A short live-stream talk by TJ Walker explaining the importance of purposeful pauses in public speaking. Walker argues that deliberate pausing (like punctuation in writing) makes speakers seem more confident and keeps audiences engaged, and he closes with a promotional call-to-action for his courses and training services.
Chapters
You've heard the expression that something beats nothing, right? Well, I'm here to tell you, in public speaking, it's a little different. Nothing does beat something. At least some of the time. What do I mean by that? I'm talking about the pause. Nervous speakers, average speakers, below average speakers, never pause. They think, let me hurry up, finish this presentation to go through the bullet points. I can sit down and get out of here and people can stop looking at me and no one can accuse me of making any mistakes. Blah, blah, blah. Great speakers don't do that. They pause. They pause to let people think about what they just said. They pause to let people answer a rhetorical question. They pause to underline what they just said. They pause to show a transition. I finished this. Take a couple of steps, walk over here, talk about something else. Pausing is the grammar of speaking. If you were to write someone a cover letter and you didn't use any space between words and no periods, no spaces between sentences, no paragraph breaks, they could figure it out, they could read it, but they wouldn't want to. It would be too much work. The pause when you're writing, the space between letters, a comma is a pause, a period is a pause, a paragraph break, if you're reading a book, the blank page in between chapters. These are all types of pause pauses that communicate with the reader. When you're speaking, you also need to pause. And that's why it's critical that you practice. You rehearse. Too many business people tell themselves, well, I'm too busy, I'm in a hurry, I'm writing, I'm rewriting, I'm rewriting. And then you're rewriting the speech at 7:30 in the morning, and you got to give it an eight. So what happens? You're now looking at a bunch of slides, and now you can see on the next slide, and then no pausing. And it's monotonous, like someone just hitting you on your shoulder. One or two taps isn't going to hurt, but after about five minutes, your shoulder is really going to hurt. That's what it's like listening to someone who doesn't pause. So remember, in this case, nothing beats something. Pausing is very effective tool as a speaker. As long as it seems purposeful. It can't just be, I forgot what I'm going to say now. It can't seem awkward or that you're panicking. It has to seem on purpose. Do that and you'll be seen as a much more confident, compelling speaker. I'm TJ Walker. I help people speak their best because how you present your ideas is the number one factor in your success. If you'd like to become a better speaker, I've got several options for you. We have online courses available where you can start learning right now, right away, every month. I have public speaking and media training, public workshops here in New York City, relatively inexpensive. And you get personalized treatment from me and on camera 10 to 12 times. And then finally there's private one on one and group training anywhere in the world. If you're interested, give me a call or check out the website.
