Book excerpt: Global conflict is one of the top challenges the world faces today. Our survival as the human race demands that we pay attention to our own role in conflict. Resolving conflict on a global scale requires change at the level of individuals. Lawyer and Mediator Meysa Maleki introduces the everyday person to the elements of conflict, the sub-conversations and the skills that are required to resolve conflict effectively. However, her solution to addressing human conflict goes beyond just the latest conflict resolution theory, negotiation techniques, and the interpersonal skills of a mediator. She draws on the strengths of human beings, their capacity for compassion and their immense potential to change their subconscious programming through awareness. This book weaves together research ranging from human genetics, evolution, communications theory, neuroscience, world history, psychology, and sociology to reframe our understanding of conflict. It provides the everyday person as well as professionals who devote their careers to working with conflict situations with an integrated approach to conflict resolution. Meysa Maleki provides a new paradigm, one that is based on awareness, compassion, and a negotiator’s toolbox.