01 · Choose
Pick the person, set how hard they push
Twenty-two situations — feedback, saying no, repair — each with a counterpart who has a history and a temperament, dialled from receptive to hostile.
Guarded · 3
NEWPractise for the real one
Difficult conversations, practised
Say the hard thing — for the second time first.
Rehearsal puts you in the room with someone who pushes back, six quiet minutes at a time. You leave with a debrief that reads like notes from a good coach — not a score to beat.
No streaks. No confetti. No recordings — your rehearsals stay on your phone.
How it works
Six minutes, three parts
02 · Speak
Hold the room while it heats up
They interrupt, deflect, and test you. A live tension meter shows what your words are doing to the temperature — as it happens.
03 · Read
Get a debrief, not a grade
Your transcript, annotated where you lost ground and where it worked, one model rewrite of your weakest line, and a single takeaway to carry.
Cost you groundWorked
NEWThe real one
Give it a date. We'll get you ready for it.
Add the date of an actual conversation to any scenario. Every run sharpens a prep card, one reminder lands the day before, and afterwards there's a single question.
The debrief
It tells you the sentence you should have said.
Not "communicate more clearly." The actual words — your opening rewritten with the same warmth and none of the hedging, and why the difference changes what happens next.
What you said · 4 hedges
So — I just wanted to maybe touch on how things have been going, if that's okay?
A stronger opening
Daniel, this is about the last two sprints. I'll be direct, and then I want your read on it.
Daniel Okafor · the last two sprints
Walk in with these.
01 · Open withModel rewrite
“Daniel, this is about the last two sprints. I'll be direct, and then I want your read on it.”
02 · If he says “everyone's behind”You said this
“I want to talk about the last two sprints specifically.”
03 · The askFirmness · 41
“By next planning I need both sprints' work closed out. What gets in the way of that?”
Drop
justmaybetouch onif that's okay?
Remember
Say the hard sentence in the first thirty seconds.
NEWPROCheat sheet
Three lines for the corridor.
The debrief, boiled down to what you'd glance at on the way in: your opening, the line that held, the ask — and the words to drop. Each line says where it came from.
Save as imageLines only — no transcript, no scores.
The cast
People, not prompts
Each counterpart arrives with a history and a reason to push back. None of them react to your score — they react to your words.
Daniel Okafor
Senior Engineer · four years in
Hears feedback as the opening move of a managed exit. Will ask you to name the ticket.
Guarded · 3 of 5
Priya Raman
Product Manager · promotion pending
Arrives with a document. Negotiates every line of your reasoning, politely and relentlessly.
Insistent · 4 of 5
Tom Whitfield
Director · your manager
Warm, distracted, and quietly certain you'll absorb one more thing. Agrees, then reframes.
Amiable · 2 of 5
PROWrite your own
Bring the one you're actually dreading.
Describe it in plain words. We draft the person on the other side — you correct what we got wrong — and it runs like any other scenario, with the same debrief.
- 01Describe itNobody sees this but you
- 02Correct the personaTheir history, their temper
- 03Confirm the runThen step into the room
NEWKeep it close
Closer to the moment it matters
A countdown on your iPhone Home Screen, and counterparts who push back in your language.
iPhone · Home Screen
The next real one, one tap away
A countdown and a rehearse button. Small, medium and Lock Screen sizes.
In your language
They push back in yours
Seventeen languages. Personas speak them natively — including how they interrupt.
Rehearsal