Speak without Fear #13
Mastering the Space Between Words
If you have ever attended a Toastmasters meeting and stayed until the evaluation session, you will recall the Ah-Counter’s report. The tally of ahs, uhms, repeated words, and awkward hesitations. Many speakers listen with a mix of curiosity and discomfort. In my early speaking days, I felt that discomfort too. Those small stumbles, those silent gaps, felt like blemishes on what should have been smooth, confident speech.
The underlying belief is common: fluency equals strength, and any break in the flow signals weakness. Over years of coaching entrepreneurs, leaders, and young professionals, I have seen how deeply this misconception runs. People work relentlessly to eliminate every pause, imagining that uninterrupted speech is the hallmark of mastery.
Yet, experience with real audiences and repeated exposure to skilled communicators reveals something counterintuitive: Pauses, when used well, do not weaken a message. They enhance it.
There is a profound difference between an accidental hesitation and an intentional pause. One disrupts. The other defines. The moment speakers understand this shift, their delivery changes. Not because they add more words, but because they learn when not to speak.
How speakers evolve in their relationship with silence
The journey of a speaker often follows a predictable arc. In the beginning, silence feels dangerous. New speakers fear that pausing will expose them suggesting forgotten material, nervousness, or lack of fluency. So, they rush. Words spill out in long, breathless stretches, as though meaning depends on speed rather than clarity.
With more practice and audience interaction, something changes. Speakers begin to see that listeners do not absorb ideas at the speed they are spoken. Communication is not a download. Rather, it is a connection. And connection requires space.
Eventually, sometimes after years of speaking people discover that silence is not empty. It is purposeful. The pause becomes a tool, not a weakness. A moment of quiet creates listening and a breath creates presence. A held silence before a key idea creates anticipation. What began as fear transforms into technique.
What skilled speakers actually do with pauses
The most effective speakers across Nepal, South Asia, and the world have used pauses not as decorative additions, but as integral elements of their communication style. Observing them helps us understand what pauses achieve.
Suraj Vaidya
In business forums and policy discussions, Suraj Vaidya often speaks with a rhythm shaped by strategic silences. His pauses usually appear before presenting a key argument or while transitioning between ideas. They give his points weight and clarity, especially when discussing issues of importance. He uses silence to strengthen structure that helps the audience categorise and prioritise information.
Manisha Koirala
When Manisha Koirala speaks about her personal journey – be it resilience, illness, and healing, she pauses naturally at moments of vulnerability. These spaces are not hesitations. Her pauses allow audiences to sit with the emotional weight of her experience, making her storytelling feel authentic and grounded. The silence becomes part of the story rather than a break in it.
Rahul Dravid
In interviews and speeches, Rahul Dravid uses pauses to articulate humility and careful thought. His silences communicate sincerity with a sense that he means exactly what he says, and nothing more.
Malala Yousafzai
Malala’s pauses often arrive after emotionally charged statements. The pauses might have started as part of her nervousness but instead of dramatising the content, they dignify it. She uses silence to give listeners a moment to grasp the enormity of her message.
Barack Obama
Obama’s pauses are almost architectural. They shape the rhythm of his sentences, helping listeners follow his logic and anticipate points of emphasis.
Steve Jobs
Jobs famously used long pauses during product launches not because he forgot his lines but because he understood the psychological impact of waiting. Silence became suspense, and suspense created excitement.
Across these examples we can see that the pause is not an interruption; it is a feature.
Looking deeper
In my own understanding, I have found four functions of pauses. This may not be exhaustive but it will allow speakers to adapt pauses naturally rather than mechanically.
1. Pauses as structural tools
A pause is one of the clearest ways to organise content. Listeners rely on structure to understand where one idea ends and another begins. Silence marks the boundary. It acts like punctuation or a break guiding the listener through the construction of your message. Without structure, even good ideas become difficult to follow. A pause provides that structure.
2. Pauses as cognitive tools
The human brain processes spoken information more slowly than most speakers deliver it.
A pause gives listeners a moment to visualise, connect, and interpret.
This is especially important when communicating:
*data
*instructions
*insights
The pause becomes a mental buffer allowing the audience to form their meanings.
3. Pauses as emotional tools
Emotion needs space. Without it, everything sounds flat. Silence after a heartfelt sentence allows empathy to develop. Silence before an important point creates gravity. Silence during a story lets tension rise naturally. This is why storytellers and spiritual leaders often use pauses instinctively as they understand human pacing very well.
4. Pauses as performance tools
Pauses influence how a speaker is perceived. A well-placed pause signals confidence.
A pause while making eye contact reclaims attention. A pause before the final point signals closure. Pauses shape not just what the audience thinks, but how they feel about the speaker.
How pauses transform meaning
Without pause: “We must rethink our strategy because the consequences are far more serious than we assumed.”
With pause: “We must rethink our strategy. (Pause) Because the consequences… are far more serious than we assumed.”
The silence underlines seriousness and urgency.
Without pause: “The cost increased significantly this year and it has affected our margins.”
With pause: “The cost increased significantly this year. (Pause) And it has affected our margins.”
There is logical clarity and the listener understands cause and effect more clearly.
Using Pauses Intentionally
Mastering pauses does not mean inserting silence everywhere. The goal is purposeful pauses.
Here are four grounded practices:
1. Awareness
Identify your unproductive pauses. Those that break the sentence or emerge from uncertainty. Awareness is the first correction.
2. Replace fillers with breath
When you feel an uhm or an ah coming, pause instead. Breathing is natural and fillers are distracting.
3. Place pauses at meaning boundaries
Use silence where your thought naturally ends or shifts, just as punctuation guides reading.
4. Calibrate the length
Not all pauses should be long. Short pauses bring clarity. Longer ones bring emphasis. Varying them creates rhythm.
Pausing is less about technique and more about intention. When you understand why you pause, where you pause becomes intuitive.
When silence becomes part of your voice
As speakers mature, they discover that communication is not only about saying things well. It is also about allowing ideas to breathe. It becomes part of the design.
When a speaker uses pauses with intention, their voice gains shape and their message gains clarity. The pause stops being a sign of hesitation and becomes a sign of confidence. It signals that the speaker is not racing through content but guiding the audience thoughtfully.
Mastery does not lie in eliminating pauses. It lies in choosing them. The moment you start shaping silence, you elevate your ability to connect, influence, and inspire.
Shakya is an entrepreneur, certified trainer, and small business consultant. He can be reached for an executive mentoring session at suman@tangentwaves.com
