Your brain plans words about 600 milliseconds ahead of your mouth. When you talk too fast, you fill the gap with "um." A one or two beat pause before speaking lets your brain catch up and pick the right opening words.
Did you find with working with clients that taking a pause is difficult, or they'll fill in that awkward silence with words? They'll say like, or they'll say um, or they'll do these things. What should they do?
Our brains are about 600 milliseconds ahead of our mouths. What your brain is doing all the time is it's navigating out ahead and it's deciding what thought do I want to communicate here and what words do I want to use to communicate that thought. And your mouth follows along on whatever instructions it gets from the brain. When you are speaking speaking very quickly, you're really not giving your brain time to vet those thoughts in just fractions of seconds. Take a beat before you deliver that first line. So, um, should never be the first 2 words of any sentence. Imagine how much better it would be if you just had a beat, a beat and a half, 2 beats of silence, and during that silence you are making those decisions about what thought do I want to communicate and what are the first 5 words out of my mouth.
The Library of Minds: Brain Coach: How to Stay Sharp When AI Does the Thinking | Jim Kwik
