Kate Murphy is an award-winning journalist whose reporting for The New York Times, The Economist, Texas Monthly, and international publications focuses on psychology, communication, and the human condition. For this book, she interviewed neuroscientists, therapists, hostage negotiators, medical professionals, military leaders, corporate executives, clergy, teachers, bartenders, and ordinary people around the world. Her research spans scientific labs, hospital trauma rooms, prisons, schools, crisis call centers, and boardrooms. Murphy’s central belief: listening is not a soft skill but a survival skill—essential to human connection, progress, and collective well-being.