Talk Less, Observe More

Sher Shah Rahim
2 min readFeb 12, 2018

An average woman speaks about 20,000 words per day, whereas, an average man speaks about 17,000 words per day but out of all those words, how many really matter? Let us all take a pause for a moment and ask ourselves did we move our tongue today to make a positive change? Or did we just talk nonsense and made enemies?

If you’ve already started thinking about changing your talking habits, then let me tell you what would change if you talk less and observe more.

You will not say something you regret later

Words can not be taken back, if you say something no matter how hard you try to change your statement — you won’t be able to do so. But if you don’t say it today, you will always get another chance to say it tomorrow. More importantly, If you talk more, you may end up revealing secrets about others that you never wanted to talk about, which does happen at most instances.

You won’t look dumb

It’s very easy to speak without giving a second thought about what we say and we often end up giving inaccurate information out of our insufficient knowledge and wrong assumptions — which lead to making us look dumber than we actually are but if we speak less or speak only if we are confident about what we say then we may end up conveying the right message.

You will judge better

If you have enough facts to make a decision, it is likely that you will not regret your decision in the future. And in order to gain enough intelligence you do need to listen to people a lot more than you talk, it helps you have a well-rounded opinion on things around you.

People will value your words

There is a huge difference between people who never shut up and people who talk seldom — just like everything else the law of supply and demand applies to it too. If you talk less, people will look forward to every word that comes out of your mouth. They will be eager to hear your opinion on things that matter to them and they will treat your words with higher rectitude.

Conclusion

and the list goes on but to keep this article short, I would like to add that this does not mean you should not be talking at all. It depends on the situation, for instance, if you are going to deliver a presentation or a speech then you certainly need to be the one talking. Similarly, if you are in social gathering, you can talk less and observe more.

--

--

Sher Shah Rahim

I write from Afghanistan with love and passion. I am the President of IAP (www.iap.af) Co-founder of a Co-working space (CoWorthy ), & Jury at WSA (UN)