Personal branding
[Cache #261]
Recently I spoke with someone who struck me as one of the smartest, most competent people I had encountered in a long time.
It was on a Zoom call. I was speaking with the client of a client. I was struck by how decisive and composed she was. She had a formidable yet approachable executive presence.
This impression formed in my mind very quickly – in a matter of less than 60 seconds. At the end of our discussion, which lasted about 15 minutes, I could not resist bringing it up – the fact that what made her communication skills so impressive was that she never, not once, said any of the following:
“like”
“uh”
“um”
“kind of”
“sort of”
“you know”
She smiled, because she knew exactly what I was referring to, because she had already done the work of eliminating these fillers from her speech.
In contrast, I have listened to podcasts in which someone uses fillers more than 100 times in 30 minutes of speaking. Sometimes several times in a single sentence. For many people, this frequency is quite typical of their regular, conversational speech. It can be distracting for the listener, and, especially in a business context, does not reflect well on the speaker’s preparation or knowledge, even though they might be brilliant.
(You know who almost never uses these fillers? Boomers and older. Any theories on why?)
I am totally projecting here, because I use these fillers a lot more than I would like. I am working on it. They really start to fly out of my mouth when I am caught up in the moment and not thinking. But because I am not thinking, how would I really know how often I am blurting them out?
And there is the connection. The people who don’t use fillers – what is going on in their brains in those moments that are not filler-filled? They are taking very short, often imperceptible pauses, and thinking. They are literally being thoughtful.
And that is how being filler-free literally makes you smarter.
—
I, not AI, wrote this.
Andris Pone, BA, MBA
President
Coin Branding Inc.
andris@coinbranding.com
1 416 560 0928
www.coinbranding.com
