Finding Good Framework
No Suggestions, Opinions, Feedback, or Advice — until asked twice. Only questions and genuine curiosity. SOFA protects both people in a conversation: it keeps the listener from slipping into a service role, and it keeps the speaker from being reduced to a problem to solve.
The moment you offer advice, you move from meeting someone as a full person to encountering them as a problem to solve. SOFA is training wheels for recovering lost curiosity. The Rule of Twice is operational, but the real destination is genuine interest — at which point SOFA becomes unnecessary because curiosity makes it automatic. Advice puts you behind their chair. These questions put you both at the fire.