How to use pauses when speaking

You stop talking for a second and the silence feels enormous. It feels like everyone can tell you lost your place, so you rush to fill the gap with "so" or "um" and hurry into the next sentence. The people listening usually hear something much less dramatic: a person finishing one thought before starting the next.

This article covers the four pauses worth using, where each one goes, and scripts for keeping your pause when the meeting moves fast. Try one pause at a time in low-stakes meetings before you rely on it in a high-stakes one.

The advice comes from Tristan de Montebello, co-founder of the speaking school Ultraspeaking, and Matt Abrahams, who has taught strategic communication at Stanford's Graduate School of Business for 25 years and hosts the podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart.

Choose the pause for the job

• Thinking pause: before an answer, so you can pick your first sentence.
• Boundary pause: between two points, so listeners can tell them apart.
• Emphasis pause: right before or after the line you want people to remember.
• Invitation pause: after you ask a question, so someone has room to answer.

Most awkward pauses are awkward because the speaker treats them as a mistake. You trail off mid-phrase, look alarmed, or apologize, and everyone takes the cue that something went wrong. A pause after a complete phrase, with your posture settled, comes across as deliberate.

Pause before your first word

The pause with the biggest payoff happens before you say anything. It stops a half-formed opening from turning into a long, wandering answer. Tristan de Montebello does this on camera, mid-interview, without announcing it.

Three minutes later, Lenny stops the interview to point it out: "I love that you actually demoed that in the way you answered this question, where you took time to get into that state" (15:16 in the episode). Nobody watching thought the silence was a failure. De Montebello's explanation for why we avoid the pause anyway: until you've proven to yourself that you can take a moment to gather your thoughts without everything unraveling, you'll "go for safety" and keep talking (14:35).

Use the beat to choose your conclusion. You don't need to draft the whole answer in your head first; one complete opening sentence is enough: "Yes, we can keep the date if we reduce the first release." Once people know where you stand, you can add the reasoning. The guide to not rambling in meetings covers what to do after that first sentence.

Look up while you pause

Where you look during a pause changes how it comes across, and de Montebello's most concrete tactic is about exactly that.

He recommends writing "think up" on a Post-it and sticking it on your monitor until the habit takes over. It matters most on video calls, where a downward glance during a silent moment looks like you're checking your phone.

Build the pause around your breath

Pausing gets harder when you're speaking on the last of your air. Matt Abrahams points out that nerves make us breathe shallow, and shallow breath changes how you sound, because "our voice is a wind instrument" (26:26). His fix is a specific breathing pattern.

Before a high-stakes call, take two or three of those breaths: three counts in, six counts out. During the conversation, breathe at the ends of sentences instead of grabbing air mid-phrase, where the intake sounds like an interruption. If nerves are the bigger problem, the guide to being more confident in meetings goes deeper on that side.

Put silence around the sentence that matters

Pick the one line in your update or presentation that you want people to repeat afterward. Slow down slightly before it, say it cleanly, and leave a beat after it.

The beat after the conclusion keeps your evidence from burying the headline. It also gives people a moment to write the claim down or question it. Without any pauses, every sentence sounds equally important, and listeners have to guess which one you cared about.

Ask a question, then actually wait

Abrahams has a reframe for presentations that builds pauses in from the start: run the talk as a conversation, even when you're the only one speaking.

Each question you pose gives you a natural pause before the answer. And when you ask the group a real question, wait long enough for someone to respond. Five seconds of silence after a reflective question is reasonable. If nobody answers, make the question smaller: "What's the biggest delivery risk you see?" Then wait again.

Protect your pause in fast meetings

Some teams treat any silence as an open floor. You can keep your thinking space without sounding territorial.

Don't speed up after an interruption. Go back to your normal pace, finish the thought, and hand the floor over clearly. Rushing tells the group the interruption worked, so you'll get more of them. If you tend to fill the reclaimed space with "um" and "so," the guide to cutting filler words covers where those come from.

Practice pausing on purpose

A pause feels much longer from inside your own head than it sounds to anyone else. Recording yourself is the fastest way to recalibrate. A five-minute exercise:

1. Pick a real update you'll give this week and write three short points.
2. Mark the boundaries. Add a slash where you'll stop and breathe.
3. Circle one headline sentence and give it a full beat before and after.
4. Record the update on your phone. Keep your face and shoulders settled during the silences.
5. Listen without watching. Notice whether the pauses make the message clearer.
6. Record it once more. Shorten any pause that breaks a thought and stretch one that felt rushed.

Ultraspeaking turns this kind of drill into a game. De Montebello practices with slides that force him to change intensity on command, including one that tells him to stop talking.

You can copy the drill without the software: put a card that says "breathe" in the middle of your speaker notes, and when you reach it, stop talking for one breath before you continue. The point of the drill is proving to yourself that you can go quiet for a moment and nothing bad happens. That's the proof de Montebello says most speakers have never given themselves.

Frequently asked questions

Will pausing make me sound unprepared?

A clean pause after a complete phrase usually comes across as composure. What changes the impression is trailing off, apologizing, or looking panicked. Prepare your opening sentence, keep your posture settled, and look up while you think.

Where should I look while pausing?

In person, keep soft eye contact with the group or glance briefly at your notes. On video, keep your face toward the camera and look up rather than down, since looking down during silence looks like you're reading your phone. Don't dart your eyes around; that makes the pause look like panic.

Can I pause in a job interview?

Yes. A short pause before a hard question is normal, and interviewers usually see it as taking the question seriously. If you need more time, say "Let me think about the best example." The behavioral interview guide covers how to structure the answer once you start.

How do I stop filling pauses with "so" or "um"?

Finish the phrase with your lips closed, breathe silently, then start the next complete sentence. Work on one transition at a time, and expect it to feel slow before it feels normal. The filler words guide goes deeper on the pressure moments that create them.

The pause playbook