The Power of Silence

Did you know that one of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself and others is good communication? But listen, sometimes I don't know if I'm supposed to talk a little more, be a little quiet, ask more questions, throttle up or throttle back. I want to give you some tips for how you can improve your communication today. Hi, my name is Chrystal Hurst. If you're here for the first time and it's always somebody's first time. I want you to know that I am here every week sharing content that I believe will help you to level up your life. This content was first created inside of my membership though, for my Inner Circle girls. Why? Because I really truly believe that we are better together. That's why this is coming out to you. But I also believe that there are some women who want more— more coaching from me, more mentoring from my friends, more in-depth studies, community development. And for those girls, I give them the best of the stuff first. What is not here is what they got, which is the fun and the foolery. Think of it like a morning talk show with friends where you talk about all the things to get your day going. This is the buttoned-up part. Right now I'm speaking in my super professional voice, letting you know that I sometimes can know what I'm talking about. That's what you get here on today. I would love for you to consider joining me in the Inner Circle. We're getting geared up for our third quarter. You can join at any time, but in third quarter we're going to be focusing on getting your home in order and getting your family straight. So there are some things when you're misaligned spiritually, wives, that wives just want to say, let me tell you all the things, let me tell you all the things you need to do, are you going to come to church with me? That is not the way. That is not the way. The way to deal with misalignment spiritually is to just get further into alignment with God, because you are a distinct person bringing your distinct person to the marriage of this distinct person. You keep being your distinct person. You keep growing in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You keep developing and diving deep. You keep being pleasant and believing the best about your spouse and operating in 1 Corinthians 13 with your spouse, that you hope all things, believe all things, that you are for all things and for him. So where you don't see eye to eye spiritually, and that affects the decisions that you make with work or your finances or your children, yes. You will, you will yield. But you don't want to compartmentalize it. So whether it's the unspiritual or whether it is an actual disagreement about the things that we've talked about earlier, you want to speak with the Holy Spirit's leading, and you don't want to lord your rightness, your knowledge, your experience over your husband. We change our focus every quarter, and I'd love for you to join me for the third quarter of 2023. Come on on the inside, we're having a good time. I also want you to know, if you didn't already know, that I'm taking some girls who want to go with me on a retreat. You can find out more about that by going to thesistercircle.com/retreat. Where are we going? It's 2023, so I'm inviting y'all to come on and come to Cali with me. Why? Because something magical happens when you make space to get away with a few girls, to be quiet before God, and to hear the rhythm of your own heartbeat. I'd love for you to come. You can simply go to thesistercircle.com/retreat. All right, y'all, let me jump into it. I am typically uncomfortable with silence. I rush to fill it. I don't want other people to feel uncomfortable. That empty space is a problem. But here's what I'm also learning, that silence is a gift. It's a gift for me to leave space for someone else to think, to get their thoughts together, and for me to hear what's really happening in the room. In order to create a silence that's productive, however, I have learned that being a good question asker is the preemptor to a silence that gives you information. Why does all this matter? Let me tell you why. I've been married for 22 years, y'all, and there are a thing or two I have learned about communication with my spouse, communication with my kids. And honestly, as a mother and as a wife, I want to tell them all the things. I want to let them know that I'm right, that I have the information, and if they just listen to me, their lives would be golden. You know, living my life like it's golden. Like that. But I've learned, particularly as people get older, my children get older, and particularly when I want to see them develop in their own level of confidence, my children in their level of decision-making, if I want to give my husband space to not only lead but solve the problems, I don't have to solve everything. I actually can do a better job guiding my people by asking good questions and then being quiet long enough for them to answer. I have learned particularly that this skill is helpful in my home, the skill of asking questions and the skill of being quiet. It's also extremely helpful at work because I'm a verbal processor and I also sometimes am figuring things out. But what I realize is I get a chance to empower my team when I don't have to be the person who figures it out. Ask a question and then hold space for the answers. One of the greatest communication tools that you will ever develop is asking intentional, meaningful questions and then holding space for the answer. I have been thinking about this because y'all know ChatGPT is all the rage. There are a million other AI sites that are like ChatGPT. ChatGPT was just free for a while, and now they're charging, and everybody's like, oh my gosh, ChatGPT, ChatGPT, it's so smart, I can figure out what's wrong with me, I don't have to do this, I don't have to do that, AI for the win. Okay, but you know what ChatGPT requires you to do? In order for you to get a good answer, you have to ask a good question. And the best information that you're going to get out of that particular AI service is if you know how to ask the question. If you ask a question in ChatGPT and then you go off Googling for the answer, you're not allowing ChatGPT to do its job. If you ask a question and you don't get the answer you want, then maybe you're not asking a good question. What we are all learning to do at a deeper level is to be thoughtful about the questions that we put out there so that when we hold space for the answers and the responses to come, we are creating space for that. We don't have to do all the work. Do Do you realize one of the greatest things about asking questions and leaving space for answers is that you empower yourself to delegate to other people to do the work? Y'all, we have answers, okay? We girls know answers. I'm not saying men don't, and I'm not saying children don't. I'm just saying we are powerful beings. That's what I'm saying. But we dilute our power when we enter every conversation with the questions and with the answer. We don't leave space for other people. Sometimes other people don't know they have the answer. Sometimes your children don't know that they have the answer. You've been pouring into them. I remember Kevin Lehman told me back on a podcast that we did, uh, at the time my oldest son was 15, and I was talking about some decisions we were trying to make, and he just said, let him decide. And I was like, what? He's 15. He said, but you've been his mother for the last 15 years, right? And I said, yes. And he said, well What you put in at this point should be coming out. One of the greatest gifts that you can give him is letting him answer, because really, does it really matter? I mean, you may have a preference, but does it matter that much? Or does his confidence in his own decision-making ability matter more in the season of his life? It's baked in. You poured it in. Listen, your husband has been married to you forever. He knows what you're gonna say. Your children, you've been pouring into them forever. They're working with a battery of basic information. The only way that you're going to actually not have to do everything, not have to think about everything, not have to be in control, not have to give every answer, is if you leave room for other people to be the heroes. Do you know that this is not only a tactic at home, but it's a tactic at work? You want to empower other people to rise to the occasion, to lead others, to manage others well? Back up, ask a question, and then when there's that awkward silence, Don't fill it. Resist the urge to fill it. Why? Because you leave space for other people to rise up. The other thing that will happen is when you leave space, when you operate in silence, whether you've asked the question or whether you're just in the room, you increase your emotional intelligence by being able to see the nonverbal communication of everyone else and what they're not saying. Because you do realize nonverbal communication is so much more of our communication than we give itself credit for. If you're talking all the time, your brain is processing what you're saying. If you operate in silence or in quiet, your brain then gets to process what everyone else is saying with their mouths or with their body. Silence is powerful. I need you to get curious in life. We all— I consider myself prior to ChatGPT, and I've messed with ChatGPT, it's not even my fave. There are some other AIs that to me do a much better job of some of the things that I want to do in this world, because AI, y'all, Sidebar, you do realize you need to learn it. Like, it won't necessarily take your job, but the people who will continue to have jobs are the people who know how to leverage AI for their job. You got that for free. But I think the reason why AI putting in questions or putting in initial data to get something in response doesn't feel hard to me is because I'm a master Googler. This is why I always have like 97 tabs open in one window on my computer. Because I normally have like 4 windows open. You know, got a marketing window open, I got an email window open, I have a YouTube window open, and then I have all the other miscellaneous, all the other things I'm doing that day. It's nuts, it's bananas. But you know what, I label them all and I know where I am, so who cares? But I, if I want to know anything, I can learn anything. Ali Worthington, my friend, says with Google and God you can do anything. I believe it's true. Like, we have the secrets of the universe at our fingertips. You can study the Bible, you can get Greek interpretation, you can, you can, um, You go to YouTube University and learn how to install, tear down, demolition, anything. Like, you really can teach yourself anything these days. The problem that we have— go with me here— the problem that we have— I don't have a Google problem, I have an information overload problem. We have an information overload problem. So the winners in this world are going to be the ones that know which question to ask, and they know how to siphon through all the information that's out there. And one One of the ways that you give yourself the best ability to siphon through it is get quiet, pace yourself. Knowing how to ask the right questions, whether you are Googling or whether you're ChatGPTing or whether you're in a conversation with your spouse, with your kids, or you're leading a meeting at work, knowing what questions to ask so that you get out of the person, out of their system, the information that you need to have, that is the real skill here. You gotta know how to ask the right questions, right? So you practice asking questions and being silent, and then you'll realize, oh, people are talking to you all the time, all the time. You just gotta get quiet to listen. So I want to encourage you to think carefully about how you're showing up in your marriage, how you're showing up with your children, how you are showing up at work, and whether you are holding space for other people to fill it so that you can learn what's going on in other people's hearts and minds and what they're doing, so that you increase your emotional IQ, so that you get and gather more information. But here's some other things I want you to know about asking good questions and being silent. Number one, When you're not silent, you aren't listening. You can't do a good job of listening when you're always processing the next thing you want to say. When you don't listen to people, here's what you risk happening in those conversations. This is why this is so important to your relationships and to work— your husband, your spouse, your children, your friendships. When you don't listen, you risk people disengaging. They're not showing up to the conversation anymore. You risk them becoming frustrated or annoyed because you constantly have something to say. There's no room for them to be the hero. You risk losing trust and confidence because if you're always the winning answer, then they don't think that you trust them, and it just creates division unnecessarily. You will whittle down people's commitment at work because why should we do anything if you're going to do everything? Questioning is a uniquely powerful tool for unlocking value in organizations. Um, Dale Carnegie said in the 1936 classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, he said, be a good listener, ask questions the other person will enjoy answering. And more than 80 years later, most people still fail to heed Carnegie's advice. Let me tell you something, it might hurt your feelings a little bit, but it can change the way you think. You matter. You matter to God. Y'all have heard me say it a million times. There has never been nor will there ever be someone just like you. You got to show up to circumstances and bring all of the fullness of who you are into them. I truly believe that with all of my heart. But when you show up to those circumstances, when you show up to those rooms, when you show up to those conversations, when you show up in that meeting, you don't have to show up always filling the space with your mouth. Be a good listener, because when you're a good listener, what you do is bring the power of your collection of information. And being armed with information is what the name of the game is right now, isn't it? Being silent allows you to channel your energy Where do I actually need to speak into something? Where do I not? When I am with my 4 siblings— and people have noticed this, this is why I bring it up— when I'm with my 4 siblings, I have been told that I'm the quiet one. And yet here I am every week on YouTube putting out content and yapping. At this point in the recording of this initial video, I have been live with my inner circle for 90 minutes. I don't have a problem with words, but we have so many wonderful words when the four of us get together, or maybe it's the four of us with my dad. And normally I just want to add to the conversation when it's needed. I feel like other people can answer the question, so I typically am quiet because If I add to the conversation, I want it to be because there was some information missing from what everyone else said. And people say, "You're the quiet one." Or my brother has said to me, "Well, wait for Chrystal, and then when Chrystal speaks, she'll drop the mic." It's not that I'm trying to drop the mic. It's just that I've listened. And if there's anything to add, I am clearly aware of what needs adding. I found this to be the case with my children. If I let them lead, particularly as I coach them into adulthood. Because you do realize that you become more of their guide and their coach as they get older. Um, I've realized it's even with my friends. I can tell them all the answers of the universe that I think I have the answers to, but if I ask them questions and let them lead with their genius, if I do the same thing for my husband and I'm just quiet— like, if it's not needed, why am I putting my words into the atmosphere? If I'm quiet and I let them work it out, they grow in confidence, they grow in their ability, and they grow in their thought that I I trust them to make decisions. Do you know how much of a gift that is to a spouse or to children? That I think you can figure it out. I'm here to help you, but I don't need to add to the conversation if you have the juice. So one of the other things that happens greatly when I do that is that when I do speak, they listen better. I was with someone in church recently, and we were talking about a conversation that needs to be had in leadership capacity. And I said, why haven't you had this conversation with them yet? And he said, Oh, because I don't want it to be white noise. If I come and I say too many things, then the thing that really matters the most won't get digested. So I'm gonna wait until I can see that what I need to say really needs to be said, so what I say will carry weight. When I ask a question to my children or to my husband and I affirm what they've already come up with, I'm so glad you thought of that. Wow, I'm glad you, you know, remembered that. Or thank you so much for taking care of that or researching that. Or that's a great answer. Let me ask you a question, husband, children, daughters, sons, co-workers. Have we thought about, have we considered Do you think it will be a problem if your questions then again give the people you're talking to an opportunity to be the hero? I mean, you can be Home Depot. You can do it. We can help. But the beauty of Home Depot and Lowe's is like, we think you can do it. So we're going to give you all the tools, all the things. You come and shop and we're here to just let you know where things are at or give you a little input. But do you know how much satisfaction comes from doing things yourself, how much confidence you build? What makes you think that the people in your life, your coworkers, your husband, your, your spouse, your kids, your friends don't need to develop that same confidence too? And when you're quiet, you leave room to give the information that actually makes a difference. And you also leave room for them to make a difference in their own lives because they develop their confidence. When you're quiet, it gives you clarity. About what the real challenge is. When you're quiet, it allows you to practice training your mind to look for the most important thing. When you're quiet, it brings intense insight. Now, I'm not saying you can't be a talkative person. I'm saying words matter. Maya Angelou, "Words are living things." So when you put them out into the world, whether they're in declarative format, interrogative format, or imperative format, be intentional about what you meant and mean to say. One of the things that I wanted to show you and share with you is an article that I found. It says, allowing for and using silence is the ultimate evidence of quiet confidence as a leader. This is a website, leadingpeopleright.com. Words always matter, but being silent reveals a different kind of strength. In you. Use all the tools you have. Create a space others can fill up with themselves and listen. And I want to jump down to this part I highlighted down at the bottom. What happens when it's quiet? Silence is the absence of talking or noise. And wow, that's hard to find today. When it finally arrives, invariably these things happen. Here's what happens when you get quiet: people pause and begin to reflect. The void fills with a sense of discomfort calm, or something in between, and it amplifies what follows. Listen, when you're quiet, you amplify what's in the room. You're going to amplify other people that just need room to grow. You're going to amplify, uh, listen, I have had to deal with lots of people, volunteers and ministry people at work sometimes, and I'm just going to say this like it is, people say dumb stuff. Okay. They just say dumb stuff. And sometimes if you just hold quiet for a second after they say it, they will then hear what they said. And you can see the realization wash over them as they realize what they just said. You don't even have to correct. You just sit there. And hold space for them to hear the echo of what they said boomerang back to them. It amplifies. If there is genius in the room, your silence will amplify someone's genius because maybe they're not a quick talker or maybe they're a processor or maybe they're insecure or maybe they're not sure what their footing is on the team. When you leave space, you leave room for genius to be amplified. When you're silent, you leave space and room for trust to be amplified. That I trust you to actually answer the question. So silence may be uncomfortable, but that's what makes it so powerful. If you pause for several seconds after you ask a question After you ask a question or make a statement, other people will feel compelled to fill the silence, which can work to your benefit. Listen, it's like playing poker. Sometimes you don't fill the space because you need to know what's going on in other people's minds. And the only way that you're going to find that out is if you leave room for them to talk. Silence is powerful. Your positive silent presence— because there's a negative silent president presence. Some of us grew up in homes where you would get the silent treatment. As a punitive experience for something you didn't do right. Somebody wasn't talking to you, wasn't calling your name, or a friend wanted to— they were like, "I'm going to show you." So they just stopped talking to you. You know, the boyfriend stopped calling. It can be punitive. I'm talking about positive silence where you are there holding hope and space for other people to rise to the occasion. It can make a huge difference in how people feel and how they respond. And it also impacts the quality of information that you receive from other people because in silence, they're going to fill the space with what they think you need to know. Here's something else I found. Um, this is from the Harvard Business Review. I want to share this with you. Much of an executive's workday is spent asking, uh, others for information, requesting status updates from a team leader, for example, a questioning counterpart in a tense negotiation. Yet unlike professionals like litigators, journalists, and doctors who are taught how to ask questions as an essential part of their training, Few executives think of questioning as a skill that can be honed or consider how their answers to questions could make conversations more productive. This, and this is what I want you to hear, this is a missed opportunity. Questioning is a uniquely powerful tool for unlocking value in organizations. It spurs learning and the exchange of ideas. It fuels innovation and performance improvement. It builds rapport and trust among team members, and it can mitigate business risk by uncovering unforeseen pitfalls, and habits. Now, I love asking questions. I am a question asker, and I realize that everyone else doesn't always feel that this is the thing that they do the best. Learn, learn to ask questions, learn to poke around, um, learn to hold the space for people to listen. Because let me tell you something else, y'all, people are interested in talking about themselves. They're interested in talking about themselves. They're interested in telling you what they know. They want you to know what space they take up in a room. When you walk into a room, what communicates your confidence is that you don't need to take up space and you can leave room for everyone else to tell their own story. Holding space can be difficult because who wants an awkward silence? Let the awkward silence be. There's an article on LinkedIn and it literally says, the title is, when you ask a question, be quiet and let them answer. Be quiet for as long as it takes. All right? Because you want to create an expectation for people. There's a process for some people as they ask their question. And most of us will think through the question in our heads and possibly even consider our answer before asking it out loud. People need time to process. Okay? Put yourself in the shoes of a person being asked a question. Remember a time maybe you were asked something that was not front of mind? What did you do? You needed to think. Hold space for people to think because maybe the goal that you need in your family, the goal that you're looking for in your organization will come if you leave room for people to give it to you. So here's my assignment to you. I want you to try very intentionally and purposefully to use the power, the tool of questioning and the power of silence at work, and at home with your team, even with your boss, with your peers, at home with your children, with your husband. Think about what you can ask to get more information from them. And then when they share information, leave room for them to answer. I'm a quick thinker, I'm a quick talker, but there are times when I struggle Right now I'm taking piano lessons and sometimes my piano teacher will call out chords. He'll say, all right, I want you to play an A-flat dominant. Now, eventually I'm going to learn how to respond to these quicker. You asked me to play a C major dominant, I can do that. You want me to play an F minor, I can do that. You want me to play an A-flat major, I can do that. But if you ask me to do something in a key I'm not used to playing in, let's say B, Chrystal Hurst, I want you to give me a B half-diminished chord. Shoot, I got to start, I got to work my way into it. It takes me a minute to process. But if he's rushing me, not only do I not get to process on my own time, I also now start to feel anxiety and I also now start to feel stressed because shouldn't I be able to do this quicker? And then I just kind of wait for him to tell me the answer. Now he's doing that less and less. And you know what happens? I fill the space with the answer. So the goal is for you to ask the right questions, but when someone else needs time to process, for you to give them that space. It is my goal to make sure that I am bettering every relationship that I have, every peer relationship, every relationship where I am responsive to someone leading me or where other people are responsive to how I lead them. And one of the best gifts I can give my team, my family, my husband, and my marriage, my children, the girls who I lead on the ministry teams at church, is to be quiet and let them be the heroes. Let them let me know what they already know. And then as they grow in leadership, for me to challenge them, I know you know the answer, don't answer, let the rest of the team rise up. You ask the question. That's me training and delegating and and teaching them how you can walk in the room, say the least, and be the most quiet person there, the most confident person there. You can be confident in your marriage because you don't have to give your husband every single answer. You can be confident in your parenting because your children will eventually figure it out. You can be confident in your team that if you've given them the tools, let them figure it out. Do you know why so many of our our, our children are handicapped today with thinking for themselves is because everything is given to them. Let them figure it out. Let them be bored. Let them Google it. Let them solve their own answer. Because when you do that, you're building strength. But that strength won't come if every time they have a problem, you solve it. What if your husband's confidence— what if his, what if his confidence is leaning on your trust? Of him. And every time you give him an answer, if you would just give him a minute, he would have the problem figured out, maybe even better than you did. So I want you to intentionally and purposefully think about how you can use the power of silence at work and at home. I want you to experience with positive power of your presence, just you being there, not you having a million words. Your silence in your presence can be profoundly popular. Engage fully, live wide awake, and live alive. But when you show up, don't always have to be the first person to talk. Because what if, if you go first, someone else never goes? And what if, if you never went, someone else would actually show up and do what you were hoping they would do or say anyway? This is just where I am this morning. I hope that's been helpful to you. I hope that as you're watching the replay of this, that it's helpful to you. But look at your life. Where can you use the power of silence to maximize the gift of other people in your life? Communication can tell people if you think that they're capable. Your communication can tell people if they're accepted. Your communication, or lack thereof, can tell them if they are— if there's room for them to get it right or get it wrong. It actually is such a gift to let other people know that they have— you are— it's a gift for you to let people know that you're holding space for them. And that's what I do. That's why I'm here every week, leaving space for you in the comments. So let me know how this was helpful to you. Let me know where you struggle, and let me know how this week you're going to exercise the power of silence in your Why? All right, y'all, see you next time. Have a great week.