Let's talk speech Habits...riGHT!

As professionals, we're all aware of the various bad speech habits we adopt over time. The dreaded non-words "um..ahh.." as well as the habits we have from our youth "like", "awesome" and "totally". But a good friend brought a habit of mine to attention recently that I haven't heard much talk about. The dreaded habit of ending sentences with "....riGHT!". I started paying more attention to this habit and found myself subconsciously doing it more than I prefer to admit. What makes it worse now is that when I watch and listen to other speakers, it's almost painful to listen to, yet alone concentrate on, the speaker's points. I just finished listening to a speaker from a prominent university give a presentation and in that presentation that speaker must have said "...riGHT!" at the end of each sentence at least 100 times plus in the 30 minutes she spoke. I actually recorded a small portion and when I watched the recording, the speaker finished statements with, "...riGHT!" four times in the span of 19 seconds (insert head slap emoji).

As a spokesperson for my company, a leader to a great team of professionals and a father responsible for teaching my children good habits, it's important that I work every day to improve myself, how I project myself to others and set a good example for those around me. If you're reading this, you also aspire to improve yourself as a professional and improve how you convey yourself and your thoughts to others. So take the time to listen to yourself speak and take the time to help make others aware of bad habits in a thoughtful, supportive manner. Because no one wants to take away our credibility and thought leadership when speaking by distracting our listeners with yet another bad speech habit....riGHT!