I've had a lot of conversations that never happened. I've explained myself perfectly. I've stayed calm. I've landed the point. I've even walked away feeling proud of how I handled it. None of those conversations took place. They all happened in my head. Sometimes while driving, sometimes in the shower, sometimes while lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the same opening line over and over, like I'm auditioning for a role I was never cast in. What's strange isn't that I do this. What's strange is how real it feels while it's happening. Welcome back to Brainverse Me. I'm Josh. Today I want to talk about something deceptively harmless, the conversations we rehearse in our heads. Not daydreaming, not fantasy, preparation. Or at least that's what it feels like. This episode isn't about social anxiety or confrontation or confidence. It's about how easily our brains mistake mental rehearsal for readiness, and how much time, energy, and emotional bandwidth that costs us without us ever noticing. It usually starts innocently. A comment someone made, an email that landed a little flat, a look that could have meant nothing, or something. My brain doesn't react right away, it waits. Then it asks a question. What if they meant that differently? What if I need to explain myself? What if this comes up again? That's the hook. Because once the question is asked, my brain doesn't want an answer, it wants control. So it starts building a conversation. I picture how it might go, what they might say, what I'll say back, and at first it's reasonable, measured, thoughtful, but then it escalates. At some point, I'm no longer thinking about the conversation. I'm having it. I'm refraining, refining responses, I'm adjusting tone, anticipating objections, I'm not reacting anymore, I'm performing. And the performance gets better every time I run it. Sharper, more confident, more composed. In my head, I'm articulate and unshakable. I say the exact right thing at the exact right moment. Which should be a red flag, because real conversations do not go like that. There's this lie my brain sells me. If I rehearse enough, I'll be ready. Ready for what? For conflict that may never happen? For questions no one asked? For judgments that exist only in my imagination? But while I'm rehearsing, something subtle is happening. I'm emotionally investing in an outcome. I start feeling the stress of the conversation before it exists. I feel defensive, tense, sometimes even relieved, like I survived something. Even though nothing occurred. That's when I know I'm not preparing anymore. I'm borrowing stress from the future. Some of the imaginary conversations go well, I stand my ground, I explain myself clearly, I'm respected. I walk away internally thinking, okay, I handled that. But here's the problem. When the real interaction happens, if it happens at all, it rarely follows that script. Different tone, different timing, different emotional temperature. And suddenly my perfect response doesn't fit. Now I'm panicking and I'm frustrated. Not because the conversation went badly, but because it didn't go as rehearsed. I'm no longer prepared. I'm rigid in how I want to go in this conversation. But I haven't practiced this part. I don't know what to do. But other t sometimes, imaginary conversation goes badly. They misunderstand me. They push back, they judge, and I rehearse that too. I practice defending myself, explaining more, clarifying more. Sometimes apologizing for things I haven't done. But by the time the real moment arrives, I'm already exhausted. I showed up guarded, shorter, less open. And from the outside, it probably looks like I'm reacting to something in the present. But I'm not. I'm reacting to a conversation that happened already, just not in reality. Here's here's the uncomfortable truth. My brain doesn't rehearse conversations to communicate better. It rehearses to avoid uncertainty. Uncertainty feels dangerous to the nervous system. It's unpredictable, uncontained. Imaginary conversations turn uncertainty into something structured, something with lines, order, cause and effect. Even if the outcome is bad, it's known. And known feels safer than unknown. So my brain keeps doing it, not because it works, but because it soothes. There's a cost that no one talks about. This quiet cost to all this mental rehearsal. Keeps me stuck in my head. It pulls me out of the present. I'm physically in one place, mentally in another. Sometimes I'll catch myself replaying conversation while someone else is talking to me, not because they don't care, but because their brain is busy preparing for a moment that may never arrive. And then there's the emotional cause. I feel drained after a day when nothing bad happened, no conflict, no confrontation, just thinking. That's when I realized I spent the day reacting to imaginary moments instead of living real ones. And when I was rehearsing or replaying the conversation, my response in my head, was I even listening to the other person? Alright. This pattern doesn't stay small. Shows up in leadership all the time, rehearsing feedback conversations before they happen, practicing explanations for decisions no one questioned, preparing defenses instead of clarity, and slowly without noticing, leadership becomes informative instead of responsive. I'm not present with the person in front of me. I'm managing a version of them that exists only in my head. That's not leadership. That's anxiety wearing a badge. For a long time I told myself this was preparation, being thoughtful, being responsible, being ahead of things. But eventually I had to admit something uncomfortable. If it were real preparation, it would pay off more often. It doesn't. Most of these conversations never happen, and the ones that do, they do not go the way I planned. So what am I actually doing? I'm rehearsing control. But there has to be change. For me, the shift didn't come from stopping the behavior, because that never works. It came from recognizing it sooner. Noticing when I'm replaying instead of reflecting, when I'm scripting instead of listening. The moment I catch myself thinking, if I say this, or if they say this, I'll say that. That's my cue. Not to shut it down just to notice. Okay, I'm rehearsing again. That simple recognition takes the edge off. The conversation doesn't disappear, but it loses urgency. Here's the thing, I'm still practicing. Real conversations are messy. They don't follow scripts, they don't reward perfect timing, they reward presence. And presence doesn't come from preparation. It comes from showing up without knowing exactly how it will go. That's uncomfortable. Which is why my brain resists it. But every time I let a conversation happen without rehearsing it to death, something interesting happens. I listen better. I respond more naturally, I recover faster when I stumble, and I walk away feeling less strained. The irony is that all the rehearsal was supposed to protect me from embarrassment, from misunderstanding, from conflict, but most of the time, it just kept me tense. Conversations that matter most don't need perfect answers. They need honesty. And honesty doesn't come from the scripts. It comes from being there. And now, when I get through the conversation, I don't feel like I did a good job. I feel like I survived. That's not comfortable. But I do still rehearse sometimes. I don't think that ever goes away completely. Now, when I notice it, I don't treat it as preparation, I treat it as information, a signal that something feels uncertain, that I care about the outcome. That's not a flaw. It's just something to be aware of, and awareness changes the relationship. I've been talking this whole time about preparing for conversation, imagining scenarios. There's another whole side to this. That side is imagining conversations that already happened. Where you're trying to rewrite history. The same way that you go over and over an upcoming conversation in your head, you go over and over previous conversations that happened with people that you weren't satisfied with in some way. And much as you convince yourself on the forward look of what happens, you might convince yourself on the rear look that something happened that didn't. Maybe it's, I didn't like the way I responded. I should have said this. And then you start playing that conversation, what it would have sounded like if you did say that. How you imagine how they might have reacted. And you do that over and over and over again. And before you know it, you start to lose touch on what actually happened. Now, I'm assuming this isn't just me. If it is, then never mind this, I'll talk to my therapist about it. But if it's not, it's not something that's going to help you because you didn't have the conversation. Now, you're not just trying to rewrite the future. You're just not trying to rewrite the future, you're trying to rewrite the past. Which you can't do. I don't believe time machines exist yet. And if they did, you'd probably have over-rehearsed the conversation again anyway, and it still wouldn't go the way you want. But thinking about what should happen or what could have happened, or trying to control what will happen, isn't rarely going to give you the result you want. You're usually just going to add more anxiety and pressure to yourself. And like I said earlier, you're going to end a future conversation just feeling like you survived, not feeling like you gained anything. So where's the benefit? Your brain tries to convince you that this is the right way to go, because your brain wants to control the situation. Your brain wants to make sure that nothing is uncertain, that you know what's coming. Your brain doesn't always like surprises. But you're not getting that result. You're not making your brain happy because it's not going to get what it wants. Maybe sometimes it will. Maybe sometimes you'll guess exactly right. But most of the time you won't. And if I apply that logic to thinking about conversations that always happen, well, that's just not gonna help at all. She can't change anything that already happened. So I don't need to be ready for every possible version of a moment. I just need to be present for the one that actually happens. Most of the conversations I worry about never exist. And the ones that do, they deserve my attention. Not my rehearsals. Thanks for listening today. And remember, your brain is smart, but don't let it take full control. Be conscious, be present. Be better.