How to Know When to Talk and When to Listen

So most conversation advice tells you the same thing, that you should talk less and listen more. Now that's solid advice, but there is a bit of a problem here. It doesn't really take in the whole picture. I'm sure many of you can resonate with that moment that when someone is talking and then they go quiet, and then it feels like it's your turn to talk, but you don't really have much to say, and then the conversation just dies. Today I'll be talking about the adjustments that I make to this rule so that you can universally apply it to your conversations and to avoid that dying conversation problem that I faced. Now, a bit of context, I found this problem when I was talking to people. When I tried to apply this rule, the person doesn't talk much, and then the conversation just slows down and grinds to a halt, awkward silence, and then the conversation just dies. It took me a while to figure out that it wasn't the fact that you just generally talk less. It really depends on the person you are with. And so I would talk too much to people who are a bit more talkative, and I would talk too little to the people who are very untalkative. And it's also the case that the same kind of person can go into both those kinds of modes, one mode being more so the expressive talker who is somebody who elaborates on their stories, they go into more detail. They're kind of like the person when you ask them a very simple question of how's things been? They actually tell you what happened over the weekend in some detail. They would use their own conversation through it. So if they talked about a sport that they did over the weekend, they would then talk about another sport that they enjoy doing or another hobby, even though it's not relevant to what they did on the weekend. They fill in the space comfortably and naturally. I sometimes go into that mode, and sometimes I don't. The other mode being more so the reserved listener. These are the people that if they get into a conversation, they warm up slowly, and they give shorter answers to questions. Now, they normally give you cues if they're actually not interested in the conversation, so I wouldn't necessarily mistake that as they're not interested in a conversation at all. Now, when you're in conversation with the reserved listener and you ask how has your day been, they might just say good, or if you ask what did they do over the weekend, they might not give you much to work with. And then this is where I would recommend you don't just reflect the same kind of mode back to them. In this case, in your response, give it a bit more flavor. Give it a bit more context. Talk a little bit more about how you felt or talk a little bit more about other side things. Not too much. Don't just completely explode and balloon it out, but just gradually expand on what they were, the kind of reaction they gave. So if they're very, very brief, they've said very, very little, your response, just give a bit more. Like if you were in the weekend and you were playing board games with your families, you can talk a little bit more than just what game you played. You can talk about what your brother did, what your sister did, the jokes you cracked, the vibe that it is. Just a little bit more air to it. Now, some people might give this a try and feel like they're word vomiting or it feels unauthentic. For those of us who are not as talkative like me sometimes, it's gonna feel awkward to do that for one reason or the other, but it's only because you're not used to doing that that it feels that way. And you're not like doing a monologue where you're talking this person's ear off because you're only responding in a slightly more expressive manner than they did. What you're doing is actually giving them a kind of safe space to be more expressive by setting the example first. Now, before I mentioned about cues, about you showing eyebrow raises or eyes lighting up or saying, oh yeah, that's cool, or, oh, that's interesting. Those kinds of reactions, those kinds of cues, the reserved person's actually gonna show them given that they're interested in what you're talking about. So those are also good indicators of where to take the conversation based on that kind of feedback. And this is also a key point in how to differentiate someone who's disinterested in talking as opposed to someone who is just being a reserved listener. Reserved listeners will still be keen for conversation, but a person who is not interested in conversation will not show you these cues. In fact, they will show you cues that clearly indicate they're not interested. So that would be like trying to face away or their body start to face back to their computers. Or if you're talking to someone on the street, they will not face you. They will start to face somewhere else and their heads might start turning towards another direction. That's an indicator of perhaps they've got things to do or that the conversation is maybe not going in an interesting direction for them. And there's nothing wrong with that. After you've given a bit of a more elaborate answer than they gave, then you can hand the floor back to the reserved listener and see how they respond. They normally warm up and they actually start to talk a little bit more. They feel a bit safer being more expressive because you proactively did that first. Now, for the case of the person who is more so expressive, more so talkative, this is where the talk less is very powerful here. It's where you more so take on the role of the reserved listener and you give them the space to story tell. You be a bit more reserved. And there's things that they may mention that would pique your interest. The key here is to just hold onto that for a period of time. Let them finish their story. A key mistake that I would make in these kinds of interactions is that when the person is talking and they would stop and think, I would then cut off their train of thought with a question or something, thinking that that pause was them giving me space to talk. Whereas actually they were just gathering their thoughts in the moment. The key to differentiating whether or not they're yielding the floor or if they are just having a moment to gather their thoughts is in their body language. A key one would be if they look up like this and pause like that, they are definitely thinking. Now in the moment, it may sound quite obvious now that I'm speaking about it, but in the moment, I often forgot that. I often just dismissed that and just when there was a silence, I took that as a cue and then speak. So when in doubt for this, I would say just let the silence hang a bit longer. If someone is more so an expressive talker, they will fill in that gap. This is key so that you don't derail them or make them feel slightly disrespected even though they know that your intention is not to do that so that they can finish their story. They're in like a flow, they're in like a mojo, they're in a good mood and that's because you were listening to them. Now, when they're doing this, it's not recommended that you just have a blank face that's unexpressive. If they mention something that's interesting, particularly if you find it interesting, if you want more of that, show the person that you want more of that. So that could be expressions like, oh, oh, really? Or leaning in a little bit more depending on the person and the context, maybe don't lean in too much, but face them, show a little bit of reaction to some of the things that they're saying and this shows them, reminds them that you're continuously engaged. Now, I understand that there's some cases where a person talks endlessly and endlessly and you're not actually interested. I wouldn't say to show those signs of interest if you're not actually interested. I would recommend that you do so if you genuinely are. Now, eventually they will yield the floor back to you and that actually kind of set the template of the conversation. They've elaborated on some details like the actual details of what had happened, the emotional experience, side topics that weren't directly related and that kind of gives you a blueprint on how much you can expand on your story that you're about to talk about, how much you can talk about side topics, your emotional experiences. It kind of sets the floor for you, gives you a bit of a blueprint on how much you can say because they said it and then it's now a lot easier for you to say that as well. If they're all very reserved on detail and they only said very short answers with something very specific, didn't really talk about the emotional experiences, didn't really talk about any side topics, then it's really difficult for you to just flesh that out a lot more. So in the cases where there's the expressive talker, when it's your turn to talk, you can then become like the expressive talker, right? And this gives for a good back and forth flow because it feels actually quite awkward if the other person just gives you so much and then you reply with so very little. Now, if you're not used to this, it's completely understandable. It's not easy to talk in depth or in detail or with such expressions from the get-go. It's just some things to keep in mind that when you do speak, as long as you move slightly towards the area, you will start to see results. People will start to talk more about the things that you show interest to and you become more likable as well. The more expressive you are, the less you seem like a robot. So the key here is that when you start a conversation with somebody, what mode are they in? Are they more so the expressive talker or are they more so the reserved listener? Are they filling up the spaces, the brief pauses? Are they a bit more talkative? And then based on that, you can adjust your mode. Not permanently, it's just with this person for this instance. So this was a key skill that I had developed in my experience in conversations. A way to calibrate how you respond based on the person that you are talking to, but also based on their mood and their demeanor in the moment. This can seriously drive conversations to a really colorful area and it can also make people feel heard in the way that they want to be heard in that point in time. But what about you guys? What are some of the instances that you feel like you've misjudged the atmosphere of the conversation and you either spoke too much and you talked over somebody or you felt like the conversation just instantly dies when you speak to certain people? Let me know your experiences and what you do to tackle this kind of problem. But if you don't have much, give a try of what I've suggested today. Be more talkative if the person is a bit more quiet. Be less talkative if the person is more expressive. If you find this content useful, subscribe and give it a like and I'll see you all in the next one.