A week ago, I spoke to a packed room at Prosper's member event in London.
Standing room only.
Energy electric.
The kind of audience that leans in when you share the hard-won truths from two decades of high-stakes negotiations.
We covered everything from navigating uncertainty to building trust under pressure.
But afterward, three different people, all successful professionals, came up to me with the same reaction:
"The lessons on silence completely changed how I think about influence."
They'd all discovered the same truth:
The most powerful move is often what you don’t say, rather than do say.
It's the pause.
Think about your last important conversation.
How quickly did you jump in to fill the silence?
How often did you interrupt their thinking with your next question?
Most of us are terrified of silence.
We treat it like a problem to be solved rather than a tool to be wielded.
But silence does three things that words never can:
1/ It gives people space to think
Real thinking takes time.
When you rush people, you get their first reaction, not their best thinking.
2/ It shows you're actually listening
Nothing says "I value what you're saying" like giving someone time to say it properly.
3/ It creates pressure that works in your favour
People feel compelled to fill silence.
Often with the very information you need most.
Our discomfort with silence isn't accidental.
We've been trained to fill every gap.
In meetings, we jump in the moment someone stops talking.
In negotiations, we rush to respond before fully processing what was said.
In difficult conversations, we smooth over the tension instead of letting it teach us something.
We mistake silence for emptiness.
Here's the beautiful irony:
Silence isn't passive.
It's the most active thing you can do.
It says:
"What you're thinking matters enough for me to wait for it."
That kind of respect is magnetic.
It builds trust faster than any technique I know.
Until next time,
Scott
p.s. Thank you to Nick Perrett, Alys Key, and everyone at Prosper who made last week such an brilliant experience. Events like these remind me why I love sharing these tools with people ready to use them.
p.s.s. If you haven't picked up your copy of my new book ‘Eye of the Storm’ yet, you can click here to grab it directly from Amazon.
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