“I talk too much.”
That’s not false humility. It’s a pattern I’ve had to recognize—first as a Principal Architect, and then again as a church elder.
Years ago, I came across a line from Norman Vincent Peale:
“Be interesting, be enthusiastic… and don’t talk too much.”
The first two come naturally. The last one is harder.
In both of my callings, talking feels like value. Architects are expected to have answers. Elders are expected to offer wisdom. In both rooms, silence can feel like failure.
But over time, I’ve come to see something different:
The real work isn’t in what I say.
It’s in how well I understand.
Talking Feels Like Value
In architecture and consulting, talking is often mistaken for progress.
You’re brought into the room because you’re expected to know. To diagnose quickly. To offer direction. To move things forward. And as a consultant, there’s an added pressure: your value has to be visible.
Silence doesn’t just feel uncomfortable—it can feel like you’re not delivering.
So you compensate. You clarify. You suggest. You fill the space.
But there’s a subtle shift that happens when you do that too early:
You stop solving their problem and start solving your version of it.
I’ve learned—often the hard way—that most clients don’t initially present the real issue. They present symptoms. Constraints. Sometimes even conclusions they’ve already decided on.
And if I’m already forming my response while they’re still talking, I miss the signal buried underneath the noise.
The result isn’t just inefficiency. It’s misalignment.
And in architecture, misalignment is expensive.
In consulting, it’s worse—you can be confidently solving the wrong problem while everyone assumes you’re adding value.
Listening Is a Skill
We tend to label listening as a “soft skill,” which usually means it’s undervalued and underdeveloped.
But in practice, listening—real listening—is closer to a discipline than a personality trait.
There are levels to it:
- Waiting to talk
- Listening to respond
- Listening to understand
- Listening to observe
Most of us operate in the first two levels, especially under pressure to contribute.
But the real work happens in the last two.
This is where architecture actually begins.
Because requirements are rarely clean. They’re shaped by organizational history, unspoken constraints, and assumptions no one has revisited in years. If you’re only listening for words, you’ll miss the system behind them.
And that’s where observation becomes critical.
Shepherding Requires Listening
If consulting creates pressure to contribute, ministry creates a different kind of pressure—the expectation to provide wisdom.
As an elder, people don’t come to you with clean problems. They come with burdens, questions, and situations that don’t resolve neatly.
And the instinct—especially if you’re wired to solve problems—is to respond quickly.
But I’ve come to see that in many of those moments, speaking too soon does more harm than good.
Because what people often need first isn’t insight.
It’s to be heard.
There’s a difference between teaching and shepherding.
Teaching delivers truth.
Shepherding starts with attention.
It asks you to stay with someone long enough to understand what they’re carrying.
Sometimes the most important thing I can do is not interpret, not correct, not advise—but simply listen long enough for someone to actually say what they mean.
That takes time. It takes restraint. And it takes a willingness to leave silence in the room.
Learning to Hold Back
If listening is a skill, restraint is the discipline that makes it possible.
And I’m still learning this.
Not in theory—but in practice. In meetings where I feel the urge to jump in too early. In conversations where I realize, halfway through my own sentence, that I’ve already interrupted something more important.
This isn’t a lesson I’ve mastered. It’s one I keep relearning.
Because the instinct to contribute is strong.
In consulting, you want to demonstrate value.
In architecture, you want to bring clarity.
In ministry, you want to help.
All of those are good instincts. But without restraint, they work against you.
Restraint looks like:
- Not forming your response while someone is still talking
- Letting a pause sit instead of filling it
- Asking one more question
- Holding back your conclusion
None of that feels natural.
But I’ve found this to be consistently true:
The quality of my contribution is almost always inversely related to how quickly I offer it.
When I speak too soon, I’m reacting.
When I wait, I’m responding to what’s actually there.
Listening Completely
Listening gets you the words.
Observation helps you understand what they mean.
There’s a quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway:
“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”
The longer I sit with that, the more I realize how rare it actually is.
Because “listening completely” isn’t just about hearing every word. It’s about giving someone your full attention—without dividing it between them and your next response.
If you don’t do that, you can be technically correct and still completely off target.
AI Makes This More Important
We’re entering a moment where talking—at scale—has never been easier.
Tools like ChatGPT can generate answers instantly.
Which raises a question:
If everyone can generate answers, what becomes valuable?
Not better talking.
Better listening.
AI can produce responses.
But it doesn’t sit in the tension of a conversation.
It doesn’t notice hesitation.
It doesn’t discern what hasn’t been said yet.
It can process input.
But it can’t stay with someone long enough to understand what matters most.
That kind of understanding still requires a person.
The more accessible answers become, the more valuable discernment becomes.
Still Learning
“I talk too much.”
That hasn’t changed as quickly as I’d like.
Learning to slow down.
Learning to ask one more question.
Learning to sit in silence a little longer than feels comfortable.
Because the goal isn’t to speak more clearly.
It’s to understand more completely.
The best outcomes I’ve been part of didn’t come from having the fastest answer in the room.
They came from staying in the conversation long enough for the real issue to surface.
It turns out the discipline isn’t in being interesting or enthusiastic.
It’s in knowing when not to talk.