How to speak more confidently and persuasively | Matt Abrahams (professor, podcast host, author, speaker)

0:00 Visualization is a really useful technique, and you see yourself not just in the moment of speaking, but getting up to the stage, seeing it being well received, thinking about how you step off the stage. We see athletes do this kind of thing all the time. And there's good research to say that this desensitizes people. Most of the public speaking we do is on the spot. It's not often you give prepare talk. You actually have to prepare to be spontaneous and that's counterintuitive. But when you think about it in athletics or jazz music, it's like of course you would prepare. Are there any other techniques that you love? That you find people find really helpful in calming their anxiety. Strive for connection over perfection. By daring to be dull, just answer the question, just give the feedback, just be engaged in the small talk. By doing that, you dial down the volume of self-evaluation, freeing up resources that can be used to really help you succeed. Today my guest is Matt Abrahams. Matt is a professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

1:00 Where he teaches a very popular class on communication and public speaking. І''зал the host of the incredibly popular podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart. And the author of the very popular book. Think faster and talk smarter. Matt also coaches people one-on-one on public speaking and communication skills.

1:18 And in our conversation, we focus on the two areas that people most need help with. One, reducing their anxiety before and during any form of public speaking, And getting better at speaking on the spot. Including giving better toasts, giving feedback. Doing Q and A.

1:34 And even apologizing. Like we talk about in the actual conversation, speaking well is a superpower in your career. For interviewing, for being great in meetings, for pitching your manager and ideas. to leading teams. and the skill becomes even more important as you grow in your career.

1:50 The good news is that you can get better at it with a bit of help. I've worked on this a lot over the course of my career and I still get really nervous before big talks and even before every podcast episode, but many of these techniques I actually put into practice and I share that in our conversation. If you pick just a couple things from this episode to put into practice, you will become a better communicator, you'll be less nervous, and you'll get better at dealing with on the spot moments. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it on your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes and it helps the podcast tremendously.

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4:43 Check it out at dovetail.com slash Lenny. Matt, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast. Lenny, I am excited for our conversation and thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. I'm even more excited for the conversation.

5:01 So what I wanna do with our time today. Is there's kinda two areas I wanna Focus. One is Talking about techniques to help people manage anxiety when public speaking.

5:12 And two is helping people get better at speaking on the spot. Which you wrote a whole book about. And if you think about it, I think that's like most of the public speaking we do is on the spot. It's not often you give a prepared talk. It's usually Like you said, Q and A. Or toast someone wants to give you or s ask you for feedback or things like that.

5:29 So I'm excited to Dig into those things. How did that sound, broadly? Absolutely. I I look forward to that. And and those are topic I'm very excited to talk about, have done a lot of research in and look forward to uh sharing more. I suspected as much. Okay, so let's talk about

5:45 Anxiety. So you have a bunch of really novel techniques in your book and your podcast. for calming your body down, calming your mind down. When you're Planning to give a talk when you're actually about to give a talk, when you're giving a talk. And a lot of these I haven't actually seen anywhere else and I've used a few of them and they are really great.

6:03 So What I was thinking we do is let me sh go through the ones that I found most Useful and interesting. And just share your advice on those and then see if there's any I missed and then maybe add those at the end.

6:13 How's that? That sounds great. That sounds great. I love that you've applied some of these techniques and found value from them. I'll talk about this. I'll talk about this. Okay, so first of all, just to touch on this, you're not a fan of the uh picture people in your audience naked. Approach. Correct. The Brady Bunch advice is not good advice. I don't know about you, and I don't know anybody who who could imagine seeing a bunch of people in their underwear and feel more comfortable with that.

6:35 I think if you do Uh there are other issues you need to be dealing with then beyond speaking anxiety. Yeah. It feels like highly inappropriate now, just that idea. No, but you know, underlying that, if you'll give me a moment, there is some there is some value. This notion of visualization as a tool of desensitization.

6:54 Actually can be very helpful. But you're not visualizing the audience half naked. What you're doing is you're visualizing yourself in that space. You're visualizing the audience responding to you and what you're saying. So just like a pilot might do a flight simulator. having a visualization can actually really help you feel more comfortable and confident. It literally puts you in the room even though you're not there.

7:17 And there's some tools and I I'm fascinated by these tools. that are virtual reality tools that can also serve to desensitize you. So this notion of seeing your audience uh in advance of actually speaking can actually impact Your level of comfort. It's let's keep everybody clothed and let's keep them all focused on your topic.

7:36 Let's actually talk about this one while we're on it,'cause I think this is a really powerful technique. An idea just to just to kind of summarize you picture ahead of time what it's gonna look like and feel like You talking, looking at the audience. You talk about that and just how to go about Using that technique.

7:50 Yeah, absolutely. So visualization allow uh and then this is some of the oldest research on public speaking anxiety. It was research done in the eighties. From the University of Oregon. So visualization, it what it does is it allows you to see the event in a way that you have much more control over it. So you can think about it. So a good visualization Involves some deep breathing to calm yourself.

8:15 Either you close your eyes or you just uh look at a picture. Maybe you can get a picture of the environment you're speaking in. I often recommend speakers uh see the room even if they're not physic, but get a picture online. uh or or s some way envision yourself in the room, envision yourself in the room with the people you'll be speaking to. Often we know the individuals or some of them.

8:36 We can also go online and figure out who they are. So visualization is a really useful technique, and you see yourself not just in the moment of speaking. But getting up to the stage. delivering the presentation Seeing it being well received, thinking about how you step off the stage.

8:52 And by taking yourself through that, you in essence are doing a dress rehearsal, even though you're not physically in the room. And there's good research to say that this desensitizes people. We see athletes do this kind of thing all the time, where they'll do visualization. to help them and and it really does work. And like I said, they're virtual tools now that can help you do this.

9:12 Where you can actually program it to p uh to have a certain size audience. You can even program some of these to have a responsive audience or a distracted audience. All of this in service of just preparing you for what you're really going to see. And the bottom line is this what you're doing for yourself is making sure it's not new and novel. It's something been there, done that, even though if it was uh virtual or visualized in your mind to help you feel better about The circumstance.

9:39 It gives you a sense of agency. I've done this myself actually. I gave a Ted X talk once and it was the probably the scariest talk I've ever given and I spent a lot of time doing this and it doesn't actually have to take that much time. Like it could be like a five minute Thing where you sit down. Calm yourself and then just picture the stuff.

9:55 And ideally do it a couple of times, I imagine. That's right. Good for you, and congratulations on giving a TEDx talk. That is a high stakes talk. It was. That was before Ted X became super uncool. It was like w it was still pretty early. Uh it's out there on the internet in case people want to find it. Don't say they're uncool. I'm doing one in two days uh two weeks. They're so cool. That is cool. That's right. Incredible. I've done I've done a number and I I've done a number of them and I've coached many people. And I think that there's a lot of value that they can provide people. I think they've they've just become a li slightly less cool,'cause now there's a lot of them. But they're still incredibly cool and very proud of it.

10:29 Thank you. So on the visualization piece, I think and just to we have a lot of techniques, but just on this one. Part of it is continue to calm yourself as you're doing it. I think that's really important, right?'Cause it's You wanna help your body not

10:42 connect to the stress that you're gonna that you're feeling like you're gonna experience. That's correct. Any any distance you can give yourself from the anxiety that you're feeling is helpful. And there are lots of techniques that help give you a little bit of distance and visualization is one of those. Okay, one of my favorite techniques that it might be in this bucket, it might be in the on the spot advice bucket, but I think it works great here is to Is what you call dare to be dull.

11:07 Can you talk about that? Cause I love that. Yeah. So I I really leaned into this with the spontaneous speaking work that I've been doing as of late, but it applies to anybody speaking. Uh, this is a notion that comes from the world of improvisation. And when people hear improv, they often think of stand up comedy having to be funny. And that's not what improv is all about. Improv is all about Being present, being collaborative, being open. And it's a wonderful tool.

11:32 just to help you get present oriented. Think of it as like meditation in action. But also it teaches lots of valuable skills for communication. When we communicate, especially spontaneously. We want to do it really well.

11:49 Uh, we want to answer the question with the best answer. We want to give the right feedback. We want to be the most interesting in small talk. And that puts a lot of pressure on ourselves. And and you can think of it this way, it's it's really taxing our cognitive bandwidth. Your brain in many ways is like a CPU, a computer. It's not a perfect analogy, but it works. And if I am constantly judging and evaluating everything I am saying against some standard of perfection, whatever that is.

12:17 It means I have a limited amount of bandwidth to focus on what I'm actually saying and connecting to my audience. If you have a a laptop or a phone that has lots of windows and apps open And you are You're each one of those is performing less well than Because of the other ones being open.

12:34 So I often say Strive for connection over perfection. By daring to be dull, just get the task done. Just answer the question, just give the feedback. Just be engaged in the small talk. And by doing that, you dial down the volume of self-evaluation, freeing up resources that can be used. to really help you succeed. So dare to be dull is all about giving yourself permission

12:58 to just be present and do what's needed. And when you do that, you find that you actually do quite a good job at it. The last point I think is really important, you talk about this in your book, is when you start with Okay, I'm just gonna say something, it'll be fine. without that pressure, you end up saying something better and more interesting and more insightful because you're less nervous about it. That's exactly right. That we we are our we are often our biggest impediments.

13:20 to good communication because of the anxiety we bring to the party. That's awesome. And I think this can apply to prepared talks too. When you're preparing a deck, like don't put this pressure on yourself. This has to be the best talk ever. Just like gonna do my best. Let me just start with something that's good enough. People learn something and then from that you end up Their editing ends up leading to something great.

13:38 In my experience. Right. Awesome. Okay. Let's go to the next technique. And this is another one.

13:44 I practice and another guest on the podcast actually suggested this. And these two remind me of Using this one, which is To tell yourself when you're gonna g be giving a talk. I'm excited.

13:55 This is gonna be a lot of fun. I'm so excited to give this talk. And kinda reframe. it from I'm nervous to like, no, I'm excited. This can be amazing. Can you talk about that technique? Absolutely. So this is a one of many cognitive reframing techniques. Uh it is often attributed to my friend and and colleague.

14:12 Allison Woods Brooks, she's at Harvard Business School, who did some research into this. And what she found is uh well first take a step back. When you get physically aroused by anxiety. You're under that fight or flight threat response. It turns out

14:28 That same response. happens to your body when you're excited. The the human body has pretty much just one arousal response. Our heart beats faster, we breathe more shallow, we get a little shaky Uh but the big difference is how we label that. So if I say, Hey, Lenny, guess what? Uh your colleague couldn't show up today and you need to go teach the class or you need to go give that uh presentation.

14:51 You might feel your heart rate go up, uh, get a little shaky, sweat on your brow. And you're seeing that as negative. But if I said, Hey Lenny, guess what? You just won the lottery. same physiological response would happen, but you would see that likely as more positive. So how we label the arousal matters in what Allison's research and others have followed up with.

15:12 Sh suggests is that when we feel those symptoms of anxiety. Rather than seeing it as negative see, this is exciting. I get to share my point of view. I get to To demonstrate my value. And in so doing, by seeing it as more positive. It causes us

15:27 by definition to relax. And her research fascinatingly. communicating better. And again, that's because that pressure was taken off of them. So I challenge everybody to think about what are the exciting elements of the communication opportunities you have and really lean into those. And when you feel those anxiety symptoms.

15:48 Remind yourself these are signs of excitement. This is this is me being excited about sharing this information. And it can really help. This is another one I've done and it super works. It sounds so trivial and so like what Why would this do anything?

16:02 But I find you just say that, just like I'm gonna have so much fun. That's gonna be exciting. Like that does it does make an impact an impact. So Another one to try. Even though it sounds really trivial. Kind of along these lines there's another technique you recommend which is a mantra. Having a mantra, you repeat to yourself.

16:18 I don't know if it's kind of the same general idea, but you have a couple mantras. That you recommend to people like I have value to add. And things like that. What advice do you have there? Yes, thank you. And that's mine, uh, the one that I that you shared is a value to add. So i if you if we were to really listen to the voice in our heads when it comes to communication. We say a lot of negative things to ourselves.

16:40 We say things like, you know, I'm not prepared, I'm not gonna be as good as this person, I'm an impostor. We we carry around with us a lot of this. Chatter. that actually sets us up to not do well or to be more nervous. So if we can actually

16:57 Change that talk track. It can help us. So I'm not saying you have to go to an extreme and say I'm going to be the best communicator ever. Rather, you can simply say as I do and as you alluded to, what I'll say right before I speak is I have value to bring. Often when we are in communicative situations, especially at work, People want to hear from us. We've been invited to speak, uh we're on the the agenda for the meeting.

17:21 There is value people can take from our communication. And we just have to remind ourselves of that. So Having some little mantra that you can say that's It's not over the top, but just Makes sense. It could be as simple as you've got this, or I'm prepared, or I know my stuff. And I actually encourage people to write it on a post it note if you're old school. Sometimes people put it into their phones as a reminder, so like a minute or two minutes before they're set.

17:48 to give the presentation or participate in the meeting, it flashes up. We just have to turn off or turn down the noise of that internal negative self talk. What are some other mantras that you found helpful or that people use? They they're very personal to to different people. I was just coaching a senior leader the other day.

18:07 Who w his mantra was Last time this went well. He's a leader, he does a lot of the same presentations, and just by saying last time this went well reminds him that it's likely to go well this time. We are very susceptible to catastrophizing when we're very nervous about things, especially when we're exposed in front of people. uh not in the Brady Bunch exposure we talked about earlier, but you know, when we're out there uh speaking or communicating and and simply re reminding ourselves that often they go very well is helpful.

18:36 Yeah. There's another one that I think you shared, which is it's not it's not about me, it's about my content. Yes, exactly. That's another one. That's a that's a great one and can be very helpful. The one you shared about I've got this reminds me my wife took a course with the um artists way. Writer Julie Cameron, I think is her name. And she has this piece of advice where you Name your critic.

18:57 Your inner critic that's always telling you to stop doing stuff. You name him or her. So I name mine, Jim. And then you say like And then when

19:05 Things you don't want to hear. You're just like, Jim, I got this. Jim, I don't need this advice. I've there there is a lot of evidence on personifying uh the things that challenge us. And then having conversations with it. And it makes it it's it's a way of um

19:21 Rationalizing some of the things that we do that are quite negative. So um something something there for sure to to be thinking about. There we go. Bonus advice. That was bonus advice, yes. I didn't expect that. Well and the cool thing that what you're that what you're highlighting is There is a lot of advice out there on how to manage anxiety.

19:40 Many of us feel like we're the only people who feel this nervous because we see our colleagues, our friends, or Ted talks as you were talking about. And we see these people communicating just so effortlessly. Often a lot of work went into that and we don't see that work. Uh and sometimes just knowing that others experience it makes us feel better. If you'll allow me, I'll tell this very quick story. I was in the San Francisco airport.

20:02 Uh this was uh several years ago after the my Speaking Up Without Freaking Out book came out. And my name was called over the PA system at the at the airport counter. They they the my s the seat that I was supposed to sit in was broken and they wanted to talk to me about it. So when I came away from that, somebody came up to me and said, Hey, you're the guy that wrote that book on speaking anxiety. I said, Yes. And and I said, Well, what do you know about it? He goes, Oh, I bought the book. I said, Oh, was it helpful? He says it's incredibly, but I didn't read it.

20:29 I'm like, this is weird. So you're telling me the book was helpful and you didn't read it. And so I said, Tell me more. And he said. Just knowing that a book like that existed made me feel better because I don't know you and I know you certainly didn't write the book for me. So it implies that lots of people have this issue, and just by normalizing anxiety. Which by the way is the normal condition. Those of us who study this

20:50 believe it is innate to being human. To feel nervous communicating in front of others. So sometimes just reminding yourself that you're not alone and that others have it. can actually help reduce the pressure that we feel. This is such an important point that I'm kicking myself for not starting with this also, because

21:06 I think this is something people don't realize. They see all their execs at their company. speaking incredibly well, so confidently, so articulately, and just like, Oh my God, how will I ever Be someone like that. Is there anything more you can share just like you know you you have a l tons of students that go through your class. You see these issues, they they're

21:24 More transparent, I think, about their challenges. I imagine. Is there anything more you could share there to help people feel better? Like this is most people Even when you see someone amazing. And speaking, they are also probably nervous.

21:36 With regard to that, I think we just need to talk about it more. we need to share about it. I mean, I always will share that I I still have anxiety and speaking in certain situations and and it's something that's taking me a long time to work on. I also help people understand that it's not a light switch. It's not like you either have it or you don't. It's it's a process. And so the idea is over time we will feel less nervous if we apply some of these principles you and I are talking about. Uh a great technique to help people that I that often isn't talked about is many of us feel much more comfortable in conversation than we do in presenting.

22:11 And conversation is a back and forth. So you can actually set up a lot of your communication situations, a presentation, a meeting, et cetera. as conversations. That does and you don't even have to have a conversation with the audience. You can simply have it with yourself. For example, what would it be like if you were to start a presentation by saying, Today I have three questions I'd like to answer. Question number one is, and you state the question, and then you answer it. I am actually having a conversation with myself in that moment.

22:37 Where I am asking myself a question, I happen to know the answer, I give the answer. This again, just like the reframing as excitement versus anxiety. This is a refrain. I'm not presenting I'm having a conversation, and in so doing, it ratchets down that anxiety.

22:53 So we need to talk about it. We need to share our experiences with developing anxiety management plans. We realize it's not binary, it's not y I have it or I don't. And we start seeing where we feel more comfortable and how can we bring that that comfort level into the types of situations that make us nervous. Like simply having a conversation with yourself.

23:12 You have another technique I think that's different, maybe it's exactly the same, which is to ask a question of somebody else. As you're talking, which is I think deflects attention from me, you can talk about that. Yeah. So so we we we talked about uh the the way we desensitize through visualization. The other thing we can do is distract. Right. So I I coached a very senior leader at Google. who got very nervous when he was up in front of people. And what we did is we distract his audience. So he would start every single presentation.

23:39 Saying these words. Good morning. Let's watch this video. And he'd show a thirty second video that was on topic about something they were gonna talk about in the meeting. When the video stop He would then

23:51 facilitate a discussion of what that video was about, and then he would ease into his content. So he went from being a presenter to being a facilitator or somebody who's having a conversation with the audience. That made him feel so much better. And so all of us can do things that can distract our audience. Now when I say distract, I don't mean take them on a tangent.

24:11 That's not relevant to what you're saying. But maybe you ask them a question, maybe you tell them a story, maybe you show them a video or ask them to read something. So there are lots of things that you can do. That will help Get the attention up you for just a little bit.

24:27 So that you can then Focus on what works for you or take that deep breath that'll help calm you down. All of these are very useful techniques. Yeah, it's interesting how once you start talking. It's okay. Usually it's that beginning part that you need to do. Yeah. Most people are most nervous one uh minute before speaking and the first minute of speaking. And if you can find ways to get yourself through that. Then it becomes much easier for most people. There are some people who that's not true for, but for most people that's that's the way it works.

24:54 Awesome. Okay, next technique that actually another guest mentioned and we spent a bunch of time on this. I guess named Johnny Miller, which is a breathing technique. And just to give a little context from what he taught us. Is that Eighty percent of our neurons

25:08 go from our body to our brain. versus twenty percent is our brain telling our body what to feel. And so this research shows that what our body's feeling is what our brain's gonna think. So if our body's like acting nervous, we're gonna think, Oh, we're nervous. And if you change the state of your body, your mind feel I love this stuff. Th this research, embodied cognition is what it's called, is fascinating to me.

25:29 I I'll I'll share one of my most favorite studies in this. There was a researcher at Duke, I think it was Duke. Who um He's all the the only experimental variation that he did. Is he had people hold something that was cold in their hand, like a an iced coffee versus a hot a warm coffee?

25:46 And then he asked the the participants to make ratings of people. And if you were holding something cold, you saw the person as a colder person, as more aloof and more distant. And if you were holding something warm, you saw them as more collaborative and embracing. I find this stuff fascinating. What our body feels, our minds think. Awesome. So Along those lines there's a technique that you recommend that he recommended, but I think it's a great reminder of the

26:09 Double exhale. Where you breathe in and then you exhale twice as long. Can you talk about that and tell people? Yeah. So breathing is is Very helpful in managing so many of our anxiety symptoms. It slows down the heart rate. makes our voice sound more normal because when we we get nervous, we breathe shallow and and that changes our voice is a wind instrument. It changes the way we sound. Can we do some of the shakiness. So

26:31 Deep belly breathing, the kind you do if you've ever done yogurt, Tai Chi, Qi Gong. Really important to do. And there are a whole bunch of variations on it. The one you're talking about is the double inhalation. Where you taking a an inhale in. So you feel completely full and then you sneak in a little extra air.

26:48 And then you take a Long exhale. There are things uh people call it box breathing and other types of breathing. The bottom line is this, what's critical to the relaxation response is the exhale. Lots of ways to inhale, lots of ways to exhale. You want your exhale to be longer than the inhale. The magic of the relaxation.

27:07 happens during the the exhale. So I have a rule of thumb. I jokingly call it the a rule of lung. You want your exhale to be twice as long. as your inhale. So if you take a three count in, even if you sneak in a little extra air as we were talking about. Take a six count out. And it is that way that you will feel n you'll not only will your body physiologically feel less stressed.

27:28 You will be more Focused. in a present moment and not catastrophizing about all the things that might happen. In the future. Great.

27:36 Yeah, so it's like another example of this sounds so trivial and like why would breathing differently do have any impact on my nervousness. But One, there's all this research that shows that it does. And two, if you try it, and this is another one I use. is like it actually works like very quickly and you do it a few times and like wow.

27:52 I feel really different. Yeah. Absolutely. And it it's interesting you put these together. From the way I've seen it, these are two different techniques, but I've never tried them together. One is

28:02 I think Huberman is big on this one. All his clips are always talking about this one of You inhale fully and then you Inhale a little bit more. And there's like some capillaries or something in your lungs that Fill up that helps. Yeah. Fan.

28:13 And then there's the four four eight is the way this other guest shared is like breathe in four seconds, hold it four seconds, breathe out for eight seconds. But I'm gonna try both. Wow, that's a gonna double up my calmness. You'll be so mellow, nothing will bother you. So mellow.

28:30 Okay. Are there any other techniques that you love that you find people find really helpful in calming their anxiety. Well, so the the the first book had fifty techniques, and not all fifty techniques work for everybody. Uh one that I personally think is a lot of fun uh is getting present oriented. Because when I'm in the present, by definition I'm not worried about the future.

28:52 And many of our anxiety comes from our fear of a potential negative future outcome, like I'm not gonna achieve my goal. So if I can do anything to be in the present moment, that helps me out a lot. Something I do as part of my personal anxiety management plan is I say tongue twisters. Tongue twisters for me are a great way to get present oriented. You can't say it right if you don't say the tongue twister. Uh if you're not pro focused on the present moment.

29:16 And it also warms up your voice. A lot of nervous speakers get so inside their head that they don't warm up their voice. And we all know if you've ever done any exercise or competed in any sports, you should warm up first. We have this Mistaken notion that we can go from silence to brilliance without warming up. And I like saying tongue twisters out loud to get present oriented.

29:35 And to warm up my voice. So that's one that I uh I often recommend. People think it's silly, but I have people who like That really works. It really helps me to get centered. And to warm up. And so I like that one a lot. Well, let's share a couple of tongue twisters. What are you recommending? I I will only share my tongue twister, I say, Lenny, if you promise to say it after me. Absolutely. I'm already this is my favorite tongue twister. It takes five seconds to say, it's three phrases long, and if you say it wrong, you say a naughty word. So I'm gonna be listening as we're all your listeners. So you prepared?

30:05 Uh so it it goes as follows. I slit a sheet. I slit a sheet. A sheet I slit. A sheet I slit and on that slitted sheet I sit. And on that slitted sheet I sit.

30:20 Very good. You didn't say that naughty word. I'm sure you can imagine what it would have been. A lot of a lot of danger a lot of mind. But in that moment you weren't thinking about what's the next question I'm gonna ask Matt or you know, how much longer do we have in the podcast. No. You were simply focused on what We were saying and trying to say it without saying a naughty word. So that's not a little bit more. Yeah. I've only had to bleep one guest in all my years of doing this, so

30:46 Okay, cool. We're gonna link to that. Is there any other ones you want to share before we move on to getting better at speaking on the spot? Well, so uh the last one I'll say is uh and this one is another one that falls in the kind of funny category, but there's research that says that when you swear curse It actually helps you reduce anxiety when you curse. You release a flood of neurochemicals that blunt out the neurochemicals associated with anxiety, cortisol being a big one. So you get a big dopamine hit, for example, serotonin, you know, when you swear. So I'm not saying get up on stage and drop an F bomb.

31:19 But You know, you might You my my students love this, right? I mean it's like Matt's giving me permission to swear. No, that's not what I'm doing. But but There uh the it's an interesting technique.

31:30 that that seems to help some people is to is to curse uh not necessarily uh in front of people. But that can help. And it it also has a uh an analgesic effect. It actually reduces pain. Uh

31:42 as well. So That's interesting. I could see you giving birth women screaming curse words. Yeah, I'm not gonna say what I heard when my kids were born, but uh Uh, but again, this could double up with the tongue twister where you just go for it and say Yeah, uh every every tongue twister has to start with Nan Tucket, right? And then we're good. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Coda.

32:07 And I mean that literally. I use Coda every day to help me plan each episode of this very podcast. That's where I keep my content calendar, my guest research, and also the questions that I plan to ask each guest. Also, during the recording itself, I have a Coda page up to remind myself what I want to talk about. Coda is an all-in-one platform that combines the best of documents, spreadsheets, and apps to help you and your team get more done. Now is the perfect time to get started with Coda, especially its extensive planning capabilities. With Coda, you can stay aligned and shifter by managing your planning cycles in one location, you can set and measure OKRs with full visibility across teams and stakeholders, you can map dependencies, create progress visualizations.

32:51 and identify risk areas, plus you can access hundreds of pressure tested templates for everything from roadmap strategy to final decision making to PRDs. If you want a platform that empowers your team to strategize plan and track goals together. You can get started with Coda today for free. And if you want to see for yourself why product teams at high growth companies like Pinterest, Figma, and Qualtrics run on Coda, take advantage of the special limited time offer just for startups. Head over to coda.io slash Lenny to sign up and get one thousand dollars in credit.

33:24 That's cod.io slash Lenny. To sign up and get one thousand dollars in credit. Koda dot Io slash Lenny Okay. Let's shift to talking about talking on the spot.

33:38 And I see how you enunciated very c you said shift very carefully. I appreciate that. They're only gonna be so So careful. I don't want this podcast flagged and uh And for adults only. Okay, shift.

33:52 to uh a new topic. So you have a whole book about how to get better to speak on the spot and I think Why this is important is again what I said at the beginning that I think most of our public speaking in quotes is Not planned public speaking. There's People asking for feedback in a meeting.

34:07 Uh people wanting you to give a toast. Q and A. As you talked about. So what I wanna do is You have advice for broadly getting better at these things, and then you have advice for very specifically how to get better at

34:19 Give me a better toast. Doing better Q and A. Getting better at small talk and things like that. So I want to start with the broad advice and then get into each of these. That sound good? Absolutely.

34:28 How about you? share your favorite techniques for broadly getting better at speaking on the spot and then We'll see where that goes. Sure. So the first thing in helping yourself feel better speaking spontaneously, which is the vast majority of our communication.

34:45 the plan presenting, the the practice pitch, the the meeting with agenda. Pale in comparison to the times that we are sp Spontaneously speaking. And the first thing that is important for everybody to know is you can all we can all get better at it. That's the fundamental Bottom line.

35:01 Many of us feel like we're either born with the gift of gap or we're not, and so the first thing we have to realize is we can get better at it. The second big point to make is You actually have to prepare to be spontaneous, and that's counterintuitive. But it is through preparation that we get better at it. And

35:18 If you think about it, if you think about an athlete, you know, when an athlete is doing their sport, they are being spontaneous. They are they are responding to the conditions that present themselves to them. What helps them do well is the all the preparation and practice that they've done. So There are lots of analogs to to this, but when we think about it in terms of communication, it seems foreign. But when you think about it in athletics or jazz music, it's like of course you would prepare it. So those are the two big underlying principles to helping people get better.

35:48 The next level has to do with we have to attack both mindset and approach. And the actual messaging itself. The only way I have found to help people get better at this is to to look at how we approach it, our mindset. And then how we actually craft the messages through structure and focus. That help us be better.

36:06 So that's the gradual process from the the the broadest level about how we have to go about making this. Better for ourselves. Maybe let's dig into the structure. Sure.

36:17 What is your advice for how to think about structuring if you're on the spot like oh shit, how do I share something smart enough? See, the the the bad word came out. Um You're ready for my tongue twister, but the um So structure is critical. In spontaneous speaking, most of us, because we f we feel the intense pressure, the anxiety we just talked about. We just

36:39 spew out information. We list and itemize information. We take our audience on the journey of our own discovery of what we want to say as we're saying it. And our brains are not wired for lists of information. Uh, in fact, you know, Lenny, how many items do you need to buy from the grocery store before you actually have to physically write it down? For me it's four. Anything over four. I'm gonna forget something. Our brains aren't wired for lists, right? And so I text myself.

37:05 Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. No, I I'm I'm old school. I actually put it on a piece of paper, but the the the point is That We're not wired that way. Our brains are actually wired for story for connection, a logical connection. of ideas so it's about connecting those pieces Together.

37:23 So a structure is nothing more than a beginning, a middle, and an end, a package of information. The the structure that almost everybody listening in is familiar with is One that comes from the world of advertising. Most advertisements are set up as Problem. solution benefit. There's some problem in the world. Here's how we solve it with our product or service, and here's how you benefit from it.

37:44 That's a structure. It's a logical beginning, middle, and end. These items have a connection. So by finding a structure that you can rely on. When put on the spot. It has your birth When you're put on the spot, you have to think about what to say and how to say it. The structure tells you how to say it. And then you just have to think about what to put into it. So it's like having a recipe.

38:04 And if I have a recipe and I have good ingredients, I can cook a good meal. So there are lots of structures. The whole second part of the book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter, is Specific structures for specific situations. Introducing yourself, making an apology, giving feedback. And I'm not saying every time you Give an apology or may uh or ha give feedback.

38:25 That You have to follow these structures. It just gives you a place to go when you're in that moment where like Where do I go? How do I start? Cool. So we're gonna talk about some of those examples. One of the structures that I liked. That I wrote down is called prep.

38:39 Which is Make your point. Give a reason for making that point. Give an example. And then is the last one point again?

38:47 Yeah, restate your point. Review it. State your point. That feels like something that say in product teams can come up a lot is just like here's what I think, here's why, here's an example, and then let me just remind you again about the point I'm making. That's right. You know, uh the the yes, I love prep and the structure I really like. uh is is a three question structure. What, so what, now what. And people on product teams I think can benefit So much for this. What is your product, your service, your offering, your update, your feedback?

39:13 It's the what of why why you're speaking. The so what is why is this important and relevant to the people you're talking to or to your company or to P perspective clients. And then the now what is what coming what what comes next. So on a product team If you're describing a feature

39:29 Here's what the feature is, here's why it's important, and here's what we're doing about it. If you're giving an update in an update meeting, a stand up that you're having. Here's what I'm working on, here's why it's important, here's what I'm doing next. By packaging the information up in what so what now what it becomes much more digestible. Much more memorable.

39:48 Just like prep. Prep works really well for a point you're making. What so what now what works really well. For A broader

39:56 presentation update feedback session that you're giving. So having a whole series of these tools in your toolkit. can really make a difference. So we've talked about three structures so far. Uh what so what now what? prep, which is make the point, give a reason example, and then restate the point and then

40:13 Problem solution benefit. So people listening to this like, Oh amazing, all these structures are great. Do you have any advice on how to To like remember these. You're like, Oh Matt, what do you think of this uh design? Like oh shit, which one should I go with?

40:28 I I try to give each structure a catchy name. What so what now it rolls off the tongue. Uh, there's a structure in the book. for giving feedback called four eyes, for apologizing triple A. So part of it is just coming up with a new monarch that works for you and you can name them whatever you want. But really the way to get

40:44 familiar with them and to to have them at the ready is to use them. So if uh when I coach people on what so what now what, I encourage them At the end of a podcast they listen to or something they read. Take a moment, say, what was it about? Why is it important to me and what can I do with that information? And if you do that, not only do you get better and more comfortable deploying that structure

41:06 But you also remember the material better because there's a whole bunch of research that says when we interrogate the material that we listen to or read, we we digest it and remember it more. So in thirty seconds you're really helping yourself. in least in two ways by getting the structure down and remembering more. So you have to put it into practice. The the other way to do it and which we do a lot in my classroom is we have people dissect communication. So you listen to somebody or you see it and they say what structure did they use?

41:33 And so it's just it it's about awareness building and then actually getting the reps. The only way you get better at communication spontaneous or plan. Is the way you get better at anything. Repetition. reflection and feedback.

41:46 You gotta practice. You gotta think about what worked or what didn't. And then you have to get feedback from others, we are not always the best judges of our communication. And in so doing. Repetition, reflection, and feedback. take your communic takes your communication to the next level.

42:00 It's a lot of work, Matt. That's a lot of work. It is work. There is no shortcut. Okay. But that's true with most things in life that are really important. There's no shortcut. That's right. That's right. As people are thinking about this and listening to this There's your course, obviously. They teach at Stanford and only Stanford students can take that. There's your book, obviously. Is there anything else just an if there's nothing that's totally fine that you point people to to get

42:23 to actually practice these outside of the workplace. Are there courses that anyone can take that you recommend? Anything else he can point people to? Absolutely. There are a lot of resources out there. So uh one, I'm a huge proponent and a former member of Toastmasters. I think Toastmasters is a wonderful organization. uh designed primarily to give you the reps, right? They do some teaching, but it's really to give you the reps. So Uh I I I highly recommend Toastmasters.

42:48 Improvisation is another way to get comfortable with these skills. When people hear improv, they think uh oh, I gotta be funny. And it's about performing and it's not improv is really just about Being more comfortable. Being present and really focusing on collaborating with others.

43:04 And then their courses. So you me you mentioned obviously that that people have to be MBA students to take my MBA class, but Stanford and other institutions have continuing studies classes or extension classes that are open to the community. So I every quarter teach a class that's open to anybody who registers all over the world. It's virtual I have students this very quarter who take a class on a Monday night Pacific time, seven PM. I've got somebody in Egypt, I have somebody in China.

43:30 You know, so so there are ways to to take advantage of things happening at universities. uh without being an enrolled student. So I would point people to all of those. And then clearly listening to podcasts, reading books, checking out blogs and videos. Can be really helpful. I think to your point, it's like you can read about this and listen to podcasts all you want, but you're not gonna actually that get that much better. And with your course, I imagine there's practice you're doing as a part of the course. Everything is applied. The uh the only way to get better at communication is to do communication, to watch communication. And that's why in in the books I write, I have these try this. It's literally put the book down.

44:04 Go do this and then come back. Because that's how you learn communication. And and so yes, any avenue to help you Get the reps is gonna be helpful. I'll be honest, I did none of the tried this. I just I'm just like, that's too much work. So I think that's why it's important to take something where you have to do it,'cause it's too easy, just like yeah, yeah.

44:24 Yeah, so so there are but you know, you're not the first person to say that they don't they don't take the time to do that. There are others who say they really appreciate that. Uh and for people uh such as yourself, the at the very end of my book, I have a QR code. that takes you to a bunch of videos. So if you don't want to do it yourself, you can actually watch people do it or watch me do it. And so so that's that's at least better than not doing any of it. Awesome. I'll I'll also give a shout out to Toastmasters. I did Toastmasters for a while.

44:50 And two things there. One is there's a special focus on on the spot speaking. That's a part of the sequence. Yeah, they call them table topics. Table topics, yeah. And that's like a sixty second someone gets up and just has to talk on something. So it's a big part of that method. Also, I did it for a long time and all I did was I was the um counter or the timer. Like you can do it. Without having to give any talks for as long as you want. It's

45:13 And it's like very cheap and they're everywhere. There's like a local chapter wherever you are. Absolutely. And many companies sponsor their own taste master's groups. Yeah. So that's great. Yeah. And and they are very good at easing people into it. You're not Forced. to do any and and the same is with improv. A good improv teacher never forces anybody to do anything. Great.

45:32 Okay. We went way off topic, but let's get back to our the agenda I had, which is let's talk about specific situations and advice you have for getting better at these Okay, so maybe we start with small talk. And there's one that I love and I find so important and so subtle, which is

45:48 levels of disclosure. And then the question basically is how do we get better at small talk and Here's one technique. Yeah. So let me get to that point in a second, because that's a that's a more refined point than some general principles. So when it comes to small talk. Many people dread small talk.

46:05 Uh they they feel really awkward about it. I think small talk has a bad reputation needs to be rebranded. I think a lot of big things happen in small talk. We learn about ourselves and others, we we form and foster relationships. You know, I I challenge everybody listening to think about some of their friends or closest friends. How did you meet them? Probably some component of small talk

46:27 played a role, especially early in those relationships. So it does good things for us. The best advice I have ever heard for small talk came from a guest on my podcast. Her name's Rachel Greenwald. She's a She's an interesting person. She's an academic and a matchmaker. Really Fascinating.

46:43 And her advice was this be interested, not interesting. Many of us go into small talk thinking we have to be super interesting. We have to spike the ball over the net every time. When in fact small talk is more like playing the game of hacky sack, where it's simply just Set the other person up. To be successful and get the ball back to you.

47:03 So If we go in with that mindset, it makes it easier. Now there's some rules that we can follow. Uh one rule is the one that you shared that In small talk.

47:13 There should be a balance of disclosure. or depth of disclosure over time. So if you're telling me about the first time your first pet died And I'm telling you my favorite color is blue. There's a discrepancy in disclosure there. Clearly you've revealed a lot more than I have.

47:32 And we have this notion of reciprocity. That if you share something that is appropriate, but is uh more disclosive. That I should at some point match that level or come close. And if we don't, then it feels very awkward and we feel like we're we're not jiving in that way. I don't want everybody sitting with a little card that they're checking off, but

47:53 Having that general notion in mind can help. And And the trick here is not to be too disclosive too quickly. Right. So if if I if we start small talk and we're talking about the meeting that we're at and you immediately jump into the fight you had with your significant other that might lead to divorce.

48:10 That's That's w a deep s big step that might feel a little inappropriate, but over time If we continue to disclose, it might be perfectly natural for you to share that. So There there's sort of expectations and we just have to be mindful of those. Another thing we need to be mindful of that I think's really important is this distinction between

48:28 Shifting And supporting responses in a conversation. I can be supportive. That is, you might say, Hey Matt, I just got back from Costa Rica. I could say Oh, great. Did you spend time in San Jose? Did you get to any of the beaches? Those are supporting responses. I'm asking you to keep telling me more.

48:46 A shifting response would be like, Oh, you went to Costa Rica? I went to Hawaii. And the goal in a con good conversation is to have more supporting responses than shifting, but to have some shifting responses. Because if all I do is continually support you It looks like I don't want to share. I'm I'm not being disclosive at all. So There are these subtle things that we can be aware of to help the conversation go and to breed that intimacy and immediacy that we feel.

49:12 But it takes uh a congence, a balancing of doing that. This is awesome. I feel like everyone needs this class to just like how do I How do I talk to people? What's the right way to talk? Well, the the the right, the point that you're bringing up there, Lenny, is we're never taught this stuff, right? And yet we have to do it all the time. And that's why

49:32 Focusing on it, I think really matters. And and it can really as you said superpower. It can be a superpower because so many people Don't do this or spend the time getting better at We all operate under this notion of that definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. And that's not good for small talk and other communication situations.

49:53 I love this balance you just shared of so mm the primary piece of advice for small talk is be interested, not interesting. Ask the person questions, get excited about what they're telling you. There's a book, classic book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, which is very much about this. Highly recommend it. It's like very old school now, but there's so much good advice there. Like the per the m there's no better sound to someone's ears than their name.

50:16 Just saying their name, they're like, Yeah, I love Yeah. And then just like smiling. There's all these like very simple things that that book shares. Uh it sounds like you're you recommend and you're a fan of that book and it's something you I I know the book. Some of the stuff uh I uh some of that stuff has has been true for for a long time. Some of the stuff

50:33 I'm not a big fan of ingratiation and manipulation. So I I I like authenticity and some of the advice in books like that. Can sound like Smile. Not your hair. You know, and all of that.

50:45 Yeah, and all of that can sound a little manipulative and inauthentic. But I think some of those principles are are important and if you can in an authentic, true appropriate way leverage some of that, I think it will help. Yeah. Somebody once uh shared a story with their kid, like then they're thirteen, they read that book and it just effed them up for a while'cause they're just Started putting these into practice way too young. Yeah. Well, one thing, I mean, all of a sudden you're focusing on you you can get so wrapped up in z in doing these things that you're actually not connecting. It's like people who travel on a vacation.

51:15 And all they do is take pictures of where they are instead of experiencing where they are, right? And and that's that's not where we want to be with this advice. But I love this other component of'cause a lot of people hear this advice. Ask questions, be interested, be excited. This Version of it of

51:31 But you need to have somewhat equal levels of disclosure is really important. Cause I I fall into this sometimes or like I don't care about myself, I just wanna ask you questions and this is like going great. I'm just gonna keep asking. And if you're not sharing anything about yourself, it gets really strange. Even when they ask you. You're like, No no, well let's keep talking about you. Like nobody you think they want that, but they don't. They actually want to hear about you. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And and you do such a lovely job as a podcast. I mean, so a podcast host is a great job for you if you like asking questions. But I bet you you will you have found'cause I have found this for me as my as being a host of Think That's Talk Smart is that

52:03 That Sharing a little bit about your own experience. Actually makes the conversations go better. You know, and so so I I think that's a lesson for all of us and and you don't have to have your own podcast to learn that lesson. Yeah, there's a I read this book on podcasting interviewing when I first started, and one of the big pieces of advice is if you share more about yourself, you'll hear.

52:22 more stories that they can share. Not that I think about that, but that's in my it's in my head sometimes. Yeah, well you do a good job of it, even if it's just intuitive. Appreciate it. Let's talk about another

52:35 Version of on the spot talking, which is giving feedback. Oftentimes people listening to this podcast, they're asked, What do you think of this design? What do you think of this roadmap? What do you think of this strategy? What are some tips for getting better at on the spot feedback? First and foremost we need to

52:50 look at and to find feedback. Uh. Feedback to me is an opportunity to problem solve. Certainly there are some behaviors that we absolutely have to shut down. It's inappropriate, it's inexcusable, we have to shut it down. But often feedback is really an opportunity to problem solve. And if you take it as an opportunity to problem solve, then what you're looking for is collaboration with the other person.

53:10 Which means that we have to invite them to join us as we do this. So it's not me bestowing upon you my opinion. It's mi inviting you to together. work on whatever this issue challenge is that we have.

53:23 And I am a huge disciple of Kim Scott. Radical candor. I I think a uh what she said, I really like her approach to it. Kim's a friend. She's actually a neighbor. Well, she's been on the podcast, by the way. Well great. So you know Kim and the your listeners know Kim. Yeah, she's great.

53:39 Where I think I can add a little value to what Kim talks about. And she does talk about structure, but I think having the structure to package up the information to make it easier to digest. By your audience? The person or people you're talking to. But also to formulate your thoughts can help.

53:54 And we've already talked about one mechanism, one structure for feedback. It's what, so what, now what. So imagine, Lenny, you and I come out of a meeting and you say Hey Bat, how'd that go? I could say I thought the meeting went really well, Lenny, except when you talked about the implementation plan. You spoke a little quicker than you did with the other parts, and you didn't go into s the same level of detail.

54:15 That's my what. When you speak quickly without a lot of detail, people might think you're not as prepared or you're really concerned about this part. That's the so what. Next time I suggest you slow down and you include these two or three bits of data. So that people see you really are are

54:30 uh knowledgeable on this area. So that's the now what. So that what so what now what helps me very quickly structure information and package it in a way That helps me as the giver of the feedback think through what are the things I need to say. I need to think through what's bothering me. what what it is I think you uh what what the consequences are of that behavior and then what I think you should do.

54:51 There's a more robust structure I talk about in the book called the four eyes. And uh the each eye stands for Uh something starting with the letter I, but four eye is also like glasses. It helps you see more clearly. So in the four eye structure, the first eye is information. You're just setting the the playing field so the person knows what you're giving the feedback.

55:10 The second is impact, and this is impact on you, the feedback giver. The third is the invitation that you make. And then the final is the the implications or consequences. So imagine I have an employee who doesn't show up to the meetings on time and prepared. I might say This is the third time that you have showed up late to this meeting.

55:29 I feel you're not prioritizing this meeting the same way others of us are. What can we do to help make sure you show up prepared? For the next meeting. Because if you do, we're going to finish the project on time and get a new cool project. So Information.

55:43 Impact. invitation and implications. Now certainly I can vary the tone. And and the directness of some of those responses. So it sounds very differently, but thinking through in my mind. I have to

55:55 Level set what we're talking about. I have to share why it's important to me at least. Make the invitation and talk about the benefits or or consequences. Uh makes a lot of sense. So There are lots of structures and lots of ways to communicate, especially in feedback.

56:09 Find one or two that work for you so when you're put on the spot, you can default to it. Maybe a big takeaway here is pick one of these structures that you want to use when somebody asks you for feedback. And it's you shared her.

56:21 What? So what now what? Or these four eyes information. Give information, show the impact that it had on you. Off invitation and then implications. That's correct.

56:31 Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about another category, which is not a work category, but I suck at toast. Yeah. I'm always trying to get better at this.

56:41 Yeah. A bunch of awesome advice for how to give better toasts. Can you share some stuff? Yeah. So we have all been victimized by bad toasts. You know, the the the toast that goes on too long, the toast that's more about the person giving the toast than than the event or the person. And when I say toast, I don't just mean it weddings, bar mitzvahs, quincineras. You know, we give tributes at work all the time. Congratulations to the team or somebody's anniversary or somebody's retirement. So we give toasts and tributes all the time. In fact, uh I heard a statistics one statistic once that it is the most frequent

57:10 public speaking event. across people is giving toasts and tributes. So we should learn how to do these well. So I have an acronym. It works. It's called what. W H A T

57:21 So the the W stands for why are we here? Now, if I'm at a wedding I don't have to tell the audience why we're here. We get it. But if we're doing an all hands and I'm called up to speak, it might be in my best interest to share with everybody I'm here to celebrate. the release of this product that that team put out.

57:39 Right. So so you might have to say, Why are we here? The H is how are you connected to the event? So if I'm at a wedding People might not know who I am. I could say, Hey, I've known the groom for twenty five years. And people like, Oh, okay, now that makes sense. If you're giving a a tribute at work

57:55 You don't have to say, and I'm the boss. Everybody knows your your position. So again, these are choices you make. So Why are we here? How are you connected? The A stands for anecdote. Tell a story. Or quick example.

58:07 That is relevant. And accessible to everybody. Uh, there's no insider knowledge. And keep it Concise.

58:16 And then ultimately the last part is the gratitude, the thank you. So so express gratitude. Express. In a in a toast at a celebratory event, you might say cheers or whatever's appropriate for the culture you come from. To signal closure, but again. What uh why are we here?

58:33 How are you connected? Anecdote or two. And then the gratitude or thanking at the end. And if you follow that structure It can navigate just like a GPS your way through the toast. This is such an easy structure to remember.

58:47 Yeah. There's so much of it that I love. What I want to understand is where do you put the actual content of the tribute and the toast is that like the anecdote expands into Here's what I wanna say. Like there's an example or story and then it's like Exactly. So it's it's typically part of that. You might you might do it uh in as part of the why we're all here.

59:05 We're here to really celebrate the Herculean effort of the the this particular team to get this product launched. I'm so Honored. uh to have supported it. I'm the manager of the team. Here's a story about how Lenny worked

59:20 over time to get this done. Let's raise our glasses. Uh and give them a salute. So yes, you you can do it in in the Why Are We Here or or through the anecdote. Okay. And I know one of your other piece of advice which connects to what you just said is be brief.

59:33 Yes. Yes, so I I I you Nobody has ever complained about a toast that's too brief. I'm sure it's possible. Uh but but the the complaints the majority of complaints are the toast went on forever. Do you find that it would ever make sense to give a couple of anecdotes or

59:50 Make a couple points in a test. Yeah, and it depends. It depends. Uh you know, toast are opportunities for teaching and learning as well, especially in a work environment. So it might make sense to tell a couple anecdotes. I'm a huge fan I mean, yeah, your listeners know you know minimally viable product design. Agile development, really critical. What is it about? It's about understanding your audience, your users.

1:00:11 And it's about rapidly prototyping and iterating. I believe in minimally viable communication, a trademark pending, right? uh where where you're you it's the same principles, right? Know your audience. Put together a s uh a rough draft of what you wanna say, test it out. So If you're gonna give a big toast in front of a company all's hands

1:00:31 Run it by a few people and say, Is it too many anecdotes? Would it benefit from having another story? Get people's feedback. We are not the best judges of our communication. So Uh the answer is yes, but test it out. Another element of a great toast that you recommend is to be emotional.

1:00:49 You touch on that. Well, so emotion connects with people. And as long as it's genuine and authentic. Uh it's really important. Um I've been thinking a lot about emotion and communication. My my father recently passed away. And I gave I, you know, everybody in my family said, Well, Matt's gonna do the eulogy. I mean, I it was like I had no choice'cause what do I do? I'm the guy who who teaches communication.

1:01:10 So I felt added pressure not only to honor my father's life, but like everybody's like, This is the way you do a eulogy. And so I wanted to do some research on what's all the advice out there on eulogies. And there there wasn't a lot. So I actually wrote an article on on my experience and you know, hopefully it'll help people, but The point is In those circumstances where there's a lot of emotion It's important because it connects to the audience. It's it makes it human.

1:01:32 But sometimes the emotion can get in the way. For you as a communicator, imagine giving I mean, I I was very concerned that my emotion Would cover up or overshadow. the honoring I was trying to do of my father, but the same thing can happen in in any kind of toast situation. So

1:01:48 Think about emotion. Emotion is a tool to use. The best way to convey emotion in a toast is through the anecdotes you use. The anecdotes reveal the emotion. Uh it's one thing to say, I am so sad, it's another thing to tell a story that is sad. I was very fortunate to interview uh for my podcast coming up soon a a one panel cartoonist. So she has to create everything in one panel? And her advice is

1:02:12 Don't tell show. And and that uh you know, so don't tell somebody you're angry, show that you're angry in the panel she writes. So Showing the emotion through story and anecdote is the way to do it. Have you had Matthew Dix on your podcast? I so it is so funny. I have not

1:02:27 And I want to, his name comes up more than anybody else's. Uh and and I know of his work and his advice. So I might ask you to connect. Absolutely. I was I thought of him as you were talking because Yeah. He does uh he helps people create their eulogy. Yeah. Ahead of time before somebody passes away.

1:02:45 Before you get really emotional and you have to rush it. So that's one of his services is he helps you write eulogies for people. Yeah, yeah. No, I'd love an introduction. His work is very influential. Absolutely. He's amazing. Uh we'll link to his episode about storytelling. Okay, let me talk about a couple more. Uh Q and A. Getting better at Question answer once at the end of a talk, whether it's on the spot or not. Again, I I always start with approach. Many of us see Q and A as threatening or challenging.

1:03:10 And in fact, we need to see Q and A as an opportunity. It's an opportunity to extend, expand. Connect, learn Even in the most hostile of situations where people are really coming at you with a lot of spice or hot and heavy you can get a lot of value out of it. So we have to come to the approaches, these questions are opportunities.

1:03:29 We have to make sure that we Take the question in without interrupting or overvalidating the question. I have two pet peeves. about QA sessions one is saying good question to every question. And two at the end of answering the question saying, Does that make sense? Because

1:03:48 Uh i in both cases you're trying to validate the ask when you say good question. You're also trying to buy yourself time and there are other ways to do that. Uh and at the end when you say, Does that make sense? You've got a laudable goal in mind, which is I want to Did I answer your question, right? But I'd much rather you say, Did I answer your question? Can I tell you more? Do you have a follow up question? Because if you keep saying does does that make sense, does that make sense, people are gonna start thinking, Maybe he doesn't make sense because he's always asking. So

1:04:14 Some pet peeves there. Once the question comes in And you have to answer it. I have yet another structure. This structure is related to the what so what now struc now what structure. It's called A D D for adding value.

1:04:29 You answer the question. Cleanly and concisely. You then give an example to reinforce the answer. And then you explain the relevance or significance of the answer so people know it. D would you mind uh role playing a an example of this with me, Lenny?

1:04:43 Absolutely. Okay, imagine you're hiring me, you're a hiring manager, and I'm I'm interviewing to be a um What I do for my day job. I I I am a lecturer at Stanford's business school, teach strategic communication. You so happen to have a position open for a strategic communication Lecturer.

1:05:00 I show up What is a reasonable question you would ask that doesn't just have a yes-no answer? Um So wait, so you're interviewing for a role to be a lecturer in my school? And

1:05:11 Yes, you're you're the dean. You get to hire me. Yeah. Uh it's a reasonable question. I mean you could ask a super hard one, but I want people to hear how ADD works. This may be too simple, but just how many how many students have you worked with and taught over the years? Okay, so I'm gonna morph that question because I I could just say thousands, which is true. But I'm gonna turn it into a question about experience. Cause really what you're asking me is what's my experience. So Because that I can give an A D D answer to. If it's just a numeric answer, just give a number.

1:05:36 So I might say I've been doing this for twenty five years and I have taught over thousands of students. I've taught both at the academic li in the academic world, but also in the the corporate world. What this means is I can tailor my material To be relevant.

1:05:54 and useful to your students. So I answered the question. The question was, What's your experience? Twenty five years, thousands of students. I then give an example. I've done this in the corporate world. I've done this in the academic world. So I I ground it in some some something tangible. And then I shall the share the relevance. What this means for you as a dean hiring me is that I'm gonna be able to tailor my experience. We often assume that people can connect the dots. If I give my answer, you're gonna see, Oh, that's why this is relevant and important.

1:06:21 Uh, but we need to actually connect those dots for our audience. I had a psychology professor once who said the funny thing about common sense is it's not so common. And we often make the assumption that that people will connect. The dot. So Answer the question, give a detailed example. And then

1:06:36 explain the relevance. And if you do that, it will help. And I challenge every one of your listeners working in companies That have FAQs frequently asked questions. Go back to those FAQs and put them in this structure. not only will it help you digest and get familiar and comfortable with the structure Anybody looking at those answers begins to see that this is a way to give a complete answer. This is how our organization

1:06:59 Answers questions. And that can be so helpful to building consistency. And helping yourself answer better. Just to clarify, the acronym is ADD. A D D answer. Detailed example, describe the relevance. Describe the relevance. I see how you snuck that D in there.

1:07:16 Yeah, yeah, you're like yeah. Yeah, I mean you can come up with whatever acronym you want that helps you remember. A D D because it adds value. Awesome. Okay, and maybe a one last quick one. Apologizing. What's a couple of tips for getting better at apologizing on the spot?

1:07:32 Yeah, so first and foremost, we we need to take the time to apologize. Many of us don't, and when we apologize We mean we need to make sure that we apologize for the transgression. And not ha for how we made people feel. So often people will will simply say, I'm sorry that you feel bad. Well that's not an apology. That that that's you know you're not

1:07:52 uh assuming responsibility. So we we need to first start by by talking about the the issue that we are addressing Uh or the the a problem that we uh cause somebody. So we need to think about uh apologies in that way.

1:08:09 So an apology to me, I have uh Triple A, like Roadside's uh repair service here in the United States, Triple A. Uh it's three steps acknowledge, appreciate, and amends. So I have to acknowledge what I did. So imagine we're in a meeting and I interrupted you. You were in the midst of speaking. And I interrupted you. So I might say I'm very sorry.

1:08:30 for interrupting what you were saying. I overspoke when you were talking. That's my I'm acknowledging what I did. Then I appreciate. I can imagine my doing that made you feel bad and and you feel that you didn't get your fair share of sharing your point of view. Next time so that's the the appreciation. The amends part is I will work not to do this. In fact, I will wait till you're done and I will actually paraphrase what you said before I contribute my point.

1:08:55 So I'm signaling I understand it, and here's the very specific thing I'm going to do to try to remedy it. Which of course you can comment on. You can say, No, I don't think that's enough. I think you whatever, or thank you that I think that's even more than is needed. Whatever. So you acknowledge the actual behavior and offense, not how you made the person feel right away. You then express appreciation for the difficulty you might have caused. And then you make amends.

1:09:20 And uh the triple A approach I think can really be helpful to people to be Better at Yeah, in the moment. Apologize. Amazing. Matt, I think we've packed this episode with

1:09:32 So many. tactical golden nuggets to help people become better communicators, especially on the spot. Is there anything else you want to share or leave listeners with before I ask you? How they can find you online and things like that. So again, I wanna go back to how we started the second part about spontaneous speaking.

1:09:49 Everybody can get better at communication. And I I encourage, I challenge uh people to take the steps that they need to take to do it. So it starts with initiative. It's followed by grace and and compass self compassion. It takes time. But in so doing you can improve your communication. And help others, right? It's not just about you finding your voice, it's about you sharing that voice with others. So taking the time.

1:10:14 To work on your communication is critically important and I encourage everybody to do so. All right. I'm hoping people follow that advice. And if not, think back to what we talked about at the beginning of just how much impact doesn't have. And how many people are also going through the same Challenges you're probably feeling speaking.

1:10:30 And being on the spot. All right. Where can folks find your podcast, your book, and Also, how can listeners be useful to you? Oh, I love that last question.

1:10:39 So uh Matt Abrahams.com, great place to go to to find things. So at mattabrahams.com you'll find a whole bunch of resources, my own and others. I've curated a bunch of resources. You can find think fast, talk smart, wherever you get podcasts and on YouTube. And then the book Think Faster, Talk Smarter is available everywhere. I'm a huge user of LinkedIn and to answer that last question you asked, I invite people to connect on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear their stories and find ways to To collaborate. Awesome. And your podcast is

1:11:07 Ranked higher than this podcast, you're in a different category. Which is a very competitive category, the business category. I've moved myself to the technology category, which feels more natural to me. Yes. Uh your podcast is killing it, so congrats. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sh sharing your wisdom with us. Um

1:11:24 That's it. Matt, thank you again for being here. Uh great pleasure to have the conversation with you, Lenny. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Same. Bye, everyone.

1:11:34 Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show. at Lenny's podcast.com. See you in the next episode.

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