As much as I wish this were an article announcing the ninth episode we all deserve of Stranger Things, it’s not.
A week ago, this was a story about a twelve-minute Uber ride with a Trump-loving driver on a crisp Saturday morning in Nashville, TN. It was a good story. It made a neat point: if this conversation can happen here, it can happen anywhere.
But then I grabbed coffee with a new friend, politically left-leaning and sharp. Someone who cares about more than they have the capacity to change. He shared:
“The point is to bring people together so they can do something to solve a problem they all agree needs to be solved.”
Yes. That IS the point.
And three hours later, I got dinner with a decade-old, conservative friend. Someone kind, introspective, and honest.
“You know, Sophie, people that are upset, that are angry. Most can’t do what you and me are doing.”
We shared family traditions and debated series’ finales. And then we talked about trans athletes, big pharma, racism, and antisemitism with the kind of conviction we usually reserve for people who already agree with us.
Somewhere between afternoon coffee and, well, after-dinner coffee, it became clear:
I’d written the wrong article for the moment.
The truth is that we are losing too much energy to distraction, anger, and pride. We are spending more energy defending positions than solving shared problems at workplaces, in communities, and across institutions.
By “we,” I mean anyone who feels disenfranchised with the current state of our country but still believes it’s salvageable. Anyone exhausted by outrage cycles, algorithm-fed enemies, and the fantasy that the right post or perfect argument will fix what is fundamentally an ordering of values, a relational problem.
Stick with me.
The Schwartz theory claims that all people have the same ten basic values. What makes us different is how we prioritize them:
- Universalism: appreciation and tolerance of all people
- Benevolence: care and concern for people close to you
- Tradition: respect and acceptance of customs and ways of life
- Conformity: respect for social rules
- Security: desire for safety and stability
- Power: pursuit of control or influence
- Achievement: pursuit of personal success
- Hedonism: desire for pleasure and to enjoy life
- Stimulation: desire for excitement and new experiences
- Self-Direction: freedom of independent thought and action
We rank values by their relative importance to us and our lives, and this forms a system of priorities that defines our beliefs, actions, and behaviors. While it's true that any attitude or behaviour typically has implications for more than one value, most decisions are shaped by the one value that matters most to us.
That’s why “working through differences” isn’t about being louder or clearer or even right. It’s about recognizing how we rank our values, how others rank theirs, and how this knowledge can lead toward sticky solutions rather than Band-Aids.
If you’ve made it this far, grab a pen, a piece of paper, and your preferred format of a Calendar.
I’m going to provide you with three practical steps to (1) identify the issues you care about, (2) practice uncomfortable conversations, and (3) make meaningful friendships. No political science degree required. Just intentionality, and a willingness to enter the yellow zone for the benefit of something much bigger than yourself: the belief that all of us having conversations, one at a time, based on understanding each other’s values, will increase our chances of creating safer, stronger, more just organizations and communities.
1. Your Short List
Write down four issues you feel the most passionate about. Don’t think too hard - no one's grading your list. Here’s mine:
- Immigration
- Middle East
- AI Regulation
- LGBTQIA+ Rights
Now, cross off the two that provoke the strongest emotional response. This isn’t avoidance. It’s strategy.
- Immigration
- Middle East
- AI Regulation
- LGBTQIA+ Rights
When you decide to train for a marathon, you don’t run 26 miles on day one. You know you’ll eventually have to run the full distance, but you start with a mile. Then two, building your capacity over time.
Deliberation requires traction. Start with something you care about, but hold less dear. It will make the inevitable grey areas that you encounter along the way easier to engage with.
2. Choose Your Container
When a baby is learning to stand for the first time, no one panics when they fall. You don’t rush them to the doctor after the first wobble.
You offer a hand.
You let them lean on the wall.
Maybe you even buy them some tools to help.
Over time, they learn balance.
Talking with someone different than you works the same way.
You don’t become good at disagreement by reading the best books or sharing the perfect posts. You become good through repetition; by failing safely, reflecting honestly, and trying again.
Go to your Calendar and look ahead two weeks. Mark it in purple with the note:
Choose My Container Deadline
If we want a healthier civic culture, we can’t rely solely on personal willpower. We need containers. Places designed for people to practice these skills together, repeatedly, and in good faith. And lucky for you, I have a few suggestions of where you can start looking.
Why the Workplace is a Great Container
Workplaces are culturally disconnected, generationally divided, and breaking from burnout. Conflict resolution & communication skills for collaboration are just as beneficial within teams and across departments as they are for community decision-making.
The Magnet Collective is an in-house, workplace fellowship that exists to rebuild the social muscles we depend on to perform well and find purpose in our work. Not through theory and lessons, but through action. Fellows graduate by applying their newfound skills to lead an experience for their colleagues, creating long-term value for themselves, their coworkers, and the company.
Educators, Journalists, & Influencers: Good Conflict Is Better Conflict
My sister’s an educator, so I hesitate to request anymore of your unpaid labor. But I think this is worth it. Good Conflict provides the vocabulary, guardrails, and tools to investigate disagreement without inflaming division. And for anyone trying to post about the moment productively, the co-founders intimately understand how to cover controversy, understand conflict, and inform the public effectively through video, audio, and print storytelling.
Only Have An Hour? No Excuses!
Living Room Conversations offers facilitated, cross-partisan, hour-long dialogues, online or in person, that make connection possible without spectacle. It’s short & simple:
- They gather a group of ~5 people to talk about a chosen topic
- Follow the Conversation Guide and Agreements
- Participants answer questions
- Walk away with more understanding and connection
Worried You’re Too Far Left? No You’re Not.
I spent every other week of 2025 in Unfortunately Not a Sound Bath: a virtual, conservative podcast listening club to analyze their messaging, tone, rhetoric, and recurring themes. The podcasts didn’t flip me, belly side up, with the sudden urge to agree with conservative politics. Rather, I walked away with a deeper responsibility to engage in the nuance of a reality I hadn't lived. If we want a democracy that reflects our values, we have to move toward the discomfort of understanding someone else's truth.
3. Make Friends First, Discussions Second
Do not walk up to a stranger and ask them their stance on gun control.
Productive disagreement requires willing participants. Conversations that begin with surprise or pressure rarely lead to understanding; they usually harden positions.
To find someone worth engaging with (someone who doesn’t already agree with you on everything), join spaces that have nothing to do with politics but bring you into shared experiences with people who are different from you. Relationships are the infrastructure that deliberation requires.
Go work out. Join a choir. Host a film club. Become a member of your local YMCA. And yea, make friends at work.
You have to get out there in the real world and build real relationships with real people. You don’t have to agree on everything with someone to find common ground on something. I learned this intimately after October 7th, when my first friend calling to check in was a Palestinian, Muslim from Jordan; after seven years of friendship, and many, many movie nights, we had both challenged each other to see the world through the other’s lens. That understanding didn’t erase our differences, but it did help us hold the complexity, recognize the grey, and reach for better outcomes for both of our communities, not one at the expense of the other.
Why values?
Why relationships?
Because you don’t need to know everything about a topic to hold a conviction about it. Our country does not require a well-written essay to cast a vote. What shifts people is proximity. We care about what and who touches our lives. We vote in our interests because our interests are shaped by who we know, who we trust, and who we feel responsible for.
If you are only friends with “yes men,” you’re living in a false reality that is delaying our inevitable future:
Compromise.
I wear my convictions on my sleeve, and I’m an email away from you knowing all about them. And yet, it’s not my beliefs that matter, but understanding why I hold them, and how that reflects my ranking of values; that understanding improves our chances of reaching a satisfactory, shared solution to our greatest workplace and society tensions.
In the past, I’ve ended friendships over social disagreements and yelled quip remarks rather than listen to another’s perspective. And it got me and the people I care about here: craving greater transparency, wondering if I’ll make it out safely when I defend a comrade, and grappling with the greatest rise of antisemitism I’ve felt in my lifetime.
I woke up at 3 a.m. on January 12 to watch the “One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things Season 5” documentary. As disappointing as it was to discover this really was just a two-hour, behind-the-scenes exposé of the show and not a secret finale, I’m glad I watched for one singular moment:
“The only chance of making something hard happen…” Executive Producer Shawn Levy started, “is by being convinced it will happen.”
Write your list. Practice. Make meaningful friendships. And courageously step into imperfect deliberation.
To refuse is to accept the reality in front of us.
Sophie Levy is the Founder of The Magnet Collective: a professional development partner that centers connection, constructive conflict & conversation, and commitment to a shared purpose.
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