There are four tips I’m going to share with you but first if you like what you are going to learn in this article and you want more content that will help you as an emerging leader then subscribe to my channel and hit the notification bell every week i share videos on leadership to help you on your online CV writing service UK leadership journey and i would be honored to have you a part of this community the first thing you need to do to think faster and smarter on the spot is to stop worrying about what other people think a lot of the time it's our own personal worry about what other people think that gets in the way of us being able to speak quickly and intelligently you might be asking yourself will they think I’m smart are they following what I’m saying are they bored with what I’m saying this self-doubt is a major communication block that definitely does prevent you from being able to communicate quickly and intelligently.

Especially in stressful situations it creates an internal stress inside of you and basically triggers the fight or flight mode and what happens when the fight or flight mode is triggered all of your bodily functions go to the parts of the body that matter the most at that time for running or for fighting and it takes those resources away from your brain which is exactly where you need it for cognitive thinking and for communication so if you're wondering why you can't think fast why you can't speak quickly or intelligently on the spot especially when you are in a stressful situation or especially when you're feeling self-doubt the fight-or-flight response is exactly why you can't do that the thing you need to tell yourself is that the self-doubt you are feeling it isn't an actual threat it's a perceived threat but the thing is your brain can't tell the difference between an actual threat or a perceived threat so it will trigger the fight or flight response regardless of the actual situation you are in regardless of whether you are experiencing a perceived threat or experiencing an actual threat.

So whenever you are stressed whenever you are anxious or frightened or you're feeling self-doubt the fight-or-flight response will often be triggered in your brain and this will prevent you from being able to communicate clearly quickly and intelligently to other people so how do you reverse this what you need to focus on is to stop worrying about what other people think stop worrying will they think i am smart enough will they think i am intelligent enough stop worrying if people agree with you or disagree with you now later on in this video i will share with you some techniques that good speakers use to draw people into what they're saying and to keep people engaged and interested when they're talking.

So i'll share that those tips with you later on in this video but you definitely need to try to overcome your fear or your worry about what other people think especially if you want to talk fast and smarter on the spot the second thing you need to do to talk fast and smart is to get straight to the point don't leave people wondering what your main point is now sometimes people when they communicate when they start talking they'll go around and around and around and then finally reach their main point so people understand what their main point is now when you do this it does two things it can confuse people and it can bore people most people use this strategy because when they start talking they're not actually sure what their main point is they figure well i'm just gonna start talking and as i go along.

I'll eventually figure out what i want to say but like i said the reason this doesn't work and the reason this prevents you from being able to talk fast and smart on the spot is it confuses people people don't know or they can't follow what you're saying or they get lost in all of the things that you're telling them and it also bores them quite often people have switched off before you have reached your main point and this is definitely not something you want to happen when you're in a business situation or when you're in a meeting you really need to try to identify the main point you want to make before you start speaking that way when you do start speaking you can quickly get to the main point you can quickly tell everybody else in the room what the main point you want to make is there's less risk of confusing them and there's less risk of them being bored or switching off sometimes though you are put on the spot during a meeting you're asked a question and you don't quite know how to answer that person how do you talk fast and smart in those moments when you are put on the spot.

So when someone puts you on the spot and asks you a question you're not quite sure how to answer it this is how you handle it so you appear confident and you appear like you're in control of the conversation the first thing you do once i've asked you the question is you pause you take a breath in and a breath out and you appear like you are thinking about how you are going to answer that question the next thing you do is you respond with something like hmm that's a good question bob and then you repeat the question what do i think about the project that sally is proposing well and then you go into what your thoughts are and here you really need to share your raw your honest thoughts and your honest opinions on the project that sally is proposing is it good is it bad what do you genuinely think of it.

Do you have any concerns about the project are there things that you think need to be in place before your team starts looking at that particular project it's really important here that you're honest and that you're wrong with your answers because one thing i find the reason why a lot of people hold back from sharing their ideas or opinions in meetings and the reason why people can't talk fast or think smart on the spot is because they are so worried about what other people are going to think like i mentioned before earlier in this video the worry about what other people will think really causes you to hold back in the meetings and a lot of people don't share their raw opinions their raw ideas with other people in the room this is a real hindrance especially when you are looking toward leadership people need to know what you think your ideas are valuable your opinions are valuable you really need to begin to understand that especially if you're looking toward a leadership position or if you have just started a leadership position.

So don't hold back don't filter your answer be true to yourself be true to your ideas and your opinions as well and the strategy i shared with you a couple of moments ago in this video will help to put you in thinking mode it will give you the time and the space to put yourself together when someone asks you a question you don't quite know how to answer it will give you the time to pull yourself together so you can provide an intelligent answer quickly now once you have shared your main point your main argument or idea then you need to elaborate and expand on that you do this by using intriguing connectors now connectors are extremely important when you are communicating good speakers use intriguing connectors and they know how to use them.

I’m going to show you how to do that in a moment in this video powerful speakers use them for public speaking they use them during meetings they use them during video presentations they use them in general conversations and the reason it is so powerful is it keeps your listener engaged it keeps people wanting to know what you are going to say next not everybody knows how to do this but those people who do those powerful speakers who do guess what they didn't grow up knowing how to do this either they learned they learned from people who knew those strategies they learned from great speakers i'll tell you in a moment what these connectors are so you can start using them in your own conversations and your own communication but the reason they are.

So important is it leads people from the hook from your main point or your main argument or your main idea it leads people from the main point to your explanation to your elaboration to whatever it is that backs up your main point it keeps your audience interested it keeps your listener interested they want to know what you are going to say next what is the reason for your idea for your opinion and it helps your audience to understand that it's worth their time to keep listening to you it helps to prevent them from switching off too early the thing is powerful speakers have learnt these tools they've learnt these connectors and they've learned how to use them really well they weren't born this way they weren't born knowing what these connectors are or how to use them they learn how to do it from powerful speakers from great speakers before them and that means you can absolutely.

Learn these connectors too so there are three connectors that i'm going to share with you and they are here's why i'll tell you what that would look like there are three reasons why i believe that so let's look at each of these three different connectors using examples so then you can understand how they're used in real life and you can go on and use them yourself in your conversations and your communication so the first example is i think it's a fantastic idea that sally is proposing and here's why and then you would go into your reasoning for why you believe it's a good idea the second example is i think that sally's suggestion has potential but can be improved on i'll tell you what my additional suggestions would be and then you would go into your additional suggestions the third example is my opinion is that sally's suggestion won't work and there are a number of reasons why i believe that and then you would go into why you believe sally's suggestion will not work do you see how using an enticing connector can keep the listener hooked and interested in what you're going to say next this is how powerful speakers keep people engaged.

It's how they keep them wanting to know and listening because they want to know what they are going to say next so if you start to use them in your conversations in your communication or during meetings it is definitely going to help you hold the attention of your audience and give a lot more impact to your communication in general and i challenge you to use one of these connectors the next conversation that you have after watching this video the next conversation you have use one of these connectors and tell me in the comments was it helpful did it work was the other person more engaged than what they usually would have been let me know in the comments how it has helped you the fourth tip is to highlight the number of points that you're going to talk about the reason this helps you talk fast and smart on the spot is because it clarifies in your mind what you want to say the points that you want to talk about it.

Basically creates a map in your mind of exactly what you want to talk about and when you're clear on this it helps you to talk faster and smarter on the spot it also helps your listener to follow you better because they have an idea of what you're going to be talking about how many points you're going to be talking about if you tell them you're going to talk about three points they're going to keep listening until you have reached your third point if you don't tell them the number of points you're going to talk about they could switch off they could interrupt you they could guide the conversation away from you to someone else and it's really hard for you then to re-engage people and get people interested back in to what you're saying the catch is though you don't want to use too many points so don't tell people.

I’m going to talk about 10 points because they are not going to continue listening to you they're probably going to get bored they're probably going to interrupt you but worse it's going to be impossible for you to remember what those 10 points are it's going to be much more manageable for you if you have two or three points if you have 10 points you are going to get stressed and do you remember what happens when you get stressed the fight or flight response is triggered and you won't remember what the 10 points are or what you wanted to tell those people so keep your points to two or three points something that is manageable for you and that is how you're going to keep people engaged and interested in what you are saying to them so i want to share some examples with you of what this would look like how to use points during your conversation to keep people engaged so the first example is i think it's a fantastic idea that sally is proposing and here's why there are three main reasons first and then you delve into why you think it's a great idea the second example is i think that sally's suggestion has potential but can be improved on i'll tell you what my additional suggestions would be there are two main ones the first one is and then you delve into the first suggestion that you have the third example is my opinion is that sally's suggestion won't work and there are three reasons why i believe that first and then you delve into why you don't believe her suggestion will work by stop worrying what other people think by getting straight to the point by using intelligent intriguing connectors and by highlighting the number of points you want to talk about you can easily think faster and talk smarter on the spot and being more articulate and speaking clearly is something that many professionals and emerging leaders want to learn how to do so if that's something that interests you then you should check out this video on the screen which will delve into a number of tips to help you be more articulate and speak clearly especially in meetings.