Thought Groups By Cara Fulton of Maestro LLC

Thought Groups By Cara Fulton of Maestro, LLC www. maestrousa. com (202) 234 -7125 fultc@hotmail. com

Overview Just as we read in groups of words, we speak in groups of words. Breathing through each thought group and pausing between each one will make your speech clearer and more natural. l Every thought group becomes a phrase which needs to have one word stressed. l Mastering this concept involves learning to breathe correctly. l

Listen to these sentences read according to “the music” l Slashes indicate pauses Regular / Long // l Underlining indicates stress

Overview Just as we read / in groups of words, // we speak / in groups of words. // Breathing through each thought group / and pausing between each one / will make your speech clearer / and more natural. l Every thought group / becomes a phrase / which needs to have one word stressed. l Mastering this concept / involves learning to breathe correctly. l

How were the words in the sentences grouped? What two elements determined the breaks? l Punctuation l Grammar

Punctuation Generally, punctuation marks indicate a relatively long pause. l Don’t feel you have to hold your breath until you get to a punctuation mark, however. l Pausing at other points will give you a chance to take “helper breaths. ” l

Helper breaths Where the helper breaths occur varies according to several factors: l l l Situation Speaker Emphasis and style There are no set rules to where the breaks occur except that it’s not arbitrary. The breaks are tied to meaning.

Grammatical structures often determine the Thought Groups What’s the grammatical structure of these phrases?

l In the park l Prepositional phrase l Tell a story l Command (Verb + object) l Relative clause (relative pronoun + verb + complement) l Verb + adverb l l Who was in the water Laughs loudly

l The man answered l l Give it to him l l While we worked l Simple sentence (article + noun + verb) Verb + object + preposition + object Subordinating clause (subordinating conjunction + subject + verb

Break these sentences into thought groups by grammatical structures For example: l Everything happens / for a reason; // for every effect / there is a specific cause. l Subject + verb / prepositional phrase / simple sentence

What did you notice about the stress? It seems to occur / at the end of the phrase! // However, / it really occurs / on the last key word / of the phrase, / / not necessarily the last word.

Try it l Whatever you truly believe, with feeling, becomes your reality. l Whatever you expect, with confidence, becomes your own self-fulfilling prophecy. l Change is inevitable.

l The more things you have to do in a limited period of time, the more you will be forced to work on your most important tasks. l There will never be enough time to do everything that you have to do. l Only be stretching yourself can you discover how much you are truly capable of.

By the way, these “laws” are taken from Brian Tracy’s The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success. You can purchase the book at your local bookstore or go to Amazon.

Did you get something like this? Remember it’s OK to have something different. It depends on the situation, the speaker, and the desired meaning to be conveyed. l Whatever you truly believe, // with feeling, // becomes your reality. l Whatever you expect, // with confidence, // becomes your own / self-fulfilling prophecy. l Change / is inevitable.

l The more things / you have to do / in a limited period of time, // the more / you will be forced / to work on your most important tasks. l There will never / be enough time / to do everything / that you have to do. l Only be stretching yourself / can you discover / how much you are truly capable of.

Breathing Have you ever watched Americans having a conversation out in the cold? Notice how their breath tends to flow rather than puff? Americans’ breathing patterns while they speak help give their speech a smooth and connected sound. It also helps them to project, which may be where that reputation for being loud comes from.

Diaphragmatic Breathing The secret stems from breathing from the diaphragm (the midriff) rather than just the chest or the throat. l When you breathe using your diaphragm your stomach will expand, not your chest. l This gives you more air. l

Practice First just breathe non-verbally letting the air come and go from your lungs naturally. Place your hands on your lower rib cage to feel the natural rise and fall. Conversely, lie down and watch a book rise and fall from your rib cage and abdomen. l Next simply relax and practice sustaining the vowel sounds one by one. Stop when you run out of breath. How long can you sustain each sound? l

Next simply count to 25 or 30, taking a breath when you need to. This helps you realize when you need to take a breath. You can also practice with other easy tasks like the days of the week, the months of the year, or the alphabet. l Singing and humming are also excellent ways to get in touch with your breath. l

Put it all together Now read the “laws” by Brian Tracy again, paying special attention to breathing through each thought group. This is also called voicing. l Continue to practice using your favorite reading material (newspapers, books, magazines, etc. ) l

l Whatever you truly believe, // with feeling, // becomes your reality. l Whatever you expect, // with confidence, // becomes your own / self-fulfilling prophecy. l Change / is inevitable.

l The more things / you have to do / in a limited period of time, // the more / you will be forced / to work on your most important tasks. l There will never be enough time / to do everything / that you have to do. l Only by stretching yourself / can you discover / how much you are truly capable of.

More All worthwhile achievements are amenable to hard work. l All great success is preceded by a long period of hard, hard work in a single direction toward a clearly defined purpose. l The harder you work, the luckier you get. l To achieve more than the average person you must work longer and harder than the average person. l

Practice makes permanent! Take 20 minutes every day and read from a favorite book, magazine, or the newspaper. Read Look up Say

A simple exercise to change your life l l Take out a piece of paper and make a list of ten goals that you want to achieve over the next twelve months. Write out these goals in the present tense, as though a year has passed and you have already achieved them. Use the “I” before each goal to personalize it, as in “I earn X number of dollars per year. ” “I achieve such and such level of sales (or profits). ” Your subconscious mind accepts only commands that are personal, positive, and in the present tense.

l This is an amazing exercise, almost magical. If all you do is write down ten goals on a sheet of paper and then put it away for a year, at the end of twelve months, when you take it out, you will be astonished. When you reread the list after one year, you will find that eight out of ten goals have been achieved, sometimes in the most remarkable of ways. Often your goals will materialize much faster.

The law of control l You feel good about yourself to the degree to which you feel that you are in control of your own life. If you feel that your boss, your bills, your childhood experiences, your health, or anything else controls you or forces you to do or refrain from doing what you really want, you are considered to have an “external locus of control. ” People with an “internal locus of control” feel that they are behind the wheel of their own lives. They tend to be low-stress, high-performance personalities.