The facilitator's playbook.

Step 01

Before you facilitate your first cohort.

Read these, in this order, before Session 01 of your first cohort. Plan on roughly 3–4 hours total. The reading is itself part of the preparation — you cannot facilitate this work without first having sat with it.

• Read the course overview end to end. Get the shape of the whole arc, the four-phase rollout, the three on-ramps, and the work-streams list.
• Read all ten weekly outlines, including the facilitator notes at the bottom of each. Don't try to memorize — read for the rhythm and where the heavier weeks sit.
• Read the seven supplemental research pages (Pennebaker, Name the Harm, Refuse the Contempt, three mediation traps, Step Out). These are the depth behind the practices participants ask you about.
• Read Who this course is for and Cohort formation. These shape who walks into your room.
• Skim the glossary and the reading list. You don't need to know every term cold — you do need to know what's in the room when a participant references something from an earlier week.
• Read the bias audit. The materials carry assumptions. Knowing the audit's eight findings before you facilitate gives you language for when something lands wrong in your cohort.
• Do the Prep-Work yourself. Sit with the three questions. Write the baseline reflection. Set up your own week. You will be asking participants to do this; do not ask them to do something you have not done.

Step 03

The session rhythm — what to do, in order.

Every session, from Week 02 onward, follows the same five movements in the same order on the same clock. The repetition is the practice. Once you know it, the cohort can almost run itself. (Week 01 differs only in that the Open is introductions and ground rules, not report-back.)

• 00:00 — Arrive. You're in the room 15 minutes before start. Greet each participant by name as they come in. Settle the space.
• 00:15 — Movement 01 · Open (15 min). Report-back. Each person, 90 seconds. No fixing, no advice. Then one round-two observation question.
• 00:30 — Movement 02 · Learn (30 min). Teach the week's principle and the three / four moves. Short on theory. Reference the wisdom traditions briefly. Don't over-explain.
• 01:00 — Movement 03 · Discuss (40 min). Pairs first (15 min, 7 min each), then full group (25 min). Each pair shares one observation. Hold the silence. Push specificity.
• 01:40 — Movement 04 · Practice (20 min). The week's experiential exercise. Set the frame. Time it strictly. Debrief briefly.
• 02:00 — Movement 05 · Commit (15 min). Each person picks one specific action for the week. Partner check-in. Close.
• 02:15 — End on time. Always. Don't run over. Don't compress the commit because the discussion went long. Better to cut Movement 04 short than to shortchange the commit.

Step 05

Between sessions.

What you do as facilitator in the days between Session N and Session N+1.

• Send one cohort-wide reminder mid-week. One sentence. The question for the week. Not a check on whether people did the commit — just a way to keep the question alive in their minds.
• Re-read next week's page early in the week. Especially the facilitator notes. The teaching may be familiar by Week 5; the notes about what to expect in the room are not.
• Write your iteration log. Three notes after each session: what worked, what didn't, what to change. Date it. Keep it consistent. Phase 03 (Refine) depends on this.
• Check in with any participant you flagged during the session. Someone who shared something heavy, someone who seemed shut down, someone who didn't show up. A short private message: "Just thinking of you. No need to respond. I'll see you Tuesday."
• Take care of yourself. The facilitator absorbs more than the participants realize. Walk. Don't doom-scroll. Don't drink your way out of the weight. The cohort holds because you do.

Step 07

The five disciplines of facilitation.

If everything else falls away, these five hold the work. They are not skills you acquire and possess. They are practices you return to each session.