How to Sound Smarter Than You Actually Are

It's an incredibly easy technique to sound a lot smarter than you actually are: Be silent. We spend an inordinate amount of time with fillers such as "we-ell..." or "yeaaah...but..." or even non-word fillers like "errrrr..." or "um..." We are so used to doing it that we don't even notice. To be fair, others don't either, but there is a reaction that occurs when instead of using fillers, you are just silent. Silence suggests deep thought and introspection which in turn suggests that each word actually spoken carries that much more weight. Also, without fillers, everything we say sounds more confident and resolute.

Here's a video about how to make silence work for you.