Here’s something nobody tells you before a job interview, a class presentation, or even just an important conversation: speed kills credibility.
When you’re nervous, you speed up. It’s almost automatic. Your brain wants to get the words out before you forget them, before someone interrupts, before the awkward silence hits. But the problem is, fast talking reads as nervous talking — and nervous talking makes people trust you less, even if everything you’re saying is completely true and well thought out.
Speaking too fast also makes you genuinely harder to understand. Research from Baruch CUNY found that speech at too fast a rate is often harder to follow than speech at a moderate pace. Your listeners have to work harder to keep up, and when people are working hard just to process your words, they’re spending less mental energy actually believing them.
Slowing down does the opposite. It signals that you’re comfortable, that you’ve got nothing to prove, that you’re not rushing to escape the conversation. That’s what authority actually sounds like — not louder, not fancier words, just… unhurried.
The fix is smaller than you’d think. You don’t need to talk like a sleepy GPS. Just consciously dial it back a notch. Take a breath between thoughts. Let a sentence land before starting the next one. That natural pause you’ve been avoiding? It makes you sound like someone who thinks before they speak. That’s a compliment.
Practice it somewhere low-stakes first — talking to a friend, leaving a voicemail, recording yourself for 30 seconds. Most people are genuinely shocked at how fast they actually talk when they hear themselves back.