Every workplace has that conversation looping in the background — the one everyone knows needs to happen but somehow… never does.

We dance around it. We soften it. We put it off. Or, when we finally do face it, we come in too hot and scorch the earth.

Neither approach works. Both waste time, energy, and team trust.

We all have an Evil Alter Ego — the internal voice that jumps to the worst possible interpretation in a hard moment:

• “She’s doing this on purpose.”

• “He never listens.”

• “Here we go again.”

This voice isn’t actually evil. It’s your brain in threat mode. When your amygdala fires, you stop seeing the situation clearly and start reacting to a story your brain has made up.

Explore isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Hard Explore is courage paired with compassion. It’s direct without being destructive. It’s delivering the truth without shitting all over someone’s mana or causing them to lose face.

Your body reacts before your brain has even formed a thought. Tight shoulders, a clenched jaw, heat rising in your face, that familiar knot in your stomach — these sensations show up the instant something feels emotionally charged. They’re not random. They’re signals that you’re slipping out of the Explore mindset and into Ignore or Go to War.