Remember the Power of Silence

Remember the Power of Silence (pause) Remember the Power of Silence. Those are the Words of Wisdom for this week. When we listen to speech, our brain does a wonderful thing: it interprets the strange sounds that arrive in our ears, decodes them and posts the results to the parts of our mind that deal with understanding and memory and the meaning of words. This it does, initially, very quickly, but it then takes time for the effect of the words to spread more widely through our minds. If more words come along too soon they interrupt this process and it doesn’t come to full fruition.

Also there is a more fundamental channel of communication than spoken language and that is the language of the body, the face and, above all, the eyes. When we are busy interpreting speech our thought tends to be taken over by that processing and we can’t get full value from what the body, the face and the eyes are saying to us.

Wait a beat to gain attention. Use a pause to add suspense. Exert silence to show dominance. Don’t do any of these too artificially, but allow the audience to look … and look. Remember the Power of Silence.