117 - How To Answer Questions Without One-Word Answers

Now, let's talk about giving short save answers, right? So let's imagine a situation, shall we? You know, maybe you're at work or you're in some social event and somebody asks you a question that you didn't prepare for, right? You didn't expect.

It's kind of out of the blue.

And like, you've got a lot of information you want to share.

You know, maybe you're at work.

You're really good at your job.

You've got loads of good stuff that you want to tell that person.

But like, for whatever reason, you just struggle to express that idea in English.

Maybe you don't know the words.

Maybe you just don't feel confident in organizing the information.

For whatever reason, you don't feel confident to express that idea in English.

And then your brain just is like, all right then, panic.

Ah! So like this happens a lot at work, social situations, whatever, right? Your brain panics because, oh my God, we've got to share this complicated thing in English.

All right, fair enough.

So what your brain probably will do at that point is like default, you know, how can we escape this situation as quickly as possible? You know, fight or flight as they call it.

Flight is usually the choice, right? So what loads of people do is they give like the shortest answer possible.

And I understand why people do it, right? A short answer, it means that you responded, you did what you needed to do, you know, the minimum possible response, done, nice.

And it feels safe, you know, because short answers are easy to rehearse and not much can go wrong, you know? You're only saying like five or six words, there's way less chance for you to make a mistake and look like an idiot, right? And it's probably easier to control because there's not so many moving parts.

It's probably not that much difficult grammar.

There's not much connection happening.

So you're going to feel safer.

It's like that's easier to do, right? You're more in control.

You're less likely to make a mistake.

And when you're under pressure, that stuff seems like a good idea, right? Of course it does.

Like... let's be honest, none of us want to make mistakes.

None of us want to feel like we don't have control of what we're talking about.