Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so he is.
Publilius Syrus
1st Century B.C.
I’m sure you’ve known people who are very uncomfortable with silence: they constantly talk even when they have nothing worth saying. At the other end of the spectrum are people who say very little — but when they do speak, their carefully chosen words convey much more than you’d expect.
Here’s my question to you: where do you fit on this spectrum? I know people who talk far too much, and I know others who are sparing with their words. There are problems with both extremes. If we talk too much, people tend to listen less. But when we talk too little, we reduce our connectedness; we can become isolated and may give the impression that we aren’t interested in others.
When most of our communication was “live” — when we spoke face to face or on the phone — we could usually judge our impact by paying attention to the listener. If the person became distracted or disinterested, it was a signal that we’d lost their attention; we had probably gone too long without allowing them to participate in the conversation. Now that so much of our communication is digital, there are few direct feedback methods. It’s extremely easy to miss the signs that we’re talking too much.
So how can we know if our conversations are unbalanced? Here are some points to consider.
- Be aware of how much time you spend talking. Are you hogging the conversation? Or is there balanced participation between you and others?
- Are you talking at or with your listeners? That is, do you try to engage them in discussion, or are you just stating your own opinions?
- Do you pay attention to other people’s words and respond to what they’ve said? Or do you simply ignore them in favor of whatever you want to say next?
- What’s your objective? Are you solely interested in demonstrating your knowledge and intelligence? Or is your goal to build a closer relationship through mutual understanding?
One of the most famous quotes from Shakespeare’s King Henry V is “Men of few words are the best men.” While I think that there’s great value in being a person of few words, I’m not sure that focusing just on the number of words is the key. When we speak, we need to add value to the discussion — and whether it’s live or digital, we ought to participate in conversations, not just deliver monologues.
I find that far too many exchanges are dominated by too few people. If we each focused on adding more value to our conversations, I believe we would contribute to a better world.
Listen to many, speak to a few.
William Shakespeare
1564 – 1616
Copyright 2022 John Chancellor