Did you know that every difficult conversation is actually three conversations, and two of them we ignore at our peril? Did you know that one of the longest standing national border disputes finally got resolved after two of the adversaries discovered they had one special thing in common? And did you know that by asking three simple questions, you can put your difficult conversation on the road to resolution?

Well, get ready to learn about all that and more, because it's just a small part of my conversation with mediation expert Douglas Stone, former associate director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, co-founder of the Triad Consulting Group, and, last but not least, co-author of the New York Times best seller, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, and his most recent book with co-author Sheila Heen, Thanks for the Feedback, The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. 
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Kern Beare is the founder of the Difficult Conversations Project and the author of Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together. He also facilitates a workshop based on his book, which is free for non-profit organizations and community groups.

Talking to people we seriously disagree with can sound like a recipe for a bad headache and high blood pressure. But does it have to be? Might it instead be a recipe for understanding, connection, and even friendship?  To find out, my liberal cousin Jon Karpilow spent seven months working in a gun shop in rural northern California. In this podcast he shares why he did it, what he learned, and if he'd ever, ever,  do something like that again. (Spoiler alert: Yes, he would.)

Jon's book, A Liberal’s Search For America - Tales From The Gun Shop, on which this interview is based, is now available on Amazon. 

"This collection of short stories depicts the personalities and events in this rural, conservative slice of America, and reminds us of how friendship can overcome ideological-based animosity when each of us makes an effort to engage and listen to those whose beliefs differ from our own."
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Kern Beare is the founder of the Difficult Conversations Project and the author of Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together. He also facilitates a workshop based on his book, which is free for non-profit organizations and community groups.