Exercise 4 — The refusal log

Field work, seven days. Every time you offer a reframe in a real conversation — sessions, but also colleagues, family, the person next to you on a delayed train — log four things afterwards: the frame you used, the sentence you said, their next sentence verbatim, and took / refused. Aim for fifteen entries. Do not fish for opportunities; take the ones that come.

How to tell if it's any good: the verbatim column is the whole exercise, and if you find yourself paraphrasing it you are protecting yourself from the data. Expect a take rate somewhere around a third at this stage; substantially higher usually means you are only reframing things that were barely stuck, which is safe and teaches nothing. Look for the shape rather than the score. If your refusals cluster on one frame, that frame is being delivered too far from where people stand. If they cluster on one person, the issue is not framing.