When You Have Nothing to Say, Say Nothing

I'm publishing this article a couple of days later than promised. I didn't forget, nor could I have done it earlier. I simply had to prioritize: Christmas campaigns and year-end closings. Marketing and sales during these months are like a desert marathon, hallucinations included.

When you have nothing to say, then say nothing

María Tellería, one of my communication professors at university, an idol in person. This woman not only mastered communication theory but also practiced it in the most complex terrain imaginable. She worked for the UN in democratization processes in the Middle East.

María would arrive at class after having facilitated dialogues between conflicting political factions, conversations where a poorly chosen word could derail years of diplomatic work. She offered us lessons extracted from negotiation rooms that we only saw on the news. That simple phrase came from someone who knew, in the most crucial contexts imaginable, the true power and weight of words.

Digital Noise

Silence is perceived as failure, as irrelevance. We've been sold the idea that we must constantly be producing, opining, and publishing. And this is never more evident than in December: generic "happy holidays" posts, daily emails with "exclusive" offers received by thousands, year-end reflections that are copies of copies. Digital noise isn't just annoying: it's toxic. It erodes your audience's trust and deteriorates your personal brand faster than it builds it. The cruel irony is that in our desperate attempt to remain relevant through constant content production, we become exactly the opposite: irrelevant.

The Value of Strategic Silence

When I work with leaders in luxury hospitality and tourism, one of the first conversations centers on understanding their unique voice. Everyone has one, but most don't realize it. And the answer never emerges from constant noise.

Unique voice: Your differentiation doesn't come from publishing more than the competition. It comes from communicating when you have something genuinely valuable to say. The best leaders I know don't opine on everything. They communicate selectively, with substance.

Sustainable strategy: In crises, I've seen how a hasty statement destroys decades of reputation. Waiting 48 hours with verified data isn't weakness. It's strategic protection of your most valuable asset: trust.

Real implementation: This isn't theory. It's how I help teams make daily communication decisions: Does this add value or add noise? If it's noise, we don't do it.

Communication Is Not Information

In the Middle East, raising weapons to the sky is a traditional symbol of victory, celebration, and collective joy. Like other people who dance or launch fireworks, they raise their weapons. María told us that when international cameras captured those images, the narrative changed radically. Headlines spoke of "rebels rising up in arms," of "threats to stability." The gesture of victory became a threat.

The same image can be interpreted in completely opposite ways depending on who tells the story and with what objective. The news is so distorted, so loaded with bias, that consuming it without critical thinking is more dangerous than not consuming it. True wisdom lies in: Listen a lot. Study a lot. And ignore in the same proportion.

When you finally have something genuinely valuable to communicate, do it. Your audience will notice. They'll appreciate it. They'll remember it.

I don't promise to write a new article on December 15th; the truth is I'm overloaded. But I'll do it during the holidays, when all the communication noise becomes more human, between toasts and canapés :) See you in 2026!

Want to talk about what that might look like for your business?
www.mariangomez.com