☕ Coffee and Quiet with Derek Wolf
Listening Without Planning
The conference room is bright with morning light. It spills across the long oak table in a wide band, turning coffee cups and scattered papers into small islands of reflection. A dozen voices bounce off the glass walls, quick and overlapping, filling the air with urgency. Pens click. Laptops hum with quiet vibration. Notifications flash and disappear. The room feels full, even before the meeting fully begins.
At one end of the table she sits with a notebook open in front of her. The pen rests between her fingers, ready, waiting. She nods as the discussion shifts from one topic to the next, eyes moving from speaker to speaker. From the outside she looks engaged. Present. Part of the rhythm.
Inside, her mind runs ahead. Sentences pile up before her name is even called. She prepares answers. Defenses. Clever turns of phrase that might prove her value or protect her from being questioned. Each new comment from someone else becomes a prompt for her own response rather than something to be received.
If today isn’t the day, remember us when your moment opens.
Buy Me a Coffee
Her chest grows tight. Breath stays closer to her throat than her lungs. Her jaw begins to harden. She can feel the old habit taking hold. The one where she listens more to what she will say next than to what anyone else is saying now. The meeting moves forward, but she hears very little of it. Most of the noise lives inside her own anticipation.
Her name has not been spoken yet, but she is already answering. Already defending. Already explaining. The notebook in front of her remains blank. Not because she has nothing to offer, but because her attention has been pulled into a future moment that has not arrived.
A question drifts across the table. It is directed toward someone else. She only half hears it. The sound of her own thoughts is louder. What if they ask me that next. How will I justify that decision. What if I miss something important and they notice. Each thought arrives with a quiet jolt, tightening the band around her ribs.
A slide changes on the screen at the front of the room. Charts shift. Numbers rearrange. People lean forward. She realizes she did not fully catch what led to this moment. She was busy shaping a sentence she has not been asked to speak. A small flicker of honesty rises within her. This is not listening. This is rehearsing.
The realization is not cruel. It is clear. The kind of clarity that does not scold but simply shows the truth of what is happening. She glances down at her notebook and sees the empty page. It feels less like failure and more like a mirror, a reflection of where her attention has been sitting.
She inhales quietly through her nose. The breath is shallow at first. She does not force it deeper. She lets it arrive as it is. The rush in her chest softens by a small degree. She becomes aware of how tightly she has been holding her shoulders and how firm her grip has grown around the pen. Her thoughts feel crowded, but her awareness has shifted. She is now watching the pattern instead of being swept away by it.
Another question moves across the room, this time closer to her end of the table. She listens to the words and notices what happens inside her. The familiar surge. The quick scramble to organize an answer. The urge to prove she is prepared. She watches it all unfold like a pattern she has traced many times.
This time she makes a different choice. Before shaping a response in her mind, she brings her attention to the person speaking. The sound of their voice. The expression on their face. The way their hands move lightly over their notes. She lets their words reach her fully, without immediately translating them into a prompt for her own reply.
Something shifts. The tightness around her breath loosens a fraction. The room feels less like a stage and more like a space for shared thinking. Her pen tip touches the paper at last. She writes only a few words, not a rehearsed answer, just the heart of what she hears. A concern. A question. A point of tension that seems important.
As she writes, she notices how different this feels. Her mind is still active, but its focus has changed direction. It is no longer reaching into the next moment. It is settling more fully into this one. Listening becomes less about waiting to speak and more about letting the room be what it is, a group of people trying to understand something together.
There is a pause in conversation. People shift in their chairs. A throat clears. The facilitator looks around the table and invites another viewpoint. For a second her mind starts to sprint again. This might be the moment they turn toward her. Old habits reach for control.
She takes another breath, deeper this time. It reaches the middle of her chest. She feels the chair beneath her. The solid weight of her feet on the floor. The cool edge of the table under her fingertips. The faint hum of the air system above. These simple anchors bring her attention back into the room. Back into the body that sits here, not the future that has not spoken yet.
When her name is finally called, she feels it land differently. Not like a spotlight, but like an invitation. She does not rush to fill the space. She allows herself one quiet inhale before she speaks. In that breath she asks a simple question inside. What do I actually hear right now.
The answer is clear and uncomplicated. She hears concern about capacity. She hears pressure around deadlines. She hears uncertainty about the next step. She does not need a polished speech. She needs to reflect what is already in the room and offer one honest piece of clarity.
She speaks more slowly than she would have if she had been rehearsing. Her voice feels steady, even though it is not dressed in clever phrasing. She mentions what she has heard. She names the pressure. She suggests one small adjustment that could ease the load without derailing the plan. The table is quiet as she finishes, not from discomfort, but from consideration.
When someone responds, their tone is less guarded than usual. They ask a follow up question. Another person adds a detail. The conversation shifts by a small but real margin. It feels less reactive and more thoughtful. She realizes that her choice to listen first changed not only her experience, but the shape of the moment itself.
The meeting continues. She notices that her jaw stays softer now. Her breath moves more freely. She writes down a few more notes, not as proof that she is paying attention, but because she actually understands what is being discussed. The hour passes more quickly than she expected.
When the meeting ends, chairs slide back. People close laptops. Paper shuffles into neat stacks. Voices rise and scatter out the door. She collects her notebook and pen, tucks them under her arm, and walks into the hallway. The air out here feels cooler. A faint echo of footsteps travels down the corridor. Light from a nearby window stretches across the floor in a pale stripe that she instinctively steps over.
She pauses near a window where the glass looks out over a row of trees. Leaves shift slightly in a thin line of breeze. Cars move below at their own pace. She rests her notebook against the sill and sets one hand over its cover. Her other hand finds her ribs, feeling the gentle rise and fall beneath her palm.
Standing there, she thinks about how many conversations she has lived through without really being present in them. How many meetings where she spent the entire time preparing to defend herself rather than hearing what anyone else was saying. How often the urge to perform has kept her from seeing what was actually needed in the room.
The difference today was not perfect. She still felt the pull to plan her words. She still felt the urge to stay ahead. But she also created space inside that habit. Space where listening could unfold before planning returned. She sees that her real strength does not come from speed, it comes from awareness.
She takes another breath and lets it move low, closer to her belly this time. The exhale carries a quiet sense of relief. Not because the meeting went flawlessly, but because she did not abandon herself inside it. She let her awareness stay with the moment instead of racing ahead to protect an image of herself.
As she turns away from the window and walks back toward her desk, she decides on one simple experiment. In the next meeting, and the next conversation, she will notice the first moment when her mind starts drafting replies and gently return to the act of hearing. Not to be perfect. Not to stay silent. Simply to make decisions from what is real, instead of from what she fears. Her grip on the notebook loosens as she walks, and her shoulders rest lower than they did when the morning began.
The Truth Beneath
Clarity does not grow from rehearsing every possible answer. It grows from hearing what is actually in front of you. When the mind sprints ahead, planning every sentence, you miss the one thing that can steady you. The present moment. Listening without planning is not the absence of preparation. It is the choice to let awareness arrive before response. In that order, your words carry more truth. And truth has a way of doing the work that performance never can.
Stories written in the quiet hours.
Derek Wolf.
“The Truth Beneath” Links to add to the bottom of stories
Listening Without Planning
The conference room is bright with morning light. It spills across the long oak table in a wide band, turning coffee cups and scattered papers into small islands of reflection. A dozen voices bounce off the glass walls, quick and overlapping, filling the air with urgency. Pens click. Laptops hum with quiet vibration. Notifications flash and disappear. The room feels full, even before the meeting fully begins.
At one end of the table she sits with a notebook open in front of her. The pen rests between her fingers, ready, waiting. She nods as the discussion shifts from one topic to the next, eyes moving from speaker to speaker. From the outside she looks engaged. Present. Part of the rhythm.
Inside, her mind runs ahead. Sentences pile up before her name is even called. She prepares answers. Defenses. Clever turns of phrase that might prove her value or protect her from being questioned. Each new comment from someone else becomes a prompt for her own response rather than something to be received.
If today isn’t the day, remember us when your moment opens.
Buy Me a Coffee
Her chest grows tight. Breath stays closer to her throat than her lungs. Her jaw begins to harden. She can feel the old habit taking hold. The one where she listens more to what she will say next than to what anyone else is saying now. The meeting moves forward, but she hears very little of it. Most of the noise lives inside her own anticipation.
Her name has not been spoken yet, but she is already answering. Already defending. Already explaining. The notebook in front of her remains blank. Not because she has nothing to offer, but because her attention has been pulled into a future moment that has not arrived.
A question drifts across the table. It is directed toward someone else. She only half hears it. The sound of her own thoughts is louder. What if they ask me that next. How will I justify that decision. What if I miss something important and they notice. Each thought arrives with a quiet jolt, tightening the band around her ribs.
A slide changes on the screen at the front of the room. Charts shift. Numbers rearrange. People lean forward. She realizes she did not fully catch what led to this moment. She was busy shaping a sentence she has not been asked to speak. A small flicker of honesty rises within her. This is not listening. This is rehearsing.
The realization is not cruel. It is clear. The kind of clarity that does not scold but simply shows the truth of what is happening. She glances down at her notebook and sees the empty page. It feels less like failure and more like a mirror, a reflection of where her attention has been sitting.
She inhales quietly through her nose. The breath is shallow at first. She does not force it deeper. She lets it arrive as it is. The rush in her chest softens by a small degree. She becomes aware of how tightly she has been holding her shoulders and how firm her grip has grown around the pen. Her thoughts feel crowded, but her awareness has shifted. She is now watching the pattern instead of being swept away by it.
Another question moves across the room, this time closer to her end of the table. She listens to the words and notices what happens inside her. The familiar surge. The quick scramble to organize an answer. The urge to prove she is prepared. She watches it all unfold like a pattern she has traced many times.
This time she makes a different choice. Before shaping a response in her mind, she brings her attention to the person speaking. The sound of their voice. The expression on their face. The way their hands move lightly over their notes. She lets their words reach her fully, without immediately translating them into a prompt for her own reply.
Something shifts. The tightness around her breath loosens a fraction. The room feels less like a stage and more like a space for shared thinking. Her pen tip touches the paper at last. She writes only a few words, not a rehearsed answer, just the heart of what she hears. A concern. A question. A point of tension that seems important.
As she writes, she notices how different this feels. Her mind is still active, but its focus has changed direction. It is no longer reaching into the next moment. It is settling more fully into this one. Listening becomes less about waiting to speak and more about letting the room be what it is, a group of people trying to understand something together.
There is a pause in conversation. People shift in their chairs. A throat clears. The facilitator looks around the table and invites another viewpoint. For a second her mind starts to sprint again. This might be the moment they turn toward her. Old habits reach for control.
She takes another breath, deeper this time. It reaches the middle of her chest. She feels the chair beneath her. The solid weight of her feet on the floor. The cool edge of the table under her fingertips. The faint hum of the air system above. These simple anchors bring her attention back into the room. Back into the body that sits here, not the future that has not spoken yet.
When her name is finally called, she feels it land differently. Not like a spotlight, but like an invitation. She does not rush to fill the space. She allows herself one quiet inhale before she speaks. In that breath she asks a simple question inside. What do I actually hear right now.
The answer is clear and uncomplicated. She hears concern about capacity. She hears pressure around deadlines. She hears uncertainty about the next step. She does not need a polished speech. She needs to reflect what is already in the room and offer one honest piece of clarity.
She speaks more slowly than she would have if she had been rehearsing. Her voice feels steady, even though it is not dressed in clever phrasing. She mentions what she has heard. She names the pressure. She suggests one small adjustment that could ease the load without derailing the plan. The table is quiet as she finishes, not from discomfort, but from consideration.
When someone responds, their tone is less guarded than usual. They ask a follow up question. Another person adds a detail. The conversation shifts by a small but real margin. It feels less reactive and more thoughtful. She realizes that her choice to listen first changed not only her experience, but the shape of the moment itself.
The meeting continues. She notices that her jaw stays softer now. Her breath moves more freely. She writes down a few more notes, not as proof that she is paying attention, but because she actually understands what is being discussed. The hour passes more quickly than she expected.
When the meeting ends, chairs slide back. People close laptops. Paper shuffles into neat stacks. Voices rise and scatter out the door. She collects her notebook and pen, tucks them under her arm, and walks into the hallway. The air out here feels cooler. A faint echo of footsteps travels down the corridor. Light from a nearby window stretches across the floor in a pale stripe that she instinctively steps over.
She pauses near a window where the glass looks out over a row of trees. Leaves shift slightly in a thin line of breeze. Cars move below at their own pace. She rests her notebook against the sill and sets one hand over its cover. Her other hand finds her ribs, feeling the gentle rise and fall beneath her palm.
Standing there, she thinks about how many conversations she has lived through without really being present in them. How many meetings where she spent the entire time preparing to defend herself rather than hearing what anyone else was saying. How often the urge to perform has kept her from seeing what was actually needed in the room.
The difference today was not perfect. She still felt the pull to plan her words. She still felt the urge to stay ahead. But she also created space inside that habit. Space where listening could unfold before planning returned. She sees that her real strength does not come from speed, it comes from awareness.
She takes another breath and lets it move low, closer to her belly this time. The exhale carries a quiet sense of relief. Not because the meeting went flawlessly, but because she did not abandon herself inside it. She let her awareness stay with the moment instead of racing ahead to protect an image of herself.
As she turns away from the window and walks back toward her desk, she decides on one simple experiment. In the next meeting, and the next conversation, she will notice the first moment when her mind starts drafting replies and gently return to the act of hearing. Not to be perfect. Not to stay silent. Simply to make decisions from what is real, instead of from what she fears. Her grip on the notebook loosens as she walks, and her shoulders rest lower than they did when the morning began.
The Truth Beneath
Clarity does not grow from rehearsing every possible answer. It grows from hearing what is actually in front of you. When the mind sprints ahead, planning every sentence, you miss the one thing that can steady you. The present moment. Listening without planning is not the absence of preparation. It is the choice to let awareness arrive before response. In that order, your words carry more truth. And truth has a way of doing the work that performance never can.
Stories written in the quiet hours.
Derek Wolf.
“The Truth Beneath” Links to add to the bottom of stories
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