Eric Topol

That obviously is not what you're writing about.

And I guess maybe we can start off, you know, what was the goal here?

Obviously, there's other books that have addressed this topic, I'm sure, but yours is somewhat unique in many respects because it brings in the science of it and many strategies perhaps that have never been developed.

But when you got together, what was the mission that you set out to do?

Yeah, I agree.

The unique part here is that whole scaffolding with the neuroscience, the behavioral science, and those five Fs that you mentioned you alluded to, fight, flight, freeze, fawn, fester.

Yeah, so avoidance of conflict has kind of been the default for many people now because we have political divides, we have anti-science versus pro-science divides, and on and on.

There's a quote in the book that I thought we'd start off with because it really kind of lays the groundwork from you both.

The biggest hidden barrier to being conflict resilient stems from the inability or unwillingness to face and sit with our own internal conflicts.

the negotiations between our divided and sometimes contradictory selves.

Even more surprising is that although there are dozens of self-help books on negotiation and conflict resolution, almost none of them spend any meaningful time on this critical intrapersonal barrier to ending conflict.

So maybe, Joel, maybe start you off here.

I guess you were bullied as a kid, and maybe that gives a little background here.

Tell us about, Joel, tell us about that

You would.

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the salient points is,

that avoiding the conflict can make things worse.

And as you described, I would have thought that there are some people who are just innately gifted to being diplomatic and artful about having to deal with

the conflict issue and others are just, you know, there's just no hope.

But in fact, it can be acquired.