The Moment Before You Click "Join"

After viewing recordings of hundreds of Civic Gym conversations between students (with their permission), there's a particular kind of pause we’ve seen again and again.

It’s the moment right before a Unify Challenge conversation begins, when the tab is open and the mind starts running its greatest hits: “What if it’s awkward? What if we disagree? What if I say the wrong thing?”

‍That pause makes sense. Even with structure and support, the Unify Challenge still asks something real: to show up as yourself despite the potential for disagreement – something we tend to naturally find uncomfortable. And we’ve learned an unexpected lesson.

When staff try to “prep” participants, we can accidentally make it worse. So we stopped narrating the experience and handed the mic to the people on the other side of that ‘Join’ button.

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We asked students what they wished they’d known before their conversation. We expected broad reflections about what the experience is like. Instead, they gave us a playbook.

The nerves aren’t random. They come from one simple thing: people can’t predict how the conversation will go. They’re about to talk with a stranger about big topics, and their minds start running scenarios.

That’s why it’s grounding to hear someone say, “Yeah, I was nervous too.” It turns that lonely spiral into something shared.

And that’s also why we don’t send the full set of questions ahead of time. Over-preparing can become armor: rehearsing arguments, anticipating every disagreement, scripting a way out of discomfort. The Unify Challenge doesn't require anyone to be perfectly prepared. It only requires them to be present.

Across different campuses and personalities, here are a few lessons students modeled again and again:

1. Name the nerves (even just to yourself)
   Try: “I’m nervous because I care about how this goes.”
   That reframe matters. It turns anxiety into evidence of intention.
   
   
2. Bring curiosity, not a thesis statement
   You don’t need the perfect stance on every issue. You need a willingness to ask, “How did you get there?” and “What experiences shaped that?”
   
   
3. Remember: disagreement is not the same as danger
   Your body might treat it like danger. That’s normal. The practice is learning to stay in the room anyway.
   
   
4. Let “common ground” be smaller than you think
   Common ground doesn’t have to mean agreement on policy. Sometimes it’s a shared value, a shared worry, a shared hope, or even a shared laugh at how strange it is to talk with a stranger about big topics.

Taken together, these aren’t just tips for a Unify Challenge conversation. They’re small, repeatable ways to stay present when talking with someone who disagrees with you and the conversation starts to get tense. The real point is simple: this playbook travels. It works in the Unify Challenge, and it works in everyday life.

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