From Story to Observable Fact
Interrupt your own hostile story before responding to another person’s aggression.
The Ladder of Inference explains how quickly people move from selected data to meaning, assumptions, conclusions, and action. In conflict, that climb is fast because threat makes the brain search for a simple villain. The discipline is to climb back down before you act. Separate data from meaning Data is what a camera or transcript would capture. Meaning is your interpretation. "They wrote this in the channel" is data. "They want to humiliate me" is a story. Stories may be right, but treating them as fact makes you sound accusatory. Test the missing rung A useful response exposes your inference…
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