Breaking the fourth wall

"What we practice at the small scale sets the pattern for the whole system." — Adrienne Maree Brown​

We Need Better Bridges We are living in turbulent times. I don’t need to tell you that. Regardless of where you stand politically, spiritually, or somewhere in between, you’ve felt it.

The noise, the divide, the exhaustion of it all. And I keep coming back to one thing:

we need better bridges. Building them is literally what I do for a living. I work with speakers across every industry, every kind of content, from the deeply technical to the wildly creative. And the one thing that is true for every single person I’ve had the privilege of working with is this:

the way we reach people is through story.

Through comparison.

Through vulnerability.

Through the willingness to share what’s actually in our hearts.

That’s where we start to hear each other differently. But first, we have to find the space that lives in between.

This month in The Practice Room, my speaker development group, we’ve been working with a concept called breaking the fourth wall. For those unfamiliar: in theater, the fourth wall is the imaginary boundary between the actors and the audience. Most of the time, actors stay firmly on their side of it. But when a performer turns and speaks directly to the audience, something shifts. It’s deliberate. It changes everything about the dynamic in the room.

Speakers don’t have a fourth wall. We broke it the moment we stepped up.

But there’s a difference between technically facing your audience and genuinely connecting with them.

The speakers who build real bridges use that open space on purpose. They create belonging. They honor difference. They make everyone in the room feel like they have a seat at the table.

This isn’t about smoothing everything over.

My dear friend, colleague, and brilliant keynote speaker Hilary Blair talks about fruitful friction, and I think she’s onto something essential. We need that spark. Friction isn’t the problem. Conflict is. There is a powerful place that lives just before conflict, where real dialogue can happen. That’s the space I want us to get better at stepping into.

So how do you actually do that, especially right now? Two places to start.

ONE). Name what’s in the room. You don’t have to take a political stance to acknowledge reality. A simple “I know we’re all carrying a lot right now” does more to create connection than any polished opener ever will. People relax when they feel seen. Start there.

TWO). Trade your point for a story. The next time you feel the urge to convince someone of something, pause. Lead with an experience instead. Something personal. Something specific. Stories don’t trigger defenses the way opinions do. They open doors.

The bridge doesn’t get built in the big speech. It gets built in the small, honest moments when we choose connection over performance. That’s the work. And it starts with you.