Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:03:39: Why pausing is important

00:07:58: How long is a pause?

00:08:57: Idea for action 1: space versus speed

00:15:21: Idea for action 2: short pauses and long pauses

00:26:49: Idea for action 3: play around with pauses in presentations and meetings

00:31:48: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly show where we talk about the ins, the outs, the ups and the downs of work, and share some tools that we think might help, some ideas that you can take action with, to give you a bit more confidence, clarity and control over your career development.  And if it's the first time you've listened, this episode comes with lots of other help for you.  So, as well as our conversation, you can download a PodSheet, which is just a one page summary.  It's got some of the key insights we're going to talk about on there and the ideas for action.  It's all editable as well so you can download it and fill it in.  We know that lots of teams talk about those together as well, so it might be a useful thing for you to have in your teams. 

We have PodNotes, which we put on social, so if anything particularly resonates with you, have a look at our social channels @amazingif on Instagram and LinkedIn, and you can like it and share it so other people can get help too.  And there's also PodPlus that is almost every Thursday.  That's our caveat that sometimes it doesn't happen, but it is 9.00am UK time on Zoom.  It's free, it's 30 minutes and it is a brilliant community of like-minded learners, and we just dive in a bit deeper into the topic we're talking about.  So, that's all there for you.  You can find it on our website which is amazingif.com or in the show notes, or just email us, helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.

Sarah Ellis: So today, we're talking about how pausing increases performance.  I think pausing is such an interesting concept to dive into, mainly because I've spent a lot of time researching it over the last week for more than just the podcast, which is very exciting.  And what you start to realise very quickly is there is a lot of pressure on us to not pause.  Those pressures can be from having multiple projects, so having lots of things that you're trying to do at the same time, so that feels very anti-pausing; lots of pressures to be productive, and there's a whole productivity guru thing, isn't there, like how to just be that 1% more productive all the time and go through your tasks and to-do lists that bit quicker; maybe it's pressure from your manager, so you're like, "Well, I can't pause", because whether it's a manager or just another person, so maybe that's me putting pressure on Helen, so she's like, "Well, I'd like to pause, but Sarah sent me 40 messages", or something.

Also, I think there's the pressures that we put on ourselves, like the expectations to keep going, maybe the framing that we might have in our minds around what a pause looks like, what a pause means, is it actually a good thing to pause, because I think for some of us it feels more motivating than others.  I think for other people, they might find it more confronting or challenging as actually something they even want to do.

Helen Tupper: I always think as well, and I've been reflecting on the stuff that Sarah's pulled together for the podcast today, is I think that it's really easy, and this is probably what I do, I think it's easy to feel out of control of your ability to pause, "Well, that sounds lovely, but my company puts back-to-back meetings in, so when can I possibly pause?"  Or, "That sounds lovely, but I've got 101 things to do, so the idea of me putting a pause into my day is just going to stop me being able to do my job".  And so you can, I think, get a little bit defensive about it and feel like, "Well, this is a lovely concept, but it's not really in my control".  But I hope that where we get to in the podcast is, and this is from someone who doesn't find pausing easy and probably does too much in a day, that there are actually lots of practical ways that you can fit pausing in and it doesn't always have to be for a long time and it doesn't always have to mean that you're less productive, you're doing less as a result of it; you're just doing what you're doing a bit better.  And so, if you are already listening and thinking, "Well, pausing is not possible for me", just hold that thought because some practical ideas are coming.

Sarah Ellis: And I do think it's important to connect to why we should pause.  So, if you're someone like me, I just think, "Well, because it sounds nice and like something I'd like to do".  But if you're Helen, you're thinking, "Well, I need more motivation than that.  You've got to help me with the why behind pausing".  What we know is that when you pause, it prevents sameness, so it stops us from doing things like making the same mistake twice, because maybe you're pausing for thought, you're pausing to reflect, you're pausing to take a quick breath; maybe your relationships become more productive, so you know that you pause in a difficult conversation, you don't just respond right away, you take a moment to pause, and then you choose, you choose how you want to react, something that you're in control of. I think the other thing that's really interesting when you start researching pausing is particularly in Western cultures, in conversations, we don't practise pausing very often.  So, we've probably all got quite used to lots of interruptions, almost how much you speak perhaps being a signal of power or how important you are, and it really matters how much you say. 

And that almost maybe has a sense of pace like, "I need to speak faster to get more done and the meeting's going to end soon".  And so, when you think about just pausing generally in our lives, it's often not something that has been celebrated probably in our working cultures and in our environments.  And just generally in lives, there's definitely a bit of a culture of more and more and more, and then you obviously always get the opposite of that, which I think is where you got things like the slow food movement. Helen and I have read a really brilliant, I would describe it as a book, but it's something you can get for free, around slow learning that's really interesting as well.  So, you always sort of get, when everything's got all frantic, everyone then goes, "Oh, right, everyone needs to slow down".  But we think there might be a sort of happy middle here that feels more realistic and relevant to everybody.  So, it doesn't mean we all have to just stop completely.

Helen Tupper: I think again, different to Sarah, I don't think I take pride in pausing.  Even this podcast, I don't kind of go, "Oh, I'm proud that I'm a person who can pause"; that doesn't resonate with me.  What I do take pride in is having high-quality relationships, what I do take pride in is doing work that other people haven't done, because they've got kind of unique thoughts and it's got a unique impact and you can't get to that without pausing.  So, I think some people might just be like, "I'm the sort of person who pauses".  Brilliant, and that's a good view.  And if you're not like that, I think whatever the thing that is meaningful to you in terms of the output or outcomes of your work, it's very likely that pausing can play a part in it.  So, maybe just attach yourself to the outcome that you want and recognise that pausing is an input that might get there for you.

Sarah Ellis: And that's interesting that you said that because I was thinking about you today as I was writing about pausing.

Helen Tupper: Of course you did!

Sarah Ellis: And I've written a list of pause payoffs, because I was like, "Oh, actually, maybe that's quite a useful way to think about it", like what's the, not just the enjoying a pause, it's actually, "What's the payoff of pausing?" which is exactly what you've just described.  So, perhaps if you're listening to this, focus first on what's your pause payoff.  Is it being able to get unstuck; is it better quality relationships; is it your ability to deal with complexity; what's the payoff you're hoping for?

Helen Tupper: Well my word of the year is quality, isn't it?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.

Helen Tupper: Because I set a word of the year, which I appreciate will make some people cringe, but it works for me.  And my word of the year is "quality", and I know that I will get to better quality in many of the dimensions that I'm looking at with pausing.  So, that is my payoff and that makes me want to like, "Okay, I'll do some of this stuff", even though it does feel a bit uncomfortable and I have to sort of interrupt myself in order to put a pause in.

Sarah Ellis: And actually, Robert Poynton has written a brilliant book called DO Pause, which I've read over the last week and I'd really recommend.  And actually, reflecting on Helen's point there about quality, one of the quotes from the book in terms of how he describes pausing really resonates with this idea of improving the quality of what you do and maybe who you are even.  And he says, "A pause is an opening.  It acts as a portal to other options and choices, giving more dimension to your experience".

Helen Tupper: Now, that sounds great; I'll have that!

Sarah Ellis: So, do you want that as your pause payoff?

Helen Tupper: Yes, I'll have that!  Dimensions to my experiences, yes.

Sarah Ellis: And I think just when we start thinking about pausing, being really practical about it as an idea.  Because one of the questions actually Robert Poynton asks in the book, which I really like, he's like, "How long is a pause?"  And I sometimes think we stop ourselves pausing because our assumption is, and perhaps this will be true for Helen, "Well, I haven't got time to pause for a day, I haven't got time to pause for a week".  You read about Bill Gates going on his think weeks, or whatever, for like two weeks every year and you're like, "Well, sure, but I can't do that, I don't have the luxury of that".  And so, perhaps there's this assumption of like, "Well, this is what a pause has to look like".  But pauses are elastic, they're quite an elastic concept.  A pause can be five seconds, five minutes, five hours, five days, depending on what you're pausing to do.  And actually, one of the things that we've really tried to think about today is short, simple, specific pauses that we think in your week would help to increase your performance. So, our first idea for action comes from Robert Poynton's book, and he described a visual exercise. 

Now, I appreciate we are on an audio medium here, and I'm like, "Right, I'm going to attempt to describe a visual activity".  But I thought it was so useful, and I've done it really quickly, and I found it helpful, and Helen's done it as well, that I'm going to give it a go at trying to describe it.  So, essentially what you're trying to do is scan over a period of time how much space you have versus speed.  So, the first thing you need to do is pick a timeframe.  So, I picked a day and Helen's picked a day as well, but you can also pick a week, you could pick a month, you could pick your year so far.  So, you can play around with the timeframe.  You then are visually going to represent, during that time, how much space was there versus how much speed.  So, space is a circle and speed is a wad or sort of straight line.  And so what you end up with essentially is loads and loads of straight lines, the odd circle.  If you have lots of space, lots and lots of circles; if you don't have very much space, maybe one circle and lots of straight lines.  So, you just very quickly see space versus speed. I think you can do this proactively or reactively.  So, I read about it as sort of quite a reactive, you're reflecting back, you're looking into the past and looking at space versus speed.  I then did it proactively, which I'll talk about in a second.  So, I actually looked ahead to see if it works to do it that way, which it did.  But Helen, what did you find when I said to you, "You need to do this visual ones and zeros activity to see whether it works for you"; did it work and how did it work?

Helen Tupper: So, I did it on yesterday.  So, I looked at my diary yesterday and yesterday, I was going into London and running a workshop and coming home and it happened to be my son's birthday yesterday, so I had a little birthday dinner for him and all that kind of stuff.  So, the birthday doesn't happen every day but everything else is kind of, I guess, the sort of thing that happens in Amazing If.  What I noticed was I had three circles, so three moments of pause, and the rest, I had a lot of lines.  And my lines started pretty early in the morning, because I pick up my phone quite early and I answer emails and all that kind of stuff, I started quite early.  My circles were commutes, so I had two circles because I was on a train. 

I had much more space then, I was looking at different things and reading and writing a few notes and things.  And then I had another circle.  My last circle was at the end of the day, when people were basically asleep like, "The kids are asleep, that is done, and now I can look at stuff", and I was doing just a bit of reading. So, what I reflected on was that actually in my day, it is a lot of speed, it is not a lot of pausing and there was a lot of back-to-back yesterday, but there's something in me where I'm commuting where I feel like I have more space.  I mean, I could just work in that, but it has a sense of space for me.  And so what it made me think was, how could I intentionally fit sort of more commutes into my day?  You know, like if I was sort of going, rather than working in one place all day, so for example I'm a member of a co-working space and I tend to start at one and stay there all day; I think I could probably commute to another one.  That would be quite easy, but in that commute, that creates a sense of space.  Also, I quite like working a different place with different people, so it wouldd probably give me a bit of energy.  But that commute does seem to create space for me.  And even when I'm working from home, could I create a little commute somehow, you know, go to somewhere or even like to a café or something like that.  I feel like that space is, "Oh, I can listen to a podcast there or I can reflect on my last meeting".  Without that, "How do I create more commutes?" is the insight that I got to.

Sarah Ellis: Well, it's interesting how transitions sometimes give us the chance to pause, I think, because I had the same reflection, that kind of getting from and to somewhere actually does give you a bit of a bit of space.  One of the things that I found when I did it proactively, so actually I looked at the same day as you, and initially knew that it was going to look quite similar to yours because we were actually together, so we had a very similar day in mind.  But I suddenly noticed so many lines in a row, and actually that made me feel really worried, because I know I look forward to pausing, I definitely use pauses to regenerate and get my brain kind of rebooted.  And so actually, what that meant was I could put in a proactive pause.  So, I looked at that in my day and thought, right, okay, what would need to change or what would I need to do differently to punctuate my day with more pauses; what would that have to look like, or who do I need to talk to to make that happen? 

And actually, it was some quite small tweaks that just then meant actually, I could change all of those straight lines just sort of flowing one to the next, and then I know that I was better because of it. But if I hadn't anticipated it, you know, you just sort of let it happen to you.  You know you talked about how in control of your day are you, and it was only the difference between 15 minutes that I freed up and 15 minutes I hadn't freed up before that.  So, I think asking yourself, almost like Helen's question, if you've got a more specific one, brilliant, which was sort of like Helen's like, "How can I always create commutes to give me the chance to press pause?" would be one for Helen.  Or you might just start with, "What's one pause that would make a big difference in your day?"  If you were just adding, I think just adding in one circle, I wonder if you just added in one more circle, what would that look like?  And it could be 15 minutes, it could be 5 minutes, it could be 3 minutes before a meeting to stop and maybe look out the window or just do something different.

Helen Tupper: Or just walk.  So, my office is in my garden and I can see my house now, but actually that is sort of a commute, like walking.  Like, if I know that commutes are a golden time for me to press pause, then actually going to make a cup of tea or something like that, but really intentionally thinking of that as, "Oh, this is my pause", like sometimes I'm rushing, I don't think of it as a pause, I'm sort of rushing to go from one to the other.  But just being like, "I know that this is five minutes probably for me to go to office, make a cup of tea and come back again, leaving my phone at the table, and just like letting that pause sit, whether it's for reflection or to think one question through a bit more deeply, or whatever it is, there's probably more commutes than I think, if I don't think they always have to happen on a train.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  Play around with the idea of what your commute could look like.  So, idea number two is about the shortest pause possible.  We are also going to talk about some longer pauses, but I think this was us really challenging ourselves to go, "We know everybody's busy.  If you're adding more circles into your day, what could that look like?" and maybe just give you some suggestions that might not have already sprung to mind, because the more I thought about this actually, the more I could come up with.  Do you want to do a couple first, Helen?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, sure.  So, one-minute reflection time after each meeting.  That doesn't have to take a lot, you can probably squeeze it in, even if you're one minute late, it's probably not going to be a disaster.  Most people have two or three minutes at least.  So, one-minute reflection time after a meeting.  I always find like, "What have I learned?  So, what am I thinking?  And what might I do differently, or what action do I need to take?" is a really, really quick way of me just capturing some insights rather than just moving on to the next.  So, it's quite a useful framework for that reflection. So, the next type of pause is work.  There's one for when you are asking people a question and there's also a pause that can be really useful for when you are answering a question. 

So, let's say I'm asking Sarah a question.  A pause before I ask that question often increases someone's attention.  So, if I just rush in from my normal chitchat, which is quite pacy, and then just ask Sarah a question, it's not really put the question in the spotlight, it's sort of just running on to other things I'm saying.  But if I take a pause, I'm much more likely to have Sarah's attention, and then that question that I ask her is probably more likely to stand out and be considered.  So, pausing before you ask a question, really useful; and then pausing before you answer one, also great.  Don't feel like you have to rush to respond.  Pausing before you answer has two really big benefits, one, gives you more time to think, it's quite helpful; also, it means that somebody else is kind of watching you think it through, which means that for them they're like, "Oh, this is a considered response, this is not a rushed response that Helen's just sort of winging in the moment".  But the fact that they can see you thinking, that they can see you pausing and considering your response often means that it might have a bit more weight for that person rather than, yeah, just kind of saying what you think in the immediate moment.

Sarah Ellis: And in the meeting Helen and I were in before this, before recording the podcast, we got asked a brilliant question from the person we were working with.  He said to us, it was something along the lines of, "How has what we've talked about met your expectations, or is it what you were expecting me to talk about?"  And there, it's so easy to just nod and say, "Yes".  I think my intuition -- because you sort of go, "Oh, yeah, sure", you know, almost in quite a flippant way.  But actually, it was a big question and it was an important question and so I tried really hard in that moment to actually think about what did I think; had it met my expectations; was I surprised; what did I actually think about what we had talked about?  But I think so often, we just default to like, "Oh, yeah, it was all great, it was all fine", we just sort of move on too fast, I guess.

Helen Tupper: I did a social post on LinkedIn on Monday, I think, about emotional masking and just on that point on you just sometimes say things really flippantly, you know when people say, "How are you doing?" and the sort of non-thinking responses are very often, "Oh, I'm fine", you know, you just say it; actually, pausing before you respond and doing the, "Oh, I'm feeling…" and actually communicating an emotion which is like, "Oh, I'm feeling…" like, what are you?  "Fine", is rarely the thing.  You might be, "I'm feeling really happy with how things are going" or, "I'm feeling like I could do with a bit more time to think".  Maybe rather than just going, "I'm fine", and having that default, taking that pause to actually communicate something, I don't know, just a bit more considered, and also that might connect with somebody in a slightly different way.

Sarah Ellis: Well I think we did that last night.  I can't remember if you'd said to me, or if I just told you, I was like, "I'm feeling very motivated", so I didn't just go, "Oh, yeah, good day", I went, "Oh, no, I'm feeling very motivated.  And I think you even said, "Oh, why, was it [this one conversation that you knew I'd had]?"  And I was like, "Oh, no, actually it was bigger than that".  It was a few things during the day that had sort of added up to that, and it was also a bit about the structure of the day and some of the space of the day I'd added in the pause. A couple of other really tactical ideas on shortest pause possible.  There is lots of evidence about how music affects our moods.  And I definitely say this as somebody who listens to very little music, and so it's something I really want to try out this year.  And we are going to, and I say "we" because one of our team is going to have a go at this, because she wants to learn to be a DJ this year, we are going to create a Squiggly Spotify Playlist, which I'm very excited about.  But today, for the first time in ages, I listened to music while I work, which I very rarely do because if I listen to --

Helen Tupper: What do you listen to?  I love music.

Sarah Ellis: Oh, a classical music playlist for writing!

Helen Tupper: Okay, sure, Sarah!  For other recommendations, get in touch with me!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, popular culture, talk to Helen.  But it was very beautiful, very lovely.  So, I can't listen to anything with words while I'm working, because I write the words.  But I was reading about if you have music punctuating your day.  So, let's say you did have like a go-to playlist, and you even listen to one song, that's a brilliant example of a really short pause.  And in Robert Poynton's book, the reason I was thinking about this, he talked about a CEO that he worked with who just happened to really like jazz.  He had really, really full-on days, but he would end his day by listening to one jazz piece, if that's the right description, and that would almost be his pause, his pause between the workday ending and then him going home, but also a pause to sort of synthesise the day, like process the day.  And he used music as his default, probably because it was something he was personally passionate about, but I was like, "Oh, I think that could work for all of us".  So, I was like -- obviously I did try it a bit today, but I wasn't really pausing, I just had some music on for a change, but I could see that, I could see how that could work.

Helen Tupper: I could see that.  So, I have playlists, I have loads of playlists.  I have like, "the music makes me happy" playlist, whenever I need a little bit of a boost, random track from there.  But I actually like the idea of having a song that you start your day with, just one song, because it's like three minutes of length, isn't it?  And then having a song that you kind of end your day with before I kind of go largely family time.  It's a very different shift in mindset from all things Squiggly to, "Oh, I need to make dinner and put kids to bed".  I quite like those transition tracks, I suppose.

Sarah Ellis: And if you really want a cop-out action, which I think the next one is, sleeping is actually a really good pause.  So, we've talked about this before.  When we say, "Sleep on it", actually having the confidence to say, "I'm just going to pause for thought on that decision and I'm going to sleep on it", is actually a really good pause, because our brain does loads of processing overnight.  Interesting to see what we think the next morning when we wake up with fresh eyes and we've had chance to kind of do the sense-making that happens while we sleep.  And I sometimes think that happens anyway, but maybe slightly more by accident rather than by design.  And so, I think just spotting in your week just that decision, or if you're a bit stuck on something, does that thing have to happen right now?  Or actually, is that a really good chance to press pause and to maybe even say to someone else in your team, or to your manager if you can, or even just to yourself, "Just going to press pause on this because I think I'll be better on it tomorrow, I think I'll be better if I don't work on it for another hour tonight, if actually I come back to it first thing for 15 minutes and just see where I've got to".

Helen Tupper: I'm quite good at using sleep to press pause on an argument.  I'm like, "Pressing pause on this conversation now, I'm just going to sleep and I'll just be much more able to deal with this in the morning"!

Sarah Ellis: So, you could go to sleep though, mid-argument?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, that would be the best thing for me to do, because I think arguments are like, "Right, I'm just going to pretend this isn't happening, go to sleep, and in the morning, I'll feel much more positive and we can sort this out".  Yeah, generally!  Anyway, we've talked about short pauses, but there is also, we don't want to miss the benefit of long pauses.  So this, I think, is where you might divide a meeting or a conversation into two, a bit like my argument example, but a better, more relatable example, an innovation meeting. So, let's say you're having a meeting at work and it's all about generating ideas, you're launching a new process or a new product, or something.  What can often be quite helpful, between one meeting where you're coming up with all the ideas and the second meeting when you're thinking about having an interaction, is a bit of a pause, because often what happens is between two meetings, people might spot things that kind of make an idea even better like, "Oh, I've just seen this in this company and that's a bit like that thing that we said" or, "Oh, I've thought about this and actually, now I've thought about it, I don't think it'll work".  Because often in the energy of a situation, you can kind of all get caught up with an idea, but when you include a pause, I think it increases considerations.  

So, pauses between meetings like that can help.  Similarly with career conversations; I think too many people try to load too much into a career conversation, and actually having a pause between them can help you think about, "What is my priority, and what could I do, and what help do I need?" and you can articulate that a bit more clearly, rather than trying to do it all at once. Tough conversations.  I think if Sarah and I are having a really difficult conversation, I think sometimes emotions can get in the way of the effectiveness of that.  So, having a pause, like literally saying, "This is feeling a bit difficult, I'd like to consider it a little bit before we continue, can we catch up later today, or can we catch up tomorrow?" whatever it is, but it's just this sense of not feeling like we have to do it all at once, and actually the discussion could be better with a bit of a pause, whether that is an hour, a day or even a week, it can be different for different situations.

Sarah Ellis: And learning, we know, works best when you pause.  So, if you're trying to learn anything and you try to learn it all at once, your recall and ability to then apply what you learn will go down, because we know we need to repeat things, we need to come back to it, we need to build on it, and we also need to figure out I think the, "How is this meaningful for me?" question.  And if we just try to do all of our learning all at once, then that's really hard to make happen.  So, we want to sort of design pauses into our learning, and that could just be the difference between doing, let's say, even if you're watching a TED Talk, you might choose to watch half of it today and half of it tomorrow.  And I would never think to do that, actually, I think, because I think, "Well, I should complete it". 

But actually, that's probably not a bad thing to do, because you'll have thought about what you've heard so far, and then you're going to come back to it and be like, "Oh, how does it end?"  So, that could be quite interesting. It's also why reading books, there's a lot of evidence, if you're reading books for learning, you should read a bit at a time, you should actually keep coming back to it.  So, if you're reading Squiggly Career or You Coach You, and we've actually had lots of examples of people doing this, which is super-smart on their part, of going, "Yeah, I'm reading a chapter a week", and there are five chapters or six chapters, "so, I'm setting myself a learning goal of over the next five or six weeks, I'm basically designing my learning one chapter a week", and especially because the way that our books are written to be written in and to be very practical, those sort of long pauses, those weekly pauses in between, "I'm not going to pick up that book now, I'm going to pause picking up that book for another week", is the way to kind of make that learning last.

Helen Tupper: I think also designing pauses into your learning gets over guilt a little bit, you know like, "I have to read a chapter a day" or, "I have to do this"; actually say, "This is going to be a chapter a week and then I'm going to put it away for a bit", then you don't have to feel bad about it.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, giving yourself permission to pause, I guess.

Helen Tupper: Yes, I think so.

Sarah Ellis: So, idea number three is about playing around with pauses in your presentations and meetings.  And I think the first thing to notice here is, what is your natural pace.  And what we are aiming for is to sort of mix up our pace using pauses.  And the enemy here, or the sin apparently, from everything I was reading, is sameness.  So, we all have a natural sort of cadence, I think it's often described as, in terms of how we speak, but perhaps we don't really think about changing that, changing that up.  And you can use pauses for all sorts of reasons: for effect, for jeopardy, for drama.  And in some ways, when I was reading about this, I was like, it can feel a bit intimidating because you think, "Well, I'm not an actor, I don't know how to do this".

But when you start to really think about it, and certainly if you start to say some sentences out loud, so as I was like thinking, I was like, "Oh, I'm going to try this, I'm going to try that", you realise it's often, these are small pauses, right?  We're not leaving massive gaps and going, "… and the thing that really matters is…", almost like a drum roll, as my son would say, and then you're saying it.  You might just find that there are just moments where something's really important to emphasise.  So, you slow down and you pause more than you might normally, because you're like, "This is really important, I really need people to listen to this.  And actually if I slow down and if I pause, I increase the chances of that happening". Or maybe you are going to pause -- I was reading something interesting about, it's useful to pause if you're getting people to reflect or imagine who you're talking to.  So, if I was saying to Helen, "Now I just want you to imagine a working week where everything falls into place.  What does that feel like?  Who are you spending time with?  What are you working on?  Who are you working with?"  That's slower than my normal pace.

Helen Tupper: Oh, it's nice, it sounds nice.

Sarah Ellis: Oh, thanks!  Maybe I should read audiobooks.

Helen Tupper: I was thinking that!  You know, the Calm up?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.

Helen Tupper: I was like, "Oh, that's just like Calm"!

Sarah Ellis: Oh, there you go.  That was my attempt to be like a meditate -- given I can't meditate, probably not going to work, is it?

Helen Tupper: You know if you can't teach, there you go!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, just do that thing!  And I was like, "Oh, actually, that really made sense to me".  So, I tried that on myself.  I was like, if you were presenting and you're trying to get people to envisage anything or imagine something, or maybe you're creating a new product for customers that you want people to get really excited about, if you're kind of creating those worlds, pauses and slowing down a bit and giving people space to do the thing that you're asking them to do is really important.  And I was like, "Oh, that's smart", that just made sense to me. So, the first thing I think I would do here is, if you don't know what your pace is naturally, ask someone who you trust and who's nice and a friend.  Like, I'm assuming Helen knows she's pacey.

Helen Tupper: Yeah.

Sarah Ellis: Probably because I've told her, but other people will have told her.

Helen Tupper: My mum sent me a voice note message, not a voice note, she was asking me how I was --

Sarah Ellis: About your pace?!

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I sent her a voice note and her reply was, "Sorry, my ears don't work as fast as your mouth, but I got the gist anyway.  Have a good day"!

Sarah Ellis: Do you know when people talk about listening to voice notes and increasing it to like 1.5 speed, I've tried that before on a voice note you've left me and I was like, you're literally incoherent.  I was like, you're the only person I know where you're already the double-speed thing, or whatever, that's built into your phone!  But knowing that, your pace gives you loads of good stuff.  So, we're not saying lose what you already do, because it gives you energy, it gives you enthusiasm.  People love to listen to you, but there are probably moments where pausing and slowing down, as we've just talked about, would be really helpful.  And just practising pausing in conversations, which I actually do see you do, you know, you're not always super-fast when we're having conversations as a team, that, I think, just then means that you're more likely to pause in other parts of your day as well, so it doesn't feel so unfamiliar.

Helen Tupper: I also think sometimes pausing is for you, so I think to increase your reflection and your thinking and your ideas, but sometimes pausing helps your message to land better with other people too.  So, pausing is more about the benefit for the people.  And I think if you struggle, because like me, I just get overexcited and I'm just speedy, but if I was thinking about other people first, not what I want to say, but what I want them to hear, then actually having a pause partner is quite useful.  So, for example on the podcast, Sarah and I have a naturally different pace.  And so, part of the way that we hope that we help you learn by listening is we're always very intentional of mixing it up so you don't hear too much of Sarah and then you hear a bit of me.  And Sarah is naturally more thoughtful and naturally more pause-y in her responses, so you kind of get that mix. So, you do want to develop this capability for yourself, but sometimes I think if you do find it hard, having a pause partner, somebody who has a different pace to you, can create the same outcome for the person that is listening to you.

Sarah Ellis: So, to summarise our key points today on pausing, first, consider what are your pause payoffs; what's the benefit for you; what are you trying to achieve from pausing?  Next, get really practical about what your pausing looks like today.  Do that line-and-circle exercise, how much space, how much speed have you got, and what do you notice; what does that say; what question might you come up with as a result? 

Then, come up with the shortest pause possible that you could add into your day.  What does that look like; is that reflecting at the end of a meeting; is that some music; or, are you going to go for the cop-out one of sleep?  Maybe if you go to sleep, add one more in just so you're trying something different, you're doing something differently.  And also, think about where are long pauses appropriate for you in the work that you do, where might those long pauses be really helpful?  And then finally, play around with pauses in your conversations, your presentations, your meetings.

Helen Tupper: So, we hope you found that helpful.  Don't forget the PodSheet, it is all in there.  You can practise pausing with some other people too.  But that is everything for this week and we'll be back again very soon.  Bye everyone.

Sarah Ellis: Thanks so much for listening everyone.  Bye!