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The Toxic Conversation Habit Quietly Costing You Clients, Respect and Relationships
I wish someone had told me this sooner.
You can be confident.
You can know exactly what to say.
You can articulate your thoughts clearly.
And still make people feel like you're not listening.
That matters, because communication was never just about how well you speak. So what if there's a simpler reason people overlook you, trust you less, or quietly pull away?
That's where a toxic conversational habit, one I know firsthand, quietly costs men respect, opportunities, income and relationships.
Most men don't even realise they're doing it. Because it's completely automated.
Often, it's not until you're dealing with lost clients, deals that fell through, and people quietly pulling away from you... or emotional distance and resentment at home... that you finally start to connect the dots.
My hope is that by the end of this article, you'll be able to catch this pattern next time it shows up, before it costs you in ways that aren't always easy to undo.
If you're a leader, entrepreneur or business owner, this could be one of the most critical blind spots you need to resolve right now.
And this might surprise you, because the habit I'm talking about isn't what you think.
It isn't talking over people or aggressively cutting them off.
It isn't labelling, judging, criticising or diagnosing someone else's problems.
And it's not even ordering people around, threatening them or trying to dictate the conversation.
It's something far more subtle. I call it:
Conversation Hijacking.
Sociologist Charles Derber coined the broader pattern "conversational narcissism" in his 1979 book, The Pursuit of Attention. It's a blind spot so deeply embedded in human nature that almost everyone falls into it without realising.
If there's one thing I want you to understand from my own experience and years of working with men, it's this: it's toxic because it can quietly damage the very relationships, opportunities and trust you're trying to build, while making you believe you're simply having a conversation.
In this article, you're going to understand exactly why you do it, how to spot it in yourself, and the simplest technique you can use to start rewiring the pattern for better outcomes.
We'll move through awareness, root cause, mechanism, technique and practice, because I build from identity outward. I'm not interested in handing you another collection of surface level self-help tips. We're going underneath the behaviour to understand what's driving it, change the internal pattern, and then change how you communicate.
Why I Know This Pattern So Well
For years, I watched this exact habit quietly create a wedge between me and the people I wanted to connect with most. And quite frankly, I lost more than I ever wanted to.
High value clients I respected.
Relationships I deeply valued.
Career and business opportunities I was pursuing.
But the moment I identified and broke this subconscious pattern, everything shifted.
It unlocked an entirely new level of depth and freedom in my personal relationships, including the one with myself. And because the relationship you have with yourself sets the standard for every other relationship and conversation you have, that fundamentally transformed how I showed up as a mentor and educator, making me more valuable and impactful to the people I worked with.
The way I connected and commanded the room became more effortless and far less overthought. Even on stage, in conflict and in high stakes moments, I had more presence and control than ever, which, quite frankly, had once been a big problem for me.
And while it wasn't my sole focus, one of the byproducts of fixing this internal default was crossing my very first $70,000 month recently in business. I wouldn't isolate that result to one behaviour and claim it caused it, because there were other contributing factors. But I can tell you exactly what happens to my energy, my connection, my service and my results whenever this pattern starts creeping back in.
And that's the mirror. Your ability to communicate, relate and lead effectively isn't just a soft skill. It's an art form, and it's the invisible through line feeding your income, your impact and your influence.
The Principle Underneath It All
Most people never stop to notice this, but there's a fundamental principle of human connection: social energy is always looking for reciprocity, not dominance.
True connection is the silent energy that exists between people when they feel deeply seen, heard and valued. This is the cornerstone of true leadership and influence.
Which brings me to the first key point, because the second you hijack that spotlight to feed your own ego, the balance breaks. Trust starts to disappear. And the damage doesn't simply undo itself. It compounds.
What Conversation Hijacking Actually Looks Like
You tell a mate you just got a promotion, a big contract or landed your dream client. And before you've even finished the sentence, they're already telling you about the time they got promoted, how much bigger their deal was, and how much harder their situation was than yours.
A client tells you about a problem they're facing. And instead of getting curious and asking questions, you're already explaining how you solved something similar.
Your partner opens up about a hard day. And within ten seconds, you've turned it into a story about your own hard day. Now you're the one looking to be comforted.
You can probably see the pattern. It's someone who consistently turns conversations back to themselves rather than staying with the other person. It's a man talking to himself, about himself, wearing the disguise of a two-way exchange.
Now, you might be thinking: "Does this make me a narcissist? Does that mean I'm never supposed to talk about myself?"
I'm not diagnosing you. The problem was never the sharing. The real question is why you were doing it. Where it was coming from internally. What it was signalling to the room. And ultimately, what it was costing you in connection, trust and the quality of your relationships.
Because once you understand what's actually happening underneath this behaviour, you can start to change it.
The 4 A's of the Ego
This next point comes from a meditation circle I sat in almost ten years ago, with a very wise teacher. He introduced us to what I now think of as the 4 A's of the ego.
And I had a lot of work to do on my ego, because deep down, I didn't have the safety and security within myself that I needed, so the protective mind was running the show.
That's one of the things I find so powerful about meditation. You're literally putting down your subjective story for a moment, and the objective becomes: watch what your mind does, watch where it goes, watch what it reaches for, watch how quickly it turns back toward itself. There's something profound about that. We have this ancient practice that gives us a way to see our blind spots instead of simply being run by them.
That teacher said something that stayed with me. Every person you talk to, a client, a partner, a friend, your own kid, is unconsciously looking for four things in that exchange. I call them the 4 A's of the Ego: Attention, Appreciation, Approval and Acceptance.
When someone shares something with you and you feel that itch to jump in with your own story, that doesn't mean you're a bad person. It may simply be your nervous system reaching for one of those four A's. To be seen. To feel valued. To feel validated. To feel like you matter in the exchange too.
Watch what happens next time you're in a group. Someone shares a genuine win, and before they've even finished enjoying their moment, someone else jumps in: "That reminds me of when I..." That's not necessarily a room full of narcissists. It's a room full of people unconsciously reaching for the same four things, most of them with no idea they're doing it.
Here's the shift that changes everything: the moment you understand that everyone in a conversation is looking for those four A's, you stop needing to chase yours out loud, because you can start giving them to someone else instead.
Epictetus said it well:
"If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realise that you have compromised your integrity. If you need a witness, be your own."
That single move is one of the most quietly powerful things a man can learn, both in business and at home. In a world where people are increasingly hungry to feel understood, to give their opinion, or simply to feel seen, the ability to genuinely make someone feel seen is becoming a serious leadership advantage. Because great leaders don't just know how to speak. They know how to make people feel heard.
The Real Root: Your Internal Thermostat
Having an insightful knowing as to why this happens is only half the equation. Understanding the pattern doesn't automatically stop you from doing it in the moment. As I said earlier, it still creeps back into my life from time to time. For that, you need the technique. And this is where we go one level deeper.
Why do some men feel that pull so strongly, while others can sit comfortably in a conversation without needing to bring the attention back to themselves?
Robert Greene has a concept in The Laws of Human Nature that reframed this for me. In the chapter "Transform Self-Love into Empathy," he describes self-esteem almost like an internal thermostat. Its job is to regulate the small doubts, criticisms and moments of feeling overlooked that hit all of us every day, keeping your internal temperature relatively stable instead of spiking or crashing with every slight.
When that thermostat is well developed, you can take a hit, retreat inward for a moment, self soothe and recalibrate, without needing somebody else to do it for you. But when it's underdeveloped in certain areas, you start outsourcing that regulation. You unconsciously start mining conversations for hits of attention, appreciation, approval or acceptance, because your internal thermostat isn't producing enough of them for you.
That's the deeper root of Conversation Hijacking. It was never really about the other person's story. It was your own thermostat, quietly asking the room to regulate you.
The Technique: Become the Thermostat
So here's the technique, the one I use every day now, and I'm aware enough now that I can see the cost in real time, which is a genuine advantage.
Become the thermostat of the conversation, not the thermometer.
Robert talks about a thermostat in his book, but I like to contrast it this way.
A thermometer simply reads the room. It reacts to whatever temperature is already there. Most people do this. They follow the herd. They don't know how to hold frame comfortably. So when someone brings you a story, a certain energy, a problem, you match it, reflect it, or redirect it back through yourself.
A thermostat is different, so don't conflate the two. It regulates the room, on purpose, through a controlled mechanism. You don't simply reflect what's in front of you. You choose what temperature the conversation runs at. And in this case, you deliberately keep the attention on the other person.
Here's what that looks like in real time:
Someone says: "I had a really rough day at work."
Thermometer response: "I know what you mean. My day was terrible too. Let me tell you all about it."
Thermostat response: "I'm sorry to hear that. What happened that made it so hard?"
Or someone says: "I'm planning a trip to Italy next year."
Thermometer response: "Oh, I went to Sicily last year. It was amazing, let me tell you everything I did."
Thermostat response: "That sounds exciting. What places are you thinking about visiting?"
Same conversation. Same initial pull. Completely different outcome. One response follows the impulse and brings the spotlight back to you. The other notices the impulse and chooses connection instead.
The Cut-Off Technique
The actual move, what I call the Cut-Off, takes about two seconds.
The instant you feel that pull. The story forming. The "oh, me too" rising up in your chest. That's your cue.
Don't suppress it. Don't beat yourself up for having it. Just recognise it. Your thermostat is asking for a hit. And right there, make the decision to park your story, or ask yourself whether it even needs to be said, because not every thought needs to be spoken. Ask a question back instead.
Do this enough times and something interesting happens. It's not just the conversation that changes. Your own internal thermostat gets stronger. You build the muscle, and eventually the reflex, to direct your attention outward rather than automatically pulling everything back through yourself.
Because every time you resist that impulse, you're proving something important to yourself: you don't need the hit. You don't need to be the most interesting person in the conversation. You don't need the better story. You don't need to be validated in that moment. You can simply be present.
And that's the whole shift. Not suppressing who you are. Not becoming quieter. Not pretending you don't have a story to tell. You need an internal baseline strong enough that you don't need the room to sustain you.
Because when you stop needing the conversation to regulate you, you become free to connect. No more performance. Just pure influence.
Where To Go From Here
The 4 A's, the thermostat and the Cut-Off are just tools. They require you to look beneath the surface and see what's actually driving your communication.
That map is exactly what you'll find inside the Own Your Voice Toolkit.
It's free, and it's designed to expose the hidden patterns shaping how you show up, so you can communicate with far more confidence and competence.
It's time to stop fighting the habit and start building the baseline that replaces it.
Grab it below, and remember: your voice is your edge.
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