TranceBreakers · Fear to Freedom

Yes And

The magic words that change everything

Two words that keep ideas alive long enough to become brilliant. A practice that transforms teams, relationships, and the way the world receives you.

The Practice

There are magic words
at the heart of this work.

Before you evaluate. Before you critique. Before you add your own better idea. There is one thing you can say that keeps the door open — for the person across from you, and for the idea itself.

"What I like about what you just said is ..."

That's it. That's the whole practice. Find the ten percent of any idea — any idea — that you can genuinely agree with, appreciate, or build on. Say it out loud. Then and only then add your own thinking.

It sounds simple. It is simple. And it changes everything about what happens next.

The idea stays alive. The person feels heard. And now you're both building something together instead of one of you defending and the other attacking.

Yes And vs. No But

Build first.
Then add.

The difference between these two responses is the difference between a conversation that opens and one that closes.

No But
"That's interesting, but..."
"I see what you mean, however..."
"That won't work because..."
"We tried that already."
"The problem with that is..."
Yes And
"What I like about that is..."
"That reminds me — what if we..."
"I love the part where... and..."
"Building on that idea..."
"That opens something up — what about..."
"Yes And doesn't mean you agree with everything. It means you find the ten percent you agree with and build from there. You evaluate after you've built — not before. That's the whole difference."
Why It Works

This isn't just kindness.
It's neuroscience.

When someone hears "No" or "But" — even a gentle, well-intentioned one — the brain registers a subtle threat signal. The amygdala activates. Thinking narrows. The person becomes defensive rather than creative. This happens in milliseconds, before any conscious thought.

When someone hears "What I like about what you just said is..." the opposite happens. A safety signal fires. The prefrontal cortex — where creative, complex, collaborative thinking lives — stays online. The person opens rather than closes.

You control which of those brain states the people around you are operating from. Not with control or manipulation — with language. Two words.

No But activates
Threat State

Amygdala fires. Error detection runs. Thinking narrows to defense and risk. Ideas stop coming. The person goes quiet or reactive.

Yes And activates
Safe State

Prefrontal cortex stays online. Creative thinking expands. The person feels safe enough to keep going — to say the next thing, the better thing, the surprising thing.

The most innovative ideas in any group — in any relationship — rarely come from the first thing someone says. They come from what gets said when people feel safe enough to keep going. Yes And creates that safety.

A Note From Rick

I learned this the
hard way.

Early in my career as a television news director, I ran editorial meetings the way most managers run them. Idea comes in. I evaluate it immediately. I tell them what's wrong with it and why we can't use it.

Within a few weeks — the only ideas in the room were mine.

The interns had stopped talking. The junior producers had stopped talking. And I was doing all the creative work myself, wondering why my team wasn't more engaged.

I changed one thing. Instead of evaluating first — I found what worked about the idea first. Even if it was ten percent. Even if the other ninety percent needed rethinking entirely.

"Within two weeks, interns were pitching story angles I never would have thought of. Junior producers were building on each other's ideas. The quality of our newscasts went up. And I had more time — because my team was thinking."

That's not a soft skills story. That's an output story. Yes And didn't just make people feel better. It made the work better. It made the room smarter than any individual in it.

I've been teaching this ever since — in newsrooms, in coaching sessions, in corporate training rooms, and in my own marriage. It works everywhere ideas are fragile and people are deciding whether it's safe to speak up.

Yes And in Action

From so-so ideas
to something gold.

I want to tell you about a moment that showed me what this practice really is. Not in a boardroom. Not in a newsroom. In a grief session.

A man in one of my monthly coaching groups showed up completely distraught. Earlier that morning he had been uploading all of his photos of his late wife — she had died of cancer earlier that year — and he thought he had accidentally deleted them all. He was devastated. He asked us to help him find something positive.

We went around the room.

"You could write descriptions of each photo from memory — little stories about each one."

"What I like about what you just said is — you could write about your memories of her. What if you went to her friends and asked them to share their memories too?"

"What I like about involving her friends — I bet they have photos of her you've never seen. They could share those, and the stories behind them. You'd have a whole new collection."

In that moment he teared up. We had started with a so-so idea and ended up with something extraordinary — something that could only have emerged through Yes And, where each person built on what came before.

The story has a happy ending on two levels. Before the call ended, one of the more tech-savvy members of the group helped him recover the original photos. And then he went on to collect photos and stories from all of his wife's friends. He ended up with far more than he started with.

That's what Yes And does. It doesn't just keep ideas alive. It creates things that couldn't exist any other way.

How to Practice It

Three steps.
One conversation at a time.

You don't have to transform your whole communication style overnight. Start with one conversation. Then another.

01
Pause before you evaluate

When an idea arrives — in a meeting, in a conversation, in your own head — pause. Your brain will find the problems in milliseconds. That's not a flaw. That's training. The practice is choosing not to lead with what's wrong. Give the idea thirty more seconds before you evaluate.

02
Find the ten percent

Look for the part of the idea that has something — anything — worth acknowledging. It doesn't have to be the whole idea. It doesn't have to be the best part. Just the ten percent that is genuinely interesting, useful, or worth building on. If you look for it, you will find it. Every time.

"What I like about what you just said is..." then name the specific thing that landed.
03
Build — then add your thinking

Once you've found and named the ten percent, now you can add your own perspective, your concern, your better idea. But notice what happened first — the other person felt heard. The idea survived long enough to evolve. And now you're both building something together instead of one person defending and the other critiquing. That's the entire shift. Evaluate after you build, not before.

Where It Works

Everywhere ideas
are fragile.

👥
In Your Team

The leader who responds with Yes And gets better ideas from their people. Not because they hired better people — because they created a room where ideas are safe enough to keep coming.

💑
In Your Relationship

Yes And transforms the dynamic between partners. When your spouse or partner feels heard before being redirected, everything about the conversation changes. Connection before correction.

👨‍👩‍👧
With Your Children

Children whose ideas are met with Yes And grow up believing their thinking matters. That belief is one of the most important things you can give a child. It costs nothing to do.

🤝
In Difficult Conversations

When someone brings you something you disagree with — a complaint, a request, a position you oppose — Yes And keeps the conversation open. You don't have to agree. You just have to find something real to acknowledge first.

💡
In Brainstorming

The most innovative ideas rarely arrive fully formed. They emerge through iteration — each person building on what came before. Yes And is the only environment where that kind of emergence is possible.

🌱
With Yourself

Yes And works on your own inner critic too. When a new idea, a dream, or a possibility arises in you — before your inner evaluator kills it — find the ten percent that excites you. Build from there first.

Want to Go Deeper?

Yes And is a practice.
The Pattern Portrait shows you
why you resist it.

Most people know Yes And is a better way to respond. And yet in the moment — when someone says something we disagree with, something incomplete, something that triggers us — the No But comes out automatically. That automatic response is a pattern. The Pattern Portrait shows you where it lives and what it's protecting.

Book a Pattern Portrait Session ← Back to Toolkit