327. Overcoming Speaking Anxiety: Matt Abrahams' Strategies for Confident Communication

Welcome to episode 327 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Matt Abrahams, author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter.

Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly friendly. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone.

My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. In today's conversation, I'm joined by Matt Abrahams. Matt is a leading expert in the field of communication. As a lecturer in organizational behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. He teaches popular classes in strategic communication and effective virtual presenting and has received the school's alum teaching award. Matt also teaches public speaking and co teaches improvisationally speaking in the Stanford Continuing Studies program. When he isn't teaching, Matt is a highly sought after keynote speaker and communications consultant and coach. He's helped numerous presenters prepare for high stakes talks including IPO road shows, Nobel Prize award presentations and appearances at TED and the World Economic Forum. His online talks garner millions of views and he hosts the popular award winning podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart. His book Speaking up without freaking out 50 techniques for confident and Compelling Presenting has helped a wide audience manage speaking anxiety and present more confidently and authentically. And today we're talking about his new book which just came out this week called Think Faster, Talk Smarter.

Really quickly.

Before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show notes for everything including related past episodes, links to articles and books including Think Faster, Talk Smarter and so much more. It's all within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com327.

Now.

Let'S jump right in. Matt Abrahams, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.

I am so excited to be here with you. Thank you for the opportunity.

Of course. We've had a nice chat. I can tell that we will. We're people that will talk forever so might as well have it be recorded as we do.

There you go. Maybe I'll say something interesting, but no. I enjoyed our pre conversation.

Thank you. Me too. For everyone who doesn't yet know you, can you share a little bit about your work and your background?

Sure thing. So I am a lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business where I primarily teach strategic communication. When I'm not doing that, I do some Coaching. And I host a podcast for Stanford's business school called Think Fast, Talk Smart. And I've recently written a book with a similar name, Think Faster, Talk Smarter, which is all about how to speak more effectively and confidently in what I call spontaneous speaking situations.

Right. I did think it was interesting as, you know, reading through your book and seeing the examples where you're talking about, you know, students at Stanford who are incredibly accomplished, so knowledgeable, so great at this, and also, you know, an example of Peter Jackson, right. People that know what they're talking about and yet have a really hard time sometimes when put on the spot, being able to say what they want to say and to communicate well in that spontaneous situation. So can you share a little bit about kind of how you got looped into this world of spontaneous speaking?

Really? Three paths led to this point. The first is actually from my youth growing up with the last name AB in Abraham's. I was always going first, and I was always speaking spontaneously from elementary school all the way through high school. And I can say this as a former high school teacher, sometimes teachers get lazy and they just sit people alphabetically. So I always knew where I was sitting and I always knew I was going first. So throughout my life, I've always been spontaneous speaking. So I felt that pressure. And when I went to teach or be at the business school at Stanford, where I've been now for 13 years, several years ago, the deans came to me and said, we have a problem. Just as you mentioned, our very bright students are not able to respond to. I'm sure you and many of your listeners will remember the dreaded cold call where the professor says, what do you think? And you have to respond. And these brilliant students were stumbling and struggling. And at the same time, I was teaching a public speaking class through a different program at Stanford, and my students would say, hey, I feel pretty confident giving a planned speech, but I'm really nervous when people ask me questions or I have to facilitate a meeting. So these three paths all intersected to lead to the creation of a methodology that really helps people feel more comfortable and confident speaking in the moment. And if you think about it, most of our communication is spontaneous. It's not scripted. And so I believe this can be really helpful to everybody.

Yeah, definitely. And I, while my name is not at the beginning of the Alphabet, I have always been pretty good at spontaneous communication. And I do think it's funny, you know, when someone's talking to me about coming in to do a keynote or do a corporate training and they ask, well, is it okay to have questions? Can we have a conversation? I'm like, yeah. Like, I love that stuff. I love having, like, throw it all at me. I love that kind of communication. And it's funny that because it is such, like, more of a natural skill, I didn't really think about it as something that is. I know it's hard for some people in some situations. Actually, most people in a lot of situations. Right. But a lot of that. And I've had my fair share of moments where you kind of go, I don't know what to say. But also having had improv training and stuff you talk about in here, so it's like, how it all kind of built up over time. But that framework you provide is really helpful.

Yeah, you're definitely in the minority of people. Most people find these situations very difficult, myself included, at times, for sure. So it's great. And it sounds like you've continued to hone and work on those skills, which is an essential part of any communication.

Yeah, I found myself relating back throughout your book, which, since you talk a lot about storytelling, that's helpful as it's helping me to remember times where I had something similar that happened or whatnot. And so you have your story of the Onion. And so I think, like, job interviews is a really big point where this comes up for people. Right. So I want to make sure we talk about that as it's the brainy business and we're in the meeting or somebody says something. So I'll let you tell your onion story in a moment. I'll tell my thing first. And this was definitely one where it was like, yikes, not great.

So I was.

I don't know, I was probably 19 or in my early 20s or something. I was probably in my early 20s, and I was going in for what I was under the impression was more of an informational type of interview, where my mom had a relationship with a publisher, and it was for this magazine to be able to do some work for them while I was in college, and I thought it was kind of cool. And so, like, went to go have this conversation, and I get brought in, and they sit me at a table that has legitimately the entire company, including the main full, like, publishing editor, whatever, at this huge table, and he's at one side at the, like, head of the table, and they sit me on the other side, like, all the way down. And it's like a row of 20 people at this giant conference table. And he goes, okay, Molina, why you.

Wow.

And that Was it? Right? Like, I don't. I have no idea what I said. I didn't get the job. Obviously, where we talk about it not being a great scenario, but I remember that as this super not prepared, no idea what I'm supposed to say. And I think even if people explain something, I feel like my heart rate's up. Even thinking about that moment, it was so traumatizing. But isn't that.

Isn't that funny how we can be whisked back to something like that? And I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I mean, that's really intimidating for anybody, but somebody so young. And my hunch is your expectations were very different because you had the connections to that and everything. So not only was it hard, your expectations weren't in the same direction, so. But you survived and you've gone on to thrive. So it's one of these stories we tell as hopefully helpful to other people. Right?

Right. Yeah. Well, your story has a much better lesson that's now been looped in.

Well, so I was interviewing for a job I very much wanted to do for about a decade of my life. I ran learning and development for software companies, so training departments, et cetera. And I was interviewing at a very small, hot startup. And the CEO made a point. In those days, I was employee 99, right under 100. He was still interviewing everybody personally as the last stop to getting hired. So I show up, and I was early, but he was already in the room, which already freaked me out, because my experience had been executives sort of whisk in on their own schedule. So I was a little taken aback. And we sit down, and after exchanging pleasantries, he says, okay, let's get started. And his first question to me was, if you were an onion and I peeled back three layers, what would I find? And my mind just exploded. I did not expect a question like this. I was totally caught off guard. I later learned that this was sort of his thing. He liked to put people on the spot to see how they responded. And in that moment, I made a decision. I could panic, and certainly my body was going through that response, or I could take it and run with it. And one of the skills that I teach people is to take a position, commit to it, and go with it. And in that moment, the only thing I could think about, and this is very true for me still to this day, when I cook, when I chop onions, I tear up. Some people do, some people don't. I just, like, I saw a Bambi or something, I just cry. And so I went with it. I committed to it. I just said, you know, if you peel back three layers, you'd see that I would be crying. When I peel onions, I cry. And then I turned this into a conversation about how I lead through connecting through emotion, through really connecting with people, supporting people on an emotional level. I turned it into an answer about emotional intelligence, psychological safety. And as I'm going through my answer, he starts smiling. And I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know, like, oh, does this mean he's going to ask me to leave? But it turned out he shared with me later. I got to know him quite well in the subsequent years that the answer took a course he totally didn't expect. I was the only person who sort of had ever done that before. And he really, really appreciated it. So the lesson I took from that is, even in the most challenging of situations, when they feel really high stakes, connect to something. In my case it was the tears and go for it, commit to it. And that's what I did. And I was very fortunate. Got hired by that company, did well by them, and it was a good experience. But, man, just like you shared, I can go back to that room. I can see what he was wearing. I can feel the temperature. That was intense, right?

Yeah, it is. Definitely. I really like what you said there being this. I talk a lot about confidence. And in, especially in work I do with pricing strategy and pitching, right. Is like the people will pick up on if you're not confident. And it's like a dog can smell fear, right? Something's wrong, they don't even need to know what it is. But like, you can tell something's off. And I should be questioning this thing. And so even being able to speak confidently when it makes no. And not to say it makes no sense, but it's maybe kind of off from what was expected. And being able to just like you said, commit and go and know that, you know, we can elaborate later, we can follow up later, we can just own what's happening in that moment and move forward and not be constantly questioning is really valuable.

There's a lesson. I take a lot of what I've developed in this methodology from many places, academic disciplines like psychology, anthropology, sociology, but also the world of improvisation. And you had mentioned that a little earlier, there are a lot of tenants and rules, if you will, in improv. And one of them is, if you're going to fail, fail big. And I take that as commit, right? I mean, commit. You might not fail. So Just commit. And that's really what I did in that moment. And in that case, it paid off. There's certainly many, many examples I could share, and some I don't want to share where I committed and it didn't pay off. But I like that. If you're going to fail, fail big.

Right, Right. And that's one of those things I've looked back on, like athleticism and my potential lack thereof. Right. But I realized that over time, you know, I cared. And this is a lesson I learned in my own life and career pretty early on, too. This came about from some executive coaching I was a part of and had this realization that I was one who really cared about looking the best. And when you're focused on how good you look, you're not going to look as good.

Right.

It doesn't. Doesn't quite translate, especially in sports, because you're not, like, jumping for the ball. You're not, like, putting yourself on the line to go get it, because you're more in your own head about it. And in business, being, you know, not being as concerned about helping the company to be the best, helping things to go as well as they can. But it was about. I ended up playing it too safe pretty early on in my career because I was worried about how I was going to look and making sure this all went through. But when you take those risks and they stand out, then you tend to actually, you know, things come around better, if you like, kind of trust the process. One of the quotes I had written down, which is not necessarily fully related to this, but I just thought about it, and I wanted to make sure to get it in because it was one of my favorite things you said in the whole book is to allow yourself to get a little lost and embrace all that might be possible. Like such a great.

Yeah. So thank you. And that's a real meaningful part of the book, too. I have two colleagues at Stanford, Adam Tobin and Dan Klein, and they're sort of my improvisation Sherpas. They have guided me along, and that's a story that Dan told that really stuck with me, where he will purposely get lost. Adam has a story very similar where they take time to get lost just to see what's out there and what's possible. We like to have control, and in spontaneous situations, we don't have a lot of control. And by forcing control on those situations, we actually restrict and limit what's possible for us and what's possible for others. And the other thing we do by wanting things to go right and perfect and look good. In these situations, we actually increase the likelihood that they won't. And it's all based on cognitive bandwidth and cognitive load. Your brain is, in some ways like a computer. It only has so much processing power. If you're on your phone or on your laptop running lots of programs, each of those programs runs a little less efficiently because you have so many others running. So if I want to do really well in this circumstance, in this situation, that means part of my brain is constantly judging and evaluating everything I'm doing in that moment, which means I have less cognitive bandwidth to focus on what I'm doing. So by definition, I will do less well. So this notion of getting lost, embracing the uncertainty, just going for it, can really help. I have the audacity to tell my Stanford students and the people I coach to strive for mediocrity. You should see their jaws drop. I know you teach students. I mean, can you imagine telling your students to strive for mediocrity? But they understand after I explain that when you just strive to get it done, you actually have more resources to do it well. So the whole saying I tell my students eventually is, strive for mediocrity so you can achieve greatness. We get in our own way. And I'm often asked, so how do you do that? And it gets back to the question you asked. Allowing yourself to get lost, taking some risks, trying new things, things that broadens what's possible and allows you to focus in the moment on what's happening rather than judging and evaluating it. Hard to do, but once you do, it can be incredibly rewarding.

Definitely. And the Maximize Mediocrity is one of my new favorite chapter titles. I really enjoy.

Yes.

It was a fun.

I. I had fun with the chapter titles in my book. And I. I have to say that's probably my favorite as well.

Oh, good. Yeah. It was one that definitely made me laugh. Right. And as someone who. Another random, like, I'm, like, brought back to college from all of these because of that, like, striving for perfection and everything. Right. And I had my own missed take right here, right where I could have. I can just say again, you know, focused on perfection. Right. I can say it better now, but I got a C. There was a professor that graded on a curve, and I was in the middle of the thing, and that was not something that happened for me in general. And I came home and I was so overwhelmed. I was crying about. I said, I'm average. Weeping right of the. Whoa.

If this makes you feel better, this Makes you feel better. When I teach about in my strategic communication class on the very first day, we help our students to understand that this is a process and that we all are starting at different places in the process and we can all improve. And I show a report card from Martin Luther King Jr. His first year in seminary, he got a C minus in public speaking. So the point is this, that from average can come greatness. So, and you're a demonstration of that. And certainly he was. So we label ourselves with those grades and, and maybe that's not the best thing. If a grade can be motivational, then I think it's a good thing. If it's detrimental to our psychological well being, then I think it's not the thing to focus on.

Right, for sure. Well, I feel like this is a good time. I appreciate you allowing me to jump all over the world as we're starting the conversation and let's let you hone it back in to some structure. Let's talk about those kind of six steps that you outline in the book from part one that we go through, including maximizing mediocrity. But you can go through them in your order.

Thank you. So I put together a methodology originally designed for MBA students to feel more comfortable with cold calling. But I've now used this in my coaching, my teaching. I have a video that a lot of people have seen and have written to me that they're using it for job interviews, for wedding toasts, for eulogies. So it's a methodology that hopefully, hopefully can help people feel more comfortable and confident. It starts first with anxiety management. Anxiety looms large in all communication. We need to work on managing anxiety. So the first step talks about how we can manage both symptoms and sources of our anxiety. The symptoms are the things we physiologically experience, the sources of the things that initiate and exacerbate it. The next step is to get out of our own way. We talked about that. That's that strive for, for mediocrity piece can really help you get out of your own way. Our judging and evaluating really puts us at a disadvantage. The third step is to reframe spontaneous speaking. Many of us see these situations as challenges and threats. When, when somebody says, I'm, I'm going to ask you some questions, we don't go, oh yay, that's great. No, we see it as, oh, they're, they're going to challenge what I've said. They're going to test my, my credibility. If we can change those circumstances to be opportunities, opportunities for collaboration, connection Extension of our ideas. It can fundamentally change the way we approach communication and spontaneous speaking in particular. The fourth step, which shouldn't surprise anyone, but often is a little surprising, and that is listening. The number one skill to be a better communicator, I believe, is not to speak, but to listen. And listening is so important in spontaneous speaking because we tend to respond in a reflex, heuristic way to many circumstances. Imagine you and I are in a meeting, and we come out of a meeting, and you ask me, you say, matt, give me some feedback. How did that meeting go? I hear feedback, and all of a sudden I jump into all the things I think you could have done better or could have gone better. But if I would have really paused and listened for a moment. Moment. I might have noticed that the way you asked for feedback sounded different than you normally sound. It sounded a little more muted. Maybe you were looking down in a way. Maybe you went out the back door. Not the front door, the meeting room. And I paid attention to that. I might realize you're not really looking for feedback. What you're looking for is a little bit of support in some. Some ways of connecting, because you don't feel so good about how that happens. So if I'm not listening and fully present, I might respond inappropriately or not in a way that can maximize the interaction. So step four is about listening. Step five is about structure. I believe ultimately the most important thing we can do in all communication is have a structure to it. And then finally we have to what I call the F word of communication, and that is focus. In spontaneous speaking, many of us are discovering what we want to say when we're saying it. So we tend to go on too long, and I fear this answer is going on too long. But we need to actually really focus. So it's all about managing anxiety, getting out of our own way, reframing the circumstance, listening, structuring, and focusing. Those are the six steps that make a big difference.

Yeah, I loved insights from all of those chapters. And I also really like, just for everybody who's listening, you look at this sort of book and you think, think, okay, I'm gonna read it. And then I'm kind of left to my own devices. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to go do. It's informational, but I can't go do anything with it. And that is not this book. This book has lots of these try it sections that you get to go test it out yourself with insights of how you would do this and translating it. From, you know, if the example's coming from improv and you're like, great, but I'm not looking to be, you know, yes. Anding my way through life. So I don't. That doesn't apply to me that it can say, well, here's how this would work for most people. You know, that you can see how you do that thing. And then, you know, drilling down at the end of those chapters is, is really, really helpful and so lots of practical experience to be able to go use the tips which matters as people are wanting to use the information that they, they learn about.

Thank you for, for highlighting that. That's important to me. The only way we get better at communication is by doing it. And so I purposely included the try it and the drill it sections that you're talking about to give people guidance. My publisher asked me, how will you know if your book was successful? And I said, it'll be successful if people have it on their desk, dog eared, underlined, going back. Because that's how we get better at communication. You don't read one book and all of a sudden you're a master at spontaneous speaking. You have to, to do it, you have to practice it, you have to reflect on it. And that's really how I tried to write the book. So thank you for calling that out because that's important to me.

Awesome. I am all about applied. My books are very applied as well. Thank you. Yeah. And so I know that the audience really loves and appreciates that because we want to go do things and that's great. One of the. I'm like, oh man, I want to talk about all the things and I haven't committed. I need to decide what I'm going to commit to. I had a commitment and then I saw a note. Then I went, oh, right, I wanted to talk about that. And it veered me off. So I'm going to take that path because I saw it for a reason. I'm going to say I really liked the example which came from someone from Ideo and looking at the hospital ER or the. And the pit crews. Right. And like taking the step back and looking at things in a different way. This understanding the problem and again this kind of existing in it. I guess we'll revisit this for a moment before we move on to another one. But do you want to share that, that story?

I'm happy to share that story. It came from a colleague of mine, somebody I co teach with. His name's Brendan Boyle and it's in the Part of the book where I talk about heuristic thinking. I know as somebody who studies behavioral economics, heuristics is something you're familiar with. But these are pattern sets of behavior, ways of thinking and approaching. And heuristics help us tremendously in our lives. In fact, I would argue we probably couldn't be very successful without relying on heuristics. However, they can also get in the way because they box you into a way of thinking. And as part of this chapter in the book, I talk about, if we're not going to always follow heuristics, we need to really expand beyond them. And what are some ways to do that? And one way is through analogies. Thinking through analogy and metaphor can help us break down or escape from the heuristics. And my favorite story about thinking through metaphor and analogy is something that IDEO did. IDEO is a creativity company. They're known for or design thinking. They were hired by a hospital chain to come in and help improve the efficiency of emergency rooms. Emergency rooms, as you know, high stress, high pressure, high stakes. And they wanted to make their emergency rooms more effective. And most people, if asked to do that, would go look at other emergency rooms and say, okay, here, these are the best emergency rooms. What do they do? And then we're just going to make recommendations to do those things. Well, these folks at IDEO who are doing this believed in this, thinking through metaphor, breaking down heuristics. And so what they did is instead of going to emergency rooms, they said, where are situations where people are in high stakes situations, have to move fast? And they came up with Formula one racing pit crews. So what they did is they went and observed and watched what do pit crews do to get cars out again, safely, quickly. And they found lots of things that they then translated into emergency rooms. The one that many of us are most familiar with, if we've ever been to an emergency room, is this notion of kidding. So if you are a Formula one pit crew, there are several scenarios that could develop that are very common. Car runs out of oil, needs a tire change. So you create a kit of everything you need for when that happens. So you see the car coming in, got a bad tire, you grab the kit, it helps you be much more efficient. So they started creating kits for strokes, for heart attacks, for people with other conditions, diabetic shock, et cetera. And they learned that by watching pit crew. So I love that as an example, as somebody who has been a patient in an ER room, I love that because it helps. But I Also love it because it shows us that sometimes getting out of our comfort zone, our heuristic thinking can open us up to so much possibility.

Yeah, definitely. And you just can when you look at solving those problems in a different way. I know I mentioned to you that I'm as I'm debating about what the refresh will be in advance of your episode. It might be my interview with Warren Berger on a more beautiful question. So at least we've connected this, so it could be that that ends up making sense. And we've been talking about metaphors and cognitive semiotics a lot on the show recently. And so there's lots of good links in the show notes for everyone. The other thing that I would say, and you talked a bit about listening, and that was one of the chapters that actually stood out to me the most because people talk about how you need to listen all the time. And, you know, it's. You have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Those things that people say all the time that we hear. And you're like, okay, fine, cool, great. But a couple of the points that I wrote down on here that I haven't really heard anyone else talk about when I've had just conversations or things I've seen. Is that how listening helps the listener, for one. So in the. You know, what's in it for me? Right. So why it's valuable for you to be listening in a really thoughtful way and then also that those who have a listening mindset believe that the answer lies within the speaker is so smartly presented, where you think about just people that approach the conversation again in the way where I wanted to be seen as the best. Right. Just relating it back to an example earlier in my career and like, showing how I'm smart and I got this. And me, me, me, me, me. Because I think I have the answer to everything. Whereas if I'm helping you to understand and uncover this, I'm listening and helping, you know, I'm asking questions to help you get there yourself in a. In a way that I think is really interesting. So I will let you expand on it. But those really stood out to me.

Yeah. So there is an academic researcher at the University of Haifa, his name is Guy Itchakov. And he and I had a. Just a fantastic. Imagine interviewing a listening researcher. I mean, he listens so well. One of those interviews where I'm like, I think I spoke a heck of a lot more than he did. That's not the way it was supposed to go. But he highlighted that notion that first he says, listening is a muscle, and if we don't strengthen that muscle, it atrophies. And so we need to work on listening as if we would working out and exercising. And I think that's important for people to think about. We often think of listening as passive and something that, hey, unless we have hearing issues, we just do. And in fact, it's a conscious effort. But he also talks about that, as you said, a good listener is helping the person speaking solve their problems. It's not stepping in and solving the problem. I have this issue still to this day. I'm probably revealing more about myself than I should. But when I teach listening or talk about listening, if my wife is within any earshot, she will always come afterwards and say, you need to practice what you preach. Because I tend to do, I tend to try. I'm a problem solver. When somebody presents an issue and I listen, I immediately jump into problem solving mode. So when Guy was telling me that information, it was really helpful for me. And I actively work to take that mindset of my job in this moment is to listen and help the other person to solve their problem. And it changes the way you listen, not just mentally, but physically. You're open, you're more connected, and that's very powerful. The whole chapter on listening to me boils down to what my colleague Collins Dobbs teaches. This notion of space, pace and grace. We have to slow down. We have to give ourselves space that might be in psychological space, distance from the issue, or it might be physical space where we can be quiet and actually absorb. And then we have to give ourselves some grace. We aren't always going to get it right, but the effort is worth it. So that mindset you mentioned, pace, space, grace, I think are all so helpful. Helpful to being better at listening.

Yeah. And you know, you, when you were introducing it as one of those six main concepts in the methodology, showing how, especially when we get, you know, you're on the spot and you think, oh, gosh, what am I going to say? And you look at yourself and like you said, run the heuristic of like, feedback. I say this, right? This is the. How did it go?

Oh, you were great.

The end, Right. But if you take a moment and look at what's happening in this situation, and I think that listening is more robust than just with our ears, right. Like where you're saying here we're listening with our eyes as well, where we're observing that situation around us to kind of see everything that's happening. Like you Say the. Their body language, what's going on? As you take that intake of the room, so you slow down a little bit and say, why are they asking me this? Yeah, this is a. This is an interesting point. I do this. You know, when you get feedback too, and I think you shared something, it might have been in a different area of the book, but where people are. Have a complaint or you feel like that you're being attacked, there's also a point where you want to come back and, you know, having books and things like negative reviews are real things people. I recently had somebody who couldn't. My book didn't fully download on Apple, and so they bought the book and it only had the first hour of one of my books. And the person then emailed me and was frustrated about it. And it's easy to have the reaction where you want to say, like, oh, yeah, because I control Apple. Right. Like, what do you like? Not my. I. I had nothing to do with it. Right.

Yeah, yeah. Right, right.

And, like, imagine yourself in that situation you've been given. You were excited about a book and how amazing. Someone was so excited about my book that they bought it, that I've never met them before. That's so cool. And they went to download it and it wasn't the full book. I would be frustrated, too. Right.

So, yeah.

Relating to that and then taking the time to go fix the problem, reaching out to my publisher saying, I've already started this process. I'm so sorry, truthfully, because that sucks. I wouldn't like that either. Right. And then it turned into this great conversation and, you know, keeping someone engaged. So I think that taking that step back, the pace, Grace, space. That was the other one. Yeah. To where we're able to step back is really, really important. And I think that leads to the last thing that we have time for. I'd love for you to talk about all the things, but would be, you have really, really fantastic frameworks for when you're getting into the presentation and prep. We talked about confidence and being able to speak spontaneously. You talked about heuristics and how we need to get away from them. But it's also like building new rules that we can be running. Right. So. And having the prep. Like. Yes, you can and should and must prepare for spontaneous conversations.

Yes.

Can you share a bit about that? Because I think that's like the whole point.

Yes, no, absolutely. Right. The. The most ironic thing in the entire book is this notion that you can prepare to be spontaneous. And yet if we think about it, in other domains of our life, we see it happen all the time. Jazz musicians don't just play random stuff. They're playing certain chords and patterns that exist that they've learned. Improvisers don't just do crazy things. They follow rules. Yes. And dare to be dull. All these rules that they follow. Athletes drill and train certain patterns of behavior so in the game they can respond with agility in a spontaneous way. So when we think about it that way, it's like, oh, that makes sense. And the key to me is what you're talking about. Which are our frameworks or structures? Structures really help. I like to say a structure is a recipe. It gives you an ordering, a logical connection of ideas. I am a lousy cook, but I am a much better cook. When I follow a recipe, it allows me to improvise and to try new things, but it gives me guidance. Guidance, a directionality. And there are many structures that can help. My favorite structure, the most multi purpose, I call it the Swiss Army Knife of structures, is three simple questions. What so what now? What what is your idea, your product, your service, your offering, your belief? So what is why is it important to the person you're talking to? We know that relevance and salience is really important in trying to convince and motivate people. And then finally, now what is? What comes next? Maybe it's, let's sign on the dotted line. Let me show you a demonstration. What questions do you have? So by simply answering what so what now what? You can package up information in a way that's easy for your audience to digest and easy for you to prioritize what you need to say. And that's the value of a structure. So if you write an email, subject line should be your now what? It's what you want to follow up. The body of the email is what and so what. If you're giving feedback, the what is my feedback, the so what is why it's important, and the now what is what I'd like you to do with it. So I might say, Melina, this podcast was fantastic. You did such a great job of asking detailed questions about my book. My only concern is we didn't have enough time. I would have loved to get more feedback from you. So that's my feedback. When we rush through things and we miss things, I feel so bad that people might not have gotten the information they wanted. So let's get another time to chat. What so what now? What so the structure really helps you in the moment formulate what you need to say. It's these frameworks that can really help.

And it helps to for one.

Yes to a follow up conversation I'm.

Sure the audience would love to have. I know it was just an example. It's really a concern. I mean for sure we can go, we can go into all the things. I'm sure everyone will be delighted. But having that I'm all about clear and concise and what I'm working with, whether it's like for clients or on the podcast or whatever. You know I told you I teach a class on creating better presentations.

Yes.

I always say too is like you need to figure out what's the least amount you need to say to get the person to where you want them to go and then stop. You need to be prepared for all the things they might ask and have a response for that. But if you think through the arc, you think about where we're looking to go. I want you to get from A to B. What's the least I can give you to get there? And in case you have questions, I'm ready.

Absolutely, absolutely. If you're teaching those skills, your students are benefiting 100% because that's exactly what you need. And what helps you be concise and clear is all that pre work you talked about, knowing who you're talking to, what's your goal? Having a structure that helps you be more concise. I grew up, my mother had this saying that just echoes in my ear. I know she didn't create it, but all throughout my life she has always said tell the time, don't build the clock. And as communicators we need to be time tellers, not clock builders for sure.

Love it. And I think that is a perfect spot to end on here. As we go ahead and know, everyone definitely want to pick up Think Faster, Talk Smarter. You want to check out the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast. We'll have links in the show notes and for everyone who wants to connect with you to learn more, you know what's the best, best place for them to go and do all those things.

Well, first and foremost, thank you for the opportunity. Thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. To find me and more of my stuff. I have a ton of resources available, just my name, mattabrahams.com and then I'm a big user of LinkedIn and Instagram. If you're on both of those platforms, come find me. Happy to share information there as well.

Awesome. And we will definitely link to all that in the show notes to make it easy for everyone to complete their task to learn more about how they can be better spontaneous communicators in all these ways. So again, Matt, thanks so much for the time.

It was a lot of fun to.

Chat with you today.

Melina, thank you so much.

Thank you again to Matt Abrahams for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I know how prevalent speaking on the fly is in business and I love that Matt has brought so many insights together to make that possible for everyone. Whether you're standing on a stage or doing a job interview or doing a pitch, or just wanting to have a better time at a conference or networking event, being able to think on your feet and sound smart when you have.

To talk fast is a great skill to have.

Whatever industry you're in or role you play, I'm confident you're going to get insights and tips that can help you in life and business.

When you get your copy of Think.

Faster, Talk Smarter, I learned a lot while reading it and I'm excited to implement a couple of those tips myself. I'm confident you're going to get great value too. There are, of course, links for you.

To get your copy of the book.

And connect with Matt and check out related past episodes, all in the show notes which are waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthe brainy business.com 327 and thank you again to Matt Abrahams for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

You won't want to miss it until then. Thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thought.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.