Who do you like listening to?

A serious face, my whole life. Then I noticed something.

By Farhan Terubos · 17 October 2026 · 4 min read · Issue #7

For as long as I can remember, I had a serious face.

And I rarely smiled. Not because I was angry, and not because I was sad. That was just how my face sat, most of the day, for most of my life.

If you had asked me back then to describe myself, “easy-going” wouldn’t have made the list. Neither would “casual”. I was the serious one.

I never asked where it came from. I thought it was simply me.

It wasn’t, not completely.

My father has the same face. Serious, and he rarely smiles. That’s his character, and I grew up in his house, seeing that face every day.

Looking back, I think I picked it up from him without ever choosing to.

Then, slowly, something changed.

Not in one day. Life went on. I went through different seasons and collected different experiences, and bit by bit I started to notice things about myself that I had never noticed before.

One of them surprised me.

I noticed who I liked listening to.

When someone was explaining something to me, or trying to get a message across, there was one kind of person I always stayed with longer. The one who smiled while they talked.

That smile did something. It told me they were glad to be talking to me. It made it easier to listen, easier to ask a question back, easier to stay.

Then the question turned around and pointed at me.

If I like listening to people like that, what are people getting when they listen to me?

The answer wasn’t comfortable.

They were getting the serious face. The same face I would never choose to sit across from.

Here’s what I had wrong.

For years, I took that warmth from other people and never gave it back. They smiled at me while they explained things. I listened gladly. Then it was my turn to talk, and my face gave them nothing.

That isn’t fair. If they could do that for me, why couldn’t I do it for them?

And I had been hiding behind three words: “just how I am.” I treated the serious face like something I was born with and had to carry. It was closer to a habit I had watched for years.

Habits can change.

Each of us is our own person. We can take inspiration from anyone, our parents included, and still be ourselves. Even identical twins, with the same face, end up with different lives. They marry different people. They get different tests. Nobody is handed a face they’re not allowed to change.

So I made myself a promise. From that day, I would change.

I smile more now. Sometimes I make a joke. I like to lift the mood of the people around me a little.

A smile costs me nothing. But it says something I used to keep to myself: I’m glad you’re here, and I’m listening. My thinking was simple. If I’m like that, people will find it easier to listen to me, and easier to talk to me. So I try to treat people the way the smiling explainers treated me.

The strange part is that it doesn’t feel like wearing a new face. It feels like I’m closer to my real one. More normal. More me.

It looks like a small change. For me, and for my life, it has been a big one.

Notice who you like listening to. Then become that person for someone else.

I haven’t thrown the serious face away. Some things in life need it, and I still use it for them.

But not for everything. Not all day, every day. There’s a time to be serious, a time to smile, a time to laugh, and a time to simply enjoy being alive. Life was never meant to be serious twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

I still have the face I grew up with.

Now it only comes out when it’s needed.

One thing that worked

The problem: You know what you want to say, but once you start talking, your voice comes out shaky and your confidence drops with it.

What I did:

1. Before I spoke, I checked my posture. If I was slouching, I sat or stood up straight.

2. With my back straight, I could breathe properly, so I had enough breath to finish my sentences.

3. With that breath, I controlled my voice: the tone, the volume and the speed.

How I know it worked: I felt far more confident than usual, more relaxed, and I stopped rushing my words, in formal talks and casual ones.

Next time you have to speak, check your back first.

This is what worked for me, not medical advice.

That’s all for this week.
See you next Saturday.

Cheers,
Farhan Terubos