Jan. 6, 2026

The Distraction That Derailed a Re-Election Campaign: Tim Walz vs Trump

The Distraction That Derailed a Re-Election Campaign: Tim Walz vs Trump
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This week, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz abruptly ended his bid for a third term. This episode was recorded four days earlier during a live conversation and, in hindsight, it explains exactly why this outcome was almost inevitable. 

Amid a sprawling welfare fraud crisis that Republicans and former President Donald Trump turned into a national political flashpoint, the pressure escalated, division deepened, and Walz found himself trying to govern while defending his political future at the same time. Walz ultimately said he could not justify campaigning while confronting systemic fraud and the blowback it was generating, choosing to focus on governing instead. What looks like a Walz versus Trump showdown is really a cautionary tale about how leadership falters when distraction becomes the strategy and noise replaces accountability.

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00:00 - Framing The Real Crisis

02:40 - Minnesota Context And Stakes

07:35 - Leader Takes The Bait

11:40 - Content Creators Versus Institutions

18:30 - Race, Rhetoric, And Red Herrings

23:35 - Focus On Fraud Not Identity

28:40 - Message To The Reasonable Middle

34:00 - Fixes Beat Feuds

39:10 - Own It, Explain It, Promise It

43:00 - Regulate Emotion, Lead Courageously

WEBVTT

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This story is everywhere right now.

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And like a lot of stories that blow up this quickly, it's being talked about in a way that misses the point.

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What's happening in Minnesota is being framed as a political fight, a race issue, a media controversy, or a content creator problem.

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But that framing is the distraction.

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The real issue underneath all of it is leadership and what happens when leaders take the bait instead of fixing the problem.

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In this episode of the PR Breakdown, I'm breaking down why focusing on who exposed a problem instead of what the problem actually is almost always makes a crisis work.

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I'll talk about the fraud, the outrage, content creators, and why attacking the messenger is usually a sign of psychological self-protection, not strength.

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If you've ever watched a leader spiral, a company implode, or a situation in your own life go sideways, it means the emotions took over.

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And that means this episode is for you.

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Let's break it down.

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Minnesota, Tim Walls, and the White House.

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I want to jump into this story because it really is exploding and it is a trending story, but it's an example of what happens in a crisis where I feel that it's mislabeled.

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And so there's a huge leadership lesson that we can see in it.

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But there's also a lesson, just a life lesson in there as well.

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This story is happening parallel to a time that I work with a bunch of clients on the same type of issue.

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Tim Walls is not my client, but it's the same thing.

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It's an organization has a leader, there is a response, and then there's content creators and other people creating social media around it.

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And then what happens is the focus becomes the content creator and what's being said, and all the emotion and ideological thinking that comes from it.

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Then that's the crisis.

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And what's missed is the actual crisis.

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Some of the basic context and the facts of what I'm talking about.

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So right now, some of you know that Minnesota is my home state.

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I moved away from there many years ago, right before I went to school.

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But it's very unusual for people to move out of Minnesota.

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So it would be no surprise that my entire family, all my friends, I really like 99% of the people who I grew up with still live in Minnesota.

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So I still have that tie there.

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And I hear a lot of the conversations.

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The topic of Tim Walls, really, I mean, from George Floyd 2020, where we are now with the Somalis and the fraud case and Nick Shirley, it's a major point of conversation.

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And there's a lot of different opinions that are coming from it and different sides of you.

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And not just from people I know in Minnesota, but also within my own family as well.

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But right now, Minnesota is home to approximately 80,000 people of Somali descent.

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It's the largest Somali population in the entire U.S.

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Most of them are U.S.

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citizens, and many of them were born in Minnesota.

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A lot of that, I think, gets lost in a lot of that conversation.

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The claims there are$250 million stolen from the federal child nutrition program.

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Then there's multiple schemes that are happening at the same time linked to autism services, food, housing.

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So the number, the tally is hundreds of millions to over$1 billion in fraud.

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That is a huge number.

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It is a significant number.

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Tim Walls, who prior to this was primarily known for being the vice president candidate of Kamala Harris, and so much of his rhetoric and why his folksy charm really spoke to a lot of people's.

00:04:04.639 --> 00:04:11.840
But now Tim Walls is being associated with this fraud case that is now bled back into the administration.

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We know that the Trump White House, they're labeling it as a Somali issue.

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It's not a Somali American issue, it's a Somali issue.

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That is the label because many of the defendants in these fraud cases are Somali American.

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This entire crisis has evolved into a national fight about race and immigration and leadership.

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And where this intersects with my angle is this isn't a communication crisis, it's a leadership crisis.

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And that's why I think this mirrors with Tim Walls.

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So from this, I just want to give you guys some insight, not just from the Tim Walls point of view, but also on the life point of view.

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As someone who does this full-time, I work in crisis management.

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Everything I do in crisis management work applies to real life.

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When I give my daughter's advice or it even in my own life, I think, hmm, how should I manage this?

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Oh, I know.

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What would Molly McPherson do?

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It's the same stuff.

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At the core of this, what is happening from Tim Wall's point of view is where I see a leader, a governor in this case, taking the bait.

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And in my work, the people who call me who want to hire me, they do so because they're usually under attack online.

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Those are the people who call me.

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The Minneapolis Star and Tribune is running an article about us, and we don't know what to do.

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No, I'm not gonna get that call.

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I'm gonna get there is a YouTuber, content creator who's created a video, and this guy's freaking nuts.

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We can't stand him.

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They're all idiots.

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Help us get through it.

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That's who calls me.

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So when Nick Shirley popped up on my radar via my son, I went, well, this is just a Molly crisis.

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So this is what we can pull out of it.

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This part of this crisis, too, touches third rails.

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That's where so much of this comes from.

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That third rail being in Minneapolis, the murder of George Floyd triggered such a racial divide, not only in that state, but also around the country, actually internationally.

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And then we had, from a community point of view, from a business point of view, people had to decide what are we going to do?

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So for me, working in crisis management at that time, my clients were saying, Well, what do we do?

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Do we do a blackout square?

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Do we do our DEI or I'm not doing my DEI, whatever it is.

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And so much of the problem, I think, is we had a lot of performative DEI.

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There were a lot of companies that never gave two squats about DEI, all of a sudden said, Well, we don't want to get canceled, so we're gonna do things.

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People got scared.

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This is where we get the beginning of where we are now and what's happening.

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And that's honestly that heavy reaction, in my opinion, is why we have a mega, which is why I believe that Donald Trump was put back into office, is because of that whiplash.

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People do get afraid of getting labeled and then canceled.

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And people hate the term cancel culture, they can't stand it.

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But as someone who lives in cancel culture every single day, people may not call it cancel, but they call me and say, these people are talking about me.

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This is a Facebook group about me, this is all that's happening, and they're doing whatever they can to protect themselves.

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And it's in this protection that people react like really quickly, and they lose the problem and they get caught in the attack.

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And that's where we are right now for a Tim Walls.

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I don't work for Tim Walls, but at the end of this, if I did, this is what I would be recommending that he do.

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So the basic facts, Department of Justice, our federal jury found there was a mastermind and a co-defendant guilty of a$250 million scheme involving fake child nutrition meal claims.

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IRS DOJ documents describe sites claiming to feed thousands of children daily.

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Nick Shirley is a conservative YouTuber.

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He calls himself an independent journalist.

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He has 1.37 million subscribers right now.

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He's out of Utah.

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He's 22 years old.

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I think this generation, they are brought up in a generation of violence.

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They are draw shootings, they're in a generation where people just say whatever they want and people get kind of immune to it.

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And I think that's like a big part of what's happening here too.

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Generationally, because Nick Shirley is a young guy and he considers himself this indie journalist, he doesn't have journalists or news credentials.

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So people are criticizing him, saying, Well, we don't like the methods or the means.

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Because if you watch the video, and I did, and when he's knocking on the doors of these daycare centers in Minneapolis, when he does get someone, he said, Well, I want my son Joey to come here.

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I want to ask you about how to sign up to be in a daycare.

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A journalist isn't going to do that.

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He's getting kind of knocked on that.

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Nick Shirley, regardless of how you feel about Nick Shirley, what he did represents Gen Z.

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It's independent.

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Nick Shirley's like, I'm just going out on my own.

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I'm going to create my own YouTube channel.

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This kid is making so much money that is coming in from X and YouTube.

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He's been at the White House like a conservative commenter before.

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But Gen Z understands that this type of content flows.

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They're treating him almost on the same level as legacy media.

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But Nick Shirley is not held to the same journalistic standards.

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He just represents himself.

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And if you watch in the video, there's a scene where Nick Shirley goes up to one of the daycares and a woman pops out of nowhere with her phone and says, We headed over to the infamous Quality Learning Center, which actually spells Quality Learing Center on the outside of their sign.

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That's how blatant this fraud is here at this daycare.

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Don't open up!

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So this is Quality Learing Center.

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I meant to say Quality Learning Center.

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Don't open up!

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Instead, they spelt learning wrong.

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Don't open up!

00:10:25.120 --> 00:10:26.240
How do you have ice here, ma'am?

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I'm literally a YouTuber.

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Don't open up!

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Ma'am, what do you think about the fraud that's taking place here in Minnesota?

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Don't open up! We have ice!

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Ma'am, what do you think about this place being licensed for 99 children?

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Don't open up!

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And getting$4 million over the.

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$4 million in the last two years?

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Go away! What do you think about that?

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Are you in favor?

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Are you in favor of that?

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Go away! You're not welcome here.

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Shame on you!

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Are you in favor of$1.9 million going illegally fraudulently to this business that has Quality Learning Center, but can't even spell learning right on the door.

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Don't open up!

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Ma'am, we are not ICE.

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I don't care who you are, you don't belong here.

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I belong here just like you belong here.

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Don't open up! It's ice!

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You do realize that there's supposed to be 99 children here at this building, but there's no one here.

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This is a child daycare center.

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Paid$1.9 million this year in CCAP funding.

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Do you know where the children are?

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Were they kidnapped?

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They run away.

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Where are the children?

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This is state of Minnesota.

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Right here.

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And who are you?

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My name's Nick Shirley, ma'am.

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And who are you with?

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Nick Shirley.

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What we have are like these two kind of extremes going head to head there.

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But in the middle of that, in the Venn diagram, right in the middle, shows the problem.

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That's the problem, and that's the problem that I see in my work.

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That's where I work, is in that Venn diagram.

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Nick Shirley has every right to go around and knock on all those doors.

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He found someone.

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That's the other thing.

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There's always a person who feels a sense of betrayal.

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It's the one who just has to come out and get it out of their system because there is a psychological thing that's happening.

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And in the case of the Nick Shirley video, is this guy, David?

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We don't know his last name.

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We don't know where he comes from, but we do know that he works or lives right in that Minneapolis area.

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And he has all the paperwork because he lives there.

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And he said, I've never seen a car come from here.

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David, we don't know his politics, right?

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And one could assume that he's conservative.

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But when I'm watching it with my crisis eye, David to me is not like a mega who's trying to prove a point.

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Nick Shirley is a conservative content creator, but this David is pissed off.

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He's a taxpayer.

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And that's what's driving him.

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Make the spreadsheets and go like this and point to the spreadsheets.

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That is my job right there.

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Because my job as a crisis manager, the people in crisis, what they do is they look at Nick Shirley or they look at the Somalis.

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They blame the Nick Shirleys.

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He's conservative and they're out to get us and you're masking his eyes.

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Or they blame, or it could be the left saying everyone who's going against Somalis are racist or they're Nazis or they're all these horrible things.

00:13:29.360 --> 00:13:30.639
And how could you do this?

00:13:30.799 --> 00:13:32.000
It's the extremes.

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People follow, they fall on either side.

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And that's where they fight it.

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You have Trump, you have Walls, you have Nick Shirley, you have you have the Somalis, you have people supporting the Somali population, you have all those people.

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That's where people get lost.

00:13:48.799 --> 00:13:52.559
It's right in the middle with David and his sheets of paper.

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That's the crisis.

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It's the sense of betrayal.

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It's the sense where people are feeling they're duped or they're being taken advantage of.

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That's what you want to focus on.

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That person.

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You have to follow David's mindset.

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He's looking at a ripoff.

00:14:10.399 --> 00:14:14.720
And if you start thinking like that, then you too can be in crisis manager.

00:14:14.799 --> 00:14:17.519
And you can do this for work or you do it in life.

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You want to find what that problem is.

00:14:19.519 --> 00:14:22.799
And what people do is they get caught up in the red herrings.

00:14:23.039 --> 00:14:25.519
A red herring, for example, would be Trump.

00:14:25.679 --> 00:14:26.000
Okay.

00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:27.840
And the rhetoric that he's saying.

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Why is Nick, why is this 22-year-old kid from Utah the first person to go and hello?

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Is anybody there?

00:14:37.519 --> 00:14:38.399
I couldn't believe it.

00:14:38.559 --> 00:14:46.559
Some people have done the reporting, but the Nick Shirley video is something else that I see in my job all the time.

00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:51.919
It's the content creators who are doing the work of leadership.

00:14:52.080 --> 00:14:57.039
And when I say I'm doing this in my job, I just did it this week in my job.

00:14:57.200 --> 00:15:03.679
When leaders are complaining about content creators and they're saying, you are attacking us.

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How dare you attack us?

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instead of listening to what they're saying.

00:15:08.480 --> 00:15:11.919
It doesn't mean that you have to respect Nick Shirley or like him.

00:15:12.159 --> 00:15:17.039
You can look at it and say, okay, he's getting views, he's getting follows, there's other motives there too.

00:15:17.200 --> 00:15:19.440
But you cannot take away from the core.

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Like just look at 20% of what they're saying.

00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:24.480
Where is the truth?

00:15:24.639 --> 00:15:26.240
Forget that it's Nick Shirley.

00:15:26.399 --> 00:15:28.159
Forget that it's a Facebook group against you.

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Forget that this is like guerrilla tactic where this person is going out, they have Facebook, they have all these other things just to create bluster and get everybody all hot and bothered over it.

00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:43.120
And they blame them and say, this is just about clicks, this is just about that.

00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:45.279
Well, yeah, that's part of it, but they're not wrong.

00:15:45.440 --> 00:15:46.639
They're on to something.

00:15:46.879 --> 00:15:54.639
I also tell my clients, as much as you hate them right now, like Tim Walls, if Tim Walls could be in a room with Nick Shirley right now, you'd probably want to.

00:15:55.759 --> 00:16:03.679
But you also would have to thank them and say, okay, you are highlighting something that should have been highlighted in my office before.

00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:12.320
They don't have editors, they're not following ethical guidelines, they don't have advertisers or mostly that they have to worry about.

00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:19.360
Every client I have when we deal with content creators, they label them as they're all so problematic.

00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:21.039
They're all these other things.

00:16:21.279 --> 00:16:24.320
And but also, you want to know what I do say too.

00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:28.879
Kate used the word brave, but I say courageous.

00:16:29.039 --> 00:16:31.919
Like they're the ones who have the courage to say the truth.

00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:33.440
You may not like it.

00:16:33.679 --> 00:16:41.360
And maybe some of their facts might be wrong, but sometimes it's just one content creator getting information from leaks or owned by corporations.

00:16:41.440 --> 00:16:44.399
Yes, straight from the morning show as well.

00:16:44.639 --> 00:16:45.279
Exactly.

00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:47.600
Oh my gosh, look at CBS.

00:16:47.759 --> 00:16:50.879
Look at friggin' CBS, Barry Weiss.

00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:56.080
That we have a town hall with Erica Kirk, a CBS event.

00:16:56.480 --> 00:16:58.480
What should be an event over the holidays?

00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:01.600
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer should be on CBS.

00:17:01.919 --> 00:17:04.240
That's the universal programming.

00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:08.640
But the head of Turning Point USA is now and why?

00:17:08.799 --> 00:17:09.839
We all know why.

00:17:09.920 --> 00:17:11.359
So that's exactly it.

00:17:11.519 --> 00:17:15.039
So that's why we cannot like dismiss these content creators.

00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:16.880
Now, moving on.

00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:25.039
So now Tim Walls is under a lot of pressure right now because this thing has been bubbling for years.

00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:29.119
It also ties in the other elements, like so, like Tim Walls.

00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:36.240
Why can he not come out and say that this is a Somali problem?

00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:46.799
Obviously, it's not a Somali problem, it's a fraud problem that's happening in his state on his watch.

00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:48.240
That's the problem.

00:17:48.480 --> 00:18:02.559
When you add in rhetoric and ideologies, and you have Republicans and you have Democrats and you have mega, and then you have extremism on both sides, that's what everybody gets caught in.

00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:08.400
And then when it's politicians in Minnesota, there's voting and there's candidates.

00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:12.880
So what Tim Wallace is doing is he's kind of cornered.

00:18:13.119 --> 00:18:13.839
He's cornered.

00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:19.599
Like he can't come out, my goodness, he can't come out against Somalis, can't do that.

00:18:19.839 --> 00:18:29.200
He can't come out against the fraudster, so to speak, because he needs a hook to get people in his corner, right?

00:18:29.359 --> 00:18:33.119
No one's getting excited about a politician, like, yay, they're going after fraud.

00:18:33.200 --> 00:18:35.200
That's just what's expected of a governor.

00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:47.119
But if you attack Trump for calling Somalis garbage and the xenophobic comments that he makes, now his campaign and his hook is Walls versus Trump.

00:18:47.279 --> 00:18:52.160
Remember, going back to that weird rhetoric when Tim Walls first got momentum.

00:18:52.319 --> 00:19:02.000
So Tim Walls is making it about why the words that Trump is saying, which are wrong, but Trump does it.

00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:04.079
He does it to spin people up.

00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:07.759
He wants to be extreme because he's speaking to his mega base.

00:19:08.079 --> 00:19:10.480
It's so easy to do that.

00:19:10.640 --> 00:19:12.240
And what is Tim Walls doing?

00:19:12.400 --> 00:19:13.519
He's taking the bait.

00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:16.799
What Tim Walls should be doing, it shouldn't be a Somali issue.

00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:17.839
It shouldn't.

00:19:18.079 --> 00:19:20.160
It should be a fraud issue.

00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:22.640
Somalis are just a part of it.

00:19:22.799 --> 00:19:29.039
But when that becomes a part of the conversation, then it becomes problematic because then you do get into racist undertones.

00:19:29.279 --> 00:19:34.799
And then it creates so much hate, which is what's happening in Minnesota with a lot of these Somalis.

00:19:35.279 --> 00:19:39.200
People are labeling all Somalis as the problem.

00:19:39.279 --> 00:19:42.640
And they're getting a lot of hate and they're getting a lot of abuse.

00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:51.359
And a lot of Somalis who are running daycares legitimately and other businesses and organizations, they're just receiving so much greed.

00:19:51.599 --> 00:19:55.279
Then you have the Trump blowback, the White House blowback.

00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:56.640
Now they're cutting programs.

00:19:56.799 --> 00:19:59.599
So now daycares aren't getting federal funds.

00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:03.200
Because of this issue, because the White House is using it.

00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:05.119
So that is the lesson in there.

00:20:05.359 --> 00:20:21.839
So what Walls needs to do, and what he's trying to do, so that's why I do think Tim Walls must have someone on his staff or someone on the outside that is speaking to him from a non-emotional point of view, which is what people hire me to do.

00:20:22.079 --> 00:20:29.599
You can react from an amygdala or you can react prefrontal, which is just the rational thought.

00:20:29.839 --> 00:20:36.720
So now what you're seeing from Tim Walls is he's saying, quote, if you commit fraud in Minnesota, you will face prison time.

00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:39.519
I don't care about your race and religion.

00:20:39.759 --> 00:20:40.799
There it is.

00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:44.720
That's the messaging that needs to come out.

00:20:44.880 --> 00:20:50.720
And frankly, that's the messaging that should have been out at the beginning of this.

00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:59.119
Because then it would not have allowed the mega movement, Trump, the administration to sink their teeth into it.

00:20:59.359 --> 00:21:05.200
But this gave Trump, I think, a lot of traction, a lot of traction there.

00:21:05.519 --> 00:21:08.400
He also said fraud is fraud, and we work hard.

00:21:08.640 --> 00:21:13.279
We work too hard simply just to be paying taxes and enabling fraud.

00:21:13.440 --> 00:21:18.160
That language is good language because it's focusing on the problem of fraud.

00:21:18.319 --> 00:21:24.559
It's not who's committing it or what group people assume, because it's not just Somalis or Somali Americans.

00:21:24.640 --> 00:21:26.640
There's other people in there as well.

00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:28.319
But he's focusing on the fraud.

00:21:28.480 --> 00:21:32.960
The big problem for Tim Walls, he's doing this many years too late.

00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:34.079
That's the problem.

00:21:34.240 --> 00:21:39.599
And he's still engaging in this kind of race bait that's happening.

00:21:39.920 --> 00:21:42.880
So on feeding our future and his authority.

00:21:43.039 --> 00:21:46.480
So this is the program that's under so much scrutiny right now.

00:21:46.640 --> 00:21:49.440
He's saying, I said, don't pay them.

00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:51.599
And they said, you can't do that.

00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:52.880
You don't have the authority.

00:21:53.039 --> 00:21:55.440
And I said, do not pay them.

00:21:55.680 --> 00:21:56.880
Let them sue me.

00:21:57.119 --> 00:21:59.119
They did and they won, and we paid them.

00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:02.640
And then they just got caught and went to jail after the fact.

00:22:02.799 --> 00:22:08.799
That's Tim Walls doing what many people that I notice doing in these types of conversations.

00:22:09.039 --> 00:22:11.599
There's blaming, there's deflecting.

00:22:11.759 --> 00:22:12.799
Don't come on me.

00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:17.440
I'm the one who said, sue them, arrest them, attack them.

00:22:17.759 --> 00:22:24.559
He's saying that now, but the problem is all of this happened on his watch.

00:22:24.720 --> 00:22:30.480
Now, I don't have the name here, but I listened to a terrific interview from the New York Times.

00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:33.920
It's the national correspondent from the New York Times based out of Minneapolis.

00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:36.480
He's their national correspondent based in Minneapolis.

00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:43.039
And he was on uh the New York Times, the daily, and they interviewed him about this whole case.

00:22:43.119 --> 00:22:46.640
And I was listening to it maybe two months ago, back in November.

00:22:46.799 --> 00:23:06.960
And one of the things he said from his reporting that he found in the state of Minnesota from people who work at the state, one of the reasons why they did not want to go out and arrest, condemn, or shut down was because of the racial issue, which is understandable in the context, which is another big part.

00:23:07.039 --> 00:23:16.240
If you want to come in and wear my hat or you have to be a crisis manager, you do want to look at the context and the environment that it's in.

00:23:16.400 --> 00:23:17.440
How hot is it?

00:23:17.599 --> 00:23:19.200
What's inflamed here?

00:23:19.519 --> 00:23:21.599
This is not happening in Kansas City.

00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:24.559
This is happening where George Floyd was murdered.

00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:29.279
This is also a town where Minneapolis was so much of it was destroyed.

00:23:29.359 --> 00:23:29.920
Even in St.

00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:32.720
Paul, so much of it was destroyed.

00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:37.759
So you have opinions, you have strong opinions on extreme sides.

00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:50.640
So a reasonable person can understand why someone in that environment, in that state, in the Twin Cities, in that community, doesn't immediately want to go out and round up a bunch of people with a certain color skin.

00:23:50.799 --> 00:23:51.440
It's reasonable.

00:23:51.519 --> 00:23:53.839
Does it make it right or wrong?

00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:54.799
That's kind of different.

00:23:54.880 --> 00:23:55.920
That's beside the point.

00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:00.160
But you have to understand why it's reasonable that people would act that way.

00:24:00.319 --> 00:24:05.359
But what you need to do to kind of lead through that, it's you need that courageous leadership.

00:24:05.440 --> 00:24:11.200
And you need the rhetoric and the language that we hear now, which is fraud is fraud.

00:24:11.680 --> 00:24:16.559
The reason why it's still a classic crisis, exactly what I deal with in my job constantly.

00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:19.200
The easy way out is always a hard way out.

00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:22.559
The right answer is always the hardest choice.

00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:24.319
That's always the right answer.

00:24:24.640 --> 00:24:27.920
Leadership, how to lead, you have to lead courageously.

00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:29.039
That's how you get through it.

00:24:29.200 --> 00:24:32.799
And the consequence that might come from it is it might be harder.

00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:44.079
And how that will look, it might be more work, it might be more stressful, you may lose things, you may lose an election, you may lose your position, you may lose your seat, you may lose your job.

00:24:44.400 --> 00:24:47.839
And I said that to kind of adjacent client.

00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:52.799
I said, technically, if this should play out how it should play out, they're gonna lose their job.

00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:54.319
That is the hard facts.

00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:59.039
And that's why people deflect, and that's why people just try to cover and get through it.

00:24:59.200 --> 00:25:00.160
That's what happens.

00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:02.799
And I think that's what happened with Tim Walls.

00:25:03.039 --> 00:25:05.599
And I see that in my job all the time.

00:25:05.920 --> 00:25:08.240
People want to play it safe.

00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:12.559
So now Walls does have a new fraud prevention program that's out.

00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:18.799
He hired someone or appointed someone, former Department of Justice coming in.

00:25:18.880 --> 00:25:22.799
And when I was reading about it, it said, Oh, I also did work with the Minneapolis-St.

00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:23.839
Paul Archdiocese.

00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:30.400
And I was like, I don't know if that's like a bona fide that you want to necessarily put on someone.

00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:36.559
But so this happened, this new program rolled out like December 13th, is when I saw uh the news stories.

00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:47.119
But what Walls continues to do, what he continues to do is take the Trump bait because he wants to rally the No Kings people.

00:25:47.359 --> 00:25:55.279
He wants to get those people who absolutely despise everything about Trump, and he wants to speak to them from an emotional point of view.

00:25:55.359 --> 00:25:56.640
It's just anti-Trump.

00:25:56.799 --> 00:25:58.240
He's trying to get those people.

00:25:58.400 --> 00:26:02.160
Trump is exploiting a topic that he does not care about.

00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:05.039
And he doesn't, and Trump doesn't care about Minnesotans.

00:26:05.119 --> 00:26:06.640
He cares about Minnesota voters.

00:26:06.880 --> 00:26:10.400
So during the election, he cared about Minnesota, but he doesn't care.

00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:14.160
Trump is using it and he is exploiting it.

00:26:14.319 --> 00:26:18.240
And that's why Tim Walls in his messaging is showing he's taking the bait.

00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:19.599
100% of them.

00:26:19.759 --> 00:26:29.519
He has condemned Trump's rhetoric as demonizing the Somali community and framed the issue as Trump punishing families and legitimate providers, which is true.

00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:32.000
That is exactly what Trump is doing.

00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:39.039
He used the term garb like when people think of Somalis, what is the word that immediately comes to it?

00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:40.000
Garbage.

00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:42.240
And that's thanks to President Trump.

00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:46.720
That's the xenophobic rhetoric that he's attaching.

00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:54.079
And it's wrong, but it's getting the No Kings crowd the smartest thing in the situation because it sounds chaotic, but this is why it's a problem.

00:26:54.319 --> 00:26:54.640
Okay.

00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:58.160
This is where Molly McPherson, crisis manager, comes in.

00:26:58.240 --> 00:27:00.799
And this is talking to my clients as well.

00:27:01.039 --> 00:27:06.559
You cannot feed two audiences at once, you cannot rally two audiences at once.

00:27:06.880 --> 00:27:11.279
You have to only focus on one audience.

00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:16.000
And it's the audience that is looking at the real problem.

00:27:16.400 --> 00:27:18.799
And the real problem is fraud.

00:27:19.039 --> 00:27:20.559
That's the audience.

00:27:20.880 --> 00:27:25.440
Because Minnesotans, the Twin Cities, heavy blue, Democratic.

00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:28.880
Minnesota, it's a DFL state, Democratic farmer, and labor state.

00:27:29.119 --> 00:27:36.079
Primarily has been a Democratic state, but it is increasingly red, particularly in rural communities.

00:27:36.160 --> 00:27:38.480
So it feels like a 50-50 state now.

00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:50.960
You have people in a state who see a culture, not a race, but a culture that is possibly taking advantage of them as taxpayers.

00:27:51.200 --> 00:27:57.599
That rubs up against that feeling of betrayal, duped, like, wait a minute, those are my tax dollars.

00:27:57.759 --> 00:27:58.960
Like, what's going on?

00:27:59.279 --> 00:28:05.359
And there's reasonable people that don't immediately go racist and say it's a Somali problem.

00:28:05.519 --> 00:28:13.839
There's reasonable people that say, this may be a cultural thing that takes advantage of the problem, but this isn't culture to me.

00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:15.359
It's not about the Somalis.

00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:17.839
It's about that a group was allowed to do it.

00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:19.279
I don't care which group it is.

00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:23.759
It could be the Swedish coffee and tea clutch of Minneapolis.

00:28:23.839 --> 00:28:25.279
It doesn't matter the group.

00:28:25.519 --> 00:28:30.880
It matters that a group was allowed to take advantage of a system and use taxpayer dollars.

00:28:31.039 --> 00:28:32.960
So they're looking at it reasonably.

00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:34.559
So they can see both sides of it.

00:28:34.799 --> 00:28:36.960
They see both extremes and they look in the middle.

00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:39.039
That's who you communicate to.

00:28:39.279 --> 00:28:42.160
It doesn't feel good when you're in the center of attack.

00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:43.920
And I know this firsthand.

00:28:44.160 --> 00:28:47.759
I tell them, I say, message the reasonable people.

00:28:47.920 --> 00:28:50.480
Right now you are messaging a Facebook group.

00:28:50.720 --> 00:28:53.519
Right now you are messaging Nick Shirley.

00:28:53.759 --> 00:28:55.680
Right now you're messaging MAGA.

00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:58.400
You're messaging people who think that way.

00:28:58.559 --> 00:28:59.119
Don't.

00:28:59.359 --> 00:29:02.000
Because half of that, too, is algorithm.

00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:05.119
You're fighting against technology and an algorithm.

00:29:05.359 --> 00:29:07.200
You're not looking at that.

00:29:07.599 --> 00:29:10.640
Both sides of the extreme take advantage of it.

00:29:10.880 --> 00:29:12.079
Both sides.

00:29:12.799 --> 00:29:14.640
MAGA, Trump, definitely.

00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:21.279
The whole administration is about whipping up xenophobic, racist commentary, right?

00:29:21.440 --> 00:29:28.559
And then you have the extreme radical left piece of it, where they're just looking at anything that's anti-mega.

00:29:28.960 --> 00:29:31.599
Anti-mega, like, don't say this about Somalis.

00:29:31.839 --> 00:29:32.559
Don't say this about people.

00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:43.839
So they're both on the extremes, but what they're missing are the people in the middle going, well, I see that a lot of them are Somali and I see it's fraud, but I don't care that it's Somali.

00:29:43.920 --> 00:29:45.359
I don't care of the group that it is.

00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:48.000
It just happens to be that's who we're hearing about.

00:29:48.160 --> 00:29:50.240
What I care about is the fraud.

00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:53.119
And you, Tim Walls, what are you doing about it?

00:29:53.279 --> 00:29:56.960
Think about like Tim Walls and Minnesota in this fraudulent case.

00:29:57.200 --> 00:29:59.839
It's actually taken over the news cycle over ice.

00:30:00.240 --> 00:30:06.799
Think about the ice video and content that we see when they go into a community and do these massive arrests.

00:30:06.960 --> 00:30:15.279
It is a really, really hard place to be a reasonable person watching those videos and going, oh my gosh, this is awful.

00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:16.640
This is awful.

00:30:16.799 --> 00:30:18.319
You know, what's happening with ice?

00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:20.960
The White House was losing the ice fight.

00:30:21.039 --> 00:30:23.440
Like they were losing that ice fight.

00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:26.559
And in fact, I saw an article about that.

00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:27.920
They're trying to fill jobs.

00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:29.839
It's to me, it's straight out of South Park.

00:30:29.920 --> 00:30:30.480
Oh my gosh.

00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:46.880
But they're going to gun shows, they're targeting gun activists, just any enthusiasts, I mean, just to fill the ice because that they want that type of mentality to come in to be able to arrest these people because so much of what ICE is doing is so inhumane.

00:30:47.119 --> 00:30:49.039
It is so inhumane.

00:30:49.279 --> 00:30:56.480
So that's why this whole Minnesota piece is giving the administration this great path.

00:30:56.720 --> 00:30:57.920
Like, oh, okay.

00:30:58.240 --> 00:31:08.480
Now people could stop paying attention about the ICE stuff, and we can just focus on actual fraud, which a number of people in Minnesota are probably annoyed about.

00:31:08.799 --> 00:31:12.160
So let me tell you how I look at it when I approach this.

00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:13.680
It is a distraction.

00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:14.640
That's it.

00:31:14.799 --> 00:31:16.400
It is old information.

00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:18.799
Remember, these aren't just people.

00:31:19.440 --> 00:31:25.359
You're also getting algorithms and whatever clicks are there that are feeding the algorithms right now.

00:31:25.599 --> 00:31:35.839
So now, the walls problem, and this applies to if you want to be a parent or deal with this in a real world scenario or crisis management scenario.

00:31:36.079 --> 00:31:39.920
I always, like I said, I tell my clients, look for the reasonable stakeholders.

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:43.359
Okay, look for reasonable people that are going, they're right in the middle.

00:31:43.519 --> 00:31:47.759
And you need a narrative to shift away from the extremes.

00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:51.839
So right now, the media and political coverage is Trump versus Waltz.

00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:55.680
And it's also Somali fraud versus anti-Somali rhetoric.

00:31:55.839 --> 00:31:56.240
That's it.

00:31:56.319 --> 00:31:57.200
That's the story.

00:31:57.359 --> 00:31:58.000
That's it.

00:31:58.160 --> 00:31:59.920
Look at your news feeds right now.

00:32:00.079 --> 00:32:02.720
That's 100% what it's about.

00:32:03.119 --> 00:32:10.960
But what gets less oxygen from a content and from a news media point of view is the oversight failures.

00:32:11.119 --> 00:32:15.599
There were plenty of oversight failures, many that fell under walls.

00:32:15.680 --> 00:32:20.480
But many reasonable people understand that a governor is not sitting and looking at every single file.

00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:23.599
A governor is not doing every single thing that they're there.

00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:25.839
It's the buck stops with the governor.

00:32:25.920 --> 00:32:27.519
It's the governor's administration.

00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:30.079
It's what's happening in Minnesota.

00:32:30.400 --> 00:32:33.839
And system fixes, that's the story.

00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:34.960
It's the fix.

00:32:35.119 --> 00:32:37.119
But it's not sexy and it's not exciting.

00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:39.920
And Nick Shirley doesn't care about fixes.

00:32:40.079 --> 00:32:41.519
He doesn't care about it at all.

00:32:41.680 --> 00:32:42.480
That's not exciting.

00:32:42.640 --> 00:32:47.519
Nick Shirley's not going to walk into the Capitol or walk into offices and open up a file cabinet and go through it.

00:32:47.599 --> 00:32:48.240
That's not exciting.

00:32:48.319 --> 00:32:49.680
You're not going to get clicks over that.

00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:53.279
You're going to do it, you know, knocking on empty doors.

00:32:53.599 --> 00:33:00.880
But from a response point of view, you don't respond to content creators and what the news media wants.

00:33:00.960 --> 00:33:04.720
I mean, yeah, you have to, but you still have to put out your messaging.

00:33:04.799 --> 00:33:07.039
And the messaging is the fix.

00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:14.640
Because then reasonable people, and in this case, people in Minnesota, taxpayers are going to say, all right, well, at least this thing's being cleared up.

00:33:14.799 --> 00:33:16.960
At least this is being fixed as well.

00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:25.279
So from if you look at it from a crisis manager point of view or a leadership lens, leaders, it's funny, I had a leader say this to me this week.

00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:29.680
And we were talking about a news story that came out that affected this leader.

00:33:29.839 --> 00:33:31.039
And I predicted it.

00:33:31.119 --> 00:33:33.359
I'm like a Google predictive text.

00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:37.759
I knew exactly what they were going to say, that they were going to blame the newscast.

00:33:37.839 --> 00:33:39.359
They were going to blame the reporter.

00:33:39.599 --> 00:33:43.839
The spokesperson said XYZ, but the reporter said ABC.

00:33:44.240 --> 00:33:53.759
And in my mind, I said to someone else, and I said it gingerly to the leader, it's not the news station's job to do your job to communicate.

00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:57.200
If you want to communicate that message, that's your job.

00:33:57.440 --> 00:34:00.559
If they don't include it, you can't blame them.

00:34:00.960 --> 00:34:03.279
You have all your other channels to include it.

00:34:03.440 --> 00:34:10.559
And if you didn't include it before, it's not the reporter's job or the reporter's fault for noticing it.

00:34:10.719 --> 00:34:16.320
What you have to do as a leader, you got to be courageous and say, ugh, yeah, that's not great.

00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:17.760
That reporter did their job.

00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:21.840
And what that reporter is doing is highlighting a gap in our communication.

00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:24.000
In other words, you got to take your lumps.

00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:25.360
Got to take your lumps.

00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:27.039
And then you got to fix your problem.

00:34:27.199 --> 00:34:30.320
So instead of blaming everything, everything else, everyone else.

00:34:30.400 --> 00:34:35.679
So in Wall's case, blaming Trump, blaming the administration, everybody's blaming Nick Shirley.

00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:37.679
We're picking apart Nick Shirley.

00:34:37.760 --> 00:34:40.239
We're making this a racial issue.

00:34:40.480 --> 00:34:51.679
And Wall's like having to defend Somalis and Somali Americans, yet a lot of the people involved in this fraud are Somali Americans.

00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:55.199
So it makes it a difficult argument for the masses, right?

00:34:55.440 --> 00:34:58.480
So that's why I said don't focus on that.

00:34:58.719 --> 00:35:03.280
You can absolutely comment on why hate speech is wrong.

00:35:03.599 --> 00:35:11.119
You can comment about and be very strong about the bad piece of it, the inhumane.

00:35:11.440 --> 00:35:14.880
Don't paint it as a Trump problem because then you're just taking the bait.

00:35:15.119 --> 00:35:16.719
Always look for the humanity.

00:35:16.960 --> 00:35:18.960
Message around the humanity.

00:35:19.599 --> 00:35:21.440
Highlight the inhumanity.

00:35:21.599 --> 00:35:22.880
What's wrong?

00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:26.480
What's like golden rule stuff that people just aren't doing?

00:35:26.639 --> 00:35:28.239
What's just the decent thing to do?

00:35:28.400 --> 00:35:29.760
That's how you message it.

00:35:30.079 --> 00:35:32.000
The indestructible PR framework.

00:35:32.159 --> 00:35:35.280
Own it, explain it, promise it.

00:35:35.760 --> 00:35:36.639
Thank you.

00:35:36.960 --> 00:35:40.800
Criticism always feels like attack on the self-image.

00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:43.920
People, leaders, people under attack, they take it personally.

00:35:44.079 --> 00:35:45.280
And you can understand it.

00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:48.400
Reasonable people can understand why they take it personally.

00:35:48.480 --> 00:35:52.800
There's like me as a client, as a crisis manager, I understand why people feel that way.

00:35:52.880 --> 00:35:54.639
I 100% understand it.

00:35:55.280 --> 00:36:00.000
And I understand that it triggers defensiveness, it triggers blame.

00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:02.400
It triggers denial.

00:36:02.719 --> 00:36:14.880
But a leader, and I've said this to clients, you're getting paid the big bucks to not be triggered, to not blame someone else, to not be so defensive.

00:36:15.039 --> 00:36:16.559
That's why you're in your role.

00:36:16.800 --> 00:36:18.159
That's why you're in your role.

00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:23.760
When I'm saying it to my 21-year-old, to my kids, I don't say you should know better.

00:36:24.239 --> 00:36:26.880
I say to them, this is a part of maturing.

00:36:27.039 --> 00:36:28.960
This is adulting.

00:36:29.199 --> 00:36:30.239
You got to learn.

00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:32.719
Another word that I use is you have to regulate.

00:36:32.880 --> 00:36:34.880
You want to emotionally regulate.

00:36:43.280 --> 00:36:44.159
I understand it.

00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:45.519
We all want to do that.

00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:57.440
But maturity and regulation, and especially if you're a leader and you've been elected or you've been appointed or you've been hired to make a lot of money, your job is not to do that.

00:36:57.599 --> 00:37:00.800
Yeah, and you're highlighting a White House right now.

00:37:01.119 --> 00:37:01.920
Absolutely.

00:37:02.159 --> 00:37:05.760
We have a commander-in-chief who all he does is blame.

00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:08.079
Because I know in my role, what is blame?

00:37:08.239 --> 00:37:20.480
When I see blame, when it's from a client, whoever I see, life, personal, when I'm talking to someone, a family member, and I hear why it's my fault, I go, tell me why it's my fault again.

00:37:20.719 --> 00:37:23.440
Blame always masks weakness.

00:37:23.679 --> 00:37:24.239
Always.

00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:27.280
It masks an insecurity, a weakness.

00:37:27.440 --> 00:37:28.480
Always, always, always.

00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:30.880
That's why you don't want to take the bait because you already know they're weak.

00:37:30.960 --> 00:37:33.039
They're already telegraphing that you're weak.

00:37:33.280 --> 00:37:34.559
You don't take the bait.

00:37:34.800 --> 00:37:49.599
What true leaders do and what courageous people do and honest people do and human people do, they redirect away from the emotion and from the chaos, and they redirect it to the underlying issue.

00:37:49.760 --> 00:37:54.159
It's not sexy, it's not exciting, it doesn't get clicks, but what?

00:37:54.320 --> 00:37:55.760
It gets respect.

00:37:55.920 --> 00:37:58.639
That's what it gets because it's the right thing to do.

00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:00.320
That's how I counsel people.

00:38:00.480 --> 00:38:03.679
You're getting paid the big bucks not to be triggered or reactive.

00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:11.360
That could be that's your staff, that's the press, that's your voters, your constituents, it's local leaders, it's people in your community.

00:38:11.519 --> 00:38:14.000
In Tim Wall's case, it's smallies.

00:38:14.320 --> 00:38:17.440
Like the Somali Americans in the Twin Cities.

00:38:17.599 --> 00:38:21.679
Yes, you can defend them with rhetoric against Trump and do all that other stuff.

00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:31.440
But also, what they probably really want is the more heightened you go with Trump, the more grief they're gonna get, the more hate they're gonna get, the more pain.

00:38:31.599 --> 00:38:37.119
It's not just smallies, it's every minority group, it's every underrepresented group.

00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:39.599
It all crap flows downhill.

00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:41.360
It always comes and hits them.

00:38:41.679 --> 00:38:46.239
Attack the underlying problem, and then it's gonna ease up on them.

00:38:46.559 --> 00:38:49.679
Reasonable stakeholders don't make noise.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:51.840
I also heard this recently.

00:38:52.079 --> 00:38:55.519
The people on social media, the people on Facebook, they don't know anything.

00:38:55.679 --> 00:38:56.880
They need to be educated.

00:38:57.039 --> 00:38:58.800
Nobody else is complaining about it.

00:38:58.880 --> 00:39:00.880
It's only this small group online.

00:39:01.440 --> 00:39:02.239
Not so.

00:39:02.320 --> 00:39:05.519
There's a lot of reasonable people on there who are watching this.

00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:08.880
People, majority Somali community voted right.

00:39:09.119 --> 00:39:09.920
Can I tell you something?

00:39:10.079 --> 00:39:10.960
I was just reading that.

00:39:11.039 --> 00:39:18.480
I was reading an MPR, a Minneapolis Public Radio story about that, that they were interviewing all these Somalis who voted for Trump.

00:39:18.800 --> 00:39:19.519
That was interesting.

00:39:19.679 --> 00:39:20.320
I didn't know that.

00:39:20.480 --> 00:39:24.719
I found that very interesting, which becomes a messaging problem for Trump, right?

00:39:24.880 --> 00:39:27.519
And for Republicans in Minnesota, it just gets messy.

00:39:27.760 --> 00:39:30.800
But you just don't want to respond to the noise.

00:39:30.960 --> 00:39:34.559
You want to respond to the structure.

00:39:34.800 --> 00:39:38.239
That's that's essentially what it comes down to.

00:39:38.400 --> 00:39:45.360
So whether it's in business or in life, you have to look for the traps.

00:39:45.760 --> 00:39:59.760
And the traps usually involve a weakness, a cover, there's blame, there's finger pointing, there's just anything that's tied into inhumanity and just treating people poorly.

00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:03.920
Like the lowest common denominator of actions.

00:40:04.159 --> 00:40:06.079
That's not where you want to wage battle.

00:40:06.239 --> 00:40:07.360
And they're under attack.

00:40:07.599 --> 00:40:13.519
And there is this understanding that content creators are content creators for a reason.

00:40:13.760 --> 00:40:15.760
Sometimes they're not just there for the greater good.

00:40:15.920 --> 00:40:18.559
I mean, many times you can see the ethos.

00:40:18.880 --> 00:40:25.039
Like if you know me well, for instance, I love sharing information to help people.

00:40:25.280 --> 00:40:29.360
So I do it from a crisis management point of view, a strategic communication point of view.

00:40:29.440 --> 00:40:32.960
But also I just like to send out like things that work for me.

00:40:33.039 --> 00:40:34.239
I just like to share, right?

00:40:34.320 --> 00:40:37.199
It's no one goes this way alone.

00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:40.079
Everything we put into each other comes back into our own.

00:40:40.239 --> 00:40:42.559
That's what my grandmother said to me my entire life.

00:40:42.719 --> 00:40:44.079
And that's how I feel.

00:40:44.239 --> 00:40:46.239
But content creators are reality.

00:40:46.480 --> 00:40:47.920
You get compensated for it.

00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:51.679
You get publicity for it, you get influence for it, you get money, you get collabs.

00:40:51.760 --> 00:40:53.119
There's a benefit to it.

00:40:53.280 --> 00:40:56.000
And so that is true, without a doubt.

00:40:56.159 --> 00:40:56.880
That is true.

00:40:57.039 --> 00:41:00.880
You have to look at, well, what's the agenda of the content creator?

00:41:01.039 --> 00:41:02.400
Like what's really driving it.

00:41:02.559 --> 00:41:05.360
And so often with clients under attack, I agree with them.

00:41:05.679 --> 00:41:09.679
Like, yeah, they want this, they want clicks, they're getting money, they're getting all these things.

00:41:09.920 --> 00:41:17.440
But in order to be a content creator who believes a certain thing and puts out all that content, you kind of have to believe what you're saying too.

00:41:17.519 --> 00:41:18.719
You have to kind of live it.

00:41:18.880 --> 00:41:28.159
That's why people who become successful content creators are usually putting out their own stuff because they're pulling it from what they think or what they believe.

00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:38.000
So a content creator is going to be conservative or progressive, or they might just try and be down the middle politically, but maybe they have an angle.

00:41:38.079 --> 00:41:40.480
Maybe it's teaching, maybe it's this or whatever.

00:41:40.639 --> 00:41:44.159
And some people are out there, yeah, purely just for clicks.

00:41:44.480 --> 00:41:53.360
But what I tell leaders under attack, it's just try and skim off 80% of the top of all the things that bug you about that content creator.

00:41:53.519 --> 00:41:56.719
And in my job, like I have to go deep on a lot of these content creators.

00:41:56.800 --> 00:41:58.719
I'm like, ugh, I hate this person.

00:41:58.960 --> 00:42:00.079
I do not like this person.

00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:02.159
I get why this person makes you crazy.

00:42:02.320 --> 00:42:04.960
Because sometimes I'm just as annoyed as my client.

00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:09.519
But my job, they've hired me to not get caught up in the emotion of it.

00:42:09.679 --> 00:42:12.719
My job is to look at the core of what that content creator is saying.

00:42:12.880 --> 00:42:14.000
I look at the 20%.

00:42:14.559 --> 00:42:17.039
And that 20% is truth.

00:42:17.280 --> 00:42:21.360
Did Nick everything Nick Shirley say in that video, is it true?

00:42:21.519 --> 00:42:22.719
Is it 100% true?

00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:23.280
No.

00:42:23.599 --> 00:42:29.199
And now they're going out and people are debunking it, like local affiliates in Minnesota.

00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:33.840
They're trying to cover their tracks, saying, no, no, no, we did this, we did this, we did the same thing, we knocked on the same doors.

00:42:34.079 --> 00:42:38.559
Everybody else, I know CBS, Barry Weiss got into it, everybody's talking about it now.

00:42:38.719 --> 00:42:42.800
But we can't compare Nick Shirley to news organizations.

00:42:42.960 --> 00:42:44.079
He's 22 years old.

00:42:44.239 --> 00:42:47.119
He spent the last two years on a Mormon missionary.

00:42:47.360 --> 00:42:50.719
He wasn't at the Columbia School Journalism, right?

00:42:51.039 --> 00:42:52.639
He wasn't in journalism school.

00:42:52.800 --> 00:42:54.639
The kid's a YouTuber.

00:42:54.880 --> 00:42:59.440
But to attack Nick Shirley and how he did it, you're missing the point.

00:42:59.679 --> 00:43:03.280
Nick Shirley's Gen Z and he understands how it works.

00:43:03.519 --> 00:43:05.119
That's why he has all these views.

00:43:05.280 --> 00:43:12.800
All these local station networks, they would have the viewers that Nick Shirley has.

00:43:13.519 --> 00:43:17.440
He doesn't have to act under the same guidelines and the ethical guidelines.

00:43:17.599 --> 00:43:18.639
He's not doing that.

00:43:18.880 --> 00:43:24.159
But you cannot dismiss that what Nick Shirley did was damn effective.

00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:26.000
It was incredibly effective.

00:43:26.239 --> 00:43:28.159
And it got out to a lot of people.

00:43:28.400 --> 00:43:30.400
My God, to the White House's responding to it.

00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:37.920
JD Vance, like all these people are coming out, all these changes, health and human services now, cutting all this funding.

00:43:38.320 --> 00:43:45.360
And now these daycare owners, these legitimate daycare owners, Somali American and otherwise, are saying, Oh, now we can't operate.

00:43:45.519 --> 00:43:46.400
Now we can't operate.

00:43:46.480 --> 00:43:47.760
Now it's going to affect families.

00:43:47.920 --> 00:43:52.400
Did you hear about the daycare center that was broken into 75 kids family info stolen?

00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:52.960
Oh.

00:43:53.599 --> 00:43:53.920
Yeah.

00:43:54.079 --> 00:44:03.679
And it kind of creates this environment, which comes down to another tool that so many politicians, content creators, whatever.

00:44:03.840 --> 00:44:06.400
I mean, actually, it's just marketing and sales one-on-one.

00:44:06.480 --> 00:44:07.280
It's fear.

00:44:07.519 --> 00:44:12.320
If you want to pull out your own life skill, there are people in your life who are going to trigger you.

00:44:12.480 --> 00:44:13.679
There's no doubt about it.

00:44:13.840 --> 00:44:17.440
There are people in your life who will intentionally trigger you.

00:44:17.679 --> 00:44:21.280
And many times they'll do it because of their own weakness.

00:44:21.519 --> 00:44:25.199
Sometimes it's malicious, sometimes they can't help it.

00:44:25.519 --> 00:44:33.119
But you are being triggered and you are being blamed, and you are being gaslit, and you are being all these things.

00:44:33.360 --> 00:44:36.880
So you will emotionally deregulate.

00:44:37.039 --> 00:44:42.880
Your job is to spot that and detach yourself from it and focus on the issue.

00:44:43.119 --> 00:44:46.639
It's a sticky one, it's a hard one, but it's the big one right now.

00:44:46.800 --> 00:44:47.519
All right, everyone.

00:44:47.679 --> 00:44:49.840
Thanks so much for listening.

00:44:50.079 --> 00:44:51.119
Bye for now.