“People assume communication is linear, but it’s not. It’s a circle. The way I speak affects the way you listen. The way you listen affects the way I speak. The way I speak affects the way you speak. The way I listen affects the way you listen.”

-Julian Treasure

The first thing that strikes people about Lindsey is how quiet she is. 

You’d think it would be her tall and slender build at 5’ 10”. Or maybe her long, flowing ginger-red hair. Perhaps the freckles that stand stark against her pale skin. She’s practically Ariel from The Little Mermaid (a comparison with which she’d be quite flattered).

As you may have guessed by now, her family is Irish Catholic. Most of her relatives are from or currently live in New England, and the Boston contingent speaks with an almost-cartoonish accent. They’re warm, inviting, and all-around lovely.

But that’s not what people notice about Lindsey. 

“Are you okay?”

She hates that question. Why can’t a person quietly enjoy a book or their own thoughts without being accused of wrongdoing? Must we all add to the deafening chatter that infects every moment of our modern lives?

A Big Misunderstanding

When Lindsey and I first began dating we had one recurring argument. I interrupted her a lot, and she was definitely not happy about it. The thing is, I didn’t realize I was doing it, even when accused.

Then we visited my extended family as a couple for the first time. Suddenly this quiet bookworm was thrown into the cacophony of a Long Island Italian family at peak intensity.

I’ll never forget the wide-eyed look of terror on her face at dinner the first night, as the volume grew with each passing second. In my family, as is tradition in Italian households, nobody waits for their turn to speak. So if you don’t interrupt or interject you’ll never get a word in edgewise. What results is a good-natured battle for attention in nearly every conversation, and the sheer noise level is merely an unintended consequence.

Upon returning home from that trip Lindsey simply said, “Now I understand.”

For the first time we had an open, honest conversation about our one, big argument. I went first (of course):

“I don’t mean to interrupt you. I don’t even realize I’m doing it. When you say something that gets me excited, or makes me think of something I want to tell you, I just jump in to tag off of your point. It’s a compliment, from my point-of-view. I’m telling you that I’m really into our conversation.”

Then Lindsey:

“I rarely talk as it is. So when you interrupt me it feels like you think what you have to say is more important or more interesting than what I have to say. People have done that to me all my life. It’s why I’m so quiet in the first place. If people aren’t even going to let me finish a thought, why bother starting one?”

And there it was: understanding. 

I agreed to work really hard to let her finish each thought, and even pause for a few more seconds in case she wants to follow-up. Lindsey agreed to give me a break if I occasionally interrupted, knowing it was not coming from a place of mal-intent. 

That was the turning point in our relationship, the defining moment on which we’ve built a life together. We’re celebrating our fourth wedding anniversary this month, and it’s been a true joy, through-and-through. 

And all because we were both willing to listen so that the other was willing to speak.

How to be Heard

It’s getting harder and harder to make yourself known in our fast-paced, digital world. Enter Julian Treasure, a world renowned sound and communication expert whose five TED talks have over 150 million views combined.

His most popular, “How to speak so that people want to listen” has over 50 million views of its own, making it the 6th most watched TED talk in history. Interestingly but not surprisingly, his talk “5 Ways to Listen Better” has only 20% of that.

It seems we really want to talk, but we’re not so keen to listen. But if everyone’s talking and nobody is listening, what good is all that talk anyway? 

Counterintuitively Julian argues that becoming a better listener is the most effective way to make your own voice heard. 

I recently had the honor of sitting down with Julian for an in-depth conversation about speaking so that people want to listen, listening so that people want to connect with you, the audio revolution (it’s already here), and so much more.

You’ll find that conversation in both video and audio-only formats on this week’s episode of the Beyond Networking podcast: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/speak-so-people-want-to-listen-with-julian-treasure/