Omnichannel - “Why ‘Just Be Direct’ Doesn’t Create Openness in Conversations

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

Send us Fan MailJoin Empathy as We Know it: https://www.dominikalegrand.com/empathy-as-we-know-itIn this episode, we explore why simply telling people to “just be direct” doesn’t actually create openness in conversations.You’ll learn:The two types of “direct” people (and why they feel so different)Why emotional safety is the real foundation of honest communicationThe difference between neutral vs. emotionally charged needsHow to create conditions where people want to be direct with youIf you want deeper, more honest conversations, this is where it starts.Join the Art of The Approach here: https://www.dominikalegrand.com/art-of-the-approach

Today we're going to talk about emotional safety in a context of being direct and you will see why that's important and how it comes up in conversations. Hello, my dear entrepreneur friends, welcome back to another video or if you happen to catch this one on the Omni channel podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. The title of today's video is, why just be direct does not actually lead to openness in conversation and what actually makes it possible. That's our topic of today.

And before we dive into how do we create conditions for directness to happen, let's talk about the people who say just be direct. And I believe there are two types of people who say this. And both of them has very different nervous system stands behind it. The first type of people who are like just be direct, just say it eye to eye, just give it to my face, right? that the type of person is just like, I'm blunt, I'm direct, and I expect you to be the same, right? And there is a virtue behind it. There is an identity of directness behind it. And I completely understand people who operate this way because they are like, hey, don't say things

behind my bag, just say it to my face, let's deal with this, don't hide it. And while I understand people who are like that, and I think it's okay for you to be like that, like fieryness, sometimes bluntness, sometimes just like, let's clear the air. I get it. And there is a second type of directness. And this directness is basically a stance of, hey, just be direct with me because I want to meet you where you are. And just please be direct because it's really hard for me to read people and to understand what it is that you need. Do you guys feel the difference? There is one directness that is coming from the hey, just be Just tell me eye to eye.

And hey, just be direct because I genuinely want to meet you where you are. And I'm really bad at reading science and social cues. Can you help me understand you? This person is looking to, like, can you help me orient better by being direct with me? So that person, the second person, is genuinely want to meet you where you are and is genuinely afraid of me stopping. You see, even if it's part of a personality trait for someone, some people? Can you guess which one is more likely to get people to be direct with them? One is looking to orient and one is looking to maybe subtly defend, right?

But both of those scenarios, and this is something I learned to be true, is that it doesn't matter what are your reasons for people to be direct with you, whether it's part of your personality, you always blunt, you always direct, or whether it's part of your investigative understanding of humans, whether it's a, help me understand you so I can orient better so I don't misstep, right? Doesn't matter which one are we talking about. What matters is in both of the scenarios, in order for someone to be direct with you, what you need to cultivate is emotional safety. Okay. So in order for directness to emerge, someone has to feel safe with you. And I want to separate two things here because we talked in previous videos about how people have needs and desires.

You have needs and desires, I have needs and desires, we all have needs and desires, we want to get met. And a direct person would just ask for what you want. But here is a nuance here. There are two types of wants and needs and desires. First is more of a neutral desire and in business context, a neutral desire would be for me to invite someone to you. a podcast or to invite someone to something, right? That's a neutral desire. And I don't mind saying that directly because the desire does not have any emotional charge for

me. And there are charged desires. So charged desires and needs are ones that are close to us. So charged desires and needs are the ones that are close to our heart. They are close to our core. They matter. they mean something for us, right? So while I can be direct with something that has no charge for me,

that has no meaning for me, kind of want it, it's a neutral desire, but when it comes to something that my heart really, really wants, and it's close to my core, it's no longer neutral, which means that if I don't feel safe with you, there is no way I'm going to tell you about those needs and wants and desires directly. There is no way. And I have experienced this very viscerally, And I'm not going to name anyone, I'm just going to tell you what happened.

There was a misunderstanding between me and one lady in a class that we were taking together. And I remember it was a moment that a teacher said, hey, so I'm experiencing some tension in the class. Can we just bring that forward? And that was my time to speak up. So I said, yeah, you know, I experienced this tension with this person. And this person immediately went like, okay, let's talk about it. Let's be direct. And this person came to me after the class.

Tell me what happened, you know. but here's the thing even in that I felt activated because the source of the tension my need for understanding were not met and when the lady comes to me like okay tell me what happened like do you see how it just be direct just like straightforward let's squash this you know that was the stance even author right to as this cause let's clear the air and you could argue why would you know this person just wants you to be direct and I'm like yeah but the thing is in that conversation I still felt the charge I felt activated So it didn't make me not speak coherently because I can speak through activation.

I get sharper, I get more aware. But I could feel like this, this actually was close to home. Whatever, the reason was that I felt misunderstood in the moment, still talking about it three weeks after just to clear the air and be direct was not easy for me in the moment. Like, I could speak, but I could feel my voice shaking. I could feel my heart racing because I was still. still charged because I was trying to explain someone a need or a desire at the moment was not met that was actually close to home, right? Well, she didn't make it easy for me. We did express, we

did not in where we needed to be. But do you understand that when people want us to be direct, just be direct, but the directness is close to home unless there is safety for us to bring that out to the front. It's either it won't happen at all, which means you won't get the directness that you want, or simply it will come out, but like the other person won't actually feel like, you know, I was exposing all that for this. Okay, great, you know? Like, it's not like you walk away from your needs matter. Like, you put that emotional risk of being direct with someone, but that person just, they just couldn't meet you there for whatever reason. And even though cognitively, the charge can be, like cognitively we can meet and that's what happened.

We met cognitively. Like I understand her, she understood me. Somatically, I did not feel like this is it. You know, I'm ready to let it go, right? I love when people want that directness for whatever reason that is that they want it. But you have to understand that you are the type of person who wants someone to be direct with you.

You have to think about two things. How can I create safety with people? Very important. Am I the type of person that people can come with honest truth, like with their closest desires that really truly matters to them. Am I the type of person that people can come to with those things? How am I that person that lets people come and step forward with their deepest desires directly, right?

Like this comes back to personal responsibility. And the rest of this video, we're going to talk about how to create emotional safety with people. But before we go at, I really want you to contemplate this. Because even in my own life, I recognized that many times, I was judging. I was judgmental. I was, you know, not necessarily creating safety in which people could emerge naturally with their needs and desires. And it's something that we can work on.

If you want directness, it's something we can consciously work on. Can people actually come to me and not be judged when that happened? Can people come to me directly and actually be respected? Can people come to me and actually be accepted? Can people come to me and actually be hurt? Am I the type of person that creates that safety? Many people who claim I want you to be direct with me are also the most argumentative people in the world.

Like, yeah, really? So if people are afraid to come to you directly because they have experienced you as someone intends or someone who is a little bit of an argumentative person because it hits you in your ego and you take it personally, whatever the reasons are, how do you expect them to be direct if you're not creating conditions in which directness is available, is allowed, right? So let's think about that first, all of us, because I think that's something that helps

us get to the emotional safety part. So how do we create emotional safety? And please mind you, we will go deeper inside of these topics in empathy as we know it. This is a program that I'm going to deliver live, and this is part of the human-to-human curriculum. We start April 15, 2026, and you can come in for $47. This program is going to be delivered live. So if you want to join us, I'm going to put a link in the description of this video.

Or if you're listening to the podcast, to the description of this episode. Now, how do we create emotional safety? The very first and very important ingredients of creating emotional safety is to be grounded and stable within yourself, right? So if you are a person that is stable, then when you hear something coming at you directly, you don't get into defense mood, right? So if you're internally stable, then you can hear whatever that they want to say without getting dysregulated, destabilized, defensive, right? You can hear them. So internal stability, is the most important prerequisites of creating emotional safety.

The second ingredient that is very important for you to create emotional safety is to remove the pressure from the interaction. Okay, what does that mean? How do we remove the pressure from the interaction? What I like to call is to be spacious. So when I'm spacious, I allow things to happen as they happen, right? So even though I want you to be direct with me, I can remove it. the pressure from the interaction by offering you options. It can be a preface of, hey, you don't

have to tell me all of that but, or hey, if you don't feel comfortable, let me know. Hey, you know, this is something you don't want to totally get it. That is removing the pressure. Hey, I don't mean to be prying it. Let me know if this is too much. That is removing the pressure. Because when we remove the pressure, people feel like, okay, you know, whatever level of directness you want to express with me, it's fine. It's okay. I'm not going to push for more. In fact, I'm going to give you preemptively allow you to express whatever that is for you. And we don't have to do this all the time. It's just if that's what we are. Even if we don't say those words, but you can say those words because I like to say it because when I feel I'm venturing into something that

potentially has emotional charge, I always prefaced it in a way like, hey, you know, we don't have to go that far. I know we just mad. It's not like I'm digging for that. In people, I'm naturally feeling where I can potentially venture into an area that might be personal to people, maybe expose a little bit vulnerable, maybe be a little bit more close to their core, right? So whenever I sense that this could be closer to the core, I remove the pressure and I'd be like, you know what, whatever feels right. Let me know if it's too much, right? So you can say, those things that that can actually be an energetic stance. The third very important ingredient for you to cultivate emotional safety in which directness can emerge is to be genuinely curious and genuinely

interested in understanding people. And I love how everyone is throwing this left-right center. Since we read the book, How to Be Friends and Influence People, we always like be curious, be interested, they genuinely want to understand people. To me, this is not something we try. It's something that we are. And there's a difference. If I'm genuinely curious and interested, I'm willing to go and step into your framework.

I'm willing to go and step into your blueprint to understand you. I'm not projecting on you. And I know who I am. I know my core. I know my identity. So that's a very important prerequisite for me to venture out and venture into your viewpoint. But I'm genuinely interested in understanding

your experience and what's going on for you. And another very important ingredient is to be authentic and real. So what we have to understand here when we are creating emotional safety, is that when we are not real with people and when we are in performance mode or masking ourselves or pretending that we are something else, how do you expect people to be feeling safe with you if you cannot even be yourself in a conversation with someone? So if you're heavily masking, if you're heavily, you know, putting that distance and not showing up as your real self, it's really hard for people to open up to you because they can sense you're not being congruent. Congruent meaning whatever you're feeling inside is exactly what you're broadcasting outside.

And I also want to say this, that we don't have to agree with each other. I can hear what your experience is and I don't have to agree with you. but your experience still matters. I can still understand you even if I don't agree with you, right? It's not about that we have to all be the same. It's about recognizing that your experience is just as valuable, even if I don't necessarily agree with it. And I can be real about it, right?

So it can be a direct expression of a need that you don't necessarily agree with. But it doesn't mean that you can't understand someone's perspective, right? So when we are genuinely are interested, we are tuned, we are not judging, and we are spacious and real is naturally conditions for emotional safety to emerge and it's naturally conditions for people to really express to you directly. Okay? So that's the practice there and it's not easy. It's ongoing journey, right?

Okay, you guys, I hope this video will have. helped you and you will be actively cultivating emotional safety when you want people to be direct with you and good luck with that if you want to join in for empathy as we know it again i'm going to put a link in the description once you register you will get an email that will lead you to a facebook group where the program will be hosted live and you will have lifetime access to it thank you so much for watching and listening to this one it's really hard especially if it's a family member guys so good luck