Big Talk
Let’s go big on big talk.
I was standing in the hallway during an event yesterday, when I ran into my brilliant friend, Dr. Pamela Ross McClain. She's got one of the best job descriptions around: Director of Culture, Belonging, and Community Building at Delta College.
In the five minutes before the next speaker, we talked about:
How experimentation and failure is integral to progress
How specialists are experts, but generalists are connectors
Exclusion and isolation within a community
How we use language to divide instead of communicate
Race
How what we want needs to be supported by what we do
Standardized testing
Poetry
The educational system and its interaction with the world
I was ready to grab a microphone and stop the event until our conversation was over, or whisk her away for a cup of coffee. It feels the opposite of pretension—it feels like vulnerability. Like someone who, for a moment, lifts the curtain, invites you in, and says, "I need to talk with you about something important."
In big talk, curiosity and passion motivate the belief that every conversation could be the cusp of revelation. Whether that discovery is a new way of thinking or simply knowing someone better, in its soul is the desire to show people that they important, and because they are important, they deserve something better than our typical habits of communication allow.
Communication like this is disarming, inspiring, and exhilarating, and whether it's in little dashes or heaping spoonfuls, if we want better relationships, happier lives, and better communities, we need to go bigger on "big talk".
I get it: trying to talk in this way can intimidating and we fear feeling dumb or awkward. But after talking with thousands of people about things I know nothing about, here are some tips on going big on Big Talk:
Pay attention
Listen
Be interested, be curious and ask questions
Say "Tell me more" or "What do you mean when you say..."
Make people feel like they're safe to communicate
Start small: ask one more question, give it two more minutes
It takes two to tango, but you won't know who's willing until you ask them to dance. To save the world, we need dig deep and all at once, but that starts with being willing to scratch below the surface.
Every time I see Pam, she reading a poem. While she wasn't yesterday, Walt Whitman wrote one way back in 1892 that fits:
The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?
It's not too late, so let's speak before we're gone.