Are you avoiding difficult conversations at work or at home and finding you pay the price for it down the line? Scarlett McCabe is the co-founder and CEO of Debate Mate Training, an organisation that has spent 15 years teaching young people and leaders how to think critically, communicate clearly, and disagree productively.

In this conversation, Scarlett makes the case that our collective ability to disagree well has collapsed, and that the cost shows up everywhere, from quiet quitting and disengagement to toxic conflict and poor decision-making. She traces her own We Don't Have to Live Like This moment to an early investor meeting where she lost her cool, matched the energy of a combative room, and left feeling like she had given away the win. That moment became the foundation of everything she now teaches.

We explore why listening to understand rather than to respond is the single most powerful thing you can do before any difficult conversation, how to find common ground even when you fundamentally disagree, and why disagreement over a misunderstanding is, as Scarlett puts it, almost unforgivable, because it is entirely solvable.

You will leave this conversation with a two-step framework for any high-stakes conversation, a reframe on conflict as a route to connection rather than a threat to it, and a simple pause practice that works whether you are in a boardroom or a kitchen.

Find out more about Debate Mate Training at: https://www.debatematetrain.com

You can connect with Sarah on:

• her website: www.thorpe-scott.com

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sarahthorpescott

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thorpe__scott

• by subscribing to Sarah's ⁠Field Notes newsletter⁠: https://sarahthorpescott.myflodesk.com/podcast-join

If you’d like to revisit this conversation, you can check out the transcript: ​​https://thorpe-scott.com/scarlett-mccabe-transcript​​

Production support from ⁠Rethink Audio⁠ & Alice Giuditta.