How to be more like Abe Lincoln, with Jonathan Shapiro

The key to living a legendary life is to strive to be more like Abe Lincoln.  At least, that is what my guest this week, Jonathan Shapiro, says is the key.  Join us for a conversation  about the principles of the great Abraham Lincoln, and how following seven steps can help us all lead a more extraordinary life.

We talk about stoicism, storytelling, humor, river raft rides, the heart of American culture, and the importance of love.  All of which lead us to look at how Abraham Lincoln, perhaps our greatest President of all time, built a blueprint that might save the soul of America.

Jonathan Shapiro has written and produced some of television’s most iconic legal dramas, including HBO’s The Undoing, Amazon Prime’s Goliath, and NBC Peacock’s The Calling. An Emmy and Humanitas Award-winner, Shapiro’s other television credits include Peacock’s Mr. Mercedes, based on the Stephen King novels, NBC’s series The Blacklist, FOX’s Justice, NBC’s Life, and the ABC series Boston Legal, The Practice, and Big Sky. His first play, Sisters in Law, premiered in 2019. He is the author of three books, including the novel Deadly Force (2015), and the memoir Lawyers, Liars, and the Art of Storytelling (2014). He is currently an adjunct law professor at the UCLA School of Law. Prior to becoming a writer, Shapiro practiced law for 12 years in the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, and of counsel at Kirkland & Ellis. A graduate of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in history from Harvard University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oriel College, Oxford University.

To buy his latest book:
How to Be Abe Lincoln: Seven Steps to Leading a Legendary Life

Transcript

Jessica Kidwell: 0:00

This podcast was created to be a space for conversation. The topics will vary, but the conversation will always be honest, authentic and sometimes even a little uncomfortable. My hope is that through these conversations, we will build a community of people who might not always agree with each other, but will definitely feel less isolated and alone. So I'm Jessica Kidwell and this is. We Should Talk About that. One, two, one, two. Hi. How are you?

Jessica Kidwell: 0:41

As long-time listeners know, I live just outside of Washington DC and this has been a wild week. Now, admittedly, I am a policy nerd, and especially when it comes to inside-the-beltway stuff. But I actually believe no matter if you're a policy nerd or you live inside or outside the beltway, this has been truly a historic week and this will probably air in a couple of weeks. So this will be old news, but also who knows how many other historic things will happen before this airs. Yet for the first time in history history the majority party in the House of Representatives has ousted its own leader. I mean, things are pretty fractured, politics feels broken and we seem to get politically more divided day after day. Yet when I start to spin out in a panic which I am want to do I usually try and pull perspective of well, I mean, we did have a civil war, an actual civil war, and as a country we're still here, so maybe we will be okay. And when you think of that most fractured time, you cannot help but think about the revered leader of that time, president Abraham Lincoln. He is held up as one of the greatest presidents and leaders in our history and perhaps ever, and many, many, many scholars and leaders and great thinkers and authors have studied why he is so great. In fact, 60,000 books have been published about Lincoln. You would think maybe there wouldn't be more to say about the man, the myth, the legend, but you would be wrong.

Jessica Kidwell: 2:24

My guest today is Jonathan Shapiro, and he has just released how Abe Lincoln: Seven Steps to Leading a Legendary Life. Jonathan Shapiro has written and produced some of television's most iconic legal dramas, including HBO's the Undoing, amazon Prime's Goliath and Peacock's the Calling. His other TV credits include the Blacklist, the Practice, Boston Legal, just to name a few. Prior to writing, he practiced law for 12 years in the US Department of Justice criminal division. He was also an assistant US attorney and he has worked for Kirkland Ellis Law Firm. He's currently an adjunct law professor at UCLA School of Law. He's the author of three books. He's won an Emmy and a Humanitist Award. He went to UC Berkeley, harvard and was a Rhodes Scholar, and today he's going to tell us all how we can emulate the life of the United States greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. Jonathan, welcome to. We Should Talk About that.

Jonathan Shapiro: 3:28

Thank you, I'm really honored to be here.

Jessica Kidwell: 3:32

That is an incredibly impressive bio, but it also seems very uniquely tailored to being a big fan and student of President Lincoln. When did you get hooked?

Jonathan Shapiro: 3:46

Well, I was home sick once in elementary school and the local TV network, channel 5, was showing John Ford's film how Young Abe Lincoln starring Henry Fonda, and I fell in love. I mean in all honesty, he became the role model. I must have been nine or 10. And I guess that's when I started thinking about becoming a lawyer and started getting interested in politics.

Jessica Kidwell: 4:17

So the book starts off with you spending a lot of time and I think it's an important use of time on discerning the difference between fact and truth. Would you mind talking a little bit more about that?

Jonathan Shapiro: 4:34

Sure, the book is partly a result of the arguments I found myself getting drawn into with people I love and people I like and people I don't know about politics and about science and the state of the world, and realizing that when I lived in Alexandria back in the early 90s and I worked at the Justice Department, we used to always say you know, you can have your position, but you can't make up the facts. And Abe Lincoln was even for a lawyer renowned for being obsessed with facts. And so you know, one of the things I talk about in the book is you cannot possibly be Abe Lincoln unless you understand the difference between a fact and an opinion, and also to understand that truth is wildly overrated.

Jonathan Shapiro: 5:35

And the reason I say that is because facts are hard things. They're hard to prove a fact. It requires thought and diligence, rationality and all the things that made Lincoln Lincoln. Truth has a wonderful reputation, but it's overrated, and I'll tell you why. My truth which is a term I hear used without irony versus your truth, it really shows the problem with truth. What makes truth truth is it can't be proven.

Jonathan Shapiro: 6:18

The most profound truths are based on faith. Faith is a wonderful thing. I'm a man of faith. I believe in God. I worship my faith pursuant to my religion. What our founding fathers knew, as wonderful as faith is, and the fact that you can't be Lincoln without faith, who's a man of faith too, means that faith, because it can't be proven and can't be objective, has no place in the public sphere. We all have the human need to find a truth that we can rely on, so we don't have to think very hard. Lincoln was the exact four square opponent of that. Everybody who practiced law with him, everyone in his cabinet, used to be driven crazy by how much time he would take to establish the fact Before we even start the steps. Before we can get back to the country we need to be again, we have to get back to a world based on facts.

Jessica Kidwell: 7:27

That is inherently hard, because, as technology continues to race ahead, being able to discern what a fact is starts to be harder. It's not without irony that the term alternative facts became utilized and now is almost accepted that there is such a thing as a different fact than the fact that I might present to you. It takes patience and time, and we are not interested in slowing down. How on earth can we encourage more deliberate thinking instead of the quick bite size? This is my truth, this is my opinion and I'm just going to move forward on that.

Jonathan Shapiro: 8:20

My first book. I wrote a book a few years ago called Lawyers, liars and the Art of Storytelling. I talked about the fact that I mentioned the fact that Abe Lincoln was considered the greatest storyteller of his generation. His career as a lawyer and as a politician was made by his ability to tell stories. People used to go to the White House not to meet the president, but to hear his new jokes.

Jonathan Shapiro: 8:45

Abe Lincoln was renowned for his honesty. The only lie he ever told was the truth. He told in stories. He told jokes to make a point. He was good friends with PT Barnum, a great seller of hoaxes and hoaxes. They were in the same business when Lincoln was working and living. This was the age where the telegraph, they said, could send a lie around the world before the truth could even get off the couch. Abe understood what he was up against. He didn't have social media, but he also had no help and had more pressure under him on him than any American who had ever lived. He was the commander in chief and the president at a time when he actually had to be a hands-on commander in chief.

Jonathan Shapiro: 9:35

How did Lincoln, to your question, do it and how can we do it? The first thing we have to do is embrace the notion that to be able to distinguish fact from falsehood is a sacred skill. It's actually why we're on earth. It's not just a luxury, it's a necessity. If you can't develop the wherewithal to go out and find the facts for yourself, then you've got a kind of either hubris to think that you just know things without investigation, or you're a sap, because if you're not going to go and learn the facts yourself, you're going to end up being reliant on people who are going to sell you hogwash.

Jonathan Shapiro: 10:20

Lincoln knew that, this no formal education guy who has raised an abject poverty. From literally the first time he could speak, according to his stepmother, all he wanted to know were facts. He wanted to know what he didn't understand and he would not take anything on faith or self-trust. That used to be an American principle. When you read Emerson on self-reliance, you realize Americans used to be Americans because they were self-reliant. They learned things themselves, they improved themselves. They didn't rely on corporations or businesses or preachers to tell them the facts. When I am shocked and disgusted how unbelievably gullible we've become.

Jessica Kidwell: 11:13

I wrote down many things in this book, but one of the things you've talked about is that it is incumbent upon us all that we must scrutinize the factual basis of our own opinions. I think that is so hard for many people because it just takes so much time. Why do I feel this way? Why do I believe this? Is this my opinion, or is this based in fact? It takes a slowness of thought that I just am not sure we're capable of getting back. I'm hopeful, I'm just not sure.

Jonathan Shapiro: 11:58

I'm not only hopeful. I know it will happen. Here's why we're all dealing with a new technology that we don't understand and are testing in real life At some point the American character is revulsion. Being told what to do and what to think the Americans need to be self-aligned will force Americans back into their native state. I think we're in a moment of ego dystonia. I think the reason we're so miserable is because we're not actually behaving and thinking the way that is harmonic with the American character.

Jessica Kidwell: 12:42

You think it's baked in. It's baked into us.

Jonathan Shapiro: 12:46

I think it is baked into us. I think Abe Lincoln believed it was baked into us. We have to remind ourselves because we have forgotten that we're the country of self-help and self-improvement. One of the steps I talk about in the book is to make this concrete. One of the steps that you have to take to be Lincoln is to learn how to navigate. I am a believer that if you can't read a map, if you can't direct your course from here to there based on the signs around you and the stars and the sun, if you don't know the difference between east and west without looking at your mobile device, you have become a sucker. You have become vulnerable to anyone telling you how to get anywhere. And I say in the book and I give people exercises on how to do it If you don't know how to get around by yourself, without reliance on technology, you are a child and you've lost a safe and skilled that has been with human beings from the very beginning.

Jessica Kidwell: 13:59

I do want to get into the way the book is set up and to kind of dive a little bit deeper into the seven steps. I really appreciate that you provide, at the end of every chapter, exercises to kind of help drive home the point that you're making with each step. Plus, there's additional resources that I think my streaming is going to have to change dramatically because of the number of movies that you have suggested, although I'm not sure many of them will be streamable because some of them are quite old. But anyway, the seven steps are basically built as an acrostic poem on Lincoln, which congratulations on being able to do that and they are laugh, improve, navigate, collaborate, object love. And now we talked a little bit about navigate already and I really thought it was interesting your discussion about fear and how fear played a role and how Lincoln chose to look at fear, and I personally get paralyzed by fear a little bit more than I care to admit. Can we just talk a little bit about fatalism? Versus what was it Fate?

Jonathan Shapiro: 15:27

Fatalism and fate versus educated fate. First of all, we all know fear is an essential thing that keeps us alive. Everything that is a healthy adaptation taken too far, becomes neurotic, and Abe Lincoln was capable of being extremely neurotic. Right, he had real mental challenges. He had suicidal ideations. He was also a stoic. I was blessed to have a sixth grade public school teacher who taught me about Marcus Aurelius, which was a book that Lincoln read also growing up.

Jonathan Shapiro: 16:06

And what did the Stoics tell us? It's okay to be afraid. To be human is to be afraid. Our only job on earth is to conquer our fears in order to do what we know is right. That's it. That's what will make us legendary, that's what made Lincoln Lincoln, and the only thing we can control is ourselves and how we view things. And that sounds simple until you try to live it every day. I am a practicing Jew and a practicing Stoic, and I'm allowed to be. You know why? The Stoics were living at the same time as the people who were compiling the Bible for a while. The Book of Deuteronomy is a Stoic text, in the same way that the Book of the Cleasiaskies is. So yeah, of course we're afraid. Of course we're afraid of getting into an argument with somebody. Of course we're afraid. Listen.

Jonathan Shapiro: 17:12

It occurred to me when I wrote this book. I'm going to get criticized and people are going to say bad things on social media. Like every time I do a TV show, people say terrible things in social media. You know what I did? I got off social media. And when my publisher says, well, you've got to get back on social media to promote the book, I said no, actually I don't. Either people buy the book because of wonderful podcasts like this or because of MSNBC, or they don't. And if they don't buy the book, I'm still going to be happy and healthy because the Stoic in me knows yeah, I wrote a book I'm proud of Now. Did I feel this way when I was 30? No. Did I feel this way before my dad died in April?

Jonathan Shapiro: 18:01

No, you know, part of being a Stoic is to get better every day. You know, lincoln was obsessed with death and I talked about the fact in the book that he could be a drag. That's a quote. He could absolutely be a drag. His favorite poems were about death. He endlessly talked about death. But that's what a Stoic does. Lincoln knew it as a child. I think some souls are born that way. I think his greatness rests in his knowledge of it. And I say in the book John Wilkes Booth didn't take anything from Lincoln that Lincoln wasn't prepared to give. That's what made him great.

Jonathan Shapiro: 18:41

And these are the steps. One of the steps I talk about is it is absolutely essential to be willing to object when failing to do so would cause you a moral injury. And I talk in the book about events in my life where I should have stood up and I didn't enter this day at Eats at noon. And I talk about a great congresswoman like Barbara Lee. Here's an African-American woman, the only person to stand up and vote against authorization for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I say she's a Lincoln.

Jonathan Shapiro: 19:15

It's not about race, it's not about gender, it's not about age, it's an understanding that we're only here a short time. And to be happy the Stoics teaches, to truly be happy, we have to be in harmony with what we know is good. And the reason we're miserable, I think, as a people right now, is because we know we're not doing that. Abe Lincoln stood up and opposed our invasion into the Mexican-American war as a young congressman and he got voted out of the house. He never regretted it. The Stoics looks for the opportunity to do something noble, like if we had Stoics in the House of Representatives, they would be running to the House to stand up and vote against what they know is wrong.

Jessica Kidwell: 20:06

Well, and it's objecting for a moral reason as opposed to. There's the cynical version of me that thinks about what just happened this week in the House and the objections that have come up seem more self-serving than based of like a real moral, like the Barbara Lee example you gave, or the Lincoln example, like, yes, everyone's voting for this, but this is wrong and I'm going to say no, whether it serves me personally, but because it's the right thing to do. Sometimes the objections that we see happening more and more lately are to get the hit on the talk show because it's almost hip how hip is that word? It's almost hip to be an objectionist.

Jonathan Shapiro: 21:01

Yeah, there's a huge difference between an objection that's based on principle and morals and being objectionable, and the difference, of course the 19th century and Lincoln's time had better language for it. See, they would have called what's going on now treasonous obstructionist. They would have seen the selfish, craven, greedy, non-community, base sort of low-rent hucksterism of what's been going on for too long in our country and they would have called it out. And what shames us as a people is that we keep electing those hucksters who are only in service of themselves. I don't get it. And so this book was a you know to be. Lincoln is to try to light a candle and just remind us who we are, rather than curse the darkness.

Jessica Kidwell: 22:01

To talk about Lincoln being a bit of a downer. However, the very first step, the L of Lincoln, is laugh. I really enjoyed this chapter and found it to be incredible because I don't think many people look at Lincoln and all of his stoic portraits and think this is a man who really had a great sense of humor and understood the power.

Jonathan Shapiro: 22:31

Yeah, I mean, I have to admit I have always been a person who needs to laugh. I mean, I married a comedy writer for a reason. My wife was writing on a show called Friends when we were dating and she wrote Just a little show, just a little one. And she's one of the writers of the song Smelly Cat. So, like Lincoln, ever since I was a little kid I laughed because I didn't want to cry. I mean.

Jonathan Shapiro: 23:00

I do not laugh every day. To me as hell Lincoln was the same way. Lincoln said that if he didn't laugh he would kill himself. And I say in the book that a sense of humor is like the other senses that were born with sight and smell. It's something that, whether we think it or not, our brains have evolved the limbic system with a dopamine feedback that makes us all gifted with a sense of humor, and we can develop it.

Jonathan Shapiro: 23:29

And what I love about Lincoln's sense of humor is he didn't just use it as a coping mechanism. He used it in a loving way to build community, to make a point and to show empathy. And I talk about the fact that it's not a mystery to me why the Ukraine is being led by a former comedian. The fact that Zelensky was a comic and laughter, I think, is the most powerful tool we have at this moment. I try to give people concrete ways they can improve their sense of humor, and not only improve their sense of humor, but be more in Lincoln's in their sense of humor and even talk about things Lincoln did wrong in his humor that we can afford.

Jessica Kidwell: 24:12

And in that vein, with all of the examples that you give and the resources that you give, then that leads us to the eye which is improve, which Lincoln, although he seemed to not have a breadth of self-improvement books that he turned to, but certainly did the depth.

Jonathan Shapiro: 24:34

His law partner, billy Herndon, one of God's great alcoholics and sort of the uncelebrated hero of the Lincoln story. One of his great collaborations said that Herndon said no man read as new books as deeply as Lincoln. Lincoln didn't read much, but what he read he completely owned. I talk about the fact that one of the most important books in Lincoln's life never gets any press, and I think it's because it was written by a woman and it's a self-help book on character.

Jessica Kidwell: 25:08

I had never heard of it before. I saw it in your book.

Jonathan Shapiro: 25:11

And what's so fascinating to me is not only did he read it, he annotated it and gave it to Mary Todd, and so we find the book both in Lincoln's library and hers. And it's a book about really it's a 2023 self-help book because it's about how to improve your character, and it's got all the elements of the secret. You know every single self-help book I've read in the last few years. It's about how to make yourself emotionally and spiritually better and more successful, and I swear there are chapters in that book and I quote them that if I told you Lincoln wrote them, you'd have said, yeah, that makes sense.

Jessica Kidwell: 25:56

Because they were so integral to how he lived his life.

Jonathan Shapiro: 26:00

Yes, you know it's interesting. Americans are self-improvers. We've always been self-improvers. The self-help books Lincoln read were real concrete. When I go to my local bookstore I see all the self-help books about how to make yourself less of a victim and more emotionally sound. And you know, I argue in the book that to be Lincoln, you ought to pick up a book about how to build a birdhouse. You ought to pick up a self-help book about how to do something tangible. And I love Lincoln because he was always trying to improve himself, to the point of he used to buy humor books in order to steal the material and he was very open about it. You know, in the same way, that Ronald Reagan would take a joke and fit it to his purpose and gosh, I don't understand why our leaders don't do the same.

Jessica Kidwell: 26:55

So L-I-N. We talked about navigate. So then we go to C collaborate. And immediately what comes to mind for people, I think, of our age and generation, is Doris Kern's Goodwin team of rivals Like oh, of course, yes, he's a master, a master at collaborating because he surrounds himself with people who disagree with him. But it's so much deeper than that, right.

Jonathan Shapiro: 27:27

You know I love that book and that book became the source material for Lincoln. Spielberg maybe, but I don't agree with it. I mean I think she and not me. It's scholars of tremendous note that pointed out that Lincoln really didn't collaborate with those people. What he did was control them. He took the enemies that had tried to run for president inside the tent to keep an eye on them as much as any and to sort of freeze the opposition from his own corner.

Jonathan Shapiro: 27:58

Where I think Lincoln's greatness was based on collaboration is more clearly seen in his relationships that he really did rely on and needed to be successful. And the first great collaboration in his life was with his stepmother, sarah, who encouraged his learning. The next great collaboration were with his fellow lawyers, who he traveled to circuit with. But the two most important collaborations in Abe Lincoln's life there is no Abe Lincoln without these two people and his work with them were the two most horrible personalities you could have met. Like Lincoln, who admitted he wasn't a great collaborator, made himself collaborate unbelievably well with two people who could not have been less easy to collaborate with Billy Herndon and Mary Todd.

Jonathan Shapiro: 28:52

And you know, collaboration is the ability to put your own ego aside and to let someone else be the star of the show and to feel empowered and to be heard and to actually take their advice and to show them the respect and love that they deserve for helping you, and to do it even when you don't want to. And I could have made that seat compromised, but compromise is such a dirty word now that I thought better to find collaboration, because collaboration requires that you understand that you have a common goal. If I was a member of the House of Representatives, I would keep in mind that my goal is to make the country better and I would collaborate with people on my side and the other side where it would benefit the country. That's how Lincoln lived. That was how Lincoln became a great man.

Jessica Kidwell: 29:49

You introduced a concept to me of the pragmatic empathy and although I have heard this quote before, I will admit I did not know it was Lincoln where it is. I do not like that man. I must get to know him better and that is such an important way to live and kind of helps us with this facts-true thing. We started with the conversation earlier with getting past the opinion that you have of someone and getting curious about why they're like that.

Jonathan Shapiro: 30:26

Lincoln famously said you cannot say you love America and hate labor.

Jonathan Shapiro: 30:36

Lincoln believed that the average common person was the most noble and important part of our country, not a corporation and I think there are a lot of corporations in the social media space and in my own space of television.

Jonathan Shapiro: 30:52

They get a lot of money by keeping us divided, angry and unwilling to learn about each other. And whether it's the disappearance of social clubs, whether it's the loneliness of the American individual, whether it's Congress not going out on retreats and having lunch with the other side, we have fallen victim and become suckers to people who want to keep us from talking to each other in a civil, rational way. For all I know, they're all Russian or Chinese bots who are saying horrible things about each other to get the other side ginned up for a fight. And I'm telling you, if the book does nothing else, I am convinced from the reaction. This point is the thing that I'm going to talk about for the rest of my life, because I don't care what religion you come from, I don't care if you're an atheist or a diagnostic. How can somebody else's shoes? It isn't an option to throw up your hands and say I'm writing that person off.

Jessica Kidwell: 31:56

That's a fellow American Right. Seeing their humanity, they're a human being.

Jonathan Shapiro: 32:02

You know, and it's ironic because if you ask my friends and family, they'll tell you I'm one of the most rotten people who ever lived and I don't like anybody but to be. Lincoln has required of me that I reach out to people who I have said I'm never going to talk to that guy. You know what I found and I continue to find. When I make the amends of actually talking to them, there's always something we have common ground on. It's hard though it's really hard. You know what else is hard Building?

Jonathan Shapiro: 32:32

a flat boat and going a thousand miles to New Orleans, being as ugly as Abe Lincoln was.

Jessica Kidwell: 32:40

He was clearly gifted at the self deprecation, which is a disarming sense of humor and humanizes you to your audience and therefore sometimes the messaging can get through a little bit more.

Jonathan Shapiro: 32:55

Absolutely. I mean, I love Franklin Roosevelt, I love Harry Truman, I love, I must say, Ronald Reagan. It has nothing to do with point. What it has to do with is the leader's ability to be plain spoken. Abe Lincoln, that's what people would say. He was someone who could talk to the least powerful person or the most powerful person, and both people would feel that they were his equal. Which takes me to the step that I guess means the most to me, which is love.

Jonathan Shapiro: 33:28

You can't be Abe Lincoln without love, and I've read so many of the great books about Lincoln. This is the one area that they don't talk about enough and it's surprising because so many of Lincoln's contemporaries talk about it. And I quote his bodyguard in the book, who talks about how frustrating it was to try to explain why Lincoln was so great to people who didn't even know him. And the bodyguard said finally he realized in watching Lincoln deal with Tad and if Tad were alive today he'd be diagnosed on the autism scale and having learning disabilities. Tad had real tough obstacles growing up and no matter what Tad did in his unrulyness, including breaking into cabinet heat, Lincoln would get down on his knees and take the time and listen to Tad and the bodyguard said that was Lincoln. Lincoln's greatness was his love, his heart, his ability to not only love but be loved. I don't think you can be Lincoln without having the capacity to love. I guess it's possible, but why would you want it?

Jessica Kidwell: 34:44

It's that other L the laugh and the love. Like you can NOT do those things, but why would you want to?

Jonathan Shapiro: 34:54

And I have to say, the older I get, the more I find I'm not a Jew for Jesus, but I'm not a Jew against Jesus and, as a matter of fact, if I'm really down, I'll read the sermon on my mouth, Because whatever your faith or no faith, if you don't know love is the most powerful force in the human experience, you really don't understand history. And I think Lincoln understood it and lived it. And so that quote I don't know that man, I need to get to know him better has kind of become my mantra. The experience of life has taught me that's a good piece of practical advice.

Jessica Kidwell: 35:43

Yeah, which then brings us to the end, which is now, because we don't want to have to have the wisdom of age to be able to start seeing the value of all of these steps. The onus is on us to act now.

Jonathan Shapiro: 36:01

I have enough self-help books that I did not make use of on my shelf to know this is the hardest step. This is the hardest step because to make the idea, to make the dream, a reality is a lot of hard work and a lot of disappointment and a lot of frustration. And again, lincoln knew what he was getting into and I truly believe, and those who knew him believe, that if he had known what was going to happen at Ford's Theater, he would not have changed the thing. And I'm not able, and for God's sake I fail in each one of these steps. But I guarantee you that trying to take each step every day now today makes today better For me. It just does. So I hope people will try it for themselves because it will make them happier and it will make the country better.

Jessica Kidwell: 37:02

I like that you close the book with thinking about the Lincolns that are in your life, and I also like that you then challenge the reader to think about the Lincolns in their life, and that has been an interesting exercise for me. You already mentioned Barbara Lee. Can you give me another example that you hold up as a Lincoln in your life?

Jonathan Shapiro: 37:30

My mom, 87-year-old Debbie Shapiro. God bless her. I hope the last of that generation of women who got into college and her immigrant parents said a woman doesn't need to go to college and so she didn't. A woman who has spent her life improving herself. She keeps a list of all the books she reads every year and if she doesn't hit 100, she will stay up for two weeks before the new year to get there she is—I used to joke that if my FBI agents when I was a prosecutor asked as many questions as my mother, we would have had better cases. She's a woman who objects to the point where I've almost had fights trying to pull her out of arguments, but she's always objecting to things that are morally correct. She was a bank teller for 38 years and I tell this story elsewhere. But she was a bank teller for 38 years from Bank of America. She was held up four times. The last time she was held up, at gunpoint, she said the robbers were white men in black makeup. Every other person in the bank said they were African-Americans.

Jonathan Shapiro: 38:44

The FBI, when I was a kid, came to my house and tried to convince my mom she was wrong. Well, you don't convince Debbie Shapiro she's wrong. She was married 66 years to my dad, I think, because she would never admit a mistake. So they arrest the guys two weeks later, and of course they were white guys in black paint. My mother's capacity to love is profound, and if she gave me nothing else, I think she genetically and nurturingly gave me that. She always says don't put it off, it's tomorrow. Doing that, even her deal with the grief of losing my dad was Lincoln-esque. I think that the exercise is a good one. I'm so touched that you're doing it, because here's what I have found doing it, Everybody's got Lincoln-esque qualities, everybody, and when you spot them in someone you have common ground Wow.

Jessica Kidwell: 39:40

Well, you're welcome for doing the exercise, and it is. I think it's worthy, I think it's important, all the steps are important, but I do think because sometimes I think it's hard for us to imagine embodying these steps ourselves, and it's helpful to see that it's all around us because it makes it a little bit more attainable then for maybe me, if I can identify it, and the people that are around me who I know also value me. So I think it's an important exercise, but you're welcome for doing it. So, jonathan, I tie every episode together at the end with the theme of each season, and this season I have a theme of evolution and what evolution means to each of my guests. Now we could go into what it would mean to Lincoln, but I would like to know what evolving and evolution means to you.

Jonathan Shapiro: 40:48

That's a great question, and what it means to me is that God doesn't throw dice or make mistakes, and so something that seems like a defect in one's DNA, I find, is often a spur to greatness and leads to an adaptation to evolution that makes us, as an animal and as a race, better. And so we talk about imperfect beauty, and I think evolution is the beautiful process whereby we are taught time and time again that everything that looks like a defect can be a gift.

Jessica Kidwell: 41:32

I am so grateful to you for this conversation today for everybody listening. How are the best ways that they can find out more about this book and all your other books?

Jonathan Shapiro: 41:42

So apologies to all because I'm not on social media, but you can get the book on Amazon and Target and wherever fine books are sold. You can listen to the podcast out of the Lincoln and contact me there I'm also. I notice that my email address and my address is available through the American Bar Association and the California State Park, so I'm not hard to find. If you're talking to the governor of Pennsylvania, though, you're with the wrong, jonathan Shapiro.

Jessica Kidwell: 42:15

Okay, noted, very noted, and the book again is how Abe Lincoln: Seven Steps to Leading a Legendary Life, and I am so grateful to you, Jonathan, for the conversation today and for taking the time to be on the show.

Jonathan Shapiro: 42:31

You're a delight. Thank you very much.

Jessica Kidwell: 42:33

We Should Talk About That is hosted and produced by me, Jessica Kidwell. The audio engineering is done by Jarrett Nicolay at Mixtape Studios in Alexandria, virginia. The theme song "Be where you Are is courtesy of Astrovia. Graphic design is by Kevin Adkins.

Jessica Kidwell: 42:52

If you have a topic we should talk about, let me know. Submit your idea on our website, www. westatpod. com. There's a form right on the main page for you to get in touch with me. And if you don't have a topic but you want to let me know what you thought about the show, think about leaving me a voicemail. You can call Weestat at 631-4-WeSTAT that's 631-493-7828. Or you can send me a comment on any of our social links Facebook, instagram, linkedin, threads, that platform formerly known as Twitter. On all of these you can find me at Westatpod. You may even hear your comments on the air. And finally, there is no we without your participation. I really couldn't do this podcast without your support. So thank you for being here, and if you or your business want to monetarily support the show, I'd appreciate that too. Call me at info at weestatpodcom for more information.