Note sull'episodio
Carolyn Campbell explains the fascinating journey she’s on to understand rural America by listening to the people she’s sent to by others. I met Carolyn as my first coach several years ago.
Highlights- Carolyn has been on a mission to deeply listen to people in rural America for the past two years
- Hearing their stories and learning from them instead of trying to immediately help
- Her project as a result of a community dinner that didn’t happen
- In her travels she met over 2,000 people and formally interviewed 500
- 37,000 miles in nine months
- 8,000 miles of the total was in Mississippi alone
- Carolyn set out on her trip with the intention of not having an agenda
- Other people chose where she would go next
- Similar to the way coaching is about connecting to clients without an agenda
- Not a trip to push a political agenda
- It was about digging into social issues
- Going into communities to discover what the social issues really are out there
- Determine if the media is painting a clear and accurate picture
- She wanted to know for herself
- What are the real economics of an area?
- What really goes on there?
- Is the world is as divided as it seems?
- Primary goals were listening, watching and connecting
- One goal of the trip was to challenge her own judgements about things and places
- Find out if she could challenge her own assumptions and sit with people who were fundamentally different than her
- The first choice of where she should go was given to high school students. They had to provide:
- Why a particular place was important
- Questions to ask people
- The types of people they wanted her to talk to
- How Carolyn’s van for her first trip materialized 24 hours after deciding she couldn’t take her current car
- Zack Yeager from Cascade Campers came to the rescue
- Where the term stranger-talking came from and how it can make the world a better place
- People in small towns always notice who you are even if you don’t think they do
- The time a man helped her get clear about what she was up to
- “If you are here to judge you’ll only last a day, but if you are here to listen we will tell you everything you want to know.”
- Carolyn had a general rule that she would not debate or disagree people… instead she would just ask more questions, particularly when she really disagreed internally
- Three Levels of Listening
- What do I believe about what’s being said or how does it affect me?
- Hearing the words the person is saying and really taking them in
- Taking in the words … hearing the words and taking into account the energy of the space, their body language and everything
- Asking another question when you don’t agree with someone instead of going to judgement (being curious)
- Bringing deep curiosity takes us deeper and deeper in a way that judgement can’t
- Historically “help” in the rural communities Carolyn visited made the situation worse
- It takes approximately eight years for local people to trust outsiders
- Tourism as an industry does not pay as well as original industry in those places did
- Sometimes we are called to something at a level we don’t know (and in doing so we find out)
- The critical importance of getting a greater understanding of “other”
- People in rural America are used to living along side people they don’t agree with
- Carolyn believes that the