PRESS PAUSE FOR IMPACT

Every great orator is like a great cook 🧑🏼‍🍳! They know their pantry of effective communication must be stocked with essential ingredients.

A staple amongst these is the mighty 'pause.' When we speak, 'pause' and 'timing' combine to become masterful seasonings akin to salt and pepper.

Without their flavourful presence, our communication turns into a bland, forgettable dish, sometimes even hard to digest. 🥵

So, does your communication 🎤need more flavour? Is your communication palate lacking zest? ‘Isn't Pause just about stopping at full stops and taking a breath?’ – I hear you say.  Well yes… but there’s more.  Much more. Let's delve deeper.

A pause in speech is not merely an act of survival i.e., replenishing your breath.  It’s a strategic manoeuvre, a moment of silence filled with intention. A considered pause is not a ‘dead’ spot.  It’s filled with action. It demands the attention of the room. It heightens anticipation, aids absorption of information, enhances the pacing of your key points, and keeps your audience captivated 😮 It can deliver a knockout punch 👏 It’s a reset button, like putting on the brakes, to ensure your pivotal ideas resonate in the listener's mind.

Applying the art of pause requires no strict recipe, but impeccable timing requires you to summon your inner Sinatra. Just as to produce your star dish you might summon up your inner Yotam Ottolenghi 🍆!  

Most of us tend to under-season our communication, neglecting the transformative power 💫 of the strategic pause.  As a communicator your unique blend of just two ingredients – pause and timing - can bestow upon you star quality as you navigate the intricate 'theatre' of leadership throughout your day 🎬

Finally, a pause is your ally for those ‘think on your feet’ moments. It gives you the luxury of collecting your thoughts and formulating a response.  Become one of those impressive speakers who always appear fluent and unflappable 🤩 under pressure. The only difference between you and them right now is that they have mastered the art of the pause.

My call-out for those who want to inform, captivate and inspire is to resist the urge to rush past the opportunity to use pause.

Experiment 🧐

Infuse your everyday speech and presentations with intentional pauses of differing lengths, let them hang in the air, don’t be tempted to fill the silence, and witness their alchemical effect 🔥

Bear in mind a pause may seem interminable in your mind, but it won’t feel that way to your audience. It’s only a few beats - time for your audience to take the breath they didn’t know they needed.

As you experiment, you might over-season or under-season. Fear not; finding the right balance takes time. I love this advice from Jeff Goins:

“If you’re going to get heard, you can’t just raise your voice. You’ve got to set yourself apart, showing you have something special to say, and that you have a unique way of saying it.”

In a world overloaded with information and complexity, revisiting the pause is not just beneficial; it's essential. It’s your Superpower to cut through the babble.  It can transform your communication into a force to be reckoned with. Using pause isn't just about grabbing attention – though that’s important - it's about fashioning unforgettable moments.

So, press the pause button more often. Sprinkle pauses consciously into your daily conversations.  Make bold choices about when and where to pause. Observe as your words imprint themselves into memory, much like a culinary masterpiece 🏆🥇