Instead of fixing, you’re co-creating.
You don’t have to have the answer. You have to draw out the one they already have. Run it WITH the person in front of you — in two minutes you’ll have the exact things to say, and they’ll be curious why what surfaced mattered this much.
The shift is smaller than it feels.
When someone brings you something heavy, the pressure is to have an answer. What opens the conversation isn’t what you hand over — it’s what you draw out.
You run this WITH someone — and what it draws out of their story is capability they didn’t know was legible. Most people leave curious why it mattered as much as it did.
And it runs both ways: you help them find their footing — and you feel your own in the same move.
The shape of the conversation.
- 1What you want to help them with.The thing they’re trying to learn, do, or get through — named plainly, in their words.
- 2Where they’ve done something like it before.Their own evidence, drawn out of their own story — not handed to them from outside.
- 3Tie it to what’s next.A next step that matches the capability they just saw in themselves.
The tool below walks you through a version of this for one struggling conversation.
What to say to someone who’s struggling — when you don’t know what to say.
It builds three honest questions for your exact situation: one that names what they might be feeling, one that asks permission to go a little deeper, and one that draws out how they’re getting through it. Nothing to score, nothing to get wrong — their story stays theirs.
It works both ways: build the questions for someone you’re with, or walk through them for yourself.
Where this has already worked.
None of this stays theoretical. Teams and leaders have run this move in real conversations — the case studies hold their stories. And this section grows: every try of the tool, every conversation it opens, adds to the evidence here.
One conversation at a time —
what will you create together?
A conversation with Brian for the work in your organization — or the portal for the deeper, free experience.