Speaking slowly

I'm a fast talker.
Normal conversation is already fast, and when I concentrate or get excited it gets even faster.
Friends have often given me wry smiles because of how fast I talk.
It's undignified, but it feels like I can't help wanting to say what I've thought as soon as possible.
That's why I'm extra conscious about speaking slowly — especially in business.

With enough practice I've gotten used to it in business, but if I let my guard down I still speed up.
In business, rattling on fast can look like a lack of confidence — and sometimes it puts interrogation-like pressure on people, which is very rude.

It's pathetic, but once during a sales conversation about whether I could take a personal contract from a large company, nerves made me talk excessively fast, and I got spot-on harsh feedback: "Your pace is so fast that I worry it might be a sign of lacking confidence."
A truly valuable lesson.

Recently, in a meeting with a client, I was proposing a certain scheme.
They're a client who trusts me, so I presented calmly and without holding back.

In the end things proceeded as I'd proposed — and I felt again how important speaking slowly is.
Looking back afterward, I asked myself what the real point of speaking slowly is.

My conclusion: speaking slowly lets the other person follow the same thinking process at the same pace through to the conclusion, which raises buy-in — that may be the key factor.
Of course the proposal itself has to be logical and useful to them — but if you steamroll them with rapid talk, they get only the conclusion while skipping the thinking path.
Then it becomes "we'll take it back and consider." Even if they take it back, the thinking circuit hasn't been transmitted, so you can't expect a great result.

Very basic, but it was a fresh lesson again at this stage.

P.S.
A small story: when I was studying abroad, I first spoke English with a Japanese person I'd only ever spoken English with before — and they burst out laughing: "Ah, so you're a fast talker in Japanese too." Extremely embarrassing.