2 Minute Talk Tips

  This Week's Tip: Count Filler Words   Filler words are the ums and ahhs and likes and verys of a speech. One or two are okay, but a bunch of them will annoy an audience. We usually say them while our brain tries to catch up with our mouth.   An effective speaker uses few of these since they don't help the speaker. To get rid of them, you first need to understand how many of them you use.   Listen to a recording of one of your presentations and count how many times you use a filler word. Alternatively, you can ask a partner to listen to one of your live sessions while you speak, and they can count them for you. Next, divide the number of filler words by the number of minutes in your speech. This will give you the number of filler words per minute which makes it easier to compare your performance from a 10 minute presentation to a 30 minute presentation.   Once you have that key metric, then you can set a goal to reduce the filler words that you use.   Post Tip Discussion: Raise your Energy Level   We're all