Americans aren’t getting along too well in these so called United States.  Some are sick, depressed, and anxious about the future.  Some are so fed up they won’t attempt to talk politics with family and neighbors, because they are certain it’s impossible.  Though tired and stressed, we need to listen, learn, scrutinize positions, and focus on commonalities.  We need to heal.

This isn’t the time to avoid interactions, but to have respectful ones using field-tested ways to talk across the divide, handle differences, get off the defensive, and disagree without being disagreeable.  Consulting psychologist Andrea Molberg stuffed urgently needed conflict, influence, relationship, and coping skills into the toolkit along with answers to “How can we be so far apart?” “What do we have in common?” and “What’s all the Fuss about Competence and Fitness?”  Ways to cope and find hope when the world seems upside down are there too.  

In the middle of a monumental mess, we truly can’t afford to summarily reject different vantage points and vilify those holding certain views.  Innovative solutions – and we need some – come from integrating a bit of this with a bit of that.  America benefits if we’re well informed and skillfully exchanging perceptions, even about who will and won’t be effective leaders.  To bring us together, grab evidence-based influence strategies, specific phrases, and relationship repair techniques from the kit —  like “feel, felt, and found” and “fogging”  — and reasons for using them.  

We not only need to pick the right leader for the health/economic/racial crisis but know how to pull together after November 3^rd.  Getting along is priceless.