Here's Where It Gets Interesting - I Never Thought of It That Way with Mónica Guzmán

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

In this episode, Sharon talks with Mónica Guzmán, whose new book, I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times helps us learn how to get more comfortable with the uncomfortable. Monica argues that we need to chase “I never thought of it that way” moments we have in order to grow in curiosity. When we manufacture certainty, we tend to see people and the world around us as one-dimensional. It’s important to understand the views of others because we’re not always happy in our echo chambers; we lose relationships, we feel anxiety about the future, and we pin the blame wherever we can. Once we begin to get curious and shine a light on what we perceive as a threat, that threat feels less insurmountable. It’s through curiosity that we can begin to see people from multiple dimensions–they aren’t monsters, they are people, just like us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Whether you're helping that special person take their content up a notch or adding that extra quality to your own shoots, Canon's got you covered. Shop the Level up sales event today at canon.ca. Hello, friends. Welcome. Always delighted to have you along with me. And today I am chatting with Monica Guzman. She's written a book that I know you are going to find fascinating. You will want to head to your local bookstore or your favorite online shop and get this book as soon as we are done with this conversation because it is that

impactful. The book is called I Never Thought of It That Way, How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Yay. I am absolutely delighted to have Monica Guzman with me today. And this is going to be a conversation that I know people will have so many takeaways from because you have an absolutely insightful and fascinating new book out. Thank you so much for

joining me. Oh, thank you for having me. I'm always excited to talk about all this stuff, all this curiosity that we need. Yes. And so the book that I read with such interest is called, I Never Thought of It That Way, How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. I love it so much. Tell everybody how you arrived at that title. Ah, well, I never thought of it that way, is what we think or say whenever some insight has crossed that chasm between someone else's perspective and our own. There's almost a physical sensation to it. It lands in your brain and you go, I never thought of it that way.

And then a seed is planted and you don't know if it's going to be dug up out of the ground the next day, or if it's going to grow into something that could change your life or significantly affect the way you think about something. But what I realized was, if we're going to be curious enough to see clearly in our hugely divided world, we need to chase I never thought of it that way moments. I love that. Why is that important? Why is it important to see things in a way that perhaps we've never seen them before? Why isn't the way that we see things now good enough? So I think of it in terms of geometry, if you will, that when we are so deeply divided, we are motivated to see things simply and flatly,

not because we're not smart, but because we're scared and anxious. And when we are afraid and anxious, we manufacture certainty to give ourselves closure to scary questions. So what that means is that we think we know and we won't think to ask. So we have to sometimes go out of our way to check our inclination towards certainty that comes too soon by being curious as much as we can. And in geometry, I think of if it's flat and you know that it's a complex, wicked issue and you see it

with two sides, you're only seeing it in two dimensions. You need to see it as a polygon. The more facets an issue has, the more you can turn it around in your hand. The closer you are to truth, the closer you are to the truth of the complexity of people's perspectives on any tough issue. So the more sides that you can expose yourself to, the more people you know who have a different view, you can ask them how they arrived at that view, the more clearly you will see the world around you. I love that phrase. We manufacture certainty because certainty feels good in our brain. Certainty is, you know, our brain saving calories. It's our brain saving processing time and dedicating space to trying to figure out how difficult a problem is. And it just

feels easier to be like, well, that's not true. Yeah. That's not right. I don't agree. And it's a lie. Yeah. And particularly pernicious is when we do this about other people, when we say we know everything we need to know about them and why they think what they think and how it's clearly from these terrible, terrible places that I want nothing to do with. And that's too simple. That's too flat. That is not real. And it's not true. So when we don't see people clearly, we don't see the world clearly. How can we be informed about the world when we're not informed about people? That's so true because this is from my experience, and maybe you can speak to this. So often when we have a perception of what somebody else believes, let's say it's a hot

button issue. Many times our perception of what somebody else thinks is based on what people who currently agree with us have told us about those people over there. Well, those people are just trying to steal our jobs. Those people are just trying to impose their Marxist views on the rest of the world. Those people are just trying to flood this country with drugs, whatever it is, pick a topic. Our perspective of what somebody else believes often doesn't come from them. It comes from what we have been told or what our brain has decided by people who agree with us, who have the share the same certainty. Right. Do you, do you have that perspective or have you stumbled on something else?

Right, exactly. I mean, it's people who share our same certainties also share our same blind spots. And that's the thing that we forget. We forget we're online. The internet feels so vast and interminable. Our Facebook feeds, our social feeds, clearly they're representative and rich. We do see different opinions represented, but as you say, often the opinions that seem opposed to ours, they show up in our feeds represented by, filtered through the voices and perspectives of people who agree with us. So it usually comes with some scorn, some skepticism, lots of simplicity, lots of certainty. And so that's the paradox of our world. We're so connected and yet so misinformed about each other. And the social science shows us this. You ask people on one side

what the other side thinks, and we are grossly exaggerating the degree to which people have extreme views, for example. So we already know we have inaccurate views. It's just, it's becoming harder and harder to step outside of our silos and check each other. Why is it so important to understand somebody else's views? Why can't we just be happy in our own little echo chambers and be like, well, I don't really care what they think. Why is it important? Yeah. I mean, I would say it's because a lot of us are not happy. We're not happy in our echo chambers. We're not happy in our world. We're walking around having lost dear relationships with friendships on the brink, having lost dear relationships with friendships on the brink, feeling this anxiety about the future of our country and our society, pinning the blame on people we don't understand.

Anytime a threat is seen, it becomes less of a threat. Anytime a threat is understood, it becomes less of a threat. To give you a completely silly analogy, because I studied film in college, if you think of monster movies, horror movies, for the beginning part of the movie, you don't see the monster. You don't see it. It's terrifying. But as soon as the monster is visible, you know that the protagonists are going to figure this out.

They're going to figure out how to defeat it. Now, the difference with real life, of course, is that people are not monsters. They only look that way because of the vantage point from where we perceive them, the certainties that we apply. Once we begin to get curious, we see that there are people just like us. Who knew? I love that. Anytime a threat is seen, it becomes less of a threat.

What is happening in the dark is scarier than what is being held in the light where you can examine it from all sides. Right, right. And they say that a question is like a lantern that illuminates what it sees, what it tries to explore. So curiosity is the trick here. It's the key. What about people who have very dangerous ideas? What about people who believe in the goodness of genocide or the enslavement of people? What about people whose ideas are abhorrent? Are we supposed to be curious about those? Yeah. So you may have heard of Daryl Davis.

He serves as such an interesting case study here. Daryl Davis is a Black blues musician who has befriended and defrocked many members of the Ku Klux Klan, many legit card-carrying white supremacists. A very radical, beautiful question. How can you hate me if you don't even know me? So dangerous ideas that are dangerous because they appear to be fueled by hate. The way that I look at that, when something appears to be fueled by hate, it is fueled by a lack of seeing other people as people. lack of seeing other people as people. Once people with those ideas might have the opportunity, and it is difficult to see as humans, whoever they think is so unworthy that genocide is justifiable or racial superiority is a good idea, then all those ideologies tend to fall away. Then all those ideologies tend to fall away. It can happen. Now, who wants to sign up for that conversation, right? That's not an easy thing to do. What we know is that it works. more people hold this degree of dangerous ideas than actually do. So we often believe that that seed of evil lies in people

where it actually doesn't. We just see a couple of lines from a script. We think we know we've seen this movie before. You know, you talk about how you're lamenting, looting during protests, you must be racist. It's like, well, hang on, right? When we get curious and we start to see how things connect for people and what values are underneath, more often than not, we'll see that we share a lot of values. We just stack them in a different order for different issues. So dangerous ideas do exist. Some people are so consumed by hate that they are worth fearing. But there are much fewer of those hearts out there than we think. And even the people with those hearts can be reached. Maybe not by you. Maybe not tomorrow. All we can do is try to become one level more curious. Ask one more question before jumping in with our opinion.

Refuse to burn one bridge that we're this close to burning. Even that makes our world more curious. I love that too, that it's not your job or my job necessarily to fix all the white supremacists in the world or the Nazis in the world, but we can ask ourselves to be one level more curious or have one more conversation in an effort to make the world at large a better place. Yeah. And we have to ask ourselves what happens if we don't. I mean,

I think if you play this out, you know, where many of us are taking ourselves out of perspective conversations because we're afraid we'll get hurt. The problem is if too many people do that, it becomes impossible to see each other because we're literally taking ourselves out of sight. Conversations are a kind of seeing. They're an exploring of the intersections between our perspectives. They're enormously powerful. They feel risky exploring of the intersections between our perspectives. They're enormously powerful. They feel risky because your skin is in the game. You can't predict them. That's why they work. But if too many of us opt out, we're only going to spiral into deeper untruth and exaggeration. And I think that's what leads to the most harm.

Let's say somebody's listening to this and they're like, I agree with that. I get what you're saying. Let's talk about how to have those fearlessly curious conversations that you reference in your books. Are there some guidelines or is there a formula that you can give us? Because we know that arguing in the comments section of a news site is not the answer. No, it is not. Indeed, it is not. So to jump off that, one framework that I'd love to give folks is to think about a couple of conditions that lead one to have more productive conversations across difference. Time, attention, parity, containment, and embodiment. Time is how much time do you actually have to talk about potentially tricky stuff. Attention is, hang on, on the platform

you're on, do you know that the other person is actually with you or are they texting from the toilet? Like, do you not know where they are? Parody is about, are you approaching this person at the same level? On Facebook, if someone posts and someone comments on them, the commenter can be hidden, can be blocked, right? There's a power imbalance there in the level of the conversation. Containment is extremely important. The degree to which a conversation is actually contained to the people participating in it. We don't often stop and think how weird it is that we are having so many conversations that

are difficult in places where we have no idea how many people are listening. We have no idea what their reactions are. That's wild to me. So if you contain things to the people participating, you will be more honest. You will be more candid. And then finally embodiment. Do you get gestures and tone or do you just get words and emojis? It's very, very tricky to understand each other when you have such few tools. So that's one framework. But to begin on broader strategies here, one of the most powerful is when we think about getting curious, we think about the question, why? Why do you believe what you believe? It's a perfectly beautiful, wonderful question.

But in times of deep division and distrust, why can sound very accusatory to the other person. Why is like, don't just justify your ideas, justify yourself to me. And so the person gets defensive, it shields up. And what they'll do is they'll often reach for the reasons that they have seen online, the memes, the talking points under which they can take some shelter. And they'll give you those. And then what you'll do is, well, you'll give them your reasons that you've taken shelter under. And before you know it, you start to repeat yourself because all you're doing is insisting your reasons to each other. This does not lead to understanding.

So instead of asking, why do you believe what you believe? Ask, how did you come to believe what you believe? This avoids the whole issue of what's true and what's not, what's real and where's our facts? Because people are always the undeniable expert about their own stories. So you ask people to walk you through the path they took to their views in their own lives

and you're getting a tour. You're not putting them on trial. And this has been enormously powerful for me in my journalism career. And it's maybe one of the most powerful strategies that I can share. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the

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Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. at your podcasts. Tell me about how you came to believe this. Then they'll, then they're going to reach back in their memory and access things that happened to them. You know, my mother died and I had these feelings. And then because I was feeling this grief, I met this person. It adds a layer of that dimensionality. Exactly. Exactly. And again, it's not, people conflate engagement with agreement. Yes. If I hear their story, then am I endorsing their conclusions? No, you're not at all, nor are you so vulnerable as to suddenly shift in your thinking just because you've connected with someone's humanity. Not at all. It does not lead you to agree with their conclusions, but it might lead you to say, that makes sense. Just that makes sense. Not that's

right or that's correct, but I get it. I see where you're coming from. And so I better understand where you are. I like to say that listening to understand does not obligate you to agree. And it's exactly like what you were just saying. We conflate engagement with agreement, with endorsement. But if I listen to you, that I am therefore endorsing maybe ideas that I think are dangerous or endorsing maybe ideas that I think are immoral or whatever they are, that listening to you as a human being, looking you in the eyeballs as a human being then implies a tacit endorsement on my part. And we really have, I think that is part of the reason we have moved into this very, what feels like a very stratified societal structure where it's

like, you guys are over here and we're over here in this column, we're over here in this column. And we don't like the people over there are crazy. People over there are ignorant. The people over there, whatever it is, whatever, you know, label you'd like to assign to them. And I don't talk to the people over there because that rubs off on me. That if we, if our entire lives have led us to our, our perspectives, why would we think that a conversation with someone who sees things differently would suddenly change us into monsters? Like, is that fear really well-founded? It's not, it's not. But I think because we live in a world where we believe that ideas are traveling so easily that they're converting people. Well, gosh, because they must be hateful, they must be crazy, or they must be idiots. All three of those are harmful assumptions that we

make about other people all the time. I think that we also are afraid that we ourselves are that vulnerable to these ideas. That, man, if I just hear someone say this stuff, it might make sense to me to the degree that I will agree with it. But again, what a lack of faith in our own constitution. What a lack of faith in all the experiences that have walked us to our perspectives, the paths that we have taken. So that's what I've learned is every time I have these conversations, no part of me changes without it being ready to change. The only way that an idea could instantly change you is if your mind and heart were already right at the brink.

If you have fertile ground for that seed to grow, it will grow. It was meant to be. But if not, it won't. And you don't need to be so afraid. We tend to be friends with people who are like us. That is, in some ways ways you could argue that's human nature. That goes back to how human societal structures have evolved. It was a part of what kept us safe, that these people are safe. Those people are unknown. Unknown means not safe.

And so you can understand why humans have through time evolved to be friends with people who are like them. And sometimes we have to work to override those shortcuts in our minds that tell us that like, well, they're look different, believe different. Hair's a weird color, has a lot of piercings, whatever it is in our mind that makes somebody else feel other. whatever it is in our mind that makes somebody else feel other. How do we just, let's say somebody lives in a rural location where everybody is like them, everybody votes the same, everybody is the same. How do we even begin to expand outside of our little circles of people that we know so that we can have these kind of conversations in which there is that embodiment, which there is that containment. How do we find

those people if we don't have those friends already? Right. Because it's true. Blue zip codes are getting bluer. Red zip codes are getting redder. People are moving their whole lives to be closer to where they're comfortable. We've seen that reporting. It's happening. It does make it more difficult then to have in-person conversations with people who are different. hey, we all have our own spectrum of the close-knit circle of people who are most like us, but everyone has an edge. Everyone has a margin. So no matter who you are listening to this, you do have a friend who thinks something differently from you. You do. We're not all robots who all walk around the same. So lean into that relationship. Because we are sorting ourselves to be closer to people like us, our families and our long-term friendships are becoming some of our best access points to different perspectives. So many of us are burning bridges, deciding not to invite so-and-so to Thanksgiving.

Well, change that next year. Come up to that person. Find your way to that conversation. Many of us are also impatient. And so we'll want that uncle to talk to us about this thing that we're curious about right now. And we'll want in, in one hour to fully understand them. That won't happen. And in fact, depending on your relationship, you may not really be able to get to that conversation in an hour. So a lot of it is the steps, the slow patience that it takes to approach another person while truly understanding

that you are not in control. Once another person is involved, you're not in control and you're going to have to exercise some courage and some patience, but you can always go to your margins. We also tend to think of polarization only in terms of politics. But there's a variety of topics that somebody could have a different perspective on than you. Maybe you voted for the same candidate, but they feel differently about mask mandates than you do. There's a broad variety of topics on which you can have these kinds of curious conversations that are not just about the ballot box. Yes, absolutely. I did one podcast interview with someone who is very, very much on the right. I'm very much on the left. And the first thing he said was, Hey, Monica,

we're both from Washington state, right? I grew up in Everett and you're in Seattle. And I said, yeah, you know, just the fact that we started that conversation with a point of common ground already set us off in a different direction. I think of common ground, or at least acknowledging agreement, even on the way to conclusions that we completely disagree with. Like, oh yeah, I see that. That makes sense. That's a fair point. Every time we say that in a conversation, we're brave enough to say it. It's like building a base camp up a mountain. conversation. We're brave enough to say it. It's like building a base camp up a mountain. You can rest there for the night. You can acclimate. And then you can climb higher toward understanding each other. So the more ways that you can do that, that you can say, I see you. I see that. I don't agree with it, but I get it. Then the other person goes,

I can open up a little more. And that's really, truly magical because we could be curious all day long, but if we're not honest, it won't matter. So true. I would love to hear more about people who are experiencing a lot of anxiety surrounding these types of conversations. I hear from people all the time about how mentally exhausting, how they feel like, why should I devote what small amount of energy I have left to talking to Uncle Bob who believes that the earth is flat? You know what I mean? To what extent is it our responsibility to have these conversations? And how do we know if we are even in the right mental space to be able to have them? Right. Oh, that's a wonderful question.

And maybe the key thing is I don't want it to sound like a blanket prescription because it can't be. One way that we see each other is understand that we're all extremely different. And the level of difficulty and challenge for this is hugely variable according to all kinds of things. So you don't even have to have a conversation with someone else. Maybe what you do that makes you one step more curious is the following. The next time you see an article headline from something that you think is, well, it's at least a source that a lot of people trust. Maybe not me, but a lot of people. And it

represents an opposing perspective to mine. And instead of, I don't know, tweeting about how awful it is or ignoring it altogether or feeling bad about the world, when I see the headline, I'm going to click on the headline. And then as I read the perspective, I'm going to ask myself a couple questions. I'm going to ask, what is the deep down honest concern that is fueling and informing this perspective? And then I'm also going to ask, what is the strongest argument for this side of things? And if you ask yourself that generously, first, there's no risk. There's no risk of talking to someone else. You're not going to get exhausted by having to deal with an unpredictable other. You just have yourself. But it turns out that internally, we can be very incurious. Every time that our assumptions come up and block our curiosity, every single time that they block our questions. So we can do this

with ourselves. That is a first step that anyone who's feeling too anxious about a conversation can always take. And it is just as valuable and just as influential and just as good. You get in the practice of looking at the other side generously, and even that will begin slowly to melt away some of this division. What would you say to somebody who feels like I cannot invite all those people to the 4th of July barbecue? They're just going to spend the whole time wearing their shirts for a candidate I don't like and talking about how terrible the candidate I like is, I can't do it. What would you say to somebody who is experiencing those feelings? Because I know there are people listening who feel that way. There are. Yeah, for sure. I mean,

again, very personal decision, right? But one could ask questions. One could say, well, are we so sure? How sure are you that they might behave in ways that you find unconscionable? And then another question would be, if they do behave in those ways, how could you look at it differently? You know, they show up with the shirts about that candidate. Okay, maybe that bugs you a lot. Maybe you really need to reestablish a relationship about something else. And so you work to just say, well, they have that shirt because it's important to them. And I'm

going to talk about other things. Or you can say they have that shirt because it's important to them. And it is also important to me that they know how I feel about that candidate. And so then you're talking about a crucial conversation, a difficult conversation that you could choose to have, but maybe not right when they show up, you know, maybe after you've had a couple of hot dogs, maybe a beer. Then what you, what you do is you begin with concerns. I mentioned concerns already. I see that you, you have that t-shirt. I got to say, I'm not, I'm not surprised. I'm curious, since the last election, what concerns do you have today

that lead you to really support this candidate? And then listen. And they may have a completely different tone in the way that they answer your question. But just keep in mind, you don't have to argue. You're probably not going to change their minds. In fact, you're most certainly not going to change their minds. In fact, you're most certainly not going to change their minds. But what you could do is choose to have a relationship and choose

to have a bridge that you could cross today, tomorrow, in five years. The most powerful and important thing to do with a bridge is not to cross it, but to keep it. Because as soon as we burn that bridge, that's it. Somebody has lost another relationship with someone different from them. So if we can even just avoid that, maybe you don't invite them this year, but maybe you give them a call. You know, maybe you can take some step to leave that door open. I love that too, that keeping the bridge is the important thing because once the bridge is burnt you lose your ability to influence them in the future yeah and they lose their ability to

influence you but yeah but you do so I've got um I've got someone very dear to me who has a very different idea on vaccination she doesn't vaccinateinate her kids even before COVID, doesn't vaccinate herself. And when we talk about this, you know, it can be charged, it can be difficult, but we learn a lot about each other. She's one of the healthiest people I know, right? She also has deep, deep suspicion of wealth and of corporations. So it makes sense, her opinion to me. But there's this idea of sort of, well, if she ever gets to the point where she's thinking, maybe I'm wrong about vaccines, I don't know, let me call Monica. I want her to think, let me call Monica, right? I think that those are the things that we need. Those are the pieces of the web that we need to keep intact. Or we lose something we can't get back very easily at all. What would you say to somebody who feels like I cannot be around that person or because that person is associating with ideas that are so harmful that it makes them not a good person in my mind? Why would I want to be around people? That's not a good person in my mind. Why would I want to be around people that's not a good person? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of layers to this. One thing, because I always look for where

assumptions can be turned into questions. If there is the assumption, but all those people are comfortable associating with, that's an assumption. We all want to be seen for who we are. And every time that we lump other people together and we say, you associate with them just because there's this binary two sides and you're on that side. And these are the bad guys I see on your side and you're associating with them. Am I? I don't know, man. I've never met them. How am I associating with them? I've never met them. I think you're exaggerating. I, what, you know, so is that, is, is that accurate or is it, is it getting in the way, right? Like, is it getting in the way

of us seeing each other? So I think that's a place where get curious, turn those assumptions into questions at the same time. Now let's look at it another way, right? Cause everything's a polygon. Look at it the other way. I do think our politics would be stronger and our society probably stronger if more of us on one side were willing to criticize other members of our side. Yes. Call out behavior that we see as like, hey, what's up? But if we do it from a place of total judgment and no understanding, it will only backfire. So often we view the camp that we're currently in, that we have to do everything at all costs to protect it. Have to protect our camp. This is our campfire. You can't have a seat at it. There's only so much room at this campfire,

and we will defend this campfire at all costs. And so to admit that there's anything amiss in this camp that we have built makes it seem like we're taking shots at our own camp and that's dangerous. When in reality, the camp would probably be a lot healthier if you were like, listen, we don't throw trash on the ground over here. Exactly. That's not how this is supposed to work. We don't steal from each other. Like we have to be willing to have clear eyes about what is going on in our own camps. well the other side will swallow them up and eat them for breakfast and so there are systemic things that need to be worked on here because that that detente right that sort of it's the mutually assured destruction each party it's like well if this party doesn't go all the way and do everything it possibly can to to make sure that it has power when it is the majority then the other side is just going to take advantage and the more the higher stakes we all feel our politics is, the more we will be willing to allow our parties

to stomp on convention, to erode institutions for the sake of keeping their power. Because, hey, everything's going to be terrible if they don't keep their power. Well, will it? Will it? And somehow, I mean, that in some ways is the scariest and toughest challenge of all. Because so long as we think that at all costs, we have to make sure our side has the power, we will excuse a lot of awfulness on the way to that. But I really believe that more of these conversations, even one-on-one, they feel so small. They're not. They add add up if we can reduce the fear and increase the accuracy with which we see other people's individual lives and the paths they took to their perspectives we will look at our partisan behavior and go no no enough that's it you're out

of there you know and i think the only way we're going to get there it's not to wait for the politicians to save us it's not to wait for the media to get its act together. I'm part of the media. I don't know how hard that's going to be. It's for each of us to take our own power into our hands because we all agree. That's been one of the most wonderful things I've discovered is liberal, conservative, libertarian, whatever you are, everyone agrees that this is broken and we cannot continue. I love that too, that we, we are the ones we've been waiting for. There's no one else. There, there is no politician in a marble hall who is going to be able to be like, I fixed it for y'all. Yeah. No, have fun. They can't do it. I did it. So congrats. They can't do it alone. No, I would love to hear more

about the organization you work with braver angels. Tell us more about that. Yes. So braver angels is the largest cross-partisan nonprofit dedicated to depolarizing America. Real tall order there. But man, is it working and is it exciting? So Braver Angels was co-founded with the ideas of marriage therapy, believe it or not. So our signature workshops from which this enormous network and community grew are based on, okay, we've got liberals and conservatives and a ton of disagreement, but we're not going to allow for the possibility of divorce here. We're not, we can't. So let's figure this out. And we've had, you know, universities, Brown University and others study these workshops and show and determine that they really do reduce the hostility that one side has in the other just

by having these structured, safe ways that people can see and hear each other and understand their reasons. It's really, really cool. It's grown far beyond workshops at this point, but we have 50,000 subscribers all across the country. We have 74 or so local chapters in cities and towns across the country. And every one of them has to follow what we call the Braver Angels rule. 50% blue and 50% red leadership. So we are modeling across the country what we think is impossible in our country, which is for people who are conservative and liberal to work together. It can happen. And there's that shared mission.

And it's really, really, it's just fantastic. I meet incredible people every day that are giving me hope every day. And part of my job is to try to export that hope, right? Because not everyone is where I am connected to all these people who, for their own reasons and their own lives, red, blue, everything, know that there's something to be done and are doing it. So I'm here trying to spread that word because I just think, I know, I know that when you pluck even an elected politician out of Congress, I've interviewed them, right? You pluck someone out of some high-powered journalism outlet. Every individual goes, we got to change, we got to change, but you put them back in their systems and it just feels so hopeless. All we have to do is look around and be like, hey, we all want this. Let's do it. Let's do this, right? It's seeing our own power. And Braver Angels is a wonderful way for a lot of people to just come out of one of our experiences and say, we're not as divided as we think. We're not, are we? Oh, and then a lot more becomes possible. I love that you have on the Braver Angels website, you have people who are self-identified liberals and conservatives.

And a liberal woman says, Braver Angels changed my life. Enough of us together can save our country. And a man who identifies as conservative says, Braver Angels is the solution to the divisiveness and rancor threatening our nation. And I love that. First of all, they're willing to be on the same website together. Even that, right. Even that is pretty great. Yes. And with their first and last name and what state they live in, they're like, this is an organization that I can endorse. And you have things like e-courses and, you know,

like you said, workshops, but also other events. You don't necessarily have to sign up for a workshop to learn from Braver Angels. And I love that that is, I just think that's so, the mission needs to be spread far and wide. I highly recommend Braver Angels Debates to anyone who's listening. Those are fantastic. Hundreds of people in a virtual room actually debating extraordinarily divisive things from the left, from the right, and listening to each other and learning about other perspectives. It shouldn't be possible, but it is. Mm-hmm.

And so people want to connect with Braver Angels. They can do that at braverangels.org. That's right. Yep. Yes. I love that. If you could have your wish and people who bought your book, people who, you know, read your book and felt like, oh, I just loved it.

What would be what you would hope they would take away? What would you want somebody to glean from reading? I never thought of it that way. I hope that they glean a new fascination with people. People are bottomless mysteries. When we treat each other like puzzles, that we just need the pieces and we put them together and we've got you figured out, that's when we actually lose sight of each other. People are bottomless mysteries. And so once you think you've got someone pegged, that's when you need to go and ask some questions. I love that.

I also strongly identify with the idea of just being curious. When you're just curious about learning about somebody else, the motivation I think can be sensed by someone else. They can sense that you're, you're just curious about them and people love to talk about themselves. They do. Yes. And, um, they can sense with your tone of voice and your facial expressions and types of questions that you're asking about your curiosity. You know, one of, I've always said that I, I am, I'm always very curious about people's jobs. I love to hear about what other people do for work. Even if I have absolutely no interest in doing that thing myself, I it's interesting to me and the same can be true about a huge variety of topics. We can be curious and that other person

can sense our curiosity and our positive intent. We can communicate that positive intent without feeling threatening, without feeling condescending, without feeling aggressive. And just conveying that positive intent and that curiosity is in and of itself world-changing. Yeah, absolutely. Cause it is, it is a way that we care about each other is by getting curious about each other. I love that. This is so good. And I really want everybody to go to braverangels.org. And I really want everybody to buy. I never thought of it that way because this is, if you want to feel a sense of renewed optimism about what is possible, if you want to feel like there is something I can do, then this book and this organization are both wonderful ways to feel that a little sense of

hope and optimism about what is possible in the world. Tell everybody where they can find you. All right. So you can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Mani Guzman, M-O-N-I-G-U-Z-M-A-N, or at maniguzman.com. Thank you so much for doing this. This was absolutely a treasure. This was great. Thank you so much, Sharon. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review. Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched

by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time. Hey, Torontonians. Recycling is more than a routine. It's a vital responsibility. By recycling properly, you help conserve resources, reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, and protect the environment. Toronto's Blue Bin Recycling Program ensures the majority of the right items are recovered and transformed into new products. Thank you.