Talking to people we disagree with can be fraught with fear and anxiety — triggering our fight/flight survival drive. We fight by arguing to win, or we flee by avoiding the conflict altogether. But to resolve our differences, we need to move beyond this ancient instinct and access our capacity for connection, creativity and compassion.
Join Kern Beare — founder of the Difficult Conversations Project and author of Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together — as he explores how we can have conversations that can actually heal divides and change hearts and minds.
For more about Kern and his work, check out his website: www.difficultconversationsproject.org.
Waging Conflict Without Violence: A Conversation with Political Scientist Maria Stephan
Can nonviolent civil resistance be successful even against the most militarily sophisticated and brutal regimes? My podcast guest this month, political scientist Maria Stephan, says unequivocally “yes." Co-Lead and Chief Organizer at The Horizons Project and the former Director of the Program on Nonviolent Action at the United States Institute of Peace, Maria is the co-author, with Erica Chenoweth, of the award-winning book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Con...
23 Jul 2022
Looking for the light in each other: A Conversation with Listening Expert, Kay Lindahl.
If there's one thing we could all be doing to make the world a better place, it would be to become better listeners. That's why I'm so interested in the work of listening guru Kay Lindahl. Kay is the founder of The Listening Center in Long Beach, CA, and conducts workshops and retreats around the world on the sacred art of listening for religious, spiritual, community and business groups. A Certified Listening Professional and an ordained interfaith minister, Kay is the author of seve...
9 Jun 2022
From 'Problems' Journalism to 'Solutions' Journalism: A Conversation with David Bornstein.
Like a lot of people, I find the news these days dispiriting. But it’s not just the events being reported that I find depressing, it’s the way they’re being reported: scored with a relentless drumbeat of negativity that makes me feel as if I’m being marched to the edge of an abyss, only to be left there alone to contemplate our increasingly bleak future. They may not think of themselves this way, but journalists are storytellers, and the way they tell their stories shapes how you and I see e...
28 Apr 2022
Facing our Humanity: A Personal Story.
Thinking about the Russian invasion of Ukraine reminded me of a very personal experience I had years ago — one that taught me something about why it's so important to face our own humanity. _______________________________ Kern Beare is the founder of the Difficult Conversations Project and the author of Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together. He also facilitates a workshop based on his book, which is free for non-profit organizations and community groups.
31 Mar 2022
"I never thought of it that way." A conversation with journalist and author Mónica Guzmán on how to heal our national divide.
Mónica Guzmán is the author of a wise, entertaining, inspiring and fantastically helpful new book called “I never thought of it that way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.” It's the first book I've read on the subject that actually made me look forward to my next difficult conversation. Mónica's insights and strategies are hard won. In addition to being the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, as...
18 Feb 2022
Breaking the patterns of "high conflict": A conversation with author Amanda Ripley.
Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist and a New York Times best-selling author. Her most recent book, and the subject of our conversation, is High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. In this interview, we take a deep dive into some of her book's main ideas, including: Why high conflicts are a lot like the La Brea Tar Pits.The four "trip wires" that lead to high conflict, including "the power of the binary."Why often the best thing you can do in a conflict is first "g...
19 Jan 2022
"Landing in the truth of who you are." A conversation with mindfulness coach Brett Hill.
Show Notes Whenever you're perusing the web, you're likely to come across some new discovery about the benefits of mindfulness —a simple form of meditation that psychologists and neurologists have been studying for decades. Simple, but also powerful — proven to strengthen everything from our relationships to our hearts to our immune systems. And that's just the start. No wonder mediation training is now finding its way into everything from kindergarten classes to boardrooms. Despite its grow...
3 Dec 2021
"It's all about love": Three lessons from crisis intervention expert Joe Smarro on how to de-escalate conflicts.
My latest podcast guest, Joe Smarro — featured in the Emmy award winning HBO documentary, Ernie and Joe: Crisis Cops — taught me something about navigating difficult conversations: It helps to be trained in crisis intervention. For 15 years Joe was an officer with the San Antonio, Texas police department. The last 11 of those years was with the mental health and crisis intervention unit. His job: de-escalate dangerous confrontations with those suffering from mental health traumas. It’s ...
2 Nov 2021
A more powerful force: A conversation with ex-CIA analyst Janessa Gans Wilder.
"It was so clear to me in that moment that the river was the more powerful force. It flowed on uninterrupted, no matter how many bombs went off. The bombs couldn’t affect the flow and trajectory and stillness of that river. It was more powerful than anything going on around it. ~Former CIA Analyst, Janessa Gans Wilder Janessa Gans Wilder spent 21 months in Iraq during the war's most intensive fighting as a CIA Intelligence Analyst. Eight months in, "the futility, the violence an...
4 Oct 2021
"There are no things, only relationships." A conversation with author and musician Stephen Nachmanovitch.
What can improvisation teach us about the art of life and, more specifically, the art of difficult conversations? Plenty, it turns out. Join me in this provocative and thoughtful interview with Stephen Nachmanovitch — world-class improvisational musician and author of the iconic book Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, and more recently, The Art of Is: Improvising as a Way of Life. A few excerpts from our conversation: "The process of listening presupposes the process of being able to...
10 Sept 2021
"Just do these three things." A conversation with author/mediator Douglas Stone.
Did you know that every difficult conversation is actually three conversations, and two of them we ignore at our peril? Did you know that one of the longest standing national border disputes finally got resolved after two of the adversaries discovered they had one special thing in common? And did you know that by asking three simple questions, you can put your difficult conversation on the road to resolution? Well, get ready to learn about all that and more, because it's just a small part o...
18 Aug 2021
"A liberal walked into a gun shop...." A conversation with author Jon Karpilow.
Talking to people we seriously disagree with can sound like a recipe for a bad headache and high blood pressure. But does it have to be? Might it instead be a recipe for understanding, connection, and even friendship? To find out, my liberal cousin Jon Karpilow spent seven months working in a gun shop in rural northern California. In this podcast he shares why he did it, what he learned, and if he'd ever, ever, do something like that again. (Spoiler alert: Yes, he would.) Jon's b...
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