What are some common (verbal) fillers?
“Aaaam”
“You know what I’m saying”?
“You know what I mean”
“Anyway”
“So basically”
“Or whatever”
“You feel me”?
Imagine being at that coveted-job interview which you’ve been dying to get for years now.
Fillers will fucking kill you!
The quickest way to not get hired is to be brimming with nervous energy and filling every awkward moment with fillers.
Weird thing about fillers is that the speaker really doesn’t notice he or she is using them.
It’s so auto-piloted that we aren’t consciously aware while in the heat of conversation.
Thanks to fellow-PUA junior instructor, Enthalpy, the guy behind the Squattin’ Cassanova blog, he had actually called me out on my use of fillers which I was remotely aware of prior to being put on the spot.
Since then, I’d reduced my conversational fillers more than 60% to where I’m using 5 fillers per dialogue…which is very good.
Why do we even use fillers in the first place?
It’s pretty self-explanatory; fillers are used to fill gaps of impending silence.
What causes fillers?
Nervous energy and anxiety especially around people of perceived-higher value: an interviewer, a CEO, a president, doctors, judges, police officers, etc.
It stems from nervousness and awkward moments where you’re anxious.
We all use them!
Some of us use them after every statement:
For example, the guy who after every comment says, “You know what I’m saying”?
Not that he’s awaiting an answer, but he’s filling the gap and potential nervous silence by using fillers.
Seems innocent but it’s fucking annoying to the listener!
We can’t logically eradicate all fillers. After all, they can make conversation flow more smoothly [as long as used without nervousness].
The following common fillers are ok (sparingly):
“So…”
“However”
“Ok cool”
We can’t literally have a conversation without any fillers.
However, Fillers are bad when used awkwardly and with the wrong persons.
You don’t want to be in the company of dignitaries or a possible employer and your dialogue goes like this [awkward fillers are in red]:
“So I figure that I can help the company do better, you know? Aaaaaaam, I really like this company stands for, basically I’m the guy for the job. Aaand we can do a lot better with someone as driven as I am on the team. So anyway… my resume highlights all of that, you get what I’m saying?
As I said, fillers are unavoidable, but the more you cut down the usage of them, the better you’ll sound and come across to people.
Watch the following video to find out how I damn near eradicated nervous fillers from my conversations.
Related. The quickest and most successful way to kill the fillers is in item 3 in my blog post, “Fix Your Damned Voice”
http://theprivateman.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/fix-your-damned-voice/
I’ve actually never heard this issue addressed in the entire game/manosphere. Not even in the PUA community I heard this addressed so it’s surprising to see you wrote about it PM. I’m gonna check it out.
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It’s the least covered element of Charisma. The trick to eliminate the fillers was taught to me be a speech therapist I consulted when I was in talk radio. It works incredibly well and incredibly quickly.
I wrote that post well over a year ago. Thanks for reminding me that I wrote it.
Lol and I just commented on it as if it was yesterday. But it’s very detailed as I was saying on your post. A decent speech therapist would be able to coach guys in getting over this hump. But what helped me too though as I said in the video was to record yourself and play it back just to get familiar with the words (wrong or right choice) that we use.
But the recording should be during casual conversation.
That makes sense since it’d flow more naturally instead of rehearsed.
I am guilty of this. I sound like a valley girl sometimes!
But you’re right, people sound so much smarter and put together without them.
You’re not bad at all lol! In the video you had, you were pretty ok. No overkills
I was tryin! thanks!
It’s becoming more of a social thing to use fillers. For example someone start saying something and then in the middle of their sentence goes ” like yeah” .. You know what I mean …” Like”is one of those fillers that am seeing alot in conversations. Some people can’t have a conversation for 1 min without saying the word like numerous times.
Lmao funny thing you zoned in on “Like” because that’s the main filler I was talking about. I try
cutting that down a lot (“Like”)
I’ve never seen anyone mention these before. Excellent article! This is why I send clueless guys your way.
Lol and I’m always glad to accept clueless guys to my blog. I’ll start to send some clueless girls your way too.