Ep. 126 The Pregnant Pause vs. The Poignant Pause

Mark, you know, one of my favorite statements is the most important part of a presentation is the thought process in the listener's mind.

Yes, sir.

And we talk about pauses. And you and I were during an episode, I believe, or as one of our workshops maybe, that we talked about a pregnant pause versus poignant pause. Well, what's the difference? There is a difference.

Let's find out.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story, and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. Presentation. Ahas. Let's dive right in.

Mark Brown, the pause, the paws. Pregnant versus poignant.

What? Yeah, I know the phrase pregnant pause has been used over and over again for the longest time, but I don't see too many references to a poignant pause. And I tell you what, if you want to be unforgettable, you have to understand the value, the power, significance of a pointed pause. I went to the dictionary trying to figure out what in the world is a pregnant pause. And of course, a pregnant pause is used in comedy, it's used in drama. It's a moment where they pause and sometimes the audience laugh. It's a pregnant. It sits there for a while. It hangs there. You. Darren talked about putting something on the pause. Yes. Pedestal.

Yes. Thanks to Dave McElhenney, my other coach, he said, take it. It's like scream without raising your voice. The old YouTube lyrics, scream without raising your voice. And we got to figure out what is that foundational phrase, what is that memorable phrase that we want to hold up to the audience to say, look, this. This is important. And so Dave McElhenney had said, Darren put a three heartbeat pause before that line and then a three heartbeat pause after that line, thus holding it up. So, for example, what we're trying to do and what I love is he used heartbeats, not seconds. Seconds is not connecting. It's just an amount of time. Heartbeat is something you feel. Your pauses are going to be different if you're connected to the audience. Your pauses are going to be different. When you're in front of a thousand people versus when you're in front of 100 people, they will be different. Why? Because your connection should be different. You're going to still maybe pause at the same place, but you will feel a difference. So scream without raising your voice. Thank you. You too. And Bono. But it's just saying. Okay, so I would say normally in our presentation, so the most da da.

Da da, da da da da.

So the most important thing you need to know is stage time, stage time, stage time. That's what's important. Now, if we apply the pause pedestal. So here's what you really need to understand. Stage time, stage time, stage time. That's what's important. So we're giving it that space. We're holding it up for the audience. Now, Mark, is that a pregnant pause or a poignant pause?

Well, in my estimation, it's a pregnant pause. You put air around the key statement, your meaningful word, your foundational phrase, the refrain you speak about, or a significant point of dialogue, putting that space around it. The pregnant pause has dramatic effect, but it also gives the audience time to hear what you have to say. One definition is a pregnant pause builds up suspension in the minds of the viewer or the listener. So clearly the effect is meaningful. We do not want to minimize or misunderstand that. However, in my estimation, a pointed pause adds one significant dimension to it. I'll get to that in a minute. I want to pause there for a second.

I saw what you did there. I saw what you did.

Yes, yes. So the pregnant pause does build up suspense. It can do that, but it also gives the presenter time for the listener to absorb, to get it and go, oh, that does make sense. Here's the difference. With a poignant pause, the pointed pause has a dimension of emotion that normally a pregnant pause may not. A pregnant pause could work very, very well in humor. Before a punchline, you held a pause, then dropped the punchline. Take my wife, please. That was funny. But the pointed pause has an impact on the emotions of the listener. I love what one. When I asked what poignant may mean, and I went to a dictionary, and a Dictionary is your dictionary.com yourdictionary.com it says this. Poignant is something that has a strong effect on the emotions or the senses. Poignant has a strong effect on the emotions or the senses. And I have used poignant pauses in other presentations. For example, I talk about being in high school, wanting to be a long jumper. I don't tell the story very often, but I was going to try out for a track team at my high school, and the head coach was highly revered, highly respected, and the school chose one day. We didn't have our own track, our own really good track. They choose to go To a stadium for all the boys to try out. And they had a fleet of cars coming along. And they put four boys in that car, four there. And I end up on the last car. I'm in the backseat. It is the head coach, former Olympic medalist. This guy is awesome. He doesn't know who I am. I'm new. And he looks at me and asks who I am, why I was there. And I told him. And he turned around. He faced forward with four of us in the backseat. He says, I have no room in my car for you. I was numb. I was speechless. The guy next to me opened the door, got out. I shuffled my butt across the backseat, stood outside the door, closed, drove off. And all I could do was watch. It was my one chance to be a long jumper on the high school team. It led me to ask a question. Am I good enough? It may lead you to ask a question. Did you ever go back and try out again? Could you have been a good long jumper? Could you have made the high school track team and eventually become successful? Well, here's the answer. I'll never know because I never once tried again. Now, the pause after he said, I have no room in my car for you. That makes you feel something. Here I am, embarrassed in front of my peers by the head coach, and I have to leave his car. The door is closed, and I'm gone. It's a true story. Happened back in the mid-1970s. I don't often tell the story, but if I just tell a story, he said, I got room in my car for you. So I got out. I left the car, Left. You know what? I never tried again. That's factual. But the pause is applied at the right moments to elicit the emotion. Going back to what Michael Hague, or story mastery friend, says, the poignancy comes from the emotional effect on the audience. A pregnant pause can give you space to laugh and to think, but the emotional component is what separates the pregnant pause from the poignant pause. So here's a question. Do you, in your presentations, friends, listeners, viewers, have moments in your speech where you could have applied a pointed pause but didn't realize the moment was there? Hmm.

Yeah. That's one of the crucial and critical reasons to have a coach to help point that out for. For your delivery. Because the pauses are so important along the way. There's different reasons. There's the drama. To draw them in.

Yes.

To get them curious to what you're about to say. Now, when we do this podcast, by the way, there's also the Podcast thing. Dead air. Don't have too much dead air. So our pause is a little shorter than then. If we're in front of an audience doing a full blown presentation, now we have permission to pause longer and we have that audience's attention. So it's a little different on the podcast versus in an actual presentation. But we've gotta remember, we've gotta give the audience time to process. As Patricia Fripp says, true learning happens in moments of reflection. We need to let them reflect. And Mark, I remember when I was working with you and Dave McElhenney, in my speech, each of my punchlines and each of my thought lines I had in parentheses how long the pause needed to be for each one of them. Because I was also trying to figure out my time. Yes, because I was adding that in. Okay, here's a seven second laugh. So I was factoring that in. I never factored in enough, apparently, but too late now. A good speech is going to be, as you say, Mark, the pause makes it an experience.

Yes, yes. And you know, it's funny. Those who attend some of our workshops or our webinars will notice that you often share your before and after coaching, where you look at clips from your presentation and you say, you play before and you play after. You fall on your face and you ask these questions and you ask the audience, what do you see differently? And invariably somebody says, you paused after you asked the questions on the floor and that made a difference. So a pregnant pause is useful to give your audience time to think and absorb. But don't forget, with a poignant pause, an emotional portion is added to it. And the emotional effect literally makes a pregnant pause more poignant. And it's in those moments you truly connect with the audience on a heart level. And very often that is where the influence comes from in our presentations, because your audience can relate emotionally to a scene, to an experience. It could be a joyful one, it could be a painful one, it could be a very pensive one. But the emotional component makes a pregnant pause a pointed pause. And that's where change takes place in the minds and hearts of the audience. As Darren says, what's the most important part of your speech? It's the thought process in the listener's mind. And you can double down on that with a pointed pause that has the emotional component to make it more rich and much more meaningful.

Yeah, if you want to be unforgettable, it's a critical part of your presentation. And you may or may not have thought of it well, yes, I need to pause. But it's deeper than that. It's much, much deeper than that. It's about that experience. It's about letting people reflect and answer the question. So if I ask Mark a question, have you ever been to Las Vegas? His answer is going to be yes or no. It's going to be quick or it's going to be quick. Either way, yes or no. But if I ask a question, Mark, do you remember one of your favorite childhood Christmas memories?

Yes. Okay, I can almost see it now. My grandfather's house, had I talked.

So, Mark, let me ask that again, but this time don't say a word.

Okay?

Okay. So, Mark, can you think of one of your favorite childhood Christmas memories? See, for me as the presenter, it's harder, but I have to let Mark have that thought time, that reflection time. He had to go there to find that memory in order to do something with it. I asked him that question to bring it into my presentation and make it relevant to what I'm talking about. So he needs to go to that memory. If I just say, mark, do you remember one of those. Your favorite childhood Christmas memories? Okay, now, Mark, take that memory.

I haven't found it yet.

It's not instant. So therefore, we create a disconnect between ourselves and our audience because we kept talking. You gotta let them think, thinking. That's why we're there. You can't change their thinking if you don't allow them to think.

Indeed. And I want to give you a principle. Isn't the rule hard and fast rule, but it's a general observation of mind over the last 25 plus years regarding pregnant pauses and pointed pauses. Generally, pregnant pauses can occur when a statement is made or some questions are asked when it. Pauses are often very effective when they come as a result of dialogue between individuals. When a question is asked by one person to another within the dialogue, within the scene, within the context of what's happening in the scene, or when someone relates an experience that is rich with emotion, that's when the pointed pause adds that emotional component. When I talk about being rejected by the head coach and all these boys see it and I'm embarrassed by it and I pause there, people are going, ooh. And sometimes when Darren, in your speech, you asked questions on your face and you said for yourself it was difficult to wait those extra couple of heartbeats, your foot began to twitch because you wanted to keep going, but you were asking meaningful questions. Have you ever stayed down to. I mean, do you want to pretend no one noticed you pause because you want us to feel the level of discomfort. What do they tell you, Darren? You were down too long. It made me uncomfortable. Point and pauses affect the emotions, and it may make your audience feel uncomfortable. But that discomfort is a powerful tool to get them to think and to feel and to respond. There's value in the pregnant pause. There's value in the poignant pause. Use them both well. It'll help you to become unforgettable.

Yeah. If you get a chance, go back and watch the first 90 seconds of my championship speech. You can find it on YouTube. Put in Darren Lacroix winning speech and watch my foot, left foot. While I'm lying there on the stage, watch my foot twitch. On the outside, my body's reacting, and the inside, I'm thinking, 1, 1000, 2, 1000, 3, 1000. Because Dave, my other coach, said, do not talk. This is a poignant pause. This. They need to think, to connect, to feel uncomfortable. And it was hard, but I had a strategy. I knew what I needed to do inside my head so the audience could get the experience that Mark Brown talks about. Without that experience, I wouldn't have connected. And it was not easy. It was not easy, Mark.

But remember that speaking is emotional, okay? And pauses, as a principle, are good to have. But here's an assignment for you regarding your current speech or your next speech. Remember, we talk about this concept of moments in our speeches. There are moments that are significant, and sometimes these moments call for an extra two or three heartbeats where the pause can literally shift the thinking of the audience. So any speech you're working on now or the next speech you want to work on, look through your script and ask yourself, do I need a pregnant pause here for effect or a pointed pause for emotional connection? When you decide where those are and you begin to practice them, I recommend you practice them. Record yourself on zoom and play it back. And watch yourself and ask yourself as an audience member, is that time long enough for me to really have the impact I want? It might literally transform the way you present and the impact you have on your audience. And it can take you from good to great to unforgettable.

Darren, one little test that you can do as well. If you look at the recording, a recording of your speech, not you doing it live, but when you ask a question, I would love you to gently and distinctly answer out loud your own answer to that question. So if I said to Mark again that same question, Mark, what was one of your favorite childhood Christmas memories? Mark?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. This time I want change. Yeah, I apologize. I kind of put you on the spot. So if I asked Mark that question. Mark, what's one of your favorite childhood Christmas memories?

Yes. At my grandfather's house when I was about six years old, he bought my brother a toy bus. I got a toy truck, and my sister got Kendall. We were so happy. I can remember to this day what it was like at grandpa's house.

So answer your own question out loud and see if you don't start talking before you finish answering the question that you just asked. So listen to yourself when you pause and answer it, even if it's, have you ever been to Vegas? Yes or no. Okay, short pause. That's all you need. Cause it's a short response. But if you ask me to go back to a certain memory. When's the first time you ever spoke on stage? Do you remember the feelings that went through your body? 1001. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, I remember. Okay, so just make sure it's long enough. So it's a great little test and I think you'll be surprised that you don't pause long enough. Mark, take us home.

I'm pausing.

Hey, Mark, before you take us home, by the way, if you're listening to this and we appreciate so many people have been telling us they've been listening to our podcast. Thank you, thank you, thank you. If you got a question for us, go to unforgettablepresentationspodcast.com unforgettablepresentationspodcast.com and there's a place that you can scroll down to and ask us a question and we'll start featuring questions from you, the listener on the podcast. So we'll answer as many questions as we can. So please submit a question and check out our workshops. If you're a listener to the podcast, you get 25% off using the discount code PODPOD25. Go to Stagetime workshops. Check out our upcoming event. So, Mark, pregnant pause versus poignant pause.

We're going to take this home. Remember, put your pauses on that pedestal. We learn best in moments of reflection and take your time to connect with your audience. And in that way, you will be unforgettable.

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