8 Phrases That Make You Sound Weak at Work

Actions may speak louder than words, but our words still hold tremendous power

Michael Thompson
Index
Published in
6 min readMay 5, 2021

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Jacob Lund

“You have one minute to tell me why I’m here and another minute to tell me why I should stay!”

When my dad was starting out in his career, he was asked to give a presentation to the bigwigs in his organization during an extremely sensitive time. As you can imagine, when the biggest wig of all stopped him five minutes into his talk, my dad was frazzled. In the end, he pulled himself together and was later commended for telling them exactly what they needed to know and not a word more.

When I asked my dad for his greatest career lesson, this one reigns supreme — and it’s not only him who values clear and concise communication as research has shown again and again it’s a key driver to career advancement.

As someone who grew up with a severe stutter and social anxiety, I’ve had to put in a decent amount of work to get to the point where I make a good chunk of my living working with people to add more weight to both their spoken and written word.

Fortunately, you don’t need to do an entire personality revamp to speak more confidently. In fact, a solid place to start is being more conscious of the phrases other people say that diminish their…

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Index
Index

Published in Index

Index is a former publication from Medium about work. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Michael Thompson
Michael Thompson

Written by Michael Thompson

Co-creator of two cool kids • Storytelling Coach •.Fast Co., Insider, Forbes • Free storytelling guide here: https://bit.ly/3h1KZeT

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