Changing the Algorithm, Rebuilding American Unity & the Psychology of Belief | Adam Mizel
Watch the full episode: YouTube
Episode Summary
Are we truly as divided as we're told — or are we being conditioned to believe we are? Adam Mizel, longtime CEO, investor, and co-founder of US United, explores how media algorithms and social bubbles shape our perceptions, why labels prevent compromise, and how changing culture can rebuild unity in America.
Key Topics: unity, polarization, US United, Adam Mizel, social media algorithms, political division, labels, culture change, civic engagement, democracy
Conversation
Evan Meyer: 00:02.776 Hello everyone. Welcome to Meyers Side Chats. Today we have Adam Meisel, who's a seasoned C-level executive and investor who's spent 25 years bridging leadership and capital.
He served as CEO, COO, CFO, and head of growth across public and private companies in media, entertainment, financial services, and digital industries. He founded three companies, helped manage more than $5 billion in investment assets as a general partner, raised over $3 billion in public and private capital, and served on more than 40 corporate boards.
With that rare combination of entrepreneurial execution, public company leadership, deep governance experience and large scale capital strategy, Adam stepped beyond the boardroom to focus on rebuilding trust and strengthening civic engagement across divided communities with his organization, Us United. Adam, welcome.
Adam Mizel: 01:02.755 Thank you. I'm impressed with it. I love my background now. You made that beautiful.
Evan Meyer: 01:08.154 great. I strive to please and impress. It's great to have you on. We have a lot in common. We're both entrepreneurs. We've both been in the nonprofit world. We've both raised money. We both care a lot about.
Adam Mizel: 01:14.083 Well done.
Evan Meyer: 01:29.652 about uniting people. This podcast, as you know, is has been dedicated to understanding why people can't get along and trying to make that happen. So it's really exciting to have you on and understand more about us united. And why don't you tell me a little bit about us united and then we'll get into some really fun questions.
Adam Mizel: 01:55.152 got it. So us united to start is a movement to build unity in America by giving all of us Americans the tools we need to reunite our country. Right? Sounds simple, not easy, right? It took us 40, 50 years to get to the ditch we are now in. We are not going to get out of that in a day or a week or in a year, but I don't think we need 40 years to get back out of it either, but we certainly need time, some time to go to
process and work through that and sort of the problem that we identified we said one of the biggest challenges to what we call unity and we'll come back to defining that a little bit is that most of us live and work in social media in ever shrinking bubbles and outside of those bubbles we categorize and then we label none of that is bad that is how we're processing an incredibly complex world
But I always ask and I'd ask you, have you ever sympathized or compromised with a label?
Evan Meyer: 03:01.856 sympathized or compromised with a label that someone has called me?
Adam Mizel: 03:07.747 Or with people, if you say, that's a Republican, that's a Democrat, that's a this, that's a that, that's not a person, that's a label, are you gonna find sympathy or are you gonna find a way to compromise?
Evan Meyer: 03:14.082 Yeah. I see. Right.
Evan Meyer: 03:20.334 No, it's, I mean, by nature of it, it's a subjective, you know, internalization and self-projection very often.
Adam Mizel: 03:30.969 Right. And so I think what we are, the way technology, the way our culture has evolved, that's where most of us find ourselves trying to figure out how to deal with these labels in these categories versus these other humans. And so a big chunk of what we have focused on at us United is how do we break people out of those bubbles and how do we change culture and doing that? Because at the core,
We have a culture that elevates and rewards division, fighting, anger. It's a lot more fun to watch, right? You know what I mean? It's the classic cliche, right? If it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead on the news, right? It's the same thing. And we have to change culture if we're going to make that happen differently, because that culture rewards that behavior. And we all watch it and technology reinforces it, all the things we all know. And so, Asunator was really creative to say,
How do we get people out of bubbles? How do we change culture? And we really said, how do you have a, you need a brand of unity. I, similar question. Think about brands to you today that represent division. I bet you have a long list, starting with Republican and Democrat.
Okay, tell me the brand that's out there that's the Unity brand.
Evan Meyer: 04:52.238 Right, there's not. I suppose the best thing closest to it would be something like the Independent Party or the Forward Party that was trying to gain some traction. Andrew Yang. I forget his name or anything, right?
Adam Mizel: 05:04.143 I would argue any political party by definition cannot be a unity brand. The minute you step into politics, it is not supposed to be unity. mean, leave aside the breakdown that there isn't an ability to find common ground and compromise, but politics isn't about, right? So part of Back to Us United, part of what we said is we need to create a brand, back to culture, back to bubbles, that says stands for unity, that people can rally behind the concept.
Evan Meyer: 05:10.125 Yeah.
Evan Meyer (05:19.49) Yeah, it's a point.
Adam Mizel: 05:33.047 of unity, the concept of a collective goal, the concept of teamwork, the concept of respect. And we can go on and on and on. If you have that, then you can maybe get to politics or any issue you want down the road outside of us united. But we really said we have to do that brand culture, connecting people, both digital, real world. And we do a lot of things and a lot of resources and tools against that, which we could absolutely get into, but that doesn't exist. And if you're going to confront.
media and politics, both of whom are invested and rewarded by division. It's just what it is. It's not, again, I'm no bad or good about it. That's their economic and power incentives. How are you going to do that without a brand, without storytelling, without media, without examples, without leadership, without culture change, without engagement? And that's where us United comes in.
Evan Meyer: 06:24.238 Yeah, it's real challenge. The incentive structures for division are immense. And there's a flywheel.
Adam Mizel (06:30.85) and that's.
Evan Meyer: 06:38.978 that exists between any player in government or politics at all and the government representatives themselves. Somewhere between money, power, influence, jobs. Keep my job or get rid of my job, right? if you, mean, how money, the way money flows in this revolving door, it's remarkable and it's almost unstoppable in a lot of ways because it's at every level and everyone's in, but it's like
Adam Mizel: 06:55.437 Right, right, right.
Evan Meyer: 07:08.782 beyond lobbying, right? It's like if you're a small nonprofit and you want a government contract or you want to get some sort of policy influence, you're in the game. You've now began playing that game. So and not every I'm not saying there's necessarily anything wrong with people trying to play, but the the incentive structures create so many tributaries where it's just hard to break. So
I've studied now why this has happened. Why can't we get people out of this mindset? And one of the things I've sort of come up with, I'm excited to ask you, I've asked so many guests on the show this question. And believe it or not, I get radically different answers, but I think we have to first have the same lexicon. And if we have, for example, the definition of the word fact, right? When you say something's a fact,
Adam Mizel: 08:01.423 Mm-hmm.
Evan Meyer: 08:03.688 or your favorite congressman says something that is a fact, or your least favorite congressman says something that is a fact. It means very different things to all of these people. So let me ask you, how do you define what a fact is?
Adam Mizel (08:20.6) Hmm. Good question. I would say I define a fact is a data driven objective statement that can tie back to true data, true information, true independent across an array of independent sources. So a fact is something that you can validate with data and
not be subjected to opinion. And the examples you gave, if you're relying upon a person to give you a fact, we're incapable of that on many levels because our interpretation of fact is driven by our views, our opinions, our brains, right? And so what I assert as a fact is going to be a combination of information and my opinion. Data-driven information give you facts, right?
Those, that's where you have to go. And it's never that black and white. I'm making it incredibly simple. Cause between what I just said and what you said is significant gray area. And that's where it's incumbent upon all of us to do our research, to do our work, to not just accept what someone says to be a fact or not to be a fact. It's just, we have to do that. And I think that's where facts come to bear. I love Steve Ballmer has something called USA facts. don't know if you've seen this, but you probably have. Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 09:44.556 Yes, actually I'm on it.
Adam Mizel (09:46.86) And I think that's an example, those are facts. There's data, there's an analysis to reach here is a fact. With that fact, your opinion of what it can mean and what you can do with it goes in a lot of different directions.
Evan Meyer: 09:54.392 Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 09:57.964 Yes. Sure. OK. So a fact, but it's not necessarily absolute truth. Right. Or it. Absolute. OK. So even a fact. So just so you and I are even talking about facts the same way. Right. Because this will evolve. A fact is not necessarily truth.
Adam Mizel: 10:06.582 Very few things that are absolute truths.
Adam Mizel: 10:24.344 Well, a fact is a data point. It's an information point and it's going to move and evolve as new data and new information emerge. A fact, I love this by the way, this is fun. A fact, I would argue today, is based on the data and the information we have today.
Evan Meyer: 10:33.984 Okay, right.
Evan Meyer: 10:39.918 you
Adam Mizel: 10:47.094 Yesterday or Friday, there was a fact that tariffs were set at various rates and were at the discretion of the president of the United States. Friday afternoon, that fact changed with a new fact. The Supreme Court determined that the Constitution did not support and allow that authority to make those tariffs, which to that point were facts. Those tariffs were facts. Friday night to Saturday to Monday, they became different because a new fact happened.
Evan Meyer: 11:08.674 Yeah. Sure.
Adam Mizel: 11:16.108 So facts will change.
Evan Meyer: 11:17.782 Right. Facts can change. Yeah, they evolve. And and like you said, there's very few absolute truths. Right. You know, being born, death, you know, the fact that we breathe.
you know, that we exist, you know, I mean, and even people will have ways of debating that, right? And be like, well, we don't really exist. Our cells are made up of 99 % air or whatever. know, like, okay, you know, we're not really matter at all. Multidimensional, you know, we can't, but there's a very long time, but let's just say, okay, so I think we're aligned on that. How do we convince people that
Adam Mizel: 11:49.486 Sure. We could go for a long time. Cheers.
Evan Meyer: 12:01.358 the things they watch and hear from a person that they like watching on the news is just a reporter of information, mostly of hearsay, many telephone links down the chain, and no one was in the room really where it happened. So how do we determine what a fact is? And this is sort of where we say the intellectual humility component, which I think would be so
critical for people uniting is like if you could just say to yourself maybe I don't have every piece of information right or I didn't get all the information or there's more to the story than perhaps I understand I think that's where we need to go but right now we're still at like people arguing over what a fact I mean the difference of what they think a fact is
Adam Mizel: 12:54.701 I'm gonna back it up and go from experiences I've had recently to try to address your question, right? So as we discussed, I spent two and half months this summer in a purple and white pickup truck, driving across the country, meeting with sheriffs in every state that were in our Sheriff Unity Network and thousands of everyday Americans and had a film crew capturing a bunch of this content. similar to what you just asked me is how do I define a fact?
I asked everyone almost at the beginning of our conversation, what does unity mean to you? How do you define unity? For the same reason you asked me, how do you get to a point, understand where people come in a plane? What was incredibly surprising and powerful to me was that almost everybody used some subset of I would say the same 12 or 15 words to define unity. Respect, trust, empathy, compassion, teamwork, patience, listening, going on.
You can't fix a problem if you don't define it the same way, which is kind of what you're, think, driving towards as it related to this question of unity. Americans defined it the same way. I thought that was, that surprised me actually a lot. and what I also heard from a vast majority was a belief we are not as divided as presented by politicians and by media. And even those who thought we were.
didn't want us to be. So there was a common desire to do that. Next to where you're going, consistent blame for that on in particular media, both traditional and social media. And to a T, almost everyone said, I know I'm not getting facts. They use those words. I know that I'm not hearing truth. I'm hearing opinion. I know I'm being manipulated.
And now the answer for most then is ignore and unplug from it rather than deepening time energy research. And some of that's personality time people have, but I was very positively impressed by what I would describe as the common sense of our fellow countrymen. Right. It's a little bit, often hear when people run for president and they travel the country, how they changes them. get it. Right.
Adam Mizel: 15:21.537 you walk away with an appreciation that there is a lot more common sense and a lot more thoughtfulness than you hear in the media, right? Because the media is hearing, you're hearing 15%, really less, but 15 % on each sides who scream the most loudly, who are the most divisive, who challenge facts the most because they're making a financial living or an emotional living on fighting, on divisiveness and discord.
And so I think part of the answer to your question really is you have to step back and say, who are we really talking about? And realize that most don't fall to the trap you're describing. And when they do, I mean, this gets to things that I found as a powerful tool. I've, I started this road trip thinking I was a listener and a reporter within a couple. Well, there's a bunch of things that happen to change that very quickly, but certainly a couple of weeks in.
I realized I was a part of that story to be told and people started asking me, what do you do? Like, because what people all wanted was hope. They're like, you showing up in a purple and white pickup truck? my God, you're giving me hope. Like, if you're doing that, maybe there is hope we can do something. And I'm sitting there saying, hey, I'm today in New Jersey and in Texas and in Alabama and in Iowa, this is what I heard. And it's the same thing you're saying. And people are like, no one tells me that. I thought I was alone in believing this.
I need hope, I need stories, I need inspiration. And hope, I think, is one of the most powerful words in the English language. And what I heard from across the board really was, and then people are like, you know, I try to talk to the other side, they don't listen, they wanna fight with me. So you back it up and you say, well, what does that mean you're doing? And they would describe, know, well, yeah, someone would say this and I'm telling them they're wrong and this is why, and I say, stop, stop, stop. If I tell you you're wrong,
Evan Meyer: 16:51.682 Yeah.
Adam Mizel: 17:18.625 Are you going to listen to me? Is that going to change your opinion on anything? No. Okay. So start with truly listen, truly listen, and don't comment in listening. Ask questions, right? If you don't understand or you don't even agree with what someone's saying, ask them a question about what that, why they believe that, what their experience has been and listen.
And then the third thing I would say is if or when you want to share an opinion or challenge a perspective, don't start with, I don't agree or you're wrong. This is why what I think is right. Share an experience. we are all humans by default, by genetics, by biology and evolution are storytellers. It's a painting on the cave walls to, you know, today, if you share
a personal experience that may be different than what someone's describing their beliefs to be. It could be yours, your friends, your parents, your children, your at work, whatever it may be. It doesn't have to your direct experience, but your sharing experience. That's a fact, by the way. No one you're talking to can tell you your lived experience is wrong because you lived it. Right? And that person will respond to your experience
with a different and more open mind than a you're wrong and this is why versus hey, and I can share with you some stories of very profound when I did that on this trip and I'm happy to do that, but those were the tools I started to bring because if I share an experience with you, you may not agree or you may not tell me, but I bet you when I walk away, whatever your opinion was, my experience being different than your opinion in this example will change, even if it's five or 10%.
Evan Meyer: 18:54.338 Right.
Adam Mizel: 19:19.444 you moved five or 10 % closer to where I'm thinking and here in your experience, I moved at least five or 10 % closer to you. Sometimes it can be much, much closer. That's what Americans wanted to do and are looking for help in doing because you're not getting that from the media, traditional or social.
Evan Meyer: 19:26.338 Right.
Right.
Right.
Evan Meyer: 19:40.374 No. Well, I think there's this component of because the media puts this, let's just say the algorithm puts the three to five seconds of the most outrageous stuff in front of your face the most. You're bound to, you have this image of what those people look like. Right. Them, the others, right. And, and you get this in, I can't believe, right. And then, and then when you speak to someone who
Adam Mizel: 19:57.792 Mm-hmm.
Evan Meyer: 20:08.782 who triggers all of what you've just watched, the two seconds they talk, you've watched two months worth of content over the last, you know, whatever years of just like watching this brainwash-y stuff. That individual then says, I'm going to apply the values that I see of that terrible stuff.
to you because you like, let's say, Donald Trump or Joe Biden. And now you carry all of the negative weight of the months of terrible content that I've watched. When I say months, I mean like cumulative time watching over the years, right? And meanwhile, you speak to someone for two seconds and you think because they like Joe Biden or because they like Donald Trump that now...
Adam Mizel: 20:50.785 Yeah.
Evan Meyer (21:03.36) They don't want their kids to have a safe environment to be raised in or to go to have a good education or have a safe upbringing. Right. And have good safe streets to live in. Good health care. Everyone wants good health care. You know like so it's always the approach that's the issue but it's this quick trigger. There's like this instant let me associate that
one quick thing with the repetitive information that's in my RAM, right? And now it's just like, it's just cycling of this evil cycle. And the second you trigger it, now you're in that evil cycle and it enrages me. And I think that's, there's a feedback loop there. Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Mizel: 21:51.329 But that's back to the labels we were talking about, right? If you come in and you see someone and you have the label on them, you do just what you said. I sat and had thousands of conversations this summer with people who have, you could look at them and see what their label was, like the shirt they were wearing, right? I mean, an example, it couldn't have been more interestingly aligned in that.
Evan Meyer: 22:03.362 That's right.
Adam Mizel: 22:20.106 And I can talk about a conversation I had in Victor, Montana with a woman who was, had a t-shirt stand at a town fair that sold every Trump MAGA aggressive t-shirt you can imagine. And I can contrast that with a man, a young man working in a t-shirt shop in Omaha, Nebraska that would sell every Libertard, liberal, aggressive, in your face messaging t-shirts. And had...
similar subjective conversations with both, each of whom had very thoughtful reasons for why they were selling those t-shirts, but were not applying that to anyone that they met directly, right, in the same way, right? So the gentleman in Omaha is like, look, part of what I think is good about our t-shirts is, and I see people, you know, if people come in who are of different political views,
And we have a real conversation because the t-shirt sparks the conversation. And vice versa when people are wearing a MAGA t-shirt. He's like, I'll have a conversation. And he might be in one of the aggressive liberal t-shirts. He's like, we talk to each other because it's almost like we see the badge and we actually are curious. it tells us to do, he's like, something similar this woman in Montana said. And she said, because I asked her, said, look, it seems to me,
I asked her what unity means to her. we more unified? How do you, how does she do this? And if you listen to her answers, I was like, without judging right or wrong, your answers of how you interact with and perceive and want to perceive other Americans contradict the messaging of what you're selling. How do you reconcile that? And the messaging that said, I think we would agree that Donald Trump never before, currently, nor in the future is going to be building those, putting that handout and trying to build those bridges together. She said, I agree with you a hundred percent. He's not doing that. So I said,
How do you reconcile that? And say, look, you you're right. These are aggressive, but we need to be heard. We haven't been heard for so long. Sometimes you have to be aggressive to get heard to have the discussion. Same thing, the kid in Omaha was saying to me the exact same thing, but both of them were talking to people who view differently and weren't coming in guns a blazing in that conversation when it was direct.
Adam Mizel: 24:48.223 When it was amorphous and a label, challenge, problem, right? And so I think that's what we have to work through.
Evan Meyer: 24:48.408 Right.
Evan Meyer: 24:53.644 Right. Right. Yeah. And both can have their you know I've looked at this even the most difficult issues the ones that people generally you know I say if 50 percent of the people or 60 40 it doesn't matter whatever the subject if it's somewhere in the middle the the chances are it's not a simple problem it's probably a deeply philosophical problem or something very you know embedded in
bureaucracy or something like that. But it's complicated. Everyone's like, what do you mean? It's easy. Just flick the switch. And you're like, what? If it was that easy, we would have figured this out over thousands of years of trying to understand democracy. We haven't figured it out yet because some things are still very complicated. Right? Let's take abortion. That's a fun one. All right. Let's take abortion.
Adam Mizel: 25:46.027 That's a fun one. I tried not to talk about too much of that this summer because to your point, it's such an emotional and embedded issue for significant numbers of people. It's a very hard one to compromise on, but keep going.
Evan Meyer (25:58.24) It's very hard. It's no, it's very hard. And that's why, look, I have deeply, first of all, I try to have friends that think differently than me. And I think that's a good thing for people to do. Like stop trying to always hang out with people who think exactly, be curious about good people who may just think differently than you on abortion or gun control or anything complicated. And there's, they're out there. Most of those people are just as good as you are with a different approach.
Adam Mizel: 26:09.152 Agreed.
Adam Mizel: 26:19.691 Yep.
Adam Mizel: 26:25.269 Yeah. Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 26:26.594 to how they see the right or they're getting different news. They're just a product of their news right and their upbringing and the relationships they have and the people they feel like they let down if they voted for Biden instead of Trump or the other way around right. Laura Forkham I've had on she runs the Independence Center talks a lot about that it's just like a. great yeah she's wonderful and and and she talks about.
Adam Mizel: 26:44.063 I've talked to Laura a bunch of times. Love, Laura.
Evan Meyer: 26:51.532 We did a lot on parenting and like this relationships and stuff about how deeply embedded people are in their own beliefs from relationships and from just their upbringing and that their political beliefs are usually just products of that. And it's pretty remarkable. But yeah. So if you take abortion and say, look, I've.
I've tried to understand both sides deeply. have my feelings on where I lean. I won't even call it a belief. I'm just gonna say I lean in a direction. Right? Because that's just how I feel based on all of those things. But I have asked people and that direction for me is is is pro-choice. I tend to lean on that side. Right? But I can totally understand why someone would not agree with.
Adam Mizel: 27:44.779 Mm-hmm.
Evan Meyer: 27:45.165 Right? I think it may, and I actually think it makes total sense. And if I thought a little differently or I had different parents or a different relationships, I can see that I think that the value, they value life so strongly at that level. A lot of these people, I'm gonna say all of them, but a lot of the rationale for many of these people is how strongly they value.
life and they just think it starts earlier whether you say it's not scientific whether you say it's whatever it is it doesn't even matter that's just their value and they're come from and they're coming from a good wholesome place and sometimes i feel bad even for feeling the way i do about it i'm like maybe i should go i don't know it's complicated because it's deeply philosophical and that's my point on like so many of these issues where it's like if people can
You can feel whatever way you want. Do it, don't do it. Let people believe and feel and take action the way they want. But if you approach it with a philosophical angle and you approach it with, let me understand why you would feel that deeply about this thing. Listen, like you say, and then empathize and say, wow, let me assume first you're a good person. Let not look at you as some MAGA person who just, you know, Bible banging, religious anti-abortion, you know.
then you can see that there's really beauty on both sides of it actually even if you disagree. You could see it is beautiful even... wholesomely. Wow, I really appreciate where you're coming from with that. Not for me. That's okay.
Adam Mizel: 29:08.715 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Adam Mizel: 29:16.107 Correct. Right, and I think to that point, get, one question gets to.
the not for me statement you just made. Why does anyone get to put their belief system and their rules in a free country in which we have a separation of church and state on everyone else? The answer is you don't have to get an abortion. You don't have to support it. Why does your view dictate that someone who wants one can't and vice versa? No one who's pro-choice says,
You have to get an abortion, obviously. That doesn't even ring true. Why is the view that your belief is so profound that everyone else must have the same belief or the law must compel them to the same behavior is an interesting question, right? For sure. On this one, I really believe that much more of the moral authority on this sits with the female, it's her body. But my wife, so,
Evan Meyer: 29:53.922 Yeah.
Adam Mizel: 30:21.566 knowing very much pro-choice, has a very innovative solution that really is designed to get to the thinking. And I have had this conversation with a number of people on this topic who are very ardent pro anti-abortion. Especially now with the technology she has, she says, look.
The woman has to have the baby, carry the baby, and it changes her life profoundly forever, much more than potentially a man. It's like, here's the solution, okay, I will agree abortion is illegal if we do the following. Every man, when they turn, pick your age, 14, 15, has to get a vasectomy. Every man. And that vasectomy cannot and will not be reversed until they show up with a woman with a signed contract that she agrees.
to potentially have a baby with this man. At which point that vasectomy can be reversed and they can have their baby and as many as they want. But then there's no choice of, she's like, we have the technology. She's like, now you tell me in America, if white men and black men and yellow men and brown men are, men are gonna line up and agree to get their penises tied off. She's like, it's never gonna happen. But they're gonna tell me how to take care of my body. They're gonna scream, it's my body. You can't do that to my body.
Evan Meyer: 31:18.498 Yeah, interesting.
Mm-hmm.
Evan Meyer: 31:39.694 Yeah, that's a good argument. It's a good argument. It's a totally good argument.
Adam Mizel: 31:40.374 That's, they're telling me it's, it's a very, it's a, it's a very fair argument to get to what really then, because abortion touches a lot more issues than abortion. gets to who's in control of whom's body, especially when it comes to health and wellness and go down the list. And so her point is why you marry smarter than you. Her point is, okay, let's equilibrate. Why is it always the female body?
Evan Meyer: 31:58.221 Absolutely, absolutely.
Evan Meyer (32:03.34) Yeah.
Adam Mizel: 32:09.449 that is being controlled, restricted, constrained, not the male body. Why is it that in Muslim countries, women must cover themselves because the men can't control themselves? Right, go down the list. so this is, know, frame and take away the religious arguments and the life or no life arguments of abortion and break it back to body, who's in control of what body and there we could be creative of how to try to solve the problem. But I think
her thought is a very good discussion to try to get to the issues.
Evan Meyer: 32:41.166 Yes. Yeah, but to that point, and she's using the latest technology where we are now. Abortion has been an issue for a very long time.
Right. And it's been a it's been a religious, philosophical, moral conversation of what should be allowed. The war, you know, taking the life versus the woman's rights. You know, it's her body. All very good arguments. And I think that's my point is that it doesn't even matter where you lean. It matters that you can see that it's just not some things are very complex.
Adam Mizel: 32:57.332 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Adam Mizel: 33:14.292 Sure. Right.
Evan Meyer: 33:14.612 This and this is one of those very hard things to say, you're valuing these few moral foundations from like even from Jonathan Haidt, right? Who puts let's just say you have a tendency to lean on these moral foundations more than these moral foundations. And those are the things that you value more heavily that doesn't who's to say which one's better or worse. Sometimes you it's easier than other times. And I think that's like
Recognizing the world is not black and white. It's such a simple thing. It's such a cliche thing to say. But like the world is not black and white and things are very complicated. And to appreciate the complexity of it. Because then you can finally start talking about, these are the things we agree on. These are the things we don't. Let's find common ground. But if you think you're right, if the world has not figured out the problem of democracy in thousands of years.
and you think you have a quick answer to fix democracy, think it's a bit narcissistic and I think it's not realistic. And it's like, we're all working on this problem together. It's very hard.
Adam Mizel: 34:10.154 Mm-hmm.
Adam Mizel: 34:22.762 But, and it's back to where we started of getting out of your bubbles and having more direct human conversation interaction with a range of people and obviously those different from you because again, your experience, you, one person can be incredibly black or incredibly white on this issue of abortion, but now talk to people not only with different views, but have had different impact. Hey, I almost died when pregnant XYZ
and an abortion saved my life. mean, whatever that, if you're having that conversation, if this is what happened to me or my daughter or my sister or my friend, someone who's incredibly pro-abortion can sit there and say, hmm, I hadn't seen that or heard that. Maybe there is in my, it isn't black and white and I have to think about where are there compromises and exceptions and balance points because you've got a woman's health, you've got a child's health, you've got all kinds of family repercussions, whatever it may be.
Evan Meyer: 34:55.854 Yeah.
Adam Mizel: 35:21.834 And you've not thought about that because you haven't lived that experience and heard of it. You start to change your view. What we can't do is just be dug in. We're right. You're wrong. people don't, and I say, as I talk to people this summer, they don't want to do that. But sometimes you're in those bubbles where you, it's a very big struggle to, to find people different than you. That's been, it was interesting. The areas where people think we're most divided as a country.
Evan Meyer: 35:25.516 That's right. Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 35:32.707 That's it.
Adam Mizel: 35:49.012 were the states that were the deepest of blue or the deepest of red. And the more purple, even light, call it pink or light blue states, people don't think we're as divided because they're talking to more people out of their bubbles. In deep red Montana or deep blue Massachusetts, many more people thought we were divided than when I was in New Jersey or even in Texas or in Alabama even to be honest, right?
Evan Meyer (36:15.01) Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Mizel: 36:18.174 That was interesting as well, right? And the other place where you see a greater digging in of we're divided into positions is with wealth. The more wealth people have, the more they have the luxury of thinking they're right. They don't have to compromise because they don't need things in the same way. And so people are much more dug into their intellectual positions when they were, you know, with greater wealth and I mean,
It was, you have the luxury of actually having the debate and not compromising. Most people need to compromise. They need their government to work for them. They need help. They need support. They need this. They need that. They have to figure it out. When you're, that's another interesting, and I think underappreciated component of division is we have greater wealth inequality in America. And that allows for those with greater wealth to be much more dug into their views.
Evan Meyer: 37:02.296 Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 37:18.348 Yes. And and to protect their wealth and to vote for policies that protect wealth. You know, it's this is there's a few big there's a few big differences that a lot of times I don't hear spoken about. And that's the difference between urban and rural. Right. For right. Almost every major city votes blue outside of exceptions in every state. San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and Austin all vote blue. Texas red. OK.
Adam Mizel: 37:18.376 because it's almost, it's a game.
Correct.
Adam Mizel: 37:31.326 Mm-hmm.
Evan Meyer: 37:47.811 So how do you reconcile that? We can reconcile it. But my point is most of the time, doesn't matter what state you live in. It matters where, how many big city centers you have that the people start voting in a certain direction, right? So like, and the people outside those concentric circles of your city start moving in towards red bubbles. The other one is whether you own property or whether you don't own property to your wealth conversation. like, like people. okay. Okay. So,
Adam Mizel (38:06.62) Mm-hmm. Right. I'm finding a quote while you're talking, so that's why I'm being a little distracted. Keep going.
Evan Meyer: 38:15.358 If you own property and even at the local level you see this it becomes really manifest around at the local level where people start voting on things. Should those people live next to my house? Right? Nimbish stuff right? We're like let's put affordable housing unit next to my you know multi-million dollar home. Okay. Well the only thing you're not talking about at these council meetings is like your motivation is to increase the value of their home. This does not do that. I don't hear that conversation a lot.
Adam Mizel: 38:28.745 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Evan Meyer: 38:45.326 But you're more with, right? And I'm like, okay, so just to your point about wealth, you're motivated to keep increase and keep your wealth. And hopefully you do it in a way that is, we'll call it, I don't know, morally grounded, sustainable, you know, because you, how do you tell someone,
to not want to increase the value of the biggest investment of their life and vote for policies that support that, which may lean them against some of the more things that support more working class people or poorer people or, know, how do you do it? We're back to incentives.
Adam Mizel: 39:21.533 Right. Well, and think there's a couple of things, right? mean, a thousand percent. One, two, I think a chunk of that starts in education. And one of the ways our education system has broken down is do we require people to take ethics or morals classes in high school? Not anymore. We require them to take gym. We require them to take math and English. Sometimes we require them to take home ec or we require different things, but
whether that's, throughout the social hierarchy from wealth to working class, where are morals and where are ethics, right? A lot of people do get them from the church, whatever church and whatever religion they're in. I mean, I think one of the really great things about religion is it often teaches morals and ethics, not always, and sometimes they're perverted as we know, but part of what is missing, those debates don't happen because people haven't been taught
taught about those concepts and have them as part of their day to day life. So that's a piece of it. And then I also think there's just, and it's sort of back to my wife's abortion point, there's a lack of creativity, intellectual curiosity and creativity to solve problems, right? Often the solutions to problems people come up with are constrained by what, you know, this is what we've done before, right? What's completely out of the box ideas and
because that's where you can find solutions that bridge all these different gaps. know, NIMBY is all true, but hey, part of, you know, this is part of the conversation I have on economics today and on wealth inequality, whatever it is. The reason you're this country people, we're, by the way, we're seeing it play out in the financial markets today. People have been as wealthy and successful as America has been thought of as having the most stable democracy, the greatest rule of the law, the most transparent capital markets.
the most non-governmental interference in capital markets, et cetera. American stock market over the last 10 years, its multiple expansion has been, American stocks traded between six and 10X higher PE multiple than European companies, same industry, same companies. View on growth on all the things we just said. That ratio is already shrinking.
Adam Mizel: 41:42.235 In light of the last 12 months of the chaos of our economic policies in the country, our significant deficits, our tariffs, all these different things, the multiples of stocks in Europe and in Asia are going up. The multiple of U S stocks are flat to down. So we may not see that the multiple is lowering yet, but the multiple and outbeat capital is shifting to other markets and other areas where there's more confidence in the rule of law.
in innovation and in sort of understandable and manageable and predictable government policy. So one of our biggest advantages is changing, right? And so I say to lots of people, as you think about wealth and your own wealth and what's in your best interest, if you vote for policies, because you say, in the short run, I'm gonna get lower taxes or less regulated, this side of other thing, that's gonna be great for me and I'm gonna make more money.
Evan Meyer: 42:18.062 Mm-hmm.
Adam Mizel: 42:38.695 Maybe, maybe, maybe in the short run, but in the long run, will it still? Because the reason you're as wealthy as you are is go look at your stock portfolio and go look at your house value and go down those things. That has been driven by a view of American economic exceptionalism that the world is changing. is the short America or move assets away from America has unquestionably what's going on. And in the long run, that may make you a lot less rich than the tax cut you got today.
But people struggle to think that way, to think in the long run. It's human nature, right? Like, we all know we should be.
Evan Meyer (43:07.63) Sure. Yeah.
Well, it's also very complicated. It's also it's also that's such a complicated outlook, right? No economist can predict that perfectly. There's a million butterfly effect kind of things that in compounding variables I can get in the way of that. And someone could very, you know, if I was on the administration's team or something, I would probably say, you know, well.
Where do you get that data from? Let me look at that data source, try to understand the source of that data, and I probably have 10 things to say in response. Like, for example, look at all the new money that's coming in here of big factories that are opening here from some of these big companies.
Adam Mizel: 43:51.315 That data doesn't support that statement by the way. But the good news of what you and I are right now talking about is there is clear and objective data. I can look at the PE of the London Stock Exchange. I can go look at the PE of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. I can go look at the PE of the Nikkei and I can tell you what it was five years ago, one year ago and today. And I can do the same with the S &P 500, right? I can tell you the dollar capital flows net in and net out of America or any other country. So like the good news in all this, this is the one area where there's
Evan Meyer: 43:55.116 The what? Yeah, yeah.
Evan Meyer: 44:11.341 Yeah.
Adam Mizel (44:21.01) clearly fact and data because it's just numbers. You can interpret it a lot of ways, but there is clearly data, right? But it's, right. Yes.
Evan Meyer (44:26.36) Sure, yeah, Yeah, yeah, but the interpretation and the extrapolation is everything and that gets the news stories and that gets people going down different, you know, different avenues and even if all you have to do, this is my favorite thing, all you have to do is know a little bit more than someone else for them to think.
Maybe you know what you're talking about. I remember, like I'm not a photographer, but I like photography. So one day I was at a wedding and someone asked me to take a picture and I like got down on my knees and I took a photo because I saw like a good angle. You know, like, this will be a good, I forgot how it was. I stood by a rock and they're like, they're like, are you a photographer? And I was like, nope. I just know a little bit more about how to get a good shot than you do. Right? But the fact...
Adam Mizel (45:09.18) Right. Right.
Evan Meyer: 45:11.756 That they, and that's sort of this like basic level of just like, people will get impressed with flat earth theories if they know nothing about physics at all, or anything about how the world works. That, you know, you'd be like, I don't know how to compare that to any other data set that I have. So I take anything as fact.
Adam Mizel: 45:21.874 Mm-hmm.
Adam Mizel (45:30.03) There's a great quote, there's lies, there's damn lies, and then there's statistics. And that's kind of what you're getting at. You can manipulate numbers and facts in any number of ways, right? To your point from the very beginning, what's a fact? We might agree on a fact, but boy, can we change, can we manipulate it or we can put four facts together in a very different way to reach to a different conclusion, whether purposeful or based on our knowledge and experience and it's just, it's a belief.
Evan Meyer: 45:46.157 Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 45:53.527 Sure.
Adam Mizel (45:58.92) And then we get very blurry, did I just have facts or do have a belief? Right? Now it gets complicated.
Evan Meyer (46:02.72) Right. Right. And statistics are tricky, too, because now it turns on the sample, the population size and the sample that you're collecting and whether you've done, you know, there's that and whether or not you put this contextual narrative around it that makes it just get your point so you can win that grant funding and show that this this data is way more important than it really ought to represent. So I've seen a lot in the university level of how of how grant money is scored.
and how people take data of research that they do and they put it around a compelling story, they get published. It doesn't mean the data is not good or that they didn't do good research. It just means that it's not the whole story.
Adam Mizel: 46:32.765 Yep.
Adam Mizel (46:46.12) Right? And back, look, into what we were just saying, back to the very beginning. For us united, what we're trying to do is change the culture so that we don't enter to that with the I'm right, I'm wrong. We enter to the culture of we wanna teamwork, we wanna cooperate, we wanna respect each other, we wanna listen, we wanna hear, we wanna be compassionate, we wanna find ways to...
find common ground to build from there to solutions rather than find ways to disagree. That is culture. That's before you get to any specific issue. Can people enter that discussion with a different mindset? And that's really hard, but that's what we have to be able to do or nothing will change.
Evan Meyer (47:15.5) Right. Right.
Evan Meyer: 47:34.359 Yeah, you have to, you've said this a number of times as well. You have to work on yourself first, right? You have to be willing to understand your own cognitive biases, which is another, you know, Daniel Kahneman, I don't know, you know, like, I mean, he's just, once I read that book, I was like,
Adam Mizel: 47:38.952 Correct.
Adam Mizel: 47:48.476 Yeah, took him course.
Evan Meyer: 47:54.169 How do I even trust my own thoughts anymore? Because everything, there's just so many levels. You can have thoughts and opinions and beliefs, but you should, okay, let's start with which filter is this going through before it becomes my belief and why? you know, it's like encouraging everyone to really do a deep analysis of just why they think about anything the way they think about it and know that everyone's different and it doesn't make them bad.
Adam Mizel (48:05.8) Mm-hmm.
Adam Mizel: 48:21.384 So let's go there. know we're running out of time, but so as we've mentioned, so last week, yeah. So last week I spent an entire week at something, a place called the Hoffman Institute. It's gotten to be well known. couple of you all, celebrities have talked about it on Oprah's podcast and it is an incredibly unique place that focuses on helping you identify, understand and break the negative, they call them negative love syndrome, but negative patterns.
Evan Meyer: 48:25.484 I got a few more. Can you go a few more minutes? Okay.
Adam Mizel: 48:51.366 that you internalized from your parents from birth till throughout your life. And again, not bad, we all bring and learn, it starts with as a child, the way you get to keep safe and the way you get your parents' attention is to emulate them, their behavior. And that may be good or bad things, but you build your patterns based upon what you've learned from your parents and they become literally,
ingrained in your brain, they're neural pathways that drive your behavior. And trying to change those and release those to be to your true self is incredibly hard. so this Hoppin' Process is all about helping you do that. It's not saying right nor wrong, it's helping you be your true self. And at your true self, you're not about right and wrong, and you're not about ego, and you're a about, you are much more about compassion and joy and positive energy. How do you get there?
to get to that's, and it's a level of awareness and consciousness that we all need more of. And it gets back to my statement of you can't be a unifier and whatever that might mean to you if you don't start with yourself. If you're angry, you're unhappy with yourself, with the world, with others, whatever that may be, really hard to connect with another human, right? Really hard because you're not.
open, you're not putting positive energy out there, you're not putting your best self forward, that's where you walk in saying, I'm gonna tell you why I'm right.
Evan Meyer: 50:25.794 Yeah, it's like walking around with an angry face and then expecting everyone else to smile at you and say hello.
Adam Mizel: 50:31.366 Right!
Correct, correct. And not everyone is gonna go do what I just did for a week, which is 100 plus hours of incredibly, 14, 15 hours a day of intense self work and analysis. And it was in a group session, but 1000 % of a different human being today than I was 10 days ago when I left, 1000%. Things that I've been, I the simplest I said is my whole life, I've always had really tight back.
neck, shoulders, and I always thought that was stress, right? I mean, that's where I carry my stress. Day three, I woke up, gone. Like I was being choked by my own anger and lack of, feeling of lack of safety that comes back to my childhood. Lots of things, I'm not gonna go into all of them, but it was.
Like air. I'd always had that feeling. I didn't know any different. I didn't know there was another way because it was attached to me and there was anger caught up in so many things with my parents and growing up and a thousand... As I... They helped me process and ultimately release some of that. I literally physically woke up feeling different. So imagine you're me. You're walking through the world every day and you're tight and your neck hurts. It's like you're being choked. How are you gonna be kind and communicate? Forget about unity. Forget about any of that. How are you gonna be kind to yourself?
to your spouse, to your children, even, you might be by power of your mind to try to make you that way, but then you get into stressful situations, you get into triggers, that goes out the window. And that, for me, I mean, everyone's different, but that was for me, right? You have to, you have to be willing to look at those things and work on it. And if more people would do just a little of that, we would find common ground, because you would come into these conversations and,
Adam Mizel: 52:26.811 meeting new people from a very different place. Very different.
Evan Meyer: 52:30.188 Yeah, absolutely. Maybe from a place of curiosity or inquisitive, know, being inquisitive. Yeah, the world's right. You know, you get a lot of that when you travel, right, when you travel to lots of places and you're like, wow, somewhere entirely outside of this, you know, go spend a month in, you know, Southeast Asia, pick city, whatever, and go see that people who don't believe have even Christian values. Right. It's start.
Adam Mizel: 52:34.213 Yes, that's an important word, curiosity. Yeah.
Adam Mizel: 52:41.169 Mm-hmm.
Adam Mizel: 52:46.406 Right.
Adam Mizel: 52:56.113 Right, but you don't even have to do that. But to your point, I mean, there were some people I met this summer who, you know, had never left Iowa or Montana or, I mean, you can't help it till I grew up in New Jersey. You have to leave New Jersey. It's just not that big, right? You can go to Pennsylvania, but you could, if you just, if we could find ways for, and there people at not-for-profits who do this, especially with kids in high school, to say a program where for a week or two, we're gonna get you out of whatever it is.
If you have spent your whole life and never really left Montana, go spend two weeks in New York City. And if you're a kid who grew up in New York City with privilege and you've never spent two weeks, and not Montana at the Fancy Dude Ranch on the horse and the, you know, all that, Montana in the real world or in, I mean, basically anywhere that you think of as a flyover state in this pejorative sense, the elites will say, go spend two weeks there. You don't have to go to,
Thailand, you don't have to go to Argentina for difference. Just go to some different places in America and you start to realize there's gray and you start to see different perspectives back to what we were saying. Like that's important because you're not going to get that on television. You're not. mean, even with the best of intentions, you're not, you're not going to get it on Instagram or TikTok because people are presenting their fake best life, not the real life. Go spend time with real people.
Evan Meyer: 53:55.534 You're right. Sure. Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 54:21.165 Right.
It just doesn't sell. just, how do we get that to sell? How do you get that stuff? Cat out of the tree, you know, people getting along, there's gray area. Let's, how do you get that stuff to sell? News has always been about the top headline of something dramatic and bloody. Like, how do we get that to sell to the media? And I know you do.
Adam Mizel: 54:24.209 Just do that.
Adam Mizel: 54:45.767 I got two ways for you. got two ways of what we're doing. One is, we have this unity pledge you can take on our social media and our website. Great. Do that. Fine. What do you do with it? And what we say is help change the algorithm. What if once a week you post and every American one day posts one thing they do or they see in their community.
where someone else is building community, helping someone, doing something supportive, kind, building that bridge. If every one of us posted that once a week, we just change the social media algorithms and the stories that we all see on social will be different. And then by the way, the news is gonna cover, the traditional media is gonna cover that and say, the change the algorithm movement in America. And all of a sudden you say it's possible and you see different behavior in stories. So that's one.
Evan Meyer: 55:35.799 Yeah.
Adam Mizel: 55:43.643 The other thing, another thing we're doing is, yeah.
Evan Meyer: 55:44.687 Wait, let me add one piece on that. I'm gonna add one piece on that. We should target the people who are the most extreme who do most of the posting, because most people are voyeurs, right? And so target those people to say you extreme people putting out all that stuff should post one nice thing a week. And I think maybe that would accelerate it. Everybody, yes. Yeah.
Adam Mizel: 56:02.663 But everybody, yeah, yes, but because this is a law of numbers, changes the algorithm, right? Not individuals. that's like, cause part of what I often heard from people is what am I going to do about this? I'm not the president. I'm not the governor. I'm not famous. I'm just a man or woman. go to, you know, right. That's it. If that were true, then your vote wouldn't matter either. If we all did something like this and it takes two minutes a week for you to post one good story, change it. That's one, two.
Evan Meyer: 56:19.254 Right. For everyone to get involved. Sure.
Adam Mizel: 56:31.618 What does still unify Americans? And think about that. What still you think unifies us?
Evan Meyer: 56:38.574 the belief that in general the system works. In general it does work. Your kids go to school. Most people have kids go to school for free and the streets are, you know, they have locks on their doors or whatever. You know, I don't know. They get the basic services. Their roads get generally paved. The lights work on the freeway. You know, I don't know.
Adam Mizel: 56:45.926 Sure.
Adam Mizel: 57:03.686 I was going a little more general, but sports. Sports unify us, right? Music unifies us. Golden retrievers, food, a few things. So, but let's focus on sports and music too. One of the things we're doing at us United, we're working, we are having unity seats at major sporting events. And eventually, why not every sporting event has six seats set aside? We work with our local sheriff and our sheriff unity network.
Evan Meyer (57:05.77) okay. Okay.
Adam Mizel (57:34.02) with us, identify two groups of two people from their community who don't know each other and just seem different, whatever that means. people, we're different, like different part of this, seem different could be one person lives north, one person lives south in the city, whatever it may be. Put them in the unity seats. They don't know each other, cheering for the same team. Maybe they're rivals. Like I could have had, know, right? Whatever it may be on the Jumbotron and say today in the unity seats, have Evan and you know.
Evan Meyer: 57:55.529 Mm-hmm. I see.
Adam Mizel: 58:03.879 Your son, your friend, and you have Adam and his daughter, friend, whatever, they don't know each other. We're together cheering for, you know, I'm originally from New York, the Knicks, the Giants, whatever it be, the Yankees. I got the Yankees behind me, I'm big Yankee fan. At the end, we don't know each other. At the end of that game, we're friends, right? We are, because we have something in common that we built a bond over. And for two to three hours, did we talk about other things?
Yeah, we did. Maybe we didn't get to abortion. Maybe not in the first game, but we got to things that we might otherwise disagree upon. And I'm listening to Evan saying, why, I never thought about that. It's interesting. And go whatever. Like, and at the end, the point being, we talked to you before, during, and after. And what you see is that evolution of this is how you find common ground and you're being rewarded for unity. Unity, I was sitting courtside to see the Nets. Division, I've been home watching, watching TV alone. Now I'm changing culture.
Evan Meyer: 58:56.899 love that.
Adam Mizel: 59:02.704 Here's how Unity is being rewarded, being promoted and saying, this is a good thing. And then good things happen from it. And the next thing and the next thing. then I've got, you know, I've got LeBron talking about it and I've got Tom Brady talking about it. I've got, you know, pick, you know, it doesn't matter whom I got Jack Hughes talking about it. Like, so those are things that we can do that change the culture, but say, this is what Unity looks like. It's going to get covered and.
Evan Meyer: 59:19.598 Great, very clever, very clever.
Adam Mizel: 59:32.868 Now we can, and it becomes really like, I could do that. Okay. So anyway.
Evan Meyer: 59:38.808 You know, you're using, it's funny, that's sort of like the common enemy approach, right? Like Independence Day with Will Smith. Like the whole world comes together to fight the aliens. You know, it's like, there's a little bit of like, hey, we're both here, but we'll call it, know, version light of that, right? But it's like, we're both here supporting the same team. We both want to see this team win and we will.
Adam Mizel: 59:42.726 Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 59:59.892 Use that, that's the forefront of this conversation and the relationship we're gonna build and the rest become secondary. Wasn't there like a Heineken commercial once where they like sat around and shit? Right?
Adam Mizel (01:00:08.804) Yes, seven or eight years ago with people who didn't know, like, I don't like gay people and they was talking to someone gay and didn't know it or whatever that may be. It was fabulous, that's right, that's right. Those are things we can do.
Evan Meyer (01:00:17.435) right, right, right, right, right, right. I was, I thought...
It's a good, we gotta call Heineken, get them back in the game here.
Adam Mizel (01:00:26.374) I'm working on it.
Evan Meyer (01:00:28.302) Call Will Smith. Maybe he'll help with the with the, you know, fighting the aliens. This was a great conversation. I could keep going. I actually have more questions, but I want to respect our time for today. This was awesome. Thanks for all you do. Great work you're doing. It's so needed and I'm so on board with what you're building. So thank you.
Adam Mizel (01:00:33.584) Yeah, yeah, perfect.
Adam Mizel (01:00:42.906) Yeah, I'll come back another time.
Adam Mizel (01:00:54.566) Thank you.
Thank you, I really appreciate you having me and it was super fun to talk about all these things.
Evan Meyer (01:01:01.976) Pleasure, sir. Take care.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity while preserving the authentic flow of conversation.
Written by
Evan Meyer
February 25, 2026