May 20, 2025 Podcast

Professional Peacemaking • Prof. Chad Ford • s03e03

Summary

In part two of our conversation with Professor Chad Ford, we take a deeper look at what it means to be a professional peacemaker. Chad shares the realities of mediation work—the challenges, the setbacks, and the deeply rewarding moments that come with helping others resolve conflict. We explore the many paths to a career in peacemaking, from family and organizational mediation to international peacebuilding, and discuss why authentic curiosity and self-reflection are essential for anyone drawn to this work. Chad also shares his path to a career in conflict resolution around the world. Whether you’re considering this work or simply want to bring more peace to your own life, Chad’s story and insights will inspire you to see conflict—and its resolution—in a new light.

About Our Guest

Chad Ford is an international conflict mediator, facilitator, and peace educator known for his extensive peacebuilding work around the world. He holds a Master’s in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University and a JD from Georgetown. He directed the David O. McKay Center for Intercultural Understanding at BYU–Hawaii for nearly twenty years, where he developed programs in intercultural peacebuilding. In 2024, Chad joined Utah State University, teaching courses on religion, peace, and mediation.

He has worked in conflict zones globally, facilitated for governments, NGOs, and corporations, and serves on the board of Peace Players International. Chad is the author of Dangerous Love and 70x7, books that explore transforming conflict and Christian peacebuilding. His hands-on experience gives him a unique perspective on resolving conflicts in families, organizations, and communities worldwide.

Useful Links

Chad Ford’s Book, Dangerous Love:

https://dangerouslovebook.com

Chad's Substack:

https://chadford.substack.com/

Alfred Nobel and the Peace Prize:

https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel

Bertha Von Suttner:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1905/suttner/biographical/

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Chad Ford: David Whippy, who is now the director of the McKay Center at BYU Hawaii, was a Fijian rap star. Went under the name WIP Z; came to BYU Hawaii from Fiji; was taking some psychology courses when someone told him, "Oh, you should try to take this peace building course." And I was so surprised that he would come into my class and you would see all these Fijians looking through the glass with their phones, like trying to take pictures of him, because he was really, really famous in Fiji.

[00:00:28] Aaron - Narration: Hi, I'm Aaron Miller. And this is How to Help, a podcast about having a life and career with meaning, integrity, and impact. This is season three, episode three: professional Peacemaking. How to Help is proud to be a part of the BYU Radio Family of podcasts.

You've almost certainly heard of the Nobel Prize, but did you know that Alfred Nobel, who funded the prize, manufactured and sold weapons for war?

At the time, his company was actually the largest in Europe. Now, Nobel didn't set out with this as a goal. He was a chemist and the inventor of dynamite, the blasting cap, and other innovations that made industries like mining safer for the workers. And this was the primary beginning of what became his vast wealth.

It was later in life that he turned these inventions into weapons. And though Nobel was a supplier of war, he wasn't a war monger. In fact, he was convinced that as more powerful weapons became available, humanity would've no choice but to seek peaceful resolutions to their conflicts. The alternative in his mind was utter destruction.

But Nobel never lived to see the invention of nuclear weapons.

It might be argued that the power to destroy the world thousands of times over did encourage negotiations between nuclear states, but people still today are being killed by guns and landmines and tanks and missiles. It seems obvious by now that Nobel's vision of a peaceful world is never going to be built on mutual fear.

Albert Einstein even gave a speech after the first nuclear bombs were dropped in Japan by US forces. Einstein used the occasion to invoke Nobel and he said this, "Alfred Nobel invented an explosive, more powerful than any known, an exceedingly effective means of destruction. To atone for this accomplishment, and to relieve his conscience, he instituted his award for the promotion of peace."

Near the very end of his life, Nobel saw peace differently, mostly thanks to the friendship of a former secretary ,named Bertha Von Suttner. She was a lifelong peace activist and, although she worked for Nobel many years earlier and only briefly, they had a friendship that lasted for decades. Von Suttner spent that entire time trying to persuade Nobel to bring his intelligence and financial resources to the pacifist movement, and she consistently failed to convince him.

Only at the end of Nobel's life did her efforts finally bear fruit. In 1888, Alfred allegedly saw an obituary in a French newspaper that was written after his brother's death, except the paper mistakenly thought it was Alfred who had died. It wasn't kind stating only this "A man who cannot very easily pass for a benefactor of humanity died yesterday in Cannes. It is Mr. Nobel, inventor of dynamite."

The next year, Von Suttner wrote a book called Throw Down Your Arms, and it amazed Nobel who praised the way she "made war on war." More letters followed in which Nobel and Von Suttner discussed the idea of a prize for the promotion of peace. Alfred rewrote his will in 1895, died the following year, and the Nobel Prizes were born.

Not only did Bertha Von Suttner win the fourth ever Nobel Peace Prize, and was the first woman to win it, she played a key role in the prize's very creation. But for her, it might never have existed. And the most amazing part is that she did this great thing, not by threats of violence or stoking fear, but by persuasion and peacemaking.

This story embodies the reason for this episode, part two of my conversation with Professor Chad Ford. You last heard him talking about how we can establish more peace in our own lives. In this interview, we'll be talking about how to build peace for others. Professional peacemaking, as it were.

[00:04:44] Chad Ford: As far as the job goes itself, it's hard. It's really, really hard. It takes time. It takes a lot of patience. As a mediator, you often have to push to surface disputes for people, which often turns you into the enemy because you're making people uncomfortable or you're asking people to talk about stuff when most people's conflict style is avoidance and they don't really want to talk about it at all.

But you're asking all of these really hard questions and it makes it really, really difficult. There's a lot of failure involved. If I'm just being honest, I do not have a hundred percent track record or anything close to it. It's, it's, you know, more like maybe in the fifties or like, you know, low sixties of we get where we want to go.

[00:05:25] Aaron - Narration: Maybe talking about the difficulty of the job is not the best way to begin, but trust me, there are encouraging things to come. I just wanted to start with this so we've set out on solid footing. You may listen to this episode and feel called to be a peacemaker for others. I just want to make it clear that professional peacemaking is a tough job.

[00:05:49] Chad Ford: That's hard because a lot of times I have to walk away from those things. And you know, the very delicate question between, "Was this me? Did I just not do this right?" or "Is this just a case where the parties aren't ready?" I can do everything right. And it doesn't matter because the parties themselves just aren't ready to do it. Are there other factors involved, like mental health issues, for example, where they, they really should be in therapy before they are in mediation?

[00:06:16] Aaron - Narration: To be honest, there aren't many jobs you get to keep when you only succeed a little over half the time, and especially where you don't even know if the failure was your fault.

So what exactly is the job of being a professional peacemaker? You've probably heard it called "mediator." Essentially, the work of mediators is to bring people to a resolution where conflict is costly. And I mean, conflict is always costly, but mediators come in when the parties have a strong incentive to find a way forward together.

Where are the jobs for mediators?

[00:06:50] Chad Ford: There's a lot of paths, and it is, as you pointed out, a really viable, viable job. Um. It goes from everything from people who are working in family spaces and anymore you're seeing social workers and, uh, marriage and family therapist and, and psychologists that are picking up mediation skills. And so I've worked with a lot of psychologists and therapists and what have you as an add-on skill right? Now they have a skill that I don't have. I'm not a therapist, I'm not, I'm not trained to do that sort of mental health work that they're so skilled at. But mediation and conflict resolution end up playing a really big part.

[00:07:27] Aaron - Narration: Those are all the places where you might have expected mediation and professional peacemaking, but businesses and other workplaces need effective mediators too.

[00:07:36] Chad Ford: In an organizational sense, the number one space where you see people fall into this is in human resources, right? Like human resources are constantly

resolving conflict between employees and their, their bosses, sometimes with customers, with any sort of challenges that are happening in the organization. And, uh, it's a great entry level type of job where you can get lots of mediation experience, having some conflict resolution. Certificate mediation training is a huge plus on your resume to get in and often those people, and we've, we've have alumni who do that, end up getting promoted fairly quickly throughout the organization, because organizations need problem solvers.

And where early on I was hired in a lot of more of the social context, increasingly the requests that I get are from organizations, uh, to come in because conflict is affecting their bottom line. The, the inability of people to work together in that space is affecting them and hitting them financially. I'll just add because people are like, "Is there any money in that?" There's amazing money, um, in that, right? If, if people are losing millions of dollars because they can't work together, you'd be shocked at what corporations are willing to pay to try to get that problem solved.

Then for a few years, I even would offer essentially like a lawyer, a contingency fee. Like if, if I don't help, I get nothing, but if I help you said it's costing you X amount of dollars. I want 10% of that. Right. So I'll, I'll shoot for the moon and, and I, and I'm usually fairly confident that I can help.

[00:09:13] Aaron - Narration: Okay. Maybe the money isn't what's calling you. And the opportunities Chad's describing here take time to build your career so you have the credibility that gets you hired. If not in family conflict and not in the business world, where else can you be a professional peacemaker?

[00:09:31] Chad Ford: In the nonprofit space and in the public space, you're seeing a growing need for mediators who are working often with other agencies, they're working with various communities. You're seeing a ton of this in environmental cases where mediators are, are the primary source of bringing together multiple stakeholders, that, um, have an interest in a particular environmental issue in a community or, and what have you. Um, the federal government a number of years ago, passed a mediation law that requires federal agencies where they have employee disputes to go through mediation as part of that before you can, let's say sue the federal government. And so every federal agency has on staff full-time mediators that are working in those agencies. So there's amazing things there.

There's obviously the international work, um, that's going on to end, you know, larger scale conflict and wars. There are religious, uh, mediators. I have a good friend who is essentially on the payroll for the Methodist Church to go into congregations and do mediations between congregations that have issues with their pastors, you, you know, for example, and, and he has a full-time, full-time job doing all of that.

[00:10:41] Aaron - Narration: If you haven't noticed in all of these jobs, you'll find opportunities for mediators wherever there's conflict. And there is sadly an endless supply of conflict around the world. If you're feeling drawn to this, but don't know what to do next, I think it's good now to spend some time learning about Chad's career path.

What's it like to be a professional peace builder? How did Chad become one? His story started when he left his childhood home in Kansas City to attend university at BYU Hawaii, half away. .

[00:11:15] Chad Ford: Really, my dream was like, oh, I'll go there and surf and, you know, just, just have this, uh, you know, really fun experience. I'd always wanted to be in Hawaii; I had never even been. And when I got there, I was struck by two things immediately that really turned out to be life changing. One, just the intercultural nature. You know, growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, I'd not been exposed to the dozens, sometimes up to a hundred cultures that were all mingling together at BYU Hawaii.

The other thing that struck me was that generally people got along and were finding ways to work together and, and collaborate together even often when their countries and their cultures historically did not.

[00:11:58] Aaron - Narration: Chad was first interested in doing film production ,and then picked a major in English only to be told by an astute English professor that he might be a better fit in a field that matched his passion for social issues.

This led to a pivotal relationship for him.

[00:12:13] Chad Ford: I met the director of the history program and, and then a younger professor there, Bill Kauaiwi’ulaokalani Wallace, who was, was a native Hawaiian who was working on Hawaiian sovereignty issues in Hawaii. He was an attorney, but it was also teaching Hawaiian history. We hit it off. I started thinking about the work that he was doing in Hawaii around indigenous rights and civil rights and human rights, and it had this deep and profound impact on me. I started thinking about these things more academically. I was writing about them. He encouraged me to go to law school.

And you know, I came from a family that on both sides,

I was going to be the first graduate on either side of my family from an undergraduate, um, program, uh, and that was the top of Everest for me. Had zero thought about going onto graduate school or doing anything else like that.

[00:13:06] Aaron - Narration: Now, law school might seem to be the last place you'd expect to find a budding peacemaker, but lawyers, believe it or not, are meant to resolve conflict.

That's why a lot of mediators are also attorneys, except that the sad truth is that law school doesn't really prepare you for this kind of career. A student has to go their own way to find a path into peace building.

[00:13:28] Chad Ford: The first year curriculum's pretty prescribed. That had nothing to do with what I was interested in. I was doing property law, and contract law, and, and personal injury, and torts. And on top of that I was thinking in this peace mindset, collaboration, working together. And, and you know, I, I don't want to cast aspersions of lawyers, but most of the talk and the program was, was really aggressive. And it honestly felt to me sometimes, like lawyers were creating as much conflict as they were solving.

And, and I, I, I just, culturally, I think I, I just wasn't vibing, but one day I, um, saw flyer in the hall and Dennis Ross, who was the chief US negotiator for Middle East Peace at the time, was having a speech. And he had just got back from the Middle East and it was one of the, unfortunately many times that sort of Middle East peace negotiations had broken down and, and you know, there wasn't going to be an agreement.

So I went and sat in the back, and there was this moment when he was talking about what was going wrong and, and why they were continuing to fail to get an agreement. And this, it's, it's hard to point to certain points in your life that were life-changing moments, but as he was talking, he said, "Look, as a diplomat, we learn how to get leaders together and get them in conversation with each other to make big changes that are going to lead their countries to peace. We actually think we're pretty skilled at it, but what we found in the Middle East is whenever we can get there, the leaders cannot go back to their constituents and sell that. In fact, they're often called traitors. They're often called sellouts that the people on the ground aren't prepared for peace."

And he said like, "What we need are a new generation of people who learn how to work with people on the ground to prepare them for peace."

[00:15:15] Aaron - Narration: A generation to prepare people for peace. Have you ever had a moment of raw inspiration? This was that kind of moment for Chad.

[00:15:24] Chad Ford: It was in that moment sitting there that I said, I, I want to do that. I don't know how to do that, but I, I want to do that. So I waited in line. I asked him, "Hey, you know what, how did you do that? Like, that's what I want to do. Like, is that a law school? What class should I take?" Or whatever. And he, he, he was kind of funny. He said, "If I knew the answer to that, I, I would tell you, but you're going to have to sort of figure that out."

I was, I really disappointed. I'm like, you can't point me anywhere. And he said, "Well, I know this guy, his name is Wallace Warfield, he's at George Mason." They'd just started a new school for conflict analysis and resolution. It's a new master's and PhD program. He worked with Dr. Martin Luther King.

So I skipped school the next day. I took the train to George Mason. I, this is back in the pre cell phone days. I literally like wait outside his office for him to show up. And he comes in and we have this brief conversation where he asked me, you know, what do I know about Martin Luther King? And I, I'm like, oh, I'm ready for this. I, I'm a big fan of Martin Luther King and I, you know, I'm telling him whatever.

He is, like, "No, no, no. How did he do what he did from a social organizational standpoint? How did he create the change that he wanted to see? And I was like, "I, I don't really know." And he handed me his copy of, um, Martin Luther King's book, Strength of Love, and he said, "Read this book and if you're still interested, come back to see me."

And what he didn't know is I was going to go outside of the office, sit under a tree, read the book cover-to-cover that day, and knock back out on his door in the afternoon and, and say I was in. And from that point, I ended up doing a joint degree at Georgetown Master's in Conflict Resolution/Doctorate, um, in law at Georgetown.

I began to become hyper-focused on large scale religious and ethnic conflict with an emphasis on mediation and with an emphasis of really bringing people together who have what I would call intractable types of conflict. In other words, that doesn't seem that there's any way that these people could ever agree on something. How do you build the spaces to get them there?

[00:17:21] Aaron - Narration: You heard in part one of my interview with Chad about his work in the Middle East and other places where he's been helping to create more space for the resolution of conflict, like he and others have done with PeacePlayers International. He's been able to show how peace is possible in the worst conflicts on Earth.

And you might have noticed a theme in Chad's personal story and professional accomplishments. He's had to create these opportunities rather than just taking the ones being handed to him. Professional peacemakers of all kinds tend to share this entrepreneurial instinct.

[00:17:58] Chad Ford: It's hard to get on the ground because the first question anybody asks you is, well, how many cases have you mediated?

And if your answer is like, you're my first, or like, you're one or two, they don't feel that super confidence of going in. So I have to tell my students all the time, you have to be entrepreneurial at first. You have to get out there and offer yourself in lots of different scenarios. I, I even have, I'm teaching 'em how to go on Craigslist and, and say, we'll meet at the McDonald's.

My whole point is get the experience to come in, because once you have that experience. I don't have to advertise for my work anymore. I get multiple emails a week from just referrals. I, I'm a big sports fan, and I've been combining sports and mediation in ways that, that have been really fun and and exciting to me.

And it's, it's a great job. So first of all, I want to say the opportunities are real.

[00:18:46] Aaron - Narration: If professional peacemaking feels like the direction you want to go, I have a bunch of stellar advice for you from Chad. And frankly, if you just want to be better at this for the job you currently have, you need to give the rest of this episode all of your attention. You'll be better at your work if you do. Let's start with a need for personal commitment to the principles of peace.

[00:19:10] Chad Ford: Look, some people are natural mediators. I, I actually wasn't one to be, to be just completely honest. I went to school with some people that without any training, just could walk in, be very balanced, be curious, and listening just sort of naturally. And they were just really good at it. And I was so jealous of those, those students all the time because I would just. I would just be bobbing in class. And then they would, I would watch them and they would walk in and I'm like, how'd you do that? I don't, I don't know. It's just common sense. And I'm like, well, apparently I don't have it.

In fact, I failed my first midterm in my mediation class because I offended one of the role players and they walked out in the middle of my midterm exam and never came back.

[00:19:52] Aaron - Interview: No. Oh my gosh.

[00:19:55] Chad Ford: And I was ready to quit. And. I had to start looking inward. And, and this is something I love about, you know, peace building mediation, which is that if I've got stuff going on in my life that I'm unwilling to address, I am not going to be a particularly good guide to asking other people to look at the hard things and do things in their life.

And, and what, what started to come out of it was I realized who I need to practice on is my family, the conflicts where I'm estranged from people. So I'd say the first attribute is: I'm willing to do this myself, right? I, I think it's the most important thing as a mediator, because your clients are going to know, there's just an authenticity.

[00:20:36] Aaron - Narration: Being an effective peacemaker also means being curious, not making assumptions about the people in conflict or jumping to solutions prematurely. You'll end up asking lots and lots of questions.

[00:20:50] Chad Ford: The second thing is you have to be curious. Anytime I think I know what the right solution is, it's, it's usually going to be a problem for me. Um, right? Because I'll start gently steering people in the direction I think they need to go. And one of the things that I've learned is they're not me, and the only solution that works is one that's very authentic to them. So I have to continue to be curious, even when it starts to occur to me, oh, I think I should know what they should do.

[00:21:19] Aaron - Narration: Withholding judgment of those in conflict is especially hard. When you know that someone has done genuine harm to another person, with an act of cruelty or violence, somehow as a peacemaker you have to find a way to empathy for such people, to see their humanity. That doesn't mean you justify what they've done, but to bring them to peace, you might need to be the last person who hasn't given up on them.

[00:21:49] Chad Ford: As mediators, we see people often at their worst. We see people when they're the most stressed out, when they've, they've said that awful thing or they've done that awful thing. You know, I, I've, I've worked with people that have been terrorists or have, have promoted violent conflict or participated in violence as a potential solution, um, to the conflict.

And, you know, as someone who doesn't feel violence is right, or abuse is right, or, or, uh, mistreating people is of a right, it's really easy to sometimes look at them and, and not see their humanity. And one of the things that I really, really try to work on--and for me this is both a, a professional thing, but it's also a faith thing for me--is to see this sort of divinity in others define that, that spark of goodness in them.

Because if I can discover it and try to amplify it within them, it will often lead them down, down the right path in ways that I never, that I never could. I, I didn't start out good at that. I often would be annoyed at people. And that aspect took a lot of, like, mindfulness, a lot of, a lot of thinking, a lot of training, and frankly, leaning on my faith in a lot of ways, because I, I do believe at, at the core that, you know, as people, we have that spark of the divineness that every human being is important.

They have value regardless of their choices, regardless of the decisions that they've made, and that there is a path to redemption back for people.

[00:23:21] Aaron - Narration: You also have to resist the instinct to enable people even when they're in the right. Sometimes when we're angry, our loved ones keep the anger going by being angry with us. Now, we see that as a sign of their loyalty and love for us, but it's also a source of fuel for some of our worst emotions. And so when we're trying to help someone feel validated, we can get pulled into the conflict along with them and we keep it going. There's a name for the seemingly supportive behavior:

Collusion.

[00:23:54] Chad Ford: I think it's interesting, Aaron, that you said pulled in. Because this is another aspect of conflict that I think is actually a really important one. If I can just address it for a minute, because...

[00:24:03] Aaron - Interview: Yeah, please do.

[00:24:03] Chad Ford: Often we, we get pulled in. In other words, the conflict isn't directly between me and another person, but a loved one, a child, a family member, a good friend has been wronged in some ways, and so they come to us for help.

Often we think that the way to help them is to give them a lot of validation, right? Like, "You're right, they're wrong. That other person is ridiculous. You don't need that toxicity in your life anymore." And we become allies to people in conflict where we give them the justification to actually be bad partners in conflict.

And we do it out of the name of support or out of love or care. And it's really hard to validate the emotion, which I think is fair and okay to do, right, without encouraging them to escalate the conflict without encouraging them to hate the other person. It's a very tricky line, and my wife on more than one occasion has said, "Can you just quit doing your conflict stuff with me right now and just agree with me that this person is the worst person ever?" and we'll laugh, you know, at those moments.

But that never really seems like love to me, because doing that doesn't actually give her the thing that she's actually looking for or really need. It's giving justification, which again, I think is a drug that is not going to serve, serve them well. And so, you know, it's really interesting because those conflicts are easier for us to be blind that we're actually the ones that are pouring gasoline on the fire now.

[00:25:38] Aaron - Narration: You may remember that I promised at the start of the episode that there are encouraging things to say about professional peacemaking and being a mediator. So here are two of the most important ones.

First, this is a deeply satisfying career path. It's always interesting. It gives you new things to learn. It brings you to know others in ways that you would never have known them before. And playing a part in reconnecting people is among the greatest moments of success.

[00:26:09] Chad Ford: It's so fulfilling. It takes so much creativity, which I love. I learn about all sorts of issues and have to become like a semi-expert on things because, you know, we're in a dispute and it's about air quality and all of a sudden I'm, you know, learning about all of these measures and like, what matters, because I need to understand why people feel as strongly as they feel about it. Culturally, I've got to learn all sorts of cool cultures. We are constantly having to adapt the process to create the space for people.

And I, I, I just love that. I get so energized um, as part of that. I'm exhausted afterwards, but there's no feeling like mediating a dispute and the parties walking away feeling reconnected to each other and walking away from that. And knowing that I, I had a little role to play that, uh, it, it will carry me through the next three or four failures, uh, until, you know, until the next, the next one hits.

[00:27:09] Aaron - Narration: The second encouraging thought is that there is a rising generation of peacemakers that's perhaps better prepared and more invested in this work than any generation before it. Chad teaches these young people every day, and they are an invigorating source of hope for him.

[00:27:28] Chad Ford: Aaron, there are so many young people that are leaning in to this world to serve.

I am so impressed with this generation who are coming to college not just to make money or get rich, but really, truly want to solve the social problems that that exist in our world today. They're frustrated at the adults, that we've left them the world that we've left them, um, right now. But they still remain hopeful that they're going to do something.

When I look to those young people that I get to work with every day, there's so much to be hopeful for. And my heroes, of course, some of them are, you know, the Gandhis and Martin Luther Kings and, and you know, frankly, Jesus Christ, who I think is the best of all of the peace builders that I know. But where I really get energy is watching these young people go out and dedicate their lives to doing this type of work.

[00:28:21] Aaron - Narration: You may like me imagine Bertha von Suttner smiling down on this rising generation, seeing in them what she spent years trying to cultivate and so many others, including her friend Alfred Nobel. When she herself received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905, Bon Suttner began her speech this way, "The stars of eternal truth and right have always shown in the firmament of human understanding. The process of bringing them down to earth, remolding them into practical forms, imbuing them with vitality, and then making use of them, has been a long one. One of the eternal truths is that happiness is created and developed in peace."

You may feel the stirrings in you to follow the same professional path as Von Sutter and this rising generation of peacemakers.

But if not, I hope at least that you've taken away a thing or two. I hope you've learned something that can help you establish more peace for those around you.

How to help as a production of BYU Radio and hosted and written by me, Aaron Miller. This episode is produced by Erica Price, Blake Morris, and Kenny Mears.

Our theme song is by Eric Robertson. For more information about this episode, use the links in the show notes, and if you haven't subscribed to How to Help, you can do that in your favorite podcast player. As always, thank you so much for listening.

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What Companies Value: Apple & Accessibility

Every company does at least some things that don’t make money, or at least aren’t closely tied to making money. What those things are tells you a lot about what the company values.

One thing Apple’s been consistent about for years is building best-in-class accessibility features for the users of their products. There’s really no other tech company that comes close. And yet, I’d be shocked if what Apple invests in accessibility is profitable for them. I think they just do it because it’s right.

Anyway, watch this video to get a clear picture (pun intended) of something that Apple values.

May 16, 2025 Blog

A Guide to Better Arguments

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The need for argument is unavoidable. Hostile or unproductive exchanges can make arguing seem hopeless. But it’s vital because it holds the potential to answer important questions and change beliefs.

If you’re often getting sucked into fights in the Facebook comments, there’s this:

Aim to argue justly. ‘Owning’ someone with unfair tactics or bad reasoning is hardly a victory, and ‘losing’ a fair argument has its benefits.

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May 13, 2025 Podcast

Peacemaking • Prof. Chad Ford • s03e02

Summary

Why do we struggle to make peace, even when it's what we want most? Professor Chad Ford joins us to explore the roots of conflict and the power of “dangerous love,” a courageous, empathetic approach to healing divisions. From family rifts to global disputes, Chad’s stories and strategies reveal how fear shapes our reactions, why justice must be about restoration, and how anyone can become a peacemaker. This episode offers real-life examples and actionable insights for anyone seeking more harmony in their relationships and communities.

About Our Guest

Useful Links

Chad Ford’s Book, Dangerous Love:

https://dangerouslovebook.com

Chad's Substack:

https://chadford.substack.com/

PeacePlayers International – Bridging Divides Through Sports:

https://www.peaceplayers.org

Mary Kawena Pukui and the Preservation of Hawaiian Culture:

https://www.missingwitches.com/mary-kawena-pukui-morrnah-simeona-a-unified-unifying-force/

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Aaron - Interview: How's your family adjusting to Utah? Because that's a big switch from Hawaii, especially after being there so long.

[00:00:06] Chad Ford: This is the first time we've had air conditioning in 20 years. Uh, so, um, that, that has been very, very popular, especially with my teenage girls who are excited to not be sweaty all the time.

[00:00:18] Aaron - Interview: Yeah. Yeah, I don't blame them.

[00:00:20] Aaron - Narration: Hi, I'm Aaron Miller, and this is How to Help, a podcast about having a life and career with meaning, integrity, and impact. This is season three, episode two, Peacemaking. Now, I'll take a moment to say that you may be new to our show. How to Help is proud to join the family of BYU Radio podcasts.

We hope you'll listen to all that we have to share in the episodes to come.

Imagine going to see the newest Tom Cruise action movie. I think he's now up to Mission Impossible Eight, due to come out next year. Well, near the end of the movie, we're imagining his character finally comes face-to-face with the villain. Cruise probably has a limp at this point because of all the intense action before this.

They sit down across from each other in a corporate boardroom. On the top floor of a massive skyscraper. Something tells you that cruise is gonna jump from one of those windows in the very near future. And then the conversation begins. This is the one where the villain typically makes this case of why so many people need to die, or why governments need to be brought to their knees, and so on.

And then you'd expect Cruise to deliver a pithy one-liner, that's followed by a fight to the villain's inevitable death. Whatever disaster was looming, will be averted with obviously just one second to spare.

But what if that's not what happened? What if they just, you know, worked it out? What if whatever old grudge was at the heart of this conflict was laid out and both men found a way to come to some sort of shared understanding?

There could be a whole montage of them sharing their feelings and concerns, apologizing tearfully for their mistakes, finally in the end seeing eye-to-eye, and they decide to embrace each other in a big hug. The villain would then stand down his evil plans, and then the two of them would spend years together as best friends.

I mean, be honest. Would you even want to see this movie? I don't think many people would. There's only ever really one story in action movies. It's the story of good vanquishing evil, and that's what we go to see. Of course, there's plenty of conflict and difficulty along the way, and that's where the action comes in.

And I mean, some of Tom Cruise's stunts are truly incredible. He rode a motorcycle off a cliff in the last one, but if the movie ended with anything other than evil's defeat, I think we'd all leave the theater feeling really unsatisfied. Of course, we want peace restored at the end, but what we really want is justice.

The villain has to lose, not just come around. We like peace, but only after victory.

As much as we like peace, we're also easily entertained by conflict. Consider the state of reality television. There's a reason for having a Real Housewives show that takes place in, and this is a long list. Orange County, New York, Atlanta, New Jersey, DC, Beverly Hills, Miami, Potomac, Dallas, Salt Lake City, and Dubai. There's no shortage of people who can be terrible to each other and no lack of an audience excited to watch it all happen.

But all this conflict, were it real in our own lives, would make us miserable. And we know that because the conflicts that we do have make us miserable. In our families, at work, in our neighborhoods, and across our nations conflict is a pervasive source of deep unhappiness. Some conflicts are fresh and recent, and some have lasted for years. And they never entertain us. They only hurt us.

[00:04:04] Chad Ford: Conflict is hard. It distracts us. When we're in a negative conflict spiral. It's often all we can think about and we start to see the entire world through that lens. We start to mistrust even other people because of the hurt or pain or whatever that you feel in the way. So whatever is hard about doing the peace, we can't forget that the conflict itself is hard and in many ways is a cancer that is slowly eroding and eating us away.

[00:04:32] Aaron - Narration: Here at the start of the episode, consider what's maybe the most important thing.

There's no Tom Cruise coming to defeat our villains, to kill off the cancer of conflict in our lives. If we want to escape the contention, the simmering resentment, the distrust, we need to find a better way out. We have to be our own heroes, but not the action kind that defeats enemies. Peace building is perhaps one of the hardest and most heroic things we'll ever set out to do.

[00:05:03] Chad Ford: It's hard, but it's a good hard because the rewards are life changing.

[00:05:09] Aaron - Narration: My guest today is Professor Chad Ford and he's going to help us learn how to find that peace. Chad's an associate professor at Utah State University's Haravi Peace Institute. He's also the author of the book, Dangerous Love: Transforming Fear and Conflict at Home, at Work, and in the World.

[00:05:30] Chad Ford: I like the cancer analogy a lot because, you know, unfortunately a lot of times the response to cancer is chemotherapy and radiation. And anybody that's gone through that, the radiation and chemotherapy is terrible. It makes you nauseated, it, your hair falls out like, you know, it makes you sick. But in many, many cases, and in the case of my stepfather who had had cancer 20 years before, it gave him 20 extra years of life.

When he got cancer the first time, relationships were rocky with lots of family members, including me, and we thought about the gift that that 20 years gave us to, to reconcile, to where he had his whole family around him, loving, supporting. We learned things, he learned things in those 20 years. That chemo, that radiation that he went through 20 years ago was a gift in so many ways because it eradicated his cancer for a long time. However hard this is and how difficult it is to forgive or to confront or to look at these things, um, or what have you, you will look back on it as a gift as opposed to staying estranged, disconnected, broken. Because that, that's a sort of pain that never really heals.

And I've worked with so many people, including family members who then lose somebody and that pain just remains. And I reflect back on my stepfather and the joy and beauty that was in the room when he passed away because the relationships were right. And there's nothing that can bring more peace in an ending moment of life than that, than just to know that we're right with each other.

[00:07:00] Aaron - Narration: I wanted you to hear that story about Chad and his stepfather, so that you could see right from the start that he knows where you're coming from. He knows what it's like to be at odds with someone important to him. But Chad is also a pro at managing conflict. He's not only a professor of peace building, but he's also a professional mediator who's worked in conflict around the globe and at every level, from families going through divorce to boardroom disputes in corporations, and even in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, a part of the world that he's worked in for over two decades.

I don't think before talking with Chad that I've ever met someone who's so optimistic about finding a way through conflict. Let me give you an example that's impossible to be cynical about.

For many years now, Chad has been part of an organization called Peace Players International. They bring kids from across conflict divides and have them play sports together.

The program operates in a variety of places around the world, but it has also been in Israel and Palestine for over a decade. But since October 7th, 2023 armed conflict there has led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people. Things have never been as bad as they are now. How do you find hope in circumstances as hard as these?

[00:08:15] Chad Ford: I'm a hopeful guy, first of all, Aaron. I mean, I wouldn't be engaged in this. You know, I, I sometimes talk about impossible conflict and it's what I'm drawn to. So, you know, by, by my very nature, I don't get involved in things that I don't think are possible. Right. And it's, it's just partly the way my brain is oriented, and I think it has to be to a certain extent here.

Yeah, I know it's gonna be hard and brutal, but on the other side, I'm really a hopeful guy. With that said, there's been things that I've seen before that are so beautiful where they started so hard. I've worked with Israelis and Palestinians, you know, for a really long time. I'm hurting like a lot of people are hurting over October 7th.

And you know, the murder and, and, and kidnapping of, of so many innocent Israelis followed by the war in Gaza with the, you know, the, the murder and destruction of, uh, tens of thousands of, of Palestinians, including many, many women and children. And I know this is a very polarizing topic, but as somebody who's like worked on the ground with both of those groups for a long time, I, I have a deep love for them.

And I get to see an aspect of them that very few people in the West get to see, which is that both communities have peace builders in them that have been working tirelessly for decades to find a way to live together and collaborate together. And they've done it at personal risk. They've done it often to the extent that their friends or family or their communities have, uh, judged them or expelled them.

And then you watch what happens in something like October 7th and, and the subsequent war in Gaza. Part of the emotion was, how do we ever come back from this? Like, this is so bad.

One of the nonprofits that I've worked for for a long time that works with young people. Everything shut down after October 7th. You know, the safety of the young people, the safety of the families, all that comes priority. Everything had to be shut down. We can't put anybody in danger. Um, and so we, we essentially shut down, um, the program.

About December, I start getting phone calls from the staff in Israel, the Palestinians, Israelis, saying that the children's mothers are calling us and they are telling us we need to start the program again, because they're losing their kids. And their kids, you know, this, this inability to connect with each other, the the social media bubbles that they're in, everything else, that they're losing them, and we can't lose the progress, um, that we've made. We have to start now, but it's dangerous. We're worried about this or this.

We will come out. The parents said we will guard the, the, the spaces. We will take the risks, because these are too important not to take. And so there was a lot of fear and should we do this? And if there's a one problem, like it's done forever. Right? But also sometimes peace building is about taking risks and their parents, the kids were consenting.

So we started programming in December. We thought it's gonna be a couple groups and families, um, that show up. Within the first week, 80% of the kids and their families were back engaging in peace, peace building talks. Even the most optimistic Chad would've told you that number would've been dramatically lower.

It wasn't starting for like a year and giving the ongoing frustrations that this kept going on, it won't last, that people are gonna get frustrated because this thing is dragging on and on and on. And it's been the opposite of that. They continue to meet, they continue to grow.

And one of the groups that we work with is basketball and

they field the only joint Palestinian Israeli youth basketball team in the country. And we were like, well, we're definitely not putting that team in the league this year because they're gonna go to all of these different gyms that are gonna be fully Israeli. And the kids insisted we're gonna go. There was jeering, people threw things at them, they swore at them.

Those amazing young people, and their parents said, we're gonna play anyway. We're gonna show, you know what's what's possible. And that to me, to be honest, Aaron, may be the biggest miracle I've seen in the last 20 years because the conditions couldn't be worse. The, um, challenges they face couldn't be harder.

Even the most optimistic person has the right to be skeptical, um, and jaded and angry, um, at what's happening. Um, but they know there is no future for any of us unless we find a way, um, to, to live together. And, uh, so they're doing what the adults haven't been able to do. And they're setting an example that, you know, for all of us, most of us that are harboring resentments or, or conflicts in our lives are not the people of Gaza and what they're going through right now, or are not the families of those Israelis.

Who sent their young people off to a peace concert only to see them, you know, murdered or raped. I thought on many occasions over the last, um, year where I've, I've experienced plenty of conflicts on my own moving and teenagers and all sorts of things, if they can do it, I don't care what it is that's in my face, like I can do it too.

[00:13:34] Aaron - Narration: What are the things that stand in the way of our peace? I mean, if the Peace Player families can work through ancient conflicts, what keeps us from dealing with our own usually far less stubborn disagreements? One element that runs through Chad's book and teaching is the role that fear plays in fostering conflict.

Conflict is scary and we're naturally inclined to turn away from it.

[00:13:58] Chad Ford: I think the reason we don't talk about fear, as much as. It's one of those emotions that I think is less socially acceptable to admit to, even than anger. I think there's a certain, like righteous anger or, yeah, there's a certain like, almost like macho to, you know, being angry, but you know, we don't really lionize people who are afraid.

When I was reading Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, in his book he describes this moment where early on in the Civil Rights movement, he was getting a lot of death threats and threats towards his family. And one night in his house, he got a phone call in the middle of the night, um, and he picked up the phone and they said, "I'm gonna blow up your house and kill all of your children in it."

And this was very early in, in the movement. He talks about in the night getting up and pacing and worrying about his family and wondering how in the world he got into this space and just wishing he could go back to writing his sermons every Sunday, and live this sort of peaceful life of as a pastor.

And he, he reported that he was just overcome with fear and he was actually trying to think about how he could step out of the movement, let someone else go into the forefront because he was afraid. He was afraid about what was going to happen to his family. He was afraid it was going to happen about him. So he gets on his knees and he, you know, he says this prayer and, and says, "Look, people are looking at me to do the right thing, but I'm afraid and I don't think I can do it. I don't think I have the strength to do it. Can you help me get out of this?"

And his answer was, "No, but I'm going to give you the strength to go through it." And, and it really ties to the title of the book, the Strength to Love. The strength to love will overcome fear.

[00:15:42] Aaron - Narration: Martin Luther King's courage is inspiring to me, but it also makes me feel small.

I mean, no one's threatening to bomb my house because of a disagreement. My fears about conflict, and probably yours, feel so much tinier than that. Luckily, Chad has empathy for our small but potent fears.

[00:16:02] Chad Ford: I, I, I think first it requires the vulnerability to admit I am afraid. I'm afraid you're gonna take something that's important to me. I'm afraid that my voice isn't being heard. I'm afraid that you don't recognize my identity or that our relationship, you don't see me or value me. I mean, there's so many little different fears that go into this, and because of that, I need to protect myself. And I'm gonna start doing insane things that are about protecting me, but are actually making the conflict worse, but I can't see it, right?

So if I'm running from conflict, I'm making it worse, not better. If I'm fighting with the person, I'm inviting them to be defensive. I'm inviting them to experience fear, and I'm actually escalating the conflict. If I freeze and do nothing right, it, it can come off to other people like, "Oh, he just doesn't care," or "It doesn't, doesn't really matter" right?

But it deeply matters inside whether we're avoiding conflict, whether we're competing or fighting, whether we're just giving in or kind of playing dead. Uh, you know, at those moments. Our, our fear-based responses that are the opposite of what we really actually need, which is collaboration.

[00:17:11] Aaron - Narration: Consider the conflicts in your lives.

What are the fears that are hiding underneath them? For me, I think it's a fear that the wrong that was done will happen again. I'm scared of the pain and unmet expectations or a violated trust. I worry too often about being embarrassed or called out for my mistakes. And to be totally honest, I'm an ethics professor for goodness sakes, and I feel like I'm supposed to be above this sort of thing.

I'm scared of being a hypocrite. All of my worries and all of yours stand in the way of our peace By now, it should make sense why Chad named his book Dangerous Love. We need a kind of love that's courageous in the face of fear.

[00:17:53] Chad Ford: You know, in English, it's tough because um, we use the same word to mean so many different things, right?

[00:18:00] Aaron - Interview: Right.

[00:18:00] Chad Ford: So it's not romantic love that we're talking about here, or you know, in the Greek, Eros. It's not Philia, which is the sort of love where we say like, which, you know, often sort of means friendship or you know, what have you. It's, it's not that. But it's this Agape, this other sort of Greek term of love, which is love because of the value of someone else. Love because I can, I can value the soul force--that's a word Gandhi used a lot--within another, and their needs, wants and concerns matter just as much as mine. You don't have to like the person. You don't have to want to be roommates or be married to the person, or like be best friends with them. You don't have to do any of that to experience that sort of love. But I have to value that your needs and wants and desires are just as important to you as mine are.

Our job is to find a way forward where both of those things can be met.

[00:18:57] Aaron - Narration: You might be listening to all of this and feeling, I don't know, maybe skeptical or perhaps even indignant. The conflict that's been needling you all episode probably wasn't even your fault to begin with. If anyone's the peacemaker in this situation, you are. Isn't it at least sometimes true that we're simply in the right?

[00:19:17] Chad Ford: It's funny you say it's sometimes true. It's, it's, at least from a perception standpoint, it's almost always true, because virtually everybody that comes in my office says, "I'm the peacemaker here. And it's the other person who, who won't move and, and won't change."

And it's so interesting to me, first of all, usually it's one person who will instigate and come in and I'll get the other party to come in, they tell me the exact same story, but in reverse, right? "I'm the peacemaker. I'm the one trying to make a difference. They're the ones who are doing this." I think we get in this mode of, of storytelling and conflict narrative where anything that I might do that maybe you would say, oh, Chad, maybe that wasn't the best decision, or whatever, I felt justified in doing it because it was in response to a slight, or was in response to years of someone's using these words against me or what have you.

So look, the first thing I would say, Aaron, is when I hear that, my first thought is, you don't see your role. These, are... conflicts are dynamic. There are patterns that are involved. And in virtually every case, you are involved in the pattern and you can't see it right now, right? Now, there are conflict escalatory patterns called Contender/Defender where someone's always coming, and I'm the defender, and there's been a lot of political science research about this. There's been family research about it. They're rare. But most of the people that I talk to think that that's what they're in, in a conflict escalation. I"'m the defender. This person's the contender" coming in, but they're rare. But almost always those contender/defenders, even if they're, they exist, they will morph into a conflict spiral, which is an action/reaction model that's coming over time.

People won't stay the defender forever. Eventually I'm going to get pushed to take up arms and try to stop the relentless or constant attacks that are coming in. And so it's so fascinating to me when Jesus tells people, if somebody smites you on the cheek, you know, turn the other cheek. I find that to be incredible conflict advice for a second, right? Because when I slap you, what I expect to happen is that you are gonna slap me back, right? And when you do so, I know this is weird and convoluted, but when you slap me back, it gives me justification for that first slap. It makes me actually feel like, "I was right, because look at you, you're violent or you know you're not Christian because you didn't turn the other cheek" or you know what have it. When we respond to negative conflict with negative conflict, when we respond to contention with contention, it almost always gives the person who instigated it the justification that it was right to start it in the first place, because I've exposed your true self and who you are.

And I see this a lot in like verbal conflicts, right? Someone will insult somebody and then somebody will insult them back and they will be shocked. "I, I can't believe you used that language, or I can't believe you stoop that low." And of course, your insult was always worse than mine. You always escalated it, um, further.

And so for most people, I said, you know, forget about what they're doing for a minute. Let's think about. What we're doing and how we're contributing to that, because that's the part that's the easiest to change, right? Our input into the system is the easiest part to change.

[00:22:30] Aaron - Narration: What about the truly one-sided conflicts? There are people in the world who, because of trauma, mental illness, or just a taste for cruelty, abuse those around them. Where does dangerous love fit in these situations?

[00:22:45] Chad Ford: I wrote a book called Dangerous Love, and unfortunately some people read the book and said, "Oh, so I'm just supposed to stay with my abusive spouse and love them and keep getting punched in the face, right?"

And I'm like, no, no, no. That's, that's, that's not what I mean by that sort of dangerous. I mean, vulnerable, dangerous, not like physically I'm dangerous. But even in those cases, I've found that when I can see the humanity of the other person, I can make decisions like "I'm not gonna live with you anymore, or I'm gonna create very strong boundaries that don't allow you to engage in that behavior anymore. I'm going to call the police because that behavior is dangerous to me and to others. I'm going to force you as a teenager to go into rehab even though you don't want to be there, even though you're gonna hate me because you know I've enrolled you in this wilderness program or what have you."

I can engage in those behaviors, but if I am not blaming, if I'm seeing that person with Agape, if I'm doing it because I'm actually trying to help them so that maybe somewhere down the road we can engage in that sort of collaborative process that will make all the difference in the world in our healing.

[00:23:50] Aaron - Narration: My full interview with Chad lasted for about two hours, and there was so much more to include than I had time for in this episode. That's why I've decided to break the things he said into two parts. In this one, we focused on what it takes to make peace in our own lives and relationships. But what if we want to do it for others too? Chad's taught an entire generation, the same generation, he was inspired to join all those years ago to be professional peacemakers. That episode will come next.

So let's end this part of the conversation by going back to our fascination with action movies. Like I said at the start, we love peace, but only if it comes after justice. Can there really be peace if wrong isn't made right? What about justice?

[00:24:36] Aaron - Interview: Especially in personal relationships where there's conflict, what's the right way to think about justice? Because it doesn't feel like it's appropriate to just say justice should never matter here. It's just about getting in harmony again. Surely having justice be your main priority is probably gonna enhance the conflict. How do we think about justice, not just at the big scale, but also in the the personal conflicts we have?

[00:25:03] Chad Ford: You know, the interesting thing about when we use the word justice is, to me it's a lot like love. It means different things to different people. Justice can mean revenge. We see both culturally, religiously, you know, justice used in those ways. But it's not the only way that justice is used. It's not the only definition, um, for justice. And again, this is where sometimes I feel like English fails us a little bit because we are wont to use the same word to mean a lot of different things.

And living in Hawaii for the last 20 years, I've been fascinated by the Hawaiian word for justice. It's called "pono." And it means justice. It means righteousness. It means things becoming right again. And so when things are "pono," we are right with each other.

And there's another word in Hawaiian, 'cause I love, Hawaiians can do this. You can't do this in English. They'll stack the words together, so when they say ponopono, it means the most, right? Right. So pono can be right and we can be right about a lot of things or what makes right. But what is the most, right? So when we say ponopono, what is the most right? And the most right, is relationships, right?

So I can be right on the facts. I can be right on the merits. I can be right on who started something or who didn't start something. I can be right that my interpretation of my religious text or my political text or, or whatever are right and yours are wrong. But I can also be wrong, at the exact same moment, if I'm not right with you.

Their conflict resolution mechanism is called Ho'oponopono, and is about making things the most right again. And the whole process is about reconciliation. And reconciliation has four strands. It has mercy or forgiveness. It has truth, it has justice, and it has peace. And you can't have one without the other to be reconciled.

So truth has to come out. It's important that we talk about the things that are our conflicts, that we surface them, that we speak them, that we don't hide them or bury them in the ground, or ignore them or forgive them. It's important that we practice forgiveness and mercy towards those that have hurt us. It is important that we seek justice for wholeness' sake, so that, that things that were wrong are made right again. Not about punishment, not about hurting the other person, but about a commitment. And, you know, in faith context, sometimes this is called like restitution, like trying our best to sort of make things right again.

And so having a conversation about justice, without talking about mercy, without talking about truth, without talking about peace, and without frankly talking about reconciliation. The goal is and should be injustice to make us more fully connected, to make us ponopono again. Then I have to think about the justice that builds, about the justice that reconnects, not about the sort of justice that destroys, or tears down, or marginalizes or hurts people in another way.

And then peace is a commitment that whatever we've had in the past, we are gonna work to make sure that it doesn't, that it doesn't happen again.

[00:28:26] Aaron - Narration: The Hawaiian tradition of Ho'oponopono was preserved largely thanks to the work of Mary Kawena Pukui, who documented and restored Hawaiian practices during a century of tumultuous change on the islands.

Although the practice is sadly slimmed down now, and popularized today as a kind of new age self-care, the traditional Ho'oponopono is a mix of ritual, accountability, forgiveness, and healing that Pukui described in part this way:

"Every one of us searched our hearts for any hard feelings of one against the other.

And did some thorough mental house cleaning. We forgave and were forgiven, thrashing out every grudge, peeve, or sentiment among us."

The end goal of this process is to do what Chad Ford described, not to make things right in the sense of achieving justice, but to make right our relationships. I'm inspired by Chad to do this more in my life, and I hope that you are, too.

How To Help is hosted and written by me, Aaron Miller, and produced in collaboration with BYU Radio. My thanks to Erica Price, Kenny Mears, and Blake Morris for their help with this episode. Scoring and mixing was done by Seth Miller, and our music is by Eric Robertson and the Pleasant Pictures Music Club. For more information about this episode, use the links in the show notes.

As always, thank you so much for listening.

Summary

About Our Guest

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Summary

About Our Guest

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Pleasant Pictures Music

Transcript

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