Table of Contents
- What She Hears That You Don't Say
- How She Coaches
- The Coaching Agreement
- She Remembers
- The Coaching Craft
- How She Compares
- The Journey
- For Organizations
- For Human Coaches
- Built With
Mada #
ICF-aligned AI coaching with real-time emotion awareness.
Mada delivers real coaching — the same process used by credentialed professionals worldwide — through voice, available anytime, at a fraction of the cost.
She is not a chatbot. Not a therapist. Not an advice engine. She asks questions that help people think clearer, see patterns, and move forward.
What She Hears That You Don't Say #
Mada runs on Hume AI's Empathic Voice Interface. While you speak, she reads 48 dimensions of emotion in your voice — tone, rhythm, timbre, pace — every single turn.
When your words say "I'm fine" but your voice says "I'm afraid," she notices.
What you say: "I think I should take the job."
What Hume detects: Contemplation 61%
Anxiety 28%
Doubt 22%
Determination 14%
What Mada does: Slows down. Doesn't push.
"You said 'should.' What do YOU want?"
She never labels your emotions ("I detect anxiety in your voice"). She responds to what they signal — softening when you're sad, grounding when you're anxious, holding silence when something lands.
The 48 Emotions (Not Ekman's 6) #
Based on Alan Cowen's semantic space research. Every measurement is 48 simultaneous scores, not a single category.
Positive — Admiration, Adoration, Amusement, Awe, Calmness, Contentment, Desire, Ecstasy, Entrancement, Excitement, Gratitude, Joy, Love, Nostalgia, Pride, Relief, Romance, Satisfaction, Triumph
Cognitive — Aesthetic Appreciation, Concentration, Contemplation, Confusion, Determination, Doubt, Interest, Realization, Surprise
Negative — Anger, Anxiety, Awkwardness, Boredom, Contempt, Craving, Disappointment, Disgust, Distress, Embarrassment, Envy, Fear, Guilt, Horror, Pain, Sadness, Shame, Sympathy, Tiredness
How She Coaches #
Mada runs a deterministic coaching engine called Oracle — 7 operations mapped to ICF Core Competencies, with emotional interrupt gates.
The 7 Operations #
| # | Op | What It Does | ICF |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PLOT | Ground + contract today's focus | Ethics, Trust, Agreements |
| 2 | DRILL | Peel beneath the surface | Active Listening |
| 3 | DOX | Name patterns tentatively | Coaching Mindset |
| 4 | RAZOR | Cut through overwhelm to one point | Evokes Awareness |
| 5 | SPAN | Connect insight to bigger picture | Agreements (engagement) |
| 6 | FORGE | Identity shift — doing to being | Presence |
| 7 | SEED | Concrete commitment: What + When | Facilitates Growth |
Session Formulas #
Different depths, same engine:
MICRO (5 min, text) DRILL → RAZOR → SEED
SHORT (15 min, voice) PLOT → DRILL → RAZOR → SPAN → SEED
DEEP (30 min, voice) PLOT → DRILL → DOX → RAZOR → SPAN → FORGE → SEED
FEAR (any channel) DRILL → DOX → RAZOR → RADIATE
RADIATE replaces SEED in fear sessions. "What happens to the fear when you simply look at it?" Fear dissolves through seeing, not fighting.
Emotional Gates #
Three interrupt handlers override any operation:
- SAFETY — Shame, withdrawal, shutdown detected? Abort. Return to PLOT. "How is this conversation feeling right now?"
- FLOW — Excitement and depth? Extend. Circular reasoning? Inject RAZOR. "We're circling. What's the core?"
- RESOLUTION — "Aha!" moment, energy shift, sudden clarity? Skip to SEED. Capture the insight.
The Coaching Agreement #
Everything Mada does anchors to a three-layer agreement.
Layer 1: Contract #
Accepted once. AI disclosure, roles, confidentiality, consent, human escalation path.
Layer 2: Engagement Agreement #
Established during onboarding through a Wheel of Life voice session. Goals, measures, meaning, identity, timeline, boundaries. Reviewed periodically. This is the living document.
Layer 3: Session Agreement #
Fresh every interaction. "What would make this conversation valuable for you?" No session starts without a contract.
She Remembers #
Mada doesn't start from zero each session. She maintains an agreement-centered memory system.
Observations — 7 types (insight, pattern, breakthrough, resistance, emotion, language, strength). Each has a salience score that decays daily at 0.95. Breakthroughs never decay. When an observation surfaces 3+ times, it becomes a working theme. At 6+, it's integrated.
Coaching Themes — Cross-session patterns with a depth lifecycle: emerging, active, recurring, integrated. Themes dormant for 30+ days are automatically flagged.
Commitments — First-class tracked. Status: pending, in progress, completed, renegotiated, dropped. Due dates. Overdue detection (daily). Extracted during sessions, never announced.
Session Summaries — What was explored, what shifted, commitments made. Journey phase (me/we/us). Emotional state (thriving/stable/struggling/crisis).
Every follow-up session receives injected context: the agreement, active commitments, and last session summary. She knows where you've been.
The Coaching Craft #
These aren't guidelines. They're hardcoded behaviors.
- Exact words — Your language, not paraphrased. "Stuck in mud" stays "stuck in mud."
- One idea per turn — Two short sentences max. Brevity is presence.
- Encourager-first — One-word answer? "Mm." "Go on." "Say more." Question only if that doesn't open you up.
- Permission before depth — "Can I ask you something direct?" You maintain agency.
- Metaphor persistence — "I feel like I'm drowning" becomes "What would solid ground feel like?"
- Ownership detection — "I should" triggers "You said should. What do YOU want?"
- No filler praise — Never "great question." Reflect, don't applaud.
- Circling detection — Same story three ways? "What's the thing you're not saying?"
- Silence as tool — After something lands, she doesn't fill. "Take your time."
How She Compares #
vs. Generic AI (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) #
| Generic AI | Mada | |
|---|---|---|
| Process | Conversational | State-machine coaching |
| Memory | Session-only | Cross-session, salience-weighted |
| Emotion | Text inference | 48-dimension real-time prosody |
| Framework | None | ICF Core Competencies |
| Commitment | None | Tracked: What + When + status |
vs. Human Coaches #
| Human Coach | Mada | |
|---|---|---|
| Detection | ~50% subliminal (intuition) | 48 dims, quantified, 250ms |
| Consistency | Variable (fatigue, skill) | Same quality minute 1 and 55 |
| Memory | Notes + recall | Perfect cross-session recall |
| Availability | Scheduled | Anytime |
| Embodied depth | YES (co-regulation) | NO (voice only) |
| Relationship | Real vulnerability | Real attunement |
Mada doesn't replace human coaches. She makes coaching accessible to people who would never otherwise have it, and makes human sessions more effective through curated intelligence.
The Journey #
Sign up
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Voice onboarding with Mada
Wheel of Life + agreement formation
|
v
Review and confirm your agreement
|
v
Ongoing voice coaching
Land → Deepen → Cut → Connect → Close
Memory maintains continuity between sessions
|
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Progress tracked automatically
Themes evolving, commitments closing,
emotional trajectory shifting
|
v
Human coach when you want depth
They see your curated intelligence
(only what you approve)
One journey, multiple depths
For Organizations #
- Scalable — ICF-quality coaching for every employee, not just executives
- Measurable — Commitment completion, theme resolution, emotional trajectory
- Human + AI — Not replacement. Multiplier. AI handles volume; humans handle depth
- Privacy-first — Coachee controls data sharing. No surveillance dressed as coaching
For Human Coaches #
- Curated intelligence — See patterns, themes, and emotional trajectory before the session
- Continuity — Mada maintains the relationship between your sessions
- Alignment — The coaching agreement is always shared. One journey, multiple depths
Built With #
Hume AI EVI 3 (voice + emotion) / Claude Opus 4.6 (reasoning) / Convex (real-time backend) / Clerk (auth) / Next.js 16 (frontend)
Mada is built by HeyMada. The coaching agreement is the north star. Everything flows from there.