I’ve noticed that my mind goes blank if I ever “stop to think”. I thought it had something to do with my concentration, but the other day, I had a revelation (while talking).

I talk to think!

It makes perfect sense.

• I need to vocalize when learning/studying or I can’t make any connections
• I have the bad habit of blurting things out at people, often when they are mid-conversation
• My best friendships are with people who I constantly share ideas with over chai; we can talk for hours. (Corollary – I really dislike spending time with people who cannot hold a conversation)
• I have been accused of being a scatterbrain, of flip-flopping between opposing views just to annoy people, of being a contrarian – even though I don’t do/am any of these things (though, to be clear, I can flip-flop a lot: but that’s the point I’m making, I AM LITERALLY THINKING OUT LOUD ALL THE TIME GODDAMIT!)

One of the benefits of being a talk-to-think kinda person is that I make a great bouncing board for ideas! God knows that has come handy at work (not to brag, but I’m an A+ team player) and in my relationships (“help me understand this”).

One of the downsides is that when I am blindsided by something and need to respond immediately, I literally cannot think. My mind goes blank. And all these years, I’ve been hard on myself for being emotionally unintelligent 😒

Great article on this topic: https://www.fastcompany.com/919234/do-you-talk-think-or-think-talk (mirror)

And another, in a leadership context: https://fractio.nl/2015/07/10/think-talk-leadership/ (mirror)