3 Reasons You Should Shut Your Cake Hole
Sometimes the best thing you can do is simply shut up. Simply put a big pair of socks in your mouth and plug up your cake hole.
There are plenty of situations where shutting up is the right strategy. There are also plenty of benefits to doing so. It’s no secret – sometimes I open my mouth when I should be doing exactly the opposite and before those of you who agree start spewing “I can’t stand when he talks” just realize at least I’m self aware – are you? Hmmm. Hello Pot, this is Kettle…
Anyway, there are three reasons you need to simply hush. Shutting up can build relationships (or prevent destroying them), improve negotiations, and make you smarter. This is a difficult skill to master especially in a world that encourages us to share MORE of our thoughts than ever (hello Twitter, Facebook, blogs – oops). I’ve talked about other benefits of shutting up before in this post – CLICK HERE to read it. All that said, here’s the argument for keeping quiet:
Building Relationships
We’ve all had that moment where a colleague, business partner, customer, or someone else important to us says something or sends an email that makes our head explode. Our instant instinctive reaction is to fire back and obliterate that individual into a smoldering pile of ashes that are forensically unidentifiable.
Don’t.
Count to 10. Write your scathing email reply and say everything you wanted to say (be sure NOT to address it to the person because you might instinctively hit “Send” and then you’re toast – just write the body of the email without a “To:” name listed). Reread the email 10 times. Get really mad. Get ready to send it.
Now delete it.
You’ve gotten it out of your system. Now let it go. This approach holds true for conversations too. Say all those horrible things in your head then let the thoughts evaporate. It’s hard but if I can do it, so can you. Keeping quiet can prevent you from damaging an important relationship and keep you from looking hotheaded or unreasonable.
Negotiating
“He/she who talks price first, loses.” Wrong. Actually, talking price first wins (the research shows it – it’s called anchoring – look it up). But sometimes not talking at all can be a powerful negotiating tactic as well.
Silence is uncomfortable. When someone puts something on the table in a negotiation they expect you to respond and push back. If you instead remain silent after they put something out there, you’re implying you are not satisfied with the offer. The silence gets uncomfortable (less so for you because you are in control of it).
Eventually the other party is likely to fill that silence. When they do they’ll either rationalize their last point which will give you insight into their objectives or weak points or they’ll actually begin negotiating against themselves and put something better in front of you just to fill the silence.
Try it sometime. Don’t do it in a high-risk negotiation but see how the other person reacts to the silence. You might be surprised.
Getting Smarter
I love saying “you have two ears and one mouth for a reason.” You can’t learn while you’re talking. Period. I’ve never met anyone who can transmit and receive at the same time. When you are in receive mode, you can learn new things.
There’s another benefit to listening rather than talking. If you want others around you to think you’re brilliant, shut up and listen. When others get to share their opinions and ideas, they feel important. You should actively solicit those thoughts from them and listen in an engaged manner. By listening, you can come across as exponentially more brilliant than you already are as I cover in this post.
Shhh
Shutting your cake hole from time to time is a powerful communications tool. Try it. I’ll shut up now.
– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC
– Get the latest updates on my upcoming book One Piece of Paper – CLICK HERE
Good post Mike. I like the part on negotiating. When you talk first you set the tone and have a better chance to successfully negotiate. Also, studies show putting the price out first sets the anchor and influences the subsequent negotiations rather dramatically. The key is knowing the right number to start with and that requires homework.
In the spirit of this post, a couple of my favorite quotes are, "Never miss a good chance to shut up." and "Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing."
Good point about writing the "explosive" emails and deleting them. I write these emails and send them to myself. And I ALWAYS feel quite differently afterwards, and write a solution-seeking email 24 hours or so later. Keep up the good work.
Good article! You remind me of my simple policy that I call W.A.I.T. (I even keep this posted next to my phone), which stands for "Why Am I Talking?"
Mike, you are so right! We have to resist the temptation to add our 2 cents just to show how smart we are.
This is so true in every situations but politics. There squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Hey @Anonymous who looked up that word I said to look up – my apologies. Not posting your comment here because then other people will look it up too. I have replaced the word with another term: anchoring. Sorry for any trauma that lookup caused. My bad.
Actually, Mike is telling us all to shut up so he can have center stage all to himself. If He actually took His own advice, his posts wouldn't be so long and if others didn't believe him, they'd have said more in their own comments. His advice did however get Him what He wanted… to BE Listened to without interruption, just like the people who use expressions like, "moving forward" or "having said that" to Take Control of the Audience without interruption.
My advice: 'Freedom of Speech' is one of the Rights we enjoy, while freedom to listen doesn't even need a law to make it a right. So use Your own Judgment when being asked to listen to someone who doesn't do that very well themselves. They want Your 'Floorspace' as well as their own!
Dear engage,
I don't know where to begin so I'll begin at the beginning of your incoherent, inaccurate, and pious rant. Note this is a 2-part comment (and yes it's too long but I'm not caffeinated and you wrote a lot of silly crap for me to respond to…)
– I'm NOT telling readers to shut up. I encourage comments (even tripe like yours). FYI when someone writes a blog they by definition have that stage (which I often share with others if you read our frequent guest posts).
– Learn Proper capitalization And when Words should be Capitalized. It makes you look daft when you write that way (here and on your blog). For your edification (but not my readers' because they're smart enough to detect sarcasm) I incorrectly capitalized words in that sentence to show you how silly it looks.
– When capitalizing "He" and "His" you are referring to God in most linguistic conventions. I'm flattered you did so when referring to me but please use lowercase letters.
– Long posts? Facts: this post is 655 words. I went to your blog to see the standard for length only to find a 1,021 word behemoth and a 1,768 word monstrosity you published. Hello Pot? Kettle here. Is your slam on my post length a cry for help on your part? Hmm…
– There are many comments on this blog. Read them. The majority of readers are bright and articulate. Those not in that majority (you) write befuddling crap. Read before slamming. Reconsider your point on comments as there are *zero* comments on your entire blog. Zero. Zilch. That number if my math is correct, is smaller than the thousand or so comments here.
– Explain how to write a post that enables "interruption." Are you suggesting I write a paragraph, let readers offer thoughts, write more, then thoughts then finish? I'm baffled by your logic/lack thereof. Elaborate.
– Your diatribe on rights makes no sense so I won't try to explain it. I will however point out there's little freedom of speech on your blog. Your post rating scheme has 3 choices: "funny, interesting, and cool." Not much freedom of expression there, huh? Our rating scale goes from "bad" to "excellent." People should be able to express across that entire range. I suggest adding a few feedback choices to your posts. Consider "incoherent, irrational, delusional, and paranoid" for starters.
– How do you conclude I don't listen well? Have you interviewed my clients? Help me understand how a post that takes 5 minutes to read takes up the audience's floorspace when that is 0.208% of a 40 hour week. If you consider it taking up floorspace it's likely a larger percentage of your work week (yes I'm implying something but I'll leave that brain buster up to you to figure out).
(see my next comment for the conclusion of these thoughts)…
(and here's part 2 of my response to @engage):
Engage, it's sad to see your passion channeled into an unproductive and unintelligible comment. To your suggestion on listening I posted your comment, tried to listen to the shrieking nails on a chalkboard of your "logic" and give you the stage. I post all comments unless they contain profanity or hate speech. But just because I post it doesn't mean I accept it. People say I shouldn't feed the trolls and respond to comments like yours. I disagree. You coming here and spewing bile is worthy of a logic smack upside the head as it's an affront to the work I do and the great ideas shared by so many people on this blog. I'm hoping to knock some sense into you and get you to channel that passion into productive pursuits.
I'm willing to make up with you though. I invite (Nay! Encourage!) you to write a lucid, high quality guest post. The parameters:
– It must be fewer than 655 words (you said my posts were too long so let's see what an appropriate length looks like – I'm always willing to learn and improve)
– It must use proper capitalization (because candidly it's just annoying when you don't)
– It must enable readers to interrupt you as you write
– It must generate comments where readers say more
– It must demonstrate the standard for how to listen well to others
– It must enable people to maintain their "floorspace"
If you're up to the challenge, email your post to me. You must use your real name in your byline as I cannot abide cowards who hide behind anonymity. Come on engage… as you say on your blog "Engage!!!"
Never miss a chance to follow your own advice.
@Anonymous – care to elaborate?
When conversation flows easily between strangers, people tend to feel bonded with one another and this flow can indicate the beginning of a meaningful relationship. Likewise, when conversations are disrupted or otherwise difficult, this lack of flow can make people who have just met feel disconnected. But what about long-term relationships? Is a disruption in conversation as detrimental to couples as it can be for strangers?
Good question. I would say your hypothesis is correct – a disruption can signal a lack of respect for the other party. The cumulative effect of those interruptions is one person withdrawing and not sharing because they feel their thoughts aren’t valued. That’s the death knell for any long-term relationship.