Justin Jones-Fosu: How to Have Difficult Conversations in a Divided World

Episode recap:

Marcel and Justin Jones-Fosu discussed the importance of having difficult conversations in a divided world. Justin, the CEO of Work.Meaningful., shared his personal story of growing up in a challenging environment and how his mother's philosophy of experiencing the beauty of difference shaped his perspective. He emphasized the importance of pursuing other people's humanity even when disagreeing with their ideologies. Justin also shared that his book, "I Respectfully Disagree," was inspired by his sessions on creating inclusive cultures and how to passionately pursue someone's humanity while disagreeing with their ideology. The book aims to provide practical and research-based strategies for everyday people to navigate difficult conversations.

Bio:

Justin Jones-Fosu is a full-time daddy who also happens to be an international speaker, a social entrepreneur, a critically-acclaimed author, and mountain climber (he recently conquered one of the famed 7 Summits). His passion for elevation extends beyond trekking; it’s mirrored in his work as the CEO of Work. Meaningful. and in his writing. His book, I Respectfully Disagree (releasing April 2024), challenges the reader to focus on building bridges to people rather than barriers from them.

Quotes:

• "We can vehemently disagree with someone's ideology and yet still passionately pursue their humanity."
• "Curiosity fills in the gaps with curiosity, not conclusions. Conclusions killed the cat; it wasn't curiosity."
• "You have no idea, whether in the workplace or at home, what's on the other side of respectful disagreement, even if it's simply just planting seeds of respect." 

Takeaways:

• Challenge yourself to a "birthday challenge" where you intentionally learn or try something completely new each year - pushing yourself out of comfort zones and maintaining a growth mindset that keeps you humble and curious about the world.
• Practice the "power of three" in conversations by asking follow-up questions that go at least three levels deep, genuinely listening to understand someone's perspective rather than waiting to respond or prove your point.
• Commit to one meaningful connection per week outside your typical social circle - seek out a conversation with someone from a different department, background, or perspective, specifically to hear their story without an agenda of changing their mind.

Timestamps:
[00:03] Introduction
[03:15] The Childhood Lessons That Shaped Justin’s Approach to Respect
[06:23] Why Justin Wrote ‘I Respectfully Disagree’ (And What It’s Really About)
[08:58] Why Social Media Is Making Conversations Worse
[12:18] The 4 Ways People Handle Conflict—Which One Are You?
[15:16] How Avoiding Conflict Is Hurting the Next Generation
[16:27] The 5 Rules for Disagreeing Without Losing Respect
[24:58] Understanding Perspective Through Curiosity
[33:35] Proximity Breeds Empathy
[40:35] Finding Common Ground in the Toughest Conversations
[51:05] How Respectful Disagreement Changed Justin’s Life and Career
[52:40] One Simple Challenge to Become a Better Listener

Conclusion:
Real communication isn’t about proving a point—it’s about truly hearing and understanding others. Approaching conversations with curiosity and empathy allows for deeper connections, even in moments of disagreement. Finding common ground doesn’t mean abandoning personal beliefs, but rather recognizing the value in different perspectives. When people listen with openness instead of defensiveness, discussions become more thoughtful and productive. Respecting others, even in difficult conversations, strengthens both relationships and ideas.

Links/Resources:
Website: https://workmea

Transcript

Marcel Schwantes 00:03

Hey, welcome to the show. And I'm excited about, well, about today's guest, about today's show. So a couple of episodes ago, you will recall I had Tom Fishman and Jesus Mantas from builders the organization, and we talked about overcoming toxic polarization with the skills that they were advocating for, you know, to get on the same page and bring people to the table and have respectful dialog. Okay, so today we are going to stay on the path of building bridges in that sense, and exploring all the ways that we can have these really hard and challenging conversations where we may disagree, yeah, without dehumanizing the other person. So to educate us on how to do that, we're going to be speaking with Justin Jones-Fosu, he released a book last year called I respectfully disagree, how to have difficult conversations in a divided world. This is a very important book in the age that we're in. Folks, okay, Justin proposes five pillars of respectfully disagreeing while at the same time pursuing other people's humanity. What can we do that actually these days? 

So we're gonna dive deep into these, these, these five pillars throughout the episode. Okay, so who is Justin Jones-Fosu? Well, he's the CEO of work meaningful. He has worked with and consulted with Fortune 500 companies on strategy, leadership, organizational development. Ebony Magazine even named him one of their 30 young leaders on the rise. He's an author, a workplace researcher. He's written other books. In fact, your why matters now, and also the inclusive mindset and now, of course, I respectfully disagree, a former radio host and workplace contributor to four NPRs the takeaway, Justin is also a certified speaking professional, a distinction held by only 15% of speakers worldwide. But if you only remember one thing about Justin On this episode, let it be this. He's a proud husband and daddy, first, a difference maker, always and deeply committed to educational initiatives for underserved communities in Ghana and also in the US, because, according to Justin, at the end of the day, those are the legacies that matter more than anything, including your title, your trophy, or even your TED Talk. Having said all that, I'm happy to announce that Justin Jones-Fosu now joins us. Justin, welcome, welcome.

Justin Jones-Fosu 03:11

That was…bravo man, so I'm super pumped and excited. I need to bring you on the road with me. You gave so much energy to that it felt like you were giving me love in action. So I appreciate it.

Marcel Schwantes 03:24

Well, if we go on the road together, give me a heads up on that, because I need to clear my calendar for the rest of the year, because I know you're getting you're going to keep us both busy.

Justin Jones-Fosu 03:33

Yes, very busy, which is very thankful. 

Marcel Schwantes 03:37

Very good. All right, so we start the episode like this. You ready? Yes, what's your story?

Justin Jones-Fosu 03:45

Man, such a deep question. Man, I love long walks on the beach. No, I'm joking, but even though I really do, but I think my story, for me, starts with my mom, and she's been a catalyst for a lot of this, because we grew up. My parents divorced at four, and we were initially unhoused, and then we grew up on welfare. My mom used to take us to salvation army to get our clothes before it became cool, and she would get like, little sweater vests and bow ties, because that's where she was trying to create a boys to make group. But the interesting thing is that even through the economic challenges, my mom still made sure that we experienced the beauty of difference, and so we would go to Oktoberfest and polish festivals, the first peoples, pow wows, we would even go to events we disagreed with, and I'd be sitting in an audience like Mom, what we don't even agree with this. Why are we here? 

But what I didn't realize is she was planting these seeds of humanity in me, that even in the midst of our ideological differences, there's still humanity before us. And so what that transferred to is several different things. One, we had exchange students from France and Japan. In Germany and Brazil. And as I grew up, and I thought was really smart Marcel, and I realized, Nah, it just came from my mom. And so I interviewed her for my last couple of books, and I was like, Mom, where did you get this whole philosophy, this mentality from? And I'll share briefly what she shared with me. My mom was one of the first black female air traffic controllers in the Air Force, and she shared that there were some times she'd be stationed in Japan for two years, and there were some soldiers in that same two year time frame that never left base. 

And she said, Justin, I don't want you and your brother to ever be like that, to never leave your metaphorical home base and not get to experience the beauty of people and cultures around you. And so that, really, you know, became those seeds planted. So even though, you know, I didn't fit in, I wasn't black enough for the black kids, it wasn't wide enough for the white kids. I never really felt I was fit in. I was bullied, had dealt with some abuse, things, a lot of different things. My dad really wasn't in my life, which he has represented that Ghana side of me. But it wasn't until 2004 that I realized I was never supposed to feel like I fit in, because bridges don't feel like they fit in. They are the bridge. And that's what I realized, part of my devotion, my commitment, and my calling was to be a bridge.

Marcel Schwantes 06:23

Oh, man, that is so beautiful, so and totally and now I can totally see how all of those experiences kind of paved the way towards getting to this book and writing this book. Yeah, so let's, let's bring the book into focus here, I respectfully disagree. Talk about in your own in your own words. How would you describe it?

Justin Jones-Fosu 06:44

Yeah, it's a relational book that it really came out of my sessions. And so I would do, you know, conversation around an inclusive mindset, and how do we just embrace, you know, creating cultures that people feel like they belong, right, as leaders, as other people. So it's not just about the big three, race, gender and identity, it's about everybody. And I would make this statement in my sessions, that we can vehemently disagree with someone's ideology and yet still passionately pursue their humanity. Yeah, and people will come up like, you know, I see, I hear this gasp, almost like, what you did, like, Oh yeah, it's good. And if people come up after the session sometimes and they were like, but I love that statement, they would often get it wrong, but they would try their best. They were like, but how do we do it? Yeah. Or they would say, but what if they believe this? 

And I received those enough times that I realized as a leader and as an entrepreneur, listen to my customers, and so that's why I decided to write the book, is I wanted to help people of how to do it and to even address the question, but what if they believe this? And so I wrote it for the everyday person. I wrote it for not just leaders, but for people at work and at home and in their communities. I wrote it from a very vulnerable place I share where I have messed up and where I still am currently messing up and but I also wanted to be one research based and very practical, because a lot of times I can give you a great example. 

People say you just need more curious about people. Well, people know that already, right? It's not something that we need to say, just be more curious. We need to build up habit formations in people to help them to be more curious. And so we really want we're intentional about, how do we give people strategic, practical ways to lean into the concepts that we're talking about that will have long, lasting impact? And so that's what the book's all

Marcel Schwantes 08:40

about. Yeah, well, before we dive into that, and we will, folks, yeah, I want to, I want to still kind of Russ wrestle with the, the why of what's happening. It seems like for me, you know, I've been, I've been kind of, I've been part of these, these disrespectful disagreements. It, I guess for me, it started until, I mean, I've always had it, but it wasn't super amplified until 2020, and it became hard to have constructive dialog without people taking things personally, and then things get heated, and then we dehumanize the other person and cut them out of our lives. I've been cut off of people's lives because of political differences, or, you know, the whole COVID thing and vaccines and all that, right? And I think it's bizarre that that all came to a head around 2020, 2021, etc. But it's still sort of, we're still there, right? So I guess I want to, I want to just kind of get people to understand what, why is this happening, and what are we doing wrong here?

Justin Jones-Fosu 09:50

Yeah, so there's a lot of whys. I do feel like people felt the amplification in 2020 but is this happening? This has been happening for a long time. Yeah. In our homes, in our society, one of the things that's been an amplifying voice of it has been the increased use of social media. And what we found during COVID Is that more people were spending more time on social media because they were at work, not in the office, so they had more time to be on there. And then what ends up happening is this, it's the worst place of communication, and we allowed the loudest voices and the algorithms to impact how we engaged, and so it was just a bevy of monologs, and it really wasn't true constructive dialog, because people were just sharing their view and expecting likes and comments or they would share it in a way that it was antagonizing, and that was the whole purpose, yeah, and versus actually having true, meaningful conversation and dialogs with people. And so I think one is our use of social media to have these types of conversations. 

You know, our research shows that it is the worst place, right it? You can't understand tone. You can't you can't understand what person's intent. Were they being sarcastic? Were they trying to be funny? Were they all these things? I don't even care how many emojis you use, people will read into that. What the research says, which is actually surprising, is that you only need audio, not even video, but audio to better understand what a person's true intent behind what they're saying is, yeah. And so one of the things I do is I don't have these conversations on social media. So when somebody begins going that direction, I say, first, can we take a direct message? Because I want to avoid the audience, because sometimes people are playing to the audience, right? And then the second piece of that is, I try my best if we can do an audio so I'll leave an audio message and ask them to leave an audio message back. Or if the, you know, social media platform allows for us to connect without the, you know, without the video, sometimes with it, to have those meaningful dialogs. And I've had some conversations that have actually transformed how I show up, and I've heard people in a different way. And so I think our mode of communication, and not engaging in real life conversations with people that we disagree with has actually continued to hurt us.

Marcel Schwantes 12:13

Yeah, that is so key. You know, one of the things that stood out for me early in the book, you talked about the four responses of conversational conflict. I'm wondering if you could touch on those. And then the goal really, the goal is respectful disagreement, and that's counterintuitive for a lot of people. What we can we actually do that both, but talk about the other ways that we may be responding that are not right either.

Justin Jones-Fosu 12:41

Yeah, so it's based upon both agreement and disagreement as well as a respectful or disrespectful and so that's where we found, you know, really our matrix or quadrants, yeah? And so there's really two quadrants that are meaningful for our conversation, because respectful disagreement is a goal, respectfully and agreeing we're good with that, but disrespectful disagreement is where I really wanted to dig into, and I started digging into the research. And because that's who I am, I'm a disrespectful disagreer, and so you're stupid, you're wrong, you're dumb. I can lean into dehumanizing people and really belittling them in my communication, especially if I disagree with you, and so I like, how do I help myself first, spend more time in respectful disagreement? I perfect because I still am not but, but what I didn't realize myself, there was a whole other category that existed as we dug deeper into the research, and that is a place that we call disrespectful agreement and disrespectful agreement may happen on two fronts, right? It's a spectrum. 

But one front, it could be, we could be in a meeting, and I'm like, you know, Marcel, that's a really good idea for our team and our department. Wow, impressive, Marcel. But then behind your back, I say to Sally, what was Marcel thinking that was stupid. Well, we wouldn't even do that, like, why would he? Oh, that's Marcel, great idea, man. And so in the moment, I know that doesn't happen in any of your listeners companies, but just in the places I've gone, is that we agree with people, but we disrespect them behind their back. But on the other side of that, exist where you might have grown up, in a society, a family, a culture that taught you that children should be seen and not heard, and you try to avoid conflict at all costs. And so even when authentically asked for your perspective, you stay silent because you just want to keep the peace. You not rock the boat, and so you're agreeing, but you're disrespecting yourself, because you're not sharing your truth and love, and both of those are places that we find people lean into, and our goal is to spend more time, no matter what, in respectful disagreement. 

Marcel Schwantes 14:57

Do you think it's getting worse with. Our current generation and raising kids now that are, you know, in elementary school, middle school, before they become young adults, where we are keeping them from expressing these, these Bill these views, and even up the building up the skills of healthy conflict management to respectfully disagree, because we don't want their feelings to be hurt.

Justin Jones-Fosu 15:25

Yeah, I think on two fronts, is being impacted. One, we don't want their feelings to be hurt, and I think the second is, we try to minimize all conflict that they go through. And I realized the conflict I went through as a young person. Yes, even some of the bad things have helped to shape me to handle the conflict today. It's why we say, hey, you know, you need some germs to deal with not being sick, right? There's the parts of those things you need some of the bad stuff in order to be good. And so I think because we try to kind of create these bubbles and avoid these conflicts at all times, it has the potential to hurt us. But what I'm seeing now is I'm seeing a resurgence of people really creating these spaces for healthy conversations for young people, whether it's curiosity circles, or these constructive dialog moments. And so I think there are efforts to kind of challenge that.

Marcel Schwantes 16:27

Yeah, okay, so the goal, and here's what we're after, folks, again, is respectful disagreement. It's, it's, it's, it's the ability to disagree while humanizing others as well as yourself, right? Justin, you can't forget about yourself as well. Because, I mean, yeah, the whole the whole point here is, if you're gonna dehumanize somebody, you're doing that to yourself as well. So flip the script.

Justin Jones-Fosu 16:52

Yeah, and I do want to touch base, but one of the things that we had to do, and I'm almost embarrassed to say this, we had to disagree with the late Queen of Soul herself. Aretha Franklin, yeah, and in her song, Ari, S, P, E, C, T, thought, right? Which, I don't know the rest of the words, but how much respect did she say we needed. Marcel, do you remember?

Marcel Schwantes 17:18

I don't recall, but yeah, she said, just a little bit. Oh, gotcha, yes.

Justin Jones-Fosu 17:25

And I'm sad to say, we don't need a little bit. We need a whole lot of it. And one of the first things we had to do is respect. Is one of those same, those terms that we just throw around. We just need to respect each other, but we don't know what that means, because every single person defines respect in very different ways, yeah. And so we took what we call we started doing research on how does society normally define respect, and what we now call how to read, how we redefine it, what we call the 10 characteristics of gold and respect. I'm not going to go through all 10, but I want to call out three that are really essential, yeah, because it frames how we approach this work. Number one is, you must earn respect. And we started asking, Where did this come from? Why can't we freely choose to give respect? Because every single person is worthy of value, dignity and respect. It's our it's our choice. It's not something they have to earn, because I'm the only person I can control. 

Yeah, so why can I freely choose to give it number two is that we've often conflated honor and respect. So the societal view is, you know that you must honor the person that you respect, and we're saying, no, no, no. Honor and respect are two different things. Honor is where you hold them in high regard. Respect is a choice. So you can have somebody lose a place of honor, but they can't lose respect, because if it's our choice to give it to them, it's not theirs to lose or gain. It's ours to give or not. And last but not least is that a person's title grants them respect. Right? I'm a leader. I'm an entrepreneur. I've been for the company for this long, and we've challenged that and said, it's not your title, it's a person's humanity. And so if we are able to embody that one, it's a choice that everybody's worthy of it and that we can give it to people, whether they give it back to us or not. That's the difference about respectful disagreement.

Marcel Schwantes 19:22

Okay? I want to bring this to the workplace and leadership at work. Okay? So I want to quote you from the book, page 45 and here it is, when we're secure in who we are as leaders, we are able to encourage respectful dissent, which is not the same as always agreeing from colleagues and reports. We have a responsibility to encourage a culture of respectful disagreement instead of seeking constant validation. Okay, what stood out? First? Bring out the. Two words that really just like, bam, hit me right, right across the forehead. Here is encourage respectful dissent. Yeah, talk about that. Why is that so important? How do we and how do we do it? 

Justin Jones-Fosu 20:15

Yeah, think about the things in our society that have manifested. They've all come from a sense of healthy conflict. So one we have to change this perspective that conflict is bad. Conflict can be bad, but conflict can also be amazingly good. And so when we as leaders can create cultures of this, this place of descent, this healthy, respectful descent, it allows us to get to ideas and creativity and have innovation and collaboration in ways that we never thought we could so even say, how do we do it? So I'm gonna give three ways. There's more than three ways, but here are three practical ways to do this for a leader. The number one is gonna sound so simple, but very few people do it. Encourage your team to disagree with you openly, state it in a meeting, hey, we're about to talk about such said topic. I have a view on it, but I want you all to disagree with me on this topic and share why you feel like this won't work. Why is that important? Because oftentimes in power dynamics, people feel like they have to say yes, they have to support, they have to validate. 

And a lot of leaders who I found are seeking those moments of validation. It's just, I'm gonna say something I want to you may be well, you know, I'll show up for worse, but I think that's a good idea, because guess what? You hold their promotion, you hold their pay raise, you hold all these things. And unless you are open to sharing that, realizing that some people come from societies and cultures and families that taught them to disagree with their leader or the person in authority was wrong. So it's up to us to first share that second is to reward disagreement and what I mean what I'm gonna talk about compensation or pay people to disagree. But if you disagree with me in a meeting, Marcel, instead of immediately shutting you down, I may ask more questions. Oh, tell me what you meant when you said this, or tell me how that would work, Marcel, or and then, you know what? Marcel, thank you so much for sharing that idea. It helped me to think of something else that I wasn't even processing before you mentioned that. 

Yeah, that's a place of rewarding, because your people are paying attention and they're watching, how did, how did that person handle that person just disagreeing with them? Or did they go to a workshop and learn to ask that question? All right, to disagree with me, and last but not least, is to follow back up, reinforce it. So if it led to a strategic business result or an outcome where you led it created a strategy that you wouldn't have got to without that dissent, even if it's two or three months later, come back in that meeting, and you know what, Marcel, and three months ago, you actually caused me to think differently about this perspective, and it led to us reaching this result. Thank you for doing that. That's the type of that's the type of thinking we need in this company.

Marcel Schwantes 23:01

Yeah, there's positive reasons. 

Justin Jones-Fosu 23:05

Those are things, yes, those are things that continue to drive the cultures that are not people are picking up and saying, oh, that's actually rewarded here. Yeah, let me do that in a way that's honoring and respectful as well. 

Marcel Schwantes 23:17

I love it. That's great. All right. So listeners are like, okay, are we ready for the five, the five pillars? I don't know. Should we unveil and lift the curtains? Or is this a good time to do it?

Justin Jones-Fosu 23:30

Yes, I love the five pillars. Very practical and strategic. Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes 23:34

Talk a little bit about before we go to each of the five. Like, kind of like, how did you come up with the five? And then what's your vision for these? These, for these five?

Justin Jones-Fosu 23:47

Yeah, so I mean, these, really, this came out of research. And there really could have been 100 pillars, but one would have been a book no one would have read. But these are the five pillars that we found were the most foundational, and that rose to the top for us, and the goal for these five pillars is to give people practical ways to lean into more respectful disagreements. This is not about being perfect. This is not about if I just use this tool, I'll be perfect forever. No, I still disrespectfully disagree with people, but I've gotten better and I spend less time doing it so that that's our true goal is just really helpful ways. 

Marcel Schwantes 24:26

Yeah, and you know, Justin, these aren't earth shattering, as I call them out for you to kind of briefly go over them. They're not and yet, it seems like common sense, but it's not common practice. We don't see it enough. It's not habitual, right? So it's sort of not an on our radar screen. So we need to bring this, bring this into focus, so we can practice all right? Pillar number one, here we go. Folks, challenge your perspective. What? What exactly does that mean?

Justin Jones-Fosu 24:58

Yeah. So this was a. The last pillar we added, but we realized it was the most necessary, because most conversations around disagreement conflict deal with the disagreement and the conflict. But this pillar happens before any disagreement even occurs, and this is the pillar that how are you intentionally putting yourself in positions of learning about people, cultures, ideology, divisions and departments in the workplace that are different than yours, and even ones that you disagree with. And it's how often are we challenging our perspective? Now? Why is this one important? It's because when we build up the muscles of consistently challenging our perspective when we get into disagreements and people will share perspectives of thoughts that are different than ours. It's not our first time, and so it doesn't hit us in such a negative way as it would if we never prepared and trained for it. It's almost like saying I'm gonna run a marathon and never training. And so challenging our perspective is helpful. 

Now let me give strategy to this. Yes. One way is that we've been challenging leaders to cancel the open door policy, because they've often created open door policies while their doors have been closed. They've even done virtual office open hours. I'll be on Microsoft Teams from Tuesday to Thursday, three to 5pm and what we've done is open door implies come to me. It's reactive. If you need me, I'm here. What if we shifted to an out the door policy? And with an out the door policy, we go to our people, right? I was just speaking to a client yesterday, and goes to work, and they were like, Yeah, you know, it makes sense, but I don't spend enough time actually hearing the voices of the everyday people, the frontline associates, the people who are dealing with this and not just about their work, but about their lives and who they are, yeah, and so that's one thing that we can do. You may say Justin, that sounds great, but how do I do it? Well, let me give you a practical way to lean into it, one meaningful connection per week. 

What if you built into your calendar 15 to 20 minutes to actually say, You know what, I'm going to leave my office and I'm going to go out and I'm going to have a conversation with the custodial staff member. I'm going to have a conversation with one of my team members. I'm going to leave my home and actually have a conversation with my neighbor that may be outside raking their leaves. And these are the things that help us. If that's too much, then flip the W upside down and make a one meaningful connection per month, maybe it's a lunch. The goal is that we often without intentionality, will not challenge our perspective. And so that's one really practical way. The last thing I want to really quickly say is, is the circles of grace challenge. 

And I created this for me because I was not living up to my mom's ideals, I was confining myself to my circles of comfort, people who look like me, thought like me, believed like me, and with the circles of grace I created to do this that every six to 12 months, I go to events and experiences that I don't know a lot about or I disagree with, and I go asking two questions, what did I learn about this event, experience and A person? And what did I learn about myself? And I've had some transformative circles of grace, challenges, leaders. You could do this with your team. We just took the four Family Foundation through this, and at the end of the six months, we did a debrief from people like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize I had this all wrong. Or like, Yeah, like that. They were what I thought they were, but it presented a humanity approach to it. So those are practical ways that we can lean into it, leave the leave the office, whether virtually or in person, lean into intentionally, one meaningful connection per week or per month, and consider taking the circles of grace. Challenge. Love

Marcel Schwantes 28:35

it, and I love how you set you set up. The way to break away from all this. But by challenging our perspective is to build relationships first. It's relationship, relational in nature. In nature, because as we get to know people, we break out of our own false assumptions, stereotypes, wrong belief systems, etc, yeah, yeah, okay, that's love in action.

Justin Jones-Fosu 28:57

Yeah, yes.

Marcel Schwantes 29:01

It's funny because as I, as I was reading over the pillars, I could almost see a pattern of one leading to the other, not always, but maybe the little bit of an overlap. Like to get to pillar two, I have to challenge my perspective and be in learning world. So here is pillar two. Is the student, bring it

Justin Jones-Fosu 29:23

Yes, and we if we're able to get to it, I'd love to share with you how I did this with my absentee father, right? But pillar number two is be the students, where we focus more on listening and learning, rather than lecturing, and oftentimes we go into these disagreements ready to prove our perspective. And one of my buddies, James Robilotta, who studies curiosity, and I love this, he was like, what if we listen to people like we were actually wrong. And it really hit home, because when we're the student, you know, when somebody has information that you really want to know, like we approach it differently. Me, right? We're like, Oh my gosh. Like, tell me about that. Or, can you tell me, like, how you climb Mount? Everest, right? Like, or, or, so what did you do? What kind of tour company did you use? Or, or, Wow, you got that million dollar sale. Like, what happened? 

How did you build relationship with the client? And when we're the student, we can apply those same principles with people that we disagree with, the challenges that we normally go into it with the solution of asymmetric insight, and this is psychological term that says, I think I know more about you than you know about me. And it's like, it's like this, Marcel. Marcel, you're easy to understand, but I'm just complex, so I'm gonna share with you my complexity. Well, I get you, I understand you. But when we're the student, we realize we need to ask really good questions. Not only asking really good questions, but we approach people from a place of let me learn rather than let me lecture. And so one really key piece of this is there's a theory called inverted U theory. And inverted U theory shows us two places that people don't learn effectively. One, when they think they know absolutely nothing, but two, when they think they know absolutely everything, and we have to challenge those two places to get on the you of actually learning about people.

Marcel Schwantes 31:12

Yeah, I know your mother taught you so much, but do you do you have a personal experience of being the student of your own learning as it applies to this whole thing about respectfully disagreeing.

Justin Jones-Fosu 31:25

Yeah, so in being a student, it actually was part of my challenging my perspective, right? So I had this really off view of police officers, of I often, you know, didn't like police officers. Didn't value a lot of what was going on and what happened. And so I was like, Justin challenged the perspective. So I, you know, talked to one of my buddies at church, and he was a police officer, officer Youngblood. And I was like, Hey, I'd love to do a ride along, all right? And so went on a ride along, and late at night at Charlotte, like the, like the 11 o'clock, 8pm to, like, two in the morning shifted, yeah. And I was flabbergasted of how much we ask and expect of our police officers, and that three hours, yeah, that I was there, and they were mental health professionals, they were security guards, they were family consultants. I mean, all of these things. 

And I'm like, Oh my gosh, proximity bred empathy for me, yeah, and it gave me a new heart. And so I was just asking questions of Dan and Daniel, just like, hey, man, like, like, how does this happen? And what was your perspective when this happened in New York, and what was the general perspective of police officers. He provided information that I had never known, right? And it's simply because I chose to be a student versus, oh yeah, you know police officers. You know how they are, yeah, and it gave me a deeper and better appreciation for police officers. Now, I'm still not a fan of the historic aspect of policing in this country based upon how it started, but the police officers and maybe that I met are doing their best and have a heart to serve and care for the communities. 

Marcel Schwantes 33:10

Oh, yeah, yeah. There's so much we don't know, right? And what we all know we don't know about police officers or law enforcement in general, and it could, it could go both ways, depending on where you are in the country, right? Race, etc, okay. Pillar three is cultivate your curiosity. And you know, you touched on that earlier, like, Well, yeah, we should be curious.

Justin Jones-Fosu 33:35

We are not. Yeah, we're not. And part of it is because we're not comfortable at times in our own positions. And when we're not completely comfortable, we don't want people to well, we're not going to be curious about others, because we're going to spend more time proving it's interesting something that was unrelated, but that applies. Here is I realized a lot of my life, I spent so much time trying to prove my worth that I was losing opportunities of simply being my worth. And that's what we do when we're not curious about people. Because when we're curious, we fill in the gaps with curiosity, rather than conclusions. What's the saying? Curiosity killed the what? Cat? Yeah, and that's wrong. Conclusions. Killed the cat. It wasn't curiosity, right? And how can we be more curious? Right? Because curiosity fills with that. So number one, we have to understand why we're not curious, and it's because we think we know, right? We call it the dotted line dilemma, and the dotted line dilemma. And I want to test this out with you, and I want you to answer, but I don't want you to think about it. I just want you to respond. Okay, all right. Marcel, what is the correct side of the road to drive along? Dope, you're thinking, right? And. That you thought about too long, right? 

And this is it, because you want to get that question right. And I love doing this live and in person, and depends on where I am in the world, doing it right. And I was doing something in Australia, they were like, left. And I was like, why? They're like, it was a safe side of the water for United States, and they're like, that's the wrong side in our context, and what we have historically experienced impacts how we see the world. And so you know, if you've ever some people, they've lived in countries that they've driven on both sides, and they really struggle with it, because they're like, wait a minute, I don't, but the person who's always lived and maybe have never traveled outside of the US or to countries that don't drive on a different side, you're like, Oh, that's right. And they may know that there's some left handed side, but that's not the right side to drive on. And that's what we do in our lives, with people in our workplaces. We make assumptions. We think this is why, oh, this is why they turn out the project the way they did. Oh, this is why, first is being curious. So here's how you're curious. We have to challenge what we call our Double Dutch style communication. And if, for those who don't know Double Dutch, it's two ropes like and somebody waiting to jump in and is waiting for that perfect opportunity to jump in, and that's what we do in our conversations. We're waiting to jump in. We're waiting to share our perspective, our truth, our value, our thing, versus deeply listening to others. 

And so we give people the practical tool called the power of three, and the power of three is where you listen at least to the third level of the conversation. So I can say, Marcel, how are you doing today? You're like, Oh, I'm great. I'm great. I'm like, Oh, I'm great too. That's power of one. Marcel, how are you doing today? I'm great. What makes you great? Oh, I heard his interest in bald head guy. I know that bald head guy has power of two, but if I added on to that, like, what made him interesting? It dives into a place where we find more places of understanding, and allows us to actually one to hear people better and watch this, but they also feel like they're being better understood because we're taking time to show love and action of deeply listening to them. 

Marcel Schwantes 37:14

Yeah, yeah. So let me, let me up the ante here, if, if I'm a listener going out, you know, that sounds great. There's a lot of empathy in the in there, but I don't want to lose my power. I don't want to lose my belief system by giving away too much curiosity what's coming back to me. So is there a balance where, yes, you can be curious about another person's perspective without maybe compromising your own values or beliefs, because a lot of people might be scared of being too curious.

Justin Jones-Fosu 37:48

I love that, and I want to, if you allow me to give some great to that statement, the fact that we said we're losing power by being curious is already starting at the wrong place. Love that, okay, yeah, we're already starting from the wrong place. I lost power because I'm curious. No, you didn't. You gained understanding. And if it's about power and winning and losing to you, we're already approaching it from the wrong heart. Yeah, and that's our challenge. Is that we think this is a game of winning and losing. This is the battle. I have to get more power than you when true leaders, they're willing to be curious. True just human beings are curious. Marcel, people share things with me all day long. That's not going to change my mind. Like I know there's some values that are very hard, held strong ideological beliefs for me, and I'm not going to change in those values. Now, I may change how I approach it, but I'm not going to change it. Yeah, but it doesn't what is a harm and being curious to someone, what is a harm in saying, you know, tell me more about that. How did you get there? It allows us to actually hear people's stories in ways that we would never hear people's stories. And it might create gray spots, but it also might just simply be a place of engaging and you know what? It humanizes that person? Yeah, yeah. That's the thing that we're missing. We're more focused on power, rather than humanizing others Exactly.

Marcel Schwantes 39:12

And we're, I think we're more and the reason I state that is because I can see people not being curious enough to learn about someone else's perspective because they're they might be afraid that that perspective they are listening might change their own minds about being right about a certain ideology. Yeah, and I'm wondering if there's, it's because they're afraid.

Justin Jones-Fosu 39:40

Yes, 100% that's one of the things we said, is that people aren't more curious, is because they aren't confident in what they believe. And so, you know, one of the things so people don't know, I went to seminary, and one of the things I really loved about one of the things they challenged us in seminary is they said, I want you to go to a mosque to hear a Coronavirus. Scholar, not to shout them down, not to evangelize them, but just to hear and be now. Went to a very conservative seminary, right and it was, and people, some people like, why would I do that? Like, what's the point of doing? I'm should be outside yelling at them. You need to convert. You need to convert. And what they were doing is like, let me show you that this is relational. This is about humanity. When's the last time that somebody changed their mind because you yelled at them or called them stupid or dumb? Yeah, what it doesn't cost us anything to be curious. But we have to be convinced that truly, by listening to someone and being curious allows us to actually plant a seed of respect in others. And again, I want to, I want to make this very clear, whether or not they do it back to us or not, doesn't make it easier, but it is possible. Yeah,

Marcel Schwantes 41:05

it's unconditional, yeah, okay, pillar number four, seeking the gray, yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 41:16

seeking the gray. Man, it's a lot of shades of it, as we all know, and seeking the gray is it's about finding these places of understanding. We call it the common ground, land, not middle ground. I want to be very careful. Middle Ground implies 5050, and oftentimes, if it's not 5050, a really good book that I had to read during my MBA, was a book called dialog, the art of thinking together, and it challenged this concept of a and b thinking, right? That I'm like, I'm trying to go into the meeting, and I'm I have a and Marcel, you have B, and I'm getting allies, I'm getting Henrietta, and I'm getting Sally, and you're getting Joe, and you're getting Keisha, and we're telling all right, I need you back me up in a meeting, and we're going and creating these battles, versus asking the question, What's C what are these places that we can create together that didn't exist before? Right? It's what we see with, you know, the came with Apple, right? He took calligraphy in this normal UI and brought it together, and it created something that we had never seen before. 

It didn't have to be one or the other. It was and that's the thing that we go into conversations asking, what's the gray What is something new that I may have learned, even if it's just about how that person got there? And so let me give you a great example from a societal perspective. Imagine two people having a big disagreement about gun rights and gun control, and one's like, you're stupid for not having a gun in the house. Why would you have any? You're stupid for having guns versus, you know what? Starting the starting point being, that's all. I'm really glad we both really care about the safety of our families. That imbues a different level of conversation when you start off from that place of common understanding, in that common ground, rather than immediately going to the place where you are completely different. And so I love talking politics with people in person, and I often I'll share with people. I would never talk politics with people who can tell me what they like about their opposing person and what they don't like about their own because I didn't feel like it, we wouldn't have a really good, rich, great conversation. And now, even after the elections, when I hear people talking about this or that, and I start asking people, well, tell me what you like that's happening. 

Tell me the things that are actually and it's tough for people, because it's so easy for us to operate in this black and white. It's either all good or all bad, versus intentionally seeking the gray. And so as leaders, we have to, we have to model that behavior for our team members. We have to ask those questions in those team meetings, like, Hey, y'all, what's the gray here? What can we get to if we took a little bit of what marketing said and what a little bit of finance, which are normally at times at odds, and what's, what's the gray, or what, where's something that we can incorporate, potentially, a little bit of this and maybe a lot of this, or a mixture of this and this, and we get to a new idea that we had never come to before, that's seeking the graph.

Marcel Schwantes 44:20

Yeah, so it's basically avoiding binary thinking polar opposite, yeah, because that's what keeps us polar opposite. Yeah, I love that it's considering all kinds of possibilities and multiple perspectives. And you even touched on the fact that sometimes it's embracing ambiguity, like, yeah, it may not have the answer, and that's okay too. You know, sometimes things are a bit uncertain, and so we wrestle through the uncertainty rather than start to demonize and dehumanize people.

Justin Jones-Fosu 44:56

Yeah, I love that. You said that because. There is such an ambiguity in our world and in our lives and in our workplaces. It's wrestling with, how do we for companies that want to return to work, versus those organizations and employees who have said, Man, I love remote has created a quality of life. Yeah, instead of what we end up doing is we shout each other down, no, it's about returning to work, and this is most important. It's not always about staying at home and the quality of life versus actually asking the questions and trying to find a gray. How has remote work been really beneficial to your life if I was the person that was returning to work, hearing their perspectives to journeys and asking, is there a gray even if you may have these Return to Work policies that makes and ask the questions, how do we continue some of those aspects of the quality of life that they had, rather than it's my way or the highway? And so to your point, I think it's really important. But I want to say this again, it's intentional for us to go into the conversation, especially when we know it's a disagreement conversation, and even when we're in it to ask, what's to see? What's the gray here? Because if we don't ask for it, our brains will look for it, and our brains will spend more time trying to prove that person wrong versus trying to find the place of gray,

Marcel Schwantes 46:23

yeah? Okay, last but not least. And I'm wondering if you meant for it to be sort of, sort of a the last pillar that kind of without it. It's almost like a cornerstone pillar, I don't know. Well anyway, here it is, agree to respect, yeah?

Justin Jones-Fosu 46:39

Notice I didn't say agree to disagree. And unfortunately, that's what a lot of people do, and they do it very disrespectfully or it's dismissive. Let's just agree to disagree. But they haven't taken the time to actually be the student know the other person to be more curious, to find the great places of understanding and agree to respect is all about. How do we formulate our plan to humanize others? And so let me give you two quick ways to humanize others. One is what we call full acknowledgement. We call it a 3f a framework that you can fully acknowledge someone, whether you 100% agree, 100% disagree or partially agree. And full acknowledgement is simply like this. SHAN Xiao, Stanford researcher, came with a concept called thank you because, and thank you because. Marcel, thank you because I never heard somebody share it that way. And I feel like I'm grateful you chose to share with me two. Marcel, wow, you mentioned three things, and I want to thank you because, like number two, really resonated. I still have to do more research on it, but I'll dive into the research. 

I'll get back to you. Or Wow, Marcel, this is a really tough conversation for us to have, and thank you because you chose to have it and you didn't have to, and I want to appreciate you for doing that now, Marcel, not once did I say I agreed with you, but in each of those moments, I can still, if I've practiced the other pieces, it's not patronizing. I can fully acknowledge you, but we've often conflated full acknowledgement for full agreement, and so one practical way that we can lean into conversations is with full acknowledgement. Wow, wow. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your perspective on you know this, this project, and you know why this could be helpful. I think that you know your thinking is very innovative. It helps to kind of think how we can drive the company forward. 

Now, the other piece to that in agreeing to respect it's not only agreeing to respect the other person, it's also agreeing to respect yourself. And oftentimes, one of two things we have to decide. One is the issue important enough for us to respond. We don't have to respond to every issue. We don't have to respond to every disagreement. We don't have to share our perspective to everything that somebody says. So we first have to ask. And I love the somebody created this weight model is, why am I talking right? Hey, thank you for sharing that. And that's good. I'm good. I can go home and have another conversation, because I left that person feeling fully acknowledged, but didn't say had to change. 

But two, if we have an opinion that's different that we feel needs to be shared, and it has a meaningful one must have consider doing this. It's going to be counter cultural. Ask to share your perspective. Why is it so hard? Because in society of social media, we don't have to ask to do anything. We just post. We just say the monolog. But instead, Marcel, if I said, You know what? Marcel, thank you for sharing that perspective. If I get it right, what you're saying is, if we give a million dollars to this. Initiative that it will help us to do this is that, is that what you're saying? Yeah, absolutely like, Wow. Thank you. That helps me to understand a little bit better of your perspective. 

Are you open to hearing a perspective from me that might be a little bit different? Now, what this just has done is one it psychologically allows that person to get ready to receive I call it the dentist drill. If a dentist just started drilling in you without preparing you for what's going to happen, the way you feel it is different than when you can embrace yourself to prepare for it. Yeah. And oftentimes we just go in without preparing people so asking to share your feedback. And then the second piece of that, if they say no, old Justin, we used to burn a bridge, but I didn't wanna talk to you anyway. Hey, newer Justin is learning to say, You know what, if you ever wanna come back to this conversation, I'd love, I'd love to, you know, come back. Just let me know when you wanna have it. Yeah, these are ways that we can agree to respect but also respect ourselves in the process.

Marcel Schwantes 51:00

Man, that's good. So let's bring this full circle now that we've seen all the pillars in action, and for us to maybe implement some of these, these pillars in the workplace, right, and helping to shape culture and all that. Have you seen a situation where these principles have made a huge impact in business or in someone's personal life,

Justin Jones-Fosu 51:29

yeah, so both in business. I'll do two quick ones, working with the fortune 100 company and one of the senior leaders of HR talked about, you know, one of the ways he challenged his perspective is by joining an employee resource group that had nothing to do with him. And he was just like, I'm just gonna go, oh, and I just want to learn, right? And so it's like, I realized I don't know a lot about this group. I'd like to learn a lot next. We'll talk about leading it or doing things. But what ended up happening is, in his two years, so just being a student challenges perspective, being a student, being curious, asking more questions, finding out these plays like, oh, I can see that. Or this common ground here, like, oh, I don't share that same belief, but I hear this is that he was able to imbue himself in such a way that he heard them in different ways. They heard him. They actually asked him to be their executive sponsor. 

And he was able to find that, you know, their sense of belonging and engagement in the company was improved because he took an interest to actually be there to support and they were like, wow. Like, no one has actually ever done this that's been outside of our group. And so from a business perspective, we're talking about engagement. We're talking about how people feel like, do they belong? It comes back. I mean, that's why I love the name of your podcast. Comes back to love in action. Yeah, right. This is love in action, choosing to go and pursue and hear other people's perspectives and stories, even when it may not have directly anything to do with you, because it helps them to see there actually is somebody here who cares for me and creates a sense of belonging at work. Now, personally, I went through that with my dad, okay, and my dad wasn't in my life. And you know, my parents divorced that when I was four, I would see my dad initially, every other weekend, and then one weekend a month, and then it became two, sometimes two, sometimes two or three years where I didn't see it or talk to my dad. 

And when I was younger, it didn't bother me as much. But as I got older, I remember sometimes I'd pull off to the side of the road and literally just start weeping uncontrollably because I felt like I missed something. And I'm not saying that people who grew up with both parents lived a perfect life, because I've heard those stories, too, but for me, I felt like I missed something. And so in 2019 I was going to go back to Ghana, and my dad had moved back at that time, and I was going to go confront my dad, and it's going to tell him how angry I was, how disappointed, how sad all these things. But instead of confronting him, I went to go hear his story. And two reasons that happened, one is because I've really good therapist that I still have, so I encourage people to consider therapy because it's been extremely helpful, not as because there's something wrong with you, even though my kids may say something different, but to keep things going right, but also my leadership, Charlotte cohort, that was a part of that, they helped me to see that approaching my dad in that way wouldn't actually be beneficial. So as I heard a story, and I loved, I want to say one participant, she shared, suggesting they helped you turn a confrontation into a conversation. 

And I love that line, as I heard his story, listened first I challenged my perspective with my therapist in leadership, Charlotte cohort, I was a student because I asked my dad to say, Dad, I realized I never heard your story. I'd love to hear your story. I. I asked more questions, versus immediately jumping in and saying, no, what you meant was or, you know, this is how it impacted me. I sought the gray, and I tried to find these places of common understanding where I was like, wow, my dad did the best with what he had and what he could and with the decisions he made at that time, and in agreeing to respect. I'm not saying this always leads to this, but I chose to forgive my dad, not because he asked for it, but because it was my choice. 

And as I forgave my dad and Marcel, what I didn't realize on the other side of forgiveness was an aspect of my Ghanaian heritage that I had been holding back all these years, and didn't even realize I was doing it. And it literally washed over me, appreciation for it. And it led so many things in terms of now, I take people to Ghana once a year, and we started a foundation. We were building a school and a clean water project, and none of these things would have happened Marcel without respectful disagreement. And so I tell people, You have no idea, whether in the workplace or at home, what's on the other side of respectful disagreement, even if it's simply just planting seeds of respect, you know. 

And my piece of this, and I love because Bill just recently highlighted them. But I've been telling a story about this guy, Darryl Davis, for a while, and for those that don't know, Daryl Davis, who's a black blues musician who befriends Ku Klux Klan members, yes, and through his friendship, over 200 Klansmen have been reported to have turned in their robes. Even some grand wizards have made Daryl Davis the godfather of their children. He didn't go shouting them down. He didn't go telling them, you're stupid, you're wrong. He went to hear their stories, to befriend them, to find the common ground. He did these things. And so sometimes, what if we're just planting seed, y'all, did everybody turn their ropes? No, but you have no idea the impact that even when someone's not giving you the respect you think you deserve, what if we chose to give them the respect that they do?

Marcel Schwantes 57:16

Yeah, a lot to think about there, but that's such a great way to just bring everything really full circle here. And I can't think that just humbled me. So I'm going to be going over that story a lot more, because it is a fascinating account of everything we've been talking about today. All right, Justin, so as we wind down here, and before we go into our speed round, is there anything we have not covered that you feel? Oh, shoot, I wish I could get one more thing in. 

Justin Jones-Fosu 57:56

Yeah, it's this whole concept of being open minded. Things have been misused. Um, because there are things that every single one of us are close minded on. And the answer is, not always you just need to be a little more open minded. But I want to leave people with this that even when we are closed minded, may we never stop being open hearted. That's true love in action.

Marcel Schwantes 58:21

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Speed Round. Here we go. You're on the hot seat. A little bit.

Justin Jones-Fosu 58:27

I like hot seats. Let's go.

Marcel Schwantes 58:30

Best book you've ever read. 

Justin Jones-Fosu 58:36

Oh, um, answer for Meaning by Victor Frankel. 

Marcel Schwantes 58:39

Oh, gosh, of course, that should be on everybody's list. All right, yeah, thing you do to eliminate your stress,

Justin Jones-Fosu 58:49

I work out every day. I do something fitness related, and it's a part of my stress relief.

Marcel Schwantes 58:54

Best way to minimize conflict.

Justin Jones-Fosu 59:10

To listen to others deeply.

Marcel Schwantes 59:21

Yeah, yeah, okay, name a person dead or alive you'd like to have dinner with.

Marcel Schwantes 59:32

Say that again.

Justin Jones-Fosu 59:35

Nelson Mandela.

Marcel Schwantes 59:38

All right, your biggest hope for the rest of 2025

Justin Jones-Fosu 59:44

That people would spend more time in respectful disagreements and less time on social media.

Marcel Schwantes 59:52

Yeah, oh yeah, especially with the last part, because it may lead to the first part, yeah, yes, very good. You have survived the speed round.

Justin Jones-Fosu 1:00:01

I'll tell my wife I'm no longer on the hot seat.

Marcel Schwantes 1:00:06

Okay, Justin, we bring it home with two questions, as we do with every guest. The first one is the love question tradition on the show, how do we lead with more actionable, practical love, day in and day out?

Justin Jones-Fosu 1:00:20

Ah, by considering others, put it this way, by considering others as more important than ourselves. And what would I mean by that? Not that they're more important, but often we, many of us, have high views of ourselves. What if we had similar high views of other people, and when we asked the question of, how do I consider them and their perspective, their thought, their plight, their issue, I think it helps us in in tremendous ways. Fantastic.

Marcel Schwantes 1:00:55

Okay, bring us home. One thing that that you'd like to walk us away with here. Let me do that again. Justin, 321, all right, bring us home. What's that one thing you'd like us to walk away with today?

Justin Jones-Fosu 1:01:14

Consider doing a birthday challenge. And for those of birthday challenge is something I started many years ago to keep myself from what Carol DeWitt calls the growth mindset, and it's simply every birthday, I challenge myself to do one thing that I've never have done, but I've either considered or would consider doing, and it's led me to so much growth and understanding and learning that's everything from running a marathon, climbing, Mount Kilimanjaro, becoming a level one sommelier to learning how to sail, all these different things, learning how to cook. And it keeps life fresh, but it also keeps you humble, because you realize when I learned how to ski, and it was been in my low 30s, and there was these little kids who were seven and eight. They were just killing it down the mountain like, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. I was I almost wanted to give up, because I felt like I should have been better already. But it made me realize how much in life, the learning mindset needs to be a part of our every day, every year learning. And so I would encourage people to consider doing a birthday challenge that it helps to rebirth every single year. 

Marcel Schwantes 1:02:28

Love it. Love it. Folks, get this book, apply the five principles. It's called, I respectfully disagree. There's a cover if you're watching on YouTube how to have difficult conversations in a divided world. Justin, it's been a blast, man, if people want to connect with you, where can they go and learn more about what you do, also about your foundation?

Justin Jones-Fosu 1:02:53

Yeah. So work meaningful.com is the umbrella organization those who want to dive deeper into the foundation, work meaningfulfoundation.org, it's where we donate 5% a minimum of 5% of our profits towards educational initiatives for underserved communities in Ghana, United States. And so those are the two places that are really paramount. But work meaningful. We'll have all the information there. And then I love LinkedIn. I'm been spending less time on there after reading Cal Newport's digital minimalism, but I'm on there and Justin Jones-Fosu, so I'd love to connect and learn and learn from you, and hopefully we can have mutual learning. Excellent.

Marcel Schwantes 1:03:31

Hey, it's been a blast, and I'm so glad that you finally came on the show. I wore all better for it. Thank you so much. I have no Justin, thank you again for coming on the show. It's been a blast. We have learned so much from you. I know I'm better for it, and so our listeners, thank you again.

Justin Jones-Fosu 1:03:55

Thank you, brother.

Marcel Schwantes 1:03:57

You can keep the conversation going on social media with #loveinactionpodcast and look for my show notes. I'll have all of Justin's contact info on how to get a hold of him, how to get involved in his in his here we go, how to get involved in this foundation. And you'll find all of that stuff, including a YouTube link to watch this very episode, and you can find all that at marcelschwantes.com We'll see you next time folks, take care.