Vibemaxxing Conversations
Last year I spent twelve months coaching First Nations and neurodivergent employees. It was one of those awesome professional experiences that totally levels up your game. During that time I became more attuned to the physical environment of coaching than ever before.
Partly because of who I was sitting with. Sensory sensitivity, cultural safety, hypervigilance, masking fatigue — these aren’t abstract ideas when someone is navigating all of them in real time. They influence how a person enters a room, how much of themselves they can bring, and how safe it feels to tell the truth.
But something else was happening too. I started noticing — first in my body, then in my mind — that the rooms we used were not created equal. Some felt grounding and expansive. Others felt tight, fluorescent, or subtly hostile. And if I was feeling that, my coachees almost certainly were too.
So I let them choose where they wanted to meet. Their choices were revealing.
What the room revealed before a single word was spoken
The dining room — chosen when the topic wasn’t too heavy. Ambient noise, people walking by, the possibility of being overheard. Perfect for lighter conversations where being seen of heard wasn’t a threat.
Outside at the BBQ table (or slow laps on the grass, shoes off) — this was for the big stuff. Grief. Life decisions. Emotions that needed movement and open sky as co‑regulators.
The sunlit room downstairs — private, quiet, no foot traffic. Chosen when someone needed to go deep about work without any chance of being overheard.
The large meeting room — space to pace, a whiteboard to think out loud. For the processors who needed to externalise their thinking.
The small plain room — almost never chosen. Which tells you everything.
Room choice wasn’t random. It was an unconscious signal about the emotional territory ahead. The room itself wasn’t neutral — it was a silent, but influential, partner in the conversation.
The physical container shapes the emotional one
We talk a lot about psychological safety, rapport, trust, and “holding space.” But we rarely talk about the literal space — the architecture, the lighting, the objects, the sensory cues — and how profoundly they shape what becomes possible between two people.
For anyone navigating cultural safety, sensory load, trauma, or power dynamics, the physical environment isn’t a backdrop. It’s part of the relationship.
And once you see that, you can’t unsee it.
Vibemaxxing: the intentional design of connection
I started thinking about how we can reverse‑engineer this in our own spaces — coaching rooms, workplaces, homes, Zoom calls. Not as mindless decoration, but as intentional relational design.
The art on the wall.
The lighting.
The objects you choose.
The seating arrangement.
What’s in frame on your Zoom background — and what isn’t.
This is vibemaxxing: intentionally shaping the environment to support the kind of conversation, connection, or emotional experience you want to create.
And humans have been doing this forever.
Churches: soaring ceilings, dim light, stone, quiet — designed to evoke awe and stillness.
Interrogation rooms: bright overhead lighting, hard surfaces, minimal space — designed to induce discomfort and compliance.
Your favourite bar: low lighting, velvet cushions, background noise at the perfect level — designed for intimacy, loosened edges, unexpected conversations.
Environmental psychologists have been documenting this for decades. Environmental designers make billions from it. And yet in our everyday relationships — personal or professional — we often leave this lever untouched.
Kurt Lewin told us in 1936 that behaviour is a function of person and environment. We’ve just forgotten to apply it to the rooms we actually control.
A small invitation
Take a look at the space you’re in right now — physical or digital. The blank wall. The bookcase. The lamp. The plant. The colours. The textures. The light.
Every element is projecting something.
The real question is: Is it intentional? And is it supporting the kind of connection you want to create?