Omnichannel - Knowing When to Speak and When to Let Go (Relational Intelligence) | Dominika Legrand

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Send a textMost advice about communication focuses on what to say. Scripts, opening lines, persuasion techniques. But in my experience, real relational intelligence has much less to do with clever words and much more to do with sensing the moment.Underneath every conversation, there is a quiet system running:Speak nowLet goThe challenge is learning how to recognize those signals.You’ll learn:How to recognize when a conversation is naturally closingWhy pushing past that moment can damage connectionWhat containment means in communicationHow dual awareness helps you read the room in real timeWhy sometimes the most intelligent move is simply to step backIf you’re an entrepreneur, consultant, leader, or someone who values meaningful relationships, this skill will change the way you approach conversations in both business and life.Because the goal of communication isn’t to say everything you want to say.It’s to know when the moment is open and when it’s complete.Learn The Art of the ApproachIf you want to learn how I approach people in a way that preserves relational integrity while still creating meaningful opportunities, I teach this inside my program The Art of the Approach.Join here:https://www.dominikalegrand.com/art-of-the-approachJoin the Art of The Approach here: https://www.dominikalegrand.com/art-of-the-approach

Hello, my dearest entrepreneur friends, welcome back to another video. Or if you're listening to this one on the Omni channel podcast, welcome back to the podcast. Today we're going to talk about the art of knowing when to speak and when to let go. Because I believe that most people who teach relational intelligence or most people who consider themselves relational intelligent, they think that it's about knowing what to say. And in fact, there are entire industries built on teaching people what to say, whether it's an interpersonal context or even a business context. When we are teaching people scripts, we are teaching people opening lines, all of it is

basing on the fact that it's all about what to say. And I believe that the knowing of when to speak and when to let go is more important. And in this video, we're going to talk about how to know when to speak and when to let go. Let me start by telling you a little story. This Sunday, and currently it's a Thursday, but this Sunday I finally had the chance to meet with one of my ultimate all-time favorite speaker. And I don't know if there's anyone particularly that you like, any personal significance to you that have impacted your life, that you wanted to talk to, have a conversation,

for the longest time and maybe for the sake of this video think of that person. But I had a chance to actually meet with my person and needless to say I'm going to tell you exactly what happened and I'm going to tell you all the things that went down and also I'm going to tell you in terms of knowing when to speak and when to let go and how does it apply to this entire story. When it comes to meeting this person, there were about three people waiting in line in front of me and after me there was another girl. And so what happened was that when it was finally my turn,

this person steps up to me, shakes my hand, introduces himself, I introduce myself, and I go into speaking about what my question was to him. Okay? And so I remember having a short conversation because I just had one question really that I always wanted to know. And in about a minute he already answered my question. and I find myself just regulating throughout the conversation because I thought, oh my God, you know, I did feel some of that nervousness that comes from meeting someone that has

significance in my life and when you're meeting the person that has significance in your life, you might feel exactly what I felt in the moment. So definitely breathing helps in that scenario. But there was a moment in which I sense that this was it. And to be fair, that moment came faster than that. I anticipated because in my mind I thought okay we're gonna hit it off this is gonna be such a good spark question and we're gonna be like on right in my mind but then he was answering my question almost immediately and I found myself just like a deer in headline thinking to myself oh okay that

that was it right that was it that I had my answer and there was this moment in which I thought okay like should I just say something else and I said something like it sounded like like an awkward date when you are trying to say something cool, but it's just like, no, girl, like just let it go. And so I said my line and I watched myself, heard myself from the outside, I thought to myself, okay, this is really over. And then he just turned to me again and said, you know what, I'm glad I clarified that for you. And I'm like, yep, I caught myself again. And I'm like, yep, let's go. This was it. This was it, girl. There's nothing else left on said. Let it go. So I'm just.

let it go it was clean exit all good and a girl behind me was next online and so when it comes to when to speak and when to let go what you will sense and i think it's a binary system and this is underneath every single conversation it's either a speak now or let go signal speak now let go signal and sensing the speak now like the openings and sensing the let go signals is ultimately what's going to help you keep conversations cleaner and efficient and not linger over the conversation more than you should, right? Because I'm going to tell you this as well because this is in the same story. There was a guy, he was wearing like a very bright orange coat. He had glasses and I remember us waiting in line to speak to this person and he was staying way too long and even the guy,

you know, that the person we all went to meet. Even he was signaling like, you know, I kind of have to go, you know. Like, you could see the body language, even though we couldn't actually hear a lot of the things that they were talking in between themselves. But you could tell he was like, you know, like signaling like, okay, you know, I have to go. And I remember him stepping away from this guy who was over talking,

who was not sensing, you know, there were like three people waiting behind you, dude, you know? We all had those moments when people were like, like, don't you see we're all in line, right? And I remember me and the other girl was still waiting in line. And we had like this collective mini fear like flashing through our faces and thinking, oh, so that was it. We missed our chance, right?

We had that. Because when the guy stepped away from him and like, okay, goodbye, you know, finally just he left the field, immediately he turned back to me because then he kind of had to do this social thing like, okay, I have to go, bye and stepping away. until the guy left and turned away from him and walked out of the door and then he started to talk to me and the other girl after me so it's so interesting to me because some people really cannot sense when there are natural openings and closings and let's talk about closings first and how do we sense it first of all

there is a time when you're talking to someone and you feel like the energy is complete the exchange is complete and everything else that you were about to on top of that completion would feel like you would have to force it, right? So I'm sure you guys have experienced this before when you are in flow with someone. And then suddenly you feel like you need to effort yourself to keep the flow up. It's like there is an energy of a conversation and that it drops. And when the energy drops, you can either try to lift it up with force or you can let it be. And many times when the energy is going down and you feel like there's a closing happening,

it's like, or you can feel the other person is withdrawing from you, like either signaling that they are kind of done, there's nothing to say, they slow down with their responses if you are chatting with them on text message, or you just feel like they're not really engaging in a way with you. That is a really good cue for you to see, okay, this is time for me to go. So either you are the one who feels like, okay, hey, I kind of said everything I wanted to say. Or you feel the energy is shifting and you would have to really lift it up to keep it going.

If that happens, that's literally your cue. Like, just let go. And sometimes you can be in my example and that's the painful part is when you recognize that you have so much more to say and you recognize that, oh shit, it's over. The moment is closing, right? So the binary system under each conversation goes like, speak now. let go. Speak now, let go. Speak now, let go. And the let go, when you feel it's hitting you, either because you learn that it's time to go, either because you completely what you wanted to say, either because the energy is shifting down or the other person gets distracted and, you know,

it's over. It's sometimes really hard to let go because there is part of you that has all these things you wanted to say and have this desire to express, but the moment is done. And in you recognizing it's done and letting go is actually the most healthiest way that you can be with someone. And it doesn't mean that you might not get to say what you wanted to say. You might get it in another time, in another moment. But for now you need to recognize that this is complete here. That's how far we could go. Let me just step back and then maybe there will be another opening. You can create openings yourself by recognizing that maybe it's not a good time or maybe the other person doesn't have the bandwidth for you is also part of relational intelligence because it's

knowing when to speak and when to let go. And I'm going to give you another example here because sometimes we do recognize that we are literally catching people at the wrong moment. And it's not that you have to always know exactly when to catch them because especially if we are in a context of a business, right, or we are talking through text message, messenger, email, right? You don't always know what is the context of the other person but what you can recognize is if their context is not favorable for you to express you need to understand that okay it's time for me to pause this let it go and maybe circle back to it in another moment so I had this guest in my mind that I already had interviewed and he's a

copywriting legend and I had him before like I said about three years ago and I I wanted to really, really invite him back to my podcast. And so I had this perfect opening in which I created an invitation that was pressure-free. And I remember him saying to my very amazing, it recrafted, pressure-free invitation, he just said, okay. And it was through text message. So I immediately went, okay. Like, you don't sound very enthusiastic to me. Is it the topic? Do you want something else? Like, immediately I'm trying to understand why would someone say, okay. Instead of saying like, sure, you know, of course, there's something more like exciting, right? So he said, actually, I'm not enthusiastic about anything in this moment because I don't know if I caught COVID

and my mom is having COVID right now and she's not feeling well. And I immediately went like, oh my God, I felt really bad first of all. Second of all, like here I am crafting this great, funny invitation and this person is literally thinking about worrying about his family and his own health. So in that moment, what happened was I immediately recognized that this is not the moment to push further and this is the moment to let go, right? And not trying to push a date or trying to figure out logistics. It's literally the worst time to do that. So I let him go and I said, you know what? Just don't worry about this right now. And now let's get back to it when you're feeling better, when your mom is feeling better, like whenever it's a better time. And he actually said,

you know, if I don't come back, just reach out to me again. I'm like, yeah, sure. I will. Well, right? Think about this for a second, right? I think about a moment in which you caught someone at the worst possible time and you recognized that their context is right now not at all in a way that they can actually receive and respond to your message, right? And knowing that's when you know more, it's time for you to let go is what's going to make a difference between you and the other person who's pushing because all they want is to get whatever they want, right? So that's why we're going to introduce two more concepts here, which I think is foundational in being really good at knowing when to speak and when to let go.

And the first one is containment, and the second one is dual awareness. Containment means that you're able to hold your own needs and desires. First of all, you are aware of them so they don't come out sideways. you're able to hold your own needs and desires without making it someone else's problem, right? So if you go back to my example, my story in meeting this person, the one that has significance for me, even though I had so much to say,

in that moment I had to contain myself because I could not possibly unload everything on this one. The moment was too short. It wasn't even there. It wouldn't have been open. and had I not been able to contain all my wants, needs, and desires, I would maybe have flooded this person and be like the other guy with the orange coat was over extending his own moment and you would have to be like, hey, right?

So that interaction for that person was not a positive one in that sense, right? So whenever someone has to defend themselves against you and be like, hey, you know, let me go. Just imagine yourself in the situation when someone cannot understand that it was done, the interaction is done, and you know, it means that they don't have ability to contain because they are thinking about what they want to speak about and they can't read about you. And two, they don't have dual awareness. And dual awareness means that you are at all times aware of yourself and the other person. So to me, dual awareness is a moment to moment to moment to moment to moment, to moment, tracking. Think of it like this is a movie scene. First, camera angle, me in conversation with you.

Second camera angle, me tracking you in conversation with me. Third camera angle, me tracking us in the conversation. And these tracks run at all times. So I'm able to keep track of what's happening inside of me. I'm able to track what's happening inside of you. And I'm able to track what's happening inside of both of us in a given moment. And I don't think it's dual tracking anymore. It's like multi-level tracking.

But if you are able to at least track yourself and the other person, yourself and the other person simultaneously, then you mean it's like you have dual awareness, right? And I do something more insane because I track us in the moment and I track us in comparison to the other people in the room and I track us in comparison to like there are multiple multiple, multiple layers of tracking running for me. But it's because I have awareness. I don't want to say I have awareness at an insane level. But to me, this level of tracking is background process. It's always running, right? But if you can at least get to the point where you understand what's going on in yourself, and you're able to contain it and recognize when to speak and when to let go, and the other person,

so you're able to track what's going on for them, that you're already ahead of 99.9% of people who are having conversations with other people, either in a business context or interpersonally. And there's one more thing I want to say here. Sometimes, can definitely be disappointing to know that you don't get to say whatever it is that you want to say until there's a moment for you to speak. So definitely processing that and making peace with that is going to be very, very important. But another thing I wanted to add here, and this is sometimes, especially in business context, it comes up when we are, for example, consulting clients, like I do that all the time. And when I'm consulting a client on a weekly basis, I'll tell you this because this is so

human and it happens to all of us, that there was this one thing I knew I wanted to tell my client because we've been working together for four years now and we speak on a weekly basis. And I remember just coming to a very important conclusion that I knew that if I was to tell this person, it would actually make a huge difference for them. They were seeking the answer somehow it came to me and I thought to myself, like, I have to tell them. I have to. And I remember being on the usual weekly call and I'm like okay I'm gonna tell all about this thing now like I had a desire right my desire to speak about it in the moment in that moment I mean there was a bit of space I'm like okay let me tell you all about it and I remember just expressing it like from the depths of my heart

and him going oh sorry I was texting this person she's going to join in to the call and thinking to myself like oh my god out of everything I just said there's absolutely nothing that landed because I was speaking from my own desires to express and I forgot to look whether or not he can receive the message. I was so in my own like let me tell you this this is going to be because I thought to myself he needs to hear this right only then to realize that this was the absolute worst moment for me to speak because even if I told him and it mattered he literally did not have the capacity to hear me this means that whatever I said said then, it was air. It went to the air, it dissolves into nothing else because he was not

listening to me. And I'm sure imagine the times when you are like in face of a client or in a situation in which you want to appear competent or you want to tell something you know it's meaningful, you know it matters. But because you are seeing your own desires, sometimes you slip and not recognize that, oh my God, okay, they actually cannot hear me now. Only after you said what you said, you realize, oh, nope, I should have not spoken about this, right? So our binary of speak now and let go was not working really well. So in that scenario, the fact that I spoke at the wrong moment, it meant my message was not being heard. And it doesn't mean that I won't have the chance to express it in another time.

I mean, we speak on a weekly basis, right? And sometimes you have conversations that happen once or twice or once and never again. So that's why I said let's make peace with the fact that you might not be able to say what you want to say. But having the dual awareness, which is you are aware actively, whether the other person can hear you. Do they have the bandwidth? What are your context? If I just said, and it's crazy to me how easy this would have been, if I just said, you know, there's something I observed, and I think it would really change something in the way you are operating and seeing yourself.

You like to know what it is. If I just said that and I would listen to the cues of him looking up or listening or be like, no, you know, I'm inviting. I'm actively. I need to get someone else and I actually have three minutes. I have to go. Maybe, you know, a lot of time, you know, let's talk about that. Like finding that moment when he's receptive to actually hear me, have made a huge difference, right?

So speak now or let go is literally about recognizing. One is an opening for you to express. If there is no opening, can I contain and can I have awareness whether or not this person is able to hear me and have capacity and bandwidth and time, right? So when we are working on our intelligence, relational intelligence, and we are working on our communication and we want it to be effective, we want people to actually hear us, we have to be aware of all this. Like we have to know how to contain ourselves.

We have to know how to have awareness and we have to know when to speak and when to let go, right? So I hope this video was helpful for you. I know this is not something we can get better like that, right? But once I have awareness that, okay, good moment, bad moment, I don't know. It doesn't mean you always have to wait for the perfect moment to speak because if you think about it, sometimes you can create an opening, like you have full power in creating openings. But since most of our communication, especially in terms of business, happen through a text message or email or even phone call window, we hate phone calls, don't call people.

I don't advise that to do, unless you know them and they love phone calls. Everyone is a different person, I guess. But by recognizing that they are in a context in which can they receive you and can they not receive you, and based on that information knowing when to let go. And even when you catch them and they are engaging with you, recognizing that the energy has shifted, this has came to an end, and pulling all that back, even though you have so much more to say, is going to make you very, very relational intelligence, knowing when to let go.

So you won't overstay in a conversation long after it ended. You won't be like that guy who then, we all have to be like, gee, like, is he, like, is she, you know? Like, when is she going to finish? Like, right? Because many times, and I think this is not to criticize anyone, but many times people speak to kind of express and to relieve themselves, you know, like I need to get this out of my system or I'm going to explode. A lot of the times I call it broadcasting. It's not bad, especially if you have someone who's receptive, it only becomes an inconvenience when the other person is not able to hear you or they're not

open anymore because they drifted away, right? So recognizing and catching the moment when they are drifting or the conversation naturally drops is going to help you also save your own time, save your own energy and also your own dignity and self-respect. Because sometimes when we over talk over message, and I'm going to bring this to a little bit of an interpersonal rungs, I mean, just please tell me if this ever happened to you, where you find yourself sending a wall text message, to someone or received a very long text message to someone, let's say in a romantic settings. Like sometimes I'm telling you, and this is so, so evil, but sometimes when we receive those very long messages or voice messages, you would have to be like, okay, chat GPT, can you tell me

what this person is saying? This is literally what happens sometimes that you would have to copy and paste the message to chat GPT to give you a summary or cloud, right? Because this person sent you such a long message and like what is he even saying what is she even saying right and i think it happens more interpersonally than in business but definitely happens in business as well so knowing knowing when to speak and when to let go it's going to be very important for you to learn all right you guys i hope this video was helpful if you want to learn how to approach people in a way that you are preserving relational integrity and you have well received that the same time. I have an entire program I just finished called The Art of the Approach.

This is the program that you can take if you want to learn how to approach absolutely anyone, anyone, whoever you want to, okay? If you want to come in and watch back the modules that we did inside of the program, I want to have access to the entire program. I'm going to put a link in the description of this video, whatever you're watching in. I think this will be very helpful for you. It's not necessarily what to say even though we do cover some of that, but it's about how do I approach people, what energy I'm approaching in, right? And even relational pacing in knowing when to speak and when to let go. In this concept we talk about in much more detail inside of the program. So if that's what you want because you want to know how to approach your

favorite people, I'm going to put a link in the description of this video and you can have access to this program if you want to. Okay? Thank you so much for watching. I'm listening. I'll see you guys very soon. Good luck and I know it's not easy. It's definitely something you need to practice. But I have faith in you. Bye guys.