The Power of Silence in Negotiation Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better. A few months ago, on my podcast Nudge, Jonah Berger told me about the power of pausing. The act of pausing seems like a small thing. But recent studies show that pausing can make you more persuasive and can improve outcomes. In this blog, I'll share some of the science behind this phenomenon and how to apply it to your next negotiation. Pausing shows confidence. He shared how highly successful speakers often use a surprising amount of pauses when they talk. Jonah shared this clip from an Obama speech and told me to listen for pauses. You can see the speech here: That clip is just 45 seconds long, yet Obama pauses for one second or more eight times. Jonah says this isn’t by accident. Obama has taught himself to slow down and pause more often. Why? Well, according to Jonah, it makes the former president sound more confident. Jonah has conducted studies that prove this (cited in his book Magic Words). He and his colleagues showed a group of participants a speech recording. 50% of the participants heard the presenter talk without pauses. The other 50% of participants listened to the exact same presentation but with pauses included. The two different groups of participants were then asked what they thought of the speaker, how they rated the content, and how positively...