Page 34 - EAMMV9covers
P. 34
EARTH ANGELS & MAGIC MOMENTS
open your mouth. They assume you're intelligent and
capable until you start talking. And then, well, they
might realize that you're not as smart as they thought.
Or maybe you'll surprise them and say something
really insightful. Either way, speaking up changes
everything.
Professor Thomas Harrell at the Stanford Business
School spent twenty years looking for “the success
factor” and concluded the number one identifiable
predictor of success, across all realms of life, is
something he called ’social extroversion’—the ability to
speak up.
When was the last time you spoke up to a
stranger? When was the last time you tried?
Even if you have to step out of your comfort zone
for a moment, the life you encounter when you step
back in again will be different from the life you were
living before you plucked up the courage to speak up.
That said, we all know that feeling when you’
re
sitting next to a stranger on a bus or standing
awkwardly in an elevator and someone insists on
talking to you when you’re not in the mood. Most
34