Self-Sabotage Words

Presentation: Self-Sabotage Words

An email reminded me of how using the wrong word can shut down your audience and sabotage your presentation.

A prospect send me an email requesting information. Early in her message was the term "ASAP". It's a dumb term. It is vague yet infers urgency. "As soon as possible" could mean this second or never.

I encountered this term a lot during my corporate management days. It annoyed me then so I trained my staff to expunge the term from their vocabulary.

Now as an entrepreneur I have even less patience for the term. So when my eyes hit this landmine term in her email to me - I stopped reading and missed the date that appeared later in the same paragraph.

Her message annoyed me and my request for a date might have annoyed her. Perhaps both of us were wrong and both of us were annoyed. All because of the wrong word.

Another word that trips my off switch is "anyways".

Its a useless word. It it used when the message is "oops I just spouted a lot of verbal rubbish and I think I know what I going to say next and I hope that it makes better sense and I hope that you forgive me and listen to the next part because it might be good."

Flips my switch every time. How about you?

What words flip your off switch? Be sure to remove them from your presentation.


George Torok
Business Speaker
Motivational Speaker
Presentation Skills Training


Executive Speech Coach, Business presentation tips from George Torok, the Speech Coach for Executives.