How to let people offend you

“Blown away.” “I was furiously jotting notes the entire time.” “Loved it, loved it, loved it.”

I am floored by your feedback to our first new episode of “A Braver Way.” Over the past two weeks, we’ve heard from everyone from a pastor who just gave a bold bridge-building sermon to a mom who just saw her politically estranged daughter for the first time in six years. Thank you for all the notes, critiques, and stories! 

Now our second episode is out, with what I admit is a double-take of a title: 

"How to let people offend you."

Spicy, right?

For most of human history, hurting someone with words was as bad as hurting them physically with violence, and saying the wrong thing could get your tongue chopped off — or worse. 

These days, we’ve figured out that letting people say offensive things can keep us from killing each other quite so much. 

But it doesn’t make it any easier to put up with speech that you know — that you can feel in your bones — is making everything royally worse. 

Enter Greg Lukianoff. Or as I think of him, “the free speech guy.” Greg is an attorney, author, and president of the mighty Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). 

He is also a friend I look up to so much not just for his guts, but for his integrity. 

Believe it or not, Greg and I had actual fun exploring the complicated relationship between speech and safety, and how what we let ourselves say shapes how we let ourselves live.   

Here's just a taste of what we cover: 

• The seductive idea that we’ll only be safe if “the other side” is controlled

• A question that’s hard to shake: If free speech makes us safer, why does everything feel so threatening?

• The best advice Greg’s ever gotten for doing important work people will hate you for

You can listen to the whole episode — How to let people offend you — on your favorite podcast platform, or watch us geek out (and don’t forget to subscribe!) on YouTube. 

Stay curious. Even about the wild stuff. For all our sakes!