Impact on conference calls and in meetings

[fasttalker]

Still struggle with this!

I talk too fast, lose my train of thought, forget why I started speaking in the first place, ramble etc

Those who are good at it - what do you do?

Have you thought of locating a mentor who can help you rehearse and improve your communication style?

From what you describe, you need to practice and become comfortable with how it feels to talk slowly, deliberately taking a pause at key moments and breathing deeply (I expect you may be either forgetting to breathe or your breathing may be shallow).

Try Googling Toast Masters International. They run local groups round UK aiming to help improve public speaking - what you're describing is no different, it's speaking with other people present and getting better at delivering information confidently.

I too was going to suggest Toastmasters. We have a corporate club (i.e. within the company,) and one of my current mentees is focussed on speaking slower. Practice and feedback is helping her improve.

Toastmasters involves giving prepared speeches, but also has "Table topics" in meetings, which is where you have to give an unprepared speech on a particular question for 1-2 minutes, which is a different skill from prepared speeches, but also includes the usual speaking skills including pauses, volumes, structure and helps you learn to focus on what you're saying without rambling. Another important part of Toastmasters is that everyone learns to give and receive constructive feedback, so you should get feed back which can really help you.

You don't have to do it through Toastmasters, of course, but it's the sort of practice and feedback which would be helpful to you and it gives a structure.