Repair Builds What Compatibility Can't

Most conversations start long before you sit down to talk - loaded with narratives you've written without checking a single fact. When Nancy Burger hears Naomi Win on language and the gap between people, she recognizes the deeper pattern. The real work isn't understanding what words mean to someone else. It's understanding what stories you've written about them, and whether those stories are true. Your ability to repair - to say "I was wrong" or "We missed something" - matters more than compatibility. But repair requires getting curious about your own narratives first.

Strip the story down to what's actually true before that charged conversation. Once you see fact beneath fiction, the person becomes less a character in your narrative and more an actual person. Repair becomes possible. This applies everywhere - marriages, teams, leadership. The leaders Nancy works with who build the strongest trust aren't the ones with all the answers. They walk into a huddle and say, "I made a mistake. Here's what I'm learning. What do you see?" Trust builds immediately. In a real way.

We co-create every relationship. When you do the internal work and share that reflection out loud, something shifts. You're not asking them to change. You're showing them how you're changing. That scar tissue - the work of resolving together and choosing to stay - that's where trust lives. It's the only place it can.