---
creationDate: 2025-01-15
type: coaching-session
session_format: panel-with-claude
duration_approx: multi-pass-2hr
triggering_event: "Hard conversation with co-worker about project ownership boundaries"
themes: [feedback-receipt, conflict-style, accumulated-frustration, communication-register]
panelists_seated:
  - Brené Brown
  - Adam Grant
  - Harriet Lerner
  - Esther Perel
  - Marcus Aurelius
related: ["[[Processing Notes - 2025-01-15 - Hard Conversation With Co-worker]]"]
status: open
re_eval_date: 2025-02-15
---

*Example coaching session record. Use as the format template for your own. Replace contents with your own situation. Re-read after one month to check whether the patterns repeated or stayed dormant.*

## Triggering event

A hard conversation with a co-worker (call them Alex) about who owns a shared project. Tension had been building for three weeks: Alex kept making decisions on the project without looping the user in, the user kept letting it slide, finally said something at a 1:1 that came out sharper than intended.

## What surfaced (synthesized across all passes)

### Pattern 1: Soft-then-hot communication arc

**The observation (Harriet Lerner)**: The user said nothing for three weeks, then named all the accumulated frustration in one go. The conversation came out sharper than the user intended because soft signals were skipped — Alex got no warning the issue was building.

**User's correction**: User had actually mentioned project boundaries twice in passing earlier, but in indirect language ("we should sync more on this") that Alex didn't read as a complaint.

**Status updated**: Pattern partially holds. The signals existed but weren't legible. The growth edge is making early signals legible, not just earlier.

### Pattern 2: Identity-arc protection vs surface defensiveness

**The observation (Brené Brown)**: When Alex said "I didn't realize you wanted that much input," the user ran four defensive responses in 90 seconds. Surface read = defensive. Underneath = the user takes pride in being collaborative, and Alex's framing made the user feel mis-cast.

**Status**: 1 mention. Worth watching whether the same pattern surfaces with anyone else who reads the user as a non-collaborative type.

### Pattern 3: "I'm not that person" as a defense (DEMOTED)

**Initial panel reading (Esther Perel)**: User responded by listing reasons they ARE collaborative, which is the same shape as "I'm not the person you think I am." Performative innocence often blocks repair.

**User's correction**: The defenses were factually true (concrete examples of recent collaboration), and the user offered them as evidence not as performance. Conversation ended in mutual repair.

**Status**: Demoted from concern. Track only if a future case shows defenses without supporting evidence.

## User's commitments coming out of the session

1. **Make early signals legible.** Stop using indirect phrasing for friction; say "I want to be looped in before X" not "we should sync more."
2. **Pause-acknowledge-clarify before responding to feedback that lands as character claim.** 5 seconds, repeat what was heard, ask one clarifying question.
3. **Send Alex one written message tomorrow** clarifying ongoing boundaries on the project. Low-stakes practice rep in writing where timing is controlled.
4. **Hold "I am collaborative AND I have edges" framing** — not BUT.

## Codified outcomes (rules / files changed this session)

- No vault rules added this session
- Verbatim Processing Notes saved
- This synthesized record filed
- Panel Feedback Log updated with three new pattern mentions

## Re-eval signals (check by 2025-02-15)

- Did the user say one early friction signal in legible language?
- Did the user send the written follow-up to Alex?
- Did Pattern 2 (identity-arc protection) surface with anyone besides Alex?
- Did the relationship with Alex feel materially different at the one-month mark?

## Cross-references

- Verbatim source: [[Processing Notes - 2025-01-15 - Hard Conversation With Co-worker]]
- Pattern tracking: [[Panel Feedback Log]] (Patterns table at top + Synthetic Panel Reactions section)

## Convention for your own coaching sessions

Each multi-pass panel session that produces commitments to track over time gets one file in this folder with this format:

- Filename: `YYYY-MM-DD - <topic>.md`
- Frontmatter: triggering_event, themes (array), panelists_seated (array), status (open / re-eval / closed-grown / closed-failed), re_eval_date one month out
- Sections: Triggering event, What surfaced (one subsection per pattern with status note), User's commitments (numbered, concrete), Codified outcomes (if any rules / files changed this session), Re-eval signals (questions to check at re-eval date), Cross-references

The Panel Feedback Log at `🏠 Home/Panel Feedback Log.md` is the rolling aggregator across sessions. Patterns table at the top tracks mentions across sessions. Promote a pattern to acute action item when it hits 2+ mentions across different contexts.
