Episode 9 I Didn't Say Much

Sometimes people don’t remember the exact words you said, but they do remember how safe they felt around you.

This episode is a reflection on quiet presence, listening, emotional safety, and realizing that not every impactful person is the loudest one in the room.

For a long time, I thought I needed to say more, explain more, perform more, but I’m learning that softness, attentiveness, and simply making people feel seen carries its own kind of power.

This conversation is for the people who have always been the listener, the calm one, the emotionally observant ones who hold space even when nobody notices they’re doing it.

Maybe your presence has been speaking louder than you realized.

Welcome to First Messy Draft...where becoming is messy, but growth is real.

In process, Erica

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Now listen, I've been thinking about something lately. How people come to me with a lot of things, I mean like a lot of things. Their thoughts, their situations, their problems. For the longest time I used to sit there like, okay, why me? Because if I'm being honest, I really don't say that much. Welcome to First Messy Draft, where becoming is messy, but growth is real. I'm Erica, and this is a space where we slow down and reflect on life while we're still in the middle of our becoming. I used to really think that something was missing. Like if people are coming to me, I at least should have an answer for them, right? I should be helping, fixing, saying something so profound and deep, and then send them on their way, giving them something to take with them. Sometimes I would feel this quiet pressure to do more or to say more, be more helpful. Because in my mind, just sitting there and listening did not feel like I was doing enough. I remember I was in a leadership class about a year ago. We had um performed a culture index quiz on ourselves. I think it was about five or six questions, not sure. And it came to me and it gave what my profile is, and I posed the question to the class. I just asked them straight up, why do people come to me all the time? I am usually the quiet person, seriously. I mean, half of the people that know me are still shocked that I even have a podcast. So I'm like, why come to me? I'm the quiet one. I'm just over here in my corner, okay? So the majority of the people that responded in the class, the the answers caught me off guard. They were saying things like, It's your spirit, Erica. I mean, you're so calm. You just have a calmness about you that people want to talk to you. So I remember thinking, that's it? I didn't really was like, huh? I'm calm. I mean what? Like I would thought, I thought they were just going to say something about what I said or how I helped, but it wasn't that. It was how they felt while they were talking to me. So I must say when I began to think about that, that shifted something for me. Because I started to realize maybe people aren't coming to me for answers. Maybe they're coming to me because of what they experience when they're in my presence. Now, I'm not trying to say that you're gonna come to my presence and come my child. You will experience rainbows and unicorns, and uh I'm not saying that, believe me.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

But I'm like, it's gotta be something. What is it? And then I had a conversation with my supervisor a couple of weeks ago about people coming to us as individuals with their issues, with their problems.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

And our conclusion was the truth is a lot of people don't want advice. They really don't want advice. They don't want a five-step plan. They do not want to be fixed. They just want somewhere to put what they've been carrying. They want someone to listen. And sometimes they just want to say it out loud so they can even hear themselves say it. They don't want to be corrected. And nine times out of ten, they don't want you to solve or jump in to save the day and help them solve their problems. They want you to be active listening. And I think that is so limited and so rare these days. We are so busy going about our lives, our responsibilities as humans, as parents, adulting, that we forget or we have forgotten, or we maybe we never knew how to perform active listening. And I had to sit with this because I realized I was undervaluing something that comes so naturally to me. I thought I needed to add more sauce to what I was when maybe what I was already offering was enough. Maybe that's true for you too. Maybe there's something that you do so naturally that you don't even recognize it as something valuable. Because it doesn't feel like effort. I know it doesn't for me. It's just me, it's just what I do, it's just what I've always done. I don't think people are always looking to be fixed. The most powerful thing that you can offer someone is not advice.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

It is your presence. Believe me. This is first messy draft.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Maybe this is just one of those things that we all are learning in real time. Think about it. Be more present in your relationships, in your conversations, be it at home with your family, at work with your fellow coworkers, because you never know what someone is going through. Don't be so quick to brush off because you have issues going on at home. I know, I know it's hard to say. We all can get caught up in cares of this world. But maybe that one little small time that you stopped focusing on your problems and said, you know what? Mary came to me today. She had something on her mind, something on her chest that she needed to get off. And she chose me, me of all people, to come share this with. So evidently, there's something on the inside of me that she needs. And it may not even be the most profound conversation, most reflective point of view. It may be your presence. Think about it. This is first messy draft, where becoming is messy, but growth is real.