite a bit. There's a lot of innovation, I would say that in the JEDI space, diversity and inclusion, equity and justice, what we are looking at if you work in organizations, you will see it's like the people who are really irritated because they feel like they've had this conversation for a long time and they're not getting anywhere. They tend to be maybe disproportionately people of color, women, LGBTQ folks, like people who've been on the margins of society in a way. They're saying, "you know, the way that we've been running organizations, which is, you know, so logical and it goes in this in this way and creates value for shareholders. That's not serving me, you know, and in fact, that is putting me in a marginalized position even more so like almost every day that I come to work, my ways of being in the world are not valued within an Achiever mindset." And so everything is being questioned from that Redefining perspective and almost like nothing is right and "everything needs to change," and "it needs to change now" and, and so part of where the Redefining is, is also there's a lot of certainty about things. It's like there's a kind of righteousness potentially about things we see the ends, you know, "these people don't see the answer, we see the answer. And why are we going there faster?" It's a really again, super transformative place to be super creative, and also, a lot of conflict happening. I think really between Redefining and Achiever in organizations, if we look at just the next ring of the tree, the next stage is called Transforming. The idea in this stage is that you become very comfortable with the notion of polarities that there's this but there's also that and it's really about the integration of things that seem seemingly opposite to each other. But if you want to really find a way through, you need to see the truth of both of them. There's less rigidity, they're both about what's the point of business, but also about what's the solution to solve what we're dealing with, in a way, there's a lot more flexibility here within the Transforming action logic and some of the clear-cut ways of thinking that our characteristics of Redefining begin to fall away. So there's just much more nuanced. That's actually where we want to move people. If you're really actually serious about achieving justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, it is a transformation project. And we need to do it from a Transforming stance, we actually can't do it within an Achieving stance, really, or within a Redefining stance. And so a lot of - you know, the kind of thing that I find myself doing in my role is like appreciating what the Achiever and the Redefining are bringing to the table and trying to work through them and in a way to work past them and integrate them into something that we could be potentially working with. So I think that's a little bit abstract, but I'm hoping it's making some sense.

Scott Allen  17:01  
So what comes to mind is I'm listening to you speak when I look at the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s. And you have some of the key characters, Fred Shuttlesworth, or Malcolm X, or Martin Luther King, Jr. or Abernathy. It's almost as though their minds are at different places, and how they're communicating some of the challenges are at very, very different places. Does that does that resonate? Or connect with?

Aftab Erfan  17:31  
They're different from each other? Or from where society is? Or what do you mean by different?

Scott Allen  17:36  
I think different from each other. Yes, they're how they communicated, but also obviously different from society. Right? Yeah. How they communicate can resonate or distance your average person in power, the white male in that instance? It's, at least that's how I'm thinking of it. How would you react to that? Would you agree?

Aftab Erfan  17:59  
there are some articulations of the goal there that are more, in some ways more rigid, more clear, but more rigid, right. And then there's, some that are just like, there's so much more give and take and negotiation and, and nuancing. And "if, we could fix that problem, but we're gonna break this other thing, and then like, and is that gonna work?" I do think you can see in some of the leaders, yeah, real differences in where they stand, as well.

Scott Allen  18:29  
And in that movement, you probably need you probably all serving in some way for sure. But there are just differences in that approach. There are differences in, you know, Fred Shuttlesworth, it was very, I mean, it was direct, and it was head-on. And this is what I'm seeing and taking on Bull Connor in Birmingham, and there was just an intensity there that was different than Martin Luther King, Jr, who was just as passionate, but in many ways, communicated differently and entered the space differently. So talk a little bit more about these three spaces as they relate to JEDI, or if you'd like, maybe we focus on that Transforming space, if that's, is that how I'm understanding it correctly, that Transforming space is really that linchpin in your mind, getting people to that complexity of mind or that way of thinking that will help identify new solutions?

Aftab Erfan  19:28  
So I think I mean, the biggest thing that I see is that we are in a moment when the energy that Redefining is bringing, which could be very, very helpful in its directness and clarity and new ways of seeing. I see that it's also very likely to become kind of like the bad child or the problem in the space, both from an Achiever stance and from a transforming stance, because it's annoying. It's annoying to have people who think They know exactly what should happen. And it's never good enough for them. It's never happening fast enough for them. I think part of where I think the potential is for beginning to do some good work is, first of all, appreciating Redefining, you know, and I'll be the first one to say sometimes it's very hard. I have a lot of conversations with myself about this, especially for those of us who've maybe been through that stage. And so it might look different for those of us. But there's often that stage where you're like, "everything is wrong with the world, and you know why." And you have certainty about that. If we saw it in that way, it's like, we can have patience and compassion for that. And then the question is, how do we help these folks grow? And how do we help the discourse grow beyond a place that is rigid in that way. I think that's the first one - it's like appreciating where Redefining is coming from and the energy and having patience for it. And then from a Transforming stance, it's like, we cannot settle for the simplicity in the way of what Redefining is asking us to do because it is the kind of like, you might fix one problem. You might fix one form of inequity, but you're going to create new forms of inequity. And often without even doing that cost-benefit analysis or the trade-offs, you know, so from a Transforming perspective, there's a little bit more cautious, I think about how we go about creating change. But there is a real grappling with, okay, what are the consequences? And what would happen if and I think a mistake that we often make is not bringing enough people into the complexity. So in my organization, there are folks who are really kind of, you know, we think of them as activists, but it's really folks who are taking Redefining all the way there again, we are less likely to bring them into solution-making because they are difficult to work with because of the kind of a certain energy that they're bringing. But I think that's a mistake, I think if the way we get out of this is actually almost like forcing, Redefining to engage with complexity that we can see if you're sitting somewhere else in the system. And I don't think it's opposed to the ethics of Redefining minute that there are so many folks that I'm talking about, are thinking about inclusion of the value of the different voices, but they're kind of also rigid, and how they think about that. But I think we can use that opening to say, "Okay, what about the voices of white men in this conversation? Or the, in my case, it's like, the heritage activists in the community who like really want to preserve these old buildings?" or something, you know, and that often is in conflict with, or, you know, they want the statues of the founders of the city preserved, it's in conflict with what the social justice movement is bringing, but it is not irrelevant. And if we could get the social justice movement to think about those values next to theirs, maybe we get to a place that is a little bit more sustainable in terms of the changes we are trying to make.

Scott Allen  23:13  
That's a really interesting word - sustainable. Right? Would you say more about that sustainability,

Aftab Erfan  23:21  
It's something that can be; it's just a little bit more durable because we could rip down the statue in front of City Hall. Then there will be something else replacing it, you know, there's no stability in using force or the certainty of a certain position to break things down. And that it might feel like a move toward justice, but it isn't stable, and it's fragile. And there's an opportunity; it's going to get reversed. I meant sustainability in that in that way, or something that we could have enough agreement on that we could say no. Actually, this is to the best of our knowledge right now, this is the better way to be, or this is the better way to present or engage or whatever it is.

Scott Allen  24:07  
So I'm going to mirror back what I'm hearing just so I can check for my own clarity because I think it's, we have folks in this Redefining stage, as I understand it is maybe a little more dualistic in their thinking they think they have the answer, this is what we need to do. This is immediately what needs to happen. And there are solutions in front of them, and at times, there can be an impatience around that the Transforming action logic is going to see some of, like you said, those polarities. There might be increased levels of dialectics and that they can hold two competing thoughts and hold them and really, in that action logic, be more concerned with what's the best long term solution to make it more sustainable to really help solidify the change, versus something that might they'd be decided, which actually makes things worse, or something that might be decided that actually has consequences we haven't thought through. And there's a need to help the folks in this Redefining space; how do we provide them with opportunities to help see that complexity? So that again, their own mental complexity is increased, and they start identifying solutions that might be more sustainable? Have I captured it? Please say yes!

Aftab Erfan  25:28  
That's pretty good. That's very good. That's very good, I think. So first of all, we do actually need to educate folks in different stages to speak a little bit the language of Redefining, you know, like the power analysis that we like; if you don't get that, then there is no conversation with Redefining, if you want to engage with the social justice movement at this moment, you need to have the language. And so actually, those of us in Transforming also sometimes need to pick that up because we skipped that part, you know, it wasn't an area of interest, or whatever. So I think that is necessary, and it can't stop there. And especially, you know, as we are then talking to folks who are at right, Redefining, it needs to move to this kind of "how do you deal with complexity?" And I think some of that doesn't happen in classic training spaces as much as it happens on projects. And, you know, bringing folks into trying to create co-create solutions.

Scott Allen  26:24  
What else do we need to do before we move into an invite Amiel into the conversation? What else do we need to know about your paper that you'd like to underscore so that listeners have kind of that foundation before we bring in Amiel? 

Aftab Erfan  26:37  
I mean, I think the only other thing that is important to add is actually to say there's a critique of the developmental literature and the kind of adult development ways of thinking, which would say that it is elitist. That is, you know, it is focused on high-up people in organizations who already have a lot of power and can get get get to go on retreats and develop their minds and their ways of thinking; I've taken that very seriously. Because I think it is a kind of paradox in my work. And I've definitely seen developmental work used in that kind of way to essentially give more power to people who already have power. And at the same time, I think there's something in developmental theory that does the opposite of the kind of examples that happen; it's like, you come into a group, and you do a developmental analysis, and you see where different people are at. And it often happens that people with less positional power are actually more developed because of their life experience. And of course, people who find themselves marginalized, actually, often also grow from that, you know, if you're the only black person in your organization, you see the organization with new ideas, you see the complexity of what's going on in a way that you don't if you're part of the mainstream. So I do think developmental theory is a tool, and I think there is this, like, really important choice about how we use it. And, of course, that's also a developmental question. How you use it depends on where you're at. I don't want to dismiss it. On the basis of being elitist and anti-equity, I don't find that that is true. I think if we use it responsibly, it actually has the possibility of illuminating some of what social justice activists would love to illuminate, which is their different and more complex ways of thinking on the margins. And giving some power to that actually is going to help all of us. So I think that may be a bit of a nuance, but that feels pretty important to me as a person who's working in this intersection.

Scott Allen  28:45  
You said something there that was, I think, important. It's a tool, right? And, like any tool can be abused and misused. And it's a tool. And so I think being acknowledging some of the potential downsides of the tool, while also acknowledging some of how the tool could serve, I think it's, I think it's critical, right?

Aftab Erfan  29:08  
Yeah. I mean, the way that I use this tool is sometimes just using it to make sense of the situation I'm in, like, Are these people just being difficult? Are they just being bad? Or is there something like, maybe they're out elsewhere developmentally like I can have much more patience for that. When I see it with that lens. It's like working with my daily relating to my younger siblings, as opposed to somebody who's being intentionally difficult or digging their heels in.

Scott Allen  29:39  
Yes. We're going to bring Amiel into the conversation, but I want to read something because he read your paper, and there was a reaction to the paper. And this is one thing I absolutely love about academia is that there's this dialogue. It's not always a dialogue like this, but it's sometimes just on paper. So I'm excited to have the dialogue, in part, on Phronesis today. Still, I love the spirit, "I could not be more delighted that my little mini faces paper has been met with such thoughtful engagement and anticipation of its publication and that you wholeheartedly appreciated his response." I mean, I think that's just a great spirit in this; we are in dialogue to try and better make sense of some of these concepts in service to hopefully make the world a better place. So, Amiel, you have been quietly listening to our dialogue - what would you like to elevate? And what would you like to bring into the conversation for us and listeners to consider?

Amiel Handelsman  30:45  
Quietly is probably one of the better ways to listen, isn't it? You know, since you shared how you came to write this, this is really about your paper, I just wanted to share how I'm even in this conversation, which is, while your paper was in draft form, a mutual friend of ours sent it to me, and thought that, given my interest, that would be something I would find enticing. And I just was like, wow. And I wrote you an email afterward, just saying how much I appreciated it. You know, one of the reasons is that I think it was the first time I'd ever seen this framework of action logics, developmental stages applied to this topic. And it really, it's a bit of a barren landscape when your developmental if you don't have all those things. And so what I saw was a lot of people in my world, either fully accepting, Redefining, or attacking it mercilessly. 

Scott Allen  31:47  
Could you say more about that, sir?

Amiel Handelsman  31:49  
Being subject to the action logic, which all the things that I've described, both the gifts and limitations of that action logic, but really not realizing, "Oh, I'm, I'm criticizing everything with certainty," but simply doing it, right, not being aware of it. And then there's also a whole group of people that are very, very critical of Redefining for a variety of reasons, either because they come from an Achiever or prior framework, and it's like, "what the heck is this? This is strange or bizarre or threatening." Or, or are like, "Hey, I'm, I've grown beyond that, enough for this critique." And what folks, and I found myself in these conversations was, was spending all of our mindshare, just saying, either being and Redefining or saying, "this is so harmful, it would go so much better if Redefining wasn't running it," which is ludicrous, because it wouldn't exist otherwise, right? And what the paper did was say, let's, you know, let's look at many faces, as the title is, let's look at the full thing. And I was like, wow, this really expands. And instead of just spending all our time talking about one, let's look at all of these, you know, and then essentially, I heard Aftab was submitting it to this journal. Five months passed, I wrote a letter, I wrote an email to the editor of the journal who I know, and I said, "Hey, did you ever publish that?" And he said, "yeah, actually, we're going to publish it. And it's running in a couple of weeks." And I said, "Is there time to write...I really would love, like to write something about this." And so I just crammed it in at the last second, which made it way too long. I didn't give Aftab any time to respond. She was going on vacation with your family, right? There was just like a bizarre - I mean, a lot of it was appreciative. But there's part of it that was sort of a supplement, but there were also some critiques. It was just like a last-second thing, which I really don't like doing. But I was so excited about it. And I really wanted to be part of the conversation.

Scott Allen  33:59  
Talk about some of the points that you bring up again, I mean, I think what's fun about this is that it's a dialogue. And so, what are some pieces that you're entering into the dialogue?

Amiel Handelsman  34:11  
Well, yeah, I want to say that but I also asked a question to Aftab about that, which is, I wrote in my piece that one of the great virtues of the paper is the explanatory power. You know, as Aftab said, "it helps to make sense of situations." And I wondered, there was this great story that you open the article with, about sort of a tension between two people, and I wondered if you'd just be willing to briefly share that because I think it tells a good story.

Aftab Erfan  34:37  
Sure. The opening story is the story of a graduate student who is organizing some kind of workshop on Jedi topics on anti-black racism workshop, probably where what happens is that this graduate student invites their whole faculty, including the head of the department, to come to the event. Everybody is confirmed to come And in the last minute, the head of the department says, "actually I, you know, I have a lot of where I like the budgets are due and like I have to do some this the administrative work, I'm not going to come to the to the session." And so the graduate students like, "I was counting on you to be there. It's really important. We never learned enough about this topic. It's important we learn in the community," and the head of the department very quickly goes to, "well, I already know this content, I you know, I had a black student, I have a black friend growing up, I don't really need this education." But they miss the part that's, like, the head of the department being in the room is actually quite important. That is systems thinking that's thinking not about just individually, what do you know about what are your impact in the room and the impact of your absence, and so they're kind of like I talked about them as like ships passing each other in the night they don't meet. And that but and the story from the graduate student who's probably in the Redefining stages, like, "this person doesn't care. They're racist, they don't think this is important." But what really is happening possibly also is like they're developmentally in different stages, you know, the kind of thinking about the impact on the group is not something that's top of mind for the head of the department, they're probably in the Expert or Achiever stage, which is, which is kind of below. And so it's a situation of the more junior person having a higher level of thinking in a way, but they're, they're missing each other in the night because of that difference.

Amiel Handelsman  36:29  
Yeah, I mean, what I, what I really appreciate about that story is that if you are one of those two people, and at some point, you can understand what you've just said, or any of us listening, it really is a compassionate understanding of the situation, rather than just this person is bad or racist, or man, man, or whatever it is. And then there also might be the judgments that the boss might have had of the other person. It's like, wait, there are some differences here.

Scott Allen  36:56  
And appreciating and staying in a place...I think one of you wrote about this, let me know if I'm off base here, but there's a curiosity in that difference versus a natural place for many of us to go as judgment. But that curiosity and that difference can be an important habit of mind; it would seem.

Aftab Erfan  37:17  
Yeah, I think that's definitely a key point here. But right now, I'm thinking about one of the projects of Redefining is calling out white privilege. I think that's one of the more controversial in a minute, when Amiel, you're talking about the folks who just critique the social justice movement, and where it's at some of it is that it's like, that concept is so rigid. And so, yes, there's white privilege. And there's also all kinds of lack of privilege and any, like, you can read every situation with that lens. It's like, "just because you have this hammer, not everything becomes a nail." So what this invites us to do is...yeah, curiosity exactly about the person who is, you know, maybe going around with that hammer. And also, ideally, from them the ability to see other tools in the toolbox or be able to listen to even the story of white folks who do and don't have privilege and like, how do you hold white privilege? And like having a conversation about that in some of the Redefining circles? I'm adjacent to it's a taboo conversation to even say, what is the experience of white people like, "they've taken up enough room? Like we don't, we don't want to give them any more room." From my perspective, it's like, if we don't have some curiosity about that, we are not going to move past the stuck place that that we are in. So yes, I think it's very much inviting in creating a little bit of a mental model for what is essentially conflict between different portions of our society right now, to have some understanding of where others are at so that we could be less stuck.

Amiel Handelsman  38:56  
I agree. And, you know, one of the things that that story reminded me of, you know, in my own experience, and this just gets back to this place of being really compassionate with ourselves, is when I was in my late 20s, I was doing this project in the city of Detroit and meeting with pastors. And it's all focused on black entrepreneurship, as we call it, or minority entrepreneurship, banks, and community organizations, and there are a lot of different interests. And I find it incredibly stressful. To handle this, all these different interests. I enjoyed my conversation with each person within what am I going to do with all these people. And interestingly, I would go back to my apartment at night, and if you'd looked at my apartment at the time, I had all of these goals and expectations and declarations. I had just come out of an MBA program. So I was like, Achiever, Achiever, Achiever, and I was quite harsh on myself. For not succeeding in that endeavor there are a lot of reasons why it wasn't successful. Some of them me, some of them outside of me. But reading this article often helped me appreciate Yeah, hey, I, you know, I was very Achiever-like; you wouldn't have expected me to be able to manage all those interests and differences. So there's patience with others. But I also wonder whether there might be some sense of forgiveness with ourselves. When we haven't been up to this. I just wanted to have if you had any comments about that.

Aftab Erfan  40:33  
Forgiveness for ourselves and our past selves. I mean, I experienced this. I mean, the thing that we haven't said is I wrote my article in the first person, like, the whole thing is written in the first person voice. I am all the action logics; I talk about, you know, many of my own stances experiences from all the action logics, including Opportunist, which is kind of, like, quite problematic from where I'm standing. Now, I do think this is part of development is to become familiar with and have some compassion for our previous selves to be, and almost to be, like, be able to smile add a little bit, you know, like, it's a, and some of it is absurd. It's like, I can't believe that I used to think that way. But it is, at that moment, that was my world, you know, that was what I was exposed to. That was where I was at. And there's nothing bad about it, per se. It's just that I'm somewhere else now. So, I think it is very lovely as a tool for self-reflection, and almost like mapping our journey of how are we learning these things. And the more we do that, the easier it is to be compassionate for others at different stages, I think.

Amiel Handelsman  41:53  
I've got a question that just came up a moment ago, which is, I was reminded of something you wrote in your paper at the beginning, maybe in your acknowledgments, that you were thanking some writers for giving you the courage to write this. And I was just curious, what is the situation around this that called for courage?

Aftab Erfan  42:12  
Basically, it's like, I'm a little bit afraid of Redefining, and the Redefining voices around me which are dominating again, like, that's what's dominating the conversation around social justice. I think what happens is if you even suggest. Of course, Amiel you do this much more strongly in your paper if you even suggest that the categorizing that happens in Redefining, we need to move past that or that, you know, they can more developed a way of being a more mature way of being is unseeing that, or maybe moving past that as the better phrase or integrating it in a way to the folks who are at Redefining and are seeing like living that reality of everything is in categories. And there's this rigidity; I think that doesn't sound any different from the Achievers and others saying, well, like "race doesn't matter, or "why are you making such a big deal about sexual orientation, like we are all one, like, everybody has the same blood." There is this confusion between, it doesn't sound that different...it's coming from a very different place, you know, like the kind of "Let's move past and integrate," actually is quite different from actually "these differences don't exist." But to the mind of the Redefining, those sound very much same. Part of the fear in writing something like this is like, "they're gonna hate me!" There's gonna be...and of course, I'm trying to be a productive person. That's dangerous. So I think the folks that I name in the paper, Adrienne Maree Brown, KC Thom, you know, there are a few folks within the social justice movement who've really come to this place of critiquing it in this way, some more sharply, some more gently, but trying to grow...like you can't grow something without critiquing it, and when something that has a lot of power, it gets critiqued, and especially if that is you, or it's like a group that you identify with, and I very much identify, like, I come from the movement, and I'm, I'm a person of color and queer, and a woman, it's like, "it's my people." So that's the fear. And I think, I mean, I feel good about, and I haven't actually got really brutal backlash from that community, thankfully, maybe they're not reading, I'm not sure. I think somehow there's maybe enough nuance in the way that we're talking about it that it can be hopefully more helpful than, you know, rage-inducing.

Amiel Handelsman  44:42  
Yeah, I mean, that's a difference. A pretty clear difference between us. Although I times in my life, I've been very immersed in communities with the Redefining action logic. I'm not in that environment all the time. Now, and since I do a lot of work with companies, although I did notice last year, when I, with a couple of colleagues, created a course that's in this space, sort of reckoning, you know, America's Racial Reckoning, that I started hearing, some sharp barbs from some people like, "Well, who do you think you are in this space," including from, you know, another nominally white guy sort of saying like, "I've done my work, what have you done?" And I felt kind of angry about that, but I understood it. So it's there is a sense of like if you've been, if you and I have friends, who are much closer to it, and they have felt the the pain of that much more than me. And so when I hear the concerns and the complaints, it's like, yeah, you have more risk. That makes sense to me. Now that I'm entering this space, you know, there's more, there's a little more risk, I guess you could say, so I feel some of that sensitivity to, yes. Well,

Scott Allen  45:57  
There can be a sense of for me paralysis at times, I don't know what to say, I don't want to say the wrong thing. I don't want to sound insensitive; I don't want to ask the wrong question. So at times, some of those minds that I see out in the audience are a little paralyzed; they don't know how to enter. And, they've seen a couple of people enter, and boy, that that didn't go well, so now they stay quiet. And then we miss out on some of those opportunities to stay in that place, of curiosity and trying to understand, you know, going back to this basic Stephen Covey, "seek first to understand" and appreciate other people's lived experiences. It's, it's hard, it's complex.

Aftab Erfan  46:43  
Yeah, it definitely is. I mean, I think, for example, that these conversations happen better in small groups. You know, almost anytime I'm running sessions, it's like, going back to the intimacy of sitting with another human being because the conversation has become quite polarized. And yet there is this, there's like a judgmental tone to it. And there's, like, kind of a strong sense of what's right and what's wrong. And so that works for the people who are in it. But it makes a pretty high barrier. And I don't think that's the intention. This is another way in which I think the ethics of justice and the ethics of this movement at this moment actually do lend themselves to the opening but we don't need to take more advantage of it. So you know, in my context, City of Vancouver, we have 10,000 employees, and more than a third of them are operational workers. So they're the people who are picking up the garbage and cleaning the streets, and arborists and folks at the rec centers and they don't have this language. And this is partially an education as a socio-economic class kind of thing. They actually are some of the more diverse parts of our employee body, but they don't have this language. And so when I'm talking with the folks who are more kind of centrally in the social justice mindset, I'm able to say, "well, like we need to talk with operational workers, because they have the least power," you know, like, almost kind of, that's a logic that's available to Redefining, it's like a reading of power that speaks to them. And the minute we bring those folks into the room, we cannot have this kind of you can only say these words, and you know, you're going to get thrown out if you say the wrong thing.  We have to have a more open, compassionate, forgiving way into the conversation. So yeah, I feel like I spend a lot of my time kind of engineering it is similar to what Jennifer Garvey Berger is saying. It's like, which action logic? Who am I speaking with? What do they understand? And how can I use those constructs to bring in pieces that would help them grow?

Scott Allen  48:51  
Yes, and not shut down? Right? I mean, because again, if done incorrectly, or if as soon as people start feeling defensive or triggered, I mean, regardless of where someone sits in the conversation, then that can shut down versus give life to dialogue...biases are confirmed, and, you know, it just it ends up challenging progress.

Amiel Handelsman  49:21  
You know, this raises a related question for me, which is, or the term that what are the terms for people engaging in the conversations, and in some places, or many places, everyone is required to take a training, and in other places, it's, you know, opt-in, come to the conversation if you would like to, and this distinction is very familiar to me here, but also just generally in the leadership development space, right, where it's like "everyone needs to come to this workshop or training" or "if you're interested come." Over the years, I've often been negotiating and battling my clients to say; You're not helping yourself if you require everyone to be here, most of the time, there are exceptions. And I just was curious about what your experience with Aftab has been around this.

Aftab Erfan  50:18  
Yeah, there's actually some literature on this specifically with respect to equity, diversity, and inclusion training. And essentially, what they're finding is that mandatory training tends to backfire. I think the same for dynamics that you're pointing to, like people having to be here in the conversation with these terms, make them more resentful - it's a very lively conversation in my workplace, and if we go mandatory, or do we continue to be in this more sort of like offering things. I think, yeah, I mean, my kind of general sense is that whenever you force people to do something, you create resistance to it, and I would much rather make the revolution irresistible than shove it down people's throats, you know, 

Scott Allen  51:07  
The revolution is mandatory?

Aftab Erfan  51:12  
Yeah, I mean, I think there is, we are in a moment, and I mean, this is this, we are, we are, you know, two years past the summer of 2022 murder of George Floyd, a few years after "me too" movement, but I think we are still in this Expanded Moment of people realizing, I need to pick some of this up to be in better relationship with people close to me. And maybe that's my children, you know, or is my co-worker; I mean, there is no escaping this. And I think there is much more of an attraction there, more of a carrot than a stack. And I don't think we have yet, in most of our spaces, enough compelling training that people would voluntarily walk into, and that that's been my focus of what we create more of, as opposed to a mandatory -  must, must have this. But I do find that socializing, some of the language that we talked about, is helpful, like people knowing racism, social construct, it's a pretty complex concept. But people getting that is helpful in having a conversation or like, systems are racist versus individuals are racist, like, that's useful for people, if we can, we can socialize it in inaccessible ways. But that doesn't necessarily happen in training, I think that happens in the way that we do day-to-day communication in a space, or you know, when something is in the media, I almost always will comment on it, and then all staff email, because that's a much better learning opportunity than a difficult conversation where like, you don't know what to say, and you're trying to perform and be a good employee and the terminology. Does that make sense?

Amiel Handelsman  53:00  
I mean, yeah, this, again, it's just as underlining this point about making...you use the word enticing, making the space as enticing as possible. And not everyone's coming for the revolution. Really, most people, if you, if we include everyone, most people are not there for a revolution. We all have different interests. I liked what you said about being able to relate to people you care about. And as part of that, I would say, or relate to people you have to work with every day, whether you care about them or not. Life can be better and less stressful when we have somebody's skills. And I feel like that sense of self-interest and enlightened self-interest is an important part of expanding the space. So I liked that you emphasized that very much. You know, you've spoken about it as being around power dynamics and white privilege. And I'm just curious, in your experience, how much are those terms intrinsic to that action logic? Whether it's today or 100 years ago, or 100 years from now? Or how much of that? Is that action logic, interpreting a certain philosophy of the world, so to speak, that's very much about this particular period of time.

Aftab Erfan  54:28  
I'm not sure I know exactly the answer to that question. I do. I do feel that Redefining, by definition, almost loves new terms and making up new phrases. And then of course, we have social media, so you can make a new term or a new hashtag or whatever catch on. So I think a term like 'white fragility' has become its cultural phenomenon at this point. Is it something that has been around for While, and it's connected with other existing philosophies? So hard to say. I'm not sure, I know for sure. I feel like I'd be making it up if I try to answer. It is a packaging that is for this time, and it is maybe looking to be newer than it is, which is why the question is difficult to answer.

Scott Allen  55:21  
Amiel, how do you think about that question even?

Amiel Handelsman  55:25  
One also, I don't know. Two - sometimes I have a sense that connecting this particular action logic within us...the Redefining action logic, with some of these particular perspectives, actually makes that action logic appeal less appealing and diminishes from what it offers. And in some developmental models, there are, you know, healthy and unhealthy expressions of, of an action logic or stage. And also, sometimes we might talk about an earlier action logic, quote-unquote, hijacking the ideas created at a later action logic, the classic example being a 19-year-old kid taking critical race theory, critical theory, and applying it through a not-so-mature action logic -  in some cases, I mean, Expert/Opportunist.

Aftab Erfan  56:24  
Yes, for sure. 

Amiel Handelsman  56:25  
And then we have all these news stories around, particularly from certain parts of the media, showing all these horror stories. It isn't necessarily the Redefining action logic. It's these actually kids that are much more immature. It's spouting and trying to make sense of these ideas from an earlier place. 

Aftab Erfan  56:46  
Yeah, that's true. I think that's how the kind of social justice army has been created now. It's not that all the folks are at a Redefining, which is quite advanced. It's attractive, and it's easy to jump on the bandwagon for the much earlier action logics, which makes it pretty difficult.

Scott Allen  57:08  
Interesting. Very interesting. Wow.

Amiel Handelsman  57:11  
There was this other point that you made in your paper, and you spoke about it, which is how, if I'm marginalized in a certain way, there's an opportunity for me to see these complexities. I'm almost forced to by circumstance. And you describe how there are a lot of folks that are that fit that category. And I guess I don't know if this is a challenging question or not, but I am curious to what extent maybe you're seeing a cross-section of people who are marginalized, who happen to be more developed. And, marginalized folks, in general, are developmentally the same as everyone else. So just curious if you had a perspective on that.

Aftab Erfan  57:53  
Yeah. So again, I think the answer truly is that I don't know, although there is some research out of South Africa which is trying to look at exactly this question. The interesting question for me is, "how do you make marginalization more often a container for development?" Because we know that some people are marginalized, and feminists call this 'epistemic advantage,' they, because of their position in the system, become more able to see more of it. They become more kind of sophisticated in their relation to it. Other people are marginalized, and they go into trauma, and they withdraw, and they become more rigid in their thinking, as both of those things happen. And the question is, how do you make more of the first and less of the second happen? I think the key to this is trauma and the ability to work through trauma. And, like, if I had a magic wand, I would give everyone therapists like that. I feel like it's like if you can figure out a way to work through what really can be quite negative feelings of marginalization, there's a path to development there. I'm not sure we yet have a handle on what is the percentage and how does it compare with the non-marginalized? And what does that even mean? Like, well, who is the non-marginalized? But I think the interesting question is how do we use marginalization, if you will, as a means for development?

Amiel Handelsman  59:20  
How did you say each person gets therapists? like multiple therapists? I find it harder not just working with one.

Scott Allen  59:28  
They'll each be at a different developmental level.

Amiel Handelsman  59:35  
I asked you two questions, and with I don't you know, you said I don't know. But I do want to ask you one that maybe Scott was going to ask you anyways. But what are some of the things that you hope people get from this conversation? And also from your article? Just to summarize.

Scott Allen  59:48  
Great question.

Aftab Erfan  59:49  
Yeah, I think we've touched on most of them. I mean, like this piece about having a lens through which we could look at the dynamics around us with curiosity and A little bit more patience and compassion. I mean, I think that's a huge thing. The other thing that's just standing up out to me as we are talking, Amiel is like, because of the moment that you're in, I think people with different identities and life paths not only action logics, but the different identities, different lived experiences, they have different roles to play, there is a way in which people of color get more grace, in conversations about race, you know, like, there are things that I can say, in a group of...in a mixed-race group that you probably can't say. So to me, "how did we find the role that we each need to play" so I appreciate the way Amiel that you've come into this conversation of amplifying the pieces about my work that you see is important, like, just really being so supportive (and I do feel like this will be my social justice friends will be happy for me to say this) is a kind of like, great use of your privilege, to, to make opportunity for ways of thinking that are coming from the margins, and the way to find more playing and more room. So I'm hoping that people will. Because the conversations are scary around JEDI, I'm hoping that more people will step in and find roles that make sense for them. That may not look like how somebody else takes up a role, but it's necessary and supportive. I would much rather people come, you know, clumsily and play a small role, or you're right, then withdraw from this conversation. So I'm hoping that we've encouraged that through that this last little bit of conversation here. And thank you so much, Scott, for making the space for it. I think it's - obviously, I think it's really important. So hopefully, a few more people will think it's important too,

Scott Allen  1:01:56  
There are a few words that we've used a few different times throughout this part of the conversation, which is that curiosity, there's a level of humility, that, that I'm entering the space with some humility that I'm here to learn and to understand better. And then there's also some bravery. In many ways, regardless of where you sit in the system, as you mentioned, more central, even critiquing or trying to challenge us to think differently, it takes some level of bravery. Does that capture the sense?

Aftab Erfan  1:02:30  
I think that's true. I think there are different risks now, no matter what you said, and yeah, it takes bravery to be part of it, for sure. And it takes a kind of, like, honesty about what that risk is, like, I'm probably not going to lose my job. Even if a bunch of people hates my paper, I should do it anyway. Because the benefit is probably worth, you know, like, and my, my feelings of marginalization could make me too scared to do that. But I should do it anyway. You know, "what's the worst thing that can happen." It's all that.

Scott Allen  1:03:04  
Okay, so as we wind down our conversation together today, Amiel, do you have a final statement or kind of thought as we were we conclude the conversation?

Amiel Handelsman  1:03:15  
I love being part of this with the two of you. And as I said at the beginning, I'm piggybacking on this piece of writing that Aftab...this very, very original contribution that she wrote, and so I'm just grateful that I don't know I was raised to stick my nose into things and speak. And also, after welcoming the dialog, you know, that's. So that's, that's what I want. I want to say, and I share the hope I do share the hope that conversations like this can, let's say, "free up" more people who care, want to make a positive difference, to speak up to be engaged in whatever way works for you. And that, you know, if we felt ten people do that, that would make this that would make it very gratifying. 

Scott Allen  1:04:13  
Well, I want to echo that because you've put a language to some of what I felt in different rooms at times. And I can see it through a lens now that I hadn't seen it before. People's minds are in different places, and their lived experiences are in different places. And it helps me make sense of what's happening in that space. And I just really, truly appreciate the work as well. As we close out for today, I'd love to have each of you take a moment to say, what's something that's caught your attention recently, something you've read or streamed or listened to? It could have something to do with what we've just discussed. It might have nothing to do with what we've just discussed. But is there something that stands out for each of you? 

Aftab Erfan  1:04:57  
I feel like there are so many things that stand out to me on a daily basis; I'm just like, how do I possibly choose? But I recently read a book that I then had, actually, all my staff has now also read, called 4000 Weeks. And the idea is that in a lifetime, we have, on average, 4000 Weeks - that's it - This, this is one of 4000 that we are living right now; how do you want to design your life? And you're not going to do everything, and you're going to disappoint yourself and others because you're going to try not to do some things. I mean, I think it relates in a way to working in the JEDI space because there are just unlimited things to do. And it's never done. And we know, you know, the arc of the oral history, it's very long, and we're never going to be done. So, I think there's something very wise and kind of important for self-perspective and for relating to the world in this curious/compassionate way that we've been talking about that, you know, it couples well with this idea of being realistic about the time we have so 4000 weeks, I think the subtitle is Time Management for Mortals.

Scott Allen  1:06:08  
I will put it in the show notes for sure. Amiel?

Amiel Handelsman  1:06:12  
I'm just thinking about how many weeks I've accrued

Scott Allen  1:06:14  
You've got left!

Amiel Handelsman  1:06:18  
I think I'm at 2700 or something so far. So that's great. That's an optimistic view. To answer your question, for me, there is one big thing that has come to my attention recently, which is a book called Ministry for the Future by a science fiction writer named Kim Stanley Robinson, whose books I've read for quite some time. And his book is, you might describe as a near-term, he's science fiction, so it's fiction, but a near-term, plausible future of humanity turning the tide on climate change. And it has a variety of protagonists. It has a lot of economic and financial stuff; it's got terrorism, and it's got a very small love story. And what I loved about it is unlike a lot that I take in around climate change, it's a narrative format over 20-30 years. So I can imagine this happening. And it's touched me, I think, more than any book in the last 20 years and inspired me to double down, so to speak, on my work in that area. So Ministry For the Future, worth some of your 4000 weeks...

Scott Allen  1:07:51  
You're going to spend at least a couple. So we'll take...

Amiel Handelsman  1:07:54  
Part of a week part, spend part of the week talking about it.

Scott Allen  1:08:00  
So it's, it's it provides almost a path forward that seems reasonable. Is that accurate?

Amiel Handelsman  1:08:06  
It seems plausible. I mean, and I'll just briefly, he imagines all of the central banks in the world agreeing to create a so-called carbon coin, that if, say, an oil company decided to keep the oil in the ground, they would receive a certain number of coins for that they'd get paid to keep the oil in the ground. And there'd be carbon quantitative easing, you know, we have all this money flowing in from the central banks, but it'd be for something other than saving banks' rear ends. It would be to save our way of life. So it's very imaginative, and yet it could happen. And so I thought it really exciting.

Scott Allen  1:08:51  
Well, to the two of you, I'm just very thankful for the conversation. And thanks so much for the work that the two of you do. I appreciate you being here today, and take care be well

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