Every. Vote. Counts. And as it turns out, that is often felt most keenly from the perspective of people who are not allowed to vote.

That what motivates Esther de Rothschild & Aicha Cherif in their work running the Love Vote, an organization that amplifies the voices of people who can’t vote -- either because of youth, citizenship, or disenfranchisement. And they are doing it to move people who can vote, to vote.

Esther -- the Love Vote’s founder -- is a high school teacher and filmmaker. Aicha is the Love Vote’s outreach director. Aicha’s also a high school senior whose citizenship status means she won’t be eligible to vote, even after she turns 18 next year.

We also talked about their experiences at the helm of a social impact startup, as well as their insights on leading, collaborating, and learning in the social impact space.

Here’s a highlight:

42:26: “I remember when I first met with a tech person about a website… and I said, ‘can you let me know what you see as the greatest potential weakness, both in this project and of what I’m bringing to it?’….

“[He said,] ‘You’re greatest strength as I see it now is your awareness of how much you have to learn. And there’s a lot of people who actually know pretty much as little as you, about this space, but come in either believing they know everything they need to know, or pretending they know everything they need to know. And that is a tremendous liability.”

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Esther and Aisha offered rich insights on how to build bridges across the generational divide -- basically how old fuddy-duddies can successfully collaborate with a bunch of young whippersnappers.

The generational divide is such a common concern within the social change space, and Esther and Aicha have a lot of wisdom to offer on that.

And on the Tuesday after this episode comes out, I’ll be sending out an email that digs more deeply into the kind of learner’s mindset that Esther described as a key to her success.

If you want to get that email, go to dialoguelab.org/antidote and subscribe.