I was asked if I would pick up Jon Haidt at the University of Alabama, where he was speaking at the law school and drive him to Tallahassee where he was scheduled to deliver two presentations the following evening. Would I like to spend 6 hours in the car with one of the most significant minds in America…all to myself? And right after I had read The Righteous Mind?!

After a short nap, he consented to answer all my questions and patiently engage, for the rest of the trip, on a variety of subjects. One of those brainstorming sessions created The Asteroids Club although I suspect he had been thinking about the concept for awhile. I drove, he wrote on his computer, and the notion of a “Four Asteroids Club” started to take shape. We agreed it would be better not to limit the number to four and he tossed out a dozen ideas about how such an entity could formed and operated. We talked about the club’s motto and logo and sometime during the night after we arrived in Tallahassee he created portions of a powerpoint presentation for the next evening.

He suggested The Asteroids Club at both presentations in Tallahassee and spent a significant portion of his speech at FSU asking the audience about their preferences about a motto. It was evident that audiences found the notion of the club compelling.

–Steve Seibert