The Signal · Workshop 04 · Practice
A Hard Conversation
Five steps. About 25 minutes. Up to 7 stars. The constellation you're building is called First Truth.
The Signal · Workshop 04 · Practice
Five steps. About 25 minutes. Up to 7 stars. The constellation you're building is called First Truth.
Hard conversations don't get easier when you avoid them. They get bigger. The skill is having them while they're still small.
Most hard conversations have the same shape. Name what's happening. Specifically. Not "sometimes you're mean" but "yesterday at lunch when you said X, in front of Y." Name the impact. What it did to you. Ask what they think. Don't lecture — leave space for them to talk.
The biggest mistake is not raising it at all. The second biggest mistake is raising it badly — with anger, accusations, or the kitchen sink (bringing up every old grudge while you're at it).
By the end of this workshop you'll have planned one hard conversation using this structure — the actual conversation is yours to choose whether to have.
That's the warm-up. When you've actually read it — not skimmed — tap below.
Pick all that fit.
Click a move, then its purpose.
Pick a real one in your life (or a likely future one). Write the opener, the specific thing, the impact, and your ask — in a way you'd actually say it out loud.
Stuck? Try: a friend who keeps cancelling plans last minute. Opener: "Hey, can I bring something up?" Specific: "You've cancelled the last three times we made plans, usually less than an hour before." Impact: "It's making me feel like I'm not actually a priority." Ask: "Is something going on, or do you want to talk about whether we should plan things differently?"
Be honest. One sentence.