Bridging Divides: Dov Baron on How Curiosity Shapes Leadership in Polarized Times

Pity Party Over

This episode of Pity Party Over couldn't be more timely following the US presidential election results, which have left voters and the world feeling equally joyful and hurt.

This pivotal moment highlights the importance of listening to bridge divides and overcome polarization, which destroys relationships and the opportunity to create a system that accommodates everyone's needs.

Dov Baron, a leadership consultant, author and speaker, helps leaders find more profound meaning and fulfillment in their work. Our conversation centers on the transformative power of authenticity and curiosity in creating genuine connections in our polarized world.

Cultivating curiosity means actively seeking to understand others' perspectives, fostering compassion, and reducing divisiveness. By focusing on the broader context rather than just content, we can gain empathy for others and build meaningful relationships that transcend division.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform.

Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen Matini or send him a message on LinkedIn.

#Belonging #Curiosity #Authenticity #Purpose #Integrity #EmotionalIntelligence #LeadershipDevelopment #SelfAwareness #PersonalGrowth #Mindfulness #Kindness #PainAndGrowth #Transformation #Innovation #ContextOverContent

TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: Since you and I met, there's one word that is really dear to me, but I also know that is dear to you that I would like to ask you why it is dear to you, which is belonging.

Dov Baron: Belonging is a really important thing for me. And at a very real level, it's real to me and important to me because I never did belong. I didn't feel like I belonged when I was a kid.

Coming from that to the present tense, I think belonging is really important because we, particularly since COVID, since the lockdown, people had a lot of problems. I remember calling the CEOs that I work with and saying, "When pandemic happened and you're going to lock down, you're going to want to fire me. You're going to want to take me off your regular paycheck, and it's the last thing you should do." And they're like, "Why?" And I said, "Because you're going to have way more problems after than you have now." And they were like, "Well, why?" And well, it'll soon get back to normal. Well, A, normal is never coming back. That's over. And B, when you come back, you're going to see human beings are tribal.

We need interconnection with other human beings. So whatever this does, we can talk about how it impacts our nervous system, our limbic system, how it affects the gut biome, and all the other things that it's going to affect. But psychologically, we are going to be hungry for community because we're being removed from communities. And we've all set up our own communities. If we're not ready for that, when they come back, people will find themselves drifting into communities that they don't really belong into.

And they go, "What do you mean?" Well, they're going to find communities where they can distort themselves and they can make themselves fit in. And let's face it, you and I both understand this. In the corporate world, everything was about fitting in. Yeah The whole thing that everybody was excited about is get the right people on the right bus in the right seat. Yeah, well, that means distort yourself to be in that seat.

Belonging means I can show up with all of me. Gay, straight, wearing a dress and a mustache, artistic, creative, highly intellectual. You know Any flavor, shade of context that person wants to bring is where you belong. But in a fitting in culture, we have to disenfranchise parts of ourselves. We have to remove parts of ourselves. We have to distort parts of ourselves in order to fit in. So belonging is very important now more than ever. It's always been important because we're tribal, and it's important to me because I never felt like I fit in when I belonged when I was a kid.

Stephen Matini: When did you start feeling that you belonged?

Dov Baron: Probably not until my early to mid-40s.

Stephen Matini: And what happened?

Dov Baron: I got married to my bride, who I've been with for 27 years when I was 39. We've been together 27 years. And she was the first person I felt like I belonged with.

I remember asking, I say to my friend, we went for a drink and he said, "How's it going with Ranuka?" And I said, "Magnificent." And I said, "I think I'm going to ask her to marry me." And my friend's like, "Oh, you can't do that." And I said, "Why not?" He goes, "Well, you're the last dying breed of Bachelor." And I'm like, "Yeah." And he said, "But you can't ask her to marry you." And I said, "Why?" He says, "I know your highest maxim." And I said, "Yeah, so do I." And he goes, "Well, has it changed?" And I said, "No." He goes, "Is still freedom?" I go, "Yeah." He goes, "Well, how can you get married?" And I said, "Because freedom for you is your accessibility to different vaginas." That's not what freedom is to me.

Freedom to me is access to more of myself. The more free I feel to be me, then the more free I am. And in this relationship with this woman, I have another area I didn't even know I'm allowed to express or I give myself permission to express. So that was the beginning of it was freedom of being with her. She was so powerfully in her own space that it gave me permission to stop doing my shit that I did in relationships. And so I started to feel like I belonged.

But it was also at that point in time that after at 39, it was 20 years of work. So I'd been working on myself personally with therapists and mentors and all the rest of it for 20 years that I suddenly got comfortable with the fact that I was a polymath. I wasn't specialized and I didn't know enough in a particular area, but I knew vast amounts in a lot of different areas. And I started to surround myself with other polymaths.

Belonging my tribe or a tribe of polymaths. People who have incredible specialties, but you don't know. They also have these other 18 things that they're so deeply embedded in. And being around them made me feel like I belonged. So that was the beginning of it. And that's where I live now. I live in that place of being surrounded by them.

Stephen Matini: So if I understood correctly what you're saying, you start belonging when you have license to be yourself or someone gives you that opportunity to be yourself.

Dov Baron: I don't know that anybody gives it to you. I think that you give yourself permission to not distort or disenfranchise and allow people or groups to fall away that you thought you wanted to be in. So this is the challenge we're seeing with the very polarized partisan political system and political followers. You have people who used to hang out together who can't talk to each other anymore because they're polarized politically.

The question is, can I be all of me and can I allow you to be all of you? So if it's not okay for me to be all of me or I feel like I have to put you in your place, then that's not my tribe. You know My religion, I tell everybody, my religion is curiosity. So if I'm going to live in the blood of that curiosity, I'm going to eat, sleep, breathe that, then I have to be willing to show up. Now, that's me showing up to them.

On the other side of that, they may want to shove me in some box, and that's not where I belong. So I know where I belong, which is where you where I don't have to disenfranchise or repress or deny some part of myself in order to be with you. And at the same time, be respectful, of course.

Stephen Matini: Some people, maybe you heard this, may say, "you know Dov, that's easy for you to say this because you are an independent professional. You don't work for anyone you know so you're not actually in an organization. But me, I am part of this thing, so I have to be extra careful. So I don't know if someone ever made the comment to you, but if they did, how do you respond?

Dov Baron: I respond with, "If you don't feel like you belong, you should be somewhere else." Sorry. I mean, I know that that sounds like an easy solution, but it is an easy solution because there are companies that you have access to, whoever you are.

So for me, the key is not in, "Well, I can't leave." You've not taken ownership of your specialization. You've not taken ownership of your power yet. When you take ownership of that, then you can go anywhere, anywhere at all. So if you're in a place where you have to disenfranchise yourself, that's too high a cost for a salary because it means you have to take off your personal head and put on your professional head in order to be there. It's fascinating.

I'm often asked this question, "How is this possible? Many of your friends are your clients." Yes. Because they're not paying me to be their friend. I can make the separation between those two things. So I am going to work with you and I'm not going to change anything. So in fact, you still get the same guy. I'm just not coming at you from the same position as a friend. Yeah So I speak to you the way I speak to my friends. I speak to you the way I speak to my clients. I speak to you the way I speak to anybody.

And if that works for you, that's fantastic. And if it doesn't, that's also fantastic. So if you're working somewhere where you feel like you have to disenfranchise yourself and you have to take off your personal head and put on your professional head, then there's two things to look at there. One, the environment, which I just said, if it is someplace that forces you to disenfranchise, that's something to look at. But there's also the other side, which is you have to look at yourself. And you have to look at yourself, A, why am I so willing to disenfranchise?

Why am I so willing to distort myself? That's a question in and of itself. And B, if I'm pissed off with this place that makes me disenfranchised, what is it in me that I'm not bringing forward? What is my own discomfort? What am I not examining that I need to bring forward? Because I'm facilitating this. Like What's magnificent about you that you're facilitating being shoved in the corner?

Stephen Matini: Maybe one of the reason why that happens is because all of us, to a different extent, we are afraid that if we set the boundaries, if we said the no, we would not belong.

Dov Baron: If you don't do those things, you won't fit in. You will belong, but you won't fit in. And you've got to get the distinction. Particularly you know English is a difficult language because we use so many alternates of the same thing. But fitting in and belonging are vastly different.

I love beautiful clothes, and I love beautiful shoes, and I have pretty exotic shoes. But if I'm going to find some nice shoes and I buy them, I'm not going to force them into the closet. I either have to get rid of some and make some space for it, or are they going to get damaged?

So if you think about anything that you shove into something to make it fit, it has to distort. If I buy a nice new shirt and I put it in there and the shirts are full, and I've not emptied some out, then the shirt's getting all creased and crinkled and doesn't get to shine.

So it's the same thing. We make things fit in rather than belonging. This is your place. When I met my bride, I felt like I'd come home. I didn't have to go, "Oh, you know should I minimize this or maximize that?" It was like I was over that before I met her. It was like, "No." I mean, when we met, we went on a blind date and spent five hours on a blind date.

And halfway through the blind date, she said, "I feel like I'm being interviewed." And I said, "That's because you are." And she said, "Really?" And I said, "Yeah." She goes, "Well, can I ask you anything?" I said, "Anything at all because I'm not going to hide anything from you, and I don't want you to hide anything from me." And I realized that socially in the world, you've been trained to say the right thing or do the right thing. We're all trained that way. It wasn't a criticism to her.

And I said, "And this may be your first experience of not having to do that, but I'm not going to do that." So I'm going to say things that you might think are sexually inappropriate or politically incorrect or whatever it is. I'm not going to hide any of it because I'm not politically correct. I say things that some people will find offensive. All you have to know is my heart and soul are deeply embedded in love and kindness and generosity and curiosity.

But that doesn't mean I won't piss you off or say things that are in a or you have been conditioned to be inappropriate. And this is how we're living our lives. And this is what's really important in my work around the emotional source code. It's called the anatomy of meaning. You have to look at the meaning you give everything because it has anatomy to it. You have to go below it and see, okay, well, where did this connect with that? And how is that part of this? Because these words that you're holding don't mean anything except to you.

And part of the problem with our society today is we're imposing meaning. So when they, whoever they are, whether it's your boss, whether it's an employee, whoever it is, when they use a term, your only response is, "Tell me what you mean by that." Because you may discover that they do have horrible intent, and you may discover they have playful intent. But you don't want to write people off based on the intent that you're making up because nothing has any meaning but the meaning you are giving it.

And this is what's so vastly important for us to understand that. Nothing has any meaning but the meaning we give it. So question that meaning because it's not truth because the meaning you give it, you hold as truth. And if you don't question it, you won't know if it's real or not.

Stephen Matini: How do you deal with a tribe of people, a tribe meaning could be an organization, could be whatever that is in which somehow there are certain words that have a specific meaning for that tribe and they consider it to be appropriate or not to use them? How do you face the situation if you want to belong to the group of people?

Dov Baron: Well, again, you're talking about fitting in versus belonging. So my tribe, where I belong, we all know that we're all going to say things that out in the world would be, quote, “inappropriate." It doesn't mean we're not discerning. So please be clear here. I'm not going to say to my friends those things that I might say on a CNN, right?

Or I might say on another national I'm not going to say those words because I'm not an idiot. And by that, I don't mean that I'm afraid of being canceled. I don't care about being canceled. It means I understand that people are going to associate a meaning. So here's the thing. My wife and I teach speakers how to speak, the Speaker's Academy for Authentic Leadership. And one of the things we'll talk about in that is if you're going to use a piece of jargon and by the way, almost everything is jargon, right?

But you're going to use jargon, right? Or you're going to use a word that is not part of the lexicon of the language. So for instance, I was born in Britain, so my vocabulary tends to be much larger than the average North American. There are words that I use that are French in heritage, that are part of the English language. I just can't use them here. Not because people are dumb, it's just because it's not used.

But one of my words that is just part of my lexicon is the word ubiquitous. Ubiquitous. Now, ubiquitous is part of my I say it all the time in a reference point. I cannot say that in America or North America without giving a short explanation because then what I'm doing is I'm giving meaning. So I say, you know it seems like polarization is ubiquitous these days.

If I stop there, I'm as smart as using a big word. There's nothing good about that. For a lot of people, yeah. Right? That's all I am. But if I say it seems like polarization is ubiquitous, meaning everywhere you look, people are on either one side or the other. They're fighting against some kind of polarization. Now that person has learned the word ubiquitous. So now instead of feeling distressed or disrespected or talked down to, they now feel smarter.

What if we do that with politically incorrect statements, which is what I do? So we get this understanding. What we're doing there is transferring meaning so that you can still be offended. And by the way, if you're committed to being offended by something, that's something for you to really consider having a look at. Just as I would tell you this, and just so you understand, if you're committed to anything, have a look at it.

If you're committed to being a Christian and you've never thought about it, if I say to you, "you know, what faith are you?" And you say, "I'm a Christian." And I say, "Why? Because I am. That's what I've always been. Then question it, please. Not because I'm anti-Christian, but because I'm pro-curiosity, because I'm pro-consciousness, because I'm pro-expensiveness, because I'm pro-human being. And I want you to understand that there are other ways to see things. And the only way we can grow as human beings is by looking at things from different perspectives.

So what if it doesn't mean this? So this is how we develop ourselves. This is how we grow as leaders is by putting aside our assumptions of meaning and embracing curiosity to discover meaning that may have nothing. Like you may be blown away to discover these other purposes. And that meaning might be insane. That's fine. But at least you know they're not coming at it from the way you're coming at it. And that allows you to grow. And that allows you to find where you actually belong rather than where to distort yourself to fit in.

Stephen Matini: You know As you're talking, I'm thinking other words that seem to be important to you. One is integrity and purpose. Integrity and purpose, you know I'm thinking out loud, do they come before what we're talking about?

Dov Baron: If you and I walk around your city center and ask people, are you integral? Do you have integrity? I guarantee you that 99.9% of people say yes. So integrity is a complete waste of time if you don't understand it. So that's the proviso. Integrity is something that you have to understand. What are you integral to? So if I ask you, was Adolf Hitler integral? 100%. So integrity is not a good or a bad thing. It just means your commitment to what it is you say you're committed to.

So for me, if you don't know your purpose, then what are you integral to? You know most people will say, "Well, I do what I say and I say what I do." Okay. Why do you say what you say? Well, I thought about that. Well, then I don't know what you're integral to because you don't. So that's a harder question, a much harder question. This is why you know my clients work with me is because they are highly intelligent people. They are highly successful people.

They've done amazing things, but they've not received the kind of pushback at a deep curiosity. Not to be argumentative, but to allow them to expand, allow them to explore deeper parts of themselves so they can have a deeper relationship with life.

So from that integrity, we come back further, which is into purpose. But here's the thing, we can't get into purpose because even I say people, "What's your purpose?" Most people in the business world will say, "Yeah, they know what their purpose is.

They read Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why.” I know my purpose." And then I tell them to tell me what it is, and I go, "Do you want the good news or the bad news?" And they go, "The good news." And I go, "You read the book, and the book is called Starts With Why?" And they go, "Okay. What's the bad news?" “The first word of that book title is what?" And they go, "Starts?" And I go, "Yep, you've started. You're not there." And they go, "What do you mean?" You have constructed purpose out of mission. It's a construct.

It's a manufactured thing. You can't find purpose unless you self-examine at a very deep level. Purpose actually comes from pain. It's the thing that you are pained about. I'll give you an example. I had a conversation with someone who is insanely highly respected about being mindful.

And deservably so, this person has done insane amounts of research, written books that are magnificent on it. I have spent time with this person on several occasions, and this person speaks mindlessly. And this is not once. This is always. Now, I get being a quick thinker. I'm a quick thinker, but that's different.

No room for anybody to breathe because it's just like, "I'm going to suck all the air out of the room." It's like, "Oh, that's interesting." So why is this person's mission, purpose, around mindfulness? What I know about this person that they never told me, but I know by observing is there was a primary caregiver or somebody of incredible importance who never let this person speak, who spoke to them mindlessly and never gave them room to speak.

So this person has made their life's purpose about being mindful, including making sure that you think about what you're saying and letting other people have space to say it and be aware of your own thoughts. But this person is still living in the wound. Your purpose is always connected to your pain. If you're not willing to look into the dark shadows, you'll never find your purpose. In the words of Joseph Campbell, "The treasure you seek can only be found in the cave you fear to enter.

And most of us intellectually go there, but we don't emotionally and spiritually go there. That's why they work with me because they've been to all the top coaches. They've been to the top therapists. They've been to you know the Tony Robbins weekends in Fiji or whatever it is. And like how come it's still not there? Because this is the deep work. If you don't want to do that, that's great. You shouldn't do it. And I taught people out of working with me more than I talked them into it.

But if you want to take that on, the majesty of that journey is so beautiful, so fulfilling. But you should know this. If you're in a company and you want innovation or you're an individual who wants enlightenment, the path is the same. And they go, "Well, what's that?" Destruction. You know We think about enlightenment as being, "Oh, the angels are singing." We think about innovation as, "Oh, you know we're going to develop this new technology." But the truth is that all innovation and all enlightenment burns everything down because otherwise you just cling to what you knew.

And so most people you know don't want to burn anything down, so they go to Tony Robbins or whatever it is, and that's great. Nothing wrong with it. And when I say burn it down, I'm not talking about, "Oh, well, now I'm going to destroy my business when you work with me." No, you're actually going to be more successful. I always tell people, "I have no interest in making you more successful, but I know it's going to happen." It's a bonus. You will be more successful, but you'll be far more deeply fulfilled, and that's more important. You'll be on purpose with your life, which is more important.

But you have to burn down beliefs that you've clung to that you actually think are you. We've all been there. I was certainly there. I was like, "I'm certain this is who I am. I'm the savior. I'm the superhero." That was my shit that I carried around for 32 years. That was a hell of a burden to put down. But imagine it like you know it's like you're atlas. You're carrying this weight on your back. And somebody says, "You can put it down now." And you're like, "Well, who will I be?

If I put down the world and stop carrying the world, who will I be? Who's going to even recognize me in the marketplace if I'm not this identity that I've clung to?" Guess we'll find out. So we cling to our identity. We manufacture purpose out of that identity. So you can't have purpose without dealing with identity. And then as we manufacture purpose, we then say we're integral to purpose, but it's a purpose that was manufactured that is rooted in a false identity. So now you see how it's flipped back into your question.

Stephen Matini: What is the best way to experience that pain that you were talking about? Because the pain can be really scary for a lot of people. You know.

Dov Baron: Of course!

Stephen Matini: Last time you said, well, you just said it. Enlightenment is a destructive process, which I love that. But what is, I don't know, a healthy way to stay in that pain?

Dov Baron: So let me be clear. Nobody wants to stay in the pain. I didn't want to stay in it when I was in it, and I've been in it several times. If you put your hand on a hot plate, you're going to pull your hand away. It's another form of pain. You're going to pull away. The answer is to become anti-fragile. It's not my word. But to become anti-fragile. So let me give you an example. You work out at lunchtime. Yeah Do you lift weights or what do you do?

Stephen Matini: A little bit. A little bit of everything. Yeah.

Dob Baron: Okay. So you lift weights?

Stephen Matini: Yeah.

Dov Baron: So I've been a bodybuilder for many, many, many years. I used to do these videos from the gym that were called “sweaty leadership tips.” I'd be all sweaty. There's a bunch of them on YouTube somewhere. And you know I would hold my phone, but every now and then, I would flip the phone just a little bit off angles over my shoulder, looking at gym equipment or looking at other people. And so I did it this time, and I said, "See that guy there?" There's a guy working out.

And I said, "That guy's been here every day that I've been here and I'm here dedicatedly five days a week for at least two hours every morning. He's here five days a week for at least maybe he's here more, I don't know. But he's definitely here the five days I'm here, and he's here for at least as long as I'm here. He's usually here before me, and he sometimes leaves just before me, but mostly he's sometimes often after.

Now, you've seen me in a semi-clothed state and you know that I'm muscular, right? I'm not trying to show that off. You know That's my form. Okay. Now, if you look at him, I realize he's far away. You probably can see that he's not particularly muscular. What's the difference? And you might say, "Well, maybe he doesn't want to be muscular." And I can say, "Sure, of course. Everybody has that choice." But let's remember he's here as long as I'm here as often as I'm here.

What's the difference? You don't know. Like It would be kind of puzzling, right? And the reason it's puzzling is because he kind of looks out of shape. In fact, he looked like he was in the same shape as he was two years before when I first and I'd gotten to meet him and said hello. And, you know, I, I actually have an enormous amount of respect that he'd show up every morning for two hours. But what I noticed was he never increased the weight.

He did his four sets of 10 for everything over and over again. So his body had adapted and never gotten any better. He was doing all the right things, but he wasn't willing to embrace the pain. When you go to the gym, you know that's enough for me to stay the same. And you know that you have to enter into the discomfort in order to grow.

You have to run for 10 seconds longer than you feel like you're capable of. You have to hold the pose for 10 seconds longer than you think you can in yoga. You have to 10% more weight on. You have to do all of those things. You have to do that in order for it to work. The way to understand embracing the pain is anti-fragile rather than resilient.

So resilient means that you get knocked down nine times eight times and you get up nine. That's stupid. That means you're not learning. I know I used to be the king of that. That's dumb. Be anti-fragile, which means you get knocked down once and you go, "How can I get up stronger?" Your muscles are anti-fragile. They have to be torn and broken in order for them to grow. That pain that you're in in your growth process is celebratory. Wow, I'm growing.

If you go to the gym and the next morning you wake up and you're kind of like, "Ooh, ow, ooh, ooh, ow." And your friend says, "What's going on?" He goes, "I worked out yesterday. Are you okay? Oh, yeah. I had a great workout. I'm just sore. You celebrate that. Celebrate the pain because it's taking you to an outcome that you can't get to unless you embrace being anti-fragile until you embrace being stronger.

Stephen Matini: It feels like you are giving me a recipe with all these different ingredients. And so while you mentioned this ingredient, but I would like to know where does kindness go in your recipe, as I call it?

Dov Baron: If you want to insult me, call me nice. If you want to compliment me, call me kind.

Stephen Matini: You are so kind.

Dov Baron: Right. Thank you. Nice is an insult, NICE, neurotic, insecure, controlling emotions. Kindness is something we're talked out of.

I believe with every fiber of my being that our nature is kindness, but most of us will mix kindness up with niceness. So I'm just being kind. No, you're not. You're lying. I didn't want to be unkind. No, that's not being unkind. Tell the truth. If you have a big decision in front of you and you have a friend over here who will always be nice, and you have a friend over here who loves you and cares about you, but will always tell you the truth, and you got a major decision. Who are you going to?

You're not going to the nice person. You know, they're going to just say something nice. This is a major decision of your life. You're going to go to the person who's kind and truthful. I used to call myself in my 20s. I was brutally honest. No, I was brutal. I was brutal. That's what I was. Because it lacked kindness. Kindness is compassion. It's caring. It's loving. But I will not lie to you. Does my ass look fat in these pants? That's a question that every man who's ever been in a relationship has heard.

Let's just say the answer is yes, right? So is that kind? Not really. If I'm nice, I say, "No, love it. It looks great." Ugh. I'm lying, but if I have kindness, I will say, "The fact that you ask me means you feel like it is. I would suggest you change. No, I want your opinion. Okay. I love your ass. But those are not the most flattering pants in the world.

I don't have to deliver it with a hammer. I can deliver it with kindness. And kindness to me, if you sort of boil it down, where I go to is this. I need to remember that everybody I meet, no matter how deliriously happy they seem or how miserable they seem, everybody I meet is in some kind of pain. They may have a magnificent mask. They may have a mask they don't even know they have.

But everybody's in some kind of pain. Everybody wants to feel better about something. So I can approach them from that place of, "I'm not here to make you feel miserable. I'm not here to rub salt in any wound. I'm here to have compassion for you. And how do I have compassion for you? I become deeply curious and discover what's going on for you. Why are you this way? Because you're in pain. The person attacking you isn't attacking you because they're an asshole.

They're attacking you because they're in pain. And you look like somebody who might cause them more pain, so they're attacking you. And you go, "But I was being really, really nice to them. Yeah, well, I might attack you if you'd be nice to me too because nice is shit. They're lying." So it's really important to realize that everybody's in some kind of pain. Have compassion for that. Ask yourself, "I wonder what kind of pain this person's in.

I wonder why they're being that way." Again, curiosity is my religion. Become deeply curious about them. When you do that, people will open up to you. People will not be as offended. Remember, attack is defense and defense is attack. If somebody's attacking you, it's a defensive move. They feel like you're attacking them. And you go, "But I wasn’t... I understand that you weren't. And I understand that that was not your intent. That's not relevant.

What's relevant is that's how they feel. All little children are kind and they're caring and they're loving and they're cuddly and they're deeply curious. They want to know why the sky is blue and why the grass is green. They don't have all these assumptions. So if that's inherent, then everything else that's showing up that isn't that is showing up because that person had to fit in somewhere in order to not feel alone in the world. Okay. Maybe that somewhere was their own family. That happens a lot.

Stephen Matini: I have one last question for you, because it's beautiful how all these ingredients come together. And you have explained them to me very clearly. So I'm very grateful, and very peaceful, you know because a lot of things that you said make total sense to you. But the way you say it, it helped me reconciling some discrepancies that I may have on how I connect them. But I was wondering ...

Dov Baron: You know what I just want to say before you go any further, that's really important. Like I want the listener to understand that. The challenge with today a lot of the time is we deal in content, not context. And in order to deal in context, which gives us a deeper understanding, we have to look at all the pieces of the puzzle. All this puzzle is one big sky, right? Well, you're holding one piece of the jigsaw puzzle that has blue on it. That's just one piece of the puzzle. There's so much more.

And so when you like listening to this conversation that we've had, if somebody started at the beginning and kicked out after 10 minutes because I said a certain word that offended them, they have no context. But even if you have discrepancies in your head as I'm speaking, by the time we get to the end, you can then look at, well, what came together? What made sense? Am I in the same place? Again, as you said Stephen before, it's that willingness to change and not be so rigid and fixed.

So I sincerely appreciate you saying that, that it brought the discrepancies together and, "Oh, now I see how this connects to this." But if you take it out of context, everything's lost. So this is why it's important to listen to the full conversation. And moreover, listen twice. And you suddenly hear what you know because now the second time you're not listening with your own biases. So thank you for bringing it up. It's really important.

Stephen Matini: Maybe it's also the combination of my own curiosity. I'm also very curious. And the fact that anything you say to me comes from a place of kindness, you know including the jokes or anything you said. You know For those who are going to listen to this episode, you pointed out all these amazing ingredients, you know integrity, purpose, meaning, belonging, and kindness. You talked about context, assumption, pain, loving, love. If you had to tell to our listeners, what could it be a starting point? Where should they start with all these ingredients? Which one is the first one to tackle?

Dov Baron: Without doubt, it's curiosity. I sign off everything I do with stay curious, my friends. Stay curious. I'm very philosophical and very spiritual in my background before I became a psychologist, before I became somebody involved in neuroscience and quantum physics and geopolitics and all the other stuff. There is a philosophical understanding that life is in quest of knowing itself.

I believe that if there is a force in the world that you or in the universe that we call God, that intelligence is expansive. And if God is the ultimate in intelligence, then it is the ultimate in expansion. If it has to expand, then it has to constantly experience and learn. And the only way to do that is curiosity.

Of course, I don't have that power, but if I was to say, "What are the exhibits of the presence of God," it would be love and curiosity. But curiosity still comes first. I love that. Because if I love without curiosity, I lack discernment. If I'm curious, I'm constantly learning and I'm willing to constantly change. And it means I'm willing to constantly let go of my biases.

So all the things I talked about, get curious about, get curious about what pain might be underneath that fake smile. What pain might be underneath my need to fit in rather than belong? What is the pain that stops me from being curious? What is the pain that stops me from being loving or kind in a situation? Because if I wasn't in pain, if I wasn't protecting, I'd probably be kind here. Yeah. You probably would.

What is the pain that stops me from experiencing my purpose? What is the pain that I feel that has me fear the depths of my emotions, my shadow self? What if my purpose actually comes from my pain? What if my purpose is to serve in the world in a way I've never considered? What if my purpose is to serve in the world with some part of myself that I disenfranchised, that I've got boxed away somewhere in the shadows of myself?

Every time you're about to answer, think about how you can change it to a question for yourself, not for the other person. Because you're not going to turn into some interrogator, but a question for yourself. You want to be more innovative in your organization? Be curious. Don't jump to assumptions. You want to be a better leader? Be curious. You want to be a better manager? Be curious. This applies to every area of your life. Be curious.

It's the essence of what I do on my podcast on The Dove Barron Show. It's always about curiosity. I'm curious about this. Tell me about that because everybody's formed by their curiosity or quote their lack of it.

Stephen Matini: I’m very grateful for this time you're giving me. Thank you so much, Dove. I've learned a ton. Thank you. This has been absolutely wonderful.

Dov Baron: My absolute pleasure, Steven. Thank you so much for inviting me to be part of this. Thank you for inviting me to speak with your audience. And by the way, for you, dear listener, dear viewer, you know I want you to understand something. I understand that the highest value in this crazy world is time. Even more than that, time is the engagement. So you actually being engaged with this. And if you've made it from A to Z, from the beginning to the end, you know I really want to thank you for taking the time.

And if I pushed your buttons, thank you for letting me push your buttons and not flip it off, not because I want to irritate you, but because I want to irritate the parts of you that are stuck so that you can have connection to that, what I would call your soulful, more soulful self, because I believe in your magnificence. And it may have been a little too in your face for you, or it may have been a little too direct compared to what you used to.

But you do need to know that I love you, and that's why I push you. And that being said, podcasts is a one-way street. We do this. It's not like that. We don't know if you're listening. We don't know if you're enjoying it. We don't know any of that. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to write to Stephen. You can write to me too, [e-mail], yes, that is my email, really, [e-mail], I know I'm insane. It's okay, and write to Stephen, write to me.

And tell us what you got out of this. Moreover, tell us what you're going to do with it because it matters more. I hear from people 10 years ago after you did a podcast you know 10 years ago, and it really changed my life like, "Great. Wonderful." Or you did a podcast or you did an interview. You were on this TV show you know seven years ago, and you really pissed me off. And I was like, Fantastic. Write to Stephen. Tell him what you got out of this. This man brings you the very best people to interact with so that you can learn.

He puts the time, the energy, the effort, sits around for hours doing all the prep work and all the post work. You have no idea. It's much longer than this. And he brings on people who cost thousands of dollars an hour to give you their time for free. Appreciate the man.

Go on to wherever you listen to podcasts with Apple or wherever it is. Rate, review, and subscribe to the show, and then share the show with everybody you know. Don't hoard it. Be abundant in your thinking.

Share the show out. And I'm not just talking about the episode with me on. I'm talking about this great show this men puts together for you. Share it out there. Write to him. Tell him you appreciate him. It's not a one-way street. Have reciprocity in his generosity.

Stephen: Dov, all my love to you. Thank you. Thank you.