You Have More Power Than the Algorithm

You have more power than the algorithm. Part 3 closes our arc with Mónica Guzmán — journalist, founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, senior fellow at Braver Angels, and author of I Never Thought of It That Way. Last week we ended on a cliffhanger: how does the system itself stay curious? This week, the answer. Keith opens with a story from the weekend — a real conversation about healthcare with his conservative dad that was going well, until he noticed his dad was drinking from a "leftist tears" tumbler. The dialogue was working. The identity object in the room was working against it. Mónica introduces the concept of conflict entrepreneurs — people who profit off division — and reframes what a system actually is. There isn't one system. There are many. Put down the one that isn't serving you and pick up the one that will. Also — the astronaut cord metaphor for holding identity loosely (probably the sharpest visual in the whole arc), the surprising research that shows cognitively smarter people are actually worse at accepting information they don't want to hear, and the callback to our own tightly held values, loosely held beliefs arc. Ends with rapid-fire questions (Citizen Kane, puchero, Maui, Blink-182), Costco chicken fingers, and the honest close of three episodes that changed how we think about this work. Key Topics: Conflict entrepreneurs and the economics of division, the attention economy, the pattern of losing consciousness in argument, the astronaut cord metaphor for identity, the counterintuitive research on cognitive reasoning, and the many-systems reframe. Guest: 📚 I Never Thought of It That Way by Mónica Guzmán — Available on Amazon 🎙️ A Braver Way podcast — YouTube & all podcast platforms 🌐 reclaimcuriosity.org 🌐 braverangels.org The Full Arc: 🎧 Part 1 — When the Conversation Gets Political, Can You Stay Curious? 🎧 Part 2 — What Nobody Tells You About Staying Curious 🎧 Part 3 — You Have More Power Than the Algorithm Find Us: 🌐 https://www.moreincommonent.com 📸 https://www.instagram.com/moreincommonent 🐦 https://twitter.com/MoreInCommonent 📘 https://www.facebook.com/moreincommonpod Gerren Taylor: 🎵 https://www.tiktok.com/@gerrent 📸 https://instagram.com/gerrent 💼 https://linkedin.com/in/gerrenT Thinking out loud about what gets in the way of connection. Like what you heard? Leave us a comment in your podcast app. See you next week.