In this instructional monologue, the mentor guides a student on how to improve spoken presentations by deliberately inserting pauses after key statements. The mentor explains three core benefits of pausing: it lets listeners re‑listen to important points, it signals importance through a “mini mic‑drop” effect, and it provides the speaker a moment to breathe, enhancing clarity. The speaker demonstrates how to transform a rapid statement—e.g., “This famous Mexican actor was on the plane”—into a more impactful delivery by adding a brief pause and a concluding phrase, thereby increasing audience engagement and retention.
Chapters
Their upgrade is also your upgrade. How fantastic was that? My only modification for you, my only modification for you, because honestly it was fantastic. My only modification for you is you don't even— I don't even want you to slow down. The fact that you're fast like that actually works. I just want you to stop every now and again. All right, so I want you to try that. Just pick up the story wherever you are, but now when you say something amazing, like for example, this famous Mexican actor was on the plane. What you're doing right now is you're going, this famous Mexican actor was on the plane, which is really cool because, right? Right? Now what I want you to do is go, "This famous Mexican actor was on the plane, and that was really cool." So you can do it fast, but I just want you to put some pauses in. And the great advantage of the pauses— there's two big advantages. The one is, how many of you re-listen to stuff you've heard? We all do it. If you don't leave the pauses, the audience can't re-listen. So if they miss something, they miss it all. So you get to give them the chance to hear it again, plus you underscore that it was important. Sometimes when you when you say something, you want to drop it, almost like a little mini mic drop moment. You drop the mic, so you stop speaking in a sense. And by doing that, you mark that it was important, and it makes them really listen. So, two big advantages. And then the third big advantage of leaving a pause like that is that you get to breathe. So, try it again.
