Why You Over Explain And How to Stop Losing People Mid Sentence

Have you ever answered a question and over a long period of time of explaining you just end up confused and the other person is also confused and at that point you forgot the question they asked and the answer that you actually wanted to give and even they have forgotten the question they asked as well. That is over explaining and it actually doesn't do you much favors in how people see you. Most people, like I, didn't even know that we were doing that. By the end of this, you will be able to catch yourself doing this and fix it in real time. Picture this, you ask someone a simple question, what do you think about X? X could be a political idea, a pop culture thing or some social issue that you're excited about and then they start with a context that you have no idea where it's leading up to, the events that happened before that context, the reasons and then another backstory and then even more context about the context and three minutes in, you've just completely lost track. You've forgotten the question you asked and you're just trying to desperately contain all that information that they gave you as to what's important and what's not important and you don't even know what their answer is. You don't even know what's important. The exchange goes nowhere and nobody wins. It doesn't just waste time. It actually makes the person look less articulate and that person just makes people tune out and the uncomfortable thing to sit with is that we've probably done this more than we think. It's not that it's stupidity, it's that we're just anxious. The fear is that if you just answer the question without the context, they will judge you without understanding you and that's why we preload the answer before we actually deliver it. It's like an armor against a potential attack but the act of putting on that armor actually makes us look more unsure and makes us look less confident in our own answer and it makes us look actually less competent. The more you have to explain your answer, the more it feels like it could potentially be a lie. So this is a simple rule that I've been adopting. Answer first and give context if necessary or if asked. Even if you think they'll be confused, even if you know they'll be confused, just give the answer first. Giving the answer first has another benefit to not just being direct and answering the question. It also grounds the conversation that could potentially happen. It grounds you in what you're trying to support if you needed to explain it further. Every explanation starts to land. They will be able to tell what parts of what you're saying is important because they already know your answer. I could give an example of this. Let's say someone asks you what your favorite ice cream flavor is and you start off with this. I like it a bit sweet or not too sweet but I do like a little bit of bitter aftertaste. Something that's not overwhelming and that's why I like dark chocolate. The better way to say that is I like dark chocolate because of the slight bitterness, it's not too heavy, it's one that really suits me. Same information, right? But you don't have to use too much processing power about what's a flavor that's a little bit bitter, that's not too heavy, there's so many flavors now, oh wait, no, it's chocolate. Okay, so you said dark chocolate. You offload the potential processing power and the looking through the dark that they have to do. Sometimes you have to think about the answer a bit more. Sometimes you need to get the context in your head first but you don't need to word salad that to them because it's processing that you need to do. And so it's okay to pause sometimes with questions. In fact, that makes you look more intelligent, actually makes you look like you're thinking about the question. You process the bitterness, the not too heavy thing in your head and when you did that and then you deliver your answer, your context is already pre-built. And sometimes you need to think about an answer but there's just too much information and you honestly don't know the yes or no or the succinct answer. And in that case, I would say that the answer is I don't know. And it's okay to say I don't know either because you don't. Giving the answer first gives them a handle to understand the whole conversation instead of them having to go on overdrive like a overpowered laptop trying to process all this information that you gave it. Places to use this can include like a supervisor asking what you did. You just say what you did and you only provide the why if he asks you the why. What did you use at the back end? I used Dataverse. Why did you use Dataverse? Because it sits in the Microsoft ecosystem and the AOM goes through a succinct process since the program we're making for this client is all on the Microsoft tenancy anyway. I thought it would be the most robust solution. That's it. The feeling to justify it fools you into thinking that you're giving clarity to a situation but actually it's just your anxiety talking, believing that you might be attacked unless you do. That's a clean way to handle conversations. It's an excellent way going forward. Another metaphor I could use is like someone asking for water and they have a cup and you start to pour in the water and you think that giving them more water is going to win you more favor because you're giving them more of what they asked for but you start pouring and pouring and actually the cup starts to overfill and it starts to spill over and the person is like, what are you doing? I can't drink all of this. I didn't want to drink all of this and now there's a mess on my hand. So you just pour a sufficient amount, just a small amount and then if they want more, they will ask for more. Not sure if that's the best metaphor but I think you get the picture. So if you guys are struggling with this, that would be something I would encourage. When someone asks a question, try to give the answer first. You don't have to do it every time but just give it a few times and see how you go and see how the conversation goes. See if it makes it easier for you to talk. It certainly did so for me. If you felt like that content landed, give a like and subscribe so you don't miss out on more content. I'm passionate about building these skills in real time and giving you real concrete evidence of it working in my life. But what about you guys? How do you keep grounded in your conversations? Let me know in the comments below. Do you over explain in work and how did you navigate through that if you've already been through that journey? Let me know. All right. See you guys on the next one.