Unraveling the Impact of Cancel Culture on Society: A Deep Dive
This podcast episode delves into the intricacies and ramifications of cancel culture, a phenomenon that has become increasingly pervasive in modern society. I engage in a profound conversation with Evan Nierman, the founder and CEO of Red Banyan, an international crisis management firm. Nierman articulates a comprehensive definition of cancel culture, emphasizing its reliance on intimidation by a morally absolute coalition to disproportionately punish alleged transgressors. He elucidates the damaging effects of this societal trend, which not only stifles free speech but also eradicates the possibility of redemption and forgiveness for those who make mistakes. Through Nearman’s insights and personal experiences, we explore pathways for individuals and organizations to navigate the tumultuous waters of cancel culture, advocating for a return to a more forgiving and understanding society.
What if the key to success is learning to listen more than you talk? Discover the invaluable life lessons and career insights from Evan Nierman, founder and CEO of Red Banyon, an international crisis management and public relations firm. Evan shares the profound influence his grandfather had on his life, teaching him the values of family, hard work, and appreciation for the opportunities available in the United States.
We also dive into the implications of cancel culture on our society and how it fundamentally reshapes human interaction. Evan offers his thoughts on the "condemn framework" of cancel culture, exploring the importance of understanding and learning from mistakes, and reminding us that we are all fallible. He also shares his insights on how his experiences in business and parenting have led him to create a legacy of understanding and forgiveness.
Lastly, we discuss the significance of being understanding and forgiving in our society, drawing from the wisdom of various religious philosophies. Listen in as Evan shares his perspectives on how this idea applies to our current society and the importance of being understanding and forgiving of others. Don't miss this enlightening conversation packed with lessons for personal growth and navigating the challenges of our ever-changing world.
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Takeaways:
- The Becoming Bridge Builders podcast serves as a platform for discussing challenging societal issues and promoting innovative solutions to foster positive change.
- Listeners are encouraged to engage with complex topics ranging from racial reconciliation to justice reform and education, highlighting the need for active participation in societal discourse.
- Evan Nierman, the guest on this episode, emphasizes the importance of listening more than speaking, as it cultivates stronger connections and enhances understanding in various contexts.
- The discussion underscores the detrimental effects of cancel culture on society, advocating for a return to forgiveness and the opportunity for redemption after mistakes are made.
- The podcast highlights the necessity of defining cancel culture to better understand its implications and the importance of due process in maintaining fairness in societal interactions.
- Evan Nierman's insights reveal the critical role that effective communication and strategic public relations play in navigating crises and misunderstandings in today's digital age.
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Transcript
Hey you awesome folks.
Speaker A:Thanks for taking this journey of discovery with your guide, Keith Haney.
Speaker A:You're listening to the Becoming Bridge Builders podcast.
Speaker A:Your favorite podcast for everything from racial reconciliation to education, innovation, justice reform, and leading change in the 21st century.
Speaker A:This podcast is for people who love to be challenged with difficult topics, but want practical solutions to solve these challenging issues.
Speaker A:Becoming Bridge Builders makes change possible.
Speaker A:Each week on the podcast, Keith invites innovative thought leaders to share how they are building bridges in their area of expertise.
Speaker A:You will hear breakthrough ideas and concepts that are changing the world.
Speaker A:He's featuring guests who are best selling authors, leaders at Microsoft, entrepreneurs, leading educators, professors, lawyers, and so many more.
Speaker A:Listen in to learn how you can be the bridge to the change you are seeking.
Speaker B:My guest today is Evan Nearman.
Speaker B:Evan is the founder and CEO of Red Banyan, an international crisis management and public relations firm.
Speaker B:He and his team have provided counsel to thousands of clients across the world, including scores that have been the targets of cancel culture attacks.
Speaker B:Evan's writings and issues related to the communications and marketing are featured in a range of leading outlets.
Speaker B:He speaks at conferences and universities worldwide and is often called upon by the media to provide insight and analysis.
Speaker B:We welcome Evan to the show.
Speaker C:Powered by Riverside.
Speaker B:Well, it's so good to have Evan on the show today.
Speaker B:How you doing today, Evan?
Speaker C:I'm doing amazing.
Speaker C:It's good to be with you.
Speaker B:Good to be with you too.
Speaker B:I'm looking forward to having this conversation because so many people I know have either friends of mine or in some kind of Facebook jail or Twitter jail.
Speaker B:So I, I good to have talk about, you know, why this is happening in our culture.
Speaker C:Well, that's good to know.
Speaker C:So many of my friends are in actual jail.
Speaker C:You got a lot in common.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker B:Well, Twitter jail is probably a lot of serious actual jail, but.
Speaker C:Yeah, well, both have their advantages.
Speaker B:They do.
Speaker B:But I'm going to give you an easy question before we warm up.
Speaker B:Yeah, here we go.
Speaker B:That's true, they do.
Speaker B:I'm gonna give an easy question to kind of get us started here.
Speaker B:So what's the best advice you've ever received?
Speaker C:Listen more than you talk.
Speaker B:I like that.
Speaker B:And how has that helped you in your life?
Speaker C:I'm listening right now instead of talking.
Speaker C:You can see I live it.
Speaker C:It doesn't, it doesn't make you a very good podcast guest.
Speaker C:But I, I think it does help you immensely in life.
Speaker C:You don't need to be in a business context.
Speaker C:Don't beware the one that's talking all the time and trying to dominate the conversation.
Speaker C:Keep your eye on the one that's sitting there and listening carefully and absorbing information.
Speaker C:Because in my experience, I found the people who do a really good job listening and they don't spend their time trying to talk over other people, but they're actually thinking and processing and actively listening.
Speaker C:That makes you a much more formidable person in the boardroom, in the classroom, at home, etc.
Speaker C:So I really believe that listening more than you talk is.
Speaker C:Is really essential advice.
Speaker B:I like that.
Speaker B:I really do.
Speaker B:A lot of people may have seen you because you've been on a lot of different shows and things, but tell us something about yourself that most people don't know.
Speaker C:My son taught me how to ride a unicycle.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker C:So that's something most, most people don't know about me.
Speaker C:He's much better at it than I am.
Speaker C:But I have been known to ride around on A1.
Speaker C:On a one wheeled device, which is quite unusual.
Speaker C:I haven't done it in a while, but it's interesting.
Speaker C:It just to me, the only reason I thought one.
Speaker C:Well, actually there were two reasons.
Speaker C:One, I wanted to do it so that I'd have an activity that I could do with my son.
Speaker C:And secondarily, it seemed like something that was so challenging and impossible.
Speaker C:And I'm a big believer that if you practice anything, you can get so much better in a short amount of time.
Speaker C:And I needed to kind of prove it to myself that even something that seems so challenging, like riding a unicycle, if I just practiced a little bit, I'd be able to do it.
Speaker C:And that proved to be true.
Speaker B:Wow, that's really interesting.
Speaker B:I like that.
Speaker B:I don't want to try it, but I like it.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker C:It's not for everybody, but.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker C:Good exercise.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:In determination.
Speaker B:You know, I'm always curious, especially for people like yourself who've written books and you have a journey in life, you're a CEO.
Speaker B:Who are some people who served as inspirations for you on your journey?
Speaker C:It's a great question.
Speaker C:And there, there's actually several.
Speaker C:Several people who've really influenced the course of my life, but none more so than my grandfather.
Speaker C:I grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, and I had two brothers and then I had three boy first cousins.
Speaker C:We had no girls in our family, so it was just six boys who were kind of.
Speaker C:We were staggered in age.
Speaker C:It was more like brothers than cousins.
Speaker C:And my grandfather, he was truly the family patriarch.
Speaker C:You know, we would gather at his Home for all the holidays, Thanksgiving and you name it, and, you know, Jewish holidays as well.
Speaker C:And my grandfather would sit, of course, at the head of the table.
Speaker C:He would give a little blessing before we would start, and he would make little speeches.
Speaker C:And my grandfather was just revered by all of us in the family.
Speaker C:And to me, he is a probably.
Speaker C:He's been the guiding light in my life, even though he passed many years ago, just because he showed me that family and valuing your friends and your family is so important.
Speaker C:He demonstrated an ability to connect with everybody and to just.
Speaker C:He lived a life of character and philanthropy, and he was just there for others always.
Speaker C:And, you know, I'm reminded of a time where he went to the bank and he was taking out some money.
Speaker C:Just doing this is pre ATM days and electronic banking.
Speaker C:And he knew all the people in his life.
Speaker C:He knew the bank teller, and he knew that the bank teller, she'd had a fire at her home and she'd lost everything.
Speaker C:And he withdrew a pretty significant sum of money, and then he kept 50 bucks or something and handed the rest of it to her.
Speaker C:And he said, I took this out for you.
Speaker C:I'm sorry to hear about what happened with your family.
Speaker C:I hope this will help you as you're rebuilding.
Speaker C:So that's what kind of guy my grandfather was.
Speaker C:And he showed me also what it means to love your country and to be appreciative of the blessings that come from the opportunity that we have to be citizens of the United States.
Speaker C:And he really instilled in me a sense of patriotism, gratitude, and appreciation.
Speaker C:And more than anything else, he also showed that hard work and perseverance will always get you there.
Speaker C:He was born in the Depression.
Speaker C:He was raised in an orphanage.
Speaker C:His mother died at childbirth, and then his sister and her husband couldn't take care of him because they couldn't feed him.
Speaker C:So he grew up in an orphanage.
Speaker C:But yet he was a smart guy.
Speaker C:He worked his tail off, and he got a scholarship to Georgetown University.
Speaker C:He didn't actually finish because he got drafted and went to fight in World War II.
Speaker C:But he's a guy who came back from the war and he lived the American dream.
Speaker C:He built a business.
Speaker C:He raised a family.
Speaker C:He was a pillar of the community.
Speaker C:And so for me, I could talk about some other people who've influenced me, but at the end of the day, it's my grandfather more than anybody else.
Speaker B:That's a powerful story and a powerful testimony.
Speaker B:We need those.
Speaker B:Those values today, even more so than ever before.
Speaker B:Just that Generation that sacrificed so much for us and for our freedoms.
Speaker B:I always look up and admire that generation.
Speaker B:How powerful the influence was they had on us.
Speaker C:Well, there's a reason they're called the greatest generation.
Speaker B:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker B:So tell us your personal story.
Speaker C:My personal story?
Speaker C:Well, as you know already, I grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana and I had a wonderful family and a great community there.
Speaker C:I knew though, that I wanted to get out and I wanted to for my work, I wanted to get out of Louisiana.
Speaker C:And so the first opportunity I had was when I graduated from high school.
Speaker C:So I went to D.C.
Speaker C:because I wanted to be where the action was and I think again, tying the whole course of my life to my grandfather.
Speaker C:He had taken me, my cousin and me, on a trip to Washington D.C.
Speaker C:when we were about 11 years old to show us where he went to college and to take us to the White House and the Capitol and teach us about American history.
Speaker C:And so that really stuck with me and I think it influenced my decision to want to be in Washington.
Speaker C:So I went to school in Washington at GW George Washington University.
Speaker C:And then I ended up staying in Washington for 15 years, working at the intersection of politics and policy, foreign affairs.
Speaker C:I ended up working for a high stakes and crisis communications firm.
Speaker C:We had some foreign government clients, some very high profile CEOs, good people in bad circumstances.
Speaker C:And at the time I was thinking to myself, one day I'm going to have my own firm and we're going to do business completely differently from how the firm that I was working for operated.
Speaker C:And I wasn't quite ready to make that entrepreneurial leap yet.
Speaker C:But it was always kind of there, gnawing away at the back of my mind.
Speaker C:And then before I sort of made that jump, I had an opportunity to move to Florida and to go in house and to work at a startup that had raised a bunch of money and was growing very fast.
Speaker C:So I availed myself of that opportunity and I moved Florida and worked at the startup.
Speaker C:And then after a couple years, I learned so much from that experience that I felt, well, I'm at a crossroads.
Speaker C:I can either go back to D.C.
Speaker C:which was my natural habitat.
Speaker C:My, my network was there, my friends were there and I could get a great job there, or I kind of loved living in South Florida.
Speaker C:And I thought to myself, well, why don't I take a leap and try to start a business here?
Speaker C:And that way if I can work in Washington and elsewhere, I could keep one foot there, but one foot here, it's better for my family.
Speaker C:I had two young kids at the time.
Speaker C:And I just felt it was a better life for them to be in Florida than it would have been moving back to D.C.
Speaker C:so I took that leap and I founded Red Banyan.
Speaker C: urning point, like the end of: Speaker C: And so: Speaker C:And I learned so much from that first year.
Speaker C:And you know, first I had zero clients, then I had one client, then I had two, then I had one again.
Speaker C:And then I was about to go out of business for a long time.
Speaker C:And then over time, just by grinding it out and continuous improvement and learning, I was able to start building the firm.
Speaker C:And Now I've got 30 people and we're in offices all across the country, every time zone.
Speaker C:We've worked across seven countries, four continents.
Speaker C:It's a pretty high profile and remarkable engagement.
Speaker C:So it's been quite a ride, quite an adventure.
Speaker C:And I never stop learning every single day and I never stop making mistakes.
Speaker C:And so if you're talking to people who like to act like they don't make mistakes, well, if they don't make mistakes or they're telling you that, then they're not.
Speaker C:One, they're not being honest, two, they're not being self aware.
Speaker C:And three, they're missing out on the opportunity to learn.
Speaker C:Because I believe that you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes.
Speaker C:And that's part of why my career has led me to focusing on high stakes and crisis communications to help help people navigate trying times.
Speaker C:And it's also really in part what led to my writing of my latest book, which is called the Cancel Culture Curse, which is all about how unfair our society is at the moment and how people need to have the opportunity to fail and to make mistakes and to be redeemed.
Speaker C:And that we, we can't put ourselves in a, in a place as a society and as a country where we tell people we expect you to be perfect and if you ever make any sort of misstep, you're going to be punished and that punishment is going to be permanent.
Speaker C:I don't think that's right.
Speaker C:And that's part of why I wrote, wrote this book.
Speaker C:And my hope is that people will read it and that they'll understand a little bit more about just how bad for America Cancel Culture is.
Speaker C:And they either won't participate the next time an opportunity comes around to pile on to somebody who's down, or if they find themselves in Unforeseen circumstances, and they're on the receiving end.
Speaker C:They'll have a guidebook and a way of proven strategies in order to navigate and survive.
Speaker C:So that's what I've been up to lately.
Speaker C:Running the business, doing my stuff with my family and friends.
Speaker C:And then I wrote this.
Speaker C:This was.
Speaker C:Which was my second book, because I'm, you know, either delusional or optimistic enough to believe that I can make an impact in some small way on the world around me.
Speaker B:Well, as a fellow Louisianan, I appreciate what you do.
Speaker C:Oh, where are you from?
Speaker B:Baton Rouge.
Speaker C:Baton Rouge.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker B:So I left also after college.
Speaker B:Louisiana.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Where did you.
Speaker C:Where did you go to school?
Speaker B:Southern University.
Speaker C:Southern.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:It's a good school.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:And now you're out.
Speaker C:Out in the world.
Speaker C:But, you know, we leave Louisiana, it's not where I would want to live, but it's always got a special place in my heart.
Speaker C:My family still lives there.
Speaker C:My parents still live in Shreveport.
Speaker C:They live in the house where I grew up.
Speaker C:My grandmother just passed away last year.
Speaker C:She lived in.
Speaker C:In the same house where I spent my childhood with my cousins and my brothers.
Speaker C:And she was in that house about 60 years.
Speaker C:My aunt, my uncle still live in Shreveport.
Speaker C:And now I got a bunch of my family members in New Orleans.
Speaker C:So good to visit.
Speaker C:It's not where I want to live, but they have a great life there.
Speaker B:They do.
Speaker B:I love going back for the food, but other than that, just, you know, food and music.
Speaker C:That's it.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, I love the fact you wrote this book, and I think people have an understanding of what cancel culture is.
Speaker B:But as someone who wrote the book, how would you define cancel culture?
Speaker C:That's a great question.
Speaker C:And, you know, part of what I thought was so important about writing this book was to put a real definition around it, because the term gets bandied about all the time.
Speaker C:And on the left, the political left, people like to pretend like, cancel culture doesn't exist.
Speaker C:They deny it, or they say, oh, it's not real.
Speaker C:And on the right, they've in recent years, been calling everything cancel culture.
Speaker C:So someone gets some bad press.
Speaker C:They're like, hey, cancel culture.
Speaker C:A company faces an economic boycott.
Speaker C:That's cancel culture.
Speaker C:You know, a player gets traded to a different sports team, canceled.
Speaker C:And so that's not really the case.
Speaker C:And so the book defines cancel culture.
Speaker C:And I'll give you the formal definition from the book, and then I'll give you a fuller explanation.
Speaker C:So the definition is the use of Intimidation by a morally absolute coalition to isolate and disproportionately punish an alleged transgressor.
Speaker C:So again, the use of intimidation by a morally absolute coalition to isolate and disproportionately punish an alleged transgressor.
Speaker B:I love that because it helps the frame.
Speaker B:Because, you know, we have a lot, we throw a lot of terms around in society, we turn around a term woke, cancel culture, and no one can ever define it.
Speaker B:So I'm glad you actually put something into, into words for us to kind of talk about as you think about this.
Speaker B:You know, you mentioned something else in the beginning of this conversation too, that the bad thing is that if you make a mistake, there is no forgiveness in society anymore.
Speaker B:People just pile on when you, when you have a moment of weakness or a moment of where you make a mistake.
Speaker B:How does this cancel cancel culture situation right now?
Speaker B:How does that affect society?
Speaker B:Stay with us, we'll be right back.
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Speaker C:It fundamentally reshapes human interaction in a way that I don't think we've really paid attention to yet.
Speaker C:And it's.
Speaker C:We need to be reminded that every single one of us makes mistakes.
Speaker C:We are all fallible.
Speaker C:And this notion that we hold either people living in the public eye or even private citizens who get thrown into the spotlight, that we expect them to be perfect.
Speaker C:That's an idiotic position to take.
Speaker C:Because if someone says that they don't make mistakes or that they're perfect, they're either lying or they're delusional.
Speaker C:Because if you're a person, you make mistakes.
Speaker C:And I think cancel culture, what it does is it leads people to also ignore some of the fundamental things that have always been the foundation, the bedrock of this country.
Speaker C:So we as Americans, we believe in the right to free speech.
Speaker C:It's protected by the first Amendment, not even the second or the third.
Speaker C:It was of such primacy that the founders made it the first Amendment.
Speaker C:The first thing, people should be able to say what they think.
Speaker C:And if someone says something that they think, I should have the freedom to disagree and to dispute what they're saying.
Speaker C:And so I think we've.
Speaker C:We've lost sight of the fact that cancel culture is a chilling of free speech, which is one of our most fundamental rights.
Speaker C:Another thing that it does is, is it eliminates due process.
Speaker C:So when someone is accused in a judicial setting, in a court of law, they are given guaranteed the opportunity for due process.
Speaker C:And as part of that due process, when we assemble jurors to weigh the fate of someone who is believed to have committed a transgression, who's been accused, is being charged with a crime, well, what do we look for?
Speaker C:We look for jurors who haven't made up their minds, who haven't prejudged the outcome, that are a jury of their peers who are willing to hear arguments.
Speaker C:And both sides, both those who are prosecuting and those who are defending, have a fair opportunity to make their case present facts.
Speaker C:Well, cancel culture takes that sort of step by step procedure, and it rips it up into shreds, throws it on the ground, douses it in gasoline and sets it on fire.
Speaker C:It gets rid of it.
Speaker C:It's the total antithesis.
Speaker C:Because what happens is you have mobs of people many of times coalescing on social media.
Speaker C:They prejudge the outcome.
Speaker C:They decide they hear something and that someone's guilty.
Speaker C:And then what do they do?
Speaker C:They don't wait.
Speaker C:They don't give the person a fair opportunity of due process.
Speaker C:They don't consider the facts in a neutral way.
Speaker C:They rush to judgment, and then they convict the person, and then they become judge, jury, and executioner before the person's even had the fair opportunity to present a countervailing narrative or to present facts.
Speaker C:And I think that's fundamentally un American, and that's not how we want to live as a society.
Speaker C:Another really damaging aspect of cancel culture, and I think you could see this in every aspect of life, not just in business or politics, but really at the core of human interaction, is it eliminates the ability for someone to apologize and to be forgiven.
Speaker C:It cuts off a road to redemption.
Speaker C:And so it used to be, say you said something that, that really angered me and you offended me.
Speaker C:You told me, you know, Evan, you're the dumbest guy I've ever met in my life.
Speaker C:I'm thinking of something that, you know, could easily be said, Evan, you're a complete idiot.
Speaker C:And you made me really upset.
Speaker C:And I was mad at you because I didn't like how you insulted me.
Speaker C:Well, you could reflect on it and say to yourself, well, you know, I still think Evan's dumb, but I probably shouldn't have told him.
Speaker C:It wasn't nice of me.
Speaker C:I'm going to apologize.
Speaker C:And so you would come to me, and this is how our society has worked for generations.
Speaker C:You would come to me and you would say, evan, listen, I'm sorry about what I said to you.
Speaker C:I apologize.
Speaker C:And at that point, I'd have a choice.
Speaker C:I could either say, well, I accept your apology.
Speaker C:Let's move on, or I'd say, oh, you know, I'm still mad at you.
Speaker C:I don't accept your apology.
Speaker C:But then hopefully one day I would.
Speaker C:Well, with Cancel Culture, you destroy the whole process of an apology and forgiveness.
Speaker C:So in a Cancel Culture world, you're going to tell me I'm stupid, and then you're going to reflect and go, yeah, that was.
Speaker C:That was mean.
Speaker C:I should probably apologize to Evan, and I'm going to be out there and I'm going to be telling all my friends, man, you do not want to listen to the podcast becoming bridge builders.
Speaker C:This guy, he is bad news.
Speaker C:He's mean.
Speaker C:He's a bully.
Speaker C:He called me names.
Speaker C:He told me I was stupid.
Speaker C:I'm going to try to get him fired.
Speaker C:I'm going to.
Speaker C:I'm going to expose him on the Internet.
Speaker C:But then when you finally come to me, this is in a Cancel Culture world, and you say, evan, I apologize.
Speaker C:I shouldn't have said that.
Speaker C:In the Cancel Culture world, I'm going to go.
Speaker C:See, I told you he was a bad person.
Speaker C:He admitted it.
Speaker C:He did something bad to me, and here he is.
Speaker C:I told you he was a lowdown bad dude.
Speaker C:He just proved it.
Speaker C:See, we were right to demand that he get fired, and that's what's happening in our society right now.
Speaker C:And it has to stop.
Speaker C:Because at the end of the day, if we keep this up, because we know that we're all fallible, we're all at risk of making a mistake eventually.
Speaker C:One day, if we keep canceling each other, there's gonna be no.
Speaker C:No one left.
Speaker C:We will have canceled all each other out there, nobody walking around.
Speaker B:It is crazy.
Speaker B:And now we're trying to Determine what kind of speech is acceptable speech.
Speaker B:It's not free speech anymore.
Speaker B:It's like, well, your, your speech or your thoughts.
Speaker B:Your ideology is so dangerous, we need to not let you have any, any air at all as opposed to letting your ideas go forth.
Speaker B:And maybe it is a really horrible idea, but the best way to do that is to expose those ideas versus well, let's cancel them so that they go in the back room and those ideologies grow.
Speaker B:But outside of, outside of plain view of everybody else to go, this is a really bad idea.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:If you, I mean the, the answer to speech you don't like is not to end all speech or end that person's speech.
Speaker C:It's more speech in order to expose it and to count, prevent a counter narrative.
Speaker C:100% I agree with you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I'm curious.
Speaker B:You work with clients.
Speaker B:Suppose you have a client who's been canceled.
Speaker B:What are some steps you can take to get them?
Speaker B:Because you just, you just laid out, you know, it just piles up and the media only really exacerbates the, the, the amount of how you can be canceled and quickly be canceled and canceled on so many different platforms.
Speaker B:So how do you help someone get back their identity once it's been so besmirched by cancel culture?
Speaker C:Yeah, it's a great question and I'm going to, I'm going to tell you specifically what we at Red Banyan do to advise our clients and to help them.
Speaker C:But before I do that, I want to mention to you, you know, I gave you the definition of cancel culture and I want to walk you through also this framework that I present in the book, which are six essential elements.
Speaker C:So again, you know, as you pointed out, people are throwing around terms like woke, woke ideology, cancel culture without defining it.
Speaker C:So I actually think when it comes to cancel culture, if you're going to defeat it, you first have to define it.
Speaker C:Well, we've defined it.
Speaker C:And now my co author, Mark Sachs and I came up with a framework of elements that are present in instances of cancel culture.
Speaker C:And you can remember them with the acronym condemn C A N D E M.
Speaker C:You like what I did there?
Speaker C:I do.
Speaker B:I like that.
Speaker C:Easy to remember.
Speaker C:It's a good mnemonic device and it's very fitting.
Speaker C:Condemn.
Speaker C:So the C is that the crime is committed against a collective.
Speaker C:So what I mean by that is in an, like, let's go back to the.
Speaker C:How you treated me so badly when you told me I was stupid.
Speaker C:Well, part of what made that so bad was that you were saying it about me.
Speaker C:And so it wasn't just that you committed a crime against me by insulting me.
Speaker C:You would latch on, or a group of people would latch on, and they go, well, you know, he didn't just insult this one guy.
Speaker C:It had.
Speaker C:They would attach to me an identity, whether that's he's male, he's a Southerner, he's a, you know, whatever political party, he's white, he's Jewish, he's Christian.
Speaker C:It's a collective.
Speaker C:So it's a crime that's committed against a collective.
Speaker C:And that's what you see when someone gets exposed and attacked for Cancel Culture.
Speaker C:It's not just because a guy did something to a woman.
Speaker C:It's because he's alleged to have been a mistreater of women writ large.
Speaker C:That's an example.
Speaker C:The A in the condemned framework is that it arises and accelerates quickly.
Speaker C:And that's what happens with these things.
Speaker C:They go viral, and it happens very, very fast.
Speaker C:Thanks to the fact that we all have cell phones in our pockets.
Speaker C:We can all become reporters.
Speaker C:We can all share our views online with a limitless audience of listeners.
Speaker C:And it can.
Speaker C:Bad news travels faster than good news online.
Speaker C:We know that.
Speaker C:Statistics show that.
Speaker C:And so it rises and it accelerates very quickly.
Speaker C:The N is that the nature of the offense is either fabricated or it's actually quite minor.
Speaker C:So in this case where you told me I was stupid, I mean, they're just words.
Speaker C:It's just an insult, and it's really not that big a deal.
Speaker C:But look at other Cancel Culture instances, and it gets blown out of proportion.
Speaker C:The D is that the response then also is disproportionate.
Speaker C:It isn't just, you insulted me and therefore I'm mad at you.
Speaker C:It's, oh, well, we've got to fire you.
Speaker C:You've got to never.
Speaker C:We gotta make sure you can never work again in the world of podcasting because you are dangerous.
Speaker C:And the E is that everyone is afraid to defend the accused when Cancel Culture comes because they don't want the Cancel Culture mob coming for them.
Speaker C:And then the M is that there is moral absolutism by the people doing the canceling.
Speaker C:They are so convinced when they pile on and they demand that a university fire a professor or that you take action against a bad actor because they have truth on their side.
Speaker C:They have the.
Speaker C:They feel almost religious fervor to take on this cause because they think that they are morally in the right.
Speaker C:They have the high ground.
Speaker C:So what you could do is you can look at any number of instances of cancel culture, and they will.
Speaker C:You will find these elements.
Speaker C:If you're not.
Speaker C:If you see two or three of them, it's probably not cancel culture.
Speaker C:It's definitely not cancel culture.
Speaker C:It's something else.
Speaker C:It may be a crisis, it may be a misunderstanding, but when you look at a situation and you see all of these things, you know you have got a bona fide, guaranteed case of cancel culture.
Speaker C:So I'll give you a quick example, if I may, of a recent incident that went completely viral about a week ago, which was a woman was taking a bike out of a rack at six City Bike in New York.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, I remember.
Speaker C:She became City Bike Karen.
Speaker C:Okay?
Speaker C:This is a.
Speaker C:A pregnant woman who had just finished her shift at a hospital and had rented a bike to go home.
Speaker C:She was surrounded by a group of teenagers.
Speaker C:They put her on video, the video went viral, and everyone was like, oh, my God, look at this horrible racist woman.
Speaker C:She's behaving terribly.
Speaker C:And then they called her a Karen.
Speaker C:She got suspended by her employer, etc.
Speaker C:Well, let's run.
Speaker C:Run that situation through the condemned framework.
Speaker C:So the C crime committed against the Collective wasn't just that she was arguing with a guy and his buddies over a bike.
Speaker C:It's that she was white, they were black.
Speaker C:So all of a sudden, it becomes, she's a racist.
Speaker C:It had a racial undertone to it.
Speaker C:And you had people attacking her, saying, this is the kind of thing that gets black men killed in this country.
Speaker C:Okay?
Speaker C:That's the c.
Speaker C:The Collective.
Speaker C:It wasn't just, these are two people, fellow New Yorkers, arguing over a bike.
Speaker C:It's white woman victimizing black man.
Speaker C:The A arises and accelerates quickly.
Speaker C:I mean, within days, she was doxed.
Speaker C:Her information was out there, and the whole world knew her.
Speaker C:The video was viewed millions of times, and the nature of the offense was minor.
Speaker C:So they're arguing over who has right to take a bike out of the bike rack.
Speaker C:Whose bike was it?
Speaker C:But suddenly it became an example of all that's bad in America in terms of racial division between people.
Speaker C:And so the nature of the offense, it got blown.
Speaker C:I mean, you had people like even, you know, human rights attorney Ben Crump, who, to his credit, he later took down the tweet.
Speaker C:But initially he talked about it as an outrage.
Speaker C:He's like, this is the kind of behavior that gets black men killed.
Speaker C:And you had people calling her out, basically saying, this is similar to, you know, the woman who falsely accused Emmett Till and led to his execution.
Speaker C:By a lynch mob.
Speaker C:So the nature of the offense was, on its face, quite minor.
Speaker C:The disproportionate response.
Speaker C:So they argue over a bike and people made death threats to her, and they tried to get her fired from her job and make her permanently unemployable.
Speaker C:Because now if you Google this woman, that's all you're going to see online about her forever.
Speaker C:So that's the disproportionate response.
Speaker C:E.
Speaker C:Everyone's afraid to defend her.
Speaker C:So even her employer, they didn't rush to her defense.
Speaker C:They actually released a statement saying, she's been put on leave.
Speaker C:By the way, we never tolerate racism in any form.
Speaker C:So they're creating distance.
Speaker C:So everyone's afraid to defend her.
Speaker C:And then the m.
Speaker C:The moral absolutism of those doing the canceling.
Speaker C:So all the people who were pointing a finger at her and calling her a racist and a terrible person, et cetera, they were ascribing to her all of the worst traits of humanity without actually knowing that.
Speaker C:It turns out she did rent that bike.
Speaker C:She had the receipts to prove it.
Speaker C:She wasn't taking the bike from someone else.
Speaker C:She was taking what she'd already paid for that was rightfully hers.
Speaker C:So that's an example where if you look at that condemned framework, all six of those things are there completely.
Speaker C:So what do you do if you're stuck in a situation like that?
Speaker C:Let's use her as the example because we're already talking about her, is she and her lawyer actually did a number of things very, very well.
Speaker C:And I spoke with her lawyer actually in the wake of it, and commended him for how he had represented his client.
Speaker C:And that was, they refused to be canceled.
Speaker C:So rather than going and just saying, okay, this is.
Speaker C:This is.
Speaker C:I'm just going to be a victim here and my life is over and I'm just going to take it.
Speaker C:They didn't.
Speaker C:They took the mentality, I'm not going to be canceled over this.
Speaker C:She was smart.
Speaker C:She brought in an expert to help her.
Speaker C:In that case, it was legal advice.
Speaker C:When you're being targeted for cancellation.
Speaker C:Legal advice, communications advice, crisis management.
Speaker C:These are the types of people who you need on your side to help you navigate.
Speaker C:Lawyers know the law.
Speaker C:They're equipped to argue your case in court.
Speaker C:Pr, especially high stakes.
Speaker C:And crisis managers know how to work with the media.
Speaker C:They know how to shape stories and ensure that the trust truth comes out.
Speaker C:So they're powerful advocates and surrogates to have on your team.
Speaker C:And you have to do what I describe as Press the truth, which is you can't allow the other side, or in this case just the mainstream press, to have their say with false or incomplete information.
Speaker C:You have to press the truth.
Speaker C:You have to get your narrative out there.
Speaker C:And so when her lawyer came public with the receipts and said, look, I can prove she did.
Speaker C:She didn't take that bike from the boy on the video, the teenager, she had every right to it.
Speaker C:In fact, she wasn't the aggressor, she wasn't the bully.
Speaker C:She was the one being bullied.
Speaker C:So he was pressing the truth.
Speaker C:He was presenting the facts.
Speaker C:And in this day and age, you can't afford to sit back and hope the facts come out eventually.
Speaker C:You got to be an advocate for yourself.
Speaker C:You got to press the truth immediately.
Speaker C:They created a way for the media to get in touch with them.
Speaker C:They were responsive to the media, they acted quickly.
Speaker C:These are all core elements and strategies that you need to employ if and when, God forbid, you find yourself being canceled.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:I love those.
Speaker B:But you said something that stood out to me about this.
Speaker B:She still has a red A on her shirt though, for all of time, even though they may have done this.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So a red R on her shirt.
Speaker C:So it's an R.
Speaker C:Racist.
Speaker B:So what do you, how do you recover from that?
Speaker B:I mean, because like you said, it's always going to be out there.
Speaker B:And do you do, is there a way that we, as people who are being canceled, do we have avenues to deal with the long term effects of this?
Speaker C:Well, first of all, it'll be interesting to see whether or not she loses her job.
Speaker C:If I were a betting man, I'd say she's not going to lose her job, probably because the institution that employs her is going to not rush to terminate her based on the facts that have now come to light.
Speaker C:So she's got a lawyer who's advocating for her and trying to protect her job.
Speaker C:So that's one.
Speaker C:So she's, she's recovering from, if you can recover from such a thing right there.
Speaker C:Two, when the anger dissipates and the death threats slow down, she can go back to her life as opposed to living in hiding.
Speaker C:And by the way, that is not a rarity.
Speaker C:That is not something that is a one off.
Speaker C:I'm not pointing to one instance that never, in fact, I've counseled a number of people who've been at the center of cancel culture controversies and years after the fact, they're still getting death threats.
Speaker C:They, they've had people come to their homes with weapons to do them harm, based on conclusions that they drew from media coverage, not knowing.
Speaker C:Understanding all the facts, but leaping to conclusions.
Speaker C:So if you read my book, there's a woman who I talk about a lot in there named Lisa Alexander, who became known as the San Francisco Karen.
Speaker C:Well, the narrative in the media was there's this entitled snooty white woman who approached a guy who was writing Black Lives Matter on a wall, and she called 911 and called the cops on him.
Speaker C:Now, that isn't what happened.
Speaker C:She.
Speaker C:She didn't know the guy who was writing on the wall of the home, but she knew the person who owned the home, and she thought she was being a good neighbor and asking him, excuse me, you know, this is private property.
Speaker C:You shouldn't write on the walls of someone's private property.
Speaker C:She didn't know that the guy who owned the house had people who he rented rooms to.
Speaker C:The guy could have just said, oh, I actually rent a room in this house.
Speaker C:I'd live here.
Speaker C:It's fine.
Speaker C:If he had said that, the whole situation would have been diffused, but it didn't go down like that.
Speaker C:The guy, as she's talking to him, he spins around with the camera.
Speaker C:He videotapes her.
Speaker C:He's like, why are you bothering me?
Speaker C:Why don't you call the cops?
Speaker C:Why don't you call the cops on me?
Speaker C:And she was like, well, why?
Speaker C:I don't want to call the cops.
Speaker C:He's like, no, you should do that.
Speaker C:You should do that.
Speaker C:And so then the guy is being confrontational.
Speaker C:He's like, what's your name?
Speaker C:What's your friend's name?
Speaker C:He's the aggressor.
Speaker C:And then at the end, he takes.
Speaker C:His video is very cinematic.
Speaker C:He shows Black Lives Matter written on the wall.
Speaker C:And then he pans over to her.
Speaker C:He goes, there's Karen, and she's calling the cops.
Speaker C:And that is why Black Lives Matter.
Speaker C:Totally false narrative.
Speaker C:She never called the cops.
Speaker C:And it was his idea to call the cops in the first place.
Speaker C:But the media took what he said.
Speaker C:He hired a PR firm.
Speaker C:They pushed this story out.
Speaker C:It went viral.
Speaker C:And so the countervailing narrative was, here's this awful racist woman who did this to this guy.
Speaker C:And a gang of people showed up at her house with weapons, including guns, to get what they perceived as justice against this entitled woman.
Speaker C:She thought she was being a good neighbor.
Speaker C:She thought she was asking a question politely.
Speaker C:Excuse me, sir.
Speaker C:Pardon me, sir.
Speaker C:That's how she was talking to the gentleman.
Speaker C:It's Crazy, but that's the world that we live in, and it's.
Speaker C:It has to stop.
Speaker C:How many more lives do we need to see get destroyed like that?
Speaker C:So I hope in the case of the lady in New York, I'm not going to even say her name because I just don't want to bring more, you know, people.
Speaker C:People can look it up, you can find it out there.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:But, you know, I don't know her.
Speaker C:I've never talked to her.
Speaker C:But in terms of how is she going to recover?
Speaker C:Well, she's gonna.
Speaker C:She's got a good advocate who's gonna fight for her job.
Speaker C:She's got now a critical mass of people who believe her now and are willing to hear her side of the story.
Speaker C:She started a GoFundMe page to.
Speaker C:To cover her legal expenses, which reportedly raised over $100,000 to help her.
Speaker C:So there are things that she has certainly done in order to move forward.
Speaker C:And, you know, my hope is for her sake that she's going to be able to explain to people moving forward the facts about what happened.
Speaker C:And she can actually point now to other subsequent media coverage, which has an air of authenticity to it, to say, look, this isn't what happened.
Speaker C:I'm not a terrible person.
Speaker C:It was a misunderstanding.
Speaker C:And so I think there are avenues by which she will be able to recover.
Speaker C:But to your point, she's going to be dealing with this issue for the rest of her life.
Speaker C:Just like Lisa Alexander is never going to come clear of these racism allegations.
Speaker C:Three and a half years and she still forwards me the death threats that she gets in her inbox, people threatening to come after her and to kill her.
Speaker C:That's not what America is supposed to be about.
Speaker C:That's extrajudicial bullying and intimidation and coercion, and that's not right.
Speaker B:So as I look at what's happening in our society, it makes me sad.
Speaker B:And someone who's wrote in the book Cancel Culture, do you have a sense that maybe things are turning around, that people are waking up to just how dangerous this is?
Speaker B:And maybe there's a.
Speaker B:There's a shift in public opinion about the danger of cancel culture?
Speaker C:Yes, and I have reasons to be optimistic because I think people are increasingly seeing that this is.
Speaker C:They're understanding the game that's been played and that it's never black and white.
Speaker C:There's never just two sides to any story.
Speaker C:There's usually more.
Speaker C:And so I do see signs, and I think this, the City Bike Karen, is a great example where, you know, there was There was a lot written in the media in the initial about the allegations against her, but there was a tremendous amount of coverage that basically exonerated her and told her story.
Speaker C:I think there's a critical mass of people who used to believe what they saw online and then would rush to judgment.
Speaker C:And now they see, because there have been a whole series, a litany of these things, that they're starting to rethink that and say, well, hold on, I'm going to reserve judgment until I hear more, because I've now seen several instances where, where people get canceled and maybe they don't really deserve to be.
Speaker C:I also think that there are some very prominent people, including comedians, people like Chris Rock, people like Dave Chappelle.
Speaker C:Dave Chappelle, for sure.
Speaker C:People who are.
Speaker C:Who are out there and they're speaking out against cancel culture.
Speaker C:And you've got more and more celebrities, including people who are active online, saying, cancel culture is wrong.
Speaker C:We should stop doing this.
Speaker C:Not just ones on the right, but ones in the center and ones on the left.
Speaker C:So I do think there are voices of reason out there.
Speaker C:I think Bill Maher has been a tremendous voice of reason.
Speaker C:Bill Maher is not some right wing, MAGA loving, conservative guy.
Speaker C:He's a lifelong Democrat and he's been one of the most articulate and passionate critics of cancel culture from day one, saying, hey, guys, hold on.
Speaker C:This is not what we should be doing.
Speaker C:And so I think it's going to take people on the left, the right and the center to find that common message that canceling people is not smart, it's not sustainable.
Speaker C:And I think there are lots of indications that corporations are not moving as quickly to simply terminate employees.
Speaker C:Upon the allegation being raised, some are still falling into that trap where they feel so pressured by the Twitter mob and people I refer to in the book as cancel vultures who thrive on picking apart other people.
Speaker C:But they're not just kowtowing and collapsing in the way that they were in months and years past.
Speaker C:I think people are understanding we need to pause for a beat and get more information before we do something that forever ruins someone's life.
Speaker B:I like that.
Speaker B:That's good, because I need to be.
Speaker B:I want to be hopeful that we're starting to wake up to this in our lives and not just give in to it.
Speaker B:So what, are you working?
Speaker C:We are.
Speaker C:And if.
Speaker C:Look, if I thought it was hopeless, if I thought it was hopeless, I wouldn't have written the book.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker C:I would have just said, you know, this is the way it Is this is how it's going to be forever.
Speaker C:It's really terrible, but I guess we have to resign ourselves to it.
Speaker C:I think we're going to see Cancel Culture get canceled in our, in our lifetimes and certainly I hope with within the coming years.
Speaker B:That'd be great.
Speaker B:So what else are you working on besides getting this book out to people?
Speaker C:Yeah, that's just my side hustle.
Speaker C:You know, this is not what I do all day.
Speaker C:I don't write books for a living.
Speaker C:This is just a passion project.
Speaker C:I run a business, a small business, a communicate strategic communications firm called Red Banyan.
Speaker C:I'd like to tell people we got two main types of clients.
Speaker C:Those who want to get in the press and those who need to get out.
Speaker C:So we've got, you know, folks who are dealing with high stakes cancellation, you know, Cancel Culture crisis, all, all manners of legal, pr, litigation support, things that, that they're trying to navigate and that falls to our crisis team.
Speaker C:And then on the other side of the house, we have a whole bunch of people who are helping organizations determine based on what their organizational goals are, what they're trying to accomplish, how can we use communications to help them accomplish that goal and how do we get them closer to where they want to be?
Speaker C:So, you know, I stay pretty busy working, you know, leading Red Banion and the book is, like I said, a passion project.
Speaker C:It's something I believe in, but I do that.
Speaker C:I go out, I do a lot of commentary in the media, on TV and radio and podcasts, just talking about the issues of the day.
Speaker C:I do a lot of writing.
Speaker C:I write for Fast Company, I write for Forbes, a number of different outlets, and I just try to spread the word.
Speaker C:And if people want to know more about me or they want to know about the types of stuff that I talk about in the book, they can go to cancel culture.com where we have some resources that they can Download, you know, 10 things to do if you find yourself or to either avoid or handle being canceled.
Speaker C:I've got resources on there that are available if parents.
Speaker C:How do you.
Speaker C:How should parents help their kids avoid being canceled or becoming cancel vultures?
Speaker C:Things that parents need to do to teach their kids about Cancel Culture because it all comes back to education.
Speaker C:And just like I'm trying to educate the general population, I think parents could play a vital role in educating their kids about safe use of the Internet and doing also teaching their kids about what it means to learn and grow and to learn from mistakes and the idea that, you know, it's natural.
Speaker C:It's a process that every one of us is going to go through on our journey.
Speaker C:And how do we help the kids to shape their perspective before they get influenced by bad actors, whether it's on TikTok or YouTube or Snapchat or wherever else.
Speaker B:That's great.
Speaker B:I love asking my guests this question.
Speaker B:This has been a phenomenal conversation.
Speaker B:But I love to ask this question.
Speaker B:What is the legacy you want to leave in the world?
Speaker C:It's a great question.
Speaker C:Well, one is very personal, which is.
Speaker C:And this, this keeps me up at night.
Speaker C:This is something I spend a lot of time thinking about, is I really hope that my children will look back on me as a parent and judge that I was a good father to them and that I showed them love and respect and understanding and that I modeled good behavior for them and that I give them the tools that they need to make their way in the world and to be productive, positive citizens.
Speaker C:That's the main legacy that I worry about.
Speaker C:I'm just, I'm incredibly proud of both of my children.
Speaker C:I have a son, Gabe, who's almost 17, he's 16 and a half.
Speaker C:I have a daughter, Noah, and they're both remarkable kids.
Speaker C:I mean, my son Gabe just got back.
Speaker C:He volunteered for a week at a camp up in Georgia where they took inner city kids and they gave them a camp experience and got them out of a really difficult living situation that they're in and took them to a beautiful place, camp in the woods, and got to get a sense of what it's like to be kids without having to deal with all the stuff that they have to deal with in their day to day lives.
Speaker C:But I really focus on the legacy of my children and my family and hoping that I can raise really well adjusted, wonderful, productive kids who take care of each other and the broader community.
Speaker C:And from a business perspective, I.
Speaker C:I'm very, very fortunate because I have 30 families right now that rely upon me to do my utmost to build a company that gives people the chance to grow personally and professionally, to get better each day.
Speaker C:And, you know, my team will tell you I practice what I preach.
Speaker C:I'm never worried about someone on my team making a mistake.
Speaker C:In fact, I tell them, look, do I want you to make mistakes?
Speaker C:No, I prefer you don't.
Speaker C:But guess what?
Speaker C:You're going to, and that's okay.
Speaker C:All I would expect is if you do, I want accountability.
Speaker C:So just recognize that, own it, and then for people to learn from it so that we don't repeat the mistakes.
Speaker C:And so for me, I take very seriously the role that I play as the, the leader of this company and to make sure that I'm creating an environment where people become the best version of themselves.
Speaker C:And, you know, they, they have a, a job that is more than a job, that they feel like it's really propelling them forward in life to accomplish their goals and that we're really serving our clients and we're helping them and we're, we're, we're there for them, especially the ones who are in some of the most trying times in their lives.
Speaker C:You know, I hope my legacy is when, when, when all is said and done, that I will have made an impact on a lot of lives all across the world and, and hopefully help people, you know, tell good stories about, about the great things that they've done and in my own small way, made the world better.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:So one more time, where can people find your book, the Cancel Cultural Cultural Curse?
Speaker B:And where can I connect with you on social media?
Speaker C:You can find the book everywhere.
Speaker C:You can find on Amazon, you find on Barnes and Noble, wherever books are sold, you can go to the cancel culture.com where there are links to buy the book there, and you can get information about me there.
Speaker C:If you want to know more about Red Banyan, what we do, you can Visit our website, redbanion.com.
Speaker C:you can Google it, you'll find it.
Speaker C:And if you want to connect with me personally, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Twitter, just my first name, last name at Evan Neerman.
Speaker C:I'm on Twitter, I'm on LinkedIn, reach out.
Speaker C:I read all my own stuff.
Speaker C:I try to respond as quickly as I can.
Speaker C:And I just want to thank you for the opportunity to have this discussion and to share some of my thoughts and my ideas with your listeners.
Speaker C:So thank you.
Speaker B:Well, thank you, Evan, and blessings on your book sales.
Speaker B:And hopefully we can, by the grace of God, get out of this cancel culture mindset and get back to living a life of forgiveness and understanding, because that's a much better society.
Speaker B:When we can realize that we all fall short and make mistakes and can live with that idea that, yes, we're going to make mistakes.
Speaker C:Yeah, we are.
Speaker C:And look, if you look at the.
Speaker C:Across the five great religions in the world, and I presume if you go beyond that, you'll find it, too.
Speaker C:But I refer to the five.
Speaker C:All of those religions have a tradition of forgiveness and redemption and atonement.
Speaker C:And so we shouldn't try to rewrite centuries of religious philosophy just because we want people to like our content and get clicks and feel like we're, you know, keyboard warriors.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Well, thank you so much Evan.
Speaker B:Have a great and wonderful day.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:You as well.
Speaker A:Thanks for listening to Becoming Bridge Builder.
Speaker A:If you enjoyed this episode and want to help support the podcast, please subscribe and share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and review.
Speaker A:To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on Instagram KeithHaney and on Getter and Twitter vheadpin, or on his website@alightbreaksthrough.org thanks again and tune in next time.