Have you ever lain awake at night obsessing over a conflict with a colleague or a relative or a politician you’ve never met? If you have, you were probably experiencing what journalist Amanda Ripley calls high conflict. If good conflict is the kind of friction that is serious and intense but ultimately leads somewhere useful, then high conflict is the kind of friction that only gives you rope burn. It’s bitter, all-consuming, unproductive — and worst of all, once you find yourself embroiled in high conflict, it’s almost impossible to get out. Luckily, Amanda has been studying the techniques you can use to break free, and in this episode, she shares what she’s learned with Next Big Idea Club curator Susan Cain.

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