Permission to Breathe

Why You Don’t Have to Have the Answer

One of the first reviewers of my book said: “Advice often creates anxiety, not clarity. This book felt like permission to breathe.”

Permission to breathe. I keep thinking about that phrase.

Because most of us walk around carrying a quiet pressure to have the right answers. To be helpful. To know what someone should do and tell them.

So we do our best. We offer what we think will help.

And then they either don’t take the advice, or they try it and it doesn’t work for them.

Here’s what I want you to consider: what if having the answer was never your job in the first place?

Why Advice Feels Like Helping (But Isn’t)

When someone brings you a problem, your brain wants to solve it. That impulse comes from a good place. You care. Maybe you’ve been through something similar. You can see a path forward that they can’t see yet.

So you say: “Have you tried…” or “What worked for me was…” or “You should…”

And here’s what happens in their brain: their threat response activates.

I don’t mean they feel attacked. I mean their nervous system picks up a subtle criticism: you don’t know what you’re doing. You should already know this. Your way of seeing the situation is wrong.

Their defenses go up. Creativity shuts down. The opportunity for them to learn has been lost.

You were trying to help. But you accidentally made it harder for them to think.

The Banana Problem

I use this example in the book because it makes the point so clearly.

Imagine you come to me and say, “I’m struggling with bananas.”

If I immediately jump in with, “Oh, I have the perfect banana bread recipe!”…there’s a good chance I’ve wasted both our time.

Why? Because maybe you don’t have a banana bread problem. Maybe you hate the taste of bananas but your doctor told you to eat more potassium. Maybe you’re a runner, and you want to have a banana at the starting line, but they always get bruised in your bag. Maybe your toddler keeps smashing bananas in their hair.

My banana solution only works if we share the same banana problem. And given that every brain has been uniquely wired by lived experience, the chances of that are remarkably low.

This is why advice so often doesn’t land. Not because it’s bad advice. Because it’s your advice, based on your experience, filtered through your brain. It might not fit their situation at all.

What Actually Helps

Another reader put it this way: “I thought good coaching meant having better answers. This book showed me it means asking better questions.”

When you ask instead of tell, you’re doing something powerful. You’re signaling: I trust you to think this through. Your perspective matters. You’re capable.

That keeps them in discovery mode, where they can actually access their own creativity and insight.

And here’s what the research shows: when people discover their own answers, the insights stick. Self-generated insights create stronger neural pathways than information received passively. When you tell someone what to do, they might understand it intellectually. When they discover it themselves, it becomes part of how they think.

So you’re not just being more respectful by asking instead of telling. You’re being more effective.

The Pressure You Can Let Go Of

Here’s what I want you to take from this:

You don’t have to have the answer.

You don’t have to fix it.

You don’t have to prove your value by knowing what someone else should do.

Your job is to ask the questions that help them find their own answer. That’s it.

One reader, a CMO, told me: “The 90/10 rule alone changed how I show up.” That’s the ratio I recommend. 90% asking, 10% telling. And that 10% isn’t advice. It’s observations and reflections.

When you let go of the pressure to have the answer, something shifts. You can actually be present. You can listen. You can get curious about what’s really going on for this person instead of scanning your own experience for a solution to offer.

That’s the permission to breathe.

One Thing to Try This Week

The next time someone brings you a problem, notice the urge to give advice. Don’t criticize yourself for it. Just notice it.

Then, instead of “Have you tried…” ask one of these:

“How are you thinking about it?” “What have you already considered?” “What does your gut tell you?”

See what happens when you hand the thinking back to them.

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What’s coming up for you as you read this? Tell me in the comments.