How to Get Your Crocodile to Talk Nicely

A lot of communication these days is said to be “frank”, “from the gut”, and “telling it like it is”. While I’ll be the last one to impeach anyone’s language for honesty, a good deal of what passes for honest expression is nothing of the sort, it’s just trash talk. Channeling your inner talk-show host is nothing of which to be proud.

Nowhere is this blurting of mental gas more damaging than in our professional lives, followed immediately by that of our family lives. For most of us that covers 90% of our communication.

The problem with cheap, fake “speaking your mind” is that there are consequences. If you live off in the woods all by yourself, you have the liberty to say what you want, when you want. Otherwise, your words have consequences.

Take the lawyer negotiating the settlement of a civil suit. You’re fully entitled to think to yourself that the other lawyer is a conniving jerk, exceeded in worthlessness only by his client. But you’d be really dumb to express that sentiment out loud. In fact, you can’t even let the feeling affect your tone of voice.

At home, there are few of us who have not had words come out of our mouth that we immediately wish we could grab and stuff back in. The look on the face of the spouse or partner says all that needs to be said.

The blame for all this talking like a three year old can be laid at the feet of our inner crocodiles. Deep within our brains lies an area which is an exact replica of the simple brain of a reptile, the only business of which is to keep the beast alive with five functions: fight, flight, freeze, feed, or fornicate. Reacting in a split second, the crocodile brain fills our bodies with oxygen and adrenaline and other hormones, setting us up to lash out, run away, punch somebody in the face, or otherwise behave like a stimulated crocodile. This is the guy who gets us into trouble when we speak without thinking.

Lots of people go through life blurting out whatever first comes into their heads, but you and I aren’t like that, of course. We keep our crocodiles under control. We take the time to consider our audience, we take the time to consider the message that needs to be delivered, we take the time to consider the probable emotional impact on the listener, we think about the long-term implications of what we say, and we think about the next steps in the conversation. Before we speak, we take a breath and let our big brain do some processing.

And by making our crocodiles speak nicely, we find we have more influence, more friends, better reputations, more respect, and deeper relationships. It’s quite amazing how that works!