The Pause Principle

PART ILearning to Pause

Here we are.

At the beginning.

And what I’d like for you to do is fill in the stems of the following sentences. You can do that in your head or take a pen to the book—it’s up to you.

If I paused 5% more in stressful conversations, I would …

If I paused 5% more in tough interactions, my working relationships would …

If I paused 5% more in high-stakes meetings, I would …

If I paused 5% more in difficult situations, work would …

You’ve now established that pausing would be helpful to do, so why is it so hard to do? This is what we’ll look at first in Chapter 1 and then after you understand why it’s not as easy as people make it out to be, we’ll get into the pause principle in Chapter 2, which shows you how to make it easier, and then I’ll give you the overview of the practices that are going to make pausing a reality.