Full-body pauses are a key to charisma

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been skimming through a 2022 book by Zoe Chance titled Influence Is Your Superpower: The science of winning hearts, sparking change, and making good things happen. There is a preview at Google Books. Her passage starting on page 86 about full-body pauses being a key to charisma says that:

 

“Full-body pauses – moments when you’re not walking, fidgeting, or making any dramatic hand movements, but you are breathing easily, your hands comfortably by your side – are especially helpful. Not just during your presentation but also before and after. This key to charisma is so simple that almost no one teaches or practices it, yet it works for speakers and performers of all kinds.

 

Here are some opportunities for a full-body pause in a formal talk or performance situation.

 

When someone else is speaking or performing, you pause with your whole body and focus your attention on them. Maybe an audience member is asking a question. Maybe a junior employee is speaking up at the meeting. Maybe your bandmate is playing a solo. Whoever should have the audience’s attention should have your attention too. You’ll be tempted to look around at other people, or look down or away. If you do, you’re fracturing the group’s attention, and fractured attention is harder to collect when it’s your turn to speak. When it’s someone else’s turn to be charismatic, don’t distract others or let yourself get distracted.

 

When it’s your turn to speak or perform, thank the person introducing you, if there is one, then shift your focus to the audience. Take a full-body pause for one complete breath, smile, and you’ll have the audience’s full attention when you begin. When you’re on a panel or in an informal meeting, the pause needn’t be so obvious, but taking that movement to shift your attention will catch theirs. Now all eyes are on you.

 

When you finish your turn in the spotlight, take a moment to thank the audience before you leave. If there is applause, pause to bask in it for at least one breath, letting the audience’s attention rest fully on you. You have been focused on everyone else, charisma blazing, and they felt it. Now, humbly and gratefully, you receive. We tend to imagine that rushing offstage shows humility, but it conveys a tacit apology – I’m sorry I wasted your time. Instead, take a moment to appreciate your audience with a pause that says, Thank you for your time. I’m grateful for it, and I enjoyed being with you, too. You might nod, bow, put a hand to your chest, or even blow a kiss if you’re that kind of person and it’s that kind of event.”

 

The car key image was adapted from one at OpenClipArt.