EP 103: Real Confidence- Confidently Handling Hateful People with Special Guest Sean Harvey

April 13, 2025

This episode of Real Confidence is a wild one. I’m talking to Sean Harvey, founder of Warrior Compassion Institute and author of Warrior Compassion, and we get into the real, messy, and honestly kind of scary work of sitting down with people most of us would run from. Think white nationalists, men feeling lost in a changing world, people whose views might make your skin crawl. But Sean doesn’t argue or shut them down—he meets them with love, curiosity, and a whole lot of patience or in other words, confidence.

And somehow, it works.

Sean and I talk about why polarization is making everything worse, how dehumanization goes both ways, and why Sean believes his work is the missing step before DEI efforts can actually stick. He’s all about helping people get emotionally and psychologically ready for those hard, awkward, necessary conversations—the kind that don’t just change minds but actually open hearts.

I don’t want to give too much away, but the highlights of conversation that stick with me—and will stick with you too, include:

Why Sean meditates with extremists instead of debating them
How curiosity and compassion can keep even the toughest conversations going
Why polarization dehumanizes everyone—including us
The "bridging mindset" and how it leads to real change; and
A terrifying moment that proved to Sean he was exactly where he needed to be

Sean’s approach to dealing with hateful people confidently and compassionately is fascinating, and if you want to go deeper into his work, visit check out WarriorCompassion.com where you can also sign up for his mailing list and get copy of his book.

Episode Transcript

P 103
Welcome fellow confidence crusaders, neuro nerds and success equalizers. This is your podcast, Real Confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver, and I'll be sharing a bit of basic brain science, some surprising social secrets and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So let's get to it.

Alyssa:
All right, today you might want to strap on. We're going to get hot and heavy very fast on a topic that is either going to totally piss you off or totally inspire you. And my guess is going to do both. So I have today Sean Harvey. He is the CEO, Senior Strategic Advisor at the Warrior Compassion Institute, and also the author of the book warrior compassion, Unleashing the Healing Power of Men. He's a TEDx speaker. We'll put all the links to everything in the show notes. Sean, it is amazing to have you on today.

Sean Harvey:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Alyssa:
Now everything I just said, people are going like, yeah, what? What is it? So, tell them what you do.

Sean Harvey:
You know, I think if I, if I were saying in a sentence, I'm really committed to engaging men's healing as a way to counter hate, polarization and extremism, but in hyper masculine systems, which I call consider police, military, defense, government, finance, tech, energy. There's male dominated environments, often powers of center, where we've often found that more strict extremist ideology may have infiltrated into those systems. So how do we bring healing into those places?

Alyssa:
Now, when you speak here, as well as in the past, when we've spoken, you're so eloquent, but I need you to be almost less, little bit more fundamental. And I'm using that word intentional, because you go into extremist groups. Tell us about that. Yeah. So you know, as a queer, progressive New Yorker who works with Neo Nazis to help de radicalize.

Sean Harvey:
You know, folks who have been, you know, radicalized to, you know, ideological extremes. You know, be it on either side of, if we look at the political spectrum and a lot of it, I've been in the men's work space for about eight years, helping men heal. And then I started dating a ultra conservative Maga conspiracy theorist as my ex boyfriend, and really started to get immersed in that world for nine months and really understanding more of the psychological drivers, the deep seated fears and and, and getting really curious about the, you know, what brings a man to that place and then, you know, one of the things that relationship taught me more than anything, was to separate the humanity from the humanity of the man from the views of the man, and they are not the same. And to get curious about where those views come from, while still being able to take a stand for love, for the humanity of that man,

Alyssa:
Whoa, gotta unpack a lot of that, a lot, because, first and foremost, the fact that you are brave enough. And I say brave enough, it's not even enough. It's just incredibly brave to tackle these issues in general, as you know, what's driving men to be radical? But you said you're a gay man from New York, and you were dating a MAGA, a maga proponent, who was also obviously gay. So all brave, but when you go into these groups, like, when you approach these groups, tell me, how do you do that? Do you tell them that you're gay? Do you tell them that you're trans, trying to transform them? Like, how? What's the approach here?

Sean Harvey:
Great question. Um, so typically, it's not that I'm going to go into a proud boys meeting or an Oath Keepers meeting. It's not that I'm going to go into the groups. It's more of more of, where do these folks work? And a lot of times it's these cultures. Of, you know, police departments, defense contractors, you know, these more male dominated environments, where the cultures, because especially there's not a lot of room for the emotionality or the humanity they can often, especially in paramilitary organizations, can dehumanize to break you down, to build you back up, to be able to do the work. And so going into these environments, it's understanding, for me, you know, both an understanding of the human condition, understanding psychology and principles of counseling, at the same time, being able to understand how systems work and how these cultures work, and see the interrelationship between the individual and the culture. And so I go into those environments, understanding some of those dynamics, and then saying, there are other ways that we can start to engage your men. There are other ways that we can start to engage with you know. And I think just over time, I've just started learning some of the more COVID language, or just understanding of when someone holds these more ideological, ideological fringe ideas, but, and unfortunately, they're not becoming so fringe to becoming more and more in the mainstream that that you know as blurs. You know, for me, I often my approach is I understand that a lot of these views lead to suffering.

And so as opposed to meeting men where they are, I meet these men and their suffering, and I listen for their yearning, and I offer hope. In the midst of both, I was on a group of us formed in a national initiative to deepen compassion in police departments across the country. We actually had a meeting with Senate staffers from Senator Germans team on the Judiciary Committee, and happened to be scheduled a week after the Uvalde shooting. And our conversation after, in 30 minutes focused on really, in 30 minutes, we talked about men's mental health, mass shootings, gun violence, police shootings, police suicides, and veteran suicides. And it was a moment where I really noticed this is what hopelessness looks like. And so for me, especially as an interfaith minister, also doing this work, that my biggest job is to offer hope to the hopeless. For those on the brink of hopelessness, and I believe a lot of these views at a certain point, when you combine it with grievance, when you combine it with frustration, when you combine it, combine it with fear of becoming irrelevant, fear of not being seen, fear of having what you've earned taken away. A lot of these things that are the the fears for a lot of these men, and then a certain event may trigger that next step, and they move from hope or hopeful or holding on to hope to hopelessness. And that's often where we start to see the mass casualty events. That's where we start to see the suicides, that's where we start to see the hate violence. So being able to kind of see where is that point that good men who have good views and love their families, their communities, their friends, you know, their faith, but also hold ideas based on whatever might be triggering for them that maybe were that may be moving them in this direction. And so how do we intervene? So for me, the biggest thing I hold is compassion.

Alyssa:
Wow. I mean, wow, double Wow. I'm curious, because a lot of the groups or the career paths that you noted. It could be a complete myth. But I want, I want your perspective. Do they attract people that are rarity in a hopeless situation, or they are looking for something, then they get in these groups and it's kind of validated at, yeah, we, you know, we've had a tough is that true?

Sean Harvey:
I think it's a combination. I think it's, you know, I think it's what, what, what brings someone to want to work in one of these environments, in one of these types of industries or sectors, you know? What is their own propensity? What is male and masculine conditioning in America as as we as we see it today, where, and then what happens in these cultures? You know, what happens in the environments? And so, I think it's a combination, um, I think the one thing that that I often try to stress is that it becomes very easy to say, These are the men on, on the blue side, these are the man on, on, on the, you know, on the red side. These are the conservatives. These are, these are the progressives. And we, we often start to debunk everybody into these monoliths, yeah, you know. And I think one of the ways that I found to really create connection, to really create impact is to really acknowledge the complexity of each person I'm talking to, to know that you might have a little bit of blue and you might have a little bit of red and you might have a little bit of purple, and I really don't know. So my job is not to assume or assert that this is who you are, but to really ask you and be an inquiry with you, to understand who you are, and that's what we know. And do we don't engage enough. We talk about, we talk that, we pontificate, but we don't actually engage with and ask about and one of the things that I do is, you know, I hold my and this is going to be hard for a lot of people. This is where we you might get people piss me and pissed off of me, um, I put my values and beliefs in my back pocket.

As I do this, that's really hard, very hard, but I know that if I want to create, if I want to create this connection, it's not and I and I put in my back pocket so I don't lose them, but I don't lead with them. And I also know that a lot of times it's not about me. A lot of times it's like when I'm engaged, it's about them. What do they need to hear? And I hold it in my back pocket, though, so I don't lose my integrity. And if I if it's something that really challenges and crosses the line, then I'm like, Good, let's have a conversation about this part.

Alyssa:
That's gotta be the hardest part of the job. I mean, because you're a compassionate person, obviously, I would guess you have a liberal perspective, and then you hear something that's completely radicalized, like you said, fringe, and you're like, whoa, but you can't do that. So are you working directly, one on one, with these people, and how do you handle that when you're like, whoa, that's just not cool with me?
Sean Harvey:
So it's often. So much of this is more subtle than that. So much of this is not it's going to be something where I'll hear, it'll be more of a passing comment, and it could be one on one, it could be in a group setting and passing, if it's, if it's more of like a one off conversation or a one on one, you know, it's, I a couple of things. One, I just, I have a good stoic face, so I don't necessarily respond, you don't know what I'm thinking, you know, that's part of it. But the other part is, I'm like, All right. So if we take that, if so, if it's like, some some example, and it's like, All right, so we take that one point now if we, if we look at it another way, if we add on to it and say, Now let's look at, you know, a perspective that you know, if it's, if you're talking about one group or one class of people, then I might just offer, okay, and now let's look at, if we expand it to this other class of folks, or we to really look at, you know, if it's, if it's a non white perspective they're taking. And I say, okay, now let's bring it back into, what does it look like in in terms of with white, white folks as well, you know? And so it's, it's, for me, it's, it's, it's, how do I not wrong? And that's one of the things that I learned at Eileen Fisher, was to never wrong the person in front of me.

Alyssa:
Well, that's only going to, it's only going to, yeah, shut them down and escalate the issue. So let me, let me throw a very possible scenario at you and tell me how you'd handle this. Some you know, you're in, you're hanging out with maybe a group of these folks, and somebody makes an anti gay, you know, flagrantly anti gay comment. Do you address it? Do you acknowledge it. What do you do?

Sean Harvey:
Yeah, so if it's an ant, if I'll, because I'm very strategic about when I talk about or disclose my sexuality, you know, and so I'm usually very matter of fact about it in terms of, I'll talk about someone I'm dating, or some, someone that you know something's going on in my life, and so in that, in that instance, I'll probably go, Okay, so now, as a gay man, you know, I want to give you my perspective on how that's impacting me, or how that how I just took that in terms of what you just said.

Alyssa:
And how do they respond to that? Are they in shock? I imagine.

Sean Harvey:
No, it's not usually shock. It's some I remember I was on a call with a bunch of FBI agents and and then I just said, Yeah, I'm gonna go to my ex boyfriend's wedding. And it was just a very matter of fact discussion. And, you know, no one, I don't I think, because the rapport is already built, you know, and I think part of it, and I know I have what I like to call I have package privilege, that I have a packaging and an energy that allows me in the door, and it also defies a lot of stereotypes. And so I use that as a way to be able to be the bridge, and then also to be able to be in, be in the conversations, to be able to expand the views, challenge the views, and it's often, you know, if I'm in a conversation, one of the I don't typically do is I don't typically go issue to issue. I don't go head to head around the issues, because that's what's going to go into a debate. Now often, then bring it from and I'll often just shift the gears ever so slightly. So if someone's sharing with me and one of the one of my abilities, I have a large tolerance to hold someone's hate. And so I often envision, because of my ability as a minister, as just who I am, the work of the inner work that I've done, to be able to allow me to do this work. And I always envision I have a table in front of me, and I have this person in front of me, and I'm like, alright, because when they tell someone who's like them, it's one thing. If they tell someone who's different than them, it's like going to a confessor. It's like a confession, right? And so I'm like, Alright, my friend, put it on the table. I can hold it for you. And they start to just like, unload and unpack

Alyssa:
That's amazing.

Sean Harvey:
And so I'm holding it, and while they're push they're giving me their hate. I'm pushing back love, and I'm doing it through inquiry and questioning to go a little deeper and get a little more. So they're getting it out of their system, and we're getting it out in the air. And then, as we do that, then at a certain point, I'm like, Alright, it's a lot. That's enough. Alright, so I got a question for you, my friend, what's in your heart? Where's the love? Where's the fear, where's the hate? And this one guy in particular who wanted to be the face of the White Power Movement says to me, well, I wanted to hate. Let's go oh yeah, sure. Let's go back over the last 25 minutes. That's what I want to focus on. Let's talk about what that hates, about where did that come from. Let's unpack that.

Alyssa:
And it just take, took the conversation to a very different place and a very different understanding for him to be able to look at his, his, you know, where he's really at, and a pulse check. It did the same thing, but there he was willing to do it with you. It's insist. Nobody had to give him an ultimatum. It was, yes, it's all invitation.

Sean Harvey:
I remember I did that with my ex, and you know, we when we first started dating, and we would have these rage filled conversation like rage filled rage discussions on politics. And I said, Look, Mike, I'm your boyfriend. I'm not I'm not here. I don't care what your politics are. I'm not here to change your politics. It's not my job, but given what I do for a living, you best believe. I'm going to ask you about the anger with which you hold those views. Let's talk about your anger. And over nine months, we went from rageful discussions to emotion free, civil discussions around politics.

Alyssa:
Did the politics? Did his politics change? Or was it just his ability to discuss it more rationally, to discuss, his ability to discuss?

Sean Harvey:
I say, I think that's one of the things that we we have to be clear when we talk about this work, it's not necessarily changing their views to come to the other side. Yeah, it's being able to reveal their own truth to them that they that is underneath the distortions and the lies and the the faulty teachings they bought into to understand their own truth. And so it's not that I'm here to convert someone over to a progressive view. It's that, you know, we, especially as men, are so the to do the inner work is so foreign for so many men, partly because men are just it's not what we what we have. We've been trained. It's not that we have as much access to, say, women do to these types of offerings of personal growth, and there's a lot of stigma for men to do this.

And at the same time, what, by not doing it, what, whatever, it keeps us in this place of external comparison, and so we're just operating from this, what's out in the world, and how do I react to it? How do I respond? How do I compete with it versus let me go and find my own inner validation. Let me find my own truth. Let me look at the wounding that's that has exasperated my views, and also the the loneliness, the isolation and the and the deep state of fears that men hold that when unchecked, because they're just keeping it within and they don't have anyone to talk about it with, you know, can be exasperated by what we're seeing today.

Alyssa:
Absolutely so, given that this is a time in the world, it. Particularly the United States, that we're seeing an exasperation, an extraordinary amount of polarization and an extraordinary amount of hate. You know, you're one person doing incredible work, but you're one person. So do you have faith hope that things are going to get better? And if so, why?

Sean Harvey:
Well, I think, you know, last time, you know, I think Trump's gift to us in the first administration was shedding light on our darkness. He showed us. He showed us the truth of a lot of the places where we have a lot of darkness in our society. And the positive of that was that, how many people started to rise up in terms of, but, but not in an uprising, but more in a conscious raising, awareness raising place, my sense is, you know, a version of that's going to happen again, a sense of it is, you know, I think there's going to be a lot of disillusionment coming off of the false promises. Um, and, you know, what I often say is, you know, you know, I created something when I lived in DC called Men's Soul Adventures DC,
and I just put it out there as an experiment. Outdoor Adventure meets deeper male bonding needs soul connecting conversations. I was like, I just put it out there. I'm like, yeah. How many people are going to sign up? Within 24 hours 52 men in DC signed up. Within nine three months we had 180 guys. I experimented with four other cities, we had 330 guys within three more days.

And what that said to me was, there is a souls yearning like what the soul is yearning for, often what the mind doesn't understand, right? And so when we speak to them, that's why I always say, I meet in the suffering, and I listen for the yearning, and that yearning goes way deeper than what someone can articulate. And so those are the places where I start to have hope. And even the fact that someone like me can go and have these conversations with right of center to hard, right extreme, and have make headway. Now, let's also be clear. You know, people ask me, so what are your metrics? What's the what's the transformation like? Okay, I think we're looking at this wrong way. We're taking a we're taking a training and development outcome based model, instead of looking at it from a personal transformation, walk in the liminal space and understand that what we're really doing is each time someone does something like what I'm talking about, we create an experience for someone else that they'll never forget.

And we plant and we we we put an energetic imprint on each other, we reflect each other's humanity to each other, and we plant seeds that if we want to go spiritual, we'll germinate in connection with the divine to that person's own journey, but we were part of that by by having that, you know, that interaction, the more we can do that, and the more we can be there for each other. But I do think, you know, the first time I met a white nationalist, we were Army vet. We were, we were meditating over the we were meditating over the James River in Richmond, Virginia. And I, you know, we're talking, I thought we were on the same page. And then all of a sudden, he said, take a picture of me. Took photo, and right as he took the photo, he flashed the white power symbol in the middle of the photo. He said, oh, I know what that was. Okay. Went home, started looking up like Buddhist symbols and military symbols, and went to my spiritual guides. I'm like, yo, Are these my guys? He's like, yeah, you are. Your soul's call is to bring love to the hate, and to work with these men next time I had a conversation with them in the middle of the conversation, just kind of jokingly, well, injest it's just like, you know, we're going cops of military. I'm going to be my my fair share of white supremacist, white nationalist extremist. And he got uncomfortably dead silent for about 45 seconds.

What do I have in my toolbox? And I just instinctively knew I can't be progressive right now. I can't come off like a progressive. I can't wrong him. I can't be a social justice worker, because he's going to walk away immediately. Me so, but I am a minister, so I can talk Jesus. And by that I meant I can talk love, compassion and deeper humanity, okay, and following those instincts. But when I talk about love, compassion and deeper humanity, that's what keeps these guys in the conversation, that's where, that's where, because I think, at the end of the day, this is very human.

What we have done is we have dehumanized. And when we add because we are so polarized, we dehumanize the other side, and in reality, we dehumanize ourselves as we create these us in them, yep. And the reality is, when we can start to see the humanity in each other, and that's all a lot of folks are really asking for. That's what folks that are listening to this are asking for, see me in my humanness and see me as a human Yeah. And that's often what they're asking for as well. It's just we ask it in different ways. And so well, this is not going to get to the impact that we often want to see so quickly. We've often seen how that's been working out in terms of what we're seeing in terms of the backlash and the push back and so as an alternative, it's when we can start to find new ways to engage with each other.

And I think, you know, I often, I take this, I take the bridging aspect. I call it the bridging mindset, and I call it, you know, community, curiosity, compassion and courage, it's all of those. The sense that we are. We are one on a spiritual level, we are more alike than different in a lot of ways, when we allow ourselves to really get beyond that, holding it from compassion, holding it from a place of curiosity, to be curious about the other, and then the courage to engage. And I often say ,you know, the work around so I don't want to diminish, I don't want this to say, Well, Sean’s saying, Okay. I often say, especially to my friends in the DEI space, your work is critically important. My work is just the precursor to your work, so that a lot of these men can actually be ready with a with a greater ego strength to be able to hear the places where accountability is needed, where harm has been done, and we can have the honest conversations around healing.

Alyssa:
Yeah, I love it. Well, I could talk to you forever because I find you absolutely riveting and fascinating on so many levels. We're kind of at our mark here. And I know there's people that are going, oh, this is interesting too to them. They may or may not want to be a warrior, but if they want to learn more, what's the best way to find you? What's the best thing that they can do to start be part of your ripple effect?

Sean Harvey:
So I would say first go to my website, WarriorCompassion.com. Get on the mailing list and just keep up with with what I'm doing from there, you can also schedule. You can reach out, find me, have a conversation, find me on LinkedIn. I'm very easy to find or pick up a copy of my book, and then I'll give you a bit more of my story.

Alyssa:
Absolutely. And I know you do talks and workshops for organizations, both businesses, as well as, obviously, all these other kinds of organizations that could use your your coaching and and ministry work, and you know, for what it's worth, thank you, because I don't think there's too many people I've ever met that have the courage, bravery, intellect, motivation. I mean, you're an incredible human. So thank you for being here with me, but thank you for being on the planet and doing the work that you do. I mean it. I appreciate it.

Sean Harvey:
Thank you.

Alyssa:
Before we totally wrap up, I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other Real Confidence episodes can be found on www.AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again that the best way to get confidence is to give it to others, and you can do it just by liking and sharing this episode on your preferred podcast and social media channels. You can even give me some confidence by noting topics you'd like me to consider for the future. So for now, this is Alyssa Dver. Thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.

EP 103: Real Confidence- Confidently Handling Hateful People with Special Guest Sean Harvey

Join Our Free Trial