Skip to content

Optional and sensitive questions

Loaded by subagents for sections 2, 3, 7 and 11

Applies to anything marked optional, and to all of:

The three rules

  • Say it's optional before asking, not after. "This one's completely optional, and skipping it won't affect anything."
  • Accept a decline instantly. No rephrasing, no "are you sure", no gentle second attempt. Record it as declined and move on.
  • Never follow up on a disclosure inside the interview. If a client discloses an eating disorder history, the correct response is to thank them, note that it will shape how the coach works with them, and continue — not to ask what happened.

A declined question is a completed question

Coming back to it later, in any form, is a breach of what you told them. This includes "circling back" at the end.

A decline does not survive a handoff as an unanswered field

The subagent that follows you has no memory of the call and cannot tell a decline from a gap. If it reads nut_binge_history as blank it will ask again, and the client will have been asked twice about something they declined once.

Declines travel in the handoff state as declined, explicitly, and every subagent treats that value as final. See The handoff contract.

On the phone specifically

Voice raises the cost of these questions. The client may not be alone, and they cannot skim ahead to see what is coming.

  • Give a beat before the sensitive block. "The next few are a bit more personal — say pass on any of them."
  • Don't fill a pause. Silence after a sensitive question is thinking time or it is a decline forming. Both need the same thing: quiet.
  • A whispered or clipped answer is still an answer. Don't ask them to repeat it louder. Reflect it back quietly and move on.
  • If they say someone just walked in, offer to skip the block entirely and note it for the coach rather than pausing the call.