How to Talk to People with Different Beliefs Without Creating Distance

Have you ever been in a conversation where someone says something you completely disagree with? It could be a coworker, a neighbor, or even a family member—people who often see the world differently. When that happens, do you find yourself jumping in to correct them?

In today’s divided world—where people boldly display beliefs on t-shirts and bumper stickers—our instinct to be right often creates more distance than understanding.

What if there’s another way to approach people with different views?

Our First Instinct: React, Not Understand

According to famous Psychologist Carl Rogers, our first reaction to people’s statements is to evaluate or judge rather than understand.

I’ve noticed this tendency in myself as well. Thoughts like “That’s not nice,” “That’s weird,” or “That’s not the right way to think” often pop into my mind when I hear a different perspective.

I have offered my opinion on what is right multiple times—especially when I hear women picking up the bulk of the load in the house without realizing it. It touches a nerve when they are unable to stand up for themselves.

But most people aren’t looking for the ideal solution. They want to feel heard. Unless they ask for advice, they’re not seeking it.

In the past, I have often believed my version to be true. With more insight, I have realized that what I feel and think is just my point of view. Even when I had facts to back up my opinion, blurting them out usually created more distance between me and the other person.

Carl Rogers identified our tendency to evaluate rather than understand. But what can we do when we genuinely need to express a different perspective? Dale Carnegie offers us practical solutions for such situations.

How to Disagree Without Creating Distance

In How to Win Friends & Influence People, author Dale Carnegie said, When someone is wrong, don’t say outright they are wrong. Instead, say, “I may be wrong, but I see things differently. Let’s look at the facts together.”

In Carnegie’s book, Katherine, a supervisor at an industrial plant, shares how she applied this principle. When tasked with improving efficiency, she went into the meeting, pointing out everything they were doing wrong and how her method would improve it.

She failed. Her approach didn’t take time to understand people’s perspectives.

She went back, inquired about the team’s issues, and asked for opinions and suggestions. The result was a solution that resembled her original proposal. But this time, they had come up with it collectively.

According to Katherine, we cannot accomplish anything when we tell someone outright they are wrong. We only succeed in stripping that person of self-dignity and making ourselves unwelcome in any discussion.

Carnegie offers practical ways to disagree respectfully. But Pema Chödrön invites us to go deeper—by examining why we need to be right in the first place.

Why do we need to be right?

In the book When Things Fall Apart, author Pema Chödrön says that when people try to be right, they try to find security. Being right gives us a sense of ground. Being wrong threatens it. So we cling to our opinions, hoping to feel more secure.

Instead of labeling everything as right or wrong—or internalizing those judgments—we can follow a middle way.

It means not clinging so tightly to our version of things. It involves keeping our hearts and minds open to know that when we make things wrong, we do it out of our desire to obtain some ground or security. Equally, when we make things right, we still try to get some ground or security.

Next time we’re in that situation, we don’t need to be right—or wrong. We can be okay with uncertainty.

Can we walk into the room without any agenda? Pema asks us. Can we listen to people and accept them as they are? True communication only happens in an open space.

A New Way to Connect

When we try to prove ourselves right in a conversation, we increase the divide between us and the other person. What if we can practice understanding other people instead of evaluating or judging them or telling them the right way?

And when someone else insists on being right, can we remember that this may come from a deep need to feel secure?

Can we pause before responding and ask ourselves: “Am I trying to understand, or am I trying to be right?”

That moment of reflection might transform not just that conversation but also how we connect with others in a world that desperately needs more understanding and less division.

When we hold on to our opinions with aggression, no matter how valid our cause, we are simply adding more aggression to the planet, and violence and pain increase.

The way to stop the war is to stop hating the enemy. It starts with seeing our opinions of ourselves and of others as simply our take on reality and not making them a reason to increase the negativity on the planet.

– Pema Chödrön