TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

20 Apr 2018 · 3 min

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2:35

A short instructional segment from a TJ Walker live stream giving a simple, actionable technique to eliminate filler words ("uh/um/er"). Steps: type your habitual filler, print it, draw a red "no" symbol over it, cut it out and tape it to frequently-seen items (phone, watch, screen). Repeated visual cues create awareness within days and, after about a week, help users pause instead of using verbal tics, improving perceived confidence and comfort.

Chapters

I want to go ahead and give you a quick win because your time is valuable and I want to save you time so we can solve this problem. Here's a technique I use to get rid of uhs and ums and ers on my clients all over the world. Presidents of countries, billionaire fund managers, even Nobel peace prize winners have this problem of the verbal tics. Here's what I want you to do. Go to your computer and type up whatever word it is you use. Um, er, you know, like you see whatever it is, that word, that sound, that phrase, type it up in small and medium sized font and then print this out on a piece of paper. Next, I want you to get a red magic marker. I know this sounds silly, you're scratching your head. Why did I get this? Co. It's really does work. You put a red circle around the word and a slash through it. The international red no sign. Just like no left hand turn, no parking. Now it's no, no, uh, no er. So then what you do is you cut it out and then you just tape it to your cell phone, to your watch. If you wear a watch to your computer screen, to, to your iPad, anything you look at daily, now don't put it on your hand or your forehead. That's not going to help something you look at. Here's what happens after a day when you say that verbal tic, that ah, that you're still aware of it, but you have this sort of duh Homer Simpson moment. You're aware of it. Because if you're like most people, you're looking at your watch or your cell phone dozens, if not hundreds of times a day. So you start to get image of the no sign around that phrase. After two or three days, when you start to say the ah or the um, the image comes up. You almost catch it, but it still comes out of your mouth. But here's the thing. After about a week, when your brain is thinking about filling that sound, that empty space with the ah, the, the er, you know, the image pops up and you can simply hold it in and pause. This way you'll sound more comfortable, confident and relaxed. Try the technique. It really does work.