Make Your Conversations Click

Twenty years ago, I stepped out of a top job in journalism to ask a different kind of question... revealing metaphors and opening minds.

I stumbled into a discovery: conversations have a mechanism most people never see.

When I started taking people’s words literally – their language, their metaphors – instead of translating them through my own assumptions, something shifted. Understanding improved. People became more interesting. Conversations became more useful.

I realised there was an invisible structure at work in every conversation – something about how meaning gets shaped, preserved, or lost in real time.

I’ve spent twenty years exploring this mechanism, drawing on Clean Language and other approaches, wherever people need to hear and understand each other.

That exploration became Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds – the foundational text now used by thousands of practitioners worldwide. I've taught these patterns to over 5,000 people in 105 countries through courses and workshops, co-organise the annual Metaphorum unconference, and reach over 2,000 readers here each week.

This publication is about how to make conversations click, and what happens when they do – when meaning stays intact, when people think more clearly, when understanding actually lands.

What You'll Find Here

• Exploration of how conversations actually work. Real examples. Practical ways to notice what's usually invisible.

• I write about what happens when you pay attention to the invisible stuff: the exact words people use, the metaphors they don't know they're using, the moments when meaning shifts.

• Conversation principles you can use immediately – whether you’re in healthcare, facilitation, leadership, or anywhere understanding matters. (Rooted in Clean Language, useful for everyone.)

• Practical Clean Language techniques for those who want to go deeper, and tips for advocating for 🦋 #CleanInTheWild.

• A weekly linkletter connecting curious practitioners with news of practical #CleanLanguage, minds and metaphor.

Readers tell me this work has changed how they:

• Hear what really matters to people, especially in healthcare and end-of-life settings

• Design meetings that actually work

• Facilitate change without imposing their agenda.

Over 2,000 practitioners rely on these insights every week.

Ways to Engage

🗓️ Subscribe: Join 2,000+ readers getting my weekly linkletter – news and ideas about conversations, meaning-making, metaphor, and how to notice what’s usually invisible. Connecting curious practitioners since 2009.

👀 Read: Browse more than 16 years of posts exploring how conversations actually work. New to Clean Language? Start here

📺 Watch: Join 2,100+ subscribers who've watched case studies and demonstrations over 250,000 times on www.youtube.com.

🧠 Learn: Courses that have trained over 5,000 practitioners in 105 countries on how to work with conversations practically lcl.thinkific.com.

🚀 Get the book: Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds – the foundational text on the mechanism.

🌱 Work Together: For consultancy and professional services exploring conversation and meaning-making in your organisation, visit conversaurus.com.

🔗 Stay connected: Comment, restack, email, or read silently – you’re part of a growing community exploring how conversations click.