Page 165 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

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THE POWER

OF SILENCE

ilence is an asset, rather than a liability. Most beginning
Sspeakers view complete silence of any kind as an anathema. But
every good speaker knows how to use silence to his or her advantage.
A wise person once said that there is, in any good speech, a greater
message in the pauses than in the words that surround them. There
may be some truth to that. For one thing, most speakers tend to talk
too fast. One reason they speak too fast is because they are always
rushing to fill the dreaded “dead air,” these moments of sweat-in-

ducing silence when not a sound is occurring in a room fi lled with
people. Another reason is that they want it over with as quickly as
possible.
A friend of mine who runs a small business has a recurring
nightmare in which he is standing in front of an audience of blank
faces, unable to make words come out of his mouth. Nothing, not a
sound—only silence. He wakes up in terror, his heart pounding, and
finds it hard to go back to sleep.

This is a person who like so many others is terrifi ed of public
speaking. A famous poll found that the majority of people surveyed
said their number one fear is not dying, but public speaking. Death
was second or third on the list. So we still have a pretty big problem

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