What Compels You to Speak Up? How Our Impulses Teach Us What We Care About

When was the last time you felt compelled to speak up?

Picture this: Your workday is packed with meetings, and most of them are project-focused, replete with task updates and next steps. You speak up once or twice when it's your turn, but it's purely transactional: "I did x, and next, I'll do y." But then, in the afternoon, during a routine meeting, you are awoken from your post-lunch lull by something someone said. Their words smack you in the face like a cold gust of air, and you can't help but blink through to clarity. You muster up your courage to respond, but that low rumble you feel is less anticipatory dread and more adrenaline. You feel compelled to speak up. The need to reply is stronger than indifference, stronger than your ability to let it go. You're filled with a drive to share the thing that's bubbling within you. Nothing could stop you from saying what you need to say in this moment.

Ever happen to you?

It's hard to do on a video call and arguably harder in person. Sometimes, we're smacked in the face by someone's comment and we can't find our words fast enough because the whiplash has stunned us into shock. Other times we do find our words, but we fumble through them, voice shaking, thoughts incoherent. That's okay. It's all part of the human experience.

Let's look digitally. Maybe this scenario has played out online for you as it does for me. I'm in a number of slack communities, where community managers post questions or moderate discussions among members. I don't respond to every single post in every single slack community--that would be impossible. But I do respond to some. How do I choose what I respond to?

In many cases, it's subconscious. I'm not rating my interest in any given post on a concrete scale. It's not as though I say, "This post is a 6 out of 10!" and ignore it because I only respond to ratings above 7 or something. Instead, I simply let it happen.

Lately, I've been thinking of ways to uncover the things I enjoy doing as well as the topics I feel most comfortable speaking about. I imagine this bout of soul-searching will help me explore what types of thought leadership I should write or what I should spend more time providing commentary on. To do this, I've started reflecting on the places where I have already chosen to respond. Clearly, something strong and meaningful was activated within me and I felt compelled to speak up in those moments. After I post, I reflect on the experience. I get curious and I wonder what I can learn from it. I evaluate whether there is a trend to the topics I felt compelled to discuss versus the topics I am okay letting glide by.

Here's how to uncover the topics you care about:

1. Look at the last 10-15 posts you've commented on, either on LinkedIn or in Slack or via email. To make step one easy, simply gather the information.
   

2. Now, label each one. The easiest categorization system is by topic.

   1. If you'd like, you can create a two-tier categorization system, with tier 1 being general and tier 2 getting a bit more detailed. In other words, tier 1 might be "marketing" and tier 2 is "content governance," or tier 1 might be "leadership" while tier 2 is "emotionally intelligent team leadership." Here are some examples when I did this exercise for my own content: Example 1) Tier 1: Communication | Tier 2: Difficult conversations, conflict resolution, emotionally intelligent communication Example 2) Tier 1: Leadership development | Tier 2: Leadership training Example 3) Tier 1: Corporate communications | Tier 2: Project management, project organization, comms strategy, executive comms
      

3. Rate each impulse on a scale from 1-10, 10 being strongest. How strong was it? How deeply did each question or comment compel you to respond?

   1. You may even want to take it a step further and rate your personal response to each: How emotional did you get when crafting your response? Or, if you don't want to attach numbers to it, you can simply note which emotions you felt.
      

4. Next, identify trends. How many times did each topic pop up? Create a list of the topics with the most hits. Did the highest impulse ratings match up to the most frequently seen topics?
   

5. Uncover the deeper meaning. Your feelings are insights. Let them teach you. What can you learn from this exercise? What can your reactions tell you about yourself?

   1. Did this activity teach you what you truly care about? Name the top 3-5 subjects. What if you had to put them in order? What would be your number 1?

   2. Did you uncover the topics you naturally feel most comfortable discussing? Why do you think you gravitate toward these topics? Are you most experienced in those areas, or are you most passionate in certain angles? Maybe it's both.

   3. Will you feel more confident sharing your thoughts around these topics now?

   4. Are you noticing any of your values present in your list? How do your values align with the places where you feel compelled to speak up?

   5. What is your personal story? What are the things you feel compelled to say? How can you lean into this more deeply in your career or in your personal life?
      

6. Craft an action plan. What are your next steps? What can you do with this information?

   1. Maybe, to make good use of your time, moving forward you can mentally note the topic of each new post you see to determine whether or not to reply. For example, if this exercise has taught you that you only want to talk about learning and development (L&D), and you see a post about a different subject, you can feel okay skipping that conversation and spending your time on something else.

   2. You can use your new topic list to spark ideas for blog posts, videos, social media posts, or podcast episode themes. Understanding where your passions and skills intersect will help you create content that you enjoy and that adds value.

   3. You can string your insights together into a resource (or even a book!) that you can deliver to your audience to add value in an area in which you are both competent and passionate. For example, take the last 5 things you said about your favorite topic and see how they might work together. Can you design a one-sheet with your top 5 takeaways? Can you provide this one-sheet for free to your email subscribers or LinkedIn followers?

Why this matters

When we feel compelled to respond to something, our brain is sending us signals that we care. We can learn about our values, competencies, or opportunities to be a resource based on the topics we prefer to cover.

In a high school English class, my professor posed the question, "What enrages you?" I think about that moment often. Her course focused on social justice, but it's easy enough to change the question to: "What do you care about?" An exercise like this can teach us what we care about, show us which of our values are strongest, and even give us ideas we can use to shape our career and our contributions.

With a bit of self-reflection, we can learn about ourselves while also refining our offering to the world around us.

For example, if someone in one of my Slack communities posts about emotional intelligence, communication, leadership, psychology, strategy, organization, or writing, I'm there. Most other topics are still interesting to me but they're not tied as deeply to my values or are not as deeply embedded in me. I might still find those conversations fruitful, and maybe I'll read the threads later instead of contributing so I can learn something new, but the conversations where I feel I have something to add or I feel compelled to respond immediately are the ones that are nearest and dearest to my heart. Those are the ones that make me feel excited, where "flow" gets activated and time flies by and my fingers fly across the keyboard as all my other worries fall by the wayside. Those are the ideas that consume my mind and cause my ideas to start fitting together like puzzle pieces until the final picture makes itself known. Those are the topics I should be spending more time with, because they light me up. I know I have something important to say, something that provides value to others, and I love talking about the things I'm most passionate about, so why am I not spending more time with those subjects? That's what I have learned from this exercise. The verdict is that I should spend more time talking about those topics and less time, if possible, elsewhere. By evaluating my impulses, I can learn how to spend my time more intentionally and meaningfully.

In doing a bit of self-reflection, we can learn volumes about ourselves while also refining our offering to the world around us. With greater awareness, we can contribute more meaningfully to society and feel more fulfilled while doing so.