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By Krutarth Rao —

Iterate on conversations

Iterate on conversations
The judgement that keeps us silent

As we get older, we begin to see patterns in the people that seem "cool". They have friends, family, finances, witty comebacks at the dinner table & all the other stuff you associate with being "cool". These folks seem to speak less. They have restraint. Denzel Washington's role delivers this message flawlessly. It is naïve.

There are cases where forced silence is important. Its usually in dirty politics or crime. Cases where there is benefit from seeming like what your are not. When you want to create an appearance that resembles some version of Harvey Specter so you seem like the know-it-all. The halo effect helps with persuasion when the lizard brain in your audience thinks you're like Harvey because you're both the "silent type".

Silence can also be important when you need to other person to think. Well designed questions force the audience to recollect all the necessary details locked away in the audience's skull jelly. That takes time. It can also give your audience time to connect the dots between a statement you made and how it translates to their thoughts and actions.

Most other times, silence stunts your growth. In the world of retina screens with dopamine popping apps, we are having fewer conversations. I bet we will have fewer in-person conversations with our favorite people compared to similar people 50 years ago. We are iterating less and blunting our ability to communicate on the spot.

Building a great skill needs deliberate practice. You need to do something over and over. Gathering feedback and adjusting the next attempt. Tiger Woods needed to make 1,000 contacts with a the golf ball every day to become what he started to evolve to from 5 years of age.

The geniuses at Bell labs didn't evolve in solo caves. The ideas bounced around and got beaten up in 100s of conversations at the café or office. For every optimist, someone had to take a few swings at it to find out if this was solid steel or a colorful piñata. Some people added a brick to the structure the first author was building.

Don't let the fictional people created in the writers room of Hollywood determine what is cool. It can be pure joy to make mistakes, get corrected, grow, build something and have a laugh about the hiccups along the way. Take that gamble and put that wild idea out there. Most people may give you a shrug but eye out the one person that may be at the right place at the right time. This is rare but absolute gold. Surround yourself with builders. Take your shot!

Appendix

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