Chris Duffy

Funny enough, it wasn't actually a reading for Hanif, but one that he had put together for Sarah, whose book had just come out, which really hit something home for me.

Like Hanif said, place may be something that happens to you, but community, that's something you build with care and generosity.

As I sat and listened to some beautiful poetry with this lovely group of people, I realized that building a community doesn't have to be this big, intimidating thing.

It can start small.

It reminded me of something that Hamif said earlier.

How do you decide who is in your circle of care and who is not?

You're listening to How to Be a Better Human.

I'm your host, Chris Duffy.

The episode of this podcast that has the very worst reviews that we've ever gotten in the two years we've been making this show is an episode that we did on how to talk to people across a political divide.

And that was no fault at all of our guests.

Our guest was fantastic.

The negative reviews were basically because every single one of the questions that I asked was some version of, how do I convince conservatives to realize that they're wrong and I'm right?

And look, it's certainly not lost on me that there's a hilarious irony in me trying to host an episode about communicating across a political divide and then managing to alienate every single person who is on the other side of the political divide from me.

So much so that they felt compelled to give us zero stars and tell me that I am a condescending jerk.

And worse, they're not wrong.

I was being a condescending jerk.

So today, let's see if maybe I can do a little bit better this time.

Today's guest, Monica Guzman, is an expert in curiosity.

She's the author of the fantastic book, I Never Thought of It That Way, How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.

Here's a clip from her TEDx talk.