Silence and Eye Contact as Persuasion Weapons

“Tom Hull remembered one dinner hejiad with Craig McCaw__that featureH~~tong and, for Hull, painful silences. Hull wondered what Mctlawwas thinking during those ^peljs^Why didn 't he fill the tlmeT with chitchat likej3ther people? How ahouLthatfpotball game?_Or even th^weather? Anything^hut the ckttejL_o£foxks_on plates. ^^Jithink Craig does that as a techmqul^J^ull says. "It gives him the upper hand to find out abouT'yoTITTioT'you about him. Through that "silence, he~pu^Tpressure on youto~tatk, and~1ielTgoingto learn some- thing about you."”

“"He was much more refined than I, much more mannered, very calm," says Hull. "You'd go in to talk to him and sometimes he wouldn't say anything for a while, and you'd have to say something because it was too uncomfortable. I don't know if that was a trick or something, but he was just a really mellow guy."”

“Ivar was about to use the two important oratorical lessons he had absorbed from giving hundreds of speeches to investors in Europe: speak from memory, and use lengthy pauses. First, he rubbed his hands together - a long-standing habit - to show he did not plan to use any notes. Second, he paused. And then he paused some more. And then some more. Ivar had learned the power of silence. He liked to make eye contact with everyone in the audience, one by one, and he did so slowly, before he uttered a word.”