Thinking That Matters with Elizabeth Mahusay

What Curiosity Can Teach Us About the People We Overlook with Andrew James Gregor

Andrew James Gregor · July 13, 2026

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Interview with Andrew James Gregor

What Curiosity Can Teach Us About the People We Overlook with Andrew James Gregor

Podcast: Thinking That Matters with Elizabeth Mahusay

July 13, 2026 · 28 min

What if one conversation could change the way you see an entire group of people? Many of us move through life making assumptions without realizing it. We fill in gaps with our own experiences, form opinions from a distance, and often miss the humanity behind someone's story. In…

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What Curiosity Can Teach Us About the People We Overlook with Andrew James Gregor

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Thinking That Matters with Elizabeth Mahusay

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Key topicsHomelessness begins while people still think they can get out of itThis is a compelling conversation for hosts whose audiences care about housing, inequality, social impact, resilience, or the human stories behind public issues. Andrew brings the topic out of statistics and into the real sequence of collapse: divorce, no work after the crash, sleeping in his truck, unpaid tags, and the fear that losing the vehicle would mean losing his last piece of stability. For listeners, the value is in understanding that homelessness often begins before someone is visibly on the street, when work, address, credit, and dignity start falling apart at the same time. Andrew gives hosts a grounded, unsentimental way to challenge the “bad choices” narrative and explore how quickly ordinary people can become invisible to the systems they once belonged to. The built environment tells the truth about who a society thinks deserves safetyThis is a strong fit for architecture, urbanism, housing, design, construction, civic life, and social impact podcasts because Andrew can speak about shelter from both a human and physical perspective. As a novelist and design-build contractor, he gives hosts a rare guest who can connect walls, doors, zoning, empty units, public space, and hostile design to bigger questions of dignity and belonging. Listeners will hear housing not as an abstract policy debate, but as something built into the streets, buildings, benches, and thresholds they move through every day. The conversation gives hosts a vivid way to ask why cities can have extraordinary wealth, beautiful buildings, and people freezing outside at the same time. Fear does not need everyone to hate their neighbours, only enough people to look awayThis topic gives culture, democracy, anti-hate, immigrant experience, social psychology, and literary podcasts a timely conversation about how fear spreads before violence or open extremism appears. Andrew can draw from growing up in Beirut and watching post-2016 America turn suspicion toward Muslims, immigrants, and anyone who resembled the invented enemy. For hosts, the strength of this conversation is that it moves beyond political talking points and into the everyday mechanics of suspicion, silence, and moral distance. Listeners are invited to examine how propaganda works not only by creating believers, but by making ordinary bystanders just anxious enough to tolerate cruelty. View all topics →

About Andrew James Gregor

Novelist and Architect Examining Fear, Homelessness, and Social Breakdown

9 Industry awards75+ Bay Area projectsFeatured Journal of Light ConstructionGolden Quill Book Viral literary recognition

Andrew James Gregor is a novelist and essayist whose work sits at the intersection of power, fear, and the quiet systems that decide who gets to live securely and who does not. His writing is driven less by ideology than by proximity, shaped by having lived close to the edges of the stories he tells.

Raised in Beirut and later based in the United States, Andrew grew up with a front-row view of how conflict, propaganda, and identity can harden people against one another. That perspective sharpened during the rise of Islamophobic violence in America following the 2016 election, when fear was repeatedly misnamed as patriotism. His debut novel, written during that period and published years later, explores how paranoia and hatred corrode communities from the inside, often doing more damage than the threats they claim to resist.

His novel Roscoe has received multiple honours and strong critical recognition. Book Viral described it as “a remarkable work of literary fiction that deserves a wide readership” and named it an unreservedly recommended Golden Quill Read, awarding Andrew the Golden Quill. The novel also received a Gold Award from Literary Titan.

His more recent fiction turns toward homelessness and social collapse in San Francisco, a city defined by extreme wealth and extreme neglect.

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About this episode

What if one conversation could change the way you see an entire group of people?

Many of us move through life making assumptions without realizing it. We fill in gaps with our own experiences, form opinions from a distance, and often miss the humanity behind someone's story.

In this episode of Thinking That Matters, Elizabeth welcomes author Andrew for a conversation about curiosity, compassion, and the thinking patterns that shape how we view others. Andrew shares his remarkable journey from growing up in Lebanon, attending boarding school in England, building an architectural career in Germany, leading a construction company in California, and eventually becoming an award-winning author.

The conversation centers around his novel Roscoe, inspired by countless conversations with people experiencing homelessness. Rather than debating policies or statistics, Andrew invites us to examine something deeper: our assumptions.

Elizabeth and Andrew explore:

Why curiosity is one of the most powerful leadership skills we can develop

How assumptions quietly shape the way we treat people

The hidden stories behind homelessness

What empathy looks like in everyday interactions

Why changing our thinking often starts by listening first

Whether you're a business owner, executive, leader, or simply someone seeking to cultivate thinking that matters, this episode is a reminder that transformation often begins with a single question:

"What's the story I haven't heard yet?"

Because when curiosity grows, compassion often follows.

Loved this episode? Follow, rate, and review the podcast. Because when you cultivate thinking that matters, you live a life that matters.

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Guest: Andrew James Gregor

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