Law 4: Always Say Less than Necessary
6 Benefits of saying less than necessary
In this age of attention-seeking, cut-throat competition, everyone wants to speak loudly and put their point on the table. Speaking has become the norm of the masses. Nobody has ever achieved greatness by following the masses.
People have achieved greatness by standing out. So to stand out from the masses you must remain silent. You must learn to listen because all great leaders have always been great listeners. So here are 6 ways to command more power by just listening.
1. Make people reveal more about themselves
When you engrave the habit of speaking less in your character, you start to experience some changes in people around you. People will become more readable when they talk to you. Keeping information in the heart is heavy for humans.
Thus, sometimes unknowingly people give out a lot of information about themselves. Some people want to share this information willingly to get closer to you, whereas some people slip it out of their tongues by mistake.
If you keep giving only short answers and silences, they’ll start to feel uneasy about the awkward silence of the conversation and feel obliged to fill in the gaps. They’ll nervously fill the silence with all kinds of comments that will reveal valuable information about them and their weaknesses.
The longer you listen, the more others move their lips. As they move their lips, you can understand their real intentions. This is information you can either use against them in the future or you can use it to your advantage, get closer to them, and build a strong bond with them.
2. People listen to your every word carefully
As you know by now, your silence makes people uncomfortable. Humans are machines of explanation and interpretation. They want to know what you’re thinking. When you strongly control what you reveal, they can’t decipher your intentions, which in turn helps in concealing your intentions. Sometimes your friends will end up thinking about your lines even after leaving the conversation. This extra attention to your brief comments, only adds to your power.
Andy Warhol was an artist who knew exactly how to use this silence to his advantage. When asked in interviews to describe his paintings, he would simply give vague answers to leave room for the viewer to draw out their own perception of the painting instead of being confined by the artist’s perception.
3. Once the words are out, you can not take them back
Keep your words under control. Be particularly careful with sarcasm. The momentary satisfaction you get by speaking out of your emotions will be outweighed by the price you pay.
The words you speak are like arrows leaving a bow. Once they’re out, they can never return.
4. The more you say, the more common you appear
When you’re trying to impress people with your words, the more you say the more common you appear and the less in control. Even if you say something boring or unoriginal, you can make it seem original, by making it vague and open-ended.
Empty vessels make more noise.
5. Saying less will keep you from saying something foolish or even dangerous
Around 454 BC, Rome had a great military leader called Coriolanus. He was the pride of Rome. Everyone loved him immensely. He decided to contest in elections to be a part of the senate. In his speeches, he was brutally honest. He spoke his mind and hardly controlled his arrogance and boastfulness. He slandered and insulted others in his speeches.
The more speeches he made, the angrier the people became. Once his speech became the reason for riots to break out in the city. After which he was given the last chance to give a speech in front of people so that he could apologize and leave politics immediately.
Unfortunately, his ego had engulfed his senses. In his last speech, he started off slowly and softly, but gained pace and brought back the insults and hatred into his speech. People couldn’t bear him anymore. They finally shouted him down and silenced him.
After that incident, he was punished with lifelong banishment. This news spread like a wave of joy and the people of Rome celebrated on the streets like never before. Nobody had ever seen such a celebration, not even after the defeat of a foreign enemy.
6. People will not deceive you as they will never know your position
King Louis XIV was a man of very few words. His infamous “I shall see.” was one of the several extremely short phrases that he would apply to all types of requests. Louis was not like this since he was young. He had developed this habit as it helped him by giving some time to think of the consequences and benefits of his decisions well in advance.
The people requesting a favor would try to deceive him but they wouldn’t be able to succeed, as the King would have already cultivated an air of unpredictability around him.
People would expect him to reply but Louis would remain as silent as he could to not give out any hints of approval. This would lead to people disclosing more about themselves and why they wanted their request to be accepted. This gave the king more time and more aspects to judge before taking the decision.
This silence gave the king terrifying power and kept everyone else off balance.
Lessons
1. Saying less than necessary is not for kings or politicians only. In most areas of life, the less you say the more profound and mysterious you appear.
2. By saying less than necessary, you create the appearance of meaning and power.
3. The less you say, the less risk you have of saying something foolish.
Summary
In your life, there will come times when it is unwise to be silent. Silence can spark suspicion and even insecurity, especially in your superiors. A vague or ambiguous line uttered from your mouth can surround you with interpretations you had not asked for. Silence and saying less than necessary must be practiced with extreme caution and in the right situations.
“Confidence is silent. Insecurities are loud.”