Articles tagged: James Humes

Effective use of speech pauses is a master technique.

If you do it right, nobody is conscious of your pauses, but your ideas are communicated more persuasively.

If you do it wrong, your credibility is weakened, and your audience struggles to comprehend your message.

In this article, we examine:

• benefits of effective speech pauses;
• techniques for using pauses naturally (there are more than you think); and
• communications research which provides clues to why pauses help us communicate effectively.

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Bor’-ing, adj.

1. Uninteresting and tiresome; dull.
2. A speaker reading their entire speech.

Presentations are more lively when a speaker speaks from the heart, from memory, or from minimal notes.

But, what if you simply must read an entire speech or a portion of a speech from script? Is there anything you can do to salvage a successful presentation?

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Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln came to me as a great Christmas gift — a stocking stuffer which will improve my speaking skills considerably.

I was skeptical at first. I guessed that this was another stuffy book filled with speeches and anecdotes from famous speakers who lived so long ago that their speeches are part of history and their anecdotes are no longer relevant. That’s what I thought as I opened the book.

What I discovered is not really a “book full of speeches and anecdotes” (although there are many, many speech excerpts and anecdotes). Rather, I discovered a practical book of speaking techniques that will bolster the repertoire of any speaker who aims to lead.

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