The Verbal Fluency Protocol

How to be the Sharpest Speaker in the Room

“If you cannot express what you think, your ideas might as well not exist.” – Sun Tzu

Just kidding. I made that up. But if Sun Tzu didn’t have god-tier articulation, no one would have ever heard of him in the first place.

This is one thing all great thinkers, leaders, writers, poets, politicians, and philosophers have in common: They all had elite verbal intelligence.

It isn’t their thoughts that they’re known for; it’s their ability to express their thoughts in a digestible, comprehensible, and convincing fashion.

An idea said out loud is worth a thousand in your head. A smooth talker with semi-smart thoughts will outperform the giga-brain with elementary-level articulation.

Verbal intelligence is inarguably the most universally appraised form of intelligence. And articulation is the ultimate form of leverage.

A brilliant idea trapped in your skull is inert. You can act on it, but it will never become bigger than you.

It has never been more crucial to max out your verbal IQ. Back in the day, people would read whatever they got their hands on. If you used proper English and knew calligraphy, you pretty much had it made.

Now the idea landscape is much, much more crowded. Total shitshow.

It’s hard to change people’s thoughts because most people don’t think at all. You’re not just competing with other ideas, you’re competing with every hyper‑stimulating brainrot reel on Instagram, all the AI slop, the soft porn, and the 24/7 news cycles clogging our delicate neurochemistry. All for the sake of making us stupid and suggestible.

This only makes raw idea articulation more valuable. No matter how advanced AI gets, it will never beat the realness of the human tongue.

You need to learn to speak well. To express your ideas convincingly, coherently, and consistently. Articulation is a skill, and skills can be acquired.

When I was younger, I asked myself what skill would be worth becoming world‑class at, and only one came to mind: verbal fluency.

Rhetoric, eloquence, expression of thought. To articulate your thoughts is to make them real.

Put more simply, verbal fluency is a differentiator, an edge that benefits every area of life. Smooth talkers command respect and attention. Mumblers are looked down upon.

You have the right to voice your opinion, but not the right to have your opinion heard. If you want people to listen to you, you must earn it. Captivate attention; do not waste anybody’s time with sloppy speech. Linguistic precision is the one true meta‑skill.

You Need to Learn How to Speak Better

There is nothing more frustrating than not knowing what to say. Brain scrambling for vocabulary, half‑formed sentences, stumbling through first impressions. Emotional damage.

Even worse: watching yourself get lapped by somebody with less brains than you because they can articulate, while you’re a grade A word vomiter.

If this is you, you may be verbally incompetent. It’s okay, though; every weakness is just an opportunity for exponential growth.

Most guys walk through life unable to express thoughts deeper than what they had for breakfast. They may think they’re smart, but their mouth says otherwise. Filler words like “um,” “like,” and “type shit” make up the bulk of their vernacular. No pity for these types. A poor speaker is a lazy speaker.

Articulation is the Ultimate Edge

We can no longer beat people up if we disagree with them. The days of mutually agreed combat are over. The only way to get the edge over your competition is to outspeak them; to be sharper, smarter, wittier, all in real time.

An intelligent man who can’t express his thoughts will get lapped by the average‑brained smooth talker.

If you think you have good ideas, you have a personal obligation to inject them into the marketplace of ideas. To do your thoughts justice. Articulation is power. Nietzsche spoke about this briefly at length.

This guide will lay out tactical tools you can apply daily to become in the top percentile for verbal intelligence.

“Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Verbal Fluency, Explained

Let’s get practical.

Verbal fluency is your brain’s processing speed for converting internal thoughts into external articulation. It’s how fast and accurately you can retrieve words, construct sentences, and deliver ideas that land.

For my quants, verbal fluency is your access speed and retrieval accuracy for querying the massive vocabulary database in your brain. Most people run on dial‑up; we want to upgrade to fiber optic.

The mechanism is straightforward. Three core systems must fire simultaneously:

• Lexical retrieval: accessing the right words.

• Syntactic construction: organizing words into coherent sentences.

• Executive control: managing cognitive load during real‑time speech.

When one lags, the whole system fumbles and you regress into “um… like… type shit.”

This assumes that you have good ideas in between your ears to begin with, but that’s a protocol for another day (IQ‑maxxing protocol, mayhaps).

The goal of verbal fluency is to:

• Articulate complex ideas clearly.

• Maintain verbal flow under pressure.

• Access sophisticated vocabulary when needed.

• Spin up coherent arguments in real time.

• Command attention through precise language.

Your baseline is verbal mediocrity. You gravitate toward simple phrasing because your brain can’t handle the processing load to articulate accurately. You are verbally cucking yourself and pissing your (potentially) important ideas down the drain.

Articulation is Important If You’re a Winner

It sharpens your thinking.

Nothing weeds out foggy ideas better than putting them into words. When you force yourself to put an idea into words, you expose the gaps, contradictions, and sloppy assumptions you’ve been hiding. Most people are dumber than they think and only as smart as they sound.

It lets you coordinate with other humans.

Most issues are communication issues. Everything from relationships to business to leadership runs on communication. If you can’t articulate what you want, what you mean, what the plan is, and what your standards are, don’t expect anybody to follow your lead.

It gives you control over your mind.

Articulating your emotions, motives, and boundaries shines light on unconscious impulses controlling your life. They become tangible, negotiable, and actionable. You’re going to be brainwashed by somebody; it might as well be you.

It gives you power.

People judge intelligence by how well you speak. If you express your ideas with precision and force, you’re perceived as sharp, capable, and competent. If you’re tripping over consonants, you’re perceived as a chud. Articulation opens doors that raw intelligence never will.

It makes your ideas transferable and scalable.

Ideas only become powerful when other people can understand and use them. This requires the gift of gab. Clear speaking scales. You will never expand outside yourself if you cannot articulate yourself.

It solidifies your identity.

When you articulate who you are and what you value, you define yourself. Language organizes the self. Undeveloped articulation leads to an undeveloped self. If you can’t say it, you will never be it.

It lets you shape the narrative.

We are all competing in the marketplace of ideas. If you can articulate your worldview better than others, people will adopt your frame.

Why is Everybody so Inarticulate?

We have become fundamentally lazy speakers. This is by design. The last thing our technocratic overlords want is a bunch of articulate young gentlemen weaponizing their words to build a better world. Embracing verbal fluency is an act of defiance.

You are what you consume. And the average Joe is sipping on brainrot goontok 6 hours a day. Their vocabulary arsenal starts with “bet” and ends with “type shit.” The slopification of a once‑beautiful language. No sophisticated language in, no sophisticated language out.

Somewhere along the way, filler words became normalized. You need to accept them for what they really are: processing failures. Your brain couldn’t retrieve the next word fast enough, so it inserted garbage to buy time. It now believes that filler words are acceptable. They’re not.

Most people stopped learning new words after college (and have lost 50% of them since then). This is unacceptable. There are over 400,000 words in Webster’s English Dictionary, and some people are operating in the triple digits. Vagueness kills conviction.

Cut this out. All of it.

The Verbal Fluency Protocol

You speak every day; why not commit to getting better? If you implement 90% of this list, you will 3–5x your speaking skills in a matter of months. I’m not telling you to become a pretentious wordcel. I just want you not to speak like a simpleton.

Read Physical Books Daily

Not articles, not social media, not audiobooks. Physical books that force engagement with complex sentence structures. Fiction for narrative flow and dialogue, non‑fiction for argument construction and technical vocabulary.

Pick a topic you want to become fluent in and devour any literature around it. You become what you read. I read about science, marketing, and psychology. Hence, my vernacular has molded around that (with a tinge of internet shitpost speak).

This is supposed to be difficult. Real reading should feel like a mental workout. If you want some extra engraining, read aloud.

Zero Filler Words

Every time you feel “um” or “like” coming, pause instead. Silence makes you sound thoughtful; filler words make you sound unconvincing. Train this ruthlessly. Record yourself speaking. Count every filler word and catch yourself next time. This is the single fastest improvement you’ll make.

Acquire New Vocabulary Daily

Learn 5 new words daily. Sophisticated but common words you recognize but never use. Inject them into as many sentences throughout your day as possible. Focus on verbs and adjectives as they give the most oomph. You need to effectively “onboard” words into your vernacular before you can deploy them automatically.

Study Articulate Speakers

Find guys who speak well. Consume as much of their content as possible. Steal and internalize their patterns. Notice how they transition between ideas, how they emphasize, and how they use silence. Worry less about the content and more about its structure.

Converse Intently

Don’t mumble your way through conversations. Enter every conversation with a verbal‑quality focus. Aim to be more articulate than in your last conversation. Don’t worry if you mess up, that’s exactly why you’re doing this. What’s the worst that can happen? You have a good conversation that would have otherwise been redundant? You need intellectual sparring partners. Friends who challenge one another to grow. Clash with words

Speak More

Obvious but ignored. Get the reps in. I spent ~2 years posting voice notes in a Telegram channel exclusively for articulating my thoughts. I recorded podcasts for the same reason. Look at every speaking opportunity as an opportunity to hone your sword. Can you lead your next team call? Can you call up your friend for an intellectually stimulating conversation? Record more voice notes. Raw‑dog a podcast just for fun. You speak every day; you might as well embrace it.

The Speaking Challenge

For those who really want to sharpen their craft, here’s a challenge. Every day for the next two weeks, pick a random topic and speak continuously for 2 minutes without filler words. When you stumble, note it. Review the recording and identify areas of improvement. What could be better? Look for lack of structure, mid vocabulary, and cognitive trailing. If you really have the cojones, post it to social media.

Reading will give you better words and better ideas. Analyzing your speech will help you identify areas of improvement. Learning new words will give you a daily side quest to keep things interesting. Speaking more gives a sandbox to hone your craft. Make these foundational habits, and you will notice immediate improvements.

The Biohacker’s Guide to Verbal Intelligence

Your verbal fluency lives primarily in three brain regions: Broca’s area, Wernicke’s area, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

These regions respond exceptionally well to specific verbal practice. Speaking and reading enhance neuroplasticity in these regions. Think of the aforementioned action list as a workout regimen.

No workout is complete without a great pre‑workout, and that’s where neuromodulation comes in. If you want to improve your verbal fluency, you want to boost:

• Dopamine: drives verbal fluency and word retrieval speed. This is why stimulants temporarily boost articulation.

• Acetylcholine: facilitates memory consolidation and vocabulary encoding. Great for learning and thinking clearly enough to speak well.

• GABA: manages cognitive load and anxiety suppression. Prevents you from getting stage fright. Keeps verbal flow steady.

L‑tyrosine is a good dopamine precursor here. Without adequate tyrosine, your dopamine synthesis can’t keep pace with verbal demands.

Alpha‑GPC serves as a cholinergic fuel source. This provides raw material to produce acetylcholine.

Ginkgo biloba will inhibit the breakdown of acetylcholine and increase blood flow to important regions of your brain.

Combine these (incorporating one at a time at first) for times when you need a verbal boost. I’m particularly fond of ginkgo tea for this use case. Stimulants will give you a verbal boost in a pinch, but it’s best to balance out with a GABAergic like magnesium or L‑theanine.

A 1:2 ratio of caffeine to L‑theanine with a microdose of nicotine is my ideal cocktail for an average speaking day. Ginkgo biloba or Alpha‑GPC as a midday pick‑me‑up, and taurine as needed to keep my GABA steady and reduce neural over‑excitation.

Ultimately, the best stack comes down to what you feel you need more of. Need more word recall? Increase dopamine. Need better memory consolidation and connecting of dots? Cholinergics. Need to chill out and stop being so frantic? GABAergics.

The bar is so low. Nobody takes rhetoric seriously. There is no other skill that positively impacts so many areas of your life. You speak every day; you might as well become a master of the craft.

Godspeed.