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.
 Every thought group becomes a phrase
which needs to have one word stressed.
 Mastering this concept involves learning to
breathe correctly.

Listen to these sentences read
according to “the music”

Slashes indicate pauses
Regular /
Long //

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.
 Every thought group / becomes a phrase /
which needs to have one word stressed.
 Mastering this concept / involves learning
to breathe correctly.

How were the words in the
sentences grouped?
What two elements determined the
breaks?
 Punctuation
 Grammar
Punctuation
Generally, punctuation marks indicate a
relatively long pause.
 Don’t feel you have to hold your breath
until you get to a punctuation mark,
however.
 Pausing at other points will give you a
chance to take “helper breaths.”

Helper breaths
Where the helper breaths occur varies
according to several factors:



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?

Prepositional
phrase

Command (Verb +
object)
Who was in the
water

Relative clause
(relative pronoun +
verb + complement)
Laughs loudly

Verb + adverb

In the park

Tell a story



The man answered

Give it to him

While we worked



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:

Everything happens / for a reason;// for
every effect / there is a specific cause.

Subject + verb / prepositional phrase //
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

Whatever you truly believe, with feeling,
becomes your reality.

Whatever you expect, with confidence,
becomes your own self-fulfilling prophecy.

Change is inevitable.

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.

There will never be enough time to do
everything that you have to do.

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.

Whatever you truly believe, // with feeling,
// becomes your reality.

Whatever you expect, // with confidence, //
becomes your own / self-fulfilling
prophecy.

Change / is inevitable.

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.

There will never / be enough time / to do
everything / that you have to do.

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.
 When you breathe using your diaphragm
your stomach will expand, not your chest.
 This gives you more air.

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.
 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?

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.
 Singing and humming are also excellent
ways to get in touch with your breath.

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.
 Continue to practice using your favorite
reading material (newspapers, books,
magazines, etc.)


Whatever you truly believe, // with feeling,
// becomes your reality.

Whatever you expect, // with confidence, //
becomes your own / self-fulfilling
prophecy.

Change / is inevitable.

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.

There will never be enough time / to do
everything / that you have to do.

Only by stretching yourself / can you
discover / how much you are truly capable
of.
More
All worthwhile achievements are amenable
to hard work.
 All great success is preceded by a long
period of hard, hard work in a single
direction toward a clearly defined purpose.
 The harder you work, the luckier you get.
 To achieve more than the average person
you must work longer and harder than the
average person.

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


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.

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



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.