I recorded this one because election day in Wisconsin left me frustrated and unwilling to accept politics as usual. I use my why, how, what lens to ask what government is for, how the Constitution guides it, and why problem-solving matters more than followers, power, or a single issue. I also challenge myself—and you—to step back from offense, look toward the greater good, and judge leaders by how they arbitrate, negotiate, and navigate dissent. This is not about picking a side; it is about finding a better way to move forward together.
[04:26] “The word government, I love to dig into words, actually means to guide.”
[08:20] “I'll remind you what I've said before is that any groups that look out in the future far enough will align, even Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, Muslims and Christians.”
[10:24] “I really don't care what you personally believe. I want to know how you solve problems because there's a lot of them and they're hard.”
[10:50] “Can you actually use integrity of policy to deliver solutions that go for the greater good?”
[12:38] “Instead, I'd like to look at it and say, let's look at some ways we can make this better.”
This week, choose one election, public issue, or workplace decision that has become emotionally charged. Write down its why, how, and what: the shared outcome you want, the principles that should guide the process, and the action that needs to happen next. Then read the Constitution's preamble, ask one person with a different view what long-term outcome they want, and evaluate the available leaders by how they solve problems—not simply by whether they repeat your position.
Visit Motivational IQ for the show and The WorkJoy Project to learn about Andy's coaching, consulting, workshops, project rescue, and free consultation. You can also connect with Andy on LinkedIn. Subscribe to the podcast feed, share this episode with someone who wants a more constructive political conversation, and leave a rating or review in your podcast app so more people can discover the show.
[00:00] Andy Thompson: Welcome back to Motivational IQ, where we open up your brain and look at what makes things resonate or drag you down. Today, I'm irritated. Today is about politics because I live in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin right now, there's elections going on and I feel a moral obligation to vote, but I'm in a conundrum. So, I'm Andy Thompson. I'm a coach, business consultant with 30 years of IT experience, project management, leadership, project rescue, project office. I do small business consulting. I help people with their careers. I love helping
[00:32] Andy Thompson: small business and I've got some openings. So, look me up and let's talk. I do a free consult first, see if I've got something that can help you out. I'm an avid reader, a broad spectrum studier, like read tons and tons of things and like to connect the dots. Today, I'm going to apply that all to politics. Before I start, I want to talk about just politics as a really hot-button topic and can get people all riled up.
[01:01] Andy Thompson: My goal is not to offend and neither is it to pick a side. It's really to kind of look at, say, why are we doing what we're doing? How are we doing it? And what's going on? Mostly because I'm really dissatisfied with the state of politics, government and elections right now. And I look at everything through the lens of why, how, what, which is the motivational lens, right? What makes me move? I'm an action guy. I like to get things done. So, I kind of poke at it and pick at it. So, I want to talk about being offended because some of you are probably going to be offended by the things I say and it's not my intent to.
[01:31] Andy Thompson: So, here are some quotes. This is Marcus Aurelius, put from you the belief that I have been wronged and with it go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. That's from Meditations, Marcus Aurelius. Another one, this is from Nelson Mandela, somebody who had the right to be offended but chose not to be. As I walk out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison. Pretty, pretty stern when we're talking about politics.
[02:00] Andy Thompson: Hopefully, none of you feel like that's the case. Another one, this is a proverb from the Bible. A foolish man takes offense when it isn't meant. A wise man learns not to take offense when it is. And this one from Bryant McGill, the feeling of being offended is a warning indicator that is showing you where to look within yourself for unresolved issues. And the last one by Viktor Frankl, one of my personal heroes, our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude. Quote, between stimulus and response there's a space. In the
[02:30] Andy Thompson: space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Today is voting day in Wisconsin. I feel a moral obligation to vote and yet I can't bring myself to vote for any of the candidates. It's not because I think the candidates are bad or wrong. It's because I feel like the condition and state of politics and elections and government has just gotten screwy. I want to talk about that. I want to talk about why, how, and what, what that means. My wife asked me this morning, why, why is it, why is it the way it is?
[03:02] Andy Thompson: Why can't we like these candidates? My comment to her was that I felt like the biggest impact over the last, I don't know, 20 years, probably longer has been ego, power, and like getting rich has entered into the equation for politicians. It's no longer like when I was growing up, it was about public service and doing good for the greater cause, but it also gave people too much glory. Anyway, my comment was politics seems the candidates are about them and what
[03:32] Andy Thompson: they would do and what they believe. And it shouldn't be about that. I believe Andy Thompson believes it should be about how they solve problems, how they arbitrate, negotiate, and mediate. And that's broken and gone, has been for a while. And for all of you that are thinking of a candidate or two, think deeper because for the last 20 years, they've all failed at that. Yeah, I just said that, all of them. So let's jump into government. What is government? Let me read you the description, the definition. Government is a system or group of people that rules a
[04:03] Andy Thompson: community, state, or country. It makes laws, keeps order, protects people from danger, and provides public services like schools and roads. The main jobs of a government are making laws, keeping order, protecting the country, and helping the public. The main types of government are democracy, monarchy, dictatorship, and republic. The word government, I love to dig into words, actually means to guide. It was actually coined originally as far as written record goes back
[04:32] Andy Thompson: to steering a ship or piloting it. And I'm going to hammer on that meaning for a while because governing from that sense is much more what I'm looking for. I don't want to take away my choice and ability. I don't want anybody to take away mine. I don't want to take anyone else's. That's the last resort. That's like putting someone in prison. Take away their choices. When they won't live by the rules, then we remove them from the equation. So that's what government is, right? Now, what does that mean? Why do we need a government? Well, there's a whole
[05:03] Andy Thompson: bunch of reasons, and the obvious ones are the ones that it says, right? Making laws to keep people from living unruly, to live safely. As an example, we wouldn't drive on the roads if there were no laws. If we didn't think that the people on the freeway or in town would obey the laws, we wouldn't drive. It'd be too dangerous. And so the laws there, state, federal, local, whatever,
[05:30] Andy Thompson: ensure and enable us to do more than we would otherwise. So safety driven. Same thing with laws around banking or finance or whatever else. It ensures you get due justice, hopefully. The next one is keeping order. So police, courts, and other things, when applied appropriately, is to help us keep the bubble up things from becoming bad or keeping them somewhat controlled. Another one, protecting the country. None of us can afford an army, but all of us together can.
[06:05] Andy Thompson: I say that in quotes because it's very expensive and we're running a big debt. The last one is helping the public. There are things that must be done at the cost of everyone to the benefit of everyone, like building roads. Now, I think some of those things have gone a little bit astray of the original cause, and sometimes government doesn't feel like guidance anymore. It feels like control or loss of control. So let's jump from why that's kind of the purpose of a government
[06:32] Andy Thompson: to how. Government that guides assumes that the populace and the government itself is moving. You can't guide something that's not. You can point them in a direction, but guidance is when you're moving. And moving assumes a point of objective goal, like you're going somewhere, like that assumes a universally accepted direction, a location, or some sort of condition or state. That's what government should be. So the how is the choices that we make that are in line
[07:04] Andy Thompson: with that movement and that unified, universally somewhat accepted goal. We may say that's peace. We may say that's prosperity. We may say that's health. We may say freedom, whatever that is. The ironic thing here is that the US Constitution does a fantastic job of defining the how. Let me read from that for a minute. First off, a comment on the Constitution. It's become glaringly evident that not only is the US population divided over it, but also feels
[07:33] Andy Thompson: self-justified in defending and kind of correcting it, using their own personal beliefs and biases to justify right and wrong. For example, I hear intelligent people indicating that their voting choices are based on what's best for them individually. There's nothing in the Constitution that points to that being justified at all. Sorry. The Constitution is about the greater whole. You read it, you'll understand it. More people need to read it. You think, intellectually, that voting at what's best for you, tax breaks or whatever, Social Security
[08:05] Andy Thompson: changes, student loan elimination. It is good, but it's a dangerous road because it doesn't work in the whole thing. Ideally, a guide is looking from a perspective that we don't individually have. Anything that takes away the focus from the greater good, which again, that can be defined in lots of different ways, is dangerous. I'll remind you what I've said before is that any groups that look out in the future far enough will align, even Republicans
[08:32] Andy Thompson: and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, Muslims and Christians. They look out far enough, they align. It's in the immediate and the mid-term, short-term where we struggle. How do we apply that to now? So in an effort to unify around what the Constitution does, I just want to talk about some of the things that it says. It says in the preamble that the purpose is to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the
[09:03] Andy Thompson: common defense and promote the general welfare while securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. It defines some of the hows. Here is how we are going to govern. Go read the Constitution. It's interesting. I probably should do an entire podcast on it alone. Just digging into the word meaning of things like Constitution, union, justice, tranquility is enlightening, just like govern is not about control, it's about guidance. So the Constitution I'm going to stand up
[09:30] Andy Thompson: as is the how. Now we dig into the what, right? What do we do? Because a really good functioning system has why, how and what. What we need to do needs to be driven by a unified or generally accepted why. What's the purpose? A parameter set around how we go about doing that. Morals, ethics, laws, guidelines, whatever it is. We are going to do this by not going to war
[10:00] Andy Thompson: or by protecting whatever. And so you can have individual breakdowns like, you know, one for ecology, one for finance, one for military, one for education, and they all need to kind of grow into that why. This is actually the hard part of government is getting all those things to work together. That's the how that candidates I want to focus on. I really don't care what you personally believe. I want to know how you solve problems because there's a lot of them and they're hard. And if you solve them by only what your followers say, I don't want you. And if you base
[10:35] Andy Thompson: everything that you've got based on one hard sell issue, I also don't want you because you can't think. How you solve problems is way more important. Can you actually use integrity of policy to deliver solutions that go for the greater good? And can you appropriately and kindly navigate dissenters to help them understand but also make choices that are tough sometimes? This is the
[11:05] Andy Thompson: what. It's got to be framed in a really rich and deep powerful why with a good set of hows that guide us. What we do matters. Now as an individual, what can you do? I'll leave that mostly up to you. But as I've talked about this, maybe you've envisioned some things that, okay, maybe I need to read the Constitution. Maybe I need to study this. Maybe I need to think about how that applies to my job. Maybe I need to think about how that applies to the way I treat others.
[11:33] Andy Thompson: It's up to you. I hope this has been helpful. I hope it's interesting. When we look at things from a why, how, and what perspective, it empowers our brains. It empowers us to act. It motivates us and enables us to move forward. I desperately hope that our United States of America and everywhere else around the world can embrace a better way of doing government, politics, and focus on how we solve problems instead of getting people rich or followers or grandstanding on a particular
[12:06] Andy Thompson: topic, issue, or belief. We are a world and a nation of different people and I purposely demand more respect out of the politicians. I'll also give it. In closing, please don't be offended. I haven't sought to offend. I've sought to open up kind of the views, shed some light on some things that really irritate me. I don't like grandstanding. I don't like criticizing candidates. I'm an equal
[12:34] Andy Thompson: opportunity offender. I'm going to criticize everybody. Only when I have to. I don't like to. Instead, I'd like to look at it and say, let's look at some ways we can make this better. I'm Andy Thompson. I believe that there's good in the world. I believe there's good in the country. I'll even say that I believe there's a little bit of good in the federal government and the state governments, but I believe we can all do better. And when we dig into why, how, and what, we enable ourselves and others to move forward. Reach out to me. I'd love to talk
[13:00] Andy Thompson: more about it. Give me your opinion. Share this. Hopefully it helps you. At least it was good for me to kind of rant and rave about my frustrations around election day. May all the best to everyone happen in the best way possible for the greater good. Stay engaged. Stay motivated. Talk to you soon.