Clarity: We're Least Clear When We Think We're Most Clear

When we've thought about something a long time - and had experiences that ground it in our understanding - we feel that we're clear about that something. Very clear. So we feel that when we express our understanding, everyone will understand what we mean. But we're often misunderstood. The larger context of our long pondering and experience is missing. We have "a book" in our heads, and the listener got only "the email."

Transcript

Hi,

This is Chris Largent.

This is a very quick note about how we're often the least clear when we think we're the most clear.

Now,

Why does this happen in communication?

Because when we are thinking about something over and over again,

When we reprocess it,

Think of listening to a song over and over again or watching a movie a couple of times.

The first time,

It doesn't seem that clear,

But then it gets clearer and clearer.

So whatever we're experiencing,

Thinking about,

Gets assimilated over time.

And if we live with it a long time and think,

Wow,

I really got that one,

We're ready to deliver it to somebody else.

Here's the problem.

What we really have done is we've,

If we think about information,

We've got roughly a whole book of assimilated understanding about whatever it is we're going to say in our consciousness.

What we are going to deliver is anywhere from a few sentences to a few paragraphs.

The rest of the book,

The context for the few sentences or few paragraphs is in our head,

In our experience,

And the person we're talking to does not have that.

So very often what we find in communications,

And I do communication training,

I run into this a lot,

What we find is that when we deliver something to someone,

And because we're really emotionally committed to what we're saying,

We really want them to get this because we really understand it this,

So they really should be able to be clear about this when we deliver it,

Is that without the context,

Often,

Very often,

They're not getting what we're saying at all.

And we can get very frustrated because we think,

Well,

We were clear,

Why aren't they clear?

Why don't they understand it?

They don't understand it because they don't have that whole book in their experiences.

So let's keep that in mind when we're talking to people and it'll help.

Thanks very much for listening.

Reviews

Thank you.

The timing of this is incredible. I was literally just saying this to my family like 2 days ago, that I few like I’m having issues communicating lately as I feel like I’m speaking in a way that’s clear yet my words seem to keep getting misunderstood. Thank you for this, it brought me clarity.

Never thought about this! Thank you

Makes sense. Thank you

👌🏾

Interesting thank you so much for sharing and Namaste

Good point! Thank you!

I experienced this as a professor. Thanks, Chris.

Helpful thank you 😊

This is very helpful to know to help with a situation that I’ve been experiencing and will need to share to get resolved. Thank you.

A bit fast, and yet well said! Thanks

Thank you

So valuable 🙏🏽

Brilliant

Spot on
Thanks

Good point

Thank you

Excellent. Hit the nail on the head. I've recently noticed this and wondered why it is so hard to communicate thoughts and ideas to people. They don't have the context that I do. They haven't had the ideas swimming in their head like I have.