Sentences Have Periods for a Reason
I was strategizing with a friend about a negotiation-like conversation she was going to have. I suggested that she speak slowly and deliberately and offered, “sentences have periods for a reason.” It was my tip to finish what she had to say, and well, be finished. Hold the space and its power!
There are a few reasons why you keep talking when a period would work far better.
You’re nervous and when you’re nervous, you keep talking. And talking. And talking. Sometimes you have talked so long that you’ve overtalked the sale you were trying to make. I always say to my team members, “when I say yes, it’s time to move along. Continuing to talk beyond the sale may make me change my mind.”
You feel the need to justify or defend what you just said. Explaining what you’ve said is good and often warranted. Over justifying or shifting into defense mode is never good. As you keep wandering around and around the same theme, your listener has checked out.
Silence is unsettling to you. Your need to fill the space outweighs the power that silence can powerfully hold. I have a former boss whose key communication strategy was silence. And she could hold silence for a long, long time. From her I learned to not fill the silence but to embrace it and let it expand. What is true is that whatever is said after a bit of silence will be heard clearly. Imagine if that speaker is you.
You like the sound of your voice. It may indeed be a pleasant voice or hold a number of different appealing attributes. However, at some point, you should have run out of good things to say. For your sake, and that of those listening, make use of a period.
A period is the least sexy or interesting of all punctuation marks. I’m honestly a big fan of an ellipsis which is the hardest to use orally. It requires a change in the tone of your voice, or wait for it, silence, before picking up the thought on the other side of it.
It now seems that this post should have been about silence and the important use of a period. That’s for another post. For now, consider the strength of a period and see where that gets you.