The Listening Tube with Bob Woodley--A chat with Chris Rivers, Autocracy in America

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is The Listening Tube.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

He's a nutshell, but he's still sharp.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

On this episode, I'll have a conversation with Chris Rivers, author of You Shouldn't Have to Kill to Get Ahead. Guess what my first question will be?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

But first, not the headlines.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

National Public Radio published a story about a month ago based on an episode of All Things Considered about concerns over the U.S. becoming an autocracy. They even had experts in the field from Sweden and Harvard University confirm that the United States has already crossed the line into what the Harvard guy calls competitive authoritarianism, such as the kind they have in Russia. Sure, they have elections, but it really isn't a contest. There isn't a whole lot of democracy involved. But the headline of the story warned against autocracy, which by definition is having one person in absolute power. That's a big difference. The Swedish guy says the US is no longer a democracy. While there is room for improvement when it comes to how we choose our candidates, once they're on the ballot, people are free to vote for whomever they wish. And a lot of money is spent trying to convince voters to support the chosen candidates. I wonder if the Swedish guy got to vote for the king of Sweden. Yeah. They have a king. They also have elected representatives. But come on.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

And if that wasn't enough.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

The Harvard guy was kind enough to toss out some of the ways we're able to tell that the United States is becoming a competitive authoritarianism. These tactics include attacking the press. Well, I must admit that we see a lot more of that under the Trump administration than we did under the Biden administration. But when you look at the press as a whole, most of the larger organizations, including CBS, NBC, and ABC, as well as CNN and MS Now and the Associated Press, plus most of the newspapers they serve, never criticized President Biden. They covered up for him. They omitted for him. They gave their questions in advance for him. They did nothing to uncover and report the corruption and mismanagement and the autopen executive branch of the federal government. They didn't cover the open borders or the crime and the cost of millions of illegal aliens crowding our schools, homes, and hospitals. The Biden administration had no reason to attack the press. It was on their side. And not always voluntarily. Social media companies like Twitter and Meta were sometimes coerced into deleting or throttling stories that made Joe look bad. Donald Trump has every right to attack the press, and they keep giving him reasons to do so. I'm sure President Trump would love nothing more than a great relationship with the press. And they could have that if they would just report the news in an honest way. Another tactic the Harvard guy uses to recognize autocracy is disenfranchising voters. Senate Democrats would agree that the Trump administration is trying to disenfranchise voters with the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and to show photo ID when you actually go to your polling place to vote. Even though more than three-quarters of Democrats agree with the idea, Senate Democrats refused to vote in favor of such a plan, calling it Jim Crow 2.0, forgetting that Jim Crow 1.0 was the Democrats trying to keep black people from voting. Unlike Jim Crow laws, the SAVE Act has no racism built into it. But the Democrats have to make everything racist or sexist. Another Senate Democrat claim is that married women would have a hard time registering to vote. It's ironic that the Democrats would vote for a woman simply because of her gender, yet can't define a woman and think women are too stupid to register to vote. The only voters who are being disenfranchised are the people who are voting illegally. People who are not citizens and don't have the right to vote in America's elections. That's not disenfranchising American voters. It's solidifying the value of each citizen's vote. The third tactic the Harvard guy points out is weaponizing the justice system. And he's right. That's exactly what the Biden administration did to Donald Trump. They hounded him with impeachments, charged him with crimes, and put him through sham trials. One with the most crooked judge since Pennsylvania's Kids for Cash judges, Judge Bosberg. I'm surprised Harvard Guy didn't write about weaponizing the justice system when Joe Biden was president. Because that's when it was put into full force in the hopes of keeping Donald Trump off the ballot altogether. What Harvard Guy is witnessing now isn't weaponizing the justice system. It's putting the justice system to work in the way it was intended. To adjudicate criminality. The criminality that took place by the Biden administration. It's not revenge, it's upholding the law.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

And you can hang your hat on that.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Why NPR chose to do a story on the possibility of an autocracy in America at this point is puzzling. The closest America came to an autocracy was the last presidential election. We would be in a competitive authoritarianism if Kamala Harris had won the presidency. The Democrats had no primary, forced out the sitting president, and appointed their chosen candidate. Just like they do in Russia. Had Kamala won, and if the House and Senate were also controlled by the Democrats, they would pack the Supreme Court and the filibuster and put in an apparatus that would enable them to keep control of power regardless of who the Republicans or any other political party put forth as a candidate. How do I know this? Because that's what they said they'd do. The Democrats have been taken over by the extreme left-wing socialists in the party. Moderate Democrats would be well off to split from the radicals and form a new party, or take measures to regain control of the Democratic Party. Until that happens, there's no reason to let them regain control of the government. They're too splintered, too radical, too dangerous, and too violent.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

It's too bad the Harvard guy and the Swedish guy couldn't recognize all of those indicators of autocracy when it was actually happening instead of now, when it's only imagined.com.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

My guest today is Chris Rivers. Chris has advice for people who want to get ahead in life. For regular listeners, you know I don't entertain any self-help topics on the program. That hasn't changed. Chris spoke with me from his home in Connecticut. Uh Chris, it it seems like you've had a pretty full life so far, raised in a working class family, uh, joined the army as, I'm assuming, uh, an enlisted man. Yep, that's how I started as an enlisted soldier. And then you went to West Point and became an officer, correct? That's right. Yep. All right. Then then on to Georgetown University. You've certainly taken steps to improve your station in life and give yourself the tools you needed to get ahead. First of all, did you have to kill anybody?

SPEAKER_02 9:33

The short answer is yes. The so I served in both Operation Iraqi Freedom 3 and then I led about 150 combat missions in Afghanistan. And in both those situations, there were times where I was absolutely in the position that I had to take human life. I had to kill people along the way. And that's the whole point of the first part of the book is just to say that while I'm proud of my military service, you that shouldn't be the price that people have to pay in order to get an education without going into debt.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

I get my and my second question would be has it worked? Which part of it? The military have you got ahead?

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Ah economically, absolutely. I am leaps and bounds ahead of the family I was born into, which in today's day and age is very rare. The biggest indicator of how much wealth a person has in the United States is how much wealth their parents had. And I have personally bucked that trend. I was able to go to college and not have to pay for it in any sort of student loans. My wife is also a West Point grad, so she also was able to go to college without having to take any sort of student loans. And we're able to use the GI Bill and build wealth through owning property. And we absolutely economically are getting ahead. The thing I would point to, and in chapter three of the book, I really talk about the sort of emotional weight you have to take on when you're on the front lines in these sort of global war and terror environments. And in that case, I don't know. I don't know if I've gotten ahead. When I look at my older brother, older sister, and look at the life that they've been able to live. I am economically, my bank accounts, all net worth stuff, what you can measure, what Americans typically measure, I'm ahead. When I look at how they're able to still be a part of the community that we were born into and that they have these lifelong friendships when I've been moving all over the country, when I look at their sort of carefree approach to the to their life, I don't know. I think it's uh toss-up.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

That's a very interesting answer, but and it falls right in line with my next question. My question would be like, how do you know? How do we know whether or not we're doing well?

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Our culture in America is very much doing well means your bank account. It's big and good and growing. We have put so much focus on the idea of a person's worth being whatever you can calculate on a balance sheet. And I just don't think that's true. And it's weird to say because on one hand, when you grow up trying to figure out where the next five bucks are coming from in order to eat your next meal, boy, it feels good to not have to live paycheck to paycheck. Like there is a better quality of life that comes without being sort of scrouging around every day, every hour, every minute. On the flip side of that, once you get above the sort of your past living paycheck to paycheck, the additional wealth you accumulate isn't really worth the extra hours you had to work, the extra sacrifices you had to make. And I think that's for everyone to decide for themselves. For me, I was very highly paid consultant for a while, but I was working 100 hour plus work weeks and was kind of miserable doing it. And I saw my bank account growing and I realized that isn't really filling my cup. Like I am glad I'm in a position where I can choose that I want to do right now. But I have gotten to a point in my life where I am now finding meaning from helping others, and I've always like that's always been my passion. And so if I'm working and making however much money you can imagine, but I'm not fundamentally helping people, then for me, that's not getting ahead. That's not a meaningful life. But I think everyone can define what is meaningful for them for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Then it basically comes down to how we feel, more or less. Is that correct? I think that's right.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

I would say we have to sort of differentiate the in-the-moment feeling versus the long-term satisfaction feeling. I think those are two different feelings. And sometimes in our current society, boy, do we really love the in-the-moment gratification. I love eating ice cream. I grew up in New England, used to be the dairy capital of the country. So we have all these old farm like time farm, mom and pop farms around that still sell ice cream and it's delicious. Love it. Is that really gonna make me overall satisfied 10 years when I'm overweight and like struggling? Probably not. So I just use that as a sort of humor approach to just say a lot of times the in the moment gratification of what feels good is actually wrong. And the long-term like things that lead to a satisfied life could be hard work at first. Developing meaningful relationships is hard work, no matter who you are. Doing the work to figure out who you are and what you really want to bring to the world is hard work, but doing that hard work leads to such a more meaningful life than just always hitting the easy button.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Our our news media, our government, our education system, they are always telling us about all these different things that we can aspire to. There are forces out there that make us feel the way we feel, whether it's comparing ourselves to our peers, comparing ourselves to our parents, as you did in your case. There are a lot of forces out there that are trying to make us feel either good or bad about where we are at the moment. What are some of those forces?

SPEAKER_02 15:16

I think the biggest one that I've really come across when I was running for office is social media. Because social media doesn't show you the real life that everyone is living that you're connected to, and honestly, doesn't even show you everyone that you're connected to on their own platforms. There's also just the reality that the way that people post on social media is they are posting their own highlights. They're not posting the 4 a.m. taking your sick dog out and you're dead tired or taking care of a sick kid or you're struggling to pay the next bill or whatnot. You just get the photos and images of everyone being super happy on vacation. And it's really easy to look at that at any social media platform you want and say, Well, everyone else is living a better life than me. But everyone else is advertising that they're living a better life. But if that's all you take in from them, you're actually not getting the full picture. And if you compare your ups and downs to just everyone else's ups, it's really easy to find yourself in this sort of hole where you just feel like you're falling behind even more than you actually are. And it's something that I think is relatively new and something that we haven't really figured out what we want the rules to be around. That is one of the biggest forces. And then, yeah, we have massive entertainment industries, we have massive advertising industries, we have a whole news media that's more entertainment than news. There's a whole bunch of forces. But at the end of the day, I really think the social media effect is the biggest one that we're having to face right now.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

So I guess I'm lucky if I have a friend or two who occasionally sobs that nobody loves them anymore.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

If people are willing to open up to you about their actual troubles, then I think you're actually doing pretty well. I think it's a good sign, right? And it's one of the things I'm a Christian, and one of the things uh in my travels as when I was traveling around the military attending different churches, one of the churches I attended had this sermon that basically said one of the signs if people are going to actually dive deeper into their faiths is if they have three friends that are also faith-based friends and they're within door knocking range. So they can come over to your house, knock on your door, and say, I'm having a really terrible day, can we talk about it? And I think you know, you don't have to be religious, you don't have to share the same faith I do. I think it's just a fundamental human thing, right? If you can be in a community, whether it's your family, whether it's your neighbors, whether it's just good friends who are willing to tell you, hey, I'm having a really hard day. Can we talk this out? You're doing better than most people nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Well, certainly uh having that kind of uh need or being able to provide that service to somebody else gives you a perspective that you may not have uh enjoyed before. And I think it helps uh you to uh find exactly where you do stand among those the other people in your society.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

I think that's right. And also let's not overlook the hard work it takes in just any sort of relationship to develop the amount of trust it takes for someone to become vulnerable, to say, I'm not okay, and for them to feel comfortable enough saying that to you, I think shows a huge sign of respect because in today's day and age, I mean, the amount of scammers we all have to deal with day in and day out, the amount of tricks that are being played in the economic circles and whatnot, like we all have our guard up. And so for people to really be able to put their guard down and say, like, hey, I'm hurting, and like we share this moment together, I think it's just a testament to the work that went in along the way to because these relationships aren't built all at once. It's not, hey, new stranger I never met. Here's all my life problems. It's you know, they became slightly vulnerable at some point along the way, and you're a safe place, and vice versa. And as you do that over and over and over again, ultimately you get to the place where you can become vulnerable with the things you're dealing with. And I think we need more of that across the board nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Does having those types of relationships actually help us get ahead in some way?

SPEAKER_02 19:25

It absolutely does. Because here's the thing about life trauma is coming for us all. You can't live life without some sorts of trauma, without having some sort of down moment somewhere along the way. And the people who have a support system to be able to deal with it, because we all only have our one lived experience. And the more that you can surround yourself with people that you have done the work to develop the trust, to share those life lessons that you don't want to just Google or you don't want to just get into the social media rabbit hole of hitting those dopamine hits, having those sources of friends who are true friends who you can share those dark moments with. And for me, it's a lot of my veteran friends who I deployed with. Uh, it's a lot easier to talk about those combat-related issues, even years and years afterwards. We develop so much trust early on that they don't actually need to be physically next door. I can call them up and we can talk about it. And having that support system is a huge benefit for getting ahead because if you're left to your own devices where you just have to figure it all out for yourself, who knows how long it will take you? Every person is different, every situation is different. But having a group of friends that you can talk things out with can help you short circuit those sort of times to understand what's actually wrong and maybe what solutions are, or just to feel heard. And then that gives you enough confidence, enough energy to sort of get back up on the horse and keep moving. So, yeah, I do think having a core group of friends where you can be vulnerable with, share those dark moments is a huge leg up to be able to get ahead because you can short circuit the time it takes to you to be able to be in a good place to get back in the game, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Other than the way we feel about our station in life or wherever we are in our current situation, we also have statistics and facts that show us where we are as compared to other people, as compared to people within our state, as compared to uh an average. There are a lot of statistics out there. Would we feel different if we only paid attention to those statistics instead of those other influences?

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Yes. And the reason why I'm so quick to say yes is just to say I think most people are doing better than they think they're doing. And it also, when you look at those statistics, and I'll say this as someone I'm 40 years old right now. I'm sort of middle of my professional career. And when I look at the sort of median wealth statistics, you have to remember that half the people. Who are older than me had a lot longer time to develop that wealth, develop their relationships, whatnot. And then the other half of the people younger than me haven't had as much time as I have. And I think we underestimate the power of time in whether it's our personal development, wealth development, whatever it is. The power of time is incredibly important. And if you could break up the statistics to look at your age group and how everyone's doing, I think you would have a very different picture about where you are in this overall race. And I do say race because I do think we all kind of like we're Americans, we love to compete, whether it's baseball or some other sport. And at the end of the day, if you don't know the stats, you don't know where you fall. And in my day job right now, I work for a nonprofit that's working with our higher ed system here in Connecticut. And I do sort of strategic work for how the system runs. And a lot of the students I talk to just feel like, hey, I'm doing all this work. I don't really know if I'm getting ahead, but they're on track to complete their degree. And when they realize that the actual completion rates are less than 50% in a lot of these programs because life happens and people are struggling to actually finish their degrees, actually just completing it, even if you have a C or D average, if you complete it, like you're doing better than a lot of other people, but we never look at it that way. So I do think the stats are helpful, but you also have to be a little bit careful to stats to make sure you're actually comparing wherever you are to the stat you that represents other people that are in this sort of similar time frame as you.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Americans do live in one of the most prosperate places on the planet. We live in a land of meritocracy where anyone can climb up uh the corporate ladder and reach the top with hard work, start your own business. There are so many options that we have. Why should it be America's fault if you fail?

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Well, I guess that depends on what failure means. If failure means that you can fall so far it's impossible for you to get back up, I think that's a failure of policy. If failure means that you have some setbacks and you're not actually achieving your potential, I think that's sort of on you. But in a lot of cases, we have sort of policy decisions that we made to absolutely maximize corporate profits to the point where we have companies in this country that you could be a full-time employee working more than 40 hours a week and still qualified for food stamps. Is that really your fault as a person or is that a fault that we, you know, for businesses that are earning a ton of profit, that we don't make that a rule of how the market needs to work, that if you're gonna work a full-time job, it needs to be a living wage. Is it really a fault of someone who, for no fault of their own, all of a sudden has a medical accident and now they're going bankrupt because they can't afford the payments, which is one of the biggest sources of bankruptcies for working class Americans, when a whole bunch of other countries have figured out how to do healthcare? And even in our own country, the most cost-effective healthcare program we have is a veteran affairs system. So we could redesign the system, but we have chosen not to because we continue to maximize profits over providing the sort of safety net that people would need to be able to have the sort of grounding where you can fail and still not hit absolutely rock bottom. Or even, you know, I grew up in the sort of 80s and 90 timeframe when we had an absolute drug wave and crime wave related to drugs, and we've been treating drugs as a sort of criminal problem when a lot of other countries have started to treat it as a healthcare problem. And, you know, when you're addicted, I have several people in my own family circles who have been addicts at points in their life. Is it really on them if they can't get the help they need in prison, or is it on all of us that we actually put them in prison in the first place when their biggest crime was possession? So at the end of the day, it's a mixed bag. I think it really depends on the situation. But I really do think for the richest, most powerful country in the history of the planet, and we produce more wealth any single year than any country ever before in our history as human beings. The fact that we don't have more of a social safety net for people to catch people and be able to allow them to work themselves back up out of it. That's the thing where I do think that part of it is on all of us.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Well, certainly America and even individual states have social safety nets, uh, social programs, unemployment, uh, welfare, uh uh, whatever the case may be. So it may be a case of learning how to use those programs that's that's getting in your way or not being aware of them. But do you think that America's social programs might also deter us from working as hard as we can to get where we want to be?

SPEAKER_02 26:54

I think they can. I think the design of them matters. I think often case a lot of states and even the federal programs we have don't provide enough support, and then they all of a sudden stop support at certain key levels. And so that sort of sets up these benefit cliffs. That if you work one more hour above whatever it is for some of these programs, now you don't get any support. And I think if we were going to take our political hats off and just put our policy hats on, I think the more sophisticated policy would say we need to have these social safety nets that have these sort of gradual off ramps that does encourage you to work more. And I think that across whether you're talking about Medicaid, Medicare, unemployment insurance or unemployment benefits, or a whole bunch of other benefits we have, they're complicated to access, like you're already saying. But if we can gradually reduce the benefit while people are getting back on their feet, which is, by the way, what a bunch of other countries around the world have done, that would actually allow you to have the safety net without having this sort of benefit cliff that actually works against you or against people as you're trying to figure out, I want to work five more hours, can I feel a little better? But if I do, I'm actually making less money than I would have just on the benefits.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Have you thought about the consequences of doing away with all of the social programs?

SPEAKER_02 28:16

As a sort of thought experiment for the United States, no. But having been in countries that haven't had these social safety programs or any safety net whatsoever, it gets to be a pretty nasty place pretty quickly. And the sort of scarcity mindset can quickly take over. I think it's actually something we're dealing with here in the United States, even with all the wealth we have and all the programs we have. But when it is truly no functioning government, no functioning safety net at all, then it very quickly becomes everyone's out for themselves. And that isn't a great place to be.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Now, your book, You Shouldn't Have to Kill to Get Ahead, claims to reimagine wealth, power, and belonging in America. Which of those three things is most important to you?

SPEAKER_02 29:05

It's a difficult question to answer because I think they're all important, but on a sort of different scale. I think at the end of the day, we have to recognize that we have the most unequal economically speaking country on the earth. There's more inequality now in the United States than there was that led up to the French Revolution. And that's a real problem for just the overall fairness of society. I think that's the most important bucket that we're going to have to solve sometime in the next few years. Otherwise, history, I think, would show it gets pretty bad pretty quickly. The way to do that, though, is by having a different set of politics, having a form of politics where we can actually get past our sort of identity politics we've been practicing for a long time. And there's plenty of blame to go across the political spectrum on that. We have to actually start realizing that most Americans have more things in common than divide us. And so I think in order to be able to fix the underlying economic system that does maximize profit that we've had for 40 years, the way to get there is by actually reminding people we're all in this together and we can disagree along the way. Happy to disagree. I'd love to debate folks in good faith. And so at the end of the day, the most important thing right now is to actually really focus on what it means to belong to this country together with all of our different backgrounds, all of our different perspectives, all of our different priorities. And let's just reconnect with each other on a human to human level. Then we can take that and start to have realistic political discussions about what the solutions are. And then from those realistic political discussions, are actually trying to solve problems. We can solve the underlying economic problems. So that's a long way of completely dodging your question, I realize. But at the end of the day, the economics, I think, is genuinely the most important. And it's not all free market, it's not socialism. Like those are sort of the two concepts that get thrown around in political land. It's sort of just like what rules do we want around the market to be more fair? Is really where we should be talking about. But in order to even have that discussion, we have to stop this. What team are you on politically? And let's just remember we're all Americans at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Does one need to possess wealth, power, and belonging to get ahead?

SPEAKER_02 31:21

I think that really depends on what your own definition of getting ahead means. Because I have done mission work, I've been in other countries where people who are dirt poor but feel like they belong to their community and feel like they're getting ahead because they're growing their family and whatnot. And I think our country in the United States, right now, I think the sort of key components to life for most people is you do have a community family, whatever that means to you, that you could belong to, that you do have some sort of ability to feel empowered, whether that's through your work or through your community, there's a couple different ways to do that. And then I think at the end of the day, if you have those two things, living in a system that you feel like is actually relatively fair, that an honest day work leads to an honest day pay. If you have all three of those things, then I think you have a pretty good recipe for an overall satisfied life. If you don't have those three things, I think it becomes really hard to actually feel satisfied with what you're doing. Cause at the end of the day, if you're working super hard but don't feel like you're being compensated fairly, that will eat away at you after a while. If you don't feel like you're empowered at all in what you're doing. So, like when I was being very highly paid, but I wasn't loving the sort of business development side of it where I was waking up at 5 a.m. every day to write new contracts, to find new business and whatnot. Like if you don't feel empowered for what you're doing, that's gonna eat away at you for a while. And then if you're kind of in this all alone, if you don't have a family or community that you can feel like you're really genuinely a part of, that's gonna eat away at you for a while. And you know, faith can play a role in that. There's a whole bunch of other things that can play a role in that. But I do think that's the sort of core, at least in our American society, for the component parts we should all be looking for.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Now, Chris, I can tell you're not just a philosophical thinker, but also an analytical one. Is your book, You Shouldn't Have to Kill to Get Ahead, more of a lifestyle changing self-improvement book, or does it provide insight on some of the actual logistics you'll need to reach your goals?

SPEAKER_02 33:29

It's definitely a blend of both, but a little bit more tilted towards the actual logistics, the actual path forward. And so the first third of the book is really my life story. So you see how I did it. And you can also understand all my own biases because we all have them. And then the second third of the book is really pulling the curtain back on the data that tells the story of wealth, power, and belonging as a country for the last 40 years to understand where you fall in this. And then the last third is if you don't like the system we have now, here's a whole bunch of ideas of what we could do to actually fix it.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Please forgive me, Chris.

unknown 34:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

For casting a shadow on your premise. But isn't the desire to keep getting ahead indicative of not being happy? I mean, when am I allowed to be satisfied with where I am?

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Yeah, I think it's a fair question. And I really think it's a fair question because I also think our society tends to really focus on always getting ahead. And wherever you are, it's never enough. I think there's ultimately a blend that you have to have of really feeling like what's important to you to feel satisfied. For me, what I need to feel satisfied is helping other people along the way. And as long as I'm doing that, I actually feel pretty good. And I've done that while living a very Spartan life in a very small apartment while earning almost nothing and like really worrying about money. And I've done that while earning a lot of money. But at the end of the day, for me, that's the core to who I am. But I'm almost blessed in a way I was able to figure out that's one of the things that just really made me tick early on. One of the things I really worry about in our country right now is we have such a regimented education system. We have such a regimented set of requirements to earn certain degrees. That do we offer students enough opportunity to actually explore different things that they really feel that they find meaning in? For my dad, he was a mechanic. He loves and genuinely is in his sort of happy place when he's fixing mechanical devices. And he's done that his entire professional life, and he just retired a couple of years ago. And he really wanted to have a family, and like those were the two things that were genuinely important to him. And I just really worry that the satisfaction or the being satisfied, like you said, it is totally okay to you don't have to become the next Elon Musk, you don't have to always be on this treadmill to try to earn a whole bunch more money. But what I do think we all have to do is try to figure out what being satisfied means to us. And I do think a certain amount of economics plays a role into that because if you're starving, it's hard to be satisfied. So there's a certain level, like a certain amount that you kind of need, right? There's a certain amount of empowerment that you probably want to feel, and everyone's a little bit different on that spectrum. And there's a certain amount of belonging that you probably want to feel. And I've no friends of mine who are genuinely hermits out in the middle of the woods, and I like to spend some time in the woods, I'm an introvert. But like if that's all you do all the time, then how do you feel satisfied? So at the end of the day, I think it's kind of up for everyone to determine for themselves what it will take for them to feel satisfied, and that doesn't have to mean you're getting the biggest bank account. But I do think you have to do the homework to figure out like what it means for you.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

You've accomplished quite a lot. If you would please tell me about something you did as a policy advisor and problem solver at the State Department that brought you some sort of satisfaction.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

Yeah, at the end of the day, the interesting things about working at the State Department is the State Department is America's representation to all the governments elsewhere in the world. And you get to represent the United States government, which you know we always talk about in political circles as the right now we'll talk about as a Trump administration or it was a Biden administration. And the reality is our government is really complex. And so I was working on science and technology issues all throughout North and South America. And that sounds relatively easy to say until you realize we have 20 or 30 different science agencies just at the federal government level. Then we have thousands of universities. And the coolest thing I think I got to experience at the State Department was being able to lead a delegation of U.S. scientists down to South America to go look for research partners. And the sort of benefit we all get, both in the countries that we're researching and for Americans, is things like if we all think back to the Zika virus, and that was a huge health concern for a lot of people here in the US for a long time. And what a lot of Americans don't know is the actual science engagements that we were leading, and I was a part of that, down to Peru, help us build laboratories in the Amazon rainforest that actually allowed us to breed the mosquitoes that we needed to breed to actually be able to study Zika in a controlled way to be able to develop medications and treatment for it. And so, you know, most Americans just look at that and say Zika is a huge issue, huge issue, huge issue, and then all of a sudden it's kind of just not in the news anymore. And that when you're working at the State Department, like I was, and when you're working directly with the scientists and connecting them with the other scientists in a country like Peru, and they're doing research together that you couldn't do here in the US, and they come up with a solution like that, that's meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

That probably didn't bring you any wealth. Did it did it bring you power or belonging?

SPEAKER_02 39:00

It definitely brought me belonging because most scientists, and I don't know what your educational background is, but a lot of the scientists I was working with, if you don't have a PhD, you're not in the in-group. And I only had a master's degree. And at the end of the day, by the time I led this really successful group of PhD research scientists, and I was able to unlock the policy stuff for them, whether it was getting their equipment down there, not having to get holed up in customs and getting special arrangements or not all these like weird policy stuff that the scientists don't want to talk about and don't understand and don't want to understand. All of a sudden I was on their team, and I was actually the American official leading the delegation. And so those are still folks, even though I think most of them have retired because they were more senior scientists, and this is quite a few years ago now. But we still stay in touch, so it's a new group of friends that I never would have had before, and it's a new group of friends that because of the sort of hierarchy in academia, and they were research scientists. So if I wasn't a PhD, I probably wouldn't have been become their friend in any other way, and so yeah, it did bring me some belonging. It definitely did not bring me any wealth, and it didn't really get me any promotions in the bureaucracy either.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Well, thank you very much for sharing that story with us. It's very interesting, and it's interesting too that you would choose that story to share. I don't know what that tells us, Chris, but maybe there is room in there for another book somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Yeah, perhaps. Although I will say my undergrad degree is in physics and nuclear engineering. So to write one book was jarring.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you'd just like to share?

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Yeah, I think the biggest thing I just wanted to share with everyone listening is just to say, regardless of where you are in the political spectrum, or if you're not even involved with politics, there's a lot that you can understand and there's a lot you can do to be part of the change. We have a lot of people in our country that don't participate in any real shape or form in politics. And I think we all could be doing better than what we're doing right now. And so you don't have to agree with any of my perspectives or whatnot, but I just want to encourage everyone to get involved with politics. And if you don't know where to start, there's several books to choose from. You can certainly start with reading some of my book. I have some good insights there for you.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

All right. And if someone wanted to find your book, you shouldn't have to kill to get ahead, where would they find it?

SPEAKER_02 41:31

The easiest place to go to is ChrisRivers.com. All the links to buy it, whether you want to buy it on Barnes Noble, Amazon, or some of the other retailers. All the links are right there.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

All right, Chris. Well, thank you so much for spending some time with me in the listening tube today. I really do appreciate it. And thank you for having me. This is a great conversation. That website again is Chris Rivers.com. Thanks again to Chris for spending some time with you and me in the listening tube. The listening tube is written and produced by yours truly, copyright 2026. Shout out to some new places checking in. Pedro, Ohio, Eagle, Colorado on the scenic route over the Rockies, and Blaine, Minnesota. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley.