Is Your Mouth Bigger Than Your Brain?

You’re an outgoing person, right? Everybody likes you. You’re the centre of attention in social situations, you have great stories to tell and your jokes, even if you do say so yourself, are bloody hilarious!

Your unrelenting confidence gets you places and rightly so. In meetings you’re quick to speak; you hold the room with your rapid thinking and decisive approach to getting things done.

There’s just one thing that’s holding you back. Your mouth is bigger than your brain. Sorry. 

It probably irritates you to read this, but I hope you’re still reading because I know I’m right…

Think back to the last team meeting you had, your ‘big ideas’ were flying around the room, you were the first to suggest things, you were on fire and at least half the room were on board - you were going places until somebody, who until now had remained quiet, spoke up for the first time to question the quality of your creativity and validity of your ideas. We will call this person ‘the quiet one’. 

The energy in the room has dropped, you’re feeling annoyed that anybody would deign to shut down your ideas. At this point you’re pushing hard to argue the original point. How could somebody be so negative about your ideas when the rest of the room is so excited by them? Almost instantly the meeting is dead in the water and nothing can move on. You have fallen into a trap of social and cognitive bias because your mouth is bigger than your brain.

What was the trap, I hear you ask?

Don’t give up on your enthusiasm, don’t forgo your energy and charisma - they’re compelling and powerful in the right situations. Your unwitting downfall is that people want your approval, they want to be on your side, playing for your team. They’re drawn to you and your levels of excitement. You’re so good at enthusiasm that people around you are completely fixated on the energy and excitement of you - they've forgotten to think about the intrinsic qualities of your ideas. The excitement has shut down other means of critical thinking or practical appraisal.  

Simply put, your first idea won’t be the best idea. Your ideas could be refined and honed into something amazing, but to do that you have to endure the feedback of ‘the quiet one’. Their preoccupation is different to yours. Their focus is detail and execution. All the time that you’ve been talking, they’ve been quietly thinking about how to make your idea better and how they can help you see it through. They’re actually on your side.

Now imagine if you could harness ‘the quiet one’. What if they could be the brain to your mouth? What a combination! How would you do that?