Pause instead of filling
Today's goal: Replace fillers with silent pauses.
Fillers appear when your mouth is ahead of your plan. For three days you have been giving your answers a plan: point first, three parts, real facts. That already removes many fillers. Today you deal with the rest.
The technique is to replace the filler, not to suppress it. At the end of each sentence, close your mouth and breathe in. That is all. The pause gives you planning time, which is what the “um” was for, and it gives the listener a moment to take in what you just said.
“So, um, the reason this matters is, like, our biggest customers are, you know, the ones who use this feature the most, so, um, if it's slow, basically, they notice.”
“This matters for one reason. [pause] Our biggest customers use this feature the most. [pause] If it's slow, they are the first to notice.”
Slow down for the important sentence
Choose the one sentence in your answer that matters most, usually the first. Say it a little more slowly than the rest, and pause after it. This small change makes a big difference to how certain you sound.
Today's exercise (10 minutes)
- Step 1
Prepare a 45-second answer to: “Why does your current project matter to the business?”
- Step 2
Record it once, normally. Count the fillers in the transcript.
- Step 3
Record it again with one rule: mouth closed and one breath between sentences.
- Step 4
Compare the two counts. Then listen to the second recording: do the pauses sound as long as they felt?