E127: Stop Over-Explaining: Clarity Isn’t a Defense Strategy

If your value was obvious… would you still explain it this much?

I’m recording this from a conference where I felt out of my element—and it exposed something I see in high-achievers all the time: we don’t over-explain because we’re unclear. We over-explain because we’re trying to protect ourselves.

In this episode, I walk you through the exact questions I asked myself in real time—questions that separate clarity from justification, and confidence from performance. We’re talking about why silence can feel risky, how childhood and culture train us to “earn your place,” and what it looks like to trust your value before anyone validates it.

If you’ve ever left a conversation thinking, “Why did I say all that?” this one’s for you.

Transcript

Kimberly Houston (00:04.822)
If your value was obvious, would you still explain it this much? That is a question that I have been sitting with for the last couple of days. So I'm at a conference and while at this conference, I have felt very out of sorts, very out of my element.

very out of my CCK living and it's been kind of weird. And so one of the things that I was thinking about is if your value was obvious, would you still explain it this much? As people were asking me, what does my company do? What do I do? I found myself stumbling over my elevator pitch.

and I became a little bit frustrated with it and then I checked my email and there was an email telling me that I had been awarded Culinary Coach and Podcaster of the Year for 2025. And I was like, you have got to be kidding me because what do you mean that I have this accolade? And in 2025, I received many.

accolades in 2025. Several awards. This wasn't the only one. And the more I thought about it, I was like, well, if my value was obvious, would I still explain it this much? And even though the value is obvious, I am award-winning. Why do I find myself over explaining?

And so I thought about that in the context of talking with my clients, right? And what does that look like? So the questions that I put myself in the client seat. And so I want to kind of walk you through the questions that I asked myself to help me work through this. So the first question was, outside of if your value was obvious, would you still be explaining this? The second one is, what part of me feels the need to add more context right now?

Kimberly Houston (02:08.802)
When we're thinking about that, what in me feels like I need to over explain who I am, what I'm doing, et cetera.

So that's a question that you ask yourself when you sit with yourself, right? Is this the seven or eight or nine year old version of you who had to constantly explain why they were doing things? Did you have a parent or a teacher or a Sunday school teacher or an older sibling who always asked you to explain yourself whenever you wanted to do something? What part of you feels like you need to be explaining yourself? The third question I asked myself was,

What emotion is coming up when I don't explain? So when you sit with the emotions that you're feeling causing you to explain, we might think that anxiety is what's coming up for us and anxiety is leading us to explain. Well, the question I want you to ask yourself is, what emotion are you feeling when you don't explain?

Do you feel anxious waiting for the other person to respond to you? Do you feel sad? Do you feel angry? What are you feeling when this emotion comes up for you when you do not explain yourself? And then why does silence feel riskier than over clarifying?

This is the one that made me pause. This is the one that made me sit down and really think about it. Are you okay with the silence? About four years ago, I was in a master's program and we had a voluntary opportunity, I want to say once every other week, and the class, I guess if we call it that, the experience was called B.

Kimberly Houston (04:00.32)
Like you literally were just learning how to be with other people. And so that meant we were also kind of fine tuning and honing in on what it feels like to just be in the silence. If you've never just sat with silence,

That is a very difficult task. If you are a chatty person, that is a very difficult task. And so the question is, why does silence feel riskier than over-clarity? I can defend my way out of something, but I can't defend my way through silence. And so those are the questions that I sat with as I was thinking about

you know, do I deserve to be in this room? What is the reason I'm in this room? Why do I feel like I'm not explaining who I am and what I do in the same way that these other founders are being able to do so? So let's kind of like dig into this a little bit and understand why over explaining is information for you to be thinking about. So

When we think about it in the aspect of am I clarifying what I had to say or am I justifying it? There is a difference. If you say I am a chef and then you say I am a pastry chef, you are clarifying the type of chef you are. If I say,

I am a chef and then I turn around and I say, and I'm with a culinary school and I'm a part of all these organizations and the food that I make is really good and, and, and, Then I'm justifying my position as a chef as opposed to just stating I'm a pastry chef, right?

Kimberly Houston (06:08.253)
when you begin to go a little deeper with this thought, because for a lot of people, the anxiety, the I'm not sure what to say right now, feels really surface level. And the way that I worked through this process wasn't surface level at all, right? So then my next thought was where in my life do I notice myself giving unnecessary backstory? Where else am I over explaining myself?

Where else are you over explaining yourself when there's no need for it? One of the things that I have had to come to realize about myself is that I've accomplished a lot of things. And in accomplishing a lot of things, at one point of my life, it was kind of like a check mark thing. I didn't really stop and celebrate the fact that I've accomplished something else.

I would be like, okay, well, yeah, I did that. On to the next. And I have had to learn how to slow down. I've had to learn how to sit in the accomplishment. I've had to learn how to understand that there are other people who are watching me accomplish things. And if when they see me on the street, this happened just a couple of hours ago, where someone was like, hey, aren't you

A blog, don't you have a blog? Didn't I meet you in Chicago two years ago? I'm not even at home. I'm in a completely different state. I'm not in Chicago. I'm not in my hometown. I'm at a completely different conference and someone noticed me on the street. Other people are watching us. They're watching our progression and...

If our last encounter was two years ago, right? And I mean, down to the minute, tell me when we met. If our encounter was two years ago, that means that this person knows who I am from that situation. I've accomplished so much more in the last two years than where I was at that particular conference.

Kimberly Houston (08:07.916)
When we're thinking about this, where are we giving ourselves unnecessary backstory? Where are we not stopping to appreciate who we are, what we've built, how far we've come? Do we still think that we're at the start of this journey when in reality we are so far ahead of where we claim to be in our minds simply because we're not where we're trying to go?

Another question that came up was, what am I trying to protect myself from when I over explain? And this is the one that made me pause. The others did it, but this one did. And I had to really sit with it and think about it. I have had to over explain myself in romantic relationships for my entire adult life. And because of that,

I made a choice several years ago, this was not worth it and this isn't something I'm trying to do. I'm not available for this at this time in my life and I've been single for five and a half years. That was easier than doing the work to understand why I felt like I needed to protect myself from the thoughts and opinions of people who I allowed into my space. And instead of dealing with it fully,

I just kind of walked away from it all together. But the thoughts, the actions, the behaviors didn't necessarily disappear. And so as I was kind of cc-k-ing myself, as I call it, as I was being me the way I would be to a client when I was being that to myself, this question made me pause. And then the next question after that was,

Is this explanation about being understood or being approved and woo that one? Triggering. So one of the things about me is that I'm never launching something without one have doing my research, without doing my due diligence in it and without feeling like I'm being led to do something.

Kimberly Houston (10:25.722)
A lot of people said they feel called to do things and I stopped answering callings a long time ago. Now I am led to do the things that I'm doing. And the reason for that is I fully believe that the universe is guiding me.

where I need to go. There's a reason that people are able to recognize me on the street on a completely different coast at a very different conference than the one we were at two years ago. There is a reason that I am an award-winning coach. There's a reason that I'm an award-winning podcaster. There's a reason that

my clients get more out of a 60 minute session with me than they have in the last six months with their therapist. There's a reason that these things happen. And so the thing that I had to think about was I show up to the best of my ability as a Virgo. I am a Virgo's Virgo.

I'm not opening my mouth if I don't know the outcome, right? And so I am always over prepared and I had to think about this. Am I trying to be understood or am I trying to be approved? And

When you ask yourself that question really quickly, am I trying to be understood? Well, did I say what I needed to say? I'm a chef. If I want to be understood, I'm a pastry chef. Because when people, when you ever use tell somebody you're a chef, people will say, well, what are your thoughts on such and such and and it's something culinary. Babe, I don't play with meat. Okay. I play with sugar. Like this is not the same. So then I have to clarify that I'm a pastry chef and then our conversation changes. well, what's your favorite dessert?

Kimberly Houston (12:17.642)
That I can rock with you all day long. But if you ask me about how you're supposed to prepare something, I can't tell you. I don't know. That's not what I learned in culinary school. And so there's a difference between being understood and being approved. Do I need to seek your approval to do the other thing? Now, the kid in me who was a little rambunctious and really couldn't care less about authority, she doesn't want your approval.

She doesn't seek it. But there are times when I have to stop and ask myself, am I seeking approval right now or am I seeking to be understood? If I'm seeking approval, I can immediately shut it down. If I'm seeking to be understood, I then go back and say, okay, let's clarify this in a way that makes sense. So if you were someone who was thinking about how you respond to other people and wondering whether or not you are

over clarifying something or if you're justifying things. The question I want to kind of anchor this down for with you is what would happen if I trusted that I don't need to prove anything here? How would you show up? And this is the question that got me to saying I'm going to record this podcast. What would happen if I trusted that I don't need to prove anything here? You're in the room because you deserve to be.

You were invited to the table because you make the other people at that table look better. You built the table when people wouldn't let you in other rooms, when people wouldn't give you a seat, you built your own table and then invited your own friends, right?

What happens if I trust that I don't need to prove myself in this situation? How would you then show up? So let's kind of talk about what defining your confidence actually sounds like What happens when you're not performing? There's a gentleman that I follow on Instagram and I know I'm butcher his name But he's it's like

Kimberly Houston (14:28.896)
Saffron the Great maybe I don't know I'll have to look it up, but he's he's walking us through his journey of unmasking and I enjoy watching him because he literally

unzips the mask and you can see everything about him change, right? You can see him jump in and out of the mask. He is autistic. You can see him jump in and out of the mask. And I think this is fascinating for me because a couple of years ago, once we got the formal diagnosis that my youngest has autism, I saw that mask drop. And when the mask dropped, I felt like my child became a completely different person. And what I had to come to realize was my child was performing to be the person that we

wanted them to be as opposed to being who they are. And so I ask you that question. What does confidence look like for you when you're not trying to perform, when you're not putting on airs, when you're just showing up as yourself and who you are is more than enough? What does that look like? What changes when you say less instead of more? If you're not over explaining, you say what it is you need to say. It was clarified. You don't really need to give an explanation for it.

What happens when you state it and then shut up? How does that feel in your body? How does it feel in your body when you speak from certainty instead of urgency? One of the things that happens in coaching sessions with people is I, as a coach, am a little quiet. I want you to talk. I need you to talk so that I can then make an evaluation.

And sometimes people can't handle my silence. My silence isn't damning, nor is it judging. It's just simply I'm listening to you. And I can tell when people get nervous. I can tell when it switches real quick. And then they start talking, they start over-explaining, they start talking really, really fast, and they get really expressive, and their hands start moving. And then I say, hey, let's take a breath. Let's take a breath.

Kimberly Houston (16:36.984)
Put your hand over your heart and like, let's take a breath. Let's breathe in for three. Hold it for me. And then let's release that.

because I need you to be back inside of your body. It's when your mouth starts moving that I know you've left this conversation that you and I are having. And so I want to help you ground yourself. I want to help you come back down. Right. And so when we're thinking about what confidence looks like and sounds like, what does it feel like in your body? Were there, you're not anxious in your body. There's no anxiety running through your body. You're not speaking faster and trying to

get my approval when you're talking to me or when you're talking to others. What do you notice about your tone when you're settled versus seeking agreement? When when people are looking for agreement and they're looking for approval sometimes the tone changes and I like to listen to where are you speaking in your voice? Where is that for you? What is your posture doing? Like even for me in this

moment I feel like my voice is lower than it has been all day long at this conference because at this conference there was a little bit more urgency and a little bit more of a need to be on as opposed to just being like very laid-back very relaxed very grounded I can feel a difference in my voice at this moment of how I sound right now versus how I've sounded all day.

So just think about what does your tone look like? What does it sound like when you're settled versus seeking agreement? Now, if you're like, well, how did we get to this point that these are the things we need to know? I can tell you right now, you learned this in your childhood. This is cultural conditioning. Everything that we do is not our fault, but everything that we make a conscious choice at not improving is a choice.

Kimberly Houston (18:42.218)
And so I want to kind of bring this to the forefront. A couple of years ago when I did the Emergence coaching experience, it was definitely one of the most powerful coaching experiences I've ever done. And it was all about while I did it with entrepreneurs and I did it with business owners, it was really all about tapping into those things, preventing you from being a better business owner because you don't want to deal with it. And so in Emergence,

We talked a lot about cultural conditioning. We talked about where did you learn certain things must be demonstrated and not assumed. We talked about what your values are in life. How did you get to those values? Did you arrive at these values based on things that happened to you in your childhood? Like you weren't very safe as a child. You didn't feel safe. You weren't around safe people.

Safety was a problem for you. And so now one of your values is you make sure you're always in a safe place, but you have now become the safe space for others. All right.

what things from your childhood have influenced who you are now. And so those are some of the things we kind of think about, right? Who taught you that rest, silence, or restraint meant laziness or risk? That's a big one. That's a really, really big one. There are a lot of conversations around this. Even Michelle Obama just had a podcast where she was telling young women that it's okay that you want to be a good mother and you want to be a great entrepreneur and you

to do this, this, this, and this. That is great and wonderful, but stop thinking you're to have all that at the same time. No one told me that. Nobody told me that growing up in the 90s. We are the only generation of women that are expected to work like we don't have children and raise our children like we don't have a job.

Kimberly Houston (20:47.702)
Right? What were you taught? What were you conditioned to believe as a child that has held you captive in your adult life? Why do you think that rest is lazy? Why do you think that silence is a risk? Why do you think that restraint is a problem?

How has productivity culture shaped how you communicate? We live in such a fast-paced world. I sat in on a class at the conference today about AI and how it's moving and how this panel on AI 100 % said, everything that we're telling you right now will probably be different in 60 days. We are living in a time where technology is moving so much faster than we can keep up with.

And so that's all you see now. That's what you're consuming on TikTok. That's what you're consuming on Instagram. The algorithm is pushing things in front of you that you are now judging your lived experience based on, but everything that's posted has been curated.

You don't see that there's dirty clothes all over the floor behind them. You don't see that these mom influencers who like they have it all together have nannies. You don't see any of this. You just see this woman doing every single thing by herself, but you don't see the team behind the scenes. And so I really want you to think about, are you being influenced by a productivity culture?

that is changing how you show up and how you communicate. And then another question you can really think about, and this is something I think about often and I say it all the time when I'm coaching people, who benefits when you don't feel like you're at your best? Who is benefiting from you doubting yourself? Who benefits from you not having boundaries?

Kimberly Houston (22:38.27)
Those are going to be the same people who cause issues in your life when you set a boundary with them. Who benefits from you not thinking that you're enough? All right. So let's talk about how we reframe this. Let's talk about how we move forward. A question I would like for you to sit with is, what does it mean to trust my value before it's validated? One of the things that I know about myself,

is that before I launch something, I have already thought it through.

And it doesn't take me a long time to think things through, right? Like I don't do research and development for weeks and years and months. That's not something I'm going to do. I'm going to do enough to know what the risk is of me doing this. And then I'm moving forward. The way that I was able to speed that process up was I ask a very simple question. If it's not a hell yes, it's a no, right? I don't do things that aren't a hell yes for me.

And that has fundamentally changed how I show up, what I say yes to. It has changed the value of my yes. People who invite me to things when I show up, they know that they were a hell yes and not a no, not a maybe. I don't do lukewarm. I'm either hell yes or I'm no. There's no in the middle with me. And so it has grown my friendships. It has grown my relationships. It has grown my business partnerships because people know and understand that my time is valuable. And if I told you yes,

I'm gonna do this thing. I'm gonna show up. I'm gonna support you. They know I'm a beta and when I'm there Then it's you know how you go places in your life. she always be at this stuff You'll never be able to say that about me. So when I show up people are always like, my god Thank you so much for coming because you understand the value of my yes now as I've explained that

Kimberly Houston (24:40.206)
Here's what I want to ask you. If other people can see the value of your yes, do you understand your own value? If the answer to that question is no, like if you're questioning, should I be in this room? Should I be here? You don't value your own yes and you don't value yourself. And so let's start thinking about how do I trust myself enough to know the decisions that I'm making are right? I don't think the decisions that you make are right or wrong. I think that they are either right or they are a lesson.

It doesn't matter. It's either right or it's a lesson. So whenever I make a decision, either it was a great decision to make or it was time for me to learn a lesson. Now, where I have a problem is if you keep making the same decision over and over again, because you ain't learned that lesson the first time and now we're on the fifth time you need to learn this lesson, that's a problem.

So as we continue our understanding of reframing this and settling in the knowing that is within, another question you can ask yourself is how would I show up if I stopped chasing understanding? How would you walk in the room? You ever been somewhere and you just see somebody walk in the room and all eyes are on them and you're like my god who is that person? Yeah.

Sometimes it's in what they have on, sometimes it's in how they smell, sometimes it's just in the fact of the way they walked into the room. But the thing that you do know, the thing that everybody who turns their head and looks at them is, who is this? And why do I need to know you? Why do I know you, right? What would happen if you stopped walking through the world chasing understanding?

What will shift when you let people meet you, the real you, instead of convincing them that you're someone they should know? I show up authentically.

Kimberly Houston (26:37.774)
as authentically as I can in every situation. Because while I work in an industry that is large, it's still really small. Because what do you mean you remember me from two years ago at a completely different conference, right? And we're on a completely different coast at that. Like, what do you mean you remember meeting me two years ago? And I wasn't talking. I wasn't on a stage. I wasn't in a position of authority. I was literally crossing the street from Starbucks.

Like that's what was happening when this went down. How is it that you can show up authentically as yourself at all times that people are affected by that and they remember it? How do you do that? You can't fake that, right? Like you can't put on airs and become that person. You just have to be yourself. And then you don't have to think about, well, who was I then? Who was I pretending to be at that conference?

I'm just me. And so I'm going to show up in the same way that I showed up two years ago. I'm going show that way now, right?

Another thought that comes to mind is who are you actually trying to attract with clarity and not explanation? If I feel like I have explained myself to you that the clarity is there, there isn't, there's no bullet points like I am Coach Chef Kimberly Houston, I'm a pastry chef, I am a baking curriculum developer for

K through 12 education. I'm a consultant. I am a business coach for culinary and creative entrepreneurs. That does not need explanation. I just told you who I am and what I do. Real simple. But if you look at me after I tell you that and the look on your face looks like you need an explanation of that.

Kimberly Houston (28:35.958)
I'm probably going to look around to try and figure out what's wrong with you. Cause I was real clear with what I said. I'm not going to keep going to try and give you an explanation of who I am or better yet, why I am the person I just told you. That comes up a lot for women. You now need to explain why you are the way you are. And I'm not going to do that. This is who I am.

And I don't know what else to tell you about that, right? So who are you trying to attract with clarity and not explanation? The people that I say a teeny, teeny tiny bit of my resume to, I know I'm a lot. Like I know that, right? Speaking of, I know I'm a lot. Let me see if I can help land this a little bit more. I'm trying not to over explain, just giving examples. I was told that I was too much.

It took me time in therapy, time in meditation, time in prayer to accept that for some people I am too much. But in reality, I'm not even done yet. And once I accepted that, that not only am I not too much,

but I'm still becoming the version of me that will be so much more. That's when I knew that the problem wasn't me, the problem was that person. All right. They were not willing to grow and be able to allow me the understanding.

that you are now in the presence of someone with multiple degrees and has had multiple businesses and does a lot of things. Like that is beyond your thinking, but that doesn't mean I need to explain that to you. So hopefully that example helps. So in closing, I want to give you some like integrative ways. If this podcast is resonating with you, I want to give you some ways to integrate this into your daily life.

Kimberly Houston (30:50.604)
So I want you to think about where can you begin practicing less and meaning it more. You don't have to be a jerk about it. I've definitely gone through those phases of being like I said when I said it. You don't have to pull any knee leaks on people. But where can you practice saying less and it means more? That also means you're choosing your words wisely.

What can you learn by allowing silence to do some of the work? Silence is okay. It won't kill you. What would happen if you observe how other people are responding instead of trying to fix it by over explaining? And then what would it look like to stay grounded even if nothing changes immediately? This is the one that

I have used with several clients where the people who are closest to you, who know you the most are very, very used to you over explaining or you going off into a tangent all the time. They're very used to that. And when you begin to change that, they'll say something like, what's wrong with you? Like they're going to kind of wonder like, what's happening? What's going on with you? What does it look like to stay grounded?

if you need to explain it to them and let them know, this is something I'm working on. So I'm going to say this and then I'm going to be quiet. That's okay. I had to do that with my children when I first went on this journey and it's been fine.

We're several years into this now and not only is this something that's accepted from me where I don't have to say a whole lot. I said it and we move on. They have also adapted this into their lives. And so this is now how they show up in the world is I'm not gonna over explain myself to you. This is what I say it. And here's who I am and this is authentically who I am.

Kimberly Houston (32:54.282)
Enjoy, right? So as you are kind of thinking about this and if you have to listen to this podcast one more time to let it all settle into your spirit or if you were listening and you're like, I know someone who needs to hear this or see this, please share that with them. I would absolutely love for you to do that. And if I could leave you with a thought.

You are enough. You are more than enough, even though you're still becoming the version of yourself that you're striving to be. Who you are right now is still enough. I'll talk to you guys next time.