So to speak!

Those who don’t know what a comfort soup phrase is – are usually unaware and hopeless or sometimes aware but helpless 😁

Everyone has their usual suspects, sometimes more than just one.

I am a culprit of liberally sprinkling “so to speak”, as my cushion / comfort phrase…as I just got to know…

And..how did I?

In a recent revelation from a random discussion with my boss, so to speak 😁

This literally stumped me, as I absolutely had no conscious awareness that I was doing this or leveraging this – its like my mind has a mind of its own..on when, where and how often to plug this in..

Why the big fuss?

In most cases, we are not tuned to understand or aren’t aware of such “fillers” one is dependent on throughout our lifetime.

You also may not be actually aware of the negative impact this could be causing to the listener(s) – due to the repeat frequency of such phrases, leading to undue distraction and irritation even.

Sometimes, it just kills the value articulation or the impact of the delivery you are trying to get across.

Here are a few commonly thrown around and blatantly overused ones:

You know (yes, ofcourse we know), basically (why not advancically), So there (wait..where, when, what!), ummm (i know am struggling but hold on), yeah (i am not sure), honestly (thanks for vouching for this one time), to be honest (thanks for the commitment to being truthful sometimes), correct ?, right ?, OK ?

What’s the remedy?

Needs some serious disciplining and it is hard to completely switch away…but it all starts with awareness – that you are indeed a perpetrating victim.

And jolly bloody well right time, to think about sparing the audience, and not sparring with them.

What’s your excuse, for overdoing it?

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Pic description: An old capture of myself during a town hall presentation, probably uttering my comfort soup phrase by the dozen 😬