Rise & Reach

Hard Conversations Without Damage

There is a specific person and a specific thing you need to say, and you keep not saying it. In a study of more than a thousand people, 40% wasted two weeks or more just ruminating on a conversation they were avoiding. The conversation you won't have doesn't vanish — it moves into your head and rents space there. The reason it goes badly, when you finally have it, is almost never the truth itself. It's that you walk in to deliver a verdict: to prove you're right and make the other person change. This course teaches the shift from delivering a message to running a two-way conversation you could both learn from — said honestly, while keeping the other person safe enough to stay in it. Across seven short lessons, traced through one real conversation, you'll separate what happened from the story you built on it, own your part, open without an accusation, and keep things steady when emotion spikes. You'll leave with the Hard-Conversation One-Pager: a single prep sheet you fill out before any charged conversation, so you walk in clear instead of armored.

736m

Listen So People Think Better

You think you're a good listener. Almost everyone does — it's the one skill we never doubt. But most of what we call listening is just waiting for our turn, and the quality of your attention sets a ceiling on how clearly the person in front of you can think. In a study of real consultations, doctors interrupted patients after a median of 11 seconds. We all run that reflex, all day. Across seven short lessons you'll learn the specific moves that raise the ceiling instead of capping it: catching the urge to make it about you, holding the answer that wants to leap out, reflecting instead of redirecting, and asking the one question that removes the wall someone is stuck behind. You'll walk away with the Thinking-Partner Protocol — a short, re-runnable practice built for one real relationship, so the people around you think better because you were there.

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Predicts Success Better Than IQ

The skill that predicts career success better than IQ, and unlike IQ, you can build it at any age.

10

Keep Leading Through a Personal Crisis

Diagnosis, grief, divorce: the crisis arrives and the team still needs you. Lead at reduced capacity without losing your credibility or theirs.

8

Never Split the Difference: Chris Voss's FBI Negotiation Tactics

The FBI's hostage-negotiation playbook, applied to the conversations you can't afford to lose: renewals, raises, tough vendors, difficult teammates.

9