110: When to Stop Talking: A strategy for gaining control in any conversation

This is an episode about knowing when to stop talking in a discussion, argument, or negotiation so you don't create an undesirable outcome for yourself. Inspired from the moment I watched this clip from the couch in my living room this past week, here's a portion of it.

We need to talk.

Okay.

And we need to have a serious, honest, just you and me talk.

If you've been binging on reality television this past month or so, that line may sound familiar to you. If not, no worries. You're probably the better for it. If you're a member of Bachelor Nation. You know, the voice you heard was that of Chris Harrison, the host of the Bachelorette and all the other spin offs from the Bachelor. What he was talking about was a problem that he needed to solve for the Bachelorette. And. And you are going to be the beneficiary of that problem. How people can get into a bind from talking in both professional and personal situations, even if you're on a reality television program. But let's face it, the producers love it. What I'm talking about today is how to know when to stop talking. You probably talk too much. We all do. And there is a good reason for that. Because science says humans are social animals that are programmed to use communication as a means of survival. If you've ever stopped yourself midway in a conversation by saying, I'm talking too much, what were you saying? Well, then keep listening to learn when to stop, how to stop, and the benefit you will reap when you do. That's what I'm talking about. How's this for a statistic? According to Harvard psychologist, people spend 60% of their conversations talking about themselves, 80% when chatting on social media. No surprise there. This means we all have work to do on not focusing on ourselves in conversations. Now, I'm sure you've heard the line from Stephen Covey from his book the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply. Many of us are guilty as charged. We all want to be competent communicators, skilled conversationalists. But it's no easy task if we only feel comfortable in a conversation when we talk about ourselves. Each of us, all of us, I do too. We have that person or some people in our lives who monopolize conversations. They ramble on and on about themselves, their job, their kids, every moan and groan about what's going on in their life. We all do. And we all do it. I mean, we love them, but you know, I mean, it's okay. I know I've been guilty of it. It's fun to talk about our lives. I love sharing anecdotes with other people, with my friends, I about the absurdities of my life. I mean, it's fun. Conversations are more enjoyable when you're in control of it, rather than when you're held hostage by it. Am I right? So in this episode, I'm going to provide a super duper power strategy that helps you take control of the conversation by knowing when to stop talking. I'll also share some ideas for helping you curb the urge to speak when you monopolize that conversation. So these tips are so easy to remember that I know they will be in the foreground for the next important conversation you have. Now here are three things that can happen when you talk too much. Here's the risk one, you lose opportunities for learning information because you're yammering on too much. No one can get a word in. Two, it can be annoying. I don't know many people who love over talkers. I don't know where their place is in this world. Nothing good, honestly, can come from being an over talker or an oversharer. And three, crucially, you lose control of the outcome. You may even leak too much information. That crap. Why did I just say that moment? When you're talking too much now, picture yourself in a conversation that you want to tip your way. What do you want from that conversation? Now I'm not talking about how's the weather? Did you watch the game last night? What the heck is going on with Rudy Giuliani anyway? I mean, a serious negotiation. The conversations you prepare for, the conversations you might pull out a piece of paper and write down what you want to accomplish in that conversation. You need three things on your side at the end of that conversation. One, you want truth. Two, you want control. And three, you want a desired outcome. Whatever your intent is at the moment that conversation begins, it needs to manifest by the end. Now here's what I mean. There's so many situations where you want to gain control in a negotiation for a house or a car, a job interview, navigating a prickly person on the job or a situation at work, negotiating a raise, negotiating a teenager, a media interview, getting up and speaking at town hall, a cocktail hour, a family get together, meeting new people, going on a date, trying to get out of that date, attempting to end a marriage or finding a person to marry. Which brings me back to the beginning. The Bachelorette. This is how I got the idea for this episode. So it's all thanks to reality television. My oldest daughter came home from college last week. Yay. It was so exciting to see her. But it also was a time for me to snuggle up on the couch with her and beg her to allow me to watch season 16 of the Bachelorette. So she loves sitting down so we could sit and chat about it. Now, for reference, I stopped watching the program after season one in 2002. I had to google that to find out when it started. That was the last time I was really invested in the program. But I do watch it nowadays to bond with my girls. It's what we have to do as a parent. So you can imagine as a mother how difficult it is to keep my comments to myself. When women are throwing themselves at men, oftentimes wearing pathetic T shirts, the men. But I try to contain it, but I do fail. So here we were the night before Thanksgiving and we started watching with the premiere of 39 year old Hairstylist Claire Crowley. She's the Bachelorette. She's starting to meet all of her suitors, the bachelors. Well, when Ms. Claire rocked Bachelor Nation, when she claimed to fall head over heels in love, the moment she was introduced to the 1. All of this happened in the first few moments of the episode. Now stay with me if I'm losing you here. If you don't watch the Bachelorette, if I had to watch this, you have to listen. But I'll go through this quickly. It's important. Now, Claire remarked that she definitely felt like she had just met her future husband. It was just perfect for television moments. And she also said that she was. This is for effect. So you get the idea. Oh my God, I'm shaking. She said after she met her now fiance, Dale Moss, and when they were coming out of the limousine. It's all a part of the production. But she knew the moment she met this former professional football player. Well, that's what it says on his bio, but he's really a practice squad player. That little tidbit doesn't make for good television copy. So former pro football player he is for now. Now, I was only moments into this program when I noticed a foible about Claire. Well, one of many, aside from being extre desperate for a guy. But this one was at the top of the list because I knew she did it a lot. She was a person who did not know how to stop talking. And this tick shaped her Persona, her weak lack of confidence Persona. It's perfect for reality television, but not for navigating life. So when she spoke too much, she let people in too much. How men have always left her, how they didn't, quote, show up for her. Now, the mom in me wanted to impart two lessons to my daughter. You know, one just as a communication lesson, but also a really important behavioral pattern that is problematic for single women. You don't want to come off as too weak. So I said to my daughter, you need to stop talking and let other people talk first. And that's when she said to me, mom, stop talking. So that was ironic and pretty funny. So by the time we get to the end of the episode. So I guess I'll put the spoiler in here. If you haven't watched the program, I'm gonna tell you what happens. But who am I kidding? No one cares. Listening to this right now. But Claire couldn't hide her feelings for Dale from the other bachelors, and they were all irritated with her in a reality show kind of a way. And the producers had their drama. So it's reality show manna from heaven. But here is where the point of the whole episode comes into play. The host, Chris Harrison, comes into Claire's room to discuss the situation. All right, so here we go. Here's the whole objective of this episode. Now that you know the background, listen for the setup, Listen to one of the most powerful maneuvers that you can have in your hands for any negotiation. It's quick, but listen, we need to talk, okay?

And we need to have a serious, honest, just you and me talk right now. The guys in the house are unhappy. They're confused. These are good guys, and they're not dumb. These are smart men. They know what's going on.

Yeah.

The path we're on right now, we can't continue.

All right? Did you hear it? Or hopefully you didn't hear it. Chris Harrison made a statement, and he followed it by silence. He didn't even ask a question. It was just a statement. With silence, which is a non verbal way to say to the person in the conversation. Now you. It's knowing how to drop a line and letting it hang there, dangle a bit, if you will, and then sit back and. And wait. When it comes to getting what you want from a conversation as your point of origin, sure, it comes down to what you say. But what you don't say is where that super duper power tip comes into play. Now listen, what happens when you end on that statement? There's a pause and then the spill. Here's Claire a few beats after Chris Harrison stopped speaking. It's hard. It's hard because on one hand, like now, what Claire is saying here really isn't important to this conversation on the podcast. And if you want to see it, I'm sure you can watch it on demand or you can Google it on YouTube. But what we're listening for is the strategy and how important it is to maintain or get control of a situation within a conversation. The host and the producers were in control of that entire situation about Claire falling in love. But they needed to convince Claire that her fate rested in her own hands when it really wasn't. It was all a manipulation. What the host of the Bachelor wanted to have happen was for Claire to talk herself off the show for falling in love with one of the Bachelors before she was supposed to and ignoring all the other Bachelors. It made for bad reality television. The producers, however, they couldn't kick Claire off the show. It would have been a PR disaster. But, ah, Claire, if she said it herself or did it herself, well, now you have your PR win. So did you get that? Silence. To use this strategy effectively means staying quiet for more time than you feel comfortable doing. It's tough, but an influential tool for business and your personal life. I found this statement by Peter Bregman in the Harvard Business Review. Silence is a greatly underestimated source of power. In silence, we can hear not only what is being said, but also what is not being said. In silence, it can be easier to reach the truth. Ah, the truth of the matter. Remember what you want in an important conversation. You want truth, you want control, and you want your desired outcome. Look what happened to Claire. She talked her way into an undesirable outcome. Now she is an ex Bachelorette who is missing weeks of primetime television exposure because she pulled herself out of the role. Now, as an aside, I asked my daughter the over under on when she's going to get dumped. I think it's right after New Year's. So if you're watching the Bachelorette, I think you're going to agree with me on that. So, scripted television aside, reality television, you can see the value of manipulating a conversation in your favor. Now, how do you do it to ensure you're giving your conversation partner equal time and putting the conversation in your favor? Business psychiatrist Mark Goldston says it's important to pay attention to the three stages of speaking to other people. Think about these stages in 40 second increments. The first stage, the business stage, it's on task. It's relevant and concise. The second stage, the feel good Stage so wonderful and tension relieving for you, you don't even notice the other person is no longer listening to you. The third stage is that off track attempt to recover so you recognize that you've bored the other person. You recognize that they're starting to Dr. So the, the usual impulse is to talk even more in an effort to regain their interest. Now Goldston writes that he too was guilty of this. I find this fascinating and the fact that he was so open about sharing it. So when he was, he was on a media tour for his book Just Listen, which I happened to highlight in episode five of my podcast. It was just the secret to getting through to just about anyone. Anyway, Golson was on a media blitz and he was on npr. And the host, the show's host, Marty Nemko, told him he needed to start practicing what he preached because he was over talking on the media interview, you know, likely from nerves. So Nemko in turn offered a strategy to rein in the chatter for Goldston and also the listeners. So here's what he said. Here's how to prevent compulsive talking. So one in the first 20 seconds, picture a green light, okay? This is the time the listener is listening to you. They like you, their ears are open to take in whatever it is that you're saying. So everything you say is relevant to the conversation and you're helping a person. The next 20 seconds that turns into the yellow lights, okay? So if you keep speaking now, now the risk is increasing that the other person is going to lose interest and they might start thinking at this point that you're long winded. Now at the 42nd mark, your light is red. So yes, there's an occasional time where you can get into the space if you're talking about like a really good or juicy story where the person just is hanging on your every word. But other than that, you're now running that red light and you keep talking and talking and the vast majority of the time you're talking to the point that you're putting yourself in danger. In other words, you no longer have control of the conversation. You may start leaking too much information. You are putting yourself in a position where the outcome will not be desirable for you. The stoplight strategy is an excellent strategy. Now if it doesn't work, my 16 year old daughter shared a tip that she learned on TikTok when I was talking to her about this episode. She said if someone is talking too much, you just drop something and when you come back up from picking it up, you just start talking. So you just cut them out without them even noticing, which I love that tip. It reminded me of the bend and snap. Works every time. Did you catch that pop culture reference? If you did well, then this Bachelorette episode was spot on for you. If not, no worries. Because now you have the keys to the kingdom for gaining control of any conversation. The overall takeaway? Use silence as a tool to gain an advantage in the conversation. How to resist the temptation to over talk Pay attention to the three stages of speaking when you're talking to other people. That first stage is all business. You have their full attention. The next part, it's feeling good when you're talking. But that third piece of it, that third stage is the recovery part. That's when your nerves start to take over and you start to lose control. And the trick to preventing that compulsive talking? Just focus on the first 20 seconds, that green light when you have everyone's full attention, and then slowly or abruptly stop. Because in the end, you'll get exactly what you want from that conversation. Truth, control, and your desired outcome. That's all for this edition of the Confident Communications Podcast. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on your player of choice. I publish a lot of relevant content that's up to date and provide tips that can help you at the moment you need it. For example, a listener recently shared with me the timing of the Parlor episode, where I gave you the primer of everything you needed to know about Parlor. The episode dropped on her phone and she saw it on the day she needed to meet with her team to discuss Parlor. Look at that. Me. I'm here to serve. But enough about me. I'll stop talking. Bye for now.