The Smart-Person Mistake That Makes You Sound Less Impressive

A marketing professional came into coaching after her second layoff in 12 months, carrying the kind of discouragement that hits hard when the interviews keep happening and the feedback keeps disappearing. She had 10 years of solid experience in analytics, customer experience, and product marketing.

She had plenty of knowledge, but what she lacked was containment. The feedback she did get was brutal in its precision: she was passionate, but she over-explained and talked too fast. In other words, the problem was her delivery.

Smart people often assume that the more polished, confident, and prepared their answer is, the better it will be received. However, many times it’s better to stop trying to prove yourself so much. When someone is afraid of being underestimated, they start flooding the room with detail. They think they are displaying mastery, but it can come across as anxiety.

Instead of the listener thinking, “Wow, she knows a lot,” they are left with the impression that the speaker doesn’t know where the point is.” That is an expensive mistake in an interview, because executive presence is more than just what you know; it’s about whether people can understand the shape of your thinking.

The coaching moment that cut through the fog was fairly ordinary. I asked her to explain what an NPS survey is and why it is useful. She gave me an accurate answer, but it was overloaded with detail. She covered material that I didn’t ask about, wandered into side explanations, and buried the main point under extra competence.

My suggestion was for her to learn to answer only the questions that people ask. The intervention I suggested was simple but proved highly effective. Since she also over-explained things at home with her partner, I turned dinner into a training ground. She was to pick three evenings over the next week; her assignment was to only answer the questions her partner asked and then stop. No polishing, afterthoughts, or “just one more thing.”

Progress would be measured by whether her partner asked follow-up questions. When she returned the following week, she said it was a success and that her partner was very appreciative of the intervention. From there, she started incorporating the practice into other personal and professional relationships.