Page 27 of Falling Off Script

I click the pen in my hand once. Let it punctuate the silence.

“No.”

His face falls a bit. Like he was hoping for permission.

Then I add, “I think you should go back thereon purpose.”

I cross the room. Lower my voice so it’s just between us. Big brother energy. Pack leader to cub. Whatever metaphor makes it easier to say what I actually mean.

“Same café. Same time. Same seat. And you don’t go there to get her attention. You go there to remember who you were when you saw her the first time. The guy who wanted to be seen, not just get a number.”

Matt swallows. “And if she shows up again?”

“Then you try again. No pressure. No performance. Just a human moment. Make a joke about the line. Say somethingabout the playlist. Or hell—ask if she’s the one who keeps buying the last damn macadamia cookie.”

That makes him smile. Not big. But enough.

I clap a hand to his shoulder — not hard. Just solid. Just real.

“And Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not going back for her. You’re going back foryou.That’s the only part that sticks.”

He nods, slowly. It sinks in.

“Still feels like a movie,” he mutters.

I nod, just once.

“Yeah. But this time, you’re the one writing it.”

11. Emily

Rachel Goodwin is the kind of client coaches dream about.

Intelligent. Polished. Clearly rich, but not in the annoying way — in the“my Chanel shoes are silent when I walk”way.

She sits across from me in my home office, which is technically just the second bedroom of my apartment—but I’ve feng shui’d the hell out of it to make it feel less like a guest room and more like a launchpad for self-actualization.

She found me through my podcast a few weeks ago, which still blows my mind. Back when I was recording episodes in my closet and praying my neighbor wouldn’t flush during a take, I never imagined someone like her would be listening.

Her notebook is open, her pen is already uncapped, and she makes direct eye contact when she says:

“I’m not afraid of being alone. I’m just tired of building empires and coming home to silence.”

God, I love her already.

“That's a good place to start,” I say, and I mean it.

She’s coachable. Thoughtful. Smart enough to challenge me when it makes sense, but respectful enough not to treat this like some TED Talk sparring match. She does her homework, highlights her takeaways, and once — I swear to God — she color-coded her attachment patterns.

By week three, I’m ready to nominate her as my personal case study in How To Actually Do The Work.

Which is why, when she starts telling me about a guy she met at a coffee shop, I let my guard down. Just a little.

“It wasn’t even a date,”she says, stirring tea like this is some Jane Austen side plot.“He just made a joke about the line being longer than a TSA checkpoint and somehow... I don’t know. It landed.”

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