Blonde?

Yesterday afternoon I interviewed a very inspiring young woman, a barrister, who spent a year in Afghanistan working on building up the capacity of the justice system. Today I've been listening back to the recording of the interview to transcribe it and, to put it mildly, it's cringeworthy. Not because of the usual, "Oh God I hate my voice" thing - although there certainly was a bit of that. But because I sound like such an airhead - or rather, I'm making myself sound like an airhead. I'm being ditzy. I'm dumbing down.
Now, I'm certainly daft at times and this woman is on paper much smarter than me, but I'm not thick and there's no reason not to feel like her equal. But I hear myself saying, "Sorry, I'm a bit ignorant..." at the start of a question about the functioning of the Afghan legal system! That's not ignorance, there's no reason why I should know anything about the Afghan legal sysatem - who does?! But I still feel the need to have a go at myself for it. I hear myself mumbling, failing to talk in proper sentences, and taking the mickey out of myself, my profession and my experience.
I reckon like there's a real lesson to be learned from this. I'm proud of my job, my education, my brain (!), but I really don’t sound like it on this tape. This needs fixing...