Truth Context Vs. Subtext
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There is a huge problem with how our leaders are delivering their messages to the public. This episode is going to be a discussion on truth context versus subtext which is directly related to tweets and statements by the President regarding four congresswomen in the United States. Bill Stierle and Tom unpack each of the statements and share their views. They also talk about how language works, how to listen better, and how to have an effective response. Join these guys as they dig deeper into subtext language, how the president changes context too often, and many other interesting examples and points.
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We’re talking about an event. It’s going to be truth and context versus subtext. This is directly related to tweets and statements by the President regarding four congresswomen in the United States. It’s about, “They should go back to the countries that they came from.” Is that a racist statement? Are the other things the President has said around these racist statements? It’s a good question to pose and to start to unpack. Wouldn’t you agree, Bill?
Yes. This is a biggie because one of the things that show up in language when I’m listening to things is I want to slow down the way I hear the message. I also want to understand how the listener or the series of listeners can be taking the message. There’s a difference and there’s a certain amount of sophistication and maturity that people have. Everybody has their education, their language, where they went to school, their lot in life, their skill level on everything from work, money to how they’re living their life. Language works the same way. If I can’t expect my twelve-year-old to speak and using an adult voice or having adult awareness at the same level as my seventeen-year-old and my 26-year-old, I can’t let my brain think that we’re speaking the same language and it all means the same thing. A big part of truth and context and subtext is learning how to listen to the sentences that people say and learning how to take them in a certain way as well as reflect on how others might take them.
Our message is going to be better even the misunderstanding, the infighting and the protective language that shows up. We’ve got to do a much better job of learning how language works. That’s what this episode is all about, how does language work, how to listen to it better, and how to have an effective response. When somebody says if you don’t like America, you can leave. Whatever the quote is, we could get it verbatim because there are many different sources of verbatim. What we’re going to do is we’re going to breakdown language a little bit.
One of the things that we ought to acknowledge as we’re stepping into this is that it seems to me, the media was the first to label the President’s statements as racist rather than to ask everybody if asking them to go back to where they came from is a racist state.
How did you take that? Did you take it as a racist thing? Was this sentence in reference to things? What will people do with this sentence? There are media people crying online and on the air feeling scared and worried that someone’s going to hurt from this physically. There’s going to be physical violence from this. Is there going to be a further divide in American communication because of this? It’s one thing to have a person of a strong opinion. If the person in the strong opinion is in the place of leadership, there is, “Are you on our side or are you not on our side?” There’s a division that is showing up.
America isn’t built that way, through the Constitution and the division and these co-equal branches of power. It’s built to foster and support collaboration and cooperation between points of view. That’s what it’s built for. It’s not built for one person to get to say something and their way goes the way they want it to go. They have to build allegiances, alliances and get people to support them. The idea is not because it’s your party that’s doing it but is it because it’s the best thing for America which is the thing that’s not working. They’re voting for allegiances and alliance, they’re not voting for what’s best for America and necessarily. Some people say, “We want our vote. This is what’s best for America.” That’s not what’s happening.
The positive response is that it’s going to be a jaw-dropper for many of the people that are reading this. If you’re a person from media, please read this thing over and over again because this is important. If you’re a politician or if you are working for a politician on either side, this is a bipartisan show. Even though there are going to be opinions going back and forth, I want you to know that this is a unifying show. This is something to bring it together because the truth is being purchased and lost over this primary communication problem. For those who are reading, the slide is divided into three sections. There’s a title at the top and then there are two sections that have a vibration or a sound frequency in each of the two sections. The first section is the title, Reading and Listening to Context and Speaking to the Subtext.
At the top is the next section that says Context Language and then there is a fast-moving vibration. Visually thinking of an EEG scan on a heart monitor and you’ll see that there’s this line going up and down in the vibration is going up in a higher frequency. The second section says Subtext Language which is a slower wave. It’s a slower-moving vibration that is underneath the Context Language above. Before we do something hard, let’s do something easy. We’re going to take the sentence, “I like her,” as a context sentence. As two guys, we’re sitting at a restaurant and we’re out with a group of friends. I leaned over to you and I whisper in your ear, “I like her.” Tom, what did I mean by that?
To me, it would be pretty clear that you thought she was attractive. You made a visual observation, assuming you didn’t speak with her.
Your analysis is on point that I’m finding her attractive. Let me give you the subtext sentence that goes with that. The subtext sentence is, “Bill, could you be feeling delighted because you would like to connect with her?” That’s the subtext of that. The feeling we’re delighted because that’s in my voice. The need that I’m pursuing is a connection. If I put a further tone into it, “I like her.” Bill, could you be feeling excited because you have some thoughts of intimacy over there? You want to be intimate with her. To see that the slight tone change, the context is staying the same, “I like her.” The subtext is changing with the tone and the reexplanation or the re-motivation of what the tone is. What happens is the President and the media, what they’re doing is doing a thing called take the bait. Taking the bait is you’re listening to a context and then they are listening to an explanation that comes after the context or justification that happens after the context. They’re going to, as they call it on media, he’s spinning it this way. This is a lie about this thing.
He’s walking it back or whatever.
That’s another phrase. He’s walking this back. The problem is language has such a sensitivity to it. In the past, many politicians, in order to meet a great deal of safety for things to be taken a certain way would sound boring, flat and not energized about the decision that they’ve made and the point of view that they’re trying to think. They’re not trying to stir the hornet’s nest. They don’t want to be called a flip-flopper. I’d rather be known as a flip-flopper for two weeks rather than voters holding me to what I said two years from now. I’d rather be a flip-flopper on this issue because the bandwidth is short. Rather than if I stand firm with my values, the voters are going to punish me for it in the long run, “You said that out loud?” It was written, I am not sure if it’s American Carnage or something. You read something like that. The context and subtext, I’m going to change the sentence and you tell me the new meaning, “I like her.”
What would be the meaning? It’s certainly not that you like her, it’s the opposite of you liking her. You’re saying, “I don’t like her.”
You gave me the meaning and the subtext is, I feel doubtful. It doesn’t meet my need for truth. I’m not interested in the connection. It’s not a possibility for me. She’s not my type. All of those are at alternative meanings to the one that you gave me, but the subtext sentence is, “I feel doubtful my need for truth isn’t met.” One more time, “I like her.” What did I mean?
You sound emphatic that you do like her and the subtext is probably your need for truth is met. She is in alignment with how you think.
I felt confident. Notice the feeling changed and the need changed with the intention or the motivation. The reason why this easy example, we’re using this in reference to context and subtext is that when we get to a complex label or a complex diagnosis, phrasing or motivation that somebody is doing or even a psychological label. We’ve got to be ready to speak subtext to that. For all the media and press people, please learn how to speak subtext. That’ll allow you to easily talk from both sides of the issue easily. What happens is people put their foot in the dog poop so much because I didn’t mean it that way. All of a sudden, they’re apologizing but they don’t need to apologize. What they need to do is clarify what they’ve said in subtext.
I said this with the motivation and I feel disappointment. The people took it from a different motivation. We talked about subtext as the motivator. What need is driving the set the language sentences being spoken people most media people have picked aside. They’ve picked and when they’re picking a side, all they’re doing is they’re promoting and propagating their meaning of what they’ve said to the best way they would like the meaning to it. It becomes almost weird because they’re defending a narrower subtext, not a fuller subtext about how the population of the world is going to be taking what the person is saying.
We are ready to take on something difficult and we’re going to take on the President’s sentence. The sentence I like her as a context sentence, this is a real sentence that I heard. I helped facilitate how to communicate with a group of people that I was training in Flint, Michigan during the water crisis true story true sentence, two groups of 75 people that were being trained with me in communication. Here’s the sentence, it’s at the start of the day. I say, “I’m Bill Stierle. We’re going to be talking about how to speak to conflict and how to effectively talk and communicate the difficult messages that people have been speaking to you. Let’s do something difficult. Write down. The worst things that people have said to you and let’s take a look at some of these.” They post them up on the wall. I have them do that exercise. I spin around I say, “I want to take a real difficult one on here. I look at the top of the list and here it is, “You are a racist!”
Let’s make sure that this is clear to our readers. You were brought in as a consultant to the city government of Flint, Michigan to help them learn how to deal with all of the comments and calls they’re getting from their citizens over the Flint water crisis. Among other things, other people fielding the phone calls from residents and a resident calls the person on the other end of the phone line, which answers the call when they called to the city government.
In-person.
Even in person, some person is walking in. These citizens, I’m not going to delve into it, but they are upset to say the least. They are so upset that they didn’t hear the message communication back from the city workers what they wanted to hear. The worst thing you saw someone was told one of those city workers was, “You are a racist.” Is that correct?
That’s correct. Thank you for the clarity.
I wanted to make sure this is right. I know you give a little context but this is serious and this was national news. This is a huge tragic situation in this city and people’s health and security were at serious risk.
How do you speak subtext to that context language in order to deescalate the conflict as well as have a productive conversation where both people are being heard and you’re able to provide the support to the person that is saying the sentence, “You are a racist.” I said we’ve got to develop a subtext. We’ve got to have a series of sentences that we need to say back because there’s a lot of motive this sentence could be taken in a lot of ways. I had them divide and had them fill in the blank of two different groups of words. The first group of words is what was the tone or the energy or the feeling behind that’s being expressed during the, “You are racist?” How many ways could that be done? What is the motive? What is a good reason why someone would call somebody else a racist? Look at how weird that question is. What’s the good reason why they would do it? The good reason why is because there is a certain motive, need and thing that they’re pursuing in order to do that.
Tom, make a mental note of this because we’re going to give four words that we generated inside the group for each thing four different words. On the energy and the feeling and the tone side of the fence we had, aggravated, angry, helpless and furious. On the other side when we’re looking for the motive and for what needed that was being driven, we had the need for support, respect, fairness, and justice. Those were the four. If I’m going to speak compassionately and empathetically, I need to put those four and I need to match them. I took them through an exercise, I’m going to have you play the part of a good person. I said, “Which one of the people at this table said that to you?” This guy raises his hand and I go, “Could you role play with me?” Tom, you’re going to do the role-play.
I’m the role of the city worker who is the recipient of the citizen’s statement.
I’m going to make it easier for you. I’m going to make you a person called The Citizen. You get the easy sentence, you get to point at me and call me a racist four times. That’s a toughie. That’s what you’re going to do it but I would like for you to personalize it a little bit and shoot the bullet. Say, “Bill, you are a racist.” We’re going to do this four times. Whatever I say next because I’m going to be speaking subtext, whatever I say next, watch what your body says naturally watch what comes out of your body naturally and say that.
“Bill, you’re a racist.”
“Sir, could you be aggravated and you need some support and you would like me to support you differently, is that correct?”
We are collapsing our criminal justice world looking for right and wrong instead of looking for meaning and motive.
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“Yes.”
Did you see what happened?
Yes. It did diffuse me. It took me immediately. It gave me something to think about that was not what I would expect which is probably saying, “No, I’m not, sir.” I wouldn’t have expected them to agree with me.
“Would you like me to support you differently?” I aggravated support. I took the first word, aggravated, and I matched it with the word, support, on the other side. I put that together as a compassionate and empathetic response. It’s a little hard to believe some people say it won’t work. It’s like have you ever tried it? Have you ever put those two? Have you ever learned how to speak subtext when somebody spits nails in your direction? This won’t work with my mother, my wife or my kid. As if I haven’t heard this for seventeen years.
“Let me try it.” I can reduce a tantrum in somebody else’s kid as a four-year-old tantrum in 3 to 7 seconds using subtext language.
Somebody else’s kid and feel confident about it. The parents for their part, they’ll feel uncomfortable about it because they think they should know the answer is they don’t have the knowledge or the skill. That’s okay, so I lend them my skills. Why? I would like a peaceful walk. I’d like some peace on the airplane with a screaming kid. Let me see if I can help with this and I would like peace. In order to get peace in the plane, would you be willing to allow me to give you some support? The parent goes, “Yes, please.” I say three sentences to the kid, the kid quiet down, “That worked.” Let’s go ahead and get back to our racist thing. Give me the sentence again and let me see what kind of empathy I can give you.
“Bill, you’re a racist.”
“Sir, I’m guessing could you be angry and you need some respect and I’m not giving you the respect you would like. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
They might have a follow-up sentence that I may need to speak in the subtext so they might have a complaint now that they need to subtext too. I need to think about the tone and the motive that they’re speaking from. Tom, I am not talking about racism right now. All I’m talking about is the motive of the good reason why they called me that.
They thought you didn’t respect and care about their needs at all.
Eventually, we’re going to get to some real the issue. You got two more times some so give it to me again.
“Bill, you’re a racist.”
“Sir, could you be feeling helpless and you need some fairness? This is another example of how fairness hasn’t taken place inside the city. You would like a fair response and a supportive response. Is that correct?
“Among other things, yes.” It probably is realistic for lots of issues.
They have lots of issues. “I’m glad you said that because I’m trying to protect my family. I’ve lost my job. I’ve got this money piece and the real estate in Flint went down, another couple $100,000 that was money out of my pocket. I can’t sell this house because it’s a condemned house. All of this stuff is going through the person’s noggin. The answer is I’m not your enemy. I am your ally and I’m going to deal with the word racist so that you know I am your ally. I’m not going to believe I am and I am not going to take on your pain. I’m going to be there for you as you and I are going through this again painful experience.” Let’s do it one more time and then we can wrap up this section.
“Bill, you’re a racist.”
“Sir, could you be feeling furious because your need for ice hasn’t been met and this is another example of how there hasn’t been justice or you for the people in your community for the city of Flint?”
“Absolutely. Yes.”
I got an absolutely and a yes out of that last one. Justice, isn’t that an overarching need? It covers a great many issues that someone in this situation might have. That’s my feeling so that’s a good catch on your side because you’re noticing the deeper nuance of it.
We are not talking about whether the person is or is not a racist or whether the person should or should not have called the other person a racist. See the difference? We’re not calling or discussing the nuances of racism. What we’re doing is we’re connecting to the motive of what the person is saying or going through.
What is a good motive? What is the good need that the person is going through and that allows the de-escalation to take place?
During the training, I then asked the person that was playing your role time. I said, “How do you feel right now after role-playing with me?” He looked at me and he said, “I have two things, a part of me feels amazed because I had no idea this much was going on underneath him?” The next thing he said was, “I’m feeling sad because now I can see what he’s going through. It wasn’t about me at all. It was about what he was going through. He wasn’t calling me a racist. He was using those words to discharge pain and that’s the sentence I put on. He’s using the words to discharge pain.”
Bill, isn’t this a fantastic example of how arguing the fact of, “Are you or are you not a racist?” is not the point and it’s not going to accomplish anything?
No, because then you got and it was funny because some of those people recommended that I have my two hands up. I’ve got one hand talking on this side on one time talking on this site and watch this. “You are racist.” “No, I’m not.” “Yes, you are.” “No, I’m not.” “Yes, you are.” “You’re a racist. This is why you’re racist. This is why I’m not a racist. This is not what I meant. This is what I meant. This is why I’m racist.” All of them are exchanging context sentences with no deepening, no compassion, no humility, no sense of understanding of reaching for the other side and causing the divide based on the language of the agreement. This is what the definition of racism is. This is an example of the category has. We are now in a courtroom instead of in a dialogue writer trying to prove who pulled the trigger and what it meant to pull the trigger. We are now taking our political world collapsing it with our criminal justice world looking for right and wrong instead of looking for meaning and motive. We’ve got to find the meaning of the motive and proportionalizing that. If we’re not doing that, what we’re doing is we’re dividing exacerbating violence. We’re making the violence get bigger. It became exacerbating and was poking a stick at it.
Let’s get to the modern political turmoil. How can we apply this there?
Which one would you like to do? Would you like to do the Donald Trump piece or would you like to do the four Congress people?
I was thinking of them as one and the same in this context. I’m making some thoughts as you are.
It’s which sentence you want to take on? Which inflammatory sentence?
I’d like to take on the original one that the President tweeted, where he was directing it at the four minority lawmakers, to go back to their crime-infested countries. That’s what this was his tweet and they suggested that try to solve the issues in those countries first before trying to change things here in the United States. That was paraphrasing not quoting the tweet word for word. That was what he said that set this whole situation in motion.
The sizzle is the context. The steak is the subtext. Let’s do that. Let’s first deal with how people hear that sentence, like in the, “You are a racist,” sentence, it’s the same thing. It’s a context sentence, “I feel angry. This is me empathizing with the President.” “I feel angry the President is saying to us because I have a need for recognition and identity to believe that Americans are a great people. We are better off than everyone else. Stop criticizing how good we are.”
Stop criticizing how good we are?
That’s what he meant by, “Go back to the countries and see if you can fix it there. We’re much better than them because my slogan is, “Make America Great Again.” My people believe that America is great. The only thing that’s wrong with America is people who criticize America.” Get in alignment with the identity that I am pitching to you, which is ‘America’s great. Don’t criticize. Do things the way I want and things will be better for you.’” That’s what he’s doing. It’s an identity need that he’s talking about. He’s not fully, although there’s a part of this that is attached to the racism apart. He’s fully reacting to, “Here are these people saying things about my respect for the country and my recognition for what it took for me to do the thing I did as President and going through the campaign. This is the acknowledgment I would like and this is the respect I would like.”
The words that you’re saying are not giving me those things, so you go back to the country that you came from. You get out of here because I get to say to people, “Get out of here. It’s one of the things I’ve done in my entire private life is to fire people and get people out of there that don’t do things the way I want them to. If I want it done my way, then I want it done my way. I don’t want to talk to other people. I want it done my way because that’s the way I operate it in my private life. I ran a whole TV show on this. This is what is going to make the difference. You are fired. Why are you fired? Because you didn’t do it the way I would like it or this other person did it better.” His cabinet is filled with people that he has fired or has left the show.
They’ve left the show or they got fired out of the show. They weren’t doing the things that I wanted them to or they got so much trouble that they weren’t meeting my need for identity. I want to be known as this person. People voted for him because he was showing a strong identity. He was speaking so much in context that nobody could see that all the context that he was speaking was sizzle even though keep people kept pointing down, he has no policy has no knowledge has no skill and governess the answer is, “That’s what not what people voted for.” They voted for this identity of somebody that they’ve seen, known and looks like that they’re in command of their environment, unlike me that I am not in command in my environment. He says he’s going to fight for me and being in command of the environment. He’s going to fix my environment for me because I’ve watched them do it on the TV show. The context is, “I’ll fight for you.” “I am going to meet the need for protection. I’m going to protect you from these evil Democrats.” That’s another one of his things, “They’re bad people.” That’s the wrong thing.
The Mexicans are bringing drugs and crime over the southern border.
“I’m going to protect you. I’m fighting for you. Your identity is what I’m fighting for to make America great again is to fight these evil elements.” The 44% vote of the people are voting for him, they’re not in touch with either policy or what government is in does. They don’t know the complexity and the nuances of government and what it does for them. Most of the government is transparent to human beings and to the people of the United States. You’re a simple dialogue about who pays for police officers and who pays for firemen. They’re public servants because we’re paying taxes so that they can meet our need for protection. That is something that’s valuable.
There are also other problems in our society that the government looks to nudge in the right direction. Not necessarily to fix 100%, but nudge in the right direction. Here are some ideas. How about welfare? How about if we stabilize the poor? Part of the welfare works and part of welfare was terrible. It caused the wrong habit pattern to show up inside human beings. It wasn’t the strongest habit pattern for people talking about when I get my check. That’s not my strongest habit pattern. The strongest habit pattern is you’ve got to put something with the money, not the money. You’ve got to put skills training next to it or job placement next to it. You’ve got to do other things in order to shift the needle you can’t throw money at stuff.
Let’s go back to the present. Why it is so uncomfortable is I’m empathizing with the President. He’s angry because his need for identity and respect for America is not being met. By the way, the conflict shows up. Why? He doesn’t like conflict. Anytime he runs into a conflict he jumps out of a car. Anytime he’s done talking about conflict, he changes the subject. He doesn’t like conflict. He didn’t know how to deal with conflict, especially it’s about his identity. He didn’t know how to push through anything.
When he gets resistance in conflict to usually change the subject. He misdirects it to something else.
He changes to a new context sentence. The reason why media struggle so much with it is they’re trying to process context and understand the context. I want to share with all the media people and the politicians that are reading right now, don’t do that speak subtext.
The original question I posed at the beginning of this episode is, “Was the President’s statement racist?” The question is still hanging out there. We’ve already said that misses the point and plays into what the President is probably trying to do in that to further amp up is base and create all this turmoil that everybody’s talking about him.
Let me be Nancy Pelosi or I could be the four congressmen, women, either. This is their best subtext response. Say the President’s statements and watch what I say back.
“Go back to your crime-infested countries.”
“Mr. President, could you be angry and you don’t like people talking disrespectfully to America? You don’t want me to speak about the conflicts in the issues the way I see them, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
Context language is causing conflict. Subtext language has this ability to speak like adults in a measured way.
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“You don’t like public discourse that has to do with conflict and you don’t want to talk about the real issues or the issues, is that correct?”
I don’t know how he would answer that. He might come back and say, “I do want to talk about the issues.” I don’t know.
“It sounds like you would like to have an issue and you would like to talk about it issue. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“What would you talk about? The one I’m talking about is fairness and justice inside this piece. That’s the thing I was talking about.
Would you like to talk about that issue or would you like to talk about another issue?”
Do you trap him?
No, I’m having them walk down the plank to jump into the water of having a deeper conversation with me whether he can do it or not. That’s not the problem but what I’m also doing is I am not giving it any oxygen to his face or tragic language that gets us in a circular narrative of not going anywhere. The discussion of, “Am I a racist? Am I not a racist?” is not the most powerful discussion to have. On the outside, people can take that as a racist sentence. It has been used as a racist sentence. It has been used as a language of disconnection.
It does make his base move. As an adult, compassionate human being, I need to learn how to respond in subtext. In order to starve oxygen from the tragic context sentence, he said, “Mr. President, you don’t respect those other countries because as other countries don’t have the same rules and they don’t play by the same way that we do.” Yes. “Mr. President, would you like some greater ease in those other countries? You don’t respect them because they struggle in their own way to create safety and they have problems with safety and meeting the need for safety in there?” Yes. “Why? Why don’t they have a strong balance between the capitalist system that we have and the socialist system that we have?”
“We have a balanced system, but a little bit of capitalism a little bit of socialism.” Why? There are certain things that people don’t want to pay for it, they think to themselves, “I don’t want to pay for this.” Meanwhile, no one wants to call the military a socialist enterprise. Nobody will want to say the military is a socialist enterprise. Nobody’s going to say that sentence. That’s a little bit of the scary honesty of it, is that everybody contributes to the military in order to meet the need for safety and protection. We’re trusting the politicians to make that proportional to the threats around us. Not to use it in order to get votes or contracts.
What you’re pointing out, how to get the president to engage and discuss the real issues, which he probably interest isn’t interested in doing.
It’ll give them the availability to do it and to get his need for respect met because what happens is, I’m going to say it this way and it’s going to knock you off the chair a little bit, is that he is in such a triggered state of things. He’s waiting for the next sizzle that he can put on the grill. He puts the steak off but he takes the steak right back off and all you got is the sizzle sitting on the stairs on the stove. He throws another steak in another part of the narrative fifteen minutes later. Ask the question again because there are so many different ways to ask it for me to respond compassionately to the president. I am being compassionate to a tragic sentence that many people would call, identify and validate through a dictionary definition that it is a racist sentence. They would because it’s not used at a white person.
That’s the transparent part of it.
It’s not at a person. There was the Kellyanne Conway. She asked a reporter, “What country are you from?” Threw it back to him. If he had my training, his sentence back to her would say, “I’m guessing you’re feeling irritated and you want to know that I’m from Israel. I’m from an Israeli descent and you have the thought that you could tell me that I should go back to my country. I get to tell you to get to go back to your country of origin if you and I have a conflict. Is that what you’re saying to me?” She is in bigger trouble than ever because what she did was she crossed the line using a context inflammatory sentence. I’m going to say she’s looking for her angle. Part of it is conscious but also it is sloppy language use. It is inflammatory language using.
It’s the way a used car salesman uses marginalized truth to sell a car on a lot and try to get the best price you can out of a car that doesn’t work that well. That’s what he’s doing and that’s his job. He’s got to sell this car in the car’s value to $3,000. He’s trying to sell it for $4,500 so that he and his company can make a little bit of money. Is it worth $3,000? Yes, but it’s got broken crap on. He’s got to use the only language that’s available to him that many of us would call lying. He’s got to do the best he can to get rid of the car and Kellyanne is got to do the best she can to get rid of the tragic expression that the president launched. She’s got to sell it as that it’s to talk about the country of origin. Yes, it is okay but not as an American value.
The President’s words, in this case, are stolen money and she’s trying to launder it.
An interesting metaphor and it’s pretty close too. This is the language that I’ve been given that I need to re-spin and repurpose. If she would have, she could have wanted it compassionately got away with it and been okay. She said, “The President has used his First Amendment right to express his anger and his point of view.” That’s what makes this President different. He doesn’t necessarily stay things nicely or neatly all the time. What he does though, is to respond instantly to the American public and many Americans like that direct interaction that they have with him through social media.
She’s gotten by it and said everything in a truthful way. Many people or some people could take it as the language that’s not used from a public office, that’s more used in a private narrative. He came from the private marketplace and he’s different from other politicians. He doesn’t say things nicely. I’m giving her talking points right now. It’s not my strongest strategy and some people will not necessarily like this. I told you this was a bipartisan experience didn’t I, Tom?
Absolutely.
We’re looking at language how language is used. Let’s go on the other side of it. People feel furious, scared and disheartened. It doesn’t meet the primary vision of America to talk about us being separate from a talk in ways from a public position about opinions when we’re in a place of conflict. Notice that’s the response that the four Congressmen needed to give to his response, that Nancy Pelosi needs to deliver to the Senate floor. Our First Amendment and our need for mutual respect grant this. This language is outside of what we stand for as Americans.
Also, then they would appear as the adults in the room that are not taking the bait and whether the statement the tweets the spin after the fact may still be racist. They don’t have to argue that point they would accomplish a lot more taking a different approach.
Many times when I’m talking with my children, I’m going like, “I’ve got to teach them that they’re not going to get away with this in the outside world.” I’ve got to pull out the language before I change it. If I get in an argument with them, then they’re going to rebel against themselves. They’re going to rebel against society not in a powerful way but in a destructive way at their own expense. I need to get their adult mindset to have a balance of directness and compassion. Not volatile context language that has multiple meanings that people get to argue with and creates more division and more pain inside a company, a family, a church, a non-profit, a business, a government. Context language is causing conflict. Subtext language has this ability to speak like adults in a measured way.
I want to speak to what I agree with and what I don’t agree with and frame it in a compassionate way. I can say if I’m any Republican, I can walk through the halls, people won’t like that I’m giving them answers, but I want peace and harmony. I want America to restore itself. I don’t mind giving it to both sides because guess what I’m going to need them. I don’t want a bitter person in trenching on something and their entrenching so much that they refuse to take what’s beneficial to their constituents. A politician that is on a partisan line will refuse something that will help their people.
How do I know that takes place? When the Affordable Health Care came out, there was money available to all the states.
Republican leadership in those states did not take the money that was available to their people causing their people to be sicker and have unavailable insurance to them. They cause people to die earlier to suffer longer because they needed to vote with their party and not did what was best for their people. Is that sentence true? Absolutely. Do I feel extremely aggravated and sad about it? Yes, that’s sad. It’s sad that you picked an identity over the health of your people because you were staying on your team, instead of what was best for your people. It was what was best for the people that couldn’t afford it. Let them have access to it. Do you see how I’m pleading the fifth?
I do.
It’s so sad right now. That’s not the idea of a collaborative and cooperative government. It’s not the idea of us as Americans caring for ourselves.
It seems that both sides, even the halls of Congress, they’re speaking to each other in context language. They’re not speaking to each other with subtext language and that is the big problem and what we’re trying to point out here.
Teach, educate and make available. If you want to learn how to speak in subtests language in real-time, it takes a little bit of practice, language changing, and more compassion. You’re not going to give any power-up. You gain power. If a politician were to, whether it’s Senator Kamala Harris, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, would you like to raise 10%, 15%, 20% in the polls? Would you like to do that? Would you like to do that with Senator Joe Biden to learn how to advance his communication skills? Would they like more certainty and in being re-elected?
They all should say, yes.
The idea is they would say yes. All of them because they’re all in the position that they’re in. They’re going to make the tragic response that most people do. I’d rather go with what I am doing that has got me to this place rather than learn a new skill set and a new languaging pattern that will add that has the potential to do it. People validate what is got them there. President Donald Trump validates, “This is what’s got me here. Republicans fall in line with this because I got myself here.”
They’re all afraid of being primaried if they don’t stay in line with the President. Any of them are up for re-election. The tragic part of some of the Democrats like Kamala Harris has a black and white thinker. A prosecutor may not be able to wrap her head around that change in language that would advance her in the polls, 10, 20 points and give her a real shot at winning the nomination. Hopefully, she would but she may not.
It’s a slight language narrative change. It’s not big and not strong. If you go with the President’s narrative and if you are able to use the sizzle that he puts into the environment and put your steak right next to the sizzle, it will cook better. Here’s Nancy Pelosi or any of the four congressmen women could use this, “It seems like the President is in pain about the identity that he sees America and I don’t fit his identity. This is what I love about this country, the President has an opinion about the identity of American.” I’d rather go with what the founder said about how to deal with conflict and what the President said. What the founders said was this, “I drafted and I followed his narrative. I didn’t try to suppress his narrative.
I’m not going to scream at the other person. I’m not going to tell the other person, “I’m not a racist or I am a racist or you are, I’m not.” I’m not going there. I’m going to use the tragic and expressive First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech that he has that I would prefer him not to use as a president and use in a more laser focus way. He’s a flamethrower communicator rather than a laser communicator. The flamethrower communicator is going to flamethrower as much context as they can in the environment and see how many fires they can start. The laser communicator is going to cut and make a distinctive movement and separate themselves from the pack.
You and I are going to smile a whole bunch when this one hits because this is the thing that makes the biggest difference in communities. It’s going to be so much fun to watch as these candidates on the Democratic side battle about. Eventually, when we get down to one, two or three total candidates and analyze and Monday morning quarterback a bit on how they’re doing it. Who is effective and who is not and see who either develop some communication skills or tragically shoots himself in the foot?
You want to be a fit. You want to raise your profile. You want to be able to create some separation because you want to be known as the person that said that thing. One of the first guys that dropped out of the race has done a wonderful job of drafting off of his one line that he sent into the narrative. He said, “Joe Biden, I was the young kid at eight years old and I listen to you speak and it’s time for you to pass the torch.”
It’s Eric Swalwell.
Thank you much. I couldn’t remember a thing. It was wonderful that he had that moment because that moment allows him to say, “You inspired me and I’m in the office now because of you. You did pass the torch and you did motivate me to be on stage with you, to be it to run for President. It’s not a fit at this time, but I’m not fearful of it. I’ll come back next time because America is ready for some of these other people and I’m getting out of the way.” They’re ready for these other people and it’s an interesting way to do that. A former presidential candidate gets to stay on his resume. If Lincoln had much former stuff before he became the president, former this, former this. He kept getting out there and he’s going like, “We’ve got to stand for our values.” Why did he fail all those other races? The reason why he failed is that so many people pounded him with context language back then I would imagine. If you look at the Gettysburg Address, it’s a subtext Speech. It’s not a context speech.
Words to remember and as we all learn how to use a little more subtext language.
This has been a fun time. We can most certainly take this out for several different nuances as we move forward.
I look forward to that. Thank you so much, Bill. I hope our readers won’t forget to check BillSteirle.com for the slides so you can see the difference. Hopefully, it’s clearly coming across in writing.
Thanks, Tom.
Thanks, Bill.
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