How to stop fighting with your family

What a writing course has to do with coaching and relationships

I’m lucky to have most of my family nearby—my mom lives just one door down, my dad and brother in neighboring towns, and other relatives scattered close enough to visit.

Some I see more often than others, but even with regular contact, these relationships are far from the easiest in my life.

The familiar trope holds true: nothing tests your patience, understanding, and kindness quite like spending time under the same roof as your family. Those shared histories, old grudges, and unresolved issues have a way of surfacing, turning even the simplest conversations into potential battlegrounds.

Lucky for me, I’ve had some ‘professional help’ with my own family dynamics.

After my coach training, I began applying coaching skills in my own life, particularly in conversations with my family. When I started listening more and stopped offering advice, interrupting, or making the conversation about myself, our interactions began to improve.

I realized that small shifts in communication can make a big difference in my personal life, especially with family.

It made me wonder if the same coaching tools could enhance conversations in other contexts.

The conversation continues

When I discovered Write of Passage—a writing course known for its collaborative approach—I saw a perfect opportunity to experiment with my coaching insights.

Though Write of Passage is closing its doors at the end of this year, the community is ‘alive and radiant’, as David Perell noted in his farewell statement.

Over the past five years, more than 2,500 people have joined the program, with many staying active through writing groups, as friends, on the community platform, and here on Substack.

I’ve participated in the program five times, both as a student and in roles like mentor, writing coach, and ‘Gym Lead’ (more on that in a second). During recent cohorts, I even had the opportunity to train the crew in facilitation and coaching skills—skills that ended up making a surprising difference, not just in writing, but in personal relationships as well.

Social writing

It's no surprise that the Write of Passage community is strong and will likely stay that way, even after the course ends.

Beyond revolutionizing how writing is taught—forget the dull, formulaic approach of high school English—Write of Passage introduced the concept of ‘social writing.’ Instead of the lone writer toiling away in a cabin, the entire process of idea generation, drafting, refining, and ultimately publishing was done together with other writers.

To demonstrate their commitment to this idea, apart from the live sessions, workshops, and content, they offered something called ‘Feedback Gyms’.

Like physical exercise gyms, these sessions were designed for writers to work on their craft (and possibly break a sweat), but the emphasis was firmly on collaboration.

In a Feedback Gym, students were paired off into a breakout room, where they’d exchange drafts, offer constructive feedback, and engage in a real-time, generative conversation about where their writing could go next.

The value of these cooperative sessions can't be overstated. It wasn’t just about receiving honest, constructive remarks on your draft; it was about turning those sessions into impactful discussions that shaped your work in real time (and making writing friends in the process).

I would never write anything by myself again (this draft alone, for example, has been touched in different ways by four Write of Passage-alumni).

Yet, I was craving a different kind of Gym experience.

Bootleg Gyms

During my second cohort, I initiated what I called the ‘Unofficial Sparring Gym,’ hosting weekly sessions where I paired interested students into breakout groups to discuss their writing before they actually started their first draft.

For me, the most challenging and time-consuming part of the writing process was taking a one-sentence idea and turning it into an outline or a minimum viable draft. For that first bit of the process, I needed conversation.

As a coach and a teacher of coaching skills, I suspected that ‘thinking out loud’ wasn't just valuable for my clients; it could be just as transformative for writers (like me).

Simply talking through our writing ideas with other writers struck gold.

The concept quickly caught on, with more people joining the sessions and saying things like, ‘This is invaluable’ and ‘Why wasn’t this already part of the program?’

Turned out I’d set out to experiment with this idea in the perfect environment—filled with ‘social writers.’ The sessions grew in popularity, and eventually, Write of Passage adopted the concept, adding this new type of Gym to their offerings, naming them ‘Idea Gyms.’

As I led many of these Gym sessions during cohorts, I offered students coaching-inspired tips to enhance their experience before they dove into breakout rooms with their partners. I’d suggest things like being more silent than usual, reflecting back what they heard, or asking clarifying questions like ’What do you mean by [x]?’

Many participants expressed how valuable these small shifts were in their conversations, but I never anticipated the broader impact these coaching tidbits would have.

How a writing course can improve your relationships

Last Thursday, I joined the weekly post-cohort Gym that Becky, a fellow Write of Passage alum and crew member, hosts. Her sessions are a welcome and continued space for WoP-alumni to exchange drafts for feedback or, my favorite, sparring: jumping into a breakout room and talking through our yet-undeveloped writing ideas.

I’m extremely grateful for her Gyms and the timing is perfect for me. I publish on Wednesdays, so by Thursday morning, I'm creatively spent. Nothing jump-starts my writing engine like a good sparring session with a WoP friend.

This time, as I was hashing out the very newsletter you're reading with Becky herself, she shared a story that blew me away.

She said something like this:

‘Back when we first did the first Sparring Gyms, those little coaching tools you taught us—how to listen, be a better sparring partner, summarize, stay curious—really stuck with me. They’ve transformed my daily conversations. I realized I don’t always have to give my opinion, especially if it’s not asked for. I’ve started to listen more, and get genuinely curious about the other person’s perspective.

I’ve been practicing this with friends, resisting the urge to interject, focusing on mirroring and truly hearing them out. And when I visited my parents recently, for the first time in years, I didn’t get into a single fight with them!’

Wow.

Sure, I’ve felt the same shift in my relationships since learning coaching skills, but I never imagined that the tiny techniques I shared in those Gyms could have such a profound impact on someone else’s life and relationships.

Turns out, a few coaching tips can go a long way, even when they’re sneaked into a writing course.

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I guess both Becky and I were inspired this week to write about our conversation (I’m not surprised, it’s what a Sparring Gym can do). Becky wrote about her experience in a lot more depth, I’d recommend reading her essay here.

If writing online has been on your wishlist for too long (it took me until I was 40 y/o to start…) and if you want to experience the ‘Idea Gym’ (formerly Sparring Gym) in real life, now is the (last) time. Book a discovery call or enroll in the last Write of Passage cohort here.