I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Peter, both because I got to learn more about the interesting life he has lived and because we had some good, hearty debates about important philosophical and social topics. As way of background, Peter lived much of his life in Africa, most notably perhaps, in Zimbabwe in 2002 as a large commercial farm owner. At that time due to political changes/strife occurring, Peter was threatened, harassed, and ultimately thrown in prison as he attempted to protect his farm from government take over. This included many instances of direct physical violence and threats against his life. Peter now lives in Canada where he has his own podcast (The Yakking Show) and has spent much of his free time riding horses, running marathons and ultramarathons, and even walked the 250 km of the Camino de Santiago from Porto in Portugal to Santiago in Spain backpacking his way across.

What I enjoyed most about this conversation is that we got to the work of pressure testing, exploring, and learning right out of the gate. Peter started with the value of "courage in your convictions" which lead us to a discussion on what role optimism plays in being courageous. Are people only courageous when they think it is going to work out for them? We used the real life example of Peter's experience in Zimbabwe to better understand how courage works and how we decide when to fight and when it is time to give in. We also spent a good bit of time discussing the potential dangers of having too much courage in your convictions. Does courage and conviction ultimately lead to certainty in your thinking and not allow you to question yourself enough? 

We used the example of the trucker convoy in Canada to better understand the potential risks of courage and conviction. Were the truckers being courageous, were they being irrational due to having too much faith in their convictions, or maybe both? This turned into a discussion where we explored the divisiveness in the world today. If we step back and look objectively, how consistent are we (rhetorical "we", society, media, politicians, etc.) when we assessed the trucker convoy protests vs. black lives matter protests. As I often say, these are deeply sensitive and nuanced topics, so they can be difficult to discuss. But conversations like this one with Peter, where we didn't necessarily always agree but we listened to each other and tried to learn from one another, tells me that we need to keep leaning into these topics if we hope to see positive change in the world.