Episode 69: How Can We Manage Conflict in Our Lives and in Our World?

Welcome to Wisdom from the Aerial View, the podcast for those who want to find meaning and purpose in their lives. Hello, Doc. How are you today? I'm great. How are you? I'm really pretty good. I'm conflicted about a lot of things. Oh, isn't that funny? You wanted to talk about conflict today and I am conflicted. I, as I said to you, I don't really have much. I haven't done a whole lot of stuff on this, but I think it's a good topic. So, you wanted to talk about it. Tell me first why you wanted to talk about it and then talk about it. Conflict.

Yeah. So, there's a lot of conflict in our lives these days. I'm not sure it's worse than it's ever been. I'm in fact I'm sure it's not worse than it's ever been, but you know, we see it everywhere. We see it in our culture. We see it in our politics certainly, and we see conflicts in the world. We see wars currently going on. And so we're surrounded by this and it is extremely troubling to live in a world that's constantly full of conflict. And I don't think there's ever been a time, in fact, I'm sure there's never been a time where there hasn't been conflict in the world among cultures, among peoples, among nations, and also conflicts between people. So it's everywhere and if you don't have a way to deal with this it'll bring you down in a heartbeat and it's not good for the individual and it's not good for the society. So I thought let's talk about how one deals with all different kinds of conflicts, everything from the major ones like wars or conflicts among cultures, conflicts in politics certainly is a big one now, and then interpersonal conflicts. How do you handle conflicts with other people?

I'm pretty sure everybody listening is going to go, "Oh, I got conflicts. I got conflicts up the wazoo." And they're hard. So we can start with the less visible ones. Let's talk about conflicts between people. This is very difficult because everybody has them. Everybody. Husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, just friends, co-workers, parents, children, you name it. They're all over the place. I don't think I ever told you this story, but about 20 years ago I thought I have an idea for a project or even a company and I called it 1-800-Referee.

So let's say a mother and a daughter, a teenage daughter or even an adult daughter, are having an argument about whatever — boyfriend, school, it doesn't matter. And they're having this argument. Eventually the mother either slams the door and leaves the room, or a husband and wife get into this argument and it's now like 10:00 at night and they're both very angry. And what happens? You get angry but you also get upset because even if you're sure you're right, you're still upset about the whole thing happening. It's very unpleasant. And then they go to sleep and they don't talk and they wake up the next morning and go, "Okay, now what do I do?"

So the idea was that you could call up a therapist who would just say, "Give me the problem. Party A, you get five minutes. Party B, you get three minutes." And everybody is thinking the referee is going to say, "You're right. You win." But the referee's almost never going to say that. They're going to say, "Okay, you just have to hear the other person's point of view. Put yourself in their shoes. Look through the world through their eyes." Like a therapist would do. Just basically de-escalate the situation because most of us don't have the tools to do that.

I have a particularly bad trait. So my wife and I very, very rarely argue. We've had in the almost 30 years we've been married, I'd say maybe there's been three major blowups. And of course I can tell you for sure they were probably all my fault. But they were so unpleasant. And the question is, what do you do when you get into a mess like that? My particular trait is when these things happen, I would start to laugh. I'd sort of smirk, but not in an ugly smirk. It was a smirk to hold in the laughter because what would happen is I'd zip up to the aerial view and I'd say, "Oh, this is so ridiculous. Now what?" And of course my wife would get even more angry. I wasn't meaning it to be disrespectful. It was the exact opposite. It was like an escape valve for me.

So most of us don't have the skills to unravel these things in a very logical, thoughtful way without yelling at each other or throwing something. This is a really big deal. If people had a way — if we could push a little button on the desk and say, "Oh, conflict resolution button. Go." And all of a sudden you got a script that says, "Here's how you resolve the conflict." And then both people of course have to be willing to do that. But this would create so much more peace in our lives, in our worlds.

Sure, I do. I have conflicts in my family. They run politically with my brother, for example. He and I do not see eye to eye politically. And it's a conflict that I'm trying to resolve. We've hung up on each other and done all those things that people do when they don't agree with one another. And it's silly. It's absolutely silly. I still adore my brother. Sometimes I don't like him, but I love him. But we are conflicted politically. I guess we're both to blame. He brings it up. I bring it up. We purposely do it. Very rarely do we even agree. But there is that conflict, that inner conflict, that outer conflict that I would love to be able to figure out how to resolve. Probably the best way is to not talk about politics.

I'm glad you said that. I'm so glad you said that. I have a friend, very close friend, one of my oldest friends. We talk at least two or three times a week and he's on one side of the political spectrum and I'm not on a particular spectrum. I'm kind of nowhere. So I'm willing to hear everything. And we have a rule: Don't talk about politics. Because what happens inevitably is it deteriorates. And I love this guy like a brother. So I said, "Okay, no talking about politics." But it's not the right answer. That is not the solution. Because when you have a relationship and you create rules about what can and cannot be said, it's not a relationship. The relationship has been lessened. And you don't want it lessened.

So I will tell you my way to handle most conflicts: you have to ask yourself a question. Have I ever been wrong in my life? And every honest person would have to say, "Sure, I've been wrong." Because everybody has. Everybody. I don't care who you are, you have been wrong numerous times.

So the thing to say to yourself is, "Why am I so sure I'm right this time?" Maybe since I have a history of being wrong previously, even if you have a track record of 80-20, let's say you're right 80% of the time, you're still wrong 20% of the time. You have to entertain the possibility that you're not right. And this is a question of humility. This is one of the great tricks to handling conflicts — to have humility to say, "Okay, I could be wrong." And once you admit that you could be wrong to yourself, then it's very easy to hear the other person and say, "I don't see it that way, but I see your point of view. It's legitimate. I don't agree with you right now. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, maybe never. But I hear you. It's fine."

You have to have that humility. You have to say, "I could be wrong," because you have been. I have a chapter in my book called "Being Right Is Overrated." And for us being right is so important, but really it's not the most important thing. The relationship is the most important thing.

But I'm not sure that it's right and wrong. I think that we can have opinions. We can voice those opinions and be steadfast in belief in that opinion and still believe that your opinion, which you have every right to — everybody's entitled to his or her opinion. You're not entitled to the facts that are not so. But I can respect you as a human being. I can respect your opinion. I just don't happen to agree with your opinion. And I think if we say that, then to me that's the way we resolve the conflict.

This is pure aerial view. You want to get out of this mess? Pure aerial view. Facts are mutable. Facts change. They are not what you think they are. They appear to be, but even a fact that is purely correct has context. So if you quote me a number about X% of people experience this — okay, here's the fact, here's the study, here's the research paper. I'm in medicine. Facts, facts, facts. Evidence-based medicine. We talk about evidence-based medicine all the time. Here's what happens: five years later, oops. It turns out we had some other things happen and it turns out we ignored certain inputs that we weren't even aware of. We didn't do it intentionally. So sticking with facts is dangerous because even in physics they change.

And so the point is the important part of the discussion is the relationship. It's not the facts. It's not who's right, who's wrong. When you have half a country that feels one way and half a country that feels the other way, and you know some of the people on the other side who are highly educated, very smart, big hearts, very caring and very generous people, and they see things completely different than you — you have no choice in my view than to be humble and to say, "Okay, I'm pretty sure I'm seeing this the right way, but there is at least some probability that I'm wrong."

That humility is so critical. It allows you to continue the conversation, to see the other person and respect them for coming at this from a point of view that may not be yours but has legitimacy. That's the way to get rid of the conflict. Because at the end of the day, you don't want to hang up on your brother because you're going to call him back because you love him, and you're going to feel badly and he's going to feel badly.

I had a situation with a friend, longtime friends. We had a discussion about something political that came up out of nowhere and it was short-lived but we don't talk the way we used to anymore. And that to me is a heartbreaker. I look at this and go, you know, okay, not only are you entitled to your point of view, I don't really care. You're a good person. I know you're a good person. I enjoy our friendship. It's okay for you to see it differently. Maybe you'll change your mind, maybe I'll change my mind. It doesn't matter. Don't throw away the relationships. Never throw away relationships.

But let's talk about something else. What about hypocrisy? Something that has really been troubling to me is in the news now. It's something that happened in South Dakota with Kristi Noem, who was the former Secretary of Homeland Security. Her husband Brian was caught doing something that he does in his personal life. The Daily Mail outed him — he's a crossdresser. Good for him. I don't care that he's a crossdresser. Means nothing to me. It's a very sad thing because he has three grown children. He didn't want it out. And what troubles me about this, the conflict, is the hypocrisy. His wife said, "We need space. We need people to understand what we're going through." And yet she didn't do that during her tenure at the Department of Homeland Security. But it's also the confluence of conflict and hypocrisy. If we are hypocritical, does conflict ever go away?

Well, first of all, hypocrisy is one of our human specialties. We're very good at it. It's very hard to find somebody who's not been hypocritical at some point in their life. I don't personally know anybody. I've been around a long time. I've seen a lot of people in my career. I have not seen anybody who hasn't been hypocritical at some point in their life.

I felt bad for the guy. I always feel bad for the kids. Because I'm a father and I try to be a little more careful of my behavior and my words because I have children. I don't want to embarrass them. I don't want to make their lives more difficult. But of course I'm going to say something stupid and of course I'm going to be hypocritical because everybody is. I give people a lot of slack. As long as you're not hurting anybody, I give people a lot of slack.

It is so easy for us to point fingers. It is so easy for us to claim the moral high ground. When you claim the moral high ground, a bell should go off in your head immediately. Like a fire alarm bell. Be careful. Make sure you are on the high ground. You might not be. And I'm sure you haven't been on the high ground other times in your life.

So judge favorably. In fact, that's what we should probably call this episode: judge favorably. You want to be happier in your life, you want to have fewer conflicts, judge favorably. I was in a conversation with somebody recently and I thought that conversation was going to become in a way public. And when it didn't become public, I'm thinking, "That person chickened out." And the first thing I said to myself — because I've learned to catch myself, because I've committed this crime of judging others unfavorably so many times — I said, "Okay, stop. Perhaps something happened. Maybe there was a technical problem. Maybe the person had an emergency."

And sure enough, a week later, what was supposed to happen happened. The point is you jump to conclusions. You judge somebody unfavorably and a good amount of the time, a little bit down the road, you find out you were too harsh. So if you want to eliminate conflict in your life, the first thing I do is try to judge favorably. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they're having a bad day, or maybe they're right and I'm wrong.

If it turns out you gave somebody the benefit of the doubt and they didn't deserve it, no harm, no foul. You haven't lost anything. As long as you're a person of substance, firmly rooted in your own persona, nothing's going to happen if you inadvertently give somebody the benefit of the doubt. If you don't give them the benefit of the doubt, if you judge them unfavorably, that's where conflict occurs. That's where you are diminished.

I like to say we are only responsible for our own behavior. And we are completely responsible for our own behavior. And we are never diminished by the behavior of others, only by our own. So how somebody else behaves is not your issue. As long as you behave properly and treat people well and judge favorably, you're going to be fine. You want to get rid of conflict in your life, you want to get rid of stress, you want to get rid of anxiety — try judging people favorably. That's going to help immensely.

How about not judging anybody? The word "judge" sort of bothers me. Why do I judge anybody? If I judge you, you judge me. Do you need to judge me? No, that's what I'm saying — judge favorably.

So judge favorably. If you judge favorably, the conflict lessens. And it's the right way to treat other people and it makes your life much, much better. Even if you don't care about other people, you should still judge favorably because you're going to feel better. The way to avoid slamming the phone down or getting upset is to judge favorably. Accept the fact, have that humility, that we could be wrong. We've been wrong before. We could certainly be wrong on this issue.

So be humble and judge favorably. Those two things would go such a long way. Not only in our interpersonal relationships, but in our societal relationships — among communities, among cultures, among countries, the same rules apply. It's unfortunate we haven't learned the lesson. I'm not sure we ever will, but at least on an individual level, we can make our lives better by being humble and by judging others favorably.

I agree. I think those are wise words. I think they're hard words to live by, but something that we ought to at least strive for. Conflicts in the world right now — we are very conflicted in this whole world. There's no question about that. And one would hope and one would pray that some of these conflicts could be resolved. I always end every podcast with one word and the word is peace. I think that peace is the opposite of conflict. Would that we could in fact one day get to peace — in our country, in the world, with our spouses — just to live in a peaceful world, a peaceful society, would make us all feel a lot better.

When you look at conflicts over the course of history, there have been various commonalities. One of them was religion. Religions have fought each other. Go back to the Crusades, probably before the Crusades. And what that means is Religion A thinks that they have the market cornered on truth, and so they fight Religion B. And we're still seeing it today in this world, year 2026, and we're still having these same conflicts. And of course the right way to look at this is to say, "I prefer this particular perspective of the world. I prefer to believe this. But I recognize that I could be wrong or it may not be true or maybe partially true, and there's another way to look at it." If we end up with the same message — the golden rule, do unto others, take care of your neighbor, feed the hungry — these are tenets of every single religion. If we just stick to those, we'll be fine.

So this idea of humility, not only in interpersonal relations, but among cultures, among religions, among countries. You need to have this humility. Now, having said that, there are some really bad people in the world. I'm reminded of Albert Einstein, who was a big pacifist after World War I. He hated all military — he thought it should be abolished. And then World War II comes along and the Holocaust, and he changed his tune to a large degree. Why? Because he recognized that we have an ideal of how we want the world to be and how we want people to be, but there are some bad actors, and sometimes unfortunately some conflicts are unavoidable.

It's a nuanced world. There are no hard and fast rules that apply to every situation. And that's why humility is so important. I can't stress that enough. I've learned this the hard way. I've been conceited, self-assured, whatever the opposite of humility is. And I've judged people poorly so many times that now when I'm about to, I catch myself. I've gotten much better at it. But it's still an active process. My initial reaction is to judge somebody unfavorably and I go, "Whoa, no, no, stop, stop, stop." Give them the benefit of the doubt. I have to literally almost physically stop myself.

So these are the same kinds of things we need to teach: humility, and the idea that it is most important to judge favorably, that there's nothing lost if you judge favorably and it turns out the other person was a creep. Okay, it happens.

I would leave you with three words: humility, be humble, and judge favorably, and your life will have far less conflict in it.

I appreciate that. Thank you so much again. Thank you to our listeners for listening to us, and we wish you all well and peace. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you next time.