Monday Lunch with Experts (2026)

Chapter 005 serializing Experiential Insight Colleges in the year 2035, a near-term sci-fi story of how Women In Congress restored Liberal Arts Colleges and much more.

Part One of Two Parts

BluePrint of WE (see last chapter) was so successful in House and Senate admin offices, it became the talk of the town. BofWE supported women generally to speak up about what they felt and what they wanted. By Jan. of 2026, elected Women In Congress and their staffs — more simply, “Women” — were asking each other, “What other amazing Best Practices have been hidden away, ignored, neglected dismissed by male leadership?”

This question became the topic at many informal meetings. From these discussion emerged a small group of Women interested in finding the next thing like Blueprint of WE. They asked each other, “What other cultural gems might be useful to make out jobs, politics and how we all get along more wonderful?” They started a list of possible topics they had heard of yet knew little about; rumored Best Practices they were curious to explore. A weekly, informal, continuing education seminar was proposed, “Lunch With Experts.”

As happened during the pandemic-lockdown, online meetings became the modern version of 1960s “teach-ins,” where the best new ideas were circulated more widely and discussed. Tho primarily conceived of as continuing education for elected Women In Congress, and their staffs, anyone interested nation-wide would be invited to attend and learn thru live streaming and recordings.

The first order of business was scheduling. Women got out their cell phone calendars. Lunchtime seemed to be the most likely time to have this. “Learn while you eat.” But which day? Monday lunch seemed to be the time most women were free. In this way “Monday Lunch With Experts” was born: a series of weekly interviews with experts on timely topics, sometimes relevant to making new laws, sometimes more of a cultural nature. Always with Q&A to follow. A non-profit was put in motion. Public broadcast via CNN was arranged as a source of income, volunteers were the first staff — and off it went.

Favorite quotes from Looking back: 50 years of Monday Lunch with Experts (2076)

begin Q

Appreciation and analysis are the two opposed poles of the adult waking psyche. We need both working together as teammates. Why? Because what lies between them is Feeling and feelings are everyone’s most powerful tool ~ Ian McGilchrist paraphrase

you can have concentrated wealth or you can have democracy. You can’t have both ~ Louis Brandeis

People’s actions are the picture book of their creeds and values ~ Emerson

Though we travel the world in search of beauty, we must develop it within or we find it not ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

end Q

Entertainment celebrities without a degree in their topic, were forbidden from speaking. Women were not interested in talkers who were — as Texas cowboys used to say, “all hat and no cattle. Experts were invited to educate Women on:

- Other Best Practices in Interpersonal Competency like Blueprint of WE,

- Who are Cultural Creatives? Why do they matter?,

- Worker owned and operated cooperatives as solution for the Silver Tsunami of Baby Boomers business owners retiring; and, as a solution to the danger of hedge funds “rolling up” more businesses into toxic monopolies,

- Best Practices in K-12 education reform,

- MBTI and Hexaco models of personality preferences, how to benefit from them and the dangers of their use,

- Regenerative Agriculture Best Practices,

…and other topics and inventions, male-led corporations had suppressed, ignored, dismissed.

Given the steady and continuing decline of colleges and academia since 2001, reputable, reliable experts were not always easy to find and schedule. A staff of two worked full time to find, vet and book a weekly schedule of experts. Little did the organizers of know how hungry many of the general public were for honest, no B.S. discussion of real topics, not political spin, not posturing, not corporate lobbying disguised as “expertise.”

Why Interpersonal Competency matters

The first theme emphasized by multiple experts was how the average person, never exposed to any Best Practices in interpersonal competency had no training, nor any workable methods, for managing and reducing conflict with spouses, with children and with neighbors. A country full of people with no such skills is very likely to harbor massive frustration, irritation and aggravation in its shadow.

This helped women understand why small domestic and parking lot arguments keep blowing up into police actions and unnecessary shootings. People with no skills to avoid or de-escalate conflict, feel helpless and powerless when interpersonal conflict arises. A gun or knife or fisticuffs gives males a sense of agency which compensates for when they feel helpless, hopeless, powerless.

If you are young and witness multiple unnecessary incidents of violence, you learn it’s safer to look down at your phone, screen or console and avoid interpersonal conflict by avoiding interpersonal contact and connecting. This was the key to understanding what had happened in the Heads-down Generation.

In this way Women came to understand the solution for the “heads-down generation” was the same solution to many other problems: spreading methods and practice with Best Practices in Interpersonal Competency, as widely and as quickly as possible. BofWE was a good start on this education experts said.

Livestreams and recordings of Monday Lunch With Experts quickly became a YouTube sensation. PBS asked to broadcast sessions live also. A TED-talk-like archive of evergreen shows quickly accumulated; in fact, as Monday Lunch with Experts grew, it accelerated the demise of less interactive TED Talks. Later more is said about this.

NEXT ~ A summary of the most popular and helpful distinction made in psychology which enabled Women In Congress were better able to open their minds to new idea, and navigate to solutions to the problems thrown at them.