Think fast. -I’ll show you this later.
For right now, we’re going to unpack how to be a quick thinker in conversation. I love thinking about how we create conversations that really matter. You might be watching this video because you want to be a faster thinker in conversation and not feel like you’re just caught with these awkward pregnant pauses. I’m going to share some pretty mind-blowing science of how fast our brains can actually move in conversation and 2 strategies that you can immediately use the minute this video is over to be a quicker thinker in conversation.
Blog Note: The following is an adapted and edited transcript of one of our daily YouTube tutorials. We know sometimes it is easier to scroll through written content which is why we are publishing here. Because of that, there may be typos or phrases that seem out of context. You’ll definitely be able to get the main idea. To get the full context, visit our YouTube channel here. And if you want to watch the video on this topic specifically, you can scroll down to the bottom of this post to access it as well.
Here’s the promise: If you get to the end of this and you feel like what I’ve shared doesn’t actually help you be a quicker thinker in conversation, you can write me an angry email and I will actually send you a deck of cards that will make you a quicker thinker. This offer applies to like the first 100 angry emails that I receive and nothing beyond that.
Have you ever heard of the 125 over 400 rule? The human brain can listen to up to about 400 words per minute. But the human mouth can only speak on average at about 125 to 175 words per minute. Even like professional auctioneers who are talking really, really, really, really fast only speak at like 350 words a minute. Meaning that even an action it’s why we can understand an auctioneer, sometimes. It’s why we can understand auctioneer because our brains can listen much faster than our mouths can speak. In this fact lies a really important idea which is you can train yourself in conversation to be a really quick thinker.
Have Quick Responses
One of the easiest ways to be a quick thinker to have quick responses because that’s the point. Because you don’t want to just be a quick thinker and just be thinking in conversation. You want to be a quick thinker and you want to respond with something useful, meaningful in that moment. We’re going to unpack 2 strategies that will help you think much more quickly. The first is hidden behind this lovely piece of white paper. It comes from improvisation. Jazz in particular, jazz musicians when they would jam together no written music but they’d come and this beautiful piece of music would flow out of this improvised piece of jazz. It’s really cool. Unscripted which is how most conversations are. Unscripted and so how do they do that? How do they think so quickly? How do they adapt so quickly to each other? An improv teacher would say they did it with these 2 lovely words. “Yes, and…” the idea and the mindset here in improvisation is that you’re building. You’re always building on what somebody else is saying.
Imagine if you were listening at 400 words a minute and you were saying in your mind your response… You didn’t have to think about how to respond because you knew your first 2 words were going to be “Yes, and…” And you built on top of what they were saying. As opposed to… You know, in improv as opposed to “No, but…” Or “No, because…”, right? Which will shut down a conversation.
Let me be clear. You might not actually respond with by saying these 2 words verbally. You might not literally say… Well, Stephen. Tell me something about your family. -I have a brother who’s adopted. -Yes, and that’s really cool, right?” Or “Yes and… My business partner Will is actually also adopted.” You might not actually respond with “Yes, and…” because painfully awkward. Now, let’s try that again. Stephen, tell me something about your family. -My brother is still adopted. -Whoa, super cool. You’re saying that it’s making me think immediately of my business partner Will who was also adopted. The first chapter of our book is actually about this really phenomenal story and connection related to that. The UCL one feels a little bit more natural.
You might not use these words. But the idea is that I was building on something that Stephen was saying in that moment. You got strategy number one –“Yes, and…” build on what they were saying. I would say even cooler than that, I’m going to adapt the strategy. I’m going to add to the library of beautiful insight that exists in the world on how to do “Yes, and…” I’m actually going to say let’s get rid of yes and turn yes and into Yes, ask. Question mark? Yes. Ask. Because in conversation, when you think about how to be a quick thinker in conversation, most likely if I were to guess and I don’t know your situation in your context. But most likely, you want to be a quick thinker. You’re thinking about being a quick thinker because you want to know what to say in response to what somebody else has shared. That is actually a lot harder I would say than listening at 400 words a minute and just thinking about what are you going to ask afterward. You know, kids between the ages of 3 and 5 ask between 300 and 400 questions per day. Adults ask between 6 to 12 questions per day.
Somewhere along the line, our curiosity went way down. I would say this tool of “yes, ask” Makes you not only a quick thinker but a really phenomenal conversationalist. I’m not saying that we should go back to 300 to 400 questions a day. But if we were to even double our count, you would appear to be a quicker thinker in conversation but maybe more importantly that person would feel seen, heard, and understood in the way that you were responding that conversation. I would argue that that is more important than just being a quick thinker because it’s way more important to be interested rather than interesting. You got to remember with this “yes, ask” curiosity is a choice even if you don’t identify as somebody who is naturally genuinely curious. It’s a switch. You can turn it on at any given time. You can turn it off at any given time.
If you like this, I’ve created 2 card decks called We! Engage Cards and We! Connect Cards. They’re really phenomenal. There’s 2 exercises in particular. There’s an exercise called “Story Swap” with We! Engage Cards and there’s an exercise called “Conversation Roulette”. Really cool deck of cards for a in a work context or an education context to promote quicker thinking. Great way to warm up a brainstorming session. Really remarkable way to create conversations that matter and get some comfortable conversation flowing.