Do You Talk Too Fast Under Pressure? Here are 3 Top Tips
Susan Nataly Coombes a Pro Soprano helping me slow down during my virtual voice lesson!
When you’re in a meeting or on a zoom call and under pressure, do you speed up and speak way too fast?
Must confess, I often speak too quickly!
Perhaps you gabble and try and get to the end without a breath or any hint of (Obama-style) dramatic pausing.
Yes, I have been guilty of ‘rushing through it’ many times.
As you may know, I avoided speaking in public until relatively recently and now I ‘virtually’ speak all the time, to audiences all over the world. Yet, until lockdown, I hadn’t tackled my turbo-charged-talk-too-fast issues head-on!
So during COVID-19 lockdown, I took the opportunity to hone my vocal skills with the extra WFH time and invested in a couple of voice lessons from the fab pro Soprano, Susan Nataly Coombes. It’s made a massive difference to me, my fast-talking, and my virtual masterclasses. And now I’d love to share my quick and speedy tips with you too.
Susan’s initial observation about me was this…
“You’re like an express train…you don’t stop at the stations…like a turbocharged engine…. choo choo…chugger chugger chugger chugger chugger chugger, until you get to the end”
That’s funny because my favourite poem is ‘From a Railway Carriage’ by Robert Louis Stevenson, remember?
“Faster than fairies, faster than witches, bridges, and houses hedges and ditches…” The Brilliant British Children’s’ Poet, Michael Rosen somehow manages to pace his version of it perfectly on YouTube! (See link below)
I couldn’t stop thinking about my need to rush when I speak. It’s ironic as I have always helped others with this condition having been a live senior producer at the BBC for many years! You’d think I’d know better. I remember calming the presenters down so they felt relaxed before the red on-air light went on. We’d always practice the ‘top’ of the show a couple of times and take a few breaths to get them in the mood. Laughing and “being in a good mood” was usually the best prep.
I do the breathing and laughing (eyes and teeth remember?) pretty religiously, however, I needed help to slow down my express-train-talking-tendencies.
Here are my top 3 most useful and practical fast-talking tips for you…
Tip 1 – Clutch Control. Don’t dump the clutch! I remember this when I was learning to drive my first car. In other words, stop, go slowly and carefully bring up the clutch pedal. If you’re too fast, you’ll stall the car.
When I was learning to drive in Ealing, West London aged 17 with the ‘Impact Driving School” (yes it was called that!), I remember the day I didn’t stall.
In the US you call it a ‘stick shift’, here in the UK we call it a gear stick!
If you are using gears you need to bring up the clutch SLOWLY, SLOWLY arhhhhh! Every time I used to dump the clutch because I didn’t realise the very slight pressure and the slow and steady movement required to engage it at just the right moment to move the car forward.
As soon as I got it into my head to take it easy and relax into it, I remember thinking…
“Aha, I get it, it’s super slow, hardly any movement at all and then you’re completely under CONTROL!”
That was a game-changing moment in my life.
Slow, no rushing, relax = more control!
Tip 2 – Stop at the stations. Susan the Soprano encouraged me to stop at each station – think London to Leeds!
“Stop, look around, chug up the hill and maybe wait at the top to look at the view of the Yorkshire Dales! Breath in the fresh air, then slowly start down the hill again”
She taught me to enjoy the ride. I have been practicing my slower and more controlled and considered phrasing and pacing as if I was singing a song.
It’s a game-changer. Try it. Try taking a breath mid-sentence and alter your pace. It’s transformative.
Tip 3 – PAUSE. Practice out loud with exaggerated pauses. Watch this funny clip of Barack Obama’s Pauses taken from one of his important speeches – it’s hilarious.
Create an actionable trigger that reminds you to pause. Could be a note on a post-it. Make it part of your meeting prep.
Practice randomly pausing in the middle of your next conversation. See how long you dare to have silence aarrgh! You feel so powerful when you realise that pausing sometimes has more impact than gabbling on!
And don’t forget to breathe. Ideally breathe, slowly through the nose – as if you’re smelling the roses before you speak. There’s a great breathing exercise in chapter 18 of my book Goodbye Glossophobia The Chapter title is “What if I Go Red?
If you’d like me to help you and your team “virtually speak” with more control, I’ve been helping pitch teams all over the world to pace themselves over ZOOM and Teams. email me so we can set up a chat esther@estherstanhope.com
P.S As promised. Michael Rosen’s excellent non-rushed version of the Robert Louis Stevenson poem ‘From a Railway Carriage
