 All right. Hello, Monica. Thanks so much for joining me. How are you doing today? I am doing so well. It's a beautiful morning. It's good to be here. Yeah. Where are you again? You're in the Northwest. Yep. I'm up in Seattle, Washington. So the gray lady of the US weather system, I suppose, and appropriately, she is quite gray in the sky right now. Yeah, I always say once my son is 18, that's where I'm moving. I've lived in the desert forever, and I've only been to Seattle once, but I loved it. I loved it so much. Oh, I'm here for life. But yeah, we have you here to talk about your fantastic new book that's coming out in 2022, and I had the honor of reading it early. So before we jump into your book, I never thought of it that way. For those who have yet to meet the amazing Monica, can you give a little bit of your background, what you do, what you're all about and all that stuff? Yeah, so I am a journalist, an entrepreneur, a bridge builder, and I'm also the director of digital and storytelling at a nonprofit called Braver Angels, which is the largest cross-partisan grassroots organization working to depolarize America. So all about the political divide. Felt very called to that. And in the book, I talk about a little bit of that path, but I am completely moved to help people understand each other. And right now, the divides are enormous challenges to that, and something that I'm just like, you know, called to try to tackle in every way that I can. Yeah, yeah. I often tell people too, like I was not into politics or anything. I was just like, whatever, my vote doesn't matter, nothing matters. Then 2016, when everything got crazy, I was like, okay, I need to figure out what's going on. Because, you know, when Trump was elected, I was shocked. I was like, okay, clearly, I don't understand what's happening around the country. There was a lot of talk about that in 2016, like, you know, people, you know, in middle America were forgotten about and stuff. And, and yeah, kind of like the way you're talking about, I've spent a lot of time reading books, trying to understand what's going on, why are people so divided? Why are people polarized? Is it as bad as we think? Or is it, you know, whatever it is and why, you know? So in, in your work, in your opinion, like, why do you think this is kind of happened like over time? Because I don't remember it, but I wasn't into politics. I don't remember it being this bad. But what have you seen over recent years? Yeah, so I think of it as the SOS, the first S being sorting, the second O being othering, and the second S, the third letter being siloing. So SOS sorting, othering, siloing. And many academics and researchers have written about all three of these things. But in brief, sorting is about we want to be around people who are like us, who make us feel comfortable, especially when the world gets anxiety inducing, which it has in the last several years, lots of transformations all around the world. And as people who want to live good lives, you know, we try to seek comfort. And we find it with people who are like us and have similar beliefs. Othering is what happens quite naturally, unfortunately, when we consider ourselves different from some other group, we consider our group different from some other group. It doesn't even matter, it turns out, how meaningful the difference really is. We just have a built in sort of social programming to other and put distance between us and whoever is different. And that leads us sometimes to some really irrational dehumanizing behaviors. And then siloing is the one that, man, I think it's, we're still getting a sense of how powerful this force is. But I, I'm holding up my iPhone, like siloing is what happens when we carry these things around. It's like our world is surrounding us with possibility and spontaneity. But I don't know, it's kind of fun to carry our own world that we've constructed in our own pockets. So that makes it even easier for us to live and breathe our own designed spaces, networks, information sources, of course. So we get in our silos, where certain voices get amplified, certain attitudes get normalized, and difference across divides turns into something villainous and monstrous, pretty quick. Yeah, yeah. And one of the parts I love, I think where you where you really hooked me in, because I'm a huge psychology nerd, right? And I, I started getting into, you know, like crowd psychology and tribalism. When I have like a bunch of internet backlash in 2019, I was like, what, what the hell is going on, right? And but you talk about like, the robbers cave experiment and like the, like the minimal group paradigm, like with the dots, right? With like underestimators. And like, when I learned about this stuff, and I was like, it, it takes so little for us to separate and it is, it's mind blowing. And, you know, it's something I really try to bring awareness to, because there's a lot of talk around, and I would love your opinion on this. There's a lot of, a lot of conversations around like, oh, you know, racism or sexism or any of these like social issues aren't really issues. And I'm like, do you understand that we like evolved to separate and see people as others and different, like, and it feels like we can't get any closer to solutions until we accept that fact, because it seems like a lot of us are running around in this denial, like, oh, I'm, I'm colorblind, I don't see a difference in it. You know, I'm like, no, it's kind of like built into us. So I would love your thoughts on that. Do you think that there's a lack of understanding or awareness or is it denial and self deception or why, or do people know, but they try to, try to act like they don't, I don't know. I would love your thoughts on that. Yeah, about those differences. Well, I think, I think we all want to be impervious to forces that make us weaker or worse human beings, right? So I think, I think the, the claims of colorblindness or of that doesn't affect me, or I don't behave that way, it comes from a really good place, which is people actually trying to hack programming. And by the way, that can work. I mean, awareness, you know, can actually lead us to put our brains on a task, the task being, hey, be aware of the biases you have, try to short circuit them, try to overcome them. So to me, like a lot of that comes from a very good place where people, where people really want to believe I can overcome those tendencies. I can and maybe I really think that I do. Now, whether you actually do is a pretty complicated question, because like you said, you know, the more that I learn about how these patterns happen, the less confident I am in my own ability to overcome these biases. It's so many of them are so automatic and embedded and primal. And the way that humanity, frankly, evolved to be what it is. And we've gotten this far. We had a lot of social type of, you know, battles and things and some really ugly stuff that's actually brought us this far. So it's really like embedded into us to have an enemy and to push off against them. So yeah, so I think, I think oftentimes, you know, claims of this doesn't affect me, this is not how I behave come from a really good place that might not, might not be humble enough to the reality of how powerful these tendencies truly are. But I don't fault people for that that much, because I don't know, I think I think anything that comes from this idea that you want to be a good person is hard to fault all the way down. Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, I think this, you know, I was gonna wait till later, but we're gonna we're gonna start talking about curiosity now because so I was introduced to you, you were on the New Liberals podcast and curiosity is something that, you know, I've just seen how much it's helped me in my life since pretty much since I got into like mindfulness meditation, like they're like, oh, you know, foster curiosity and it helped me a lot just with my mental health and doing the world and all that. And, you know, I think when it comes to these biases and everything, because I read a ton, like I got really into just understanding like human behavior or rationality, you know, just like Daniel Kahneman's work on system one and system two thinking and all this other stuff. But anyways, here's my method and I'm curious what your method is. So I recognize these things. And I know, you know, that there's no like cure for some of these biases and things like that to happen. I remember cutting myself some slack when I heard like Daniel Kahneman say like, hey, like I studied this stuff, this is my life's work, I got like a Nobel Prize and I still deal with them. I'm like, okay, cool. But anyways, like, you know, I try to get curious, like if I like before living in this apartment, right, I lived in the hood. Like after I got sober in 2012, I moved back to Vegas. I had like no money. So I just got the cheapest apartment I could. They weren't doing credit checks, which was very good for me because I had done a lot of terrible things with my finances in my addiction. But anyways, it was in a bad, bad, bad neighborhood. Right. And, you know, I didn't have my license when I got sober. So I had to ride the bus. And anyways, I noticed like my reactions when certain people would walk past me, walk towards me, we're in this neighborhood and stuff. And I would just get curious. I'm like, huh, why did I react that way? Why did my body react that way? You know, and I would, I would go through it like, was it, you know, skin color? Was it what they were wearing? Was it was I put them in a category before? No, I was just getting curious about it, right? Like I was mentioning to you before you came on like, I'm half black. And if I noticed me doing that to someone, you know, who actually has that, you know, that that appearance, like I was like, whoa, what, why would that happen? But then I noticed too, and I think this is where I cut myself slack. I was like, Oh, I react that way to white people too, because I'm just an anxious person. I think everybody wants to rob and mug me and all those other things. But, but anyways, that's, that's how I check it with my biases on a daily basis, whether I'm coming across a news article, a person I'm talking with, whatever, I, I try to reflect on it after and get curious about how I responded, how my body responded, the thoughts I had and all that. So what is your strategy with curiosity and dealing with these biases and stuff like that? What a great question. In terms of biases that are automatic and reactions with people, I mean, the first thing is to cut myself some slack, because we don't control those reactions very much at all. Those initial reactions happen and are a part of us. So what we control is exactly what you said. What we do with that information, how aware we are of it, how much we scrutinize it and reflect on it. So that's the first thing is like, I try not to go, Oh my God, you're a horrible person. Like, I will have that reaction because we, right? I like that. It's sort of a sequence actually. It's like, Oh, you know, some negative feeling. Oh, you're a horrible person. And then, Oh, wait, hang on. You're just a human being like everyone else. Oh, hey, let's think about it. Right? I think of one piece of advice from an author named Valerie Cower who is incredible. She wrote a book called See No Stranger. So Chris, you may want to read it. You read a lot. I'm taking notes right now. She's fantastic. And she says that when she encounters a stranger, right, someone who seems strange to her or whatever that may mean, she thinks of the sick tradition, S-I-K-H, the religion, the faith tradition, which she grew up in and how a stranger is a part, a stranger is a part of me. I do not yet know that, that, you know, you might be someone I connect with later eventually to try to see the connectedness. So I borrow some of that as well. And the way that I do it is particularly when I sense a really strong, surprising reaction that I'm not proud of, I actually will myself to kind of have the opposite reaction. I go, Oh, I hated it. Try loving that. Try loving that. Try getting close to that. What does that feel like in your head? And then, can you actually get close to that person right now? Can you go whatever that reaction was? And this happens not just with people, right, but with ideas. You were talking about reading articles. I write in the book, I give one example of an article where I, it was an op-ed in the Washington Post, and I read the headline and I immediately just cringed. I was like, and then I was, he'd browsing. And then I thought, wait a second, hang on, click the article. And I actually, I actually like went all in and recorded a voice memo of myself. I tried to record my intuitive thoughts as I read the article. First, I just read the article while silencing my critical voice. I just read it. And I tried to read it very generously. I read it with the attitude, can I believe it? Instead of must I believe it? That comes from all kinds of social psychology, this idea that our brain, when it encounters ideas we don't like, it goes, must I believe it? And it looks for just one reason that I don't have to believe it. But the ideas you do like, you encounter at sort of can I believe it? And then you just add a piece of evidence and another piece of evidence and you go, yes, yay. So I did that with that article and I read the article, silencing my critical voice and thinking to myself, can I believe it? Can I believe it? Let me look at the pieces of evidence here and add them up as if this were an idea I already liked. And so where I ended up was in a much more complex understanding of this person's argument where I really saw their point. And in fact, when I encounter this issue ever since, I keep thinking back to that article in that reflective exercise because I was intentional about really trying to question my own reactions. And the topic was monuments to the founding fathers. The op-ed was from a descendant of Thomas Jefferson who was arguing that the Jefferson Memorial, if I'm not mistaken, that the Jefferson Memorial maybe you should just be closed and my initial reaction was like, no! I love the front of Jefferson! I dare you! But it's like, okay, wait, hang on. This is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson. He's going to have a really interesting perspective. Let me hear it. And I did and it was really eye-opening. Yeah, it's interesting because I remember that part of the book and I could definitely relate to that because, and I think a lot of people just listening to this, when we see even just the headline of an article and we just immediately like, we just start like suiting up like, oh, I can't wait to see how dumb and terrible these arguments are. I'm just going to rip it apart. And I try to pause and that's another way mindfulness helped me is just like this moment-to-moment awareness. So as soon as I noticed that, I'm like, all right, Chris, you are going into this with bad intentions. Hell, sometimes like, you know, when I used to be in toxic, terrible relationships, it was just like getting ready for an argument and just like, oh, I can't wait to point out all the ways you're wrong and stuff. And but what's even worse too is this, you know, kind of habit a lot of us have with just headline reading because then we don't even give the person the opportunity. And, you know, as somebody who reads a ton, I really dislike when there are, you know, just so many criticisms of like a book from an author before it's even out or before anybody's even read it. I'm like, a book has somebody's just like, you're giving them like hundreds of pages to lay out their argument and it's such a disservice to just judge it based on the title and, you know, the subheading and the little blurb on the back. But I can't remember if you discussed this in the book, but like Dan Cajon's work with like motivated reasoning. Is that in the book? I believe that I do very briefly introduce motivated reasoning, but I don't dwell on it at the academic depth, right? But yeah, I mean, I think motivated reasoning is something that we all need to understand at a basic level. Because too many of us think I'm extremely rational. I am extremely rational. I'm so, you know, I'm well educated. I read a lot. I'm very smart. Yeah. And so therefore, my judgments about the world are very sound and come from the same kind of processes that led to, you know, scientific studies that have built our understanding of the world thus far. Like I am that kind of thinker. The truth is, on our own, none of our judgments work like that at all. They all dip into what we are our feelings. You know, Jonathan Haidt talks about the elephant and the rider. I'm sure you have ideas, you know, that it's our reasoning mind is like a rider on an elephant. And our elephant is our intuitive mind. And we go where our elephant wants to go because it's an elephant. It takes a lot of will to reflect and try to try to understand our own thinking. And in fact, I was reading another great book, Ellen Petrie Lienz. It's a book called The Happiness Hack. And she's a neuroscientist. And, you know, to understand a little bit about the prefrontal cortex, which is the one of the newest parts of our brain, right? And it's right at the front of our of our heads. And she does this wonderful analogy to sort of mileage in a car, like the rest of our thinking brain has really good gas mileage and does a lot of automatic and reactive thinking. But the PFC, the prefrontal cortex, which is the one where we disrupt ourselves and interrupt our biases or whatever and think about what we're thinking about has horrible gas mileage. It takes so much energy to think at that level. And so we usually don't do it. We're really busy, right? We're really busy with a lot going on. So our so our intuition ends up really running the show. And again, that's natural. We couldn't possibly live our lives if we questioned every judgment, like millions a day, we can't do it. So we have to be choosy, you know, strategic about how we send our fuel. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's, it's something, you know, that I'm, something I'm really passionate about is just like updating beliefs and questioning thoughts because it's what helped me get sober. So I would say like it literally saved my life. I had to switch these beliefs, like my old beliefs were, oh, drugs and alcohol are, you know, my solution to everything. And, you know, I also used to think I was the smartest person on earth. And I didn't get that humility until I got sober. I'm like, Oh, wait, maybe I don't know nearly as much. But I always tell people to like a great, a great thought experiment is, you know, kind of like what you were just mentioning is any person on the planet going to say, Hi, I'm, I'm Chris and I'm really irrational, right? Like nobody's going to say that. So if nobody thinks they're irrational, then clearly something's wrong because it is something that happens that we see it all the time. So that's when you got to step back and say, Oh, well, if nobody thinks they're irrational, then maybe I'm one of those people and I need to start questioning these things running through my heads. But, you know, that, that leads me to probably like the main, the main question I want to ask you while you're here. And it's about the work that you all do with Braver Angels, you know, before, before even, you know, checking out Braver Angels work and, you know, reading your book, a lot of books reference it when I read books about polarization and you guys are doing just such an amazing thing, right? Bringing people together, different beliefs, you know, there's even the ones where it's like, you know, on racial issues, it's not just political issues and it's just beautiful. So here's my primary question because I feel like it is the biggest challenge and you probably know this as well life. How do you even get people to want to do this? Right? Like, for example, I've worked in treatment, I've worked with thousands of addicts over, you know, my nine and a half years sober and people have to hit a rock bottom like oftentimes, like nobody's like, Hey, my life's going great and I want to get sober. No, it's like usually like things are going bad, right? So when it comes to, you know, someone wanting to get involved with Braver Angels and talk with people across the divide, I'm like, what's their motivation and maybe you're more optimistic because you see more people. But what I see is a bunch of people who love staying in their, their echo chambers, love watching like clips of people like owning the other side. They love doing that. So how, how do we get people there? What is your main strategy? How do you get people to want to do this type of thing? Great question. I'll tell you my intuitive response. What my, what my, what my elephant first said, as soon as you articulated that question, because I'm just going to say it, you said, how do you get people to want to do this? And my elephant said, you don't. Yeah. And I think the elephant is correct. You don't get people to want to do this. They come to it because they're ready. And, and, you know, I'll give you, I'll give you a bit of a sense. I read a bit in the book about this too. There is so much pain out there. I feel like I'm a bit of a confessional booth. I hear a lot of private stories about people who have really hit a breaking point. Recently, we had a retreat at Braver Angels. So the, the staff, the national staff, which by the way includes volunteers who spend more hours than you can imagine on this unpaid, you know, this is, this is work people come to with a lot of conviction. And at our retreat, we, one of the big ways that we got started was going around and everyone explaining how they came to this work. It floored me. Everyone had their own breaking point, their own reason, whether it was a relationship with their family or a frustration with their industry, with the norms of around them, with frankly, like being exhausted by a feeling of helplessness that, well, the politicians are going to have to fix this, or well, the media is going to have to fix this. It's their problem. No, it's not. It's not. It's all our problem. Right. And so a lot of these stories are private, very private. People are whispering them and they're holding them in their hearts. They're sharing them with us. Every day I get emails from people who are just discovering Braver Angels and saying, Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you exist. I already did this workshop and that workshop and I talked to my friend last night and it went a lot better. And, you know, and I think we're actually going to have Thanksgiving after all, you know. So yeah, so that, that I think is the most honest answer I can give is, is there a strategy? You know, at this retreat, one of my colleagues, Eduardo and Dino, said, gave a quote that I never heard that I thought was so great, which was, a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. So we are so obsessed with persuasion and strategy. Yeah. And, and even a little bit of manipulation. But Braver Angels has a culture of understanding humans. And I really think people have to find their way to this work. But what we do is we share the, we model the conversations that people think are impossible. They're not. We model the exchange of ideas from pole to pole. That is instructive and insightful that people think are impossible. It's not impossible. And we share a lot. We share as many of these private stories. We, we, we talk to the people when we say, can we share this, right? We put it out and they'll share it themselves. And so, it's happening, right? It's spreading out the sense of no, we're not helping us. I think that is maybe the most important ingredient. I think that's what we've lost. This idea that it's, we can't possibly do it. And so we better not try and we just need to sit back and just hope for the best and just take care of our own and like, you know, hope our democracy doesn't fall. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna hope that it just kind of figures itself out. So, so, but, but again, I don't think people, you know, people don't need to come to Braver Angels or to any part of this sort of concern, whether it's with us or anywhere. It doesn't matter. People don't need to come to that with this idea of like, we got to save America. Many of them do. And I do in some ways, but, but no, save your relationship. Save your own, save your own intellectual integrity. Save your ability to see the world for what it is instead of what your silo presents it to you as. Recognize we are all walking through a fun house. We're in the matrix. We're give the metaphor you want. In a polarized world, none of us sees the world clearly, unless we get intentionally and fearlessly curious in a way that we think is impossible, but is not impossible. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I had a few just moments in my life where this, you know, this really changed where I started, you know, like you mentioned, like seeing people as humans and, you know, one of them was just working at a treatment center, right? Because there's, you know, there's a narrative that, you know, for some people that addicts are bad people, they're just like, oh, you know, why'd you use drugs and, you know, whatever. And having so many one-on-one conversations because I worked at one of the biggest treatment centers like in, you know, on the West Coast, like we have hundreds of beds. So we had a lot of clients and I had so many one-on-one conversations and I remember talking with them and just hearing about their childhoods and their traumas and their suffering. And I'm like, yeah, no wonder why you turned to substances, right? Like I'm the kid of an alcoholic mom, which let them, you know, my stuff. But hearing just so many stories, I'm like, wow, right? But then also, you mentioned Jonathan Hyde, his book, The Righteous Mind. That was another one that just gave me this aha moment when I was just starting to understand like these people who I disagreed with, you know, maybe, you know, on political topics and stuff, just understanding like, oh, oh, you were, you were born here, you were raised here, you know, like I'm, I'm from the West Coast. I've, you know, been pretty non-religious my entire life. But my, my experience is going to be so much different than someone from the South where they've gone to church, you know, religiously their entire life, they're surrounded by these communities who believe a certain way, you know, what, you know, farmers, people working in coal mines and stuff, they're going to have such a different experience than me. And I'm like, oh, okay. So, you know, what's helped me is understanding there is a reason people believe what they believe, right? And maybe they're, you know, some of the political topics we discuss is affecting their family members or, you know, someone they know, and that's why their view has been shaped a certain way. And, you know, in the book, you share some of your own, you know, personal experience. And I would love if you could talk about a little bit, but you said your parents were, or are, or I don't know if they so are, like Trump supporters, and like you, like, kind of start off a book like that, and you were like, what the hell, you know, so how, how did you do that, you know, especially at the time of recording this, Thanksgiving tomorrow, so people are going to be, you know, getting with their families, but they'll be listening to this after, how do you, how did you start with this kind of family relationship, you know, because a lot of families have been torn apart, and I can understand getting emails about that kind of stuff, right. So what, what helped you with that situation? Yeah, so to summarize, I, I'm a Mexican immigrant, and, and so is my immediate family. So my, my two parents and my younger brother, we became citizens in the year 2000, after living in the United States for about 10 years, no, maybe 11 or 12. And it was, it was, it was a big moment, you know, for, for us. And I describe a photograph from my mother's naturalization ceremony, which was the last one, because me and my brother were under 18 at the time we became naturalized at the same time. And then it felt like immediately I saw a Bush Cheney poster over my mother's desk, and I was like, the hell? What is this? And, you know, we had, I don't remember having that much of a political consciousness before we were citizens, maybe a bit. I saw, I watched CNN headline news, you know, I had a little tiny TV set I got when I was 16 in my bedroom, and I sort of proudly watched headline news, I'm sure. But, but I wasn't following all that closely, but I think a part of me just assumed that my parents and I were on the same page, you know, we're Mexican immigrants, I don't know, isn't that something Democrats are good at? Yeah, that isn't that how that works? I, I don't know. And so that was just kind of interesting. And we ended up in all kinds of fights over our dining room table. Our culture, you know, some of this is just Mexican culture. Some of them, some of this is my own extended family's culture. We are extremely unfiltered. Yeah. People don't understand. I, I, in high school, I used to kind of have to warn a couple of my friends like, you should, and about me and my brother, like, you'll hear yelling, it's okay. And so that's, that's just kind of how we roll. So there were a lot of fights, I remember like Clinton and welfare coming up and just, you know, and me going, you know, just being this teenager still is just fighting about it and them really holding firm. And these would go on for a long time. It was time to sleep. And anyway, so this, this happened a lot. But, but, you know, from way back then, we had a way of sort of fighting and arguing, getting mad about this stuff, but it never, it never ever was allowed to feel it never got to the point of sort of, I can't accept you. Like, man, those ideas. How could you? But, but I, you're, you're my mom. What, what am I going to, what am I not going to be your dog? Like that's so, you know, never, never got to that point. Now, when Trump came along, that really weakened the flame. We did, you know, do the whole thing as I grew into an adult and moved across the country and saw my parents. I remember, you know, we fought about Glenn Beck several times, wanted a restaurant where I think we were a little too loud. But, but yeah, with Trump, it was, it was really, really intense because, you know, I started kind of lobbying accusations at my mother about like, you know, you're so compassionate. Like, you raised me and my brother to, to want to volunteer and want to help people. How could you possibly support this person who seems to just relish tearing people apart? How could you, it just doesn't add up, you know? And so there was a lot of that, a lot of incredulousness. And then me recognizing that I was using also, this is hard to, hard to get out, but like, I was using my perhaps advanced English vocabulary. Perhaps, you know, my American college education and the fact that I'm a journalist and I've been reading articles, more articles about this than you guys have. Yeah. You know, or I've been reading more articles that are trustworthy than you guys have. You know, I was doing a lot of lording over. And, and it's taken some time to realize how, how harmful that is. And how unnecessary and uncalled for. And yeah. And then that evolves to in my journey, writing this book of my curiosity about curiosity, blending this thread with my parents, also with the threat of being a journalist and an extraordinarily curious one. I realized I thought it was the norm. It's not maybe the norm. How curious I am. I really do believe that everyone has their reasons. I believe that to my core. Those reasons exist. If we choose to believe they don't exist, that's on us. You can go and find out those reasons. If people are willing to share them with you and they will only be willing to share them with you, if they feel heard by you, so you better work on that. And building the trust and the relationships to even be able to, to have the privilege of understanding where people come from. But, but understanding where people are coming from is understanding. That's what it is. It's so much so much so many times on social media and others. We have this sort of ethic of the moment of the present. Your opinion today is all I need to know about you. Yeah. What? Where did that come from? And how could that possibly make sense? It came from the chopped up nature of social media. It's an ethic that technology has amplified that is not human. It's not real, right? So we need to reject that. But to, to end a long monologue here, I have had extraordinary conversations with my parents about their politics and they with me about mine, because trust me, they are as incensed, you know, about my ideas as I have about them. And so we've really, I've gotten to the place where I can say with 100% confidence. Well, never mind. Nothing can be said with 100% confidence. Maybe 90. There's all, yeah. But I can say that I understand why I'm, not only that I understand why my parents voted for Trump twice, but that if I were them, I would have voted for Trump too. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, it goes back to that curiosity. That's one of the reasons I, I love doing this podcast and, you know, I've brought on people who, you know, I, I disagree with on a lot of things, you know, just, you know, like I'm, I'm this very like progressive, like I wanted like Bernie Sanders and Medicare for all and bring people on who just completely disagree with that. And this podcast gives me an opportunity just to ask questions and just sit back and listen. Because like you said, there's always a reason and, you know, with your, with your experience, you know, being Mexican immigrants, like I, I hear these stories about, you know, people in, you know, like Florida, right? And stuff who voted for Trump and their immigrants and all these other things. And, and I'm like, there's got to be a reason, right? Because like you said, if you just look at social media, or if you look at people's just like outrageous, like responses to it's like, Oh, you're dumb, you're just not educated, you just don't know. I'm like, there's got to be, there's got to be more than that, right? There has to be more, you know, and, and I could almost see to like, there's more, it's that those assumptions are just not correct. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? And I can almost understand too, because I try to do a lot of perspective taking, and there's got to, there's got to be a, you know, a sense of just, you know, loving this country, if you're an immigrant, right? Like, I'm so glad you brought that up. Like, there has to be like, I'm just like, if I was leaving somewhere, they accepted me, like it's going to be hard for me to say anything bad. Can I tell you something on that point? So I just, I just flew back from Florida for a conference I was at there, and the taxi driver, his name was Charles. I always ask, I didn't try to ask names all the time, because I love conversations with taxi drivers, Uber drivers, the best conversation. Oh yeah, for sure. Anyway, but yeah, he was driving me to the airport from the hotel, and he's from Haiti. I noticed him speaking French on the phone. And I was like, Oh, you know, you're speaking French, like, asked him about himself. He's from Haiti. He has three grown children living, I think in the Dominican Republic, because not that long ago, the president of Haiti was assassinated basically, like turmoil, right? And so he, you know, now the Dominican Republic is taking all these Haitian refugees and trying to get them back to Haiti, where everything is chaotic. And there's all this, you know, horrible things happening, like kidnapping of missionaries, people dying. Like, I guess a bus was just recently. Oh yeah. And like, he was just telling me all this stuff. And I'm going, man, and it reminded me of my family in Mexico has been through some horrors with the way that drug cartels could just take over towns, neighborhoods, cities, like my birth, my birth city of Monterrey, Mexico, back in like 2012, 2014, around then, like, there were some cartel issues. And, and some of my family members were caught in gun crossfire and stuff. It's like, horrible. You know, and so he and I were connecting on the fact that we come from these countries that have so much work to do, you know, and where our family members are in danger in a really visceral way. And he, you know, he wants to bring once, once his kid, I think completes medical school, you know, bring him up to the United States and, and all of that. But, but we were talking about exactly that, how, you know, I think the way I put it to him was like, do you ever wonder if Americans who aren't immigrants just have lost perspective? Like, do we have enough perspective on how much potential and good things America already has? And, you know, we, we, we focus as we should on what's getting lost and what's being degraded. I get that. But, but I think some immigrants have a particularly sharp sense of perspective on, no, we've got something good here, and we can't, can't give it up. We can't give it up. And we got to, we got to work on it, and we got to protect it, and we got to make it better. But the way we don't do that is by turning on each other. That's for sure. Because that's how all these other countries got into the mess they're in. You know what I mean? So like, if you all, if you all think that like staying entrenched and hating the other side and lobbing things at them and not opening your mind as the way out, you're digging a deeper hole. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's, you know, there's this, you know, sense of gratitude and also seeing like the terribleness, you know, like, it's funny because I have an upcoming guest where we're going to be talking about, you know, the issues with drug policy and everything. But I was interviewed on another podcast and he asked me a lot of questions about me getting sober and stuff. But anyways, what I'm getting at is I'm very protective of alcoholics anonymous. And there's a lot of criticisms. I have my own criticisms or whatever. But, you know, one of the reasons I'm for Medicare for all and stuff like that is because when I got sober, I had no money, no insurance, nothing, right? And thank God for AA because it was free, right? So when people are like, oh, it's a culture. Oh, they do this or do that. I'm like, you, they saved my life. So let's calm down a little bit. So I understand some of that protectiveness. And that's, you know, maybe that's where I get this understanding where immigrants are, you know, whoever is protective of some of these things in the United States because from them on, it saved their life or their family's life, gave them an opportunity that they weren't going to have. Like, and, you know, something that 12 step programs did teach me was, you know, I had, and I think a lot of us do, but me personally, I had this instant reaction to see the differences rather than similarities, right? So what's helped me out a lot is no matter who I'm talking to, I know there's something I can connect with. Like, for example, anti-vaxxers who don't trust big pharma and stuff, I'm like, I was, I was an opioid addict who got hooked on prescription pills. So we can connect on not trusting big pharma, right? Now that's a gateway to a conversation. And, you know, we can start talking. And, you know, that's, that's something that helps out a lot. It's just where can you connect, whether it's, you know, you both have kids, you both have, you know, jobs or, you know, your boss sucks, whatever it is, but something, you know, with, with a little bit more of your time, I have a few more questions. And one of them that I'm curious, your, I don't know, solutions or thoughts, because something with social media or even mainstream media, any type of media, we're very incentivized or there's this big incentive, especially in a capitalist type of society to fuel this polarization, right? Like there are figureheads and on Twitter, for example, where 99.9% of their tweets are just, look how dumb the other side is, look at this, right? And I'm sitting there like, you're not, you're not helping, right? And, and it, it, it kills me, you know, because it's, it doesn't seem like it's helping these people have hundreds of thousands of followers. And it's one of the reasons I asked you about how do we get people to come to Braver Angels and stuff, because these are some of the most popular accounts on Twitter. There's some of the most watched TV shows or YouTube videos, where it's just degrading the other side. Look how dumb they are. Here's this dumb thing they said. So I, I, you, I kind of agree with you that it starts with us, like I have to be very mindful of who I follow, who I watch and, you know, and all that stuff. But what are your thoughts? Like, is this something that, yeah, I want to share another, I want to share another reaction just because of conversation starters, even though like, oh, maybe if I think about it, I shouldn't have said that conversation starters when we couch them the right way. And one reaction I had as we were talking is like, that I've never had before is, man, that's the automatic brain of social media. That's the auto. We, these patterns of hating on the other side, get us so many good things. They get us status, they get us followers, they get us vanity metrics, they get us, they get us love. They do, they get us love from people who want answers now to feel better about where the world is headed and to know their place in it and to not have to think too hard about it because we're all tired. And so that's the unthinking brain of the, of the inner, right, doing all of that. And it's popular. Of course it is low gas mileage for all of us. You know, Brave Rangers is a little closer to the PFC, I think. And so is everyone who is trying to put their mind on what could be a better way when it is not surrounding us, that takes more work, right? It takes more conviction. So it's harder, but it's so important. So that's the kind of, you know, that's where I begin. I completely agree. I mean, it's, it's an uphill battle in every sense of the word. And it's not just, you know, the, the forces of media and, and all of that. It's also a lot of money, frankly. I mean, there's a lot of commercial investment in, because, you know, here's the thing, and here's, here's one interesting little analogy too is like, I'm a journalist, right? I went through some experiences, you know, really quick. I, I, the reason I got to Seattle was to work with a Seattle post-intelligence, or the oldest paper in Seattle, a real institution, beautiful, beautiful, wonderful newspaper. I worked with 174 colleagues. And in, in 2010, am I right about that? 2010 or 2009? Oh my God. Anyway, look at that. But the paper closed. And it was the largest daily newspaper in America to close in the modern era. It, it wounded Seattle. It was awful. So anyway, I know firsthand how difficult it is to push back against the commercial forces around how we share information. Local media is suffering like you wouldn't believe. National media is very powerful, but competitive at a, at a, at a, in a horrible way. And so the way they win, of course, is to do the Facebook emotional shares or whatever you have to do, right? So yeah, so there, there are these financial incentives where when it comes to being media or being information or being a politician, standing out from the crowd, getting a piece of the attention economy, when we're also inundated with information, takes things that are not good, ultimately for the human psyche. But you have to do some of those things. You have to be okay with doing some of those things to survive in, in, in the system, because, and here's the, the principle that I've learned about media is the better you can define your audience and relate and connect to them, the higher your likelihood of surviving financially as outlet, as a politician, as, as media institution in all the ways. And so all of those institutions and all of those people know that the better they can define and connect to their audience, the better it will all go. So are they incentivized to challenge their audience on their biases? No. The opposite. They're incentivized to be as loyal as they possibly can to their base. And again, this applies to politicians, media and everybody. So I get it. I empathize because I've been there. I have to do those things too, to do my job. You know, so damn it. It's just, it's, it's, it's something that I, I've been sharing with people about, you know, in 2019, I, you know, my YouTube channel was exploding to like 100,000 subscribers, but I got caught up in that because I originally started a YouTube channel just talk about mental health and addiction, but I, I figured out quickly, because I have a background in marketing, kind of like what you're talking about with journalism, like I knew it was going to get the clicks and stuff like that. And it, it got me in trouble. And I didn't like what I was doing. I didn't like what I had to do. And it's something that I'm trying to figure out with this podcast too. And that's why I look at Brave Rangers as this kind of beacon of hope for me, because I try not to be super polarizing and, you know, and just talk from a place of like curiosity and understanding and all these other things. But like you said, it's not as incentivizing because people don't want their beliefs challenged. They don't want that challenge. But one of the things that I, I try to teach people is no matter who you're listening to, no matter what you're reading, watching, whatever, ask what's in it for them, right? Because I think, you know, I think if you could just ask that question, now you could sit back a little bit, because none of us want to be manipulated, you know? And I think if we understand like, oh, maybe you don't have my best interests at heart, we can just pause. And so how do you, how do you, Monica, how do you filter what you're consuming? Or is it more just kind of like what you mentioned with that article? Do you just kind of read it, everything and listen to everybody and just kind of check in with yourself? How do you manage those kind of quick reactions and stuff on a day-to-day basis and what you watch and follow? Well, the first thing is I've noticed that I'm a lot more present and mentally good with all the things if I really limit my, my dips into you talked earlier about how we read headlines, right? Like social media is nothing but bad. It's like reading headlines without going deeper. And it sparks all these anxieties, all these feelings, you know, maybe it's envy here and maybe it's resentment here. And and then after it's been 60 seconds and we're already like loaded with stress. So I limit the time that I, that I do that, but I'm not, I'm not perfect at that at all. It's a continuous struggle. I can't even tell you like it still happens. Absolutely where I'm like, why have I been doing this for three hours? How did I get down this deep black hole? Like even the fact that I've thought about this so much and I, I have like a particularly specific, you know, understanding of the potential costs, you know, to one's personal self and relationships, even then this, the pull is so strong, you know, but one thing that has helped is, you know, connecting with folks like, well, like you and like Angel Eduardo and like, you know, all these people who are building a little corner of Twitter that doesn't behave in the normal ways at all. We express gratitude and for ideas and we stay curious about each other's perspectives and we're excited about how this way of doing things is actually much more exhilarating than the normal way. It's actually better and we know that. So, so I have faith that like because, because we know that it's better and that it's exhilarating, it should be sexier than what's currently sexy. It should and it's not, but whatever. So anyway, so that gives me a lot of support and hope. I think it's important to connect with people who also want to be open-minded and there are a lot of them out there, even on all the most toxic platforms. Oh no, you know, those platforms are open and that's their gift and so you'll find these other voices. So I try to spend time, yeah, with folks who come at it that way, but who have totally different ideas because, you know, being curious is not about surrounding yourself with people who share your beliefs at all, right? It's the opposite, but what I want is to is to meet and connect with people who are teaching me and teaching each other how to be more curious and I've learned a lot. So it's only, it's just, it's just making it all better. And then as far as filtering media and things like that, I have vastly reduced how much I read The New York Times. The New York Times used to be an addiction. I'll just say that. Everyone who's a journalist, worth their salt, envies The New York Times, wants to be The New York Times, envies their power and influence and resources. It's phenomenal. I know so many good friends who have ended up at The New York Times like, you know, it's that big thing, but it's also an addiction and I don't want that. It sucks me in and it sucks me into world views that are not as broad as they think. Yeah. As good as they are what they do. They are, they are wonderful journalists. But no, I don't, I don't want all of my media to be used out of New York and BC and I just don't want it. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, one of my, one of my hopes for this podcast to like you mentioned like Angel and Xavier, he was just on for a bonus episode and, you know, he even helped me like be a little bit more compassionate and understanding about one of the things I hope with this podcast is I do bring on people like I had John McWhorter on, right? He could be very polarizing and things like that. But I'll bring people, you know, I've also had people on the other side like I've had guests who talk about white supremacy or social justice parenting. So each one of them is going to bring it in a different audience. And I'm kind of hoping that bringing people in from all different sides is going to create a little mini braver angels, you know what I mean? Because somebody will come in like, oh cool, this guy platforms this guy and then they're like, wait, who is this person? But then they'll actually be able to listen in here because, you know, I purposely, you know, part of what I do, I'll purposely read an entire book from someone I feel like I disagree with. And sometimes at the end of it, I'm like, yep, I still disagree with you, you know, whatever, but I understand you a little bit more. But yeah, that because I'm just like, if I, if I, because I'm giving you like hours of my life, right? I'm like, I feel like I gave you a fair chance and everything like that. And I don't know if we'll ever hang out, but I understand your perspective or even people who follow you, their perspective and things like that. But, you know, with, with one last question, I want to ask you this, because just the other day before recording this, we, there was a Kyle Rittenhouse verdict and, you know, I was wondering if we were going to like talk about that. But I think we can, you know, make it a little bit more evergreen, because one of the things that I noticed kind of like what you're talking about, I found myself because I live in my social media too. I was doom scrolling through the Kyle Rittenhouse, just polarizing just everybody, because I was seeing what the left was saying, what the right was saying. And I found myself just caught up in it. I had to go and just tune out. I built, I worked on some Legos and things like that, whatever. But what I saw was just like so much anger, so much anger during the trial, so much anger after the trial, like during the trial, it was from both sides, right? After the child, there was a little bit more celebration over here, a little bit more anger over here. So my last question for you is, you know, you talked about a little bit with your parents, but like, even with Braver Angels, I don't know if you have tools that you give people who come to these Braver Angels events, but it seems like anger is the primary thing that we have to tune down, right? Because when we start getting into these yelling, screaming matches and stuff like that, like, nothing gets solved. It's one of the reasons I stopped. One of the books I wrote was Rewire Your Anger because I had such big anger management issues. And then eventually, I reflected, I'm like, oh, wait, that literally hasn't solved anything my entire life. So maybe so what are some techniques for people to bring in that curiosity, turn up the curiosity, turn down the anger and have conversations when they think someone is just just even morally just incorrect in their views? How what are some suggestions for people to do that? My number one thing first, the reframing, right? And it's to reframe that anger, like our initial reaction is to get defensive, obviously, to want to put our stake in the ground, push it deeper, to fight back, to get just as angry in return. The way to reframe this through curiosity is to understand that anger is fueled by deep about like deep concern. Yeah, concern reveals values. So one of the most powerful questions in my journalism for years is what are you concerned about? You know, when it comes to this issue, what are your concerns? What are you afraid of? What's going on? And so when we reframe anger and passion that gets even mean, like, okay, fine, it's mean, you know why? Because that's how angry this person is. You know why? Because that's how concerned this person is. You know why? No, you don't. So ask. Yeah. What are they so concerned about? Become curious about that. I'll go back to Valerie Cower, the author I mentioned earlier, because she has a wonderful statement about anger. Anger protects that which is loved. What is being, what's, what does that person love they think is under threat? The Kyle Rittenhouse trial, when it comes to this anger, it wasn't about Kyle Rittenhouse. But what was it about? What is it about? We should all be asking that question. It's not about Kyle Rittenhouse. Yeah. About what he represents. It's about what the debate represents. It's about what happened in Kenosha, right? Like, it's about what that represents for all of, because most of us haven't even been there. We're not part of that community, but we're part of a broader American community and we're part of this cacophonous conversation now where everything occurs, which is itself a problem, but it's a lot. It's too much for our wiring to handle, but we can be choosy. Anyway, it all comes down to that. What is this really about? What are the concerns? And I guarantee you those concerns are not as infuriating as we think. The concerns are valid. They're human. They are. What are they? Yeah. And this last thing I'll say. I've thought about that a lot, just even in the last year with people at their community hearing, screaming about vaccine mandates and things like that or recently critical race theory has been everywhere and you see these parents talking about the books. And I'm like, I'm a parent, right? This person is so angry and passionate about. They're worried about their child, right? Why are they worried about their child? They love their child, right? And sometimes, sometimes because of the media, like we talked about, they're getting bad information, which is heighten their concerns, you know? But I love that reframing of it because that anger does come from a concern. And I love what you just said. Bad information heightens real concerns. I think a lot, I'm just going to say it, I think a lot of liberals use the fact of misinformation to dismiss hearing other people at all. Yeah. Yes, there's misinformation. But the only reason the misinformation is traveling, the only reason it works is because it's speaking to real concerns. Stop, stop like trying to kill the misinformation without also being curious about the concerns because then it's a game of whack-a-mole, you know? Oh, you're going to update your algorithm to zap out. That's not going to do anything. Stop wasting energy on this without also trying to address the concerns or at least acknowledge them. You don't have to agree with them, but acknowledge them because people find a way to express themselves if they don't feel like that any, you know, if they feel like they're being something, somebody's not understanding them, they're going to figure it out how to get, you know, angrier and angrier. So I just think we're doing it all wrong. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I love it. And Monica, I truly hope, and I'm not just building you up because you're on my podcast and you're amazing, but I hope your book gets as much attention as it deserves because it's such an important, important book. You know, like I'm going to revisit it when I feel myself getting polarized and ridiculous and get and stuff like that. I'll do. We all will. So that's okay. For everybody listening, where can they find you and follow you and the work of braver angels and all that kind of good stuff? Yeah. So if you go to my Twitter at Moni Guzman, my profile has a link to all kinds of stuff, like how to pre-order the book, how to join my newsletter. Also, my TEDx talk just premiered. I'm really excited about that. So all kinds of stuff. So look for me on Twitter, also Instagram at Moni Guzman on Instagram, and you'll find links in those profiles to all the other goodies. So and including, of course, braver angels, follow braver angels at braver angels. And yeah, and check us out. We're doing stuff that people think is impossible and is not. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And one last question, because I'm always trying to ask, so when the book drops, is it is it going to be released internationally or is it just domestically at first, but sometimes they stagger the days? Because you have you have issues like this all over the world. So do you have that information yet? Somebody from Australia asked this and then some from Canada. And yeah, I've been getting emails, just like what can I, you know, I can't wait to buy this when it's when it's in Canada. I'm like, I'm sorry. So no, I don't think that I should know this, man. I may have to correct like, I'll talk to the publisher and yeah, maybe you can edit this, but beautiful. As far as I know, it's it's just just the US, but I'm not sure. I'm a first time author. I'm so new to this. Yeah, so once we find out, I'm sure you'll let me know and I can update the description with all these other links and everything like that. Sorry, I really should know that. No, you'd be surprised how many authors I asked that and they're like, I have no idea. I need to find out because I don't I don't think a lot of people know there's an issue, but since I'm a reader and I have people from all over the world who listen, they're like, Hey, when's it coming out? So we'll find out and we'll let everybody know. But Monica, I've been waiting to talk to you forever and we finally linked up. So thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I really appreciate it. Of course. And real quick, I think maybe in case I didn't answer your question correctly, it does come out March 8, 2022. That is for sure that I know that that date is in my head. So yeah. One more question. Will it be will there be an audio version? Yes. And you know what? What I start recording it this Sunday. I had to audition for the part of reading my own book and I got it. And I'm so excited. Congratulations. I love it. Since I'm an audio listener, I love when the author reads it. So that is that's awesome. I can't wait. So beautiful. And and yeah, I'm sure we will be doing this again sometime when I need some refreshers on some of these ways we can have these compensations. So thanks again, Monica. You bet. Thank you, Chris.