Look around

Jocko Willinik tells a story of when his first Navy SEAL platoon boarded an oil rig. In the disorienting, complex environment, everyone momentarily froze.

Even though he was the new guy, he said to himself, someone has to do something, so he decided to point his rifle towards the sky to indicate he was not a shooter, and he stepped back off the line to observe what was happening.

“Hold left, move right,” he shouted.

The SEAL team heard and followed his instructions, despite his being brand new and barely out of his teens.

From this experience, he realized that detaching from the situation, so you can see what’s happening, is absolutely critical.

“It sounds horrible,” he says, “but it’s almost like, sometimes, I’m not a participant in my own life. I’m an observer of the guy who’s doing it.”

We can apply this insight to become a more confident communicator.

Willinik continues, “If I’m having a conversation with you and we’re trying to discuss a point, I’m watching and saying [to myself], ‘Wait, am I being too emotional right now? Wait a second, look at him, what’s his reaction?’ I'm not reading you correctly if I'm seeing you through my own emotion or ego. I can't really see what you're thinking if I'm emotional. But if I step out of that, now I can see the real you and assess if you are getting angry, or if your ego is getting hurt, or if you're about to cave because you're just fed up with me. Whereas, if I'm raging in my own head, I might miss all of that.”

Detach, step back and observe, then continually assess.

Quotes from Tools of Titans, by Tim Ferris.