100 Ways to Succeed #104:

Shut Up!

Referring to the protagonist, Paul Christopher, a CIA field officer (again—and very consistent with Charlie Wilson’s War) in Christopher’s Ghosts, author Charles McCarry, says: “He [Christopher] had learned when he was very young that if he kept quiet, the other person would fill the silence.” McCarry also tells us at one point that Christopher’s key to a debriefing is to shut up and not interrupt—Christopher claims that “everyone has a story to tell, if only you have the patience to wait for it and not get in the way of it.”

So: Shut up!

I’m practicing (a 2008 resolution) keeping quiet, and waiting for the story to emerge. (Fat chance, my colleagues would say—screw them.)

Tom Peters posted this on January 7, 2008, in Success Tips.
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