I knew I was ranting.
Tom sat quietly, the embers of his cigarette fading into the ash tray next to him.
“You’re not going to say anything?” I pleaded, feeling the emotion boiling inside me still.
I needed a reaction to validate my nonsense; I knew it and Tom knew it.
Still not a word.
He picked up his glass of scotch, swirled the ice as old men do, and took a sip.
Still not a word.
A full three minutes of silence later, he propped himself on one elbow, leaning forward in the leather armchair. “I told you what to do half an hour ago. I only speak once.”
I never forgot that conversation.
When Less Truly Becomes More
That moment was a masterclass in communication that’s haunted me ever since. While I was drowning in my own words, Tom’s silence spoke volumes. The best communicators understand a fundamental truth: power lives in the spaces between words.
Think about the last time someone truly captivated your attention. Chances are they weren’t rambling. They weren’t repeating themselves. They weren’t desperately trying to fill every moment with sound.
When everyone’s screaming for attention, silence is the new power move.
The Cognitive Tax We’re All Paying
Let’s be honest: we’re all exhausted. The average person consumes about 100,000 words of information daily—equivalent to a 300-page novel. Every. Single. Day.
Remember how mentally drained you felt after final exams? That’s your brain on modern information overload, except it never ends. We’re Netflix-watching while Instagram-scrolling while Slack-responding, and wondering why we feel constantly depleted.
Research from Stanford University shows that heavy multitaskers perform worse on cognitive control tasks and struggle with filtering relevant information. We’re not just tired—we’re cognitively taxed beyond our evolutionary design.
The Clarity Revolution
In our effort to be inclusive, thoughtful, and non-offensive (all worthy goals), we’ve created a communication style that dances around points instead of making them. We’ve forgotten that clarity can be kind.
When someone speaks plainly in today’s world, it’s almost jarring. It cuts through the noise precisely because it’s so rare.
Think about Steve Jobs introducing the original iPhone. He didn’t say: “We’ve developed a multi-functional telecommunications device with integrated digital entertainment capabilities.” He said: “An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator. Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices.”
Simplicity isn’t just efficient—it’s memorable.
The Gold vs. Wood Principle
Ten ounces of gold will always be worth more than a hundred pounds of wood. The same goes for your words.
I’ve sat through countless meetings where someone spent fifteen minutes saying what could have been expressed in thirty seconds. Their credibility diminished with every unnecessary word. Meanwhile, the executive who made one sharp observation commanded the room’s attention.
Consider your own title or role. “Vice President” carries more weight than “Vice President of Product Research for the Barbados Marketing Department.” Sometimes adding qualifiers doesn’t enhance—it dilutes.
The Magnetic Pull of Mystery
Humans are naturally drawn to what they don’t fully understand. It’s why we binge mystery shows and why certain people captivate us at parties.
The most fascinating people I know don’t immediately reveal everything about themselves. They allow space for curiosity. They understand that by saying a little less, they invite others to lean in and listen more carefully.
Will some people make wrong assumptions about you if you don’t overshare? Absolutely. But here’s the truth: they’re going to make assumptions anyway. The difference is whether you’re exhausting yourself in a futile attempt to control their thoughts.
The Practice of Strategic Simplicity
The next time you find yourself about to explain something:
- Say it once, clearly
- Resist the urge to rephrase
- Allow silence to do its work
When you trust your words enough to let them stand alone, others will trust them too.
As Tom taught me with his silence and his scotch—sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is say your piece, then shut up and let it land.
Some people speak because they need to hear themselves talk.
Others speak because they have something worth saying.
Be the second kind.
—
Here’s a letter about optics, to help you manage your tone, pitch and pacing for clarity:
