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# Thoughts on a screen
- URL: https://www.gilespcroft.com/thoughts-on-a-screen/
- Published: 2025-10-24T07:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-06-11T11:21:18.000Z
- Description: We may know our thoughts are private, but sometimes we behave as if they're not 🗣️
- Author: Giles P Croft
- Tags: Psychology, Attention, MECHANICS, Productivity, Real stories, Relationships, Self-confidence, Sharing, Stress, Listening

Someone showed up in my practice one day because important meetings weren’t going well.

And these important meetings kinda *needed* to go well, because business kinda depended on it.

So we slowed down and we really examined the experience.

*What’s happening? And then what? Oh yeah, and what d’you put that down to?*

🤔

Turns out there was not-much-time being spent listening to what others were *saying* in these important meetings…

…which, by a process of basic [3 Principles](https://3pgc.org/faq/?ref=gilespcroft.com) deduction, revealed that there was a lot-of-time being spent listening to the mind, *analysing* what was being said in these meetings; getting in the way.

Big difference.

And—as they were finding—that sh\*t’s exhausting.

Like, totally unsustainable.

## Flashback

I have no idea why (these sorts of things just happen when you’re sitting in presence with someone) but in a moment of quiet, I was suddenly transported back to standing up on stage, many years ago, getting all tongue-tied because of all the things I *wanted* to say, but had run out of *time* to say.

In those situations—and if you’ve met me, or heard me speak, you’ll know this was every. damned. time. 😆—it always felt like I was letting my audience down, somehow.

Why?

Because back then, I was a rehearser. I was so intimate with the content of my talk, and I’d done so much planning, and I knew exactly what I wanted to share with people, I felt like I was short-changing them, when it didn’t go to plan.

(It never went to plan.)

> 📦🗣️ *“That could have been so much better!”*

*…* moaned the Giles Ego Construct.

But then it changed.

I honestly can’t remember how, or who pointed this simple, obvious little fact out to me, but it was a total game changer:

😐

People don’t **know* all the things I had **planned* to say.

A real mic-drop moment.

So obvious. And yet, at the same time, so hidden.

> *Oh my word YES, I *was* subconsciously labouring under the impression that they could read my mind!! How bonkers is that?!*

😲

Now, because it had ‘just popped into my head’ and I’ve learned to trust these seemingly random memories that life reanimates for me, I related this tale to my client and heard myself saying something I’d never said before, or even *considered* before in my life,

> *“It’s almost as if I imagined all of my thoughts were being projected onto the screen, behind me!”*

…and, unbeknownst to the Giles Ego Construct 📦 *that’s* what they needed to hear.

It gave them their *own* mic-drop moment.

🫳🏻🎤

## Your thoughts are private

Because it’s the same with conversations we have.

Other people have NO IDEA what’s going on in our heads (for instance, letting a good idea come and then go), where sometimes the mind gives us the impression that there’s a big screen behind us, broadcasting a transcript of everything we’re thinking… and it cripples us!

Your thoughts aren’t visible. Neither are theirs. As one of my mentors puts it:

> *“What other people think is between them, and them.”*

The *only* way you’re going to get a feel for what’s going on in *any* human-human interaction, is to *listen*.

Not to what your mind’s saying, but to the entirely of the other person’s being: their words, their demeanour, the energy they’re in.

And then the ‘hardest’ thing for us humans (in quote marks, because the irony is, it requires much *less* effort):

- No judgement.
- No analysis.
- No second guessing.
- No persuading.
- No mind-changing.

Just. LISTEN.

And when it’s your turn to speak—similar to what happened for me, in the coaching conversation—you’ll know what to say.

Give it a go and watch ***all*** your relationships blossom!

💟

Giles

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### Related

[Listening notesSome helpful pointers on the topic of listening… for a better experience all round 👂🏻![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/icon/DR_Lockup-Black-3-643eccd7-6330-4f00-a015-7984c8441cac.png)The Daily RemindersGiles P Croft![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/thumbnail/photo-1693778259075-c47eda5e4b43-2b953902-3d61-44c1-bbb8-35e96872b287.jpeg)](https://www.gilespcroft.com/listening-notes/)