Mónica Guzmán

So

Monica Guzman talks about building the bridge so that when people are ready, they will cross.

You cannot push people across the bridge.

That is potentially attempted murder, so we're not pushing it.

Dispatches from the Divide has the depth of Top of Mind and the warmth of my other podcast, Uncomfy, all wrapped in the drama of a true life documentary.

It's hosted by bestselling author and my friend Monica Guzman.

Here's just a little taste of episode one.

I was sitting on a couch.

a company that becomes conflict capable.

We had Monica Guzman on the podcast several years ago.

She works for an organization called Braver Angels, and they bring people from opposite sides of the political spectrum together for meals and things like that.

And her book is called I Never Thought About It That Way or something like that.

Our next guest widens the lens, asking how we can cultivate that same spirit of curiosity across a broader culture.

Monica Guzman is a journalist and public bridge builder.

She's a host of A Braver Way, a podcast that looks for practical ways to bridge political divides in everyday life.

And the author of I Never Thought of It That Way, How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

You can find Monica Guzman's podcast, The Braver Way, anywhere you listen to podcasts and on YouTube.

You can find Monica on Instagram at Moni Guzman.

Thank you for speaking into that.

Monica Guzman has an amazing quote on this where she says, The people who are underrepresented in your life are overrepresented in your mind, but not accurately.

Right.

You're assuming their intentions or desires or behaviors based off of like national fear mongering narratives versus seeing the complexity of a real person being And understanding how you're related.

So that's helpful for me when I enter into a conversation, if they're willing to, you know, occupy space with me for a while it's helpful to remember not to prepare for an encounter like that by thinking oh he's going to say this and then I'm going to come back with that and then we're going to go back and forth and I'm going to win but to prepare my mind in such a way where I allow for the possibility that this person will lead me to come to an understanding I hadn't really had before.

Monty Goose, Monica Guzman, Monty S. actually with the Braver Angels, and a great writer, she wrote a book called I Never Thought of It That Way.

So I'm preparing my disposition to be able to have an I never thought of it that way moment.

So yeah, to answer your question, there's, I mean...