How to Get and Keep Attention

If you’re willing, try this experiment. I’d love to hear your results:

Start screaming and yelling and waving your arms. How do the people around you respond?

I predict you’ll get their attention. They’ll look. But as soon as they realize you’ve got nothing to say, they’ll ignore you. If you continue to be disruptive, they’ll get annoyed. You can get attention with noise and movement, but it doesn’t last long. You keep attention, demonstrate power and confidence, and communicate presence with something much more potent than noise: Silence.

I recently coached a client on presentation skills. She had been struggling to get class participants’ attention after group activities. I taught her a great skill called Above-Pause-Whisper that works like a charm. First, you yell one word loudly, such as “Okay!” to get attention. Your volume must be ABOVE the collective volume of the group. Then… silence. You PAUSE. Wait… wait… wait… Then drop your voice to a WHISPER. It’s effective, but difficult to do because there are so many components. The hardest part? The pause. Yet it’s that silent space that gets MOST of the audience’s attention.

You can’t, of course, be hiding quietly in a corner. You have to be present, acknowledge the people around you, fill the space with your energy, and be still. In the end, you’ll gain much more attention and credibility that way than by yelling and screaming and waving your arms. Power and presence are communicated in silence.

Change your communication, change your life.

I’m Rachel Beohm, a writer, speaker, and coach. Through nonverbal communication, I empower clients to show up as their biggest, boldest selves.

If you’d like tips on how to do that yourself, sign up here for “21 Days to Build a Better Life.” It’s a FREE 3-week email coaching program that I wrote to help you change your communication and your life.