You are not a sponge

Whatever you think of Barrack Obama, you'll probably agree he's a first-class public speaker.  Let me suggest why.

It's not so much about the content of his speeches - superbly-written as they are - but about the pace at which he delivers the content.  That's all his own work.

Here's the opening of his State of the Union speech on 28th January 2014.  It will take you about 15 seconds to read.

 "Mr Speaker.  Mr Vice-President.  Members of Congress.  My fellow-Americans.
Today in America a teacher spent extra time with a student who needed it and did her part to lift America's graduation rate to its highest levels in more than three decades.  An entrepreneur flipped on the lights in her tech start-up and did her part to add to the more than eight million new jobs our businesses have created over the past four years. An auto worker fine-tuned some of the best, most fuel-efficient curves in the world and did his part to help America wean itself off foreign oil..."

If you read it aloud, it will probably take you twice as long as reading it to yourself. There's about 30 seconds of content here.  Difficult to do it any quicker, but you can try.

With his long pauses, though, Obama doubles that to a full minute.  Effectively, his speech is 50 per cent content and 50 per cent silence.  And I believe it's the silence that makes him a first-class public speaker. Because that's where you come in.

By creating silence, Obama's giving you a place in his speech. Those pauses for thought are pauses for your own thought as much as for his.   You're not a sponge.  As you process what he's saying, you're not passively absorbing content.  You're actively, albeit silently, providing your own internal commentary on it.

If you're not given time to do this, your voice will not be heard and you will not be engaged.  But when you're given space and time to think, the monologue becomes a dialogue.  The speech turns into a conversation: he's not talking at you, but with you.

So in fact it's not him that's doing the persuading, it's you.  If you're persuaded by what he says, it's because you have been given time to persuade yourself.

That's what Obama's long pauses are for and you can enjoy them at http://www.obamadownloads.com/mp3s/state-of-union-speech5.mp3