Coaching practices for Separating Facts From Opinions
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Separating Facts From Opinions, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- We keep arguing in circles and I’ve realized half of it is that nobody’s separated what we actually know from what we’re each just assuming
- I’m completely sure I know what’s going on here, but when I try to separate what I actually saw happen from the meaning I bolted onto it, I can’t cleanly tell where the facts stop and my interpretation starts
- I state every opinion like it’s flat-out fact, and then the other person hears a hard line and braces to defend theirs
- "She was being dismissive" feels like a plain fact to me, exactly as solid as "she left the meeting early"
- I notice I’m really arguing against this person
Practices that may help
- White hat: establish the facts before opinion
Separate what is known from what is inferred — the white hat is for data only, with no interpretation.
Six Thinking Hats, Made Practical - Separate the data from the narrative you’ve built around it
List the raw facts, then list the story you’ve layered on top — and check whether the story actually follows.
The Narrative Fallacy: Why We Can’t Stop Making Stories - State your confidence level alongside your position
"I’m about 70% confident on this" signals a reasoned estimate, not a fact claim.
Productive Disagreement, Made Practical - Distinguish observable data from interpretation
Separate what a camera would record from what you made of it.
The Ladder of Inference - Separate the argument from the arguer
Address the claim on its merits, not the person’s motives or character.
Productive Disagreement, Made Practical - Separate the claim from its reasons
Start every map by writing the central claim and the distinct reasons offered for it.
Argument Mapping - Deconstruct the problem to its fundamentals
Break the problem into the few things you actually know to be true, with no inherited conclusions.
First-Principles Thinking, Made Usable - Apply the same evidence standard regardless of whether you like the conclusion
Grade the evidence before you know which conclusion it supports.
Motivated Reasoning - Identify the triggering situation
Name exactly what happened — the objective event, not your interpretation of it.
The Thought Record: CBT’s Core Self-Examination Tool - Separate facts from assumptions explicitly
Sort what you actually know from what you’re assuming, in two visible columns.
First-Principles Thinking, Made Usable
Related concerns
- How To Separate Facts From Judgments
List the raw facts, then list the story you’ve layered on top — and check whether the story actually follows.
Separate the data from the narrative you’ve built around it
- Separate Fact From Belief
Separate what is known from what is inferred — the white hat is for data only, with no interpretation.
White hat: establish the facts before opinion
- Facts Vs Assumptions
Sort what you actually know from what you’re assuming, in two visible columns.
Separate facts from assumptions explicitly
- Separate Facts From Interpretation
List the raw facts, then list the story you’ve layered on top — and check whether the story actually follows.
- Separating Facts From Stories
List the raw facts, then list the story you’ve layered on top — and check whether the story actually follows.
- When Narrative Fallacy Separate The Story From The Data
List the raw facts, then list the story you’ve layered on top — and check whether the story actually follows.
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