Speak With Clarity and Confidence
Slow down. People who speak with conviction speak slower, not faster.
What to do
- 1
Pause two seconds. Collecting your thoughts reads as confidence, not slowness.
- 2
Slow to 80%. Nerves speed you up — aim for 80% of your excited pace.
- 3
Hunt your filler words. Record yourself; you can't cut a habit you can't hear.
- 4
Swap filler for silence. The same beat of thinking time, minus the "um."
- 5
Finish your sentences. Trailing off quietly undoes a good answer.
- 6
Don't over-qualify. "I think maybe possibly..." dilutes everything after it.
"So, um, I was working on this project, and, like, we had to basically redo the whole thing because, you know, the client changed their mind, so I think maybe we ended up doing okay..."
6 filler words detected
“Um, so, yeah, I guess I'm, like, a really hard worker? I've kind of done a bunch of stuff, mostly marketing, and, you know, I'm super passionate and I think I'd probably be a great fit, I guess.”
“I'm a marketing specialist with three years in B2B software. Most recently I led a campaign that grew qualified leads by forty percent. I'm here because this role lets me own demand generation end to end, which is exactly where I do my best work.”
Ready? Show what you learned.
6 questions · get 5 right to complete the lesson