Jim Ferrell "The We-Ness of Repair"

If reality is fundamentally relational, then conflict is not about me versus you. It exists between us. And so does peace.

Note: Jim Ferrell will be the keynote speaker at REPAIR on October 23rd at 6 pm in the Varsity Theater. Tickets are free for anyone buying a workshop ticket or $25 if you just want to attend the keynote.

I’m honored to be the keynote speaker at the Repair conference on October 23^rd. The mission of overcoming divides and bringing people together has been my life’s work, first while leading the Arbinger Institute for more than 20 years and more recently through the work of my 2.0 company, Withiii Leadership. I want to give you a taste for what I will explore in my keynote at the Repair conference.

Like me, you may be alarmed by the increasing fragmentation of society. Political polarization, cultural divides, and interpersonal estrangements are fraying the fabric of our communities. And while so many of us long for greater peace and connection, we often find ourselves separated by misunderstandings, conflict, division, and hurt—even within our own families and social groups.

In my new book, You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership, I challenge one of the deepest assumptions of modern life—the belief that individuals stand alone, making independent choices in a world of separate selves. My own learning and experience have convinced me of something different: We exist in relation. We are not solitary actors. Our lives, our choices, and even our very selves are constituted by our intersections—that is, by the connections we share with others.

This has profound implications for peacebuilding and conflict transformation. Too often, when conflict arises, we ask ourselves: What do I need to do? How can I change? How can I get others to listen to me? Those are understandable questions, but they remain rooted in an individualistic mindset. When we see ourselves as separate, every disagreement feels like a clash of competing selves. Resolution then becomes a matter of one side yielding or persuading the other. But if reality is fundamentally relational, then conflict is not about me versus you. It exists between us. And so does peace.

Seeing life in this way also reshapes how we think about difference. I have come to believe that our differences are not obstacles to unity but the very material of relation itself. Just as harmony in music depends on distinct notes sounding together, human community flourishes not despite difference, but because of it—when those differences are connected in life-giving ways.

To REPAIR is to mend what has been frayed, to bring back to wholeness what has been divided. I believe that does not happen by strengthening individuals in isolation, but by renewing the connective tissue between us. It happens as we recover the reality of relation and learn to live in it.

In my keynote, I hope to share what I call the relational leap: a shift from seeing ourselves as solitary agents navigating a broken world to recognizing that who we are is who we are together. I’ll talk about what it means to see the world itself as relation, how divides can be bridged by connecting across differences, and why peace is found not in “seeming” but in the authenticity of being real, vulnerable, and open with one another.

My own journey to these insights has been shaped by more than three decades at the intersection of leadership, human connection, and conflict transformation. I began as a lawyer trained at Yale but left the legal profession because I felt called to explore how individuals, organizations, and societies might transcend division. I’ve been at this long enough now, and have made enough mistakes, to have learned many lessons about how we can connect with others and transcend the divides that separate us.

In my presentation, I will detail not only the best way I have learned to connect with each other and lead people, but also the best method for stitching the human family together in the face of our many threats.

For many in the Latter-day Saint community, my voice may ring familiar from books I wrote under the name James L. Ferrell, such as The Peacegiver and Falling to Heaven, and books I wrote under the name of my prior company, The Arbinger Institute, such as Leadership and Self-Deception and The Anatomy of Peace. Those works, like my newest one, You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership, come from a deep conviction that peace is not only possible but the way we were created to live.

I hope you’ll join me in exploring how we can recover that way of living and help repair what is broken in our lives, communities, and world.