Have you ever sat through a presentation where the speaker kept saying “ummm,” “uhhh,” “like,” and “I mean” over and over?
It gets distracting, right?
Sometimes, it’s so bad we can’t even focus on what they’re saying—we just hear the fillers.
I remember being around 10 or 11, telling my grandma a story in the car, and she said, “I’ll give you three dollars if you can tell this without saying ‘ummm.’”
I never got the money.
Most of us notice when other people overuse fillers, but have you ever wondered how often you do?
One of the first things I do with my coaching clients is record them giving a short presentation, then have them watch it back. And let me tell you—if I had a nickel for every time a client said, “Do I really say ‘ummm’ that much?”—yeah, I’d be rich.
The problem?
Fillers don’t make us better communicators. In fact, some people check out completely the moment they hear too many. Used sparingly, they aren’t a big deal and can even make you sound natural. But when they’re constant, they kill confidence, competence, and credibility.
And that’s not what we want.
So how do we stop?
The challenge is that our brains hate silence. We’re so used to background noise that when we pause to think, our brain panics and fills the gap. That’s where “umm” and “uhh” sneak in.
To fix this, we have to train our brains to get comfortable with silence. Here’s how:
Take a two-minute section of a talk you’re working on and practice delivering it in a whisper. Whispering is so close to silence that your brain won’t feel the need to fill in the gaps. Once you can do it without using fillers, bring your volume up just a little and try again. If you slip up, start over. Keep repeating this process, raising your volume each time, until you can deliver it confidently without using fillers.
Now, will you ever eliminate them completely?
Probably not.
We hear them everywhere, and what we hear, we emulate. Even after coaching this for years, I still have to be mindful of it. But with practice, you can get to a point where your speech is clear, confident, and free of distracting fluff.
And trust me—when you can communicate like that, it changes how people perceive you.
Make sense? Awesome! Now get to practicing! :-)
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