Put the Megaphone Down (A Love Letter to Quiet Influence)
Why the loudest person in the room is usually the least interesting one
There’s a certain kind of coach — you’ve met one, maybe you’ve been one — who operates at a single volume.
FULL BLAST.
Their emails have seventeen exclamation points. Their subject lines scream.
Their LinkedIn posts open with some variation of “🔥 STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW 🔥.”
They’ve apparently been placed on this earth with one singular mission: to make sure you feel a low-grade sense of urgency about everything at all times.
Exhausting, right?
Here’s a little secret that took me embarrassingly long to learn: the megaphone is a defense mechanism.
Sidenote: This is why Tony Robbins wasn’t my mentor, but Dan Kennedy was.
Calm, cool Dan, with a sense of humor and straightforward communication. No clapping of hands, jumping up and down, and screaming affirmations while touching everyone around me to “anchor the feeling”.
When we shout, we don’t have to wonder if anyone’s listening.
When we hype, we don’t have to trust that the truth is interesting on its own.
When every message is URGENT and GAME-CHANGING and LIFE-ALTERING, we never have to sit with the quiet, vulnerable possibility that maybe… what we have to say is just… good.
Useful.
Worth your actual time.
And “worth your actual time” turns out to be a much harder bar to clear than “LOUD ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU FLINCH.”
The Encore Is Not an Encore-ment (Stay With Me Here)
At Encore Society, we think a lot about what it means to step into your next chapter — whether that’s a second career, a new purpose, a business you’ve been quietly building in your head for years, or just a version of yourself that finally, finally gets to show up without apologizing for taking up space.
And here’s what I’ve noticed: the people in that season of life? They’ve earned the right to stop performing urgency.
They’ve been to enough high-pressure sales pitches. They’ve unsubscribed from enough “last chance!” emails. They’ve sat through enough webinars that were basically just 90-minute commercials with a few good slides buried in the middle.
They have, in short, excellent megaphone detection skills.
So when someone talks to them like a normal human being — directly, warmly, without a countdown timer — something interesting happens.
They lean in.
What “Normal Voice” Actually Means
I promised you I’d use a normal voice. I should probably define that, because it’s easier said than done.
A normal voice is not boring. (I reserve the right to be a little energetic. Ask anyone who’s seen me coach live. The word “calm” has not historically been used to describe that experience. 😅)
A normal voice is:
Honest about what it knows — and what it doesn’t
Curious about you — not just broadcasting at you
Direct — no burying the point under six paragraphs of throat-clearing
Occasionally self-deprecating — because none of us have it all figured out, and pretending otherwise is boring
Useful — like, actually useful. Not “useful” in the headline, useful in the reading.
It respects your intelligence. It trusts that if the idea is good, you’ll recognize it without needing a foghorn pointed at your face.
The Counterintuitive Power of Turning It Down
There’s a strange alchemy that happens when you stop trying so hard to be heard.
People actually start listening.
I think it’s because quiet confidence signals something: I’m not afraid you’ll leave. And that’s magnetic in a world of desperate, clinging, PLEASE-DON’T-UNSUBSCRIBE content.
The best conversations I’ve ever had — in coaching, in business, in life — started with someone asking a question and then actually waiting for the answer. Not nodding along while formulating their next point. Not scanning the room. Just… listening. Sitting in the space.
It’s a radical act, honestly.
And it’s available to all of us, right now, for free.
Your Invitation (No Countdown Timer Included)
If you’re building something in this next chapter — a business, a brand, a community, a voice — I’d gently offer you this:
You don’t have to be the loudest. You have to be the truest.
Say the real thing. Use your actual words. Trust that the right people will find it genuinely interesting — and that the people who don’t? They were never your people anyway.
Put the megaphone down.
You’ve got something better: a story worth telling at a normal volume.
Subscribe to get quiet, useful insights — no foghorns, no fake urgency, just the good stuff.
(And if you ever catch me at a live event and I’m being a little too “energetic”… feel free to gently remind me of this article. 🤣)