My guest is Julie Mashack. Julie is the Director of Global Programs and Networks at 92nd Street Y - (as in the 24th letter of the alphabet) - it’s a 145 year old cultural and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The Y is short for Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association.

“I admire [when you have] a confidence in your own opinion that you can listen to someone else and maybe your opinion won’t change but you’re confident enough to say, “Okay, I’m open” and that I don’t automatically feel so threatened by another opinion that I don’t need to shoot it down, that I can listen to it. I admire when I see that happen — I think it’s incredible.”

Julie started out as a radio producer on NPR and Air America Radio and had a good stint in television news production before she joined 92nd Street Y over six years ago.

She oversees the major outreach and civic engagement initiatives for 92Y Belfer Center for Innovation and Social Impact. I met her at an online event hosted by the Royal Society of Arts here in the UK when I heard her talk about a fascinating initiative that she launched and has grown to a network of 300+ civil conversation clubs in 33 states, probably more by the time you’re listening to this because, when I met her, she was looking for leaders in countries around the world to set-up international clubs — you can appreciate how this might have drawn me in - and you for that matter.

The initiative is called The Ben Franklin Circles — a quick background… so Ben Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. As well as being an influential politician of his time, he was many other things including a scientist and an inventor. He was deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies in 1753 and he did own and deal in slaves but by the late 1750s, he began arguing against slavery and became an abolitionist.

Ben was all for self-betterment and ran conversation clubs to discuss his own defined list of 13 virtues… temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility — all with the purpose of asking two questions: How can we improve ourselves? How can we improve our world?

Taking that concept, Julie led an initiative to bring those conversation clubs back into practice and I wanted to learn more about them as well as her own conversation journey.

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