On Becoming a Purposeful Warrior

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Transcript

Rob Johnson:

Hi, this is Rob Johnson, president of Institute for New Economic Thinking. I’m here today as a child from Michigan, with Jocelyn Benson, who’s an old friend and who is the secretary of state in Michigan. Also very importantly, has just written an outstanding book. It’s called, The Purposeful Warrior. I’ll put it up there.

I, how would I say, when I think about medicine and what diseases there are, I couldn’t imagine better medicine to read in a time of such stress, the disease of political economy now than this book. You are, how would I say, Jocelyn, you have gone into yourself and shared what it’s like to be that courageous warrior in the context of all the cross currents and contradictions of life. So thank you for joining me. And I guess you’ve done so many interesting things in your life, whether working with professional athletes or being down in Selma or Oxford University, Harvard Law School, being courageous in the context of the electoral college votes, being declared as what might call truthful and accurate for the state of Michigan, many, many things and marathon runner. Not only that, but you, you took your soon to be sewn all the way around the 26 mile track. So this book is fascinating, but what’s it’s telling you is that you’re fascinating. It’s not, that’s not what’s telling you, it’s telling the reader, but thanks for writing it. Let’s, let’s go right into why did, what inspired you to write this book, given all the things you have going on in life?

Jocelyn Benson:

Well, you know, it started right after the 2020 election when I wanted to really tell the story about what we had experienced. And what it really grew into was a conversation about how we all have a warrior in us that we can use to fight and stand up to power.

So that was the essence of the book and to really tell the story of how only we have the power to define who we are and that even in challenging uncertain moments like we experienced in 2020, we always have the power to decide how we will respond and what we will do to further our hopes and our vision for a better world.

Rob Johnson:

Well, I’ve read a lot over the years of what they call Jungian psychology after the great Carl Jung. And he talks about what he calls the shadow in a person and to simplistically build it out for our audience. What he means by the shadow is you do things as an emotional creature where you have fear. And sometimes your fear stops you from doing what you think matters, and you become ashamed of that. But instead of dealing with the shame, you bury it in your subconscious. You don’t admit that your fear is what’s driving your activity. And what you’ve done in this book is explored how to go into yourself and address what really is purposeful and meaningful, and to stay with it. And there are different stories that you tell, there are different ways in which you, which you might call bring that courage to the surface. And I’m fascinated. I mean, the sense that I have is that governance, I always cite Muhammad Ali’s famous short poem at the Harvard commencement, “me - we,” we’re on a pendulum. And when you’re only doing “me” and there’s so much angst in what people talk about now as like a reoccurring of the Weimar Republic in Germany, that how to be a leader in such anxious times and how to go into yourself and unlock yourself to stay with that purpose, I think is an extraordinary journey, which you take us on in this book.

Jocelyn Benson:

Well, thank you. That means a lot. I mean, it was really important to me to be able to encourage people not just to find the ability to choose courage over fear, but to also see the power of doing that and that we can all not just build a bravery muscle together, but that we inspire others to do the same. And so for me, it was a great opportunity to tell various stories throughout my life of how I’ve built that bravery muscle, but to recognize, you know, I tell stories, as you know, about how we stand up courageously and sometimes we don’t get the outcome that we want, but we can always, oftentimes find ways to inspire others with that same, with those same actions. So, you know, my hope is that people can find through this book, the ability to see every challenge as an opportunity to really grow your bravery muscle and find the strength to build resilience and get better. And so the book is rooted in almost a how-to guide of how we can all be warriors on behalf of ourselves and those we love and the communities we call home.

Rob Johnson:

Yeah. Well, there’s one, what I call the story that made me shiver, particularly in light of what’s just happened in Minnesota as I was reading the book. But you talked about when you had, how they say declared that the electoral college votes would go to Michigan because the votes were what I’ll call ethically and honest and counted. And then some people showed up with weapons at your doorstep where you and your child were in the house. That, how do you say? But what you tell us in that story is that’s really scary, but you’re not going to let the scary people win by intimidating you and taking you off course of the life that you think is meaningful. But tell us a little bit how you got from that really haunting experience back out on deck and moving forward.

Jocelyn Benson:

Well, you’re right. felt real fear when armed protesters showed up outside my home just a few feet away from my son and my husband. And I didn’t know if they were going to try to come in or what they would do to me. what I did know that as Secretary of State, as the chief election officer for the state of Michigan, I was the last line of defense to protect the votes and the voices of Michigan citizens and ensure. that our democracy prevailed. And so that was how I found strength and purpose in that moment to respond and really, in that case, standing up to the President of the United States, not to be partisan, but because the truth and the law matters.

And so we fought back ultimately with facts and, you know, a determination to ensure democracy prevailed. And through that, you know, we have had many threats, bomb threats, swatting attempts, hate mail, people showing up at our home again, everything in between. But we always stand firm in who we are and not play, you know, not succumb to the bullying, but stand up to it with truth, courage, and a fierce defense of our values.

Rob Johnson:

But who we are isn’t like, how would I say, not distorted by the fear. You have a sense, a clear sense of inner meaning and purpose in life. And it’s fascinating. know, when you talk in the book about going down to Selma and when you were working in restaurants in order to do a volunteer’s job.

But how would I say, that importance excited me as I was reading because I’m thinking that right now, to use Ali, we got to get back to “we.” And when concentrated wealth, like we’ve seen, Ali is accompanied by what I’ll call Citizens United and the money politics. So money is, to my call, overwhelming voting as a currency for determination of how America should be. You’re dealing with all kinds of cross currents, but you’ve kept the bullseye of the collective common good as your focal point.

Jocelyn Benson:

Yeah, because we’re all connected. And the first chapter of my book talks about how we’re all in this together. This is everybody’s fight. I started my career as in Montgomery, Alabama, investigating extremist organizations around the country. And it was being there and spending time in Selma where I was instilled with this deep sense of responsibility to continue the work of those who stood at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge 60 years ago, facing down violence and tear gas and Billy clubs simply because they believed the one person, one vote promise in our constitution should be a reality for everyone. So for me, that was finding a purpose to fight for the same reasons they fought our best chance for everyone having a fair shot to succeed and thrive and prosper begins and ends with equal access to the vote and educational opportunity and economic prosperity.

Rob Johnson:

Yeah. And you know, this, this notion of freedom, I just brought up how money can contort what we do, but weapons can too. I’ve always wondered about freedom, freedom to use a gun on someone else. Do you or I have freedom not to be shot? it just, it feels to me like a false consciousness to pretend that I mean, I was living in Connecticut during the Sandy Hook attacks on the schools. Why should our children be subjected to death by gunfire? I can’t find a way to defend that, but there does seem to be quite a powerful and intimidating force within our republic.

Jocelyn Benson

Well, and yet the power of the vast majority of the people will always be greater than the people in power. And we do have the power to ensure our kids can go to public school and get a quality education and then come home safe. And that we can live in a world where our kids can go to school free from fear of gun violence. And that’s why I’m in this fight. That’s the warrior spirit. That’s what I’m a warrior for. And what history teaches us is that when we have that type of focus, all of us can be warriors for a world like that and fight for that together.

Rob Johnson:

Yeah. I’m kind of smiling inside as I’m listening to you right now, because I’ve spent a lot of time in Northern California and a lot of time in New York. And when I came back to Detroit, as I do each year for the Homecoming Conference last year, I remember talking to Mary Kramer and others and saying, you know, everybody’s terrified in San Francisco and New York now.

And when I come to Detroit, everybody says, we’ve been through this before. We’re going to rise up now. We’re going to get beyond this. And I think not only would I say the example of you as the purposeful warrior, but the example of the state of Michigan in the transformation and recovery and reinvigoration of democracy is a very exciting potential right now. And I know you’re very involved in the leadership and the future of Michigan. Am I just being romantic or you think I got an intuition that might make sense?

Jocelyn Benson:

I know, I think we’ve got a lot of work to do together, especially in this moment to redefine who we are and for governors in particular, and you know I’m running for governor here in Michigan. The work has got to be to… you know, work with anyone to improve economic prosperity, cut the cost of living and raise wages, but also still be prepared to stand up for our values to anyone, even if it’s the richest person in the world or the president of the United States.

Rob Johnson:

Yeah. Well, I want to take this book to a higher level in the sense that I knew you and I knew you were going to run for governor. But this book isn’t just an advertisement for you. It’s a teaching manual for me about how to get through all the fears and resistances to being the best you can be. And I think this is a timeless volume. It’s really, really beautiful and deep.

Jocelyn Benson:

Thank you. That means a lot. I’m glad because again, I started this as a book to tell my story, but it really evolved into an effort to inspire us all around the country to, you know, stand up for what we believe in in moments like this.

Rob Johnson:

Yes. At any rate, let’s talk about Marathon running. How did you see, I mean, I’ve read the book, but how did you see ex-ante what doing marathons would do to nourish you and strengthen your spirit?

Jocelyn Benson:

Yeah, well, it’s quite a metaphor for life running marathons, being able to, you know, put one foot in front of the other and accomplish things that when I start out, I oftentimes don’t think I can accomplish. I’ve run over almost 40 marathons now and every time I wonder whether or not I can really do it. But surely enough, one foot in front of the other, I’m able to make it happen. And that’s really taught me that oftentimes we can take on big things and solve big problems, even if it doesn’t seem possible when we start out on a journey. But by taking one step at a time in furtherance of that goal in that direction, we can achieve it. And so I love running one because it’s invigorating and there’s a lot of health benefits, but more importantly, it’s a way to remind me in a very real meditative way that we can oftentimes accomplish far more than we think we can when we start out on any journey.

Rob Johnson:

I’ll tell you a little story from my family that it’s, it’s not about me. It’s analogous to you. My father was an all-American swimmer at university of Michigan. They had won some NCAA championship and stuff. then he always stayed in master swimming. And when he was in his seventies, he went to the Detroit athletic club and swam five miles while people on WJR talked every 20 minutes about how he was proceeding, et cetera, to inspire raising money for vaccination of children. And eventually some of the companies, I believe Pfizer was in Ann Arbor in those days, who were providing the drugs, contributed the drugs so the money could be used to buy presents to reward the children who had the courage to be vaccinated on Belle Isle. But to imagine my father in his seventies swimming five miles, he swam a mile all the time, but five miles in order to do that charitable work was just a beautiful experience. And when I read about you in marathons, I started thinking more deeply about my dad’s sense of purpose, but how he had

Jocelyn Benson:

Wow. Wow. That is amazing.

Rob Johnson:

He played water polo. did all kinds of things, but, I remember going to Hawaii with him where he was on the Nepali coast and he swam five miles. went in a boat. His predatory sharks and stuff came. We could get him out of water, but he swam all the way out there. But for him swimming was like what I learned inside was about for you, the running and the marathons and it brought to life.

Jocelyn Benson:

my gosh, that’s tough.

Rob Johnson:

That experience I had as a child watching him. And I was a little bit older when he went to the DAC and swimming, but everybody was telling me about it. yeah, but, so are there other, uh, we might call things athletically that you do or is the marathon been the centerpiece? mean, running 40 of them is amazing.

Jocelyn Benson:

Yeah, and you know, I also worked in sports, which I talk about in the book. I really think at a time when we have so many divisions in our country, sports and the arts as well really can unite people and bring people together. So I ran an organization that was about leveraging that unifying power of sports to bring people together on social justice issues. And it was really powerful to work with so many athletes around the country who wanted to leverage their voice in a way that made a difference.

Rob Johnson:

I, when you talked about arts that really caught fire with me, my mother won the heart of gold award in 1975 in the state of Michigan. Cause she was the head of the Detroit symphony orchestras foundation at that time. And I, my dad was a big jazz pianist and many of the famous Motown artists and stuff were patients in his medical practice. All this energy brought me to music. But, but the artistic energy in my family really started with my grandmother who came from Stuttgart. And you’ve probably been on Belle Isle and seen the Friedrich Schiller statues on Belle Isle. Friedrich Schiller wrote a book and he wrote a poem which inspired Beethoven to create Ode to Joy. But Friedrich Schiller talked about how beauty was how would I say, the morning gate. And only through beauty could one understand and gain knowledge and that the arts and particularly poetry and music were the pathway. And so when I heard you talking in the book about the arts, I thought, wow, the, how would I say, there’s a book by Muriel Rukajer called The Life of Poetry.

And it’s about how, which I might call poetry, is flowing within you and changing who you are and can be. She wrote the book, and the first part of the book is called The Fear of Poetry. And it was because she had gotten on a ship to come back to North America because a bombing was taking place at the beginning of the Second World War. And she was one of the people who evacuated on this boat.

And then she talked about when everybody was traumatized, she tried to soothe them by reading poetry, but poetry was too complex and they were scared. And it took a lot of a while for her to understand what I’ll call the emotional context of the arts as a way of unlocking the, what would you call it? The deeper self that, and

But just, it was so exciting to me to see you talking about the arts that I went and found this poem, it’s called “Die Künstler,” which in English means to be artist. Only through beauty’s morning gate, does thou penetrate the land of knowledge. And I read that when I did the eulogy at John Sinclair’s funeral a year or so ago in Detroit. because he, with the MC5 and all of the various things, was a beacon of the relationship between arts and politics in your state of Michigan.

Jocelyn Benson:

Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, that’s beautiful. Yeah, one of my goals as governor will be to make sure every kid has access to quality arts education in the schools and that we elevate arts and culture and tourism and sports to a cabinet level position that can really develop strategic investments in all of those areas and build out those.

Rob Johnson:

And in the book you also talk about earlier how you tried to cultivate the elevation of Wayne State University’s law school. That’s an interesting mission once again.

Jocelyn Benson:

Yeah, I loved that work. I was the Dean of Wayne State Law School for about five years, four or five years. And it was, it was, I was the youngest woman at the time ever, ever to run a accredited law school in the country. And, you know, it was interesting. I was 35. A lot of people doubted me. And, you know, I presented our 10-year plan to raise our national rankings and make law school affordable for more students. And it was not immediately received. But, you know, that was the plan that turned Wayne State into a top 10 public law school and opened the doors to students who otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance. And so we can do big things. You know, we can deliver. And as you know, Michigan has always been a state willing to take a bet on strong leaders and see those bets pay off.

Rob Johnson:

Well, one of the things my dad did was try to build, his father had built two hospitals on the South side of Chicago during the Great Depression. So he, instead of going for what you might call the big scorecard, decided to create things in conjunction with Harper hospital for the underserved children in the Detroit metropolitan area. And he was very fortunate because there were two wonderful men, Joe Dumars and Isaiah Thomas, who stood with him to inspire people to, how do say, not be afraid and reach out to this doctor and take care of the health of their children. so there’s the, how would I say here? Michigan’s a great challenging place to learn, but Wayne State University is right in the organic center of those challenges.

And there was, you know, John Sinclair did a lot of poetry and so forth. When Joni Mitchell stabilized her life, she married Chuck Mitchell and they lived down near Wayne State. You’re teaching at the law school. My dad taught at the medical school. it’s, Wayne State’s a beautiful place.

Jocelyn Benson:

It is, it is. Yeah, I loved my time there.

Rob Johnson:

I am. what, I have daughters now who are 13 and 16. And I’m curious what message you would want to impart to them. I’m going to, they’re, they’re visiting their grandmother now, but when they get home, I’m going to be talking to them about reading your book. But, but the, what would you, what’s your advice…

Jocelyn Benson:

Wow, that means a lot.

Rob Johnson:

…to teenagers who are looking at America right now, whether from the state of Michigan or just more nationally, what’s your prescription for their health

Jocelyn Benson:

Well, I would say two things. One, to realize that, you know, the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. But similarly, no one has the power to define who you are or your future. Only you have that power to define who you are. And even in challenging and uncertain moments, we always have the power to decide how we will respond and what we’re going to do, as I was mentioning before. that related to that, every challenge is an opportunity. will find, every one of us will go through life and encounter things we can’t control and uncertainties that come our way that we can’t anticipate that, and I found this in my own life, that we can all rise up and still be warriors on behalf of ourselves and then use that challenging moment to actually make us stronger. mean, whether you’re battling a toxic workplace or navigating a loss or trying to decide what you want to do in various areas of your life, so many components of life can diminish our light. But as long as we stand in our power and push forward toward our goals and embrace challenges with grit and with grace. We can all be purposeful warriors fighting for what we believe in. And that’s what I wrote the book as a call to action for us all to become. And but related to that really hope that that that women like your daughters can can take those lessons to heart and become those courageous purposeful warriors choosing courage over fear and grit and grace and empathy because that’s really what it’s going to take to get through this moment and develop and build that better world.

Rob Johnson:

Yeah, when I follow the narrative in your book, it always brings up thoughts through what songs do this relate to? And I thought the early parts of your book, I hate to go away from Detroit, but Teddy Pendergrass wrote a song called Wake Up Everybody. And it talks about teaching the children and all kinds of different things that reminded me of your Wayne State experience. But I have to give Diana Ross the crown jewel of echoing your spirit. When she wrote the song, Reach Out and Touch somebody’s hand, make this world a better place if you can. You made this world a better place by writing that book. And I believe you’re going to make this world a better place by being the next governor of the state of Michigan. And I just want all of my listeners, audience, colleagues, and friends to step up and get behind you and learn about themselves which is a positive from supporting you.

Jocelyn Benson:

Thank you. That means a lot. Well, people can go to jocelynbenson.com to learn more about me and our race for governor. And I hope they pick up my book, The Purposeful Warrior, and go on social media or send me a message through our website and let me know what you think.

Rob Johnson:

Yeah, well, America is going to be a marathon and you’re a marathon runner. You’re going to take us higher. Great. Thanks for joining me today and perhaps we’ll do another session as the elections approach and however I can help.

Jocelyn Benson:

Thank you, Rob. That means so much. Thank you for all the work that you do. Great to join you for some time today and thanks for having me on the show.

Rob Johnson:

My pleasure. Bye-bye. Safe travels.

Jocelyn Benson:

Thank you.