Fierce Encouragement
Fierce Encouragement with Mark Walker isn’t just another self-improvement podcast, it’s a wake-up call. If you’re tired of second-guessing yourself, stuck in your own head, or grinding through life without real clarity, this is for you.
As a performance coach for executives and leaders, I bring you raw, unfiltered insights on mindset mastery, self-coaching, and meditation—not as abstract concepts, but as tools to sharpen your edge, reclaim your energy, and finally own your life. Through stories, hard-earned wisdom, and no-BS strategies, I’ll show you how to break free from the noise, rewire your thinking, and move forward with unshakable confidence. No fluff. No clichés. Just Fierce Encouragement, because the life you want won’t wait. Let’s get after it.
Fierce Encouragement
My Internet Didn’t Freeze, My Brain Just Upgraded
In tech, speed is rewarded… but clarity is priceless.
This episode explores how to use short, intentional pauses in virtual meetings to improve communication, reduce reactivity, and strengthen leadership presence.
You’ll learn three practical techniques backed by cognitive science and mindfulness research, all tailored for high pressure roles and complex team environments.
A thoughtful pause is never a weakness.
It is the moment your best mind comes online.
If you’re tired of doing this work alone, I offer a free conversation to help you get clear on your next steps. Apply Here when you’re ready.
Hey there. Welcome back to Fierce Encouragement. My name is Mark Walker, and today I wanted to dive into a question I heard more than once yesterday when I was the keynote speaker at the University of Wisconsin Madison's IT annual conference. A question that I think a lot of us wrestle with as I heard this repeated or the theme of it repeated throughout the day. And I think in this age of remote work and return to office work and Zoom calls and virtual conversations, I think it's this. Because here's what someone asked me. Mark, I want to pause. I want to slow down and breathe. But how do I do that in a virtual meeting without looking checked out or rude or like I don't know what I'm doing? And listen, I think this is this question sits right at the core or the center of modern leadership. Let's get really honest, it sits right at the center of what we're trying to do as leaders, as IT leaders, as managers, or people trying to help projects and people take steps forward. And the real truth is this the leaders who learn to pause and pause well and slow down, they're the people who think more clearly. And I believe thinking clearly is one of the rarest skills in any room. So let's name the real fear under this question that fear of fe looking checked out or rude, or maybe even not knowing what they're doing. If we pause instead, and in that virtual meeting, we believe others will think I'm slow. If we pause, if I pause in a virtual meeting, it might look like I'm struggling. If I slow down and breathe and pause, it can seem like I might be a little disengaged or aloof. And here's the classic one that I get from a lot of IT people who are under high pressure and have high self-expectations. They think if I look away from my camera for even a breath or two, someone in this meeting will assume I'm not paying attention. We are just terrified of being misunderstood. And I know I've felt that fear, and I hear, well, I guess I feel the fear has the answer way too fast, right? That fear, that panic can come in your mind really quick. Or even we start to promise things too quickly. We agree to too many things too quickly. We react from that sense of tension instead of a sense of a calm clarity or whatever you kind of cultivate with the pause. And this is really what meditation researchers are calling the threat mode. Our mind isn't actually thinking, it's protecting and it's constricting. Dr. Richard Davison from the Center of Healthy Minds at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, he talks about one of the biggest markers of emotional intelligence is that ability to create those micro moments of awareness before responding. That is the pause. And ironically, the pause does not make you look weak. It might feel weak, but it makes you look intentional. Slow is strong. So yesterday during my session and then visiting with people afterwards and just had a great day, someone actually raised their hand and asked me directly. They talked about how pausing in that virtual meeting, and then they had someone ask if they thought their internet froze. And we all laughed at the table because I think we all have been in that moment, especially in the virtual age, right? But I think a good question that I threw back at them was how did you feel like clarity-wise in that moment when you paused? And they nodded. They said they felt the pause kind of sink in. Because honestly, this is the crucial point here. The pause is for you. It's not for them. But we can design it so it kind of works both ways. So here's the first practice. I call it the visible pause. This is how we can pause without disappearing, okay? Like when someone asks us a question, we can practice softening our face, we can practice looking slightly down, not closing our eyes, but looking down slightly, and we can breathe in once. And then I like to put a gentle nod in there and then look up an answer. This is a nonverbal signal to everyone on the call that they heard you heard what they said, and it kind of signals that you're thinking, and more importantly, it considers if their question or their observation matters, and then it also helps you give a clear answer. So this is the visible pause. It's more thoughtful, it's professional, it's grounded. Best of all, you can use it in virtual meetings, and it does help keep us out of that panic response zone, if you will. So yeah, soften face, look down a little bit, breathe, nod, and then answer. If some of you want something even more explicit as far as a practice, try this one. It's simple and powerful. So this is more of a verbal bridge. Or even if you're not getting, you know, from that nonverbal uh uh pause or the visible pause, you want to engage more because it doesn't seem like it's coming through. Try this. Say out loud, hey, uh give me one moment to think about that. I heard you, uh, let me sit with that for a second. And that's something, you know, acknowledge them, say that's a great question. I want to answer this clearly, so hold on for a minute. So, what does this do? When we use that verbal bridge or that verbal bridge to a pause, I think it helps you buy time, right? It helps you step into that pause. I think it also signals more confidence, and it tells the people in the virtual room or the physical room that you're not reactive. And it really helps shift us from that survival mind, that amygdala, that inner brain, to our higher cortex, our creative mind. And meditation researchers are calling this kind of the return to our executive function in a sense. Our brain moves from that fight or flight into, I can think again, what's the next best step? That pause that we take isn't a delay. It's a switch. So you can practice this, you can install these things today, and maybe even just try this, just like a three-second ritual practice. So take one breath, one nod, one heartbeat, and speak. It does not take long. Sometimes we overestimate how we need to create something huge in order to pause. But just simple, serious spaciousness, I think this is the mother of all good decisions. It doesn't make you sound slow, it makes you sound steady. And I want to say this gently, but truthfully, most people in those virtual meetings are not judging you. They're barely holding on to their own sanity as well in some cases. That pause doesn't confuse them, it calms them. And listen, this is big. We are wired as a species to co-regulate. Your pause, your steadiness, helps their steadiness. That's why the room softened yesterday when I paused with a bunch of IT leaders at the annual conference. That collective nervous system, in a sense, came back online. Davidson and Goldman called this kind of like a social baseline theory. And when one person regulates in a meeting or in a virtual meeting, the whole group benefits. So when you pause, you're not just helping yourself, you're affecting the entire meeting. And the deep truth is the pause is not passive, truly. It's powerful. It tells your mind you don't have to rush, you don't have to protect, you're safe, you don't have to prove anything, and you get to respond from presence and not internal pressure. Does that sound like leadership to you? It does to me. So again, challenging you to put these things into action. It's great that you're listening, and I need to do the same, but I will commit to practicing that visible pause next week. I will commit to that verbal bridge to a pause, maybe using those like, oh, that's a great idea. Let me think on that for a few seconds. And I'll also commit myself to my own three-second ritual, taking that breath in, head down, and just letting it fall into that one heartbeat and then speak. If you want any help here, or if you want a PDF of those micropractices I just taught at the conference this past week, reach out, send me a text, send me a DM, send me an email. I would love to help you build this into your personal system too. So reach out if you feel inclined. And this is what I do with clients every day and give keynotes on and really love helping people with. But until next time, remember to pause and breathe and lead and be creative with your life and live life with just a little bit more fierce encouragement. I'll see you in the next episode. Take care. Bye bye.