Have you ever asked yourself, slightly annoyed, “How the heck could anyone believe that?”

Today, more than ever, beliefs are over-simplified in popular media, like facebook feeds and “opinion journalism.” Even the best-intentioned reporting can miss deeper truths and reinforce misunderstandings.    (Example) It becomes a little too easy to trivialize another person as misinformed, incomprehensible, or even morally compromised. It’s faster and more comfortable to be right. Righteousness can be seductive, especially if someone hits your buttons with the words they use.

But, have you ever asked yourself, with a curious feeling that you are missing something, “No, really, how the heck could anyone believe that?”

This podcast is based on the premise that people, like you, are more complicated and more interesting than a poll answer or a one sentence opinion. This is an exercise in understanding people, one person at a time.

This podcast aspires to create a “space” where understanding can be experienced. I invite you to listen and pursue the experience of understanding someone who has lived a different life from you and has different opinions.

While the method will likely be apparent when you listen, it may be helpful to hear a little about the main elements:

• People first. When you know more about a person, their values, and life story, you hear their opinions in richer context; you become partially inoculated from easy judgments.
• To earn the opportunity to hear someone, you have to offer openness.
• It is more enriching to learn how someone arrived at their conclusions than what their conclusion is.
• Conclusions or opinions aren’t debated. The goal is to understand, not convince or agree.
• People are different and they use language differently. It takes time patience, analytical thinking and empathy to help an individual find their message.
• You can’t understand if you don’t probe. It is possible to ask challenging questions without offending, as long as there is trust that the goal is to understand.

These are not new insights — I know it can sound cliche — but in day to day life and in popular media, there are not enough of spaces to practice this way of engaging.  (In the Discover section of this website, there is an growing list of thematically similar podcasts, websites, or videos.)

If you doing dishes or on the subway, why not meet someone new? It’s a podcast! Just think how much cleaning and laundry folding you can get done if you keep at it for the whole interview.