MóNICA GUZMáN

The other night here in Cape Town, South Africa, I turned to one of the most extraordinary teachers I’ve ever met and asked her a question that had been tickling me for days.

In two days I’ll be traveling somewhere I’ve never been and can’t wait to learn from — South Africa.

One day when I was six, my teacher told me to go to a “drawer,” and I had no idea what she meant. I had just moved to a new school — a new country — and was still learning the language. When I repeated the mystery word back — “drawer?” — one of the boys laughed.

Not long ago I saw a poster that stopped me. "The only thing we have to fear,” it read, “is how easily I can make you afraid."

A couple weeks ago, I had one of those simple, profound moments with a friend that left a mark.

Curiosity is a muscle. And today — only if you’re up for it — I have a challenge to help you build it.

“Disagreeing in public should not be a death sentence.” I heard a fellow bridge builder say those words a few days ago and they haven’t left me since.

Because of this weird work I do, I sometimes find myself dipping deep into a conservative-dominated conversation, then deep into a liberal-dominated conversation — or vice-versa — always coming out a little stunned.

I’ve had some amazing conversations this month with the likes of brilliant Ivy League students and passionate pluralism pros. But none were as memorable as the one I had with July...

It’s been an intense couple weeks since the new administration rolled in, and in addition to this wild idea ⬆️ I know inspired at least one person to actually call their representative (YES!), I’ve got three quick things to spark your curiosity...

For someone who goes on and on about staying curious, I haven’t made a lot of time to read books. Until now. I just finished one by one hell of a bold thinker — the sociologist Musa Al-Gharbi. We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite looks like a takedown of “wokeness,” but is actually a very uncomfortable mirror held up to the kinds of people, left and right, who have arguments about things like “wokeness” in the first place — college-educated

Hey there friend, The Obama Foundation picked “pluralism” as the theme for its 2024 Democracy Forum, and I was humbled — and challenged! — to be invited to speak. Watch my talk (just 6 minutes) See a photo from a moment I’m not about to forget So many of my heroes in political bridging were there, too: Manu Meel of BridgeUSA, Eboo Patel of Interfaith America, Layla Zaidane of the Future Caucus, and more. If you don’t already follow their work, go check them out! See ab

These days, most of my thoughts around curiosity, ending divisiveness, and creating community have been going straight into my podcast, A Braver Way, and I'd love to start sharing them with you! So without further ado... let's dive into our latest podcast: Whether it was about foreign policy, the economy, or the best route to the grocery store, chances are you have changed your mind about something. What happens in your brain when you do, and what does that teach us about

Hello! Congratulations! And thank you so much for this amazing honor, what in the world, this is still not quite real – I have my husband and two kids here just to make sure I don’t think I’m dreaming later – thank you. What a thing. And from a community I know is asking what it means to be open, to be curious, at a time where that can feel risky, scary, and wrong. Let me tell you a story I heard some years ago that, when I do the work that I do, is never far from my mind. So

Hey friend, It occurred to me the other day that I’m learning constantly from some very thoughtful, curious, and hard-working friends whose views span the political spectrum, and (where are my manners?!) I have completely neglected to introduce them to you. So here are a few fine folks to get to know. I’ll let you all take it from here. 💛 April Lawson April is the architect of Braver Angels Debates, which has the most successful structure I have ever seen — or more like

It’s here! 😱 My brand new podcast, A Braver Way, is out in the world with three new episodes — yes, THREE — razor-focused on the podcast’s whole mission: equipping you with the tools you need to bridge the political divide in your everyday lives and confront the barriers in your way. Got a coffee break? Lunch break? Commute? Pick one of the below episodes, take a listen, and please please please let me know what you think! ♥️ What could possibly be so funny about the big pol

It’s finally official! A Braver Way, a brand new podcast I’m hosting about how to stay curious across divides, launches October 2023 and the trailer is here! Can you share it with your networks today? It would mean the world. ❤️ I love building mission driven media, and A Braver Way is no exception. It’s razor focused on equipping people with the tools they need to bridge the divide in their everyday lives and confront the barriers in their way. And I’m so grateful to my pro

Partway through my curiosity workshop this summer, after an exercise where participants came up with quick questions about each other’s favorite childhood memories, a woman raised her hand. She wanted to share one way she hadn’t listened to what her workshop partner was saying. “She told me about a day camp she’d gone to one summer. That made me think of the summer camp I went to, which was an overnight camp,” the woman said. “I asked her what the cabins were like, totally o

Why do we read? We read to escape. We read to learn. And we read for this bright, shining moment of illumination where we understand something, or know something, we didn’t know before. Most of us read because we’re curious — about someone’s life, a certain topic, a fictional world, or a particular place. Looking for a good book to dig into? Below you’ll find a list of books, in no particular order, that have inspired, or even illuminated, something in me. See No Stranger by

Breathless in Aspen We started our adventure at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where I gave the most winded talk of my entire life. Our flight to Aspen had been diverted to Grand Junction and my two-hour-plus cab pulled up to the tent *two minutes* before the (truly amazing) organizers told me I’d need to be knocked from the lineup. I jumped onstage in clothes I’d worn on the plane, did my lightning talk on getting curious when it’s really hard feeling really lucky, then stuck aro

Shame is that feeling you get when you realize you’ve violated the norms of your community. But it only works when it comes from your community. And can backfire when it doesn’t. When I heard Megan Phelps-Roper make this point in a talk I watched on YouTube, it explained so much. Megan is the host of a thought-provoking and controversial podcast called “The Witch Trials of JK Rowling.” But years before that, she was a spokesperson for something far more notorious: the Westb

“Hurt people hurt people.” It’s a lovely bit of rhetoric that happens to say something profound. To quote my new friend Erin Jones on a related point, “People say hateful things not because they actually hate you, but because they don’t know you.” And they’re probably coming from a lot of hurt. I first heard about Erin, an author, speaker, and former Teacher of the Year, when the Innovia Foundation invited me to Spokane to speak about bridging the political divide weeks bef

In my work I think a lot about the relationship between truth and trust. How you need trust to get to truth. Especially the kinds of deep down truth that each of us carries a piece of, that we need stronger conversations to access and share. When I was a daily journalist, I felt like I was constantly chasing truth. Now, I get a chance to try (and try hard!) to get a better grip on what it takes to build trust. I’ve just been named the inaugural McGurn Fellow for Media Integ

In my house we are *obsessed* with the soundtrack to Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical. Especially “School Song,” a clever track that follows the alphabet as young prefects tell an even younger Matilda how to survive at a school ruled by a tyrannical headmistress. And after learning about two big events in higher ed — the disruptions of a conservative judge’s talk at Stanford Law School and a bill that would ban DEI programs and any major or minor “associated with Critical Th

My eyes lingered on a short, quick tweet awhile before I realized it was one of the most delightfully curious compliments I’d ever seen. It came when journalist Amanda Ripley, author of High Conflict, thanked Claudia Chwalisz, founder of the very promising civic org DemocracyNext, for ideas she wrote up in a quick post. “This is lovely,” Amanda wrote. “Led me to places I had not been.” Led me to places I had not been… That phrase about sums up the rewards of the kind of op

A conservative friend of mine — let’s call her Jen — just attended one of those dialogue-rich events in a major city with a liberal friend. Minutes in, she sensed that the whole room and discussion were unconsciously progressive and thought about ducking out. “Hang in there,” her friend told her. “Your point of view matters, too.” Jen stuck around through lunch, when she ended up sharing her very divergent perspective with the organizer. He then invited her to share it with t

It started with a question. A man named Alan turned to a woman named Jamie — both of them locals in Edmonds, Washington, who’d signed up to try disagreeing curiously with each other in front of a roomful of their neighbors — and asked her to share what concerned her about something he supported: stationing police officers in schools. “My concern?” Jamie said, putting her hand on her chin to think. “I think it’s… it’s… it’s fake safety.” Watch the video of that moment and w

There’s always a bit of awkwardness when you walk into a friend’s home for the first time, a tension I find myself defusing by looking for something to compliment, fast. Ooh I like that rug where’d you get it? A home is not just a place, after all. It’s a giant chunk of someone’s life. And one of the richest opportunities to learn more about it. I felt this in a big way last week in the home of renowned Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Frida wasn’t there to show me around her b

Ever notice something in you jump in shock when somebody you’re listening closely to says something you really don’t like? That’s what happened to me when Jonathan Haidt called curiosity “selfish.” I was interviewing the renowned social psychologist and author for this latest episode of the Braver Angels Podcast when he said it, fairly casually, on his way to making one of many fascinating points. I knew he didn’t mean it as a takedown of getting curious; chasing knowledge

As I packed up from one of my curiosity workshops this summer, a participant named Don came up to me. He was thrilled about what he’d learned, but was confused about one thing. “You asked us to avoid judging each other so we could stay curious,” he told me. “But my judgments are what help me stay curious.” When he explained what he meant, it made total sense. He’s sitting there during the exercise, listening to his partner lay out her opinion on gun regulations. A judgment p

“Don’t assume that what you voted against is what they voted for.” When I read that tip from Nealin Parker in USA Today this week, I instantly recognized one of the nastiest myths in our politics: the idea that a different choice is a rejection of our values. Or, to put it in more emotional terms, that if they oppose what you support, they must hate what you love. But what if they don’t? Certainty is the archvillain of curiosity. When you think you know, you won’t think to

“Our brains are most productive when there is no demand that they be reactive.” A mentor of mine, psychologist Sherry Turkle, made that claim in her insightful book Reclaiming Conversation. And the more I study what it means to reclaim curiosity, the more I’ve come to see it as a mission critical truth. Buzzes. Pings. Notifications. That itch to check countless inboxes on email and social media. This is how our minds stay tethered to our silos, following other journeys inst