Redefined is hosted by me, Zainab Salbi, and brought to you by FindCenter, a search engine for your soul. Part library, part temple, FindCenter presents a world of wisdom, organized. Check it out today at www.findcenter.com and please subscribe to Redefined for free on Apple podcasts and Spotify.

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What’s most important about life? What is the essence of life? Is it what we do? How much we earn? How many social media followers we have? Or is it, do we live our lives in kindness to ourselves and to others? Do we live our lives in love to ourselves and to others? In nearly losing my life, I was confronted with these questions. And it led me to the conversations that make up Redefined, about how we draw our inner maps and the pursuit of meaningful personal change.

My guest this time is author, president, and CEO of Virgin Unite, Jean Oelwang. Jean’s new book, Partnering: Forge the Deep Connections That Make Great Things Happen, takes an intimate look at legendary partnerships and relationships and reveals how finding the right collaborator can create major results in our lives and in the world. In interviewing sixty-five prominent pairs, like Ben and Jerry, Leah and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Rosalynn and President Jimmy Carter, Jean has beautifully identified six principles that make partnerships flourish. And in the fifteen-year-long process with the wisdom she’s gained, she’s also changed her own life.

Coming up, Jean and I discuss how partnerships can be grown to lead to maximum impact, how to navigate through difficult times as a duo, and how building trust and openheartedness can make relationships sore. Please join me.

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Well, let me start by saying, we recently met again at South by Southwest gathering and I attended your book event there. And I was really, really touched by it. And I really enjoyed your conversation. But what really, really stayed is the first question that you asked everyone. So I’m going to ask you what was that question, if you can repeat it and share it with us?

Yeah. And firstly, just thank you, Zainab, for having me on. Such a big honor to be with you today. And it was great to see the work you’re doing now with Daughters for Earth last week. Just incredible. And the question I always ask everyone is the one that I deeply love, which is actually a Mr. Rogers question, which is, “Who has loved you into being?” And I ask that question because I think we very rarely pause to think about the relationships and the partnerships that have helped make us who we are in this world.

When you did that exercise—who has loved you into being—it was a really interesting discussion, because I went to my mother, and then people start discussing, like who did you go? Did you go to one person? Several people? all of that. I’m curious about your answer.

Yeah. I think that it’s evolved in my life, to be honest, the answer to that question. And I think it will continue to evolve. I think when I ask myself that question right now, it’s probably my husband. And the reason that this book is in the world is in large part due to him and the relationship and the partnership that we’ve built together over the years. And I think the other person that probably comes to mind is my father. My father had deep belief in me and that I could do anything in the world. And he was such an important partnership to me and my life and helping me put myself on a path of looking at how it could have impact in the world.

Beautiful. How has your husband impacted the book? He’s an award-winning Paralympian, he’s amazing guy, but I’m curious about how did that happen? And what was the question that you are after to ask in the book?

Yeah. So I guess stepping back a little bit, because I think I wouldn’t be with my husband right now if it hadn’t been through the process of interviewing these extraordinary partnerships over the last fifteen years. And there’s two questions I asked myself when I started this book. One was, how do you build those deep connections in your life that are going to help you make the best version of yourself? And the second was, how do you then use them to scale collaborative efforts?

And for me, when I started this journey, I think, like many of us, I had been so pushed towards this hyper-individualistic world and looking at goals, and relationships and partnerships being more transactional. And when I started this process, I started to realize how these people that had been able to build meaningful lives and have outsized legacies of impact had built these deep connections at the center. And in parallel with that, some ten years ago now I met my husband. And I think if I hadn’t been going through this process about learning how to build deep connections, I wouldn’t have been as openhearted to the relationship in the first instance. I also probably would’ve been looking for different things in partners. And this process has taught me to look for a person that has a similar set of values, or what I call virtues as an ecosystem, has a vision to do something bigger in the world than themselves or their partnership.

And so I think just identifying Chris, in the first instance, this book has made a massive difference. And along the way, he’s helped me learn how to model what we call the six degrees of connection. So he’s helped me practice those in our relationship, whether that’s about learning how to celebrate friction, whether it’s learning how to live those virtues every day. And Chris has been really a rock for me across these ten years in helping me learn and understand.

That’s beautiful. So can you spell out what are these six degrees of connections to harness relationships? Or can you share it with us rather?

Absolutely. And I should say right up front that this is not my wisdom, it’s the wisdom of these extraordinary—I interviewed sixty-five partnerships of all kinds, friends, romantic family members, business members—and what was beautiful as I started to interview them more and more, these extraordinary patterns started to emerge. And I literally started to plaster the walls of our house with these patterns and then started to code the wisdom in thousands of pages of transcripts. And what came out was these six degrees. And starting with it was really interesting, because I interviewed these people because I knew they had two things: longevity of partnership, and they’ve made a larger impact because of their partnership.

But what I didn’t expect, Zainab, is how much, what they called “something bigger” would dominate and that all of these partnerships had something bigger, whether it was an individual purpose or whether it was a shared purpose that really lifted them above the partnership when there was any difficulty or any . . . It helped them flow above that. The second degree was called “all in.” And that’s that ability to give 100 percent of yourself to know that you’re going to be there forever to have each other’s backs. And it’s not losing yourself in the partnership, it’s actually finding yourself in the partnership.

And then the third degree is this, what I love is this ecosystem of virtues. And there’s six beautiful virtues that aren’t just something that you plaster on the wall, but something that you live by every single day. And the fourth one is magnetic moments, how you stay connected. And there’s a whole host of those. The fifth one, which is really important, is how you celebrate friction. So how you stay above the drama in a relationship. And then the last one is collective connections. How do you take these deep connections, like the group did, the community did when they protected the ozone hole or ended apartheid or ended smallpox in India, is you bring these deep connections together to do something much, much bigger in the world.

I really find it very, very helpful and it’s making me reflect about all these learnings. And I want to go deeper into some of them. And just for the audience, you’ve interviewed amazing group of people, from Desmond to President Jimmy Carter to amazing leaders in different sectors, business, politics, economy, social change, all of that. And the ones that stuck with me, and I first want to go to the romantic ones, what you’ve learned from the romantic relationship. I love the story about President Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter and how they have dealt with friction in their romantic relationship. So perhaps, can you share with us what’s the story, but also what is the lesson of the story and how can we all incorporate that?

Yeah. And President and Rosalynn Carter were just extraordinary in how honest they were. And they talked about how every day, they don’t go by a day without having some kind of friction, but they always make sure they resolve it before they go to bed. And they talked about this extraordinary story when he left the White House and they were home together alone for the first time in ages. And so they decided they were going to ironically write this book together, The Rest of Our Lives Together [Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life]. And so they started writing and they started to argue about historic events. They couldn’t agree on what happened in the past. And they got so angry with each other that they couldn’t talk to each other anymore. And it was long, long before the Internet. So they had basically a computer that sat on their kitchen table and each one of them would sneak in the kitchen, write each other a message, leave. The other one would come read it, write the other one a message, leave again. And they went through this process for weeks.

And it was really interesting in the interview, because they never said the word divorce, but they kept on saying it almost broke our relationship. And they decided in the end to bring in a third party. And they brought in their editor. And the editor worked with them to come up with a third-way solution. So you can still buy that book on the shelf today. And what he did is he put Jimmy’s paragraphs in there with a J next to it. And Rosalynn’s paragraphs in there with an R next to it. So both historic facts are currently in the book. And this brought them back together again.

And the lesson that I learned from that and that they were really clear on is don’t be frightened to go get a third party, external help if your relationship needs that. And Burton John who started Life Is Good called it “you can’t see label from inside the jar.” So don’t be frightened to go out and have someone help you see that label, see what’s happening in your partnership and help you get through it. And that was a common theme. I think I always thought that when you find the right person, it’s all roses and heaven and it’s not, it’s hard work. And every single of these sixty-five partnerships shared that it was hard work, but they also felt it was the most important thing that they’d ever done in their lives.

Beautiful. Another example you use is of Ben and Jerry. And I really like that example because it has veto power rules. So I’m very curious about what does that mean? How does that apply in business relationship or in romantic relationship for that matter as well?

Yeah. And Ben and Jerry were just the most delightful friendship. And I think I laughed for two hours during their interview. And they talked a lot about how the friendship was the most important thing in their partnership. It was the highest value. And so when we were talking about how they got through moments of friction or how they turned friction into something that they could learn from, they talked about this tool that they had put in place very early in their relationship called veto power. And that veto power was if one of them really felt strongly about something the other one was going to do, they really disagreed strongly and that they talked through it, they tried to find a solution, but they would always have that chance for veto power so that it wouldn’t break the friendship.

And they said that they used that very, very rarely, but it was something there that they could bring in if they couldn’t get through a point of friction. And for romantic, for business, whatever relationship, it’s that point of, okay, if we can’t get through this, let’s step back and take a pause. And if it’s really going to be something that’s going to break the relationship, how can we create a third way? How can we do something different and not go that path? And that was something Bertrand and Andre, the two people who did the Solar Impulse flight around the world, really talked about a lot, is this process of third-way solutions. So never feeling like you’re in this binary discussion or fight—how do you step away? And they had hundreds of tools on how they turned, what they called, the friction into sparkles. So how do you celebrate friction to turn it into sparkles? And they had hundreds of tools to do that.

And have you interviewed anybody whose relationship has ended? I feel like we need to learn how to stay in relationships. We need to learn how to choose good relationship. And we also need to learn how to end relationships in a proper way. I was mentioning that in a previous interview that I got divorced from my husband and I call it the most loving divorce, it’s a loving separation. People’s eyebrows always get raised like, “What? How could you get divorced and love?” But are there models of how do we actually go about separation in a healthy way?

Yeah, and a lot of times it’s changing the form of the relationship. So it may be that you’re in a marriage and you become friends, or you may be business partners and you become friends. So some of the people that I interviewed went through that transition of a shift in how they labeled their partnership, but the same kind of skills at the center kept them deeply connected. But in saying that, one of the things we did, Zainab, is I interviewed a lot of psychologists and people that work with partnerships to find out what breaks relationships. Because absolutely you shouldn’t stay in a relationship if it’s not helping you become your best self and helping you look at how you can do something bigger in the world. If a relationship is actually dragging you down and actually making you the darker side of yourself, then you have to be brave and courageous enough to leave that partnership.

And some of the things these psychologists talked about that break relationships, one of them, for example, was not having a larger meaning or purpose in life. And that doesn’t have to be something like ending apartheid or closing the ozone hole. It could be just actually nurturing your children to be the best human beings in the world. It could be helping your community do something that’s important. It could be anything, but having some type of meaning. And then another one was not having a shared set of values or virtues. And if they don’t match, that can cause friction and end your relationship. And then an important one that I heard a lot from people is something called an imbalance in commitment. And so you may have one person that’s all in and one person that’s not. And eventually that will break the relationship because the person that’s all in won’t feel that commitment from the other person, whether that’s in a romantic or business, doesn’t really matter, but that will eventually potentially break the relationship.

And then another one that came out about what breaks relationships is also this idea around a superhero syndrome. So if you have one person [in a] relationship that feels like they constantly, they need to save the day, they need to be the one—and again, we’re trained to do that from an early age—eventually that relationship will probably, they will become so distant because one person feels like they’re not part of the bigger picture with that other person if they’re always having to be that superhero.

So those were some of the things that came up and I think we all, you know, one thing I learned through this process is you have to invest significant time if you really want to build a deep connection with someone. And then those deep connections will help you with all your relationships, even if it’s just an acquaintance, to be at a deeper level. So it’s really carefully selecting who you are going to build those deep connections with in your life. Richard Reed, one of the co-founders of Innocent Drinks, had this beautiful thing where he said, “We are nothing more than the summation of our relationships.” So thinking hard about who we really invest that time in.

That’s beautiful. It’s taking me back to my own personal story when I was really, really sick and it’s all the relationships that surfaced up. And I really, I noted who came through and some people I did not even know very well. It was an acquaintance let’s say, and whoop, came through. And there are some people who are very close of course. So it’s interesting, and since then I have become committed to investing in relationships because I know that we actually, and it’s not as transactional, but in our most vulnerable moments, we need relationships, we need communities, we need family and friends around us. And that that investment, they don’t just show up, one need to invest in these relationships for them to show up in the proper time, right?

I’m curious about, and again, it’s both personal as well as on the professional side of relationships. Often, sometimes I do a lot of retreats, Jean. I did a lot of self-development retreats to work on myself and all of that. And I’ve noticed enough, including in my own personal relationship, that if I grow alone and that the other person is not in the same growth cycle, it most likely ends the relationship. And it’s actually very scary right now when I see couples and one of them is interested in working on her or his personal growth and development and the other one saying, “I have nothing to do with it,” I worry for their marriage. It’s like, “Oh, this is scary territory in here.” Have you encountered stories or examples or lessons of how do we manage different interests at different times, let’s say, and how does that impact the relationship itself?

Yeah, and I want to go back to the personal growth thing too and how relationships can help us grow, I’ll come back to that in a minute. But I think one of the things that was ever-present in all of these relationships and partners that I researched and explored was this sense of curiosity and wonder, not just in the world, but in each other. And if someone’s on this exploration path and the other person is not supportive and not going on that journey with them, then there’s going to be a gap and you’re going to grow apart. And I think one of the things that I never expected when I started this process was how much emphasis and time people put into what I call “magnetic moments.” So these rituals, these traditions, these daily practices that keep people connected and going back to your question about when they’re on this spiritual journey of looking inward as well, those magnetic moments brought them together and helped them each understand where they were on this spiritual journey.

And Jo Confino loved to call it “Love is respecting your partner in the place they’re in.” And in order to respect your partner in the place they’re in and understand that, you have to have these moments where you come together and you pause and you really are curious about one another. You learn about one another. And I think what was interesting for me, Zainab, because the other thing that was a really important thread through all of this, is really working on yourself and having peace with yourself. And that has to be a part of this process because you can’t show up and be all in with someone else unless you’re going through that journey. But you also can’t wait for yourself to be perfect because we will never be perfect, none of us will be. And both the relationship side and the personal evolution side are in constant evolution. I think the most important thing is that respect, that trust, that journeying together and never losing that curiosity with each other.

And I think one thing I found in the world sometimes is we spend so much time finding ourselves that sometimes we lose ourselves in our own belly buttons and we forget to lift our heads above that and realize that the relationships and the partnerships that we build around ourselves are also the things that help us find ourselves and help us become the best version of ourselves.

And I think that was something I didn’t really understand before, and I’ve watched my partnership with Chris now, he’s helped me become far better person than I ever could have if I was just journeying on my own because he also has the courage to say to me, “You’re hanging out on a skinny limb there, you got to come back.” He has that courage to challenge me. But he also has the beauty and the patience to say, “Hey, you could do something much bigger than you’re doing right now,” to push me, to challenge me to become better. So I think that partnership allows us to, again, step into that best version of ourselves.

Actually, this is very important point, especially as the realm of spiritual work and self development is increasing and becoming more and more of interest to a lot of people, is how do we not lose ourselves as you said in just that belly glazing in here. It reminds me of a Sufi story of a guy who was really dedicated to working on himself. And he took on a cave and meditated in that cave for years and reached nirvana and he’s happy and peaceful. And one day, two passerbyers basically pass and they said, “It’s at night, do you mind if we stay with you at night in the cave, just a sleepover basically until the morning?” And he’s like, “Yeah, yeah, sure.” But then they came these strangers and they moved things in the wrong direction and the wrong ways and they behaved in ways that he’s not used to and made sound and whatever it is, put things in the wrong place. And he was really angry at them. And then by the time the daytime came in, he had killed them both.

Now it’s a story. But the point of the story is what’s the point of being in nirvana by yourself if you actually do not know the skill sets and do not have the skill sets to be in relationships with others and not kill them. [laughs] It’s a symbolic story, but I actually really associate with it because we do hijack our own relationships, especially I would say particularly probably the romantic ones, we’re pushing constantly to see if they are the right caveman with us or not. But it’s a very important point actually, but does do the two people have to grow together? You’re saying they can grow separately as long as they’re connecting and creating some connections together.

Yeah, and I think two things to that very good question about, do they have to grow together? I think the most important thing is that they have that ecosystem of virtues where they trust one another, they respect one another, they have united belief in each other’s growth paths and then they have this sense of generosity and humility and realize that their partner may be growing slightly differently, but maybe that’s a more interesting path. So I think having that ecosystem is super important, but I think the other thing is this sense of making sure that you never lose respect for the other partner and that you never lose curiosity in the other partner. And one of the interviews that I just adored because many of them, Zainab, these people were radically different, like total different paths in life. I interviewed Cornell West who is far left social Democrat and Robert George, who is far right Christian thinker, one of the leading Christian thinkers, very conservative.

And that interview was so beautiful because it showed me that you can have a path, a very different kind of purposes, goals, but they shared this common set of values and ways of looking at the world. And two of the things that I’ll never forget from that interview, is they talked a lot about how when they’re in conversation, they will have radically different views, but sometimes they’ll just be sitting silently with their heads together because they have such deep respect for one another that they know if that person has that opinion, they need to listen to really understand why they have that opinion. And yes, they won’t necessarily change opinions, but they’ll understand why at a deeper level. So they said sometimes they’ll be sitting there and people will think they’re actually in an argument, but they’re just listening deeply and intently and then really taking the time to process that so they can understand that difference and not judge that difference.

And when at the very end of their interview, they said something that I found very simple, but very profound that I think about all the time is they said, “Go out and find a friend that unsettles you. Go out and find a friend that unsettles you.” And when I think we do, I love the story you just gave from Rumi in the cave, because I think often we miss these massive opportunities to build relationships in our lives that could help us become better people, because A, we think they’re so different or we have fear of them, or we don’t give them the time. And I think letting go of that and being openhearted to every relationship and every person we come in contact with, even if they don’t become a deep connection, we can bring that joy to someone’s life and learn something from everyone we come into contact with.

This is almost like a fresh nectar in a time of cancel culture and division and rupture within even families. And it wasn’t only two years ago, I think it’s still continuing of people really not talking to each other anymore because of political views and values. You use an example, a very severe example, rather, you interviewed a guy whose son was killed, only son was killed and his action was to invite the killer’s parents. That’s radical action.

Can you tell the story of what happened? Why did he decide to reach out to the other side, as Cornell West as that example you just shared, and what did it lead to? In the intellectual realms, I can see it’s an intellectually stimulating discussion to be in discussion with someone you disagree with and you’re constantly learning. This father went to his son’s killer’s family and wanted to reach out and connect. I’m just fascinated by that reach and why.

Yeah, and this is an amazing story that I couldn’t believe it the first time I heard it. And exactly as you said, Zainab, Azim Khamisa had this son, Tariq, who was about nineteen years old and he was in university delivering pizzas to try to make money. And he went, he got a call, he knocked on several doors. He went back into his car and he was shot by Tony Felix, and it was part of a gang initiation. And Tony was only fourteen years old at the time he shot Tariq. And so Azim, Tariq’s father, could have gone into this deep place of bitterness and hatred and he would’ve . . . Any one of us would’ve said he had the right to do that. But instead, what he did is he brought Ples, who was the grandfather of Tony, and his whole family. And Ples was Tony’s guardian. He brought them all into his home, in this very humble home in San Diego that I had the great privilege of sitting with Azim and Ples in. And he brought them into the home and Ples, the grandfather, became dear friends with Azim and they started to build this friendship.

They let go of hatred and they let go of bitterness and they decided that they were going to take this moment of deep tragedy and build a partnership where they stopped kids from killing kids. So they had this deep purpose, and that was some thirty years ago that this started. And so I had the privilege of talking to them about their friendship and they talk about how they have such a deep connection with one another that it transcends the emotional, it’s gone into the spiritual, and that they are like brothers, that they’re like one family right now.

They have changed so many young people’s lives because you have Azim who was an investment banker before his son was shot, and also a Muslim. You have Ples who was a Christian and a merchant marine before this tragedy happened. And yet they came together, built this friendship, built a foundation together, and they’ve changed millions of young people’s lives by going into these schools where young people can see that these two people from radically different backgrounds, a deep moment of tragedy, have crossed unbelievable divides to become friends for a purpose that is way bigger than them.

Azim talks a lot about how he realized that this wasn’t Tony’s fault that he shot Tariq. It was society’s fault, because we have done this to these young people. We have caused them to be in this place of hatred and fear. And so when Tony, the young man who shot Azim’s son, got out of prison just a few years ago, the first thing that Azim did was he hired Tony to work with him in the foundation. And again, unbelievable. And every time I think of or hear of someone that’s in a fight or an argument or has a difference of opinion, I think of Ples and Azim.

If they can cross that unbelievable divide and come out with something that changes people’s lives to the better, surely we can do that as human beings when we’re fighting about politics, when we’re fighting about how our children should be educated. Surely we can step back and, yes, disagree but not become disagreeable and filled with fear and hate. How do we transcend that and come to a place of love where we can listen to one another and yes, not necessarily change our opinions, like Ples and Azim didn’t change their religions out of this. They still held their religious values, but they kept that respect and trust for one another, and that sense of generosity.

What about the art of listening that all of these relationships that you interviewed have taught you actually, or that you can share with us?

Yeah. And thank you for bringing this up because it was one of the most important things that came up in every single interview. And Uzo Iweala, he’s the CEO right now at The Africa Center in New York, talked about something really profound where he talked about how if you are not listening to someone, you’re basically telling them that they don’t exist. Two other partners, Paul and Jim from IDEO, Paul Bennett from IDEO and Jim Cooper, they talked a lot about when your partner talks, the world stops, and you have to hold that space where the world stops where you’re deeply listening to someone.

One of the people I love that works on relationships, he’s one of the world’s biggest relationship experts, John Gottman, talks a lot about it as almost these reaching out to someone else for a moment of affirmation. So moments of affirmation, calls for affirmation. And when people don’t respond to one of those calls, it’s a sure sign that the relationship may be in trouble. And he said in good relationships, people will respond 85+ percentage of the time, in a bad relationship, less than 33 some percentage of the time. And because they’re not respecting each other and being there for each other in that moment, then they usually drift apart or the relationship potentially will collapse.

Very interesting. Very interesting. I wonder if there’s a gender dynamic to it. Do men act differently than women in relationships? Let me be more specific actually. I notice that a lot of men in my life, different—my brothers, siblings, related friends, romantic, all of that—have a harder time with showing vulnerability in the relationship or asking for help. I mean, one dear person to my life, he has a hard time crying in front of his wife because he doesn’t want her to think that he is weak or she is, or that he is not strong enough. Do you see a gender dynamics in that, in listening? So that’s one question. But then also what’s the best way, what’s the healthiest way to deal with vulnerability while you are in a relationship?

This is something really important. When I interviewed these sixty-five partnerships, men, women of all kinds, they all showed a deep sense of vulnerability. And in my interview with Ben and Jerry, I’ve never heard the word love mentioned so much. We don’t talk about it usually in a business context, but the whole interview was about love. So my answer to that, Zainab, and again, this is coming from just my experience, but I feel like as human beings we’ve pushed so far on hyperindividualism, and particularly with men made them feel like they have to be these superheroes in the world and that they can’t be vulnerable. And so I feel like that is something that society has driven rather than something that’s inherent in us as males or females.

And I remember, as a female, my first half of my life was in the corporate world helping start up mobile phone companies where particularly as a female, I felt like I could not show vulnerability or else it would be a sign of weakness. And I’ll never forget a moment where I was kind of dangling at the top of the corporate ladder as CEO in an organization, and I had a moment where I burst into tears in front of my board. I was so devastated because I remembered my dad saying, “As a female, you can never show tears in a workplace. You have to stay strong.”

I was so devastated that I literally drafted my resignation letter. I was ready to go. I went and talked to the chairman of the board and I said, “I’m so sorry about what happened the other day. Here’s my letter of resignation.” He looked at me and he shared the most beautiful, vulnerable story about a moment in his life where he had broken into tears in front of a board. And just that one moment and that one story he shared with me changed my whole world and changed my whole framing and perspective on how I looked at vulnerability in the workplace.

So my answer to the question, I give that story about myself because I wasn’t allowing myself to have vulnerability and I realized at that moment that it’s okay to have vulnerability wherever and whatever situation you are. But I also went through that path of being pushed into hyperindividualism and thinking as a female, I had to be breaking every glass ceiling I could, I had to be right, I couldn’t not have the right answer when I was in a situation. So I don’t think it’s gender based, I think it’s training based of how we educate young people in this world.

The story reminds me of the movie Arrival. It’s one of my favorite movies. Like at the end of it, I don’t know if anybody have seen it, but the thing that changed, the pivotal moment that changed in the movie, the world or the world’s future, is a personal story. It’s not a political story, it’s not a business story, it’s a personal story that touches one person’s heart about his intimate life and it creates all the changes. And so what I’m hearing from you is that we need to bring more that in a constructive way basically in all our relationships because you never know what will open up. That chairman opening up to you changed perhaps how you carry yourself moving forward.

Absolutely. And it was really interesting because when I started, part of this I started to also study these large collaborations, like how as humanity, we protected the ozone layer, how we ended apartheid. And what was really interesting, Zainab, is I knew that all of these were going to be great politic stories, political stories, policy stories, but what was beautiful was the human stories at the center of these. It was these deep friendships that had vulnerability, that had each other’s backs, that were never going to give up because they had this beautiful, shared mission. And I think we are in this point in the world right now where we are driven by fear and division. We are so separate from one another, but yet what we need more than ever is the ability to collaborate and to partner to solve our interconnected issues.

And I feel like we need this relationship reset. We need to learn how to reconnect with each other, how to be vulnerable with one another, how to hold . . . In the Edelman Trust Barometer in 2017, it always sticks in my mind because people fed back that our social values have eroded to the point where we don’t trust each other. We’re not respectful. We don’t have a sense of generosity. We have to bring those values back into the world. And the only way we’re going to do that is by being human ourselves and realizing that we’re going to make mistakes along the way, and not judging people for those mistakes.

That’s beautiful. That’s really beautiful. Jean today, as opposed to Jean even thirty years ago, what would you tell your younger self about relationships that you wish you had told because you would’ve spared yourself a lot of agony maybe, or maybe not, I don’t know. I’m asking this question from me. [laughs]

[laughs] Yeah. If I look back on a younger Jean, I think that a lot of times I was looking at relationships on how they would fix me, what I could get through those relationships. So I think the first thing I would tell my younger self is, look at relationships in your life for what you can bring to the world and others through those relationships rather than what you can get from those relationships. So I think that would be one clear message.

I think the other thing, I think, Zainab, one of the things that’s driven me in my life is I was so fearful of losing my independence, of being my own person. Jacqueline Novogratz, the founder of Acumen with her partner, Chris Anderson, the curator of TED, she had a really beautiful story where she talked about how before they got married, she was petrified of losing her independence. He even put a vow that talked about how he would always support her in whatever she wanted to do in their wedding. She talks a lot about how she would tell young people in the world and beseech them to not be fearful of commitment, but to commit to the commitment and realize that is what will bring you freedom in your life.

And so that’s another thing, I think telling my younger self that it’s okay to make a commitment and go all in with people and let yourself have that depth of connection, because that’s not going to make you lose yourself, it’s actually going to make you be the best version of yourself. So that’s another thing I would tell my younger self.

I think another thing from Jacqueline’s interview that I just loved is her mom actually had this beautiful question where she talked about in any relationship that you go in, don’t ask the question, do they love you enough, ask the question, are you loving enough? And that simple question in every relationship you’re in, whether it’s business, romantic, that simple question of are you loving enough helps you change the entire frame of your relationships.

And I would also just say, go forth with joy and curiosity in every single human being you meet because that’s how you’re going to learn, that’s how you’re going to have joy in your own life, and that sense of curiosity. Really they talked a lot in the interviews about this electric current of difference. Don’t be frightened of going out and building relationships with people that are different from you. Celebrate that. And for me, in this second chapter of my life, the last eighteen, twenty years, some of the most exciting things that have happened to me have been through these partnerships and these relationships that have been with people that have been radically different from me.

It’s so beautiful, truly beautiful actually, and inspiring, I would have to say. In your work, you work in all . . . The essence of your work is about collaboration, bringing people together and doing some big things to help make the world a better place. What are you most excited about? What are you learning, not in terms of solution, in terms of relation? Because here’s what I find interesting, you are in the world of big collaborations with big people in the world. And what I love about all these discoveries is that we need to go back to the basics: joy, love, compassion, kindness, listening, showing up. These are the innate human emotions that we need to relearn, it seems like, because we have forgotten it. And we need to relearn it, not only in our personal lives, but also in our professional and political and business lives as well. And that’s what I’m hearing from you, basically, of all the wisdom of the people that you’ve interviewed.

Yeah, it’s extraordinary to see how these leaders have become who they are. And it’s very clear that they’ve become who they are through the relationships they’ve surrounded themselves with. And that’s how they had these outside legacies of impact. But I think when you’re talking, Zainab, one of the things that I was thinking about that was a common thread is the sense of shared humility. And the people that I’m seeing in the world right now . . . And I should step back for a second, because I think we’re at a beautiful moment, where for the first time, I think as human beings, we’re starting to realize that the systems we’ve created are broken and they’re no longer serving us.

So I am so excited about this moment because we have a chance to reimagine and recreate right now. And the people that I’m seeing that are most successful in that process of starting that recreation and reinvention have a superpower of humility and they have that shared humility, but they couple that with a united belief. Because I think humility without united belief can actually go nowhere because then you won’t think big enough, you won’t go out and really stretch yourself. And then united belief without humility sometimes can go in the wrong direction and nothing will happen.

So it’s this beautiful sense of humility, that’s almost with a sense of understanding who you are, what skills you’re bringing to the party. And having confidence, so it’s also confidence in what you bring to the party, but that humility to know you don’t have all the answers and you need lots of other voices and constantly thinking about who is not at the table that needs to have a voice in this mix. And those are the people that I’m seeing are having great success at building these collaborations because they open that space to all kinds of voices. They have the humility to know they don’t know the answers, but they have that united belief to have this passion that is so burning inside them that they’re never going to stop. And I feel like we are at an extraordinary moment right now where the world is pivoting and starting to move towards this ability to work together and collaborate.

I love this. Because Desmond Tutu, which is one of the people you interviewed, and his wife, an influential figure who will stay with us forever, despite the recent loss of his life, but will stay with us forever. And when I think of him, let’s say, or even President Jimmy Carter or different people that you’ve interviewed, their power comes grounded in humility, right? It sort of comes together, it’s not either/or. And it’s so beautiful to be reminded of that, that the true power is founded in humility and in partnerships, and again in the joy and the love and all of that. But I love, love . . . And I think it’s so important that we all remember that, that we cannot have power without humility, right? Yeah.

Yeah, and it becomes an informed confidence. It becomes the confidence in what you know you can bring, but also you knowing that you don’t have all the answers. And one of the things after Mandela died, I had the great opportunity to go to South Africa and celebrate his life. And it was a moment that changed my lens on how apartheid ended forever, because we were in this tiny white tent, there was hundreds of us packed in there, pouring rain, so we were soaking wet all the way through. But there was this unbelievable electric current of joy in this tent. And one after the other, these anti-apartheid heroes got up on this small rickety stage to talk about this great man.

And what was beautiful is what they were saying, including Archbishop Tutu in his flowing purple robes. But what was more interesting to me was how they treated each other when they came off the stage, and that love and that depth of connection. And so I turned to my right and asked one of the women who was one of the family members of these great anti-apartheid heroes, “How do they have such love and deep connection for each other after weathering apartheid?” And she said two things. She said, one is they had this unbelievable intoxicating purpose, that they were never going to stop until they ended apartheid. But she said second, any one of them could have been Mandela, but they each came and decided they would play the role that was most important to the collective where they brought their skills.

So it was just, to me, this lightbulb moment of this sense of humility that all of these people had in working together. And Mandela was unbelievable and unstoppable in communicating that intoxicating purpose to the world. But you had others like Walter Sisulu, who was a planner, Albertina Sisulu, who was mobilizing women, everyone played their role. And they had that humility to understand that they were bringing specific skills to the overall collective. And DRK, Bill Draper, the founder of DRK talked about it like playing as a symphony and taking out the pieces that make you competitive with one another so that all you’re competing on is how you can make a material difference to other people’s lives. And so I think as we build these collectives, having that as a framing, how do we take out those moments that will have each other competing and instead compete for how we can make a bigger difference in people’s lives?

That’s gorgeous, beautiful. Now to do that, Jean, it requires discipline. And I’m going to ask you some rapid questions about your own rituals to stay in discipline or to stay on track, let’s say, for yourself and for the relationships in your life. One is, what’s your favorite book, a book that you constantly go to for its wisdom?

Yeah. I think one of my favorite books is Humankind by Rutger Bregman that brings us back to, I think we’ve created this myth that humanity is selfish and greedy. And scientifically he takes each moment and refutes them and shows that we’re actually built for this kindness and for this love. So I think that’s one that I hold in my heart constantly right now. And also The Overstory by Richard Powers, which is just this beautiful story, fictional story, but a reminder how connected we are to nature. And that’s something to me that is one of the ways that I stay in flow and my relationships stay in flow is that deep connection to nature.

A piece of music, or a song or anything musical that you often listen to to lift your spirit in a melancholy day?

Yeah, I am a massive fan of Peter Gabriel, and so all his music brings me . . . Whether that’s “Biko” to remind us of a sense of purpose or whether that’s “In Your Eyes” to remind us of our connection with one another, I constantly go back to his music and it’s something that just really grounds me in my life.

I have to say Peter Gabriel’s music and these particular two songs are my bike ride music, it inspires me to keep on going and riding up the hills near my home. A piece of poetry that has touched you, or a poet perhaps?

Yeah. I mean, I love Yung Pueblo, as I mentioned. And I hope I’m saying his name right, Yung Pueblo? I just have really . . . I think his honesty, his transparency, his beauty and depth is something I’ve loved. I also, like you, I love Rumi. I’ll go back to Rumi. Rumi is a poet that makes me think differently. He challenges the way I think. So I love reading his poems and his poetry. And Janine Benyus, who’s not a poet, but she started . . . I call her the godmother of biomimicry. And I love reading her works because even though she’s not officially a poet, her books are like poetry. And her books make us rethink how we think about nature and reconnect with nature and respect nature at a deep level.

Oh, beautiful, beautiful. And last, but not least, a movie that you constantly go to?

One that I’m going to right now, because I think it’s so relevant to where we are in the world is, Don’t Look Up. And I think that that has just such a powerful message to how hypocritical we can be as human beings and shifting our thinking. And I also feel one of the thing’s that’s the backbone of the book is the story around the ozone community. That is such a beautiful, humble community that came really to save all of our lives. And so it’s almost like the antithesis of what happened in Don’t Look Up. So that film right now is an important reminder to me about how important collaboration is in the world.

[closing piano music]

That was Jean Oelwang. Her new book Partnering: Forge the Deep Connections That Make Great Things Happen is available everywhere books are sold. For full transcripts of this episode, please visit www.findcenter.com. You can follow FindCenter on Instagram @Find_Center, and follow me @ZainabSalbi. And please do subscribe to this podcast, it is free. And all I ask of you is your subscription and maybe your reviews. Redefined is produced by me, Zainab Salbi, along with Rob Corso, Casey Kahn, and Howie Kahn at FreeTime Media. Our music is by John Palmer. Special thanks to Sofi Llewellyn, Neal Goldman, Caroline Pincus, and Sherra Johnston. See you next week when I’ll be joined by Kennedy Odede to talk about finding hope in the midst of the abyss.