By Quinn Price
Let's start with an uncomfortable truth: You're holding up lies right now. So am I.
Not little white lies. Not fibs to spare someone's feelings. I'm talking about load-bearing lies, the kind that became part of your internal architecture before you knew better. The ones you picked up in childhood when you needed to make sense of chaos. The ones you absorbed from parents who meant well but passed along their own unexamined beliefs. The ones you downloaded during a weak moment scrolling through YouTube at 2 AM when the algorithm knew exactly what emotional button to push.
These lies aren't decorative. They're structural. Pull one out carelessly, and something important might collapse.
So what are yours?
Maybe it's the story you tell yourself about why you can't change careers. Maybe it's the political narrative that makes you feel safe and righteous. Maybe it's the health claim that gives you control over an uncontrollable world. Maybe it's the religious teaching that kept your family together but never quite sat right in your gut.
Here's the thing about vital lies: you can't see your own. Not clearly, anyway. You see theirs instantly. Your uncle's conspiracy theories? Obvious. Your friend's MLM delusion? Painfully transparent. Your coworker's toxic relationship rationalization? Crystal clear from where you're standing.
But yours? Those are just... how things are. They're not lies; they're reality.
This asymmetry drives us crazy. We watch people we love spiral into beliefs that harm them, and we want to fix it. Shake them. Present them with facts. Show them they're wrong.
And psychologists, pretty much across the board, agree on what happens when we do this:
We make it worse.
Attack a vital lie directly, and you don't get a grateful "thank you for opening my eyes." You get defensiveness. You get the backfire effect. You get someone who digs in deeper, holds tighter, and starts seeing you as the problem. Because when you attack someone's load-bearing belief, you're not just challenging an idea—you're threatening the entire structure they've built their identity on.
Think about it. If someone told you that one of your core beliefs was not just wrong but harmful, what would your first instinct be? To say "oh, you're right, let me completely restructure my worldview"? Or to defend yourself?
Right.
This is exactly why the tools and techniques in Coach Them Out aren't just helpful—they're vital in a world where we're all holding vital lies.
Because here's what's changed: The algorithms have gotten smarter. The rabbit holes have gotten deeper. The high-control groups have gotten better at isolation. And the lies we tell ourselves, individually and collectively, are doing more damage than ever before.
We need a different approach.
The Coach Them Out Method: Influence Without Force
Coach Them Out offers something radically different from the debate-and-destroy model most of us default to. It's built on a simple but profound insight: The relationship is the intervention.
Instead of attacking beliefs head-on (which triggers all our psychological defenses), the book teaches you how to:
Lower defensiveness instead of raising it. Using OARS techniques (Open questions, Affirmations, Reflective listening, Summaries) that come straight from motivational interviewing, you learn to create safety instead of threat. When people feel safe, they can actually think. When they feel attacked, they can only defend.
Widen the information circle instead of correcting. Rather than telling someone they're wrong, you help them encounter new information on their own terms. You become a tour guide, not a drill sergeant. You ask questions instead of delivering lectures. You invite experiments instead of demanding conversions.
Preserve dignity instead of winning arguments. The T.R.U.S.T. framework for micro-experiments (Tiny, Reversible, Unambiguous, Symmetric, Time-boxed) lets people test their beliefs without losing face. People don't need to admit they were wrong to move in a healthier direction—they just need a safe way to explore what's true.
Build trust before introducing truth. Most people try to lead with facts and wonder why they fail. But facts don't change minds when trust is missing. The book shows you how to build the kind of relationship where reality can actually speak—and be heard.
This isn't soft. This isn't weak. This is strategic.
It's the difference between battering down someone's door and being invited in.
Why This Matters Now More Than Ever
We're living through an epistemic crisis. People aren't just holding different opinions—they're living in different realities. The uncle who disappeared down the QAnon rabbit hole. The friend who joined an MLM and can't see the exploitation. The family member in a high-control religious group. The coworker radicalized by YouTube. The partner convinced that conventional medicine is poison.
These aren't theoretical problems. They're destroying families, ending friendships, and fracturing communities.
And here's the brutal part: Most of us are making it worse.
Every time we mock, shame, or "well actually" someone, we confirm their belief that we're the enemy. We become the villain in their story. We give them proof that the outside world is hostile and their in-group is the only safe place.
The tools in Coach Them Out give you a third option. Not aggressive confrontation. Not passive acceptance. But active, dignified, relationship-preserving influence.
The kind that actually works.
Your Vital Lies Are Waiting
Before you use this book to help someone else, do yourself a favor: Get curious about your own load-bearing lies.
What beliefs are you protecting? What stories do you tell yourself that might not hold up under gentle scrutiny? Where are you in an information bubble of your own?
Because here's the beautiful paradox at the heart of this work: The better you get at extending grace to others, the more grace you'll extend to yourself. The more you learn to create safety for someone else's identity wobble, the safer you'll feel examining your own.
We're all recovering from something. We're all exiting toxic beliefs we didn't know were toxic. We're all learning to hold our convictions more lightly without abandoning our values.
Coach Them Out gives you the tools to do that work—for yourself and for the people you care about.
Take the Next Step
If someone you care about is holding a belief that's harming their life, you have three options:
- Attack them directly (spoiler: this fails)
- Give up and watch them suffer (understandable, but heartbreaking)
- Learn how to influence without force
The third option is harder. It requires patience. It requires you to regulate your own anxiety first. It requires you to value the relationship more than being right.
But it works.
Get your copy of Coach Them Out: How to Influence Someone Out of Toxic Beliefs today and learn the specific, proven techniques for helping people exit harmful beliefs while preserving dignity and trust.
Because your crazy uncle might not be beyond reach. Your friend in the MLM might have doubts they're not voicing. Your family member might be looking for an exit strategy.
But they won't find it through your arguments.
They'll find it through your relationship—if you know how to use it.
Ready to change how you influence? [Get Coach Them Out here] and start learning the tools that actually work.
Want to go deeper? Join the Exit Strategy community at quinnprice.com—a space for people navigating toxic belief systems and supporting others who are doing the same.