Points of View. What you think you know... might not be so true (Spanish Edition)

Two people can experience the exact same situation, in the same room and at the same time, and later recount it in two completely different ways, without either of them lying. That is the starting point of Puntos de Vista (Points of View), a book I wrote to explore how the same reality changes form depending on who is looking at it, and what we can learn from that difference instead of fighting over it.

Throughout its pages, I propose various exercises and reflections to train something that is very rarely explicitly taught: the ability to hold two different perspectives simultaneously without feeling that one automatically invalidates the other. It is a short and direct book, designed to be read calmly in a single afternoon and then revisited later, as a quick reference, whenever a discussion, a misunderstanding, or a family conflict makes you feel that your point of view is the only possible one.

This is not a book that tells you who is right in every situation, but rather a tool to help you learn to ask better questions before drawing conclusions: what information does the other person have that I don't, what previous experience is influencing their way of seeing this, what emotion is filtering their interpretation at this specific moment, and what part of my own certainty is actually just habit or comfort rather than objective truth.

I wrote this book with you in mind if you feel that you argue too much over misunderstandings that later, in retrospect, seem small; if you work or live with people who see the world very differently from you and you want to relate to them without constant friction; or if you are simply interested in the psychology of perception and how two witnesses of the same event can remember it in almost opposite ways.

If you read it, you will gain something very practical for daily life: the ability to pause before reacting in an argument, the habit of asking instead of assuming, and a more flexible way of understanding disagreements, not as a threat to your identity but as valuable information about how the other person thinks.

Inside the book, I include relatable everyday examples: the family argument about who helped more with a move, the workplace disagreement about how a project should have been managed, or the simple misunderstanding between partners about a comment one person made with one intention and the other interpreted completely differently. In each example, I break down step-by-step how each party arrived at their own version of events, without either of them acting in bad faith.

I also dedicate a chapter to a very specific exercise that you can practice yourself this week: choose a recent disagreement and write it from your own point of view, and then try to write it again, with the same honesty, from the other person's point of view. This simple, seemingly straightforward exercise is one of the most effective tools I know for reducing the emotional intensity of a conflict without having to give in on what truly matters to you.

I'm Kristina Farkas, and I wrote Puntos de Vista after observing, again and again, how many conflicts—family, relationship, work—arise not from different facts but from different interpretations of the same facts. It's available in print edition, 104 pages of agile reading, and as an ebook with the same content, perfect for reading in a single afternoon sitting, or for rationing it into several short readings before bed.

If you are looking for a short book on the psychology of perception, on how to manage disagreements and misunderstandings, or on cognitive empathy applied to everyday life, this is exactly the kind of book you are looking for: straightforward, with close and recognizable examples, and designed to be applied from the first reading, not just to remain theoretical.

This book pairs very well with Saboteadores del corazón (Heart Saboteurs), as many patterns of self-sabotage in love arise precisely from being unable or unwilling to see the other person's point of view in the midst of a conflict; read together, they offer a more complete understanding of how we relate and why it is sometimes so difficult to understand precisely those we care about most and with whom we spend the most time.

One aspect that many readers highlight is that the book doesn't just stay in the theory of empathy, but offers small phrases and concrete questions that you can use in the middle of a real discussion, at the exact moment you feel the conversation starting to escalate, to redirect it towards mutual understanding instead of confrontation. These are pocket tools, designed to be used in the heat of the moment, not just for calm reflection afterward when the conflict has already passed.

And although the book stems from everyday conflicts, its exercises work equally well in professional settings: work meetings where two colleagues defend opposing solutions with the same conviction, negotiations where both parties believe they have the most reasonable position, or simple team disagreements on how to prioritize a task. In all these contexts, the fundamental question the book proposes remains the same: what am I assuming that perhaps the other person is not assuming at all?

Bookstore/stationery category: Self-help and Personal Development — Communication and Psychology of Perception.