If you’ve ever been on a conference or video call inevitably you have heard someone on the call tell one of the meeting participants “you’re on mute”. I’ve heard this statements countless times especially in today’s virtual environment. However, for some reason it took on a whole new meaning for me in a recent virtual meeting. The host was talking about the meeting participant not being able to be heard but for me at that moment it exemplified a couple of life lessons.
The first life lesson is, when you are on mute you can still hear other’s good ideas however, your good ideas go unheard.
Your turn comes to speak in the meeting and we are so used to just starting to speak. And others in the meeting are yelling out “you’re on mute” or “I can’t hear you”. Sometimes we are so focused on what we are saying we have gotten two or three sentences in before we hear the people say “you’re on mute.”
Sometimes in life I will hear a voice say “say an encouraging word to that total stranger” or “pay the bill for the car behind you” and I walk or drive away without doing it, only to realize down the road I needed to do something key before I walked or drove away. In a sense, I failed to implement the heard voice, muting my better judgement, because I was so focused on what I was doing. It is the equivalent of being, two or three sentences in before you hear the people say “you’re on mute”.
The second life lesson is, when you are on mute all you have to do to get off mute is one simple action and then you can be heard. This wasn’t always the case in some of the popular software that are used to hold virtual meetings. When we first started doing virtual meetings the host could mute and unmute everyone, they had total control over your voice. The software makers have since made changes, where now the host can mute everyone, however, to get unmuted you have to do it yourself.
The key words in this statement are “you” “do” “yourself”. Whether you muted yourself or someone else did, if you don’t do some type of action to unmute, the rest of the people in the meeting won’t be able to hear your great ideas.
Sometimes in life people and circumstance will try and mute you. People will talk about you and circumstances can cripple you both making it seem as they have total control over your voice. You can choose to allow your voice to be smothered or you can unmute yourself. The key words being “you” “unmute” “yourself”. No one can do it for you.
Don’t get me wrong there are times in life when you do need to be on mute. When someone else is speaking or making a point, when you want to say something but you don’t have your thoughts together yet or when it just isn’t appropriate to say anything.
Look, all I’m trying to tell you is this, for me the phrase “you’re on mute” took on a whole new meaning that evening on my conference call, but I am not so unique, if you have a voice inside telling you to write a book and you haven’t yet, you’re on mute, if in your spirit you know you need to change jobs and you haven’t yet, you are on mute, if you know you are supposed to leave a relationship behind and you haven’t, you’re on mute, if your spirit is telling you to do your ice breaker speech or any speech or role in Toastmasters and you haven’t done it yet, guess what, you’re on mute. If you are led to do anything useful and kind in society and you haven’t done it yet, you are on mute and the question I pose to you is what are you going to do about it?