A researcher once compared brain scans of people being interrupted with brain scans of people being slapped in the face. The same parts of the brain lit up. Exactly the same picture.
I learned this from Trisha Lord, a coaching and “Time to Think” expert who’s spent nearly two decades teaching people how to create what Nancy Kline calls “thinking environments.” When she shared this research during our conversation on “Let’s Talk Courageous Conversations” podcast, something clicked for me. How many times have I blamed myself for freezing in meetings, for not speaking up, for losing my train of thought mid-sentence?
What if I wasn’t the problem?
The hidden violence of interruption
Let’s start with what’s actually happening in your brain when someone cuts you off mid-thought.
Your amygdala gets triggered. That’s the part of your brain responsible for threat detection. When you’re interrupted, your nervous system registers it as a physical violation. You literally cannot think productively anymore because you’ve lost access to your prefrontal cortex- the part of your brain where all your solution-focused, strategic, and creative thinking happens. We loose our ability to think on our feet, as they say.
Trisha put it this way:
“It’s just disastrous for the quality of thinking that then happens in the meeting, not to mention the experience of disrespect and being devalued that people are experiencing when it’s happening.”
So when you walk out of that meeting feeling terrible about yourself, replaying what you should have said, questioning why you didn’t speak up, know that your body was more than likely doing exactly what it’s designed to do. You were protecting yourself from what your nervous system registered as an attack.
Why we keep interrupting each other
Here’s what fascinates me about interruption: we all do it. We’ve gotten so caught up in this terrible habit that we don’t even notice it anymore.
Trisha said something that made me laugh because it’s so true:
“I’d love to go back in time and find the first person that interrupted, you know, and just go ‘what were you thinking?’ Because ever since you did that, the rest of humanity have been copying you ever since and it’s had a terrible impact on us.”
Yet when we interrupt, we’ve stopped listening to the other person and started listening to ourselves. We’re not really hearing what they’re saying, as we’re already preparing our response.
This comes from how we were taught. Think about it: as kids, we got messages like “answer me when I’m speaking to you, child.” We learned to be ready with the right answer. To make sure it pleases the person asking. To be anxious about getting it wrong.
So we’re sitting in meetings, supposedly listening, but we’re actually in our own heads. We’re listening to ourselves so intently that eventually it just bubbles up out of our mouths. We can’t hold it in anymore.
The myth that interruption saves time
There’s this completely false assumption that interruption speeds things up. Like if I just finish your sentence for you, we’ll move along faster. If I jump in with my solution, we won’t waste time.
Wrong.
When you interrupt someone, they don’t feel like they’ve had a chance to say what they wanted to say. They can’t move on. The meeting might continue, but that person is still back there, stuck on the thing they didn’t get to finish saying. Their brain is triggered. They’re not really present anymore.
Trisha coaches organizations on how to improve their meetings, and she’s adamant about this:
“For meetings, the quality of thinking in meetings to improve, we have to start to make this promise to not interrupt.”
I know what you’re thinking. “Who’s got time for that? Meetings are already too long!”
But here’s the deal: when you create an agreement not to interrupt, you also create an agreement to get to the point. And when you structure meetings in rounds (where everyone gets a chance to say what they think before it moves into open discussion) something magical happens. The quality of thinking improves. Decision-making gets better. And the meetings actually become more efficient, not less.
What real listening actually looks like
So if interruption is what breaks down communication, what builds it up?
Trisha calls it “quality of attention,” and it has specific ingredients:
- The person listening to you trusts your intelligence. They genuinely believe you’re better designed to come up with your own solutions than anyone else on the planet.
- They want to know what you think. Not in a polite way. They’re so interested in where your thinking is going that they wouldn’t dream of interrupting you.
- They think of you as equal as a thinker. Not less than. Not someone who needs to be corrected or guided or fixed.
- They have time for you. No rush, no urgency.
- They notice and appreciate qualities they see in you.
- They’re fine with whatever feelings you have. If you get emotional, if you need a moment, if you’re working through something, they’re not going to think differently about you.
When all of these things are present, Trisha says, “that quality of attention has this catalytic impact on your thinking.”
I had the chance to experience this, when one of the boards I sat on went through a training to learn this type of thinking, and how to create it. I beamed from the experience, because in those conversations I felt genuinely listened to – no interruptions, no rushing – and I was stunned by how much further my thinking went.
When these conditions are present, something remarkable happens. Your thinking goes deeper. Ideas you didn’t know you had come out. Connections appear that weren’t there before.
And here’s what got me: I wasn’t more confident going into those conversations. The environment made the difference.
The gift of ease
There’s another piece to this that Trisha mentioned that was impactful.
When you make a promise not to interrupt (both to the other person and to yourself) it creates ease. For both people.
The person speaking doesn’t have to be on high alert, watching for the moment someone jumps in. They can relax into their thinking. They can go deeper.
But the person listening benefits too. You don’t have to be getting ready with an answer while the other person is talking. You can stay genuinely interested in where their thinking is going. And if they want to know what you think, they’ll ask. Then you can think about what you think. You don’t have to have it all prepared in advance.
“Ease is so good for our brains,” Trisha said. “Rush and urgency is not good for our brains.”
This is important for us, as we spend so much of our careers in rush-and-urgency mode. Ready to respond. Ready to prove we’re paying attention. Ready to show we have something valuable to contribute.
What if we could just… listen? And trust that when it’s our turn to speak, we’ll know what to say?
When you’re the one not being heard
Let’s get practical. You’re in a meeting right now where you keep getting talked over. Where your ideas get dismissed or co-opted. Where the loud people dominate and you go home feeling invisible.
What do you do?
You can’t always control how others listen to you. But you can notice what’s happening. You can name it, at least to yourself: “This environment doesn’t have the conditions I need to think well.”
That’s not a failing on your part. That’s information.
You can also start creating better conditions in the spaces you do control. When you’re leading a meeting, you can propose a round. “Let’s hear from everyone on this question before we open it up for discussion.” You can say, “I’m going to give everyone two minutes to think before we share.” You can model not interrupting.
And sometimes, you need to directly address it. Trisha told me about a time when she noticed some discomfort in a relationship with a colleague. A client had invited the colleague to speak at an event, and Trisha had a little reaction to not being told first.
She could have ignored it. Let it fester. Built up evidence that the relationship wasn’t safe.
Instead, she said something: “I noticed that I had a little bit of a reaction when you told me that, and I’m absolutely fine with it happening but I just want to let you know that I had a little bit of a reaction.”
Was it comfortable? No. Did the conversation go exactly as she expected? No, it actually got more complicated than she anticipated.
But here’s what she said:
“I still don’t regret having it because I know that what motivated me to have it is how much I respect both of these people and how much I care about my relationship with both of them and how I want to make sure that I don’t withhold in that relationship.”
What this means for your leadership
I’ve been coaching professionals for over 20 years now, and one of the patterns I see most often is this: capable, intelligent people who think there’s something wrong with them because they struggle to speak up in certain environments.
But when I work with them one-on-one, when they have my full attention and no interruptions, their thinking is brilliant. Their insights are valuable. Their voices matter, and comes out.
The problem isn’t them. The problem is that most environments (most meetings, most conversations) don’t have the conditions that allow people to think well and speak freely.
You know who suffers most in these environments? Quiet achievers. People who need a little more time to process. People who’ve been talked over so many times that they’ve learned to stay silent.
These are often the same people with the most valuable perspectives. They’re observant. They notice things others miss. They think deeply before they speak.
But if the only people we hear from are the ones who can think out loud at high speed while talking over everyone else, we’re missing so much.
The practice of non-interruption
Trisha works with something called the “Thinking Environment,” developed by Nancy Kline. There are ten conditions that create this environment, and attention (specifically, attention without interruption) is foundational.
She tells her clients: “In exchange for not being interrupted, you agree to get to the point.”
This matters because some people worry that if we stop interrupting, meetings will drag on forever. But when people know they’ll get to finish their thoughts without being cut off, they actually become more concise. They trust that they’ll be heard, so they don’t have to repeat themselves or over-explain.
The other thing that helps is asking better questions. Not “What do you think?” as a vague invitation, but specific questions tied to the outcome you want to achieve. Then you conduct the meeting in rounds, minimizing open discussion where the extroverts and people with more power inevitably dominate.
I’ve been more intentional with this in my own work. When I’m coaching, I’m already pretty good at not interrupting. But in other contexts, like team meetings, conversations with colleagues, even discussions with my partner, I’ve noticed how often I jump in.
Just this week, I caught myself starting to respond before my partner finished his thought. I stopped. Waited. Let him complete what he was saying. And you know what? He went somewhere completely different than I expected. If I’d interrupted, I would have missed it entirely.
Your nervous system knows
Here’s something I want you to sit with for a moment: your body knows when it’s not safe to speak.
All those times you’ve frozen in meetings. All those moments when you had something to say but couldn’t get the words out. All those conversations you’ve replayed in your head for hours afterward, beating yourself up for not speaking up.
Your nervous system was most likely doing its job. It was protecting you.
Because when you’re in an environment where people interrupt, talk over each other, dismiss ideas, or dominate the conversation, your threat-detection system kicks in. And when your amygdala is triggered, you literally cannot access the part of your brain you need for clear thinking and communication.
This isn’t a confidence problem. This is a safety problem.
You can do all the confidence-building work in the world (and I support that work, I do it with my clients as it is a key and helpful part of this whole equation of speaking up more courageously). But if you’re putting yourself in environments where the conditions for good thinking don’t exist, you’re going to struggle.
Building better listening into your life
So what changes now that you know this?
You can start noticing the quality of attention in your relationships and work environments. Where do you feel heard? Where do you feel interrupted and shut down? This awareness alone is powerful.
You can start creating agreements around listening. Before a difficult conversation, you might say, “Can we make an agreement that we’ll each finish our thoughts before the other person responds?” Before a meeting, you might propose a round where everyone speaks without interruption.
You can practice receiving attention without interruption, and giving it too. Notice how different it feels when someone truly listens to you. Notice how your thinking deepens. Then offer that same gift to others.
And you can give yourself permission to leave or change environments where you’re consistently not being heard. Sometimes the most courageous thing you can do is recognize that a particular space doesn’t have the conditions you need to thrive, and find spaces that do.
The Quiet Revolution
Trisha mentioned something near the end of our conversation that stayed with me. She said the question she often asks herself is:
“What are we so afraid of?”
Why do we interrupt each other? Why do we rush? Why do we talk over people instead of making space for them?
She thinks it’s fear. Fear that drives dysfunctional behaviour. Fear of being overlooked. Fear of not contributing enough. Fear of losing power or status if we’re not the one talking.
What if we replaced that fear with curiosity? With genuine interest in what the other person is thinking? With trust that there’s enough space for all of us?
I don’t have all the answers here. I’m still learning how to listen better, how to create the conditions where people can think well and speak freely. I still catch myself interrupting sometimes. I still find myself preparing my response instead of staying present with what someone is saying.
But I’m paying attention now. I notice when I’m in an environment where real listening is happening, and I notice when I’m not. I notice how my own thinking changes based on the quality of attention I’m receiving.
And I’m starting to believe that this might be one of the most important skills we can develop as leaders, as colleagues, as humans: the ability to listen to each other without interruption. To create space for thinking. To trust that people have their own intelligence and can find their own answers if we just pay attention.
Your confidence could very well not be broken. Your voice might not be missing. You might just need someone to really listen.
Want to learn my Top Tips for having more courageous conversations? Get my free guide here.
