I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times

We think we have the answers, but we need to be asking a lot more questions.

Journalist M鏮ica Guzm嫕 is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted--twice--for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, M鏮ica set out to find what was blinding us and discovered the most eye-opening tool we're not using: our own built-in curiosity.

Partisanship is up, trust is down, and our social media feeds make us sure we're right and everyone else is ignorant (or worse). But avoiding one another is hurting our relationships and our society.

In this timely, personal guide, M鏮ica, the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt--broken conversations among confounded people. She shows you how to overcome the fear and certainty that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is different from or even opposed to yours.

Drawing from cross-partisan conversations she's had, organized, or witnessed everywhere from the echo chambers on social media to the wheat fields in Oregon to raw, unfiltered fights with her own family on election night, M鏮ica shows how you can put your natural sense of wonder to work for you immediately, finding the answers you need by talking with people--rather than about them--and asking the questions you want, curiously.

In these pages, you'll learn:

• How to ask what you really want to know (even if you're afraid to)
• How to grow smarter from even the most tense interactions, online or off
• How to cross boundaries and find common ground--with anyone